The book attempts to build a bridge across three cultures: mathematical statistics, quantum theory and chemometrical methods.

Berkeley’s ‘esse is percipi’ has been criticized for implying epistemological solipsism, the main argument being that different minds cannot harbor numerically one and the same idea. Similarly, C. J. Boström, the dominating Swedish philosopher in the nineteenth century, was early scorned because his principle of esse est percipi allegedly contradicts the simultaneous claim that two spirits can perceive the same thing under qualitatively different appearances. Whereas the criticism against Berkeley is here regarded as valid, it is argued that Boström successfully (...) defended himself by employing a dual concept of meaning, resembling Frege’s Sinn and Bedeutung some thirty years later, and by postulating an ontology that permits human minds to share in the divine ideas that constitute reality. (shrink)

In 1859–1860, Johan Jacob Borelius published two diatribes against Christopher Jacob Boström, the then dominating philosopher in Sweden. Boström was accused of inconsistency, because he asserted the principle of esse est percipi while at the same time maintaining that different agents can perceive one and the same thing differently. It is suggested that Borelius misunderstood Boström’s intention. In his printed defence, in 1860, Boström clarifies his use of a dual conception of meaning, resembling Frege’s distinction between Sinn (sense) and Bedeutung (...) (reference) some thirty years later. Boström appears to equate the reference of esse with that of percipi, whereas Borelius argued as if the principle concerned the senses of the two expressions. According to Borelius, two observers cannot possibly have different perceptions of the same object, if “to be” means “to be perceived”. In Boström’s view, as reconstructed here, two different phenomenal perceptions may well refer to one and the same true object, of which the phenomena are aspects. The true object exists in virtue of its being determined by God’s perfect ideas. (shrink)

The theory of proper names proposed by J.S. Mill in A system of logic (1843), and discussed in S. Kripke’s Naming and necessity (1980), is shown to be predated by A. Rosmini’s Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee (1830) and T. Reid’s Essays on the intellectual powers of man (1785). For philological reasons, Rosmini probably did not obtain his view of proper names from Reid. For philosophical reasons, it is unlikely that he got it from Hobbes, Locke, Smith, or Stewart. Although (...) not explicitly indicated by Rosmini himself, he may have been influenced by St. Thomas, who in Summa theologica discusses suppositum and natura in relation to the equivocal functions of the terms ”God” and ”sun” as common and proper names. As previously observed, forerunners of the idea can be found in Antiquity, in Plato’s Theaetetus and Aristotle’s Metaphysics. From a historical point of view, the fully developed ”Millian” opinion that connotation is not a fundamental aspect of proper names, and that their referents are not fixed by description, could more accurately be termed the Reid-Rosmini-Mill theory. (shrink)

In Part I, an attempt is made to survey the original source material on which any detailed assessment of Wittgenstein's remarks on the foundations of mathematics from his middle and later periods ought to be based. This survey is presented within the context of a sketch of Wittgenstein's biography, which also mentions some of the major developments in his thinking. In addition, certain main themes are emphasized; these have to do primarily with the Kantian aspects of Wittgenstein's thought and with (...) his mysticism or the 'religious point of view'. In Part II, Kreisel's critique of Wittgenstein's remarks on the foundations of mathematics, which has been developed since 1958 in a series of published articles, receives close examination, and, in connection with this, different approaches to the philosophical investigation of mathematics are considered which represent genuine alternatives to Wittgenstein's approach. There are separate sections on Lakatos's Proofs and Refutations and Bourbaki's 'L'Architecture des Mathématiques'. Finally, besides a bibliography which surveys the reception of Wittgenstein's views on the foundations of mathematics, there are two substantial appendices, which are supplemental to Part I. The first of these gives the manuscript sources for typescripts 221 and 222-4, and the correspondences in both directions between these typescripts. The second appendix is part of a chronological version of von Wright's catalogue of Wittgenstein's papers, beginning in 1929. (shrink)

Erik Olof Burman (1845–1929) was professor of practical philosophy at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, between 1896 and 1910. In 1879 he published a long essay entitled ”Om den nyare italienska filosofien” (”On recent Italian philosophy”). About half the essay is devoted to the philosophical system of Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855), the second half to that of Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852). The text is mainly descriptive, apparently aiming at informing Swedish colleagues about the situation in Italy. However, there are also passages revealing (...) the rationalist-idealist subjectivism of Burman himself as well as his considering Rosmini’s ontology too objectivistic and Gioberti’s idealism insufficiently coherent. A preliminary translation of Burman’s essay into Italian is presented. -/- Erik Olof Burman (1845–1929) fu professore di Filosofia Pratica all’Università di Uppsala negli anni 1896–1910. New 1879 publicò un saggio intitolato ”Om den nyare italienska filosofien” (“Sulla filosofia italiana recente”). Quasi metà di questo lavoro si concentra sul sistema di Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855); la seconda parte verte anzitutto invece su quello di Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852). Il testo è principalmente descrittivo, ovviamente mirante a informare filosofi svedesi sulle posizioni attuali in Italia. Vi si trovano anche però commenti sparsi indicanti il razialismo-idealismo soggetivo di Burman stesso e considerazioni riguardo a come egli consideri l’ontologia di Rosmini troppo oggettiva e l’idealismo di Gioberti insufficientemente coerente. Riflettendo l’immagine della filosofia italiana del IX secolo in uno specchio straniero, il lavoro potrebbe essere di un certo valore informativo per moderni filosofi e storici italiani. Per questa ragione una traduzione preliminare del saggio di Burman è presentata. (shrink)

Remodel[l]ing Reality is an inquiry into Wittgenstein's notion of übersichtliche Darstellung and the phenomenon of installation in visual art. In a sense, both provide a perspicuous overview of a particular part of our complex world, but the nature of the overview differs. Although both generate knowledge, philosophy via the übersichtliche Darstellung gives us a view of how things stand for us, while the installation shows an unexpected, exiting point of view. The obvious we tend to forget and the ambiguity of (...) reality are related to each other in a dynamic way. It is in this reflexive dynamics that we constantly remodel our reality. Tools we use are our creative abilities and our powers of imagination. In our choices and solutions we show which aspects of reality we find important and how we communicate these values. The outcome of this investigation is a new perspective on the art of installation and a new insight in Wittgenstein's notion of übersichtliche Darstellung. Because of this combination, the book is itself an artwork: an InstallationPackage. The book is distributed by Ideabooks Amsterdam, Isbn 978 90 804240 3 6. Remodel[l]ing Reality is included in Special Collections, Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam. (shrink)

The article gives a definition of the technical and economic potential of the application of the deforming broaching process. Research of the consequences of introducing deforming broaching into technological processes at manufacturing enterprises is carried out on the basis of application of system resource and matrix approach. On the basis of the performed researches, a methodological basis for the economic evaluation of the results of applying deforming broaching on the pro-duction has been developed. The article has improved the well-known scientific (...) and methodological foundations for the determination of technical and economic results of the application of deforming broaching due to the complex identifica-tion of production-organizational decisions - in technical and forms of evaluation in economic spheres. The developed approach gives an opportunity to more accu-rately assess the economic effect of introducing deforming broaching on the min-ing, metallurgical and machine building industries. It can be used to assess the economic effect of introducing other process parts processing. (shrink)

This essay critically examines Joseph Rouse's arguments against, what he dubs, the "legitimation project", which are the attempts to delimit and justify the scientific enterprise by means of global, "a priori" principles. Stipulating that a more adequate picture of science can be obtained by viewing it as a continuously transforming pattern of situated activities, Rouse believes that only by refocusing attention upon the actual practice of science can philosophers begin to detach themselves from the irresolvable epistemological problems that have remained (...) the primary byproduct of the traditional philosophical approach. On closer inspection, however, Rouse's project appears susceptible to the criticism that it is either too relativistic to do the work he envisioned for it, or that it participates in the very same legitimation venture that it was intended to replace (in addition to its own brand metaphysical/epistemological problems). This unexpected outcome, moreover, suggests that such legitimation projects may be an integral component of the very practice of science, contrary to Rouse estimate. (shrink)

The traditional Javanese tembangs created by Sunan Kalijaga, especially Lir ilir and Kidung Rumekso ing Wengi, have an extraordinary depth of philosophical meaning when associated with Javanese culture. Therefore, this research aims to explore and analyze the philosophical meanings contained in the two tembangs and find out how the spiritual messages in the tembangs are still relevant to the conditions of society in the modern era. The sources of data for this research are (1) interviews with Sunan Kalijaga's descendants, artists (...) in Demak Regency, Demak Regency officials, (2) historical records and scientific articles about Sunan Kalijaga, and (3) direct observation in Demak Regency. This research uses Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotic theory to find out the deeper meaning of the text of the two tembangs. For data validation, this research uses the triangulation method, in order to compare all available data and find a common thread of reliability to be presented as scientific data. In the interpretation stage, the researcher tried to explore the messages contained in the two tembangs, which were analyzed from the lyrics of the tembangs and the opinions of experts found in Demak Regency. The results show that both tembangs contain philosophical teachings on how to achieve wisdom and peace in every episode of human life. They also teach about the importance of establishing a good relationship with God. In addition, this study also revealed that the spiritual messages in these two tembangs are still relevant as a reflection of everyone's spiritual journey in the modern era. (shrink)

We can contrast rationalising explanations of the form S φs because p with those of the form S φs because S believes that p. According the Common Kind View, the two sorts of explanation are the same. The Disjunctive View denies this. This paper sets out to elucidate the sense in which the Common Kind Theorist asserts, but the Disjunctivist denies, that the two explanations are the same. I suggest that, in the light of the distinction between kinds of explanation (...) and particular explanations, the relevant sameness thesis is ambiguous, thus giving us two distinct versions of the Common Kind View. I then argue that the only direct arguments for Disjunctivism available in the literature fail because they only succeed in undermining one version of the Common Kind View. I finish, however, by providing a fresh argument for the Disjunctive View which aims to undermine both versions of its competitor. (shrink)

This paper addresses Fichte’s puzzle of self-consciousness. I propose a new reading of “Fichte’s original insight,” inspired by Pareyson’s general reading, which I call here the “Fichtean metaphysical turn in transcendental philosophy.” Against the mainstream view in Fichte’s scholarship, I argue that Fichte’s and Kant’s views do not concur regard- ing the primary reference of the “I”, namely spontaneous agency in thinking, which Fichte calls “Tathandlung”. Yet, their views do, in fact, concur when Fichte claims that this spontaneous agency in (...) thinking is the “essence” or the underlying nature of the self, which Kant denies. Regarding this, I take the side of Fichte. But how is Fichte’s original insight supposed to solve the puzzle of self-consciousness? At that transcendental level, the puzzle does not arise because there is no need for self-identification in the first place. Transcendental self-knowledge results from the sui generis intellectual Selbstanschauung that everyone has of oneself as sheer spontaneous agency in thinking. But at the empirical level, the puzzle does not arise either and for the same reason. Reference to the embodied self dispenses with any self-identification because it is based on the fundamental metaphysical relation everybody has to their own body, namely identity. (shrink)

From the rather original recognition that Aristotle’s categories are questions, this essay focuses on issues of the pote (ποτέ), i.e., the question of the “When”, and of chronos (χρόνος), the “concept” of time. This “concept” is born from and associated with the question of the “When”. It is a hermeneutical and (existential)-ontological dialogue, enabling us to think jointly about the so-called “objectivity” of time and its ontological, phenomenological, and hermeneutical relatedness to ourselves. The APPENDIX is an ontological and existential analysis (...) of the question: “What is man?”. It’s conclusion: that this question cannot, and indeed must not be given a definition-like answer, filled with information and facts. The “response” – and not “answer” – cor-responding to, can only be authentic and open if it claims that: Man is precisely that being who turns his own existence – in a questioning way, both for himself and “other” people, interrogating himself via his own world – into an event. The human and mode-of-being-like questions about the meaning of Being and about the possibility of “What is man?” actually overlap both in their horizons and in their amplitude and radicality. (shrink)

Many find it plausible that for a given beneficiary, Y, benefactor, R, and action, ϕ, Y’s being grateful to R for ϕ-ing implies Y’s being grateful that R ϕ-ed. According to some philosophers who hold this view, all instances of gratitude to, or “prepositional gratitude,” are also instances of gratitude that, or “propositional gratitude.” These philosophers believe there is a single unified concept of gratitude, a phenomenon that is essentially gratitude that, and whose manifestations sometimes have additional features that make (...) them instances of gratitude to as well. In this article, I show that view to be mistaken. I base my argument on two hypothetical cases, in each of which a beneficiary, Y, is grateful to a benefactor, R, for ϕ-ing, but not grateful that R ϕ-ed. Generalizing from those cases and other cases of gratitude, I argue that prepositional gratitude is the proper response to benevolence-motivated action and propositional gratitude consists in a beneficiary’s judging a state of affairs to be valuable for himself and welcoming that state of affairs. Because not every instance of a benefactor’s acting benevolently toward a beneficiary is something that beneficiary finds valuable for himself and welcomes, it is possible to be grateful to a benefactor for ϕ-ing but not grateful that she ϕ-ed. Prepositional gratitude and propositional gratitude can each occur without the other and are thus two distinct phenomena. I conclude by explaining the importance of accurately understanding the relationship between prepositional gratitude and propositional gratitude. (shrink)

Hume’s account of the scope of justice, many think, is implausibly narrow, apply- ing almost exclusively to respect for property rights. Such a view would indeed be highly objectionable because it would leave out of the scope of justice altogether requirements to keep our promises, obey the law, and refrain from threats and violence (among many others). I argue that Hume’s theory of justice, properly understood, avoids this objection. And seeing how is instructive because once we understand his account correctly, (...) we can appreciate its resources for offering attractive explanations of why a number of diverse phenomena fall within the scope of justice. Overcoming this challenge is a major step- ping stone on the way to seeing Hume’s theory of justice as a genuine competitor with the other dominant theories of justice in the philosophical literature. (shrink)

This paper addresses Fichte’s puzzle of self-consciousness. I propose a new reading of “Fichte’s original insight,” inspired by Pareyson’s general reading, which I call here the “Fichtean metaphysical turn in transcendental philosophy.” Against the mainstream view in Fichte’s scholarship, I argue that Fichte’s and Kant’s views do not concur regard- ing the primary reference of the “I”, namely spontaneous agency in thinking, which Fichte calls “Tathandlung”. Yet, their views do, in fact, concur when Fichte claims that this spontaneous agency in (...) thinking is the “essence” or the underlying nature of the self, which Kant denies. Regarding this, I take the side of Fichte. But how is Fichte’s original insight supposed to solve the puzzle of self-consciousness? At that transcendental level, the puzzle does not arise because there is no need for self-identification in the first place. Transcendental self-knowledge results from the sui generis intellectual Selbstanschauung that everyone has of oneself as sheer spontaneous agency in thinking. But at the empirical level, the puzzle does not arise either and for the same reason. Reference to the embodied self dispenses with any self-identification because it is based on the fundamental metaphysical relation everybody has to their own body, namely identity. (shrink)

This is a defense of Rawls against recent criticism, ironically my own, though it is also a critique insofar as it addresses a problem that Rawls never does. As a defense, it is not a retraction of the original charges. As a critique, it is not more of the same op-position. In either capacity, it is not an afterthought. The charges were conceived from the outset with a specific solution in mind, which would have been too distracting to pursue in (...) the same article. This is that solution. It also highlights the problem. The original charges were that Rawls’s decision procedure for ethics does not justify his own moral principles, namely his principles of justice, and that the underlying problem may well keep the decision procedure from justifying any moral principles whatsoever, or at least any normatively useful ones. The underlying problem was, and still is, the model’s inherent universalism, which is built into the decision procedure through design specifications precluding relativism, yet only at the cost of limiting the relevant moral principles to generalities that are already widely accepted, thereby render-ing the procedure at best redundant and very likely vacuous as an ethical justification model. These difficulties are manifested in the work of Rawls as the dogmatism of champi-oning a distinctive conception of justice, a liberal one as he himself calls it, through a justification model that is too universalistic to permit such a bias and possibly also too universalistic to permit any substantive conclusions at all. The solution contemplated here is to position the decision procedure as a dynamic justification model responsive to moral progress, as opposed to a static one indifferent to such progress and equally open to all moral input, thus removing the inconsistency between the universalistic design and any distinctive or controversial principles, including the ones Rawls himself recommends, so long as they are consistent with moral progress. (shrink)

Given the unwittingness of negligence, personal responsibility for negligent conduct is puzzling. After all, how is it that one is responsible for what one did not intend to do or was unaware that one was doing? How, therefore, is one’s agency involved with one’s negligence so as to ground one’s responsibility for it? Negligence is an unwitting failure in agency to meet a standard requiring conduct that falls within one’s competency. Accordingly, negligent conduct involves agency in that negligence is a (...) manifestation of agency failure. Now, nobody’s perfect. Human agency is innately fallible, and a measure of agency failure is, therefore, unavoidable. The more one’s negligence manifests failure in one’s agency as an individual, the more one is responsible for it. In contrast, the more one’s negligence involves the shortcomings innate to all human agency the less responsible one becomes, because one’s agency as an individual is less and less involved in one’s failure. Determinative of the measure of individual and of human failings mixed into an instance of negligent phi-ing is the background quality of one’s agency at meeting one’s competency at phi-ing. That is, how able one is at delivering on what one is able to competently do. The more able, the less one’s occasional instances of negligence involve manifestations of failures of one’s agency as an individual – nobody’s perfect – and are more manifestations of one’s agency’s innate human fallibility, making one less and less responsible for one’s negligence. (shrink)

Frances Kamm’s Intricate Ethics1 lives up to its title. It presents the methods and contents of Kamm’s nonconsequentialist ethical theory with discussion of some alternatives, both substantive and methodological. The main focus is on the distinctions that non- consequentialist ethical theory draws between different ways of bringing about states of affairs. This is presented in Kamm’s char- acteristic style. Readers should expect highly complex, subtle arguments as Kamm draws out fine-grained distinctions from intuitive responses to cases. Those who find their (...) intuitions less than firm at such a level of detail may find Intricate Ethics frustrat- ing at times. Nonetheless, it is a highly significant work. It dis- cusses issues at the heart of nonconsequentialist ethical theory with prodigious insight and clarity of thought. Even those whose intuitions prevent them from following Kamm to her conclusions will find the discussion along the way richly rewarding. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore Heidegger’s approach to how educa- tion and reflection endeavor, which have been experienced through a vast variety of both regional and universal approaches, should be experienced. Hence, I’ll start with explaining Heidegger’s problematics. “Why he takes all philosophical problems into one question?”, “What is the meaning of be- ing?”, and then I will explain what we should understand by education and reflection process. Heidegger links it to an exploration process, investigation of the (...) truth. He believes that the primary responsibility in this process lies on universities and rulers. The process should be centered on reflection and individuals should be reflecting by challenging their own and other individ- uals’ existence. This leads us to two concepts: Being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt- sein) and co-existence (being-with, Mitsein). The most remarkable ability of Dasein, as he calls, is the reflection, and it facilitates challenge. Through its capabilities, the individual (Dasein) will turn out to be self-conscious of its existence. Grounding on being-in-the-world and co-existence concepts, Das- ein can challenge the existence and starts exploring the being. This leads to reflection and questioning, which together form an educational and learning process. Education and learning are the two technical parts of exploring Da- sein’s existence. Due to scientific methods and methodological approaches of education, cultural, regional and local attributes are ignored. Heidegger believes that the individual coexists, which requires considering all the dif- ferences around it. Heidegger stresses the importance of reflection and says that the West has a flawed approach. Criticizing that flawed approach which is solely centered on the subject, Heidegger asserts an educational model which reckons many differences such as culture, challenge, etc. (shrink)

Fodor argued that learning a concept by hypothesis testing would involve an impossible circularity. I show that Fodor's argument implicitly relies on the assumption that actually φ-ing entails an ability to φ. But this assumption is false in cases of φ-ing by luck, and just such luck is involved in testing hypotheses with the kinds of generative random sampling methods that many cognitive scientists take our minds to use. Concepts thus can be learned by hypothesis testing without circularity, and it (...) is plausible that this is how humans in fact acquire at least some of their concepts. (shrink)

Gregory Kavka's 'Toxin Puzzle' suggests that I cannot intend to perform a counter-preferential action A even if I have a strong self-interested reason to form this intention. The 'Rationalist Solution,' however, suggests that I can form this intention. For even though it is counter-preferential, A-ing is actually rational given that the intention behind it is rational. Two arguments are offered for this proposition that the rationality of the intention to A transfers to A-ing itself: the 'Self-Promise Argument' and David Gauthier's (...) 'Rational Self-Interest Argument.' But both arguments – and therefore the Rationalist Solution – fail. The Self-Promise Argument fails because my intention to A does not constitute a promise to myself that I am obligated to honor. And Gauthier's Rational Self-Interest Argument fails to rule out the possibility of rational irrationality. (shrink)

According to Anscombe, acting intentionally entails knowledge in ac- tion. This thesis has been near-universally rejected due to a well-known counter- example by Davidson: a man intending to make ten legible carbon copies might not believe with confidence, and hence not know, that he will succeed. If he does, however, his action surely counts as intentional. Damaging as it seems, an even more powerful objection can be levelled against Anscombe: while act- ing, there is as yet no fact of the (...) matter as to whether the agent will succeed. Since his belief that he will is not yet true while his action is in progress, he can- not possibly know that he is indeed bringing about the intended goal. Knowl- edge in action is not only unnecessary for intentional action, it seems, but–at least as regards success-bound types of action–impossible to attain in the first place. -/- In this paper I argue that traditional strategies to counter these objections are unsatisfactory and propose a new account of knowledge in action which has two core features: (i) It invokes an externalist conception of justification which not only meets Davidson’s challenge, but also casts doubts on the tacit internalist premise on which his example relies. (ii) Drawing on recent work about by John MacFarlane, the proposed account conceives of claims to in action as assessment-sensitive so as to overcome the factivity objection. From a retrospective point of evaluation, previous claims about future events and actions can not only be deemed as having been true, but also as having been known. (shrink)

Infusing contemporary critical terrorism studies (CTS) with concepts and methodologies from philosophy and critical theory via a Baradian posthumanist agential realist perspective and (counter)terrorist cases and vignettes, this chapter argues for a retheorisation of (counter)terrorism. It does so, firstly, by reconceptualising terrorism and counterterrorism as complex assemblages consisting not only of discursive-material components – an entanglement now largely accepted within CTS and critical security studies (CSS) – but also of affective layers and more-than-human phenomena. Secondly, by analysing European urban (counter)terrorist (...) cases from the UK, Germany, France, and Spain, together with these cases’ surprising spacetime-jumping interlinkages underwriting what we here conceptualise as queer(ing) spacetimematterings, this chapter zooms in on the intra-actions taking place between human and more-than-human agential phenomena and their risk-managed urban environments. Lastly, extra analytical attention is paid to how, in this neoliberal day and age – here rephrased as control society-driven ‘situationscaping times’ – very specific macro- and micropolitical violence-preventing measures and efforts are employed in the fight against various manifestations of urban terror and terrorism. (shrink)

Thе оutbrеаk оf thе соrоnаvirus disеаsе 2019 (СОVID-19) саusing milliоns оf pеоplе tо bе infесtеd hаs pоsеd mаjоr publiс hеаlth аnd gоvеrnаnсе сhаllеngеs. This study еvаluаtеs thе еxtеnt tо whiсh thе unаvаilаbility оf intеrnеt fоr сhildrеn tо lеаrn оnlinе during thе pаndеmiс аffесts pаrеntаl psyсhоlоgiсаl wеllbеing. Wе find thаt pаrеnts hаving nо intеrnеt fоr thеir сhildrеn tо lеаrn оnlinе during tо thе pаndеmiс аrе 40.37, 47.22, 43.68, аnd 46.90 pеrсеntаgе pоints mоrе likеly tо fееl аnxiоus, wоrriеd, displеаsеd, аnd dеprеssеd еvеry (...) dаy. Thе study саlls fоr thе еxpаnsiоn оf suppоrts fоr сhildrеn аnd fаmiliеs during thе pаndеmiс, еspесiаlly fоr disprоpоrtiоnаtеly аffесtеd соmmunitiеs. (shrink)

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose? Not for Axel Honneth,whose Hegelian reconstruction sees freedom as the central, even sole, driving force of Western modernity. Other apparently central values are mere modifications of freedom. Nothin’ don’t mean nothin’ if it ain’t free. In his deliberately grand narrative, Honneth follows Hegel's Philosophy of Right in developing an account of social justice by means of an analysis of society. The end result is an outline of society in terms of roles (...) and ethical relations through which individuals can achieve freedom and self-realization.The construal is at the same time a description of the constitutive spheresof contemporary society, in terms of its less than fully realized potentialsand promises. In Hegelian parlance, the "rational" is in the process of becom-ing "actual" in modern history, but owing to misdevelopments and social pathologies, there is still ample room for social criticism, in light of the veryconcept that these institutions (are meant to) embody, namely, social freedom. (shrink)

Carnap and Twentieth-Century Thought: Explication as En lighten ment is the first book in the English language that seeks to place Carnap's philosophy in a broad cultural, political and intellectual context. According to the author, Carnap synthesized many different cur rents of thought and thereby arrived at a novel philosophical perspective that remains strik ing ly relevant today. Whether the reader agrees with Carus's bold theses on Carnap's place in the landscape of twentieth-century philosophy, and his even bolder claims concerning (...) the role that philosophy in Carnap's style should play in the thought of our century, does not matter so much as the excellent opportunity Carus's book offers to thoroughly rethink one's ideas about Carnap's philosophy. One reason why Carnap and Twentieth-Century Thought might change one's ideas is that Carus has unearthed much hitherto unknown material from the archives that sheds new light on Carnap's early life and thought. Indeed, the many archival findings presented in CTT for the first time suffice to make the book re warding reading for philosophers and historians of philosophy alike. CTT exhibits a high standard of historical scholarship, and the book itself is a beautiful example of high-quality academic publishing. Up to now, Carnap has remained a controversial figure on the philo sophical scene. On the one hand, he has a solid reputation as a leading figure of logical positivism . According to conventional wisdom, this was a school of thought characterized by its formal and technical philosophy, as well as being rather dismissive of other ways of doing philosophy, dogmatically sticking to its own theses. As a typical example of this arrogant logical empiricist attitude, one usually refers to Carnap's notorious Overcoming Metaphysics by Logical Analysis of Language , written when the Vienna Circle's Logical Empiricism had entered its most radical phase. Self-proclaimed postpositivist philosophers of science dismissed logical positivism, in particular Carnap's, as the dogmatic and orthodox “received view.” The tendency to portray logical empiricism as an obsolete doctrine centering around certain “dogmas” started with Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism and reached its somewhat ridiculous culmination in the early 1980s when allegedly “six or seven dogmas” were discovered . Thereby an allegedly un brid geable gap between classical “dogmatic” logical em pi ricism and its modern “enlightened” suc ces sors was construed. (shrink)

The Cassiciacum dialogues mark an important point in St. Augustine’s spiritual journey from teacher of rhetoric to bishop of Hippo, and present Augustine as a Christian who had very recently found God, but was still unwilling to break off with the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition. Thus, Augustine designed his early philosophical writings in the old, classical manner. Although there is a vast body of scholarship on the Cassiciacum dialogues, only limited attention has been paid to the question of how significant a (...) role Augustine’s mother Monica plays in them. In this paper I argue that the term philosophical-contemplative companionship, borrowed from a new form of philosophical practice, can be applied to the participation of St. Monica in the De beata vita, and most likely to the Cassiciacum dialogues as a whole. (shrink)

Most readings of Tayib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North have focused on Mustafa Saeed and the nameless narrator, both male characters, and they have largely avoided a politically radical reading of the novel. This article attempts to present the female character, Hosna, as the revolutionary par excellence, following Lacan and Slavoj Žižek’s reading of Antigone. Th rough Žižek’s distinction between the act and action, this article argues that Hosna’s deed at the end of the novel, murder and suicide, (...) is not just an action out of hopelessness but rather an act that aims to make a new social order possible. We will try to connect Žižek’s distinction between act and action to Benjamin’s distinction between divine violence and mythic violence and Lacan’s idea of “Th ing-directed desire” (Marc De Kesel 245). By doing so, this article aims to put the extreme violence of Hosna in a new light and argues against the readings that simply ignore her act as an extreme form of violence and fail to see it in a broader framework of philosophical and sociological understanding. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal [Phil. Math., II, v.4 (1989), n.2, pp.?- ?] J. Fang argues that we must not be fooled by A.J. Ayer (God rest his soul!) and his cohorts into believing that mathematical knowledge has an analytic a priori status. Even computers, he reminds us, take some amount of time to perform their calculations. The simplicity of Kant's infamous example of a mathematical proposition (7+5=12) is "partly to blame" for "mislead[ing] scholars in the direction of (...) neglecting the temporal element"; yet a brief instant of time is required to grasp even this simple truth. If Kant were alive today, "and if he had had a little more mathematical savvy", Fang explains, he could have used the latest example of the largest prime number (391,581 x 2 216,193 - 1) as a better example of the "synthetic a priori" character of mathematics. The reason Fang is so intent upon emphasizing the temporal character of mathematics is that he wishes to avoid "the uncritical mixing of ... a theology and a philosophy of mathematics." For "in the light of the Computer Age today: finitism is king!" Although Kant's aim was explicitly "to study the 'human' ... faculty", Fang claims that even he did not adequatley emphasize "the clearly and concretely distinguishable line of demarcation between the human and divine faculties.". (shrink)

The usefulness of the statistic known as the p-value, as a means of quantify-ing the strength of evidence for the presence of an effect from empirical data has long been questioned in the statistical community. In recent years there has been a notable increase in the awareness of both fundamental and practical limitations of the statistic within the target research fields, and especially biomedicine. In this article I analyse the recently published article which, in summary, argues that with a better (...) understand-ing and thus more appropriate use of the statistic, many of the aforementioned limitations can be addressed. In particular, I demonstrate that the (often implicit) premises of this counterargument are questionable, in some cases arguably inconsistent, and that therefore the counterargument provides little if any justification for the continued use of the p-value. Additionally, my analysis should help researchers seeking to interpret their empirical data by illustrating the nuanced nature and the multiplicity of statistical, methodological, and epistemological issues which must be considered in this process. (shrink)

In Kritik der Macht, Axel Honneth analyzes the basic postulates of Max Horkheimer’s Critical Theory. This an-alysis is part of a broader examination of what he considers to be the main critical theories of the twentieth cen-tury. This work focuses on the analysis that Honneth carries out, and on the evaluation of the judgments that he makes of Horkheimer’s political-critic-al program. We propose to review the aporias that Honneth points out as deficiencies in Horkheimer’s theory, and then to evaluate them (...) in the light of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School founder. From the critical pos-itions that were developed, we will try to show that both projects conglomer-ate diverse disciplines such as Marx-ist theory, Freudian psychology and sociology. These theoretical incorpor-ations make important readjustments to the classical Marxist model and reconfigure the horizon of political action during the 20th century, offer-ing theoretical analyses that continue to be valuable in the spectrum of the political theory in the 21st century. (shrink)

The nature of the edited scholarly collection has undergone a sea change. Whereas once upon a time edited collections brought together conference papers or previously published landmark studies—whose mark of excellence is scholarly rigor—more recently libraries have been inundated by Guides, Companions, and Handbooks. The Guide/Companion/Handbook model has its uses, perhaps especially for introductory essays or overviews of topics in which clarity, rather than cutting-edge scholarship, is the mark of excellence. Between these two models falls a new and somewhat unprecedented (...) (at least in Aristotle scholarship) genre of collection, what Cambridge University Press is characterizing as a Critical Guide. The volume’s self-description claims that it is a “collection of newly commissioned essays…present[ing] a thorough and close examination of the work” which will “challenge and advance the scholarship on the Ethics</i>, establishing new ways of viewing and appreciating the work for all scholars of Aristotle.” Clearly, one is no longer looking at introductory essays. (shrink)

A Review of Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought by Phillip Cary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xxiv + 344 pp. -/- Phillip Cary has written another highly significant book on Augustine, and his writing displays the art of a master stylist. A complement to his Inner Grace, Outward Signs extends Cary’s thesis in Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self: that Augus- tine’s Trinitarian and semiotic theology, groundbreaking as it was, remains beholden to a (...) Platonist privileging of inner vs. outer and idea over sacramental performance. Outward Signs should be of special interest to readers of Modern Theology, because the inwardness Cary interrogates displays a dimension of Augustine’s work that receives significant attention from a number of Modern Theology authors. Once again, Cary has offered an appropriate warning about any uncritical embrace of Augustine as theologian for the church today: the embrace could bring with it a turn to spiritualism, subjectivism, intellectualism, and also supersessionism (since the Old Testament and Jewish “law” belong to the merely outward life of the Word). Like Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty before him, Cary captures the line of potential influence that moves from Plato to Augustine to Descartes and Kant. Here, knowledge tends to ocular knowing, and Cary shows how inadequate that model is to account for performative knowing in the church, of which sacramental life is one instance. But performative knowing would apply, as well, to the study of Augustine’s writ- ings. Read “outwardly,” Augustine’s corpus generates several possible vectors of theological practice. The stronger vectors may point “inward,” but readers should also attend to those (weak or strong) which point to that which is inward, outward, both, and neither. (shrink)

What are the probabilities that this universe is repeated exactly the same with you in it again? Is God invented by human imagination or is the result of human intuition? The intuition that the same laws/mechanisms (evolution, stability winning probability) that have created something like the human being capable of self-awareness and controlling its surroundings, could create a being capable of controlling all what it exists? Will be the characteristics of the next universes random or tend to something? All these (...) ques-tions that with different shapes (but the same essence) have been asked by human be-ings from the beginning of times will be developed in this paper. (shrink)

Gandhi’s notion of passive-resistance is critical in two ways and defines swaraj and swadeshi, leading to his assertion that India alone is the land of redemption for the world afflicted with modern civilization, “the sheet-anchor of our hope”. “Sound at the foundation”, “India remains as it was before”, while the world speeds on, “usurp[ing] the function of Godhead” and indulg[ing] in novel experiments”. This paper aims at elaborating Gandhi’s definition of nature in terms of the scalar, speed, as found in (...) Hind Swaraj and other writings in order to demonstrate that India as hind swaraj is critical nation. (shrink)

Plato’s idea of the second-best state is the first appearance of the rule of law. It is considered as a realistic alternative to the government of the Philosopher King, differ-ing formally from it on the employment of general rules. The aim of this paper is to elaborate an articulation of both proposals and to better understand that of the rule of law within Plato’s thought. The main differences between it and the modern theories of the rule of law will be (...) assessed. Plato conceives the rule of law as a remedy directed to avoid tyranny, in which the idea of generality, characteristically associated with the rule of law. The law that rules the polis is a reasoned thought accepted by the citizenship, directed to avoid the ruling of the will of the tyrant. (shrink)

The principle of energy conservation is widely taken to be a se- rious difficulty for interactionist dualism (whether property or sub- stance). Interactionists often have therefore tried to make it satisfy energy conservation. This paper examines several such attempts, especially including E. J. Lowe’s varying constants proposal, show- ing how they all miss their goal due to lack of engagement with the physico-mathematical roots of energy conservation physics: the first Noether theorem (that symmetries imply conservation laws), its converse (that conservation (...) laws imply symmetries), and the locality of continuum/field physics. Thus the “conditionality re- sponse”, which sees conservation as (bi)conditional upon symme- tries and simply accepts energy non-conservation as an aspect of interactionist dualism, is seen to be, perhaps surprisingly, the one most in accord with contemporary physics (apart from quantum mechanics) by not conflicting with mathematical theorems basic to physics. A decent objection to interactionism should be a posteri- ori, based on empirically studying the brain. (shrink)

Husserl’s commitment to reality is marked by the urgency to return, or rather to a repeated return each time the objective is achieved . He explains this explicitly in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, taking his cue from Descartes’ Meditations . Reduction, which is the exact name for re- turn, means change of attitude, abandonment of the natural position as naive . Jan Patočka notes in this regard, that today people who have experienced modern sci- ence no (...) longer simply live in the naive natural world . The naive natural world is in- terpreted under species of the mathematical model . So, the gap between meaning as an expectation of experience and meaning within the framework of the model is increasingly evident . If intentionality, according to Husserl and disciples, includ- ing Heidegger, cannot be other than the idea itself, then it is just a something for something . It’s like giving voice to one thing and not another . Commitment to life (Husserl’s Lebenswelt) requires a return to corporeality, as Patočka adds, following Maine de Biran’s accurate insight, that is, of something immediately given, prior to any perceptual experience . The term “matrix” in the title brings to mind the eponymous 1999 film based on the philosophical metaphor of Plato’s cave in the fashion of the digital age . The protagonist, Neo, finds himself living for a long time in the lack of support of reality, precisely because of distrust: something is wrong, and this can only be felt . However, how can the hacker mentality help you under- stand that perhaps it is but a game? (shrink)

You are creditworthy for φ-ing only if φ-ing is the right thing to do. Famously though, further conditions are needed too – Kant’s shopkeeper did the right thing, but is not creditworthy for doing so. This case shows that creditworthiness requires that there be a certain kind of explanation of why you did the right thing. The reasons for which you act – your motivating reasons – must meet some further conditions. In this paper, I defend a new account of (...) these conditions. On this account, creditworthiness requires that your motivating reasons be normative reasons, and that the principles from which you act match normative principles. (shrink)

Notwithstanding its pivotal role in the thought of Indian early grammarians, the exact mean‐ ing of the term śabda remains vague and hard to determine for an inexperienced student. The di culty is not simply due to polysemy or ambiguity. The ancient user of the term śabda seems entirely unaware of any distinctions within the semantic range of the word, taking its meaning for granted. The objective of the present paper is to investigate various contexts of the word in order (...) to elucidate its meaning as understood by Indian grammarians, with particular emphasis laid on the followers of the śabdādvaita school. (shrink)

A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivating reasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there are second-order normative reasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normative reasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there are second-order reasons so understood. I then show that prominent views (...) in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence of second-order reasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are no second-order reasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

This paper is about the relevance of attitude-ascriptions to debates about singular thought. It examines a methodology (common to early acquaintance theorists [Kaplan 1968] and recent critics of acquaintance [Hawthorne and Manley 2012], which assumes that the behaviour of ascriptions can be used to draw conclusions about singular thought. Although many theorists (e.g. [Recanati 2012]) reject this methodology, the literature lacks a detailed examination of its implications and the challenges faced by proponents and critics. I isolate an assumption of the (...) methodology, which I call the tracking assumption: that an attitude-ascription which states that s Φ's that P is true iff s has an attitude, of Φ-ing, which is an entertaining of the content P (with entertain used in a stipulated sense). I argue that the tracking assumption must be rejected, not because it has deflationary consequences, but because it leads to unstable commitments. I also show that there are independent reasons to reject it, because ordinary attitude ascriptions underdetermine even the truth-conditions of the mental-states they ascribe. However, I argue, this does not involve rejecting the claim that attitude-ascriptions express relations between agents and contents. Instead, they state different relations depending on contextual factors other than the nature of the mental-states ascribed. (shrink)

According to deontological approaches to justification, we can analyze justification in deontic terms. In this paper, I try to advance the discussion of deontological approaches by applying recent insights in the semantics of deontic modals. Specifically, I use the distinction between weak necessity modals and strong necessity modals to make progress on a question that has received surprisingly little discussion in the literature, namely: ‘What’s the best version of a deontological approach?’ The two most obvious hypotheses are the Permissive View, (...) according to which justified expresses permission, and the Obligatory View, according to which justified expresses some species of obligation. I raise difficulties for both of these hypotheses. In light of these difficulties, I propose a new position, according to which justified expresses a property I call faultlessness, defined as the dual of weak necessity modals. According to this view, an agent is justified in phi-ing iff it’s not the case that she should [/ought] not phi. I argue that this ‘Faultlessness View’ gives us precisely what’s needed to avoid the problems facing the Permissive and Obligatory Views. (shrink)

Douglas Portmore has recently argued in this journal for a "promising result" – that combining teleological ethics with "evaluator relativism" about the good allows an ethical theory to account for deontological intuitions while "accommodat[ing] the compelling idea that it is always permissible to bring about the best available state of affairs." I show that this result is false. It follows from the indexical semantics of evaluator relativism that Portmore's compelling idea is false. I also try to explain what might have (...) led to this misunderstanding. (shrink)

This paper presents a mutual confrontation of the oeuvres of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) and Jacques Lacan (1901–1980), highlighting their relevance for the planetary challenges we are facing today. I will present their views on technoscience, environmental pollution and religious faith, focussing on human genomics as a case study. Both authors claim that technoscience reflects a tendency towards symbolisation: incorporating the biosphere (liv- ing nature) into the “symbolic order’ (Lacan) or ‘noosphere’ (Teilhard). On various occasions, Lacan refers to Teilhard’s (...) concept of the hominization of the planet and their dialogue culminates in a ‘final conversation’ between Teilhard and Lacan in 1954, during a reception organised by the journal Psyché. I will conclude that the Teilhard-Lacan dialogue is highly relevant for current debates concerning the Anthropocene, as a moment of global awakening and global crisis. Processes of hominization allowed humans to become literate beings, littering the planet as well: humans as literate litterers. Whereas Teilhard argues that technoscience and self-direc- ted evolution are about to culminate in what he refers to as point Omega, Lacan rather stresses the hazards involved in this optimistic desire towards all-encompassing synthesis, unification and fulfilment. (shrink)

We argue that any strong version of a knowledge condition on intentional action, the practical knowledge principle, on which knowledge of what I am doing (under some description: call it A-ing) is necessary for that A-ing to qualify as an intentional action, is false. Our argument involves a new kind of case, one that centers the agent’s control appropriately and thus improves upon Davidson’s well-known carbon copier case. After discussing this case, offering an initial argument against the knowledge condition, and (...) discussing recent treatments that cover nearby ground, we consider several objections. One we consider at some length maintains that although contemplative knowledge may be disconnected from intentional action, specifically practical knowledge of the sort Anscombe elucidated escapes our argument. We demonstrate that this is not so. Our argument illuminates an important truth, often overlooked in discussions of the knowledge-intentional action relationship: intentional action and knowledge have different levels of permissiveness regarding failure in similar circumstances. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to clarify the relation between epistemic feel- ings, mental action, and self-ascription. Acting mentally and/or thinking about one’s mental states are two possible outcomes of epistemic or metacognitive feelings. Our men- tal actions are often guided by our E-feelings, such as when we check what we just saw based on a feeling of visual uncertainty; but thought about our own perceptual states and capacities can also be triggered by the same E-feelings. The first (...) section of the pa- per presents Dokic’s argument for the insufficiency of the “ascent routine” to account for non-transparent cases of self-ascription, as well as his account of E-feelings. The second section then presents a two-level model of metacognition that builds on Dokic’s account and my own view of the issue. The two-level model links E-feelings to a min- dreading capacity in order to account for non-transparent self-ascriptions. Finally, the third section develops a deeper characterization of the relation among E-feelings, mental action, and self-ascription of mental states based on epistemic rules. In the context of self-knowledge, these remarks suggest the existence of means of forming self-ascriptions other than the ascent routine. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend a natural yet novel analysis of normative reasons. According to what we call support-explanationism, for a fact to be a normative reason to φ is for it to explain why there's normative support for φ-ing. We critically consider the two main rival forms of explanationism—ought-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about ought, and good-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about goodness—as well as the popular Reasons-First view, which takes the notion of a normative (...) reason to be normatively fundamental. Support-explanationism, we argue, enjoys many of the virtues of these views while avoiding their drawbacks. We conclude by exploring several further important implications: among other things, we argue that the influential metaphor of ‘weighing’ reasons is inapt, and propose a better one; that, contrary to what Berker (2019) suggests, there's no reason for non-naturalists about normativity to accept the Reasons-First view; and that, contrary to what Wodak (2020b) suggests, explanationist views can successfully accommodate what he calls ‘redundant reasons’. (shrink)

Accepting a promise is normatively significant in that it helps to secure promissory obligation. But what is it for B to accept A’s promise to φ? It is in part for B to intend A’s φ-ing. Thinking of acceptance in this way allows us to appeal to the distinctive role of intentions in practical reasoning and action to better understand the agency exercised by the promisee. The proposal also accounts for rational constraints on acceptance, and the so-called directedness of promissory (...) obligation. Finally, the proposal, conjoined with Cognitivism about intentions, addresses recent criticism of Scanlon’s expectation-based view of promissory obligation. (shrink)