Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

The experience of embarrassment was explored in two experiments comparing monolingual and bilingual speakers from cultures varying in the degree of elabo- ration of the embarrassment lexicon. In Experiment 1, narratives in English or Korean depicting three types of embarrassing predicaments were to be rated on their embarrassability and humorousness by Korean-English bilinguals, Korean monolinguals, and Euro-American monolinguals. All groups judged certain predicaments (involving social gaffes) to be the most embarrassing. However, significant group and language differences occurred in judgments of (...) the inten- sity of embarrassment and amusement judgments evoked. Euro-Americans ex- hibited higher overall levels of amusement than the two Korean groups who, in turn, reported higher levels of embarrassment, particularly for certain predica- ment types and contexts (ingroup members present). Further, for the bilinguals, inept performance predicaments in English were judged more embarrassing than those in Korean, whereas all predicament types were judged more amusing when framed with English emotion labels. Bilinguals also appeared to show a heightened embarrassability relative to both monolingual groups. Experiment 2 found lexical selection differences in open-ended responses to embarrassing predicaments depicted in each language, with Euro-Americans preferring to give justifications or use humor to minimize the embarrassment and Korean-English bilinguals preferring to give apologies or say nothing. The findings are interpret- ed to reflect the influence of culturally-mediated schemas guiding the activation and processing of emotion vocabulary. (shrink)

Pressure and influences on school leaders as school policy makers during COVID-19 have made the task of interpreting, translating and implementing guidance more a complex and essential operation. School leaders need to prioritise and balance ever-changing government policy advice, against limitations of school buildings, the welfare of students and staff as well as the needs of the communities their schools serve. By surveying and interviewing headteachers, senior leaders and governors, this paper identifies the inputs school leaders have had to react (...) and respond to when creating policy in the context of COVID-19. The paper addresses the nature of, and factors affecting, pressures school leaders feel in authoring policy. The considerable challenges school-based policy makers face in implementing social distancing policy are non-trivial and increase tension to what is already highly stressful work. The report draws on data collected from a randomised, stratified sample of primary and secondary school leaders from across England in early June 2020, during the time of social distancing and school closure for most students. Findings suggest quality, quantity and frequency of top-down communication have contributed to school leader stress, while horizontal communication and collaboration between school leaders and across school communities helped to support leaders during rapid change. We recommend government and the education sector address communication, collaboration and change, to harness the challenges and opportunities identified by school leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This article aims to show that in his little-known work Denkbewegungen (MS 183), Wittgenstein sketchesan existential philosophy that has been influenced by Kierkegaard. While earlier interpretations of Denkbewegungen stress that this is a diary and tend to favour a biographical orpsychological approach to the diary, I try – with a thematic andhistorical approach − to show that this book sheds new light upon how Wittgenstein was occupied with Kierkegaard (and Christian-ity) on the one hand, and ethics, religion, and existential philoso-phy (...) on the other. Because of this, Denkbewegungen can provideus with a better understanding of how Wittgenstein, during animportant period in the 1930s, developed his thinking. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall consider the challenge that Quine posed in 1947 to the advocates of quantified modal logic to provide an explanation, or interpretation, of modal notions that is intuitively clear, allows “quantifying in”, and does not presuppose, mysterious, intensional entities. The modal concepts that Quine and his contemporaries, e.g. Carnap and Ruth Barcan Marcus, were primarily concerned with in the 1940’s were the notions of (broadly) logical, or analytical, necessity and possibility, rather than the metaphysical modalities (...) that have since become popular, largely due to the influence of Kripke. In the 1950’s modal logicians responded to Quine’s challenge by providing quantified modal logic with model-theoretic semantics of various types. In doing so they also, explicitly or implicitly addressed Quine’s interpretation problem. Here I shall consider the approaches developed by Carnap in the late 1940’s, and by Kanger, Hintikka, Montague, and Kripke in the 1950’s, and discuss to what extent these approaches were successful in meeting Quine’s doubts about the intelligibility of quantified modal logic. (shrink)

The great chain of being is an ontological conception in which all beings, from inanimate things to God, are ranked on a scale according to their perfectness. This hierarchical scheme, though widely known in the history of ideas, was systematically addressed by Arthur Lovejoy in 1936. The great chain of being as formulated by Lovejoy is composed of three main principles, whose roots can be found in Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies. These principles are “the principle of plenitude”, “the principle of (...) gradation” and “the principle of continuity.” The first principle, the principle of plenitude, was pointed out in Plato’s philosophy and the latter two, the principle of gradation and the principle of continuity, were addressed in Aristotle’s philosophy. According to Lovejoy, these three principles were systematically addressed in Plotinus’s philosophy and became an essential part of Neo-Platonic cosmology. Platon explains the abundance of beings with reference to the absolute goodness of the God in his famous book Timaios. Accordingly, God has absolute goodness and this attribution has given rise to an abundance of beings as goodness requires the existence of things. The other two principles, the principle of gradation and the principle of continuity, were forwarded by Aristotle and through his works affected Western thought. While the principle of gradation refers to the ranking of beings in a chain based on the criteria of their perfection, the principle of continuity is the natural consequence of that ranking in that all beings share at least a minimum level of similarity. Plotinus synthesized and systematized those three principles as an expression of ranked beings specific to emanation theory and added three hypostasis -One, Nous, and Soul- in addition to the natural world addressed in Aristotle’s works. Therefore, we see that beings were ranked from inanimate things to God in Plotinus’s works. This concept of hierarchical order of beings, the great chain of being, affected many cultures and philosophical ideas from Classical Islamic philosophy to the Western tradition. In this article, we confine our subject to only Western thought, including Medieval Christian theology and philosophy, the Renaissance period, and the Age of Enlightenment as well as a peculiar implication and interpretation of the great chain of being specific to modern times. In every period we will deal with just one thinker and their ideas to demonstrate the effect of the great chain of being on those thinkers’ philosophies and systems. In this context, we examined how Thomas Aquinas used the great chain of being to justify some theological and philosophical matters and tried to show how he utilized the principle of continuity effectively to explain the relationship between matter and soul. Marcilio Ficino, a Neo-Platonist philosopher of the Renaissance period, also used the great chain of being to explain the hierarchical order of beings and their ontological relationship to the perfect being, which is God, placing them in a rising line according to their closeness to God. On the other hand, when we come to the Age of Enlightenment we see that the great chain of being continues to be apparent in some philosophical works. One example is John Locke’s famous book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Here Locke tries to make sense of the existence of many species of spirits with reference to the great chain of being, especially by using the principle of continuity. This attempt of justification shows us that the great chain of being, as an old philosophical and ontological concept, was still used even in the Enlightenment. Finally, it would be beneficial to address how the chain of being in question was presented and understood in modern times. Unlike the justification of some philosophical or theological subjects, in modern times the hierarchical structure of the great chain of being has been anachronistically read into the theory of evolution with reference to some medieval Muslim philosophers’ works. This approach, however, springs from the figural similarities between the great chain of being and the theory of evolution, although the contents of both theories are completely different. It would be accepted easily that similarities in figure do not necessitate similarities in content. In short, the great chain of being has been very effectively used in the history of philosophy to justify different subjects in different areas such as philosophy and theology. In this article, we address the usages of the chain in question and trace its effects specific to the Western tradition from the ancient period to modern times. (shrink)

This article investigates the ability of mental incapacity tests to account for problems of control, through a study of the approach to alcohol dependence and a comparison with the approach to anorexia nervosa, in England and Wales. The focus is on two areas of law where questions of legal and mental capacity arise for people who are alcohol dependent: decisions about treatment for alcohol dependence and diminished responsibility for a killing. The mental incapacity tests used in these legal contexts are (...) importantly different—one involves a ‘cognitive’ test, while the other includes an explicit impaired-control limb—and the comparison provides insight into a longstanding debate about the virtues of one type of test over the other. It is shown that both kinds of test can take control problems into account, but also that both can be interpreted in narrow and wide ways that significantly influence the outcome of the assessment. It is therefore argued that to a large extent, it is not the kind of mental incapacity test that matters, but how the test is interpreted. It is further proposed that value judgements are playing an unrecognised and inappropriate role in shaping this interpretation. This raises concerns about the current approach to assessing the impact of alcohol dependency on the capacity to make decisions about alcohol use or treatment, as well as broader concerns about flexibility within incapacity tests. (shrink)

In considering relations between science and theology, the discussion of the Big Bang model plays a significant role. Amongst the sources of this model there are not only scientific achievements of recent decades taken as objective knowledge as seen in modern methodology, but also many non-scientific factors. The latter is connected with the quite obvious fact that the authors, as well as the recipients of the Model, are people who are guided in their activity - including obtaining their rational knowledge (...) - by non-rational motives. Those motives appear on the one hand in the very process of creation of the Model. Different scientific theories as well as unverified hypotheses are being joined in one "picture" called The Standard Model. It seems that it is being done on the grounds of various factors that lie outside the field of science. Among them there are the different convictions of the persons constructing this view of the world. However, those convictions, commonly shared by the authors and recipients of the Model, are not based on the rational criterion of scientific knowledge. On the other hand, the Big Bang model may be interpreted in opposite ways by its recipients. The influences of religious and other beliefs are so essential, that they may lead to extremely different conclusions though based on the same ground. It is demonstrated that, due to the epistemological status of cosmology, such a situation is inevitable, and no final verdict with regard to the idea of the cause of the world can be reached. (shrink)

The paper explicates the stages of the author’s philosophical evolution in the light of Kopnin’s ideas and heritage. Starting from Kopnin’s understanding of dialectical materialism, the author has stated that category transformations of physics has opened from conceptualization of immutability to mutability and then to interaction, evolvement and emergence. He has connected the problem of physical cognition universals with an elaboration of the specific system of tools and methods of identifying, individuating and distinguishing objects from a scientific theory domain. The (...) role of vacuum conception and the idea of existence (actual and potential, observable and nonobservable, virtual and hidden) types were analyzed. In collaboration with S.Crymski heuristic and regulative functions of categories of substance, world as a whole as well as postulates of relativity and absoluteness, and anthropic and self-development principles were singled out. Elaborating Kopnin’s view of scientific theories as a practically effective and relatively true mapping of their domains, the author in collaboration with M. Burgin have originated the unified structure-nominative reconstruction (model) of scientific theory as a knowledge system. According to it, every scientific knowledge system includes hierarchically organized and complex subsystems that partially and separately have been studied by standard, structuralist, operationalist, problem-solving, axiological and other directions of the current philosophy of science. 1) The logico-linguistic subsystem represents and normalizes by means of different, including mathematical, languages and normalizes and logical calculi the knowledge available on objects under study. 2) The model-representing subsystem comprises peculiar to the knowledge system ways of their modeling and understanding. 3) The pragmatic-procedural subsystem contains general and unique to the knowledge system operations, methods, procedures, algorithms and programs. 4) From the viewpoint of the problem-heuristic subsystem, the knowledge system is a unique way of setting and resolving questions, problems, puzzles and tasks of cognition of objects into question. It also includes various heuristics and estimations (truth, consistency, beauty, efficacy, adequacy, heuristicity etc) of components and structures of the knowledge system. 5) The subsystem of links fixes interrelations between above-mentioned components, structures and subsystems of the knowledge system. The structure-nominative reconstruction has been used in the philosophical and comparative case-studies of mathematical, physical, economic, legal, political, pedagogical, social, and sociological theories. It has enlarged the collection of knowledge structures, connected, for instance, with a multitude of theoreticity levels and with an application of numerous mathematical languages. It has deepened the comprehension of relations between the main directions of current philosophy of science. They are interpreted as dealing mainly with isolated subsystems of scientific theory. This reconstruction has disclosed a variety of undetected knowledge structures, associated also, for instance, with principles of symmetry and supersymmetry and with laws of various levels and degrees. In cooperation with the physicist Olexander Gabovich the modified structure-nominative reconstruction is in the processes of development and justification. Ideas and concepts were also in the center of Kopnin’s cognitive activity. The author has suggested and elaborated the triplet model of concepts. According to it, any scientific concept is a dependent on cognitive situation, dynamical, multifunctional state of scientist’s thinking, and available knowledge system. A concept is modeled as being consisted from three interrelated structures. 1) The concept base characterizes objects falling under a concept as well as their properties and relations. In terms of volume and content the logical modeling reveals partially only the concept base. 2) The concept representing part includes structures and means (names, statements, abstract properties, quantitative values of object properties and relations, mathematical equations and their systems, theoretical models etc.) of object representation in the appropriate knowledge system. 3) The linkage unites a structures and procedures that connect components from the abovementioned structures. The partial cases of the triplet model are logical, information, two-tired, standard, exemplar, prototype, knowledge-dependent and other concept models. It has introduced the triplet classification that comprises several hundreds of concept types. Different kinds of fuzziness are distinguished. Even the most precise and exact concepts are fuzzy in some triplet aspect. The notions of relations between real scientific concepts are essentially extended. For example, the definition and strict analysis of such relations between concepts as formalization, quantification, mathematization, generalization, fuzzification, and various kinds of identity are proposed. The concepts «PLANET» and «ELEMENTARY PARTICLE» and some of their metamorphoses were analyzed in triplet terms. The Kopnin’s methodology and epistemology of cognition was being used for creating conception of the philosophy of law as elaborating of understanding, justification, estimating and criticizing legal system. The basic information on the major directions in current Western philosophy of law (legal realism, feminism, criticism, postmodernism, economical analysis of law etc.) is firstly introduced to the Ukrainian audience. The classification of more than fifty directions in modern legal philosophy is suggested. Some results of historical, linguistic, scientometric and philosophic-legal studies of the present state of Ukrainian academic science are given. (shrink)

Concerns about threats to human autonomy feature prominently in the field of AI ethics. One aspect of this concern relates to the use of AI systems for problematically manipulative influence. In response to this, the European Union’s draft AI Act (AIA) includes a prohibition on AI systems deploying subliminal techniques that alter people’s behavior in ways that are reasonably likely to cause harm (Article 5(1)(a)). Critics have argued that the term ‘subliminal techniques’ is too narrow to capture the target (...) cases of AI-based manipulation. We propose a definition of ‘subliminal techniques’ that (a) is grounded on a plausible interpretation of the legal text; (b) addresses all or most of the underlying ethical concerns motivating the prohibition; (c) is defensible from a scientific and philosophical perspective; and (d) does not over-reach in ways that impose excessive administrative and regulatory burdens. The definition is meant to provide guidance for design teams seeking to pursue responsible and ethically aligned AI innovation. (shrink)

McQueen and Vaidman argue that the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics provides local causal explanations of the outcomes of experiments in our experience that is due to the total effect of all the worlds together. We show that although the explanation is local in one world, it requires a causal influence that travels across different worlds. We further argue that in the MWI the local nature of our experience is not derivable from the Hilbert space structure, (...) but has to be added to it as an independent postulate. This is due to what we call the factorisation-symmetry and basis-symmetry of Hilbert space. (shrink)

Literature frequently describes how ineffective implementation of instructional policy frameworks can make distance learning a lonely and unrewarding academic pursuit, characterized by high student drop-out rates, high failure rates and academic exclusion. In trying to mitigate this catastrophe, academic departments in distance learning institutions utilize learning management systems (LMSs) to stimulate students’ learning experiences. In keeping with techno-progressivism, the researchers (and authors of this paper) turned to extant documentary policy and literature to review – qualitatively – how the University of (...) South Africa’s (Unisa’s) Open Distance Learning Policy (ODLP) promotes academic inclusion and learning agency as cornerstones of student success and social justice, especially in an unequal society like South Africa. The findings revealed the following: 1) Unisa’s ODLP position has the impetus to influence the deployment of the LMS to promote academic inclusion; 2) Practical means of promoting inclusion were mirrored in the provision of manual or electronic learning material, computer laboratories and free internet connectivity in regional centres across all nine provinces of South Africa, as well as in the provision of laptops for National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS)-funded students, 30 gigabytes of free monthly mobile data to all students, and assistive technologies for students with disabilities; 3) Practical utilization of an LMS to foster self-regulated learning occurred through problem-based individual activities supplemented by asynchronous demonstrative learning material (e.g. audio, video), while collaborative learning agency was enabled through e-tutoring, which afforded students the opportunity to interact with e-tutors and their peers about the learning content; 4) Drawbacks in the use of the LMS stemmed from the insufficiency of assistive learning technologies that are required for students with disabilities to participate fully in online learning, and a corpus of students’ irregular attendance at and participation in e-tutoring discussions and their projection of a negative attitude towards the e-tutors. -/- . (shrink)

Slurs’ meaning is highly unstable. A slurring utterance like ‘Hey, F, where have you been?’ (where F is a slur) may receive a wide array of interpretations depending on various contextual factors such as the speaker’s social identity, their relationship to the target group, tone of voice, and more. Standard semantic, pragmatic, and non-content theories of slurs have proposed different mechanisms to account for some or all types of variability observed, but without providing a unified framework that allows us to (...) understand how different contextual factors simultaneously influence slurs’ interpretation. To address this issue, I argue that slurs convey dimensional qualities such as, e.g., ‘negative valence, neutral arousal, high dominance’ instead of discrete emotional categories such as ‘contempt’. Then, I translate this hypothesis into a game-theoretic model of slurs’ interpretation inspired by Heather Burnett’s pioneering work on identity construction. This new model, called ‘Affective Meaning Games’ (AMG), captures the variability of slurs and integrates pragmatic reasoning within an independently motivated psychological understanding of emotional states. (shrink)

The contents of Brahmajnaana, the Buddhism, the Jainism, the Sabdabrahma Siddhanta and Shaddarsanas will be discussed to present the true meaning of individual’s identity and I. The influence of spirituality contained in Upanishadic insight in the development of Sanskrit language structure, Indian culture, and individual identity formation will be developed. The cultural and psychological aspects of a civilization on the formation of its language structure and prominence given to various parts of speech and vice versa will be touched upon. (...) These aspects will be also compared and contrasted with German, French, Telugu and Hindi and their respective influence on cultural and identity formation and vice versa. A cognitive science interpretation of advaita and dvaita phases of mind and bhakti and vibhakti modes of language acquisition and communication in terms of physics and electronics will be given and be clubbed to present an inclusive and comprehensive modern scientific and social scientific understanding and interpretation of Brahmajnaana, the Buddhism, the Jainism and rest of current theistic and atheistic awareness of I and its spiritual, linguistic, cognitive scientific and rationalistic ideas and opinions. The use of this study for national integration and oneness of Indians will be highlighted. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has been challenged on empirical grounds by philosophical interpreters of situationist social psychology. Challenges are necessarily challenges to something or other, so it’s only possible to understand the situationist challenge to virtue ethics if we have an antecedent grasp on virtue ethics itself. To this end, I first identify the non-negotiable “hard core” of virtue ethics with the conjunction of nine claims, arguing that virtue ethics does make substantive empirical assumptions about human conduct. Next, I rearticulate the situationist (...) challenge in light of these nine claims. I then turn to a discussion of specifications of several responses typically made by defenders of virtue ethics against the situationist challenge, arguing that most of them either are unsound or give up one of the elements in the hard core. A few, however, survive this criticism, and so I conclude by suggesting ways in which the situationist challenge might be not so much resisted as co-opted. Situational influences can be used to help people simulate virtue, a phenomenon I call factitious virtue. (shrink)

In the quest and search for a physical theory of everything from the macroscopic large body matter to the microscopic elementary particles, with strange and weird concepts springing from quantum physics discovery, irreconcilable positions and inconvenient facts complicated physics – from Newtonian physics to quantum science, the question is- how do we close the gap? Indeed, there is a scientific and mathematical fireworks when the issue of quantum uncertainties and entanglements cannot be explained with classical physics. The Copenhagen interpretation (...) is an expression of few wise men on quantum physics that was largely formulated from 1925 to 1927 namely by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. From this point on, there is a divergence of quantum science into the realms of indeterminacy, complementarity and entanglement which are principles expounded in Yijing, an ancient Chinese knowledge constructed on symbols, with a vintage of at least 3 millennia, with broken and unbroken lines to form stacked 6-line structure called the hexagram. It is premised on probability development of the hexagram in a space-time continuum. The discovery of the quantization of action meant that quantum physics could not convincingly explain the principles of classical physics. This paper will draw the great departure from classical physics into the realm of probabilistic realities. The probabilistic nature and reality interpretation had a significant influence on Bohr’s line of thought. Apparently, Bohr realized that speaking of disturbance seemed to indicate that atomic objects were classical particles with definite inherent kinematic and dynamic properties (Hanson, 1959). Disturbances, energy excitation and entanglements are processual evolutionary phases in Yijing. This paper will explore the similarities in quantum physics and the methodological ways where Yijing is pivoted to interpret observable realities involving interactions which are uncontrollable and probabilistic and forms an inseparable unity due to the entanglement, superposition Transgressing disciplinary boundaries in the discussion of Yijing, originally from the Western Zhou period (1000-750 BC), over a period of warring states and the early imperial period (500-200 BC) which was compiled, transcribed and transformed into a cosmological texts with philosophical commentaries known as the “Ten Wings” and closely associated with Confucius (551- 479 BC) with the Copenhagen Interpretation (1925-1927) by the few wise men including Niel Bohr and Werner Heisensberg would seem like a subversive undertaking. Subversive as the interpretations from Yijing is based on wisdom derived from thousands of years from ancient China to recently discovered quantum concepts. The subversive undertaking does seem to violate the sanctuaries of accepted ways in looking at Yijing principles, classical physics and quantum science because of the fortified boundaries that have been erected between Yijing and the sciences. Subversive as this paper may be, it is an attempt to re-cast an ancient framework where indeterminism, complementarity, non-linearity entanglement, superposition and probability interpretation is seen in today quantum’s realities. (shrink)

Based on a critical interpretative review of existing qualitative research investigating accounts of ‘lived experience’ of surrogates and intended parents from a relational perspective, this article proposes a typology of surrogacy arrangements. The review is based on the analysis of 39 articles, which belong to a range of different disciplines (mostly sociology, social psychology, anthropology, ethnology, and gender studies). The number of interviews in each study range from as few as seven to over one hundred. Countries covered include Australia, Canada, (...) Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Sweden, UK, Ukraine, and the USA. Most studies focus only on surrogacy practices in one country (although often with intended parents from other countries), and some include several countries (e.g. interviewees from several countries or fieldwork in different field-sites). The proposed typology goes beyond the division between altruistic versus commercial, and traditional versus gestational surrogacy, in order to inform further research and to contribute to bioethical and policy debates on surrogacy in a transnational context. Four types of relations are identifiable: open, restricted, structured, and enmeshed. The criteria which influence these relationships are: the frequency and character of contact pre- and post-birth; expectations of both parties; the type of exchange involved in surrogacy arrangements; and cultural, legal, and economic contexts. The theoretical contribution of the article is to further the development of a relational justice approach to surrogacy. (shrink)

People partaking in a conversation can add to the common ground of said conversation by performing different speech acts. That is, they can influence which propositions are presumed to be shared among them. In this paper, I am going to apply the common ground framework to the phenomenon of epistemic injustice. In doing so, I am going to focus on two kindsof speech acts: making assertions and asking certain kinds of questions. And I am going to look at three (...) varieties of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice, inquiring injus-tice and interpretative injustice.I am going to argue that what all these varieties of epistemic injustice have in common is that they unfairly inhibit the speaker’s ability to add to the common ground in the way intended by her. This in turn negatively affects which con-versational roles a speaker can play in a given conversation. Based on these results, I am going to end by looking at some of the harms that epistemic injustice inflicts upon its victims. (shrink)

We reconstruct the text, that is, we analyse the development of the discussion between Malthus and Ricardo both in the correspondence and in published works, paying special attention to (a) the use of methodological statements, (b) some pragmatic features of the controversy, (c) considerations pertaining to the meta-level of the controversy (assessments of the status of the controversy, of ways of solving it, etc.); then, we reconstruct the co-text, that is, unpublished papers by each opponent that were not made available (...) to the other, records of exchanges between each of these and third parties, etc.; thirdly, we describe the essential features of the context, focusing on events that influenced the course of the controversy; (iv) we draw lessons from our case study on the role of co-text and context, on pragmatic and semantic interpretation, and on "casts of mind”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This article explores the role of principal leadership in creating a thinking school. It contributes to the school leadership literature by exploring the intersection of two important areas of study in education  school leadership and education for thinking  which is a particularly apt area of study, because effective school leadership is crucial if students are to learn to be critical and creative thinkers, yet this connection has not be widely investigated. We describe how one principal, Hinton, turned (...) around an underperforming school by using critical and creative philosophical thinking as the focus for students, staff and parents. Then, drawing on the school leadership literature, the article describes seven attributes of school leadership beginning with four articulated by Leithwood and colleagues (2006) (building vision and setting direction; redesigning the organisation; understanding and developing people; managing the teaching and learning program), and adding three others (influence; self-development; and responding to context). This framework is then used in a case study format in a collaboration between practitioner and researchers to first explore evidence from empirical studies and personal reflection about Hinton’s leadership of Buranda State School, and second to illuminate how these general features of school leadership apply to creating a thinking school. Based on the case study and using the general characteristics of school leadership, a framework for leading a thinking school is described. Because the framework is based on a turnaround school, this framework has wide applicability: to schools that are doing well as an indication of how to implement a contemporary approach to curriculum and pedagogy; and to schools that are underperforming and want a rigorous, high expectation and contemporary way to improve student learning. (shrink)

The present article is an attempt to give - in the frame of the theory of the organism - environment system - a new interpretation to the role of efferent influences on receptor activity and to the functions of senses in the formation of knowledge. It is argued, on the basis of experimental evidence and theoretical considerations, that the senses are not transmitters of environmental information, but they create a direct connection between the organism and the environment, which makes (...) the development of a dynamic living system, the organism - environment system, possible. In this connection process the efferent influences on receptor activity are of particular significance, because with their help the receptors may be adjusted in relation to the parts of the environment which are most important in the achievement of behavioral results. Perception is the process of joining of new parts of the environment to the organism - environment system ; thus, the formation of knowledge by perception is based on reorganization of the organism - environment system, and not on transmission of information from the environment. With the help of the efferent influences on receptors each organism creates its own peculiar world which is simultaneously subjective and objective. The present considerations have far reaching influences as well on experimental work in neurophysiology and psychology of perception as on philosophical considerations of knowledge formation. (shrink)

This article defends a formalist interpretation of Wittgenstein’s later thought on music by comparing it with Eduard Hanslick’s musical formalism. In doing so, it returns to a disagreement I have had with Bela Szabados who, in his book Wittgenstein as a Philosophical Tone-Poet, claims that the attribution of formalism obscures the role that music played in the development of Wittgenstein’s thought. The paper scrutinizes the four arguments Szabados presents to defend his claim, pertaining to alleged differences between Wittgenstein and (...) Hanslick on their accounts of theory, beauty, rules, and the broader significance of music. I will argue that in each case the similarities between Wittgenstein’s and Hanslick’s respective views outshine possible differences. Ultimately, I will argue that instead of rendering music a marginal phenomenon suited for mere entertainment, formalism –as presented by Hanslick and Wittgenstein, whom I read as influenced by Kant’s aesthetics– underscores music’s ability to show fundamental features of reality and our relation to it. Music does this precisely by being treated as a sensuous yet structured medium that is irreducible to any conceptually determined domain. (shrink)

Context: The majority of contemporary enactivist work is influenced by the philosophical biology of Hans Jonas. Jonas credits all living organisms with experience that involves particular “existential” structures: nascent forms of concern for self-preservation and desire for objects and outcomes that promote well-being. We argue that Jonas’s attitude towards living systems involves a problematic anthropomorphism that threatens to place enactivism at odds with cognitive science, and undermine its legitimate aims to become a new paradigm for scientific investigation and understanding of (...) the mind. Problem: Enactivism needs to address the tension between its Jonasian influences and its aspirations to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. By relying on Jonasian phenomenology, contemporary enactivism obscures alternative ways in which phenomenology can be more smoothly integrated with cognitive science. Method: We outline the historical relationship between enactivism and phenomenology, and explain why anthropomorphism is problematic for a research program that aspires to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. We examine the roots of Jonas’s existential interpretation of biological facts, and describe how and why Jonas himself understood his project as founded on an anthropomorphic assumption that is incompatible with a crucial methodological assumption of scientific enquiry: the prohibition of unexplained natural purposes. We describe the way in which phenomenology can be integrated into Maturana’s autopoietic theory, and use this as an example of how an alternative, non-anthropomorphic science of the biological roots of cognition might proceed. Results: Our analysis reveals a crucial tension between Jonas’s influence on enactivism and enactivism’s paradigmatic aspirations. This suggests the possibility of, and need to investigate, other ways of integrating phenomenology with cognitive science that do not succumb to this tension. Implications: In light of this, enactivists should either eliminate the Jonasian inference from properties of our human experience to properties of the experience of all living organisms, or articulate an alternative conception of scientific enquiry that can tolerate the anthropomorphism this inference entails. The Maturanian view we present in the article’s final section constitutes a possible framework within which enactivist tools and concepts can be used to understand cognition and phenomenology, and that does not involve a problematic anthropomorphism. Constructivist content: Any constructivist approach that aims for integration with current scientific practice must either avoid the type of anthropomorphic inference on which Jonas bases his work, or specify a new conception of scientific enquiry that renders anthropomorphism unproblematic. (shrink)

● Any given placement (e.g. Sun in Taurus; Mars in Capricorn; Mercury in the third house) is necessarily common to tens of thousands of people. Saturn in the ninth house, for example, will not behave the same or produce the same effects in the twenty or one hundred charts in which we find it there. In each case Saturn will behave in accordance with the rest of the astrographic/chart composition (as if we stayed in the same hotel in different epochs (...) or different people contracted the same disease; our stay will be different each time, according to the epoch, and each person’s symptoms will too, be different, according to their individual biochemistry; not to mention that each chart or astrography, like each genetic code or sequence, is unrepeatable). Certainly, “no planet can produce, on its own, what only the combined or concerted action of all can” (BUSTAMANTE, 2023, SPICA magazine, pp. 93-111). Hence the synergistic nature of the interpretative exercise (i.e., the whole is greater than all its parts). The fundamental component of the mathematical expression of the interpretive exercise is: astrological triangulation, the functional denomination for what we know as synthesis (WEISS, 1946; LEO, 1983, HAND, 1981). In order to demonstrate its usefulness, as well as the convenience of its mathematical expression, we have chosen two individuals (JEFFREY DAHMER, STEVEN SPIELBERG) whose astrographies do not—according to the community—explain their lives. The rest of the astrographies correspond to those of serial killers JOHN WAYNE GACY, DAVID CARPENTER, and TED BUNDY. ● We explain, by means of algebraic notations, the synthesis and the functional values that make up the synthesis. ● We take the Moon and Neptune as relevant bodies for the purpose of diagnosing or studying endocrine or neurohormonal issues, and Mars, Pluto, and Saturn as relevant planets for the purpose of inferring violence or sinister behaviour, upon the case, and quadratures or oppositions—and conjunctions—between Venus and the Moon, the Moon and Neptune, and the Sun or Venus and Neptune or Uranus as indicators of neurohormonal disorders and/or sexual deviance (APA definition) . ● We consider quadratures (90º) or oppositions (180º)—and conjunctions—between Mercury or the Moon and Saturn, or between Mars or the Moon and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and/or Pluto as powerful indications of violence or mental disorders, upon the case. ● We have also regarded Sagittarius as a sign as expansive and abundant as its ruler, Jupiter, according to the best of its characterisations (or as an exceptionally swift and wild sign, according to other characterisations), and the fifth region of a natal chart as one closely related to fortune in a broad sense (material and immaterial). ● Because we advocate the idea that orbs should be predicated of the planet (size, speed), not the aspect itself, the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and the Sun have been granted up to 10º of orb (or 12º, in the case of broad influence ). We understand aspectual relationships as angular relationships held between two or more celestial bodies placed in signs with at least one property in common (according to our molecular theory of the ecliptic, compatible with the optical theory of the aspects from the Hellenistic tradition). (shrink)

Our digital society increasingly relies in the power of others’ aggregated judgments to make decisions. Questions as diverse as which film we will watch, what scientific news we will decide to read, which path we will follow to find a place, or what political candidate we will vote for are usually associated to a rating that influences our final decisions.

This study investigates the nature of academic work in contemporary academia, which is set in an under-researched context, Vietnam. The research context is unique in its blending between long and rich cultural values and Western ideologies in management. The study examines how Vietnamese academics practice their academic roles in response to the interactions of those two domains. -/- Avoiding the approach of seeking for evidence of negative impacts of managerial controls on aspects of academic life as commonly used in the (...) existing literature, this study focuses on analysing the complexities in relationships of individual academics with management and other actors including managers, colleagues, students and scholar community. This approach is advanced in understanding both social and individual meanings in academic work as well as the social and cultural values which shape their perception of academic roles. -/- The research enquiry of producing an insight into academics’ work life and experience in contemporary academia informs a qualitative and interpretive research. The findings suggest that the application of managerial controls is less challenged whilst highly accepted in Vietnamese higher education as a context under the influence of Confucianism. The evidence of academics’ compliance and collective actions underpinned by Vietnamese cultural values in this study offers to reconsider the discrepancy of the nature of these phenomena in the belief of the West and the East. The study’s exploration of being an academic as multi-layered meanings expanding from within and outside of university roles proposes academics’ potential strengths in coping with insecurity and ambiguity at work. It then sharpens the suggestion that contemporary management in higher education needs to be mindful of the emotional-related and meaningful nature of academic profession for the best outcomes of both individual work and organisational aims rather than relying on either soft or hard controls. (shrink)

This paper seeks to provide a critical reading of the photographs of photographer Eduardo Masferré. The photos reviewed were part of the collection in E. Masferré, People of the Philippine Cordillera Photographs, 1934-1956 published in 1988. The book showcases the body of work of Masferré, a Spanish Filipino who is part of the Kankana-ey tribe through his mother. Considered as the father of Philippine photography, Masferré’s photos mirror his talent as well as reflect images, life, and work of the Igorots (...) in Cordillera. Masferré made it his task to take hundreds of photographs of the Cordillera to document its culture and tradition, display the remarkable knowledge of the Igorots in agriculture, showcase the unique character of the area, and illustrate the humanity of his people. Using the theory of Igorotism and theory of orientalism, Masferre´s photos were analyzed to determine the Igorotist and orientalist elements in Masferre’s photos and how these were formed in his art. This research studied the artist and his works while also seeking to understand the representation of the people of Cordillera in Masferré’s photographs. As Masferré’s body of work was explored, the researcher also looked into the life of Masferré, his influences, and the forces that shaped the Igorotist and orientalist elements in his masterpiece. The findings were interpreted to find out which of these forces prevailed – Masferré’s Igorotism ideology or the invisible orientalist influence. (shrink)

Baudrillard was deeply influenced by this new ‘science’ of Semiology, which sought to study the system of language and the ‘life of signs within society’. In semiotics, a sign can be interpreted subjectively, the meaning being something beyond or other than itself. This sign is therefore able to communicate information to the person reading or decoding the sign. Baudrillard builds on the Saussurian dyadic, two-part model of the sign, where the sign is seen as being composed of a signifier (signifiant)- (...) the form that the sign takes, and the signified (signifié)- the concept it represents. Baudrillard’s work on the political economy of the sign attempts to marry semiological and neo-Marxist perspectives, providing an important insight into the power of production and the behavior of consumers. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) has commonly been seen as Europe’s leading philosopher since Kant. His influence extended across the globe down to the Second World War – not least through his dissident disciple, Karl Marx. Since then, despite intermittent revivals, his importance has tended to be eclipsed by a rising tide of anti-modernist polemic, extending from Heidegger to postmodernism. Central to Hegel’s political thought was his view of the French Revolution. But notwithstanding its pivotal role in the development (...) of his ideas, his reaction to that event has been systematically misconstrued. In presenting a more faithful account of Hegel’s interpretation of his own era, the argument presented here places his response to contemporary developments in the context of a series of World Revolutions which framed the meaning of his age. This approach serves to illustrate the unique combination of historical and philosophical reasoning on which Hegel’s thought depended. In the process, reconstructing his arguments raises challenging questions about the applicability of bygone political ideas to later historical periods. (shrink)

This book is about experiential content: what it is; what kind of account can be given of it. I am concerned with identifying and attacking one main view - I call it the inferentialist proposal. This account is central to the philosophy of mind, epistemology and philosophy of science and perception. I claim, however, that it needs to be recast into something far more subtle and enriched, and I attempt to provide a better alternative in these pages. The inferentialist proposal (...) holds that experiential content is necessarily under¬pinned by sophisticated cognitive influences. My alternative, the continuum theory, holds that these influences are relevant to experience only at certain levels of organisation and that at other levels there are contents which such features do not capture at all. Central to my account is that there are degrees to which cognitive influences affect experiential content; indeed, for the most part, experience is an amalgam of both inferential and non-inferential features. I claim that the inferentialist proposal is fundamentally flawed and deserves replacement, and I argue that my alternative fills the hollow that remains. The book is divided into four sections. In Part I, Chapter 1, I introduce two traditionally rival views of experiential content. In Chapter 2, I develop my continuum alternative. Chapter 3 assesses the relationship between experience and language, while Chapter 4 explores the relationship between beliefs and experience. The overall argument is that it has been a mistake to understand experience simply in inferential or non-inferential terms. In Part II, I examine the structure of mental content. Chapter 5 is concerned with the kinds of experiences which escape the inferentialist analysis. Chapter 6 considers Kant’s metaphysic of experience counterpointed to Lorenz’s reading of his work in the light of evolutionary biology. Chapter 7 treats animal experience in relation to the continuum view I am developing, while Chapter 8 reviews Fodor’s contribution to perceptual psychology. It is argued that the view of experiential content being developed is both consistent with empirical data on informationally local perceptual sub-systems, but also accords well with evolutionary theory and a naturalist interpretation of Kant’s taxonomy. Part III deals with inferentialism in the philosophy of science. In Chapter 9, I assess the theory dependence of observation thesis as it is advanced by Paul Feyerabend. I bring out of his account a subtle confusion concerning the importance of inference in the context of scientific inquiry. Part IV deals with the issue of experience in the philosophy of mind. In Chapter 10, I look at Wilfred Sellars’s attack on sense data theories. Chapter 11 confronts Paul Churchland’s treatment of ‘folk psychology’ while Chapter 12 isolates the issue of experiential qualia and the position of property dualism. I offer a critical review of Thomas Nagel’s work in this chapter and claim that his position can be read in a way which is consistent with the continuum account I am developing. I conclude the book in the usual fashion with a summary of the central claims. (shrink)

This thesis is about experiential content: what it is; what kind of account can be given of it. I am concerned with identifying and attacking one main view - I call it the inferentialist proposal. This account is central to the philosophy of mind, epistemology and philosophy of science and perception. I claim, however, that it needs to be recast into something far more subtle and enriched, and I attempt to provide a better alternative in these pages. The inferentialist proposal (...) holds that experiential content is necessarily under¬pinned by sophisticated cognitive influences. My alternative, the continuum theory, holds that these influences are relevant to experience only at certain levels of organisation and that at other levels there are contents which such features do not capture at all. Central to my account is that there are degrees to which cognitive influences affect experiential content; indeed, for the most part, experience is an amalgam of both inferential and non-inferential features. I claim that the inferentialist proposal is fundamentally flawed and deserves replacement, and I argue that my alternative fills the hollow that remains. The thesis is divided into four sections. In Part I, Chapter 1, I introduce two traditionally rival views of experiential content. In Chapter 2, I develop my continuum alternative. Chapter 3 assesses the relationship between experience and language, while Chapter 4 explores the relationship between beliefs and experience. The overall argument is that it has been a mistake to understand experience simply in inferential or non-inferential terms. In Part II, I examine the structure of mental content. Chapter 5 is concerned with the kinds of experiences which escape the inferentialist analysis. Chapter 6 considers Kant’s metaphysic of experience counterpointed to Lorenz’s reading of his work in the light of evolutionary biology. Chapter 7 treats animal experience in relation to the continuum view I am developing, while Chapter 8 reviews Fodor’s contribution to perceptual psychology. It is argued that the view of experiential content being developed is both consistent with empirical data on informationally local perceptual sub-systems, but also accords well with evolutionary theory and a naturalist interpretation of Kant’s taxonomy. Part III deals with inferentialism in the philosophy of science. In Chapter 9, I assess the theory dependence of observation thesis as it is advanced by Paul Feyerabend. I bring out of his account a subtle confusion concerning the importance of inference in the context of scientific inquiry. Part IV deals with the issue of experience in the philosophy of mind. In Chapter 10, I look at Wilfred Sellars’s attack on sense data theories. Chapter 11 confronts Paul Churchland’s treatment of ‘folk psychology’ while Chapter 12 isolates the issue of experiential qualia and the position of property dualism. I offer a critical review of Thomas Nagel’s work in this chapter and claim that his position can be read in a way which is consistent with the continuum account I am developing. I conclude the thesis in the usual fashion with a summary of the central claims. (shrink)

Disagreeing with others about how to interpret a social interaction is a common occurrence. We often find ourselves offering divergent interpretations of others’ motives, intentions, beliefs, and emotions. Remarkably, philosophical accounts of how we understand others do not explain, or even attempt to explain such disagreements. I argue these disparities in social interpretation stem, in large part, from the effect of social categorization and our goals in social interactions, phenomena long studied by social psychologists. I argue we ought to (...) expand our accounts of how we understand others in order to accommodate these data and explain how such profound disagreements arise amongst informed, rational, well-meaning individuals. (shrink)

Despite his impressive influence on nineteenth-century philosophy, F. A. Trendelenburg's own philosophy has been largely ignored. However, among Kant scholars, Trendelenburg has always been remembered for his feud with Kuno Fischer over the subjectivity of space and time in Kant's philosophy. The topic of the dispute, now frequently referred to as the ?Neglected Alternative? objection, has become a prominent issue in contemporary discussions and interpretations of Kant's view of space and time. The Neglected Alternative contends that Kant unjustifiably moves (...) from the claim that we have a priori intuitions of space and time to the sceptical conclusion that space and time are exclusively subjective. Most current discussions trace the objection back to Trendelenburg and often use him to motivate the objection. However, to date Trendelenburg's actual arguments and reasons for rejecting the Kantian view of space and time have not been sufficiently uncovered; my goal here is to fill this lacuna. By better understanding what Trendelenburg actually argued, we will be in a better position to assess whether the Neglected Alternative objection against Kant is successful. But in addition, Trendelenburg's own system is of independent philosophical interest, and my work here will shed light on one part of it. (shrink)

The study determined the influence of innate mathematical characteristics on the number sense competencies of junior high school students in a Philippine public school. The descriptive-correlational research design was used to accomplish the study involving a nonrandom sample of sixty 7th-grade students attending synchronous math sessions. Data obtained from the math-specific Learning Style and Self-Efficacy questionnaires and the modified Number Sense Test (NST) were analyzed and interpreted using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s Chi-Square, and Simple Linear Regression analysis. The research instruments (...) and statistics were all validated and tested for reliability. The analysis revealed that the students are visual learners, had no or slight self-efficacy, and their number sense competency level is poor. They encountered difficulty in all the components and domains of the NST. Moreover, the students’ mathematical self-efficacy is significantly related and may influence their number sense competency level. Building upon the learners’ self-efficacy to further their understanding and skills in number sense is necessary. (shrink)

One sceptical rejoinder to those who claim that sensory perception is cognitively penetrable is to appeal to the involvement of attention. So, while a phenomenon might initially look like one where, say, a perceiver’s beliefs are influencing her visual experience, another interpretation is that because the perceiver believes and desires as she does, she consequently shifts her spatial attention so as to change what she senses visually. But, the sceptic will urge, this is an entirely familiar phenomenon, and it (...) hardly involves some special or theoretically important cognitive effect on sensory perception. Even supposing that the sceptic is correct about cases that are accurately described in this way, the rejoinder oversimplifies the possible roles that attention may play in mediating cognition and perception. This paper aims to identify these different roles, and by emphasis on empirical research on feature-based and object-based attention. What emerges is a plausible and well- evidenced mental schema that describes attention -mediated cognitive penetration. At the very least, the burden of proof is shifted to the sceptic, as he then must show that there are no mental phenomena involving attention in the more nuanced ways described here. One additional benefit of this analysis is that it illuminates various features of attention and its relation to both cognition and phenomenal consciousness. Therefore the analysis should be of interest to a broad range of theorists of the mind, and not just those invested in the cognitive penetration debate. (shrink)

Motion—and, in particular, local motion or change in location—plays a central role in Kenelm Digby’s natural philosophy and in his arguments for the immateriality of the soul. Despite this, Digby’s account of what motion consists in has yet to receive much scholarly attention. In this paper, I advance a novel interpretation of Digby on motion. According to it, Digby holds that for a body to move is for it to divide from and unify with other bodies. This is a (...) view of motion—as change in relations of parthood—that Alison Peterman attributes to Digby’s contemporary and acquaintance, Margaret Cavendish. Having shown that Digby’s presentation of the view predates Cavendish’s by more than a decade, I make a case that Digby’s work influenced Cavendish’s on this topic. In developing and defending my reading, I consider to what extent the Digbean account of motion and the arguments for it accord with the ideals of the mechanical philosophy emerging in the early modern period. (shrink)

This monograph investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse in two parts. The theme of the first part is narrative progression. It begins with a case study of the adverb ‘now’ and its interaction with the meaning of tense. The case study motivates an ontological distinction between events, states and times and proposes that ‘now’ seeks a prominent state that holds throughout the time described by the tense. Building on prior research, prominence is shown to be influenced by principles (...) of discourse coherence and two coherence principles, NARRATION and RESULT, are given a formally explicit characterization. The key innovation is a new method for testing the definitional adequacy of NARRATION and RESULT, namely by an abductive argument. This contribution opens a new way of thinking about how eventive and stative descriptions contribute to the perceived narrative progression in a discourse. -/- The theme of the second part of the monograph is the semantics and pragmatics of tense. A key innovation is that the present and past tenses are treated as scalar alternatives, a view that is motivated by adopting a particular hypothesis concerning stative predication. The proposed analysis accounts for tense in both matrix clauses and in complements of propositional attitudes, where the notorious double access reading arises. This reading is explored as part of a corpus study that provides a glimpse of how tense semantics interacts with Gricean principles and at-issueness. Several cross-linguistic predictions of the analysis are considered, including their consequences for the Sequence of Tense phenomenon and the Upper Limit Constraint. Finally, a hypothesis is provided about how tense meanings compose with temporal adverbs and verb phrases. Two influential analysis of viewpoint aspect are then compared in light of the hypothesis. (shrink)

This article is the FIFTH of several excerpts from my book The Nondual Mind: Vedānta, Kashmiri Pratyabhijñā Shaivism, and Spinoza (the full book is posted on this site). “I liked James H. Cumming’s The Nondual Mind a lot. It is beautifully written, thoughtful, and very clear.” (Prof. Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University) “James H. Cumming’s scholarly interpretation of Spinoza’s works, persuasively showing how 17th century European ideas that ushered in the Enlightenment find a (...) precursor in 10th century Kashmir, is a masterpiece of reason and philosophy that will leave the reader with profound thoughts on the meaning of history, God, and life itself. As a senior staff attorney in my chambers for many years at the California Supreme Court and a top scholar of ethics and philosophy of law, Mr. Cumming never ceased to amaze me with his outstanding research and intellect. This scholarly book is a must read for all who want to know why Spinoza continues to influence contemporary philosophy and how his work is still relevant in today’s challenging, interconnected world.” (Hon. Ming W. Chin, Associate Justice (Retired), Supreme Court of California, 1996–2020). (shrink)

Baudrillard was deeply influenced by this new ‘science’ of Semiology, which sought to study the system of language and the ‘life of signs within society’. In semiotics, a sign can be interpreted subjectively, the meaning being something beyond or other than itself. This sign is therefore able to communicate information to the person reading or decoding the sign. Baudrillard builds on the Saussurian dyadic, two-part model of the sign, where the sign is seen as being composed of a signifier (signifiant)- (...) the form that the sign takes, and the signified (signifié)- the concept it represents. Baudrillard’s work on the political economy of the sign attempts to marry semiological and neo-Marxist perspectives, providing an important insight into the power of production and the behavior of consumers. (shrink)

Precognition is an anomaly in information transmission and interpretation. Extant literature suggests that paranormal beliefs and gender may have significant influences on this unknown information process. This study examines the effects of these two factors, including their interactions, on precognition performance by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics. Using Bayesian analysis on secondary data of 60 participants, we found that men may have higher chances to score a hit in a precognition task compared to women. Interestingly, stronger beliefs (...) in the paranormal may decrease the success probability in performing precognition tasks. Considering the interactions between the two factors, the effect of paranormal beliefs on precognition task performance is stronger in men than women. Using mindsponge-based reasoning, we argue that paranormal beliefs may increase the interference of imagination in the reception of hypothetical precognitive information. Women tend to rely more on intuition, which may lessen the interference effect of imagination on hypothetical psi reception. Based on the findings, we suggest that researchers should be careful when assessing participants’ psi potential for experiments. We also demonstrate some advantages of utilizing the BMF in parapsychological research. (shrink)

The influence of religious beliefs to several leading mathematicians in early Soviet years, especially among members of the Moscow Mathematical Society, had drawn the attention of militant Soviet marxists, as well as Soviet authorities. The issue has also drawn significant attention from scholars in the post-Soviet period. According to the currently prevailing interpretation, reported purges against Moscow mathematicians due to their religious inclination are the focal point of the relevant history. However, I maintain that historical data arguably offer (...) reasons to cast reasonable doubts on this interpretation. In this paper, by reviewing the relevant literature, I raise some methodological and philosophical concerns, in an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of the issue. I maintain that an efficient line of reasoning is to discuss issues in the context of their making, taking into consideration the specific features of each era’s culture. Thus, by focusing on P.A. Nekrasov’s case, I attempt to point to an alternative interpretation, in which the different treatment of religious inclined mathematicians by Soviet authorities is explained in the context of the ideological confrontation between two contrasting worldviews, as part of the ongoing class war in the several phases of Soviet history. (shrink)

The relation of ontological dependence or grounding, expressed by the terminology of separation and priority in substance, plays a central role in Aristotle’s Categories, Metaphysics, De Anima and elsewhere. The article discusses three current interpretations of this terminology. These are drawn along the lines of, respectively, modal-existential ontological dependence, essential ontological dependence, and grounding or metaphysical explanation. I provide an opinionated introduction to the topic, raising the main interpretative questions, laying out a few of the exegetical and philosophical options that (...) influence one’s reading, and locating questions of Aristotle scholarship within the discussion of ontological dependence and grounding in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) decided to study all the ancient and medieval schools of philosophy, including the Pre-Socratics, in order to broaden his scope. Pico showed interest in ancient monists. He commented that only Xenophanes’ One is the One simply, while Parmenides’ One is not the absolute One, but the oneness of Being. Melissus’ One is in extreme correspondence to that of Xenophanes. As for Xenophanes, Pico seems to have fallen victim of ancient sources, who referred to Xenophanes and (...) Parmenides as members of the Eleatic “tribe”. In the case of Parmenides Pico draws mainly on the Platonic dialogues Parmenides and Sophist and not on intermediaries such as the Neoplatonists and other commentators. Despite of Pico’s knowledge of Empedocles’ philosophy, it is worth noticing that Pico was also strongly influenced by the medieval kabbalistic literature and the pseudo Empedocles. While Neoplatonists, such as Proclus, commented Empedocles and interpreted him according to the Neoplatonic spectrum, Pico’s appreciation of the philosophy of Empedocles was mediated through Arab and Jewish mysticism. Pico counted among his sources the Pre-Socratics, but the way he read them was not always direct and consistent. He intentionally chose to interpret them through the spectrum of intermediaries such as the ancient Commentators, the Neoplatonists, the Arabs and Jews mystics. (shrink)

The Husserlian concept of intersubjectivity has been criticized for the fact that it belongs exclusively to a philosophy of representation and to a solipsistic consciousness. In this conceptual framework, the other (ego) appears to be constituted by a singular ego through the synthesis of the series of its appearances (perceptive or imaginative representations) and by extrapolation (transposition) of its own “sphere of originality”. For this theory of constitution seemed to be essentially related to the concept of objective representation that post-Husserlian (...) phenomenologists have criticized and eventually replaced with another, in which affectivity is supposed to open the way to otherness, as we can see in Heidegger, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Michel Henry or Jacques Derrida. Our hypothesis is that the difficulty does not regard the theory of constitution, but the fact that the other and the community that he forms with me and with many others are thought only in terms of representation. Even those who discharged the “abstract” objective representation of Husserl’s function and replaced it with “affectivity” were not finally able to overpass the representational framework, because the other has always been for me (and vice-versa, I have been for him) only a “picture” (no matter whether representative or “affective”), something which simply “stands” before my eyes. But this is certainly a reductive way of understanding the relation between the I and the other. If we focus our attention on the phenomenon of community and not on some interpretations or simplifications of it, we realize that it is not sufficient that objective representation or affectivity or any other faculty constitute or disclose the other for the I (even if that is a necessary starting point). As a multilayered concept, “intersubjectivity”, in Husserl’s sense, is a system of transitions from mere appearance to transcendence, from passivity to activity, from cognitive and affective representation to volition and action. As soon as we see the relation between the I and the other as active, as an influence or intrusion of one consciousness in another, as an intention to “move” the other, to determine him to assume or to begin an action (a real one, effected in real life), the concept of intersubjectivity changes drastically, even though the “representation” of the other before the I and of the I in the eyes of the other remains a necessary interface. Accordingly, constitutive phenomenology has to take into consideration volition, action and communication not simply as extensions of the constitution of the thing. A reform of the theory of constitution, or rather its enlargement, to encompass this new type of “objectivity” (praxis) which would thus offer an adequate conceptual framework is strongly recommended. (shrink)

Advocates of moral enhancement through pharmacological, genetic, or other direct interventions sometimes explicitly argue, or assume without argument, that traditional moral education and development is insufficient to bring about moral enhancement. Traditional moral education grounded in a Kohlbergian theory of moral development is indeed unsuitable for that task; however, the psychology of moral development and education has come a long way since then. Recent studies support the view that moral cognition is a higher-order process, unified at a functional level, and (...) that a specific moral faculty does not exist. It is more likely that moral cognition involves a number of different mechanisms, each connected to other cognitive and affective processes. Taking this evidence into account, we propose a novel, empirically informed approach to moral development and education, in children and adults, which is based on a cognitive-affective approach to moral dispositions. This is an interpretative approach that derives from the cognitive-affective personality system (Mischel and Shoda, 1995). This conception individuates moral dispositions by reference to the cognitive and affective processes that realise them. Conceived of in this way, moral dispositions influence an agent's behaviour when they interact with situational factors, such as mood or social context. Understanding moral dispositions in this way lays the groundwork for proposing a range of indirect methods of moral enhancement, techniques that promise similar results as direct interventions whilst posing fewer risks. (shrink)

The statement everyone wants to live a fulfilled and happy life may seem simple, self-evident, and even trivial at first glance. However, upon closer philosophical analysis, can we unequivocally assert that people are truly focused on well-being? Assuming they are, the question becomes: what guidelines should be followed and how should one behave in order to achieve true well-being and attain their goals? One popular viewpoint is that cultivating moral virtues and personal qualities is essential for a life of "true" (...) well-being, rather than mere pleasure. This perspective is not particularly original, as it was advocated quite clearly by Aristotle. However, we must ask: what guarantees that virtue will lead to well-being? Can we really ignore the common-sense doubt that virtue (and moral life), as Kant points out, may not be rewarded with any form of well-being or "happiness" in the broadest sense during our earthly existence? How might we address this doubt? If questions about the relationship between happiness and virtue have been asked since ancient times, why don't we have definitive answers yet? Perhaps there is something wrong with the questions themselves, as is often the case in philosophy. Views on this relationship have influenced the modification of theories that philosophers have put forth in order to provide satisfactory answers. One such theory is the renewed and modernized ethics of virtue, which places the greatest emphasis on building an individual's moral character, assuming that Aristotelian character virtues such as courage, honesty, generosity, prudence, self-control, and compassion will enable us to lead a happy and fulfilling life. "Virtues" refer to a wide range of "excellences" or activities that individuals can use to perfect themselves. For example, an ordinary person might accept that courage can make their life more fulfilling, but it's important to recognize that virtues cannot be acquired overnight. Furthermore, many people believe that virtues are innate qualities that one either possesses or lacks. In contrast, ethics of virtue provides guidance and instructions for developing virtues over extended periods of time, as well as for continuously "practicing" the development of moral characteristics that will make us better individuals. The central and most significant concept in ethics of virtue is the golden mean, which can be interpreted in various ways. Essentially, ethics of virtue offers a path to a life filled with pleasure, harmony, and virtuous action. However, this collection of essays, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, is not exclusively concerned with virtues or ethics. Knowledge, as well as the processes of belief formation and justification of those beliefs, are also essential to ethics of virtue. Going back to the systematic Greek philosopher and his teacher, we can emphasize that virtues and knowledge are inseparable. Without the epistemology of virtues, even a thematic collection like this one would be incomplete. The Epistemology of Virtue is a relatively new branch of philosophy that has emerged as a response to questions about the value-neutrality of science. For a long time, the separation of values and scientific inquiry has been viewed as the correct methodological approach. However, it is clear that every scientist is also a human being with their own virtues and flaws. It is naive to assume that a scientist can leave their values and moral qualities outside the laboratory and treat their colleagues in the team differently than they would treat other people in their everyday life. Taking this into account, we can notice that Epistemology of Virtue is a theory that examines the influence of virtues on the processes of acquiring knowledge. Epistemic virtues refer to qualities that enable individuals to acquire knowledge and make reliable judgments. These virtues include traits such as openness to diverse testimonies and arguments, critical thinking, a tendency to question one's own assumptions, and the ability to identify errors in one's own thought processes. Just like in virtue ethics, the Epistemology of Virtue raises the question of how we can cultivate the necessary virtues and how these virtues can have a positive impact on both individuals and society. The field also explores how epistemic virtues can be put into practice, such as in educational settings, scientific research, and various social activities. Finally, we turn to a topic that is often overlooked in philosophy - human flaws. While ethics typically views flaws as the opposite of virtues, requiring correction both individually and socially, the Epistemology of Virtue questions what happens when flaws occur in knowledge-related qualities. Do these flaws also need to be eliminated, or are they an inherent part of the process of acquiring knowledge and making judgments? At first glance, prejudices, stereotypes, dogmatism, conformism, closed-mindedness towards arguments and evidence, as well as uncritical acceptance of authority, can all hinder our ability to acquire knowledge. Epistemologists view these qualities as vices, rather than flaws like ethicists do. The Epistemology of Vices is the newest of the three branches of philosophy covered in this thematic collection, and it examines the ways in which false and untrue beliefs develop and persist in society. This area of study seeks to answer questions about how people form delusions and whether it is possible to overcome them. On the other hand, the Epistemology of Virtue is like the "older brother" that supervises these vices. It contributes to the investigation and overcoming of vices by developing virtues that enable individuals to more accurately assess the truthfulness of their beliefs. However, even though vices can have a destructive impact on knowledge acquisition, the question remains: are vices always detrimental in every context? Conversely, can virtues be detrimental? For example, does a virtue like solidarity sometimes hinder the efficient formation of true beliefs in time-sensitive situations such as finding a vaccine to combat a virus pandemic? Can vices be useful? Can stubbornness and uncooperativeness sometimes help a research team by allowing two sides to reach the same goal through different paths? Within this collection, some of these questions will receive answers, some of which may confirm existing impressions, while others may surprise readers. The thematic collection, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, consists of four interesting chapters and 21 papers that cover the selected topic through the prism of philosophical disciplines such as ethics, epistemology, the history of philosophy, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. In this introduction, we will not discuss the contents of the articles so as not to disrupt the intended integral approach to reading the collection. A significant feature of this collection is the continuity that extends from one paper to another, from topic to topic, and from problem to problem. Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude to the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade for their support in realizing this collection, as well as to our colleagues from the Department and Institute of Philosophy who have made this collection a relevant and significant achievement with their contributions. We are also thankful to the reviewers of the collection as a whole, as well as to the referees of individual articles, who have provided us with detailed comments and remarks that have made this collection clearer and more comprehensive. We owe a special thanks to our colleagues from Zagreb, Rijeka, and Maribor, whose exceptional papers have contributed to making this collection an unabashed international contribution to debates about the ethics and epistemology of virtues and vices. (shrink)

This article is the SIXTH of several excerpts from my book The Nondual Mind: Vedānta, Kashmiri Pratyabhijñā Shaivism, and Spinoza (the full book is posted on this site). “I liked James H. Cumming’s The Nondual Mind a lot. It is beautifully written, thoughtful, and very clear.” (Prof. Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University) “James H. Cumming’s scholarly interpretation of Spinoza’s works, persuasively showing how 17th century European ideas that ushered in the Enlightenment find a (...) precursor in 10th century Kashmir, is a masterpiece of reason and philosophy that will leave the reader with profound thoughts on the meaning of history, God, and life itself. As a senior staff attorney in my chambers for many years at the California Supreme Court and a top scholar of ethics and philosophy of law, Mr. Cumming never ceased to amaze me with his outstanding research and intellect. This scholarly book is a must read for all who want to know why Spinoza continues to influence contemporary philosophy and how his work is still relevant in today’s challenging, interconnected world.” (Hon. Ming W. Chin, Associate Justice (Retired), Supreme Court of California, 1996–2020). (shrink)

John Maynard Keynes’s A Treatise on Probability is the seminal text for the logical interpretation of probability. According to his analysis, probabilities are evidential relations between a hypothesis and some evidence, just like the relations of deductive logic. While some philosophers had suggested similar ideas prior to Keynes, it was not until his Treatise that the logical interpretation of probability was advocated in a clear, systematic and rigorous way. I trace Keynes’s influence in the philosophy of probability (...) through a heterogeneous sample of thinkers who adopted his interpretation. This sample consists of Frederick C. Benenson, Roy Harrod, Donald C. Williams, Henry E. Kyburg and David Stove. The ideas of Keynes prove to be adaptable to their diverse theories of probability. My discussion indicates both the robustness of Keynes’s probability theory and the importance of its influence on the philosophers whom I describe. I also discuss the Problem of the Priors. I argue that none of those I discuss have obviously improved on Keynes’s theory with respect to this issue. (shrink)

Fichte is the first great Post-Kantian Idealist and his debt to Spinozism has been acknowledged by virtually all of his commentators. However, the extent of Spinoza’s influence on Fichte has not been spelled out in much detail. In response to this I propose to do two things. Firstly, I propose to provide a typology of interpretations of Fichte’s Absolute I, as some commentators seem to get entangled in these different interpretations, which can be very confusing to their readership. Secondly, (...) I wish to demonstrate that the Fichtean system is better understood in the light of its Spinozist influences. (shrink)