Wenn man bedenkt, dass Immanuel Kant die klassischen Gottesbeweise schon als schlechthin falsch zermalmte, ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass Christian Wolffs Religionsphilosophie, die diese Gottesbeweise wiederaufgenommen zu haben scheint, weniger Interesse erweckt hat als zum Beispiel seine Moralphilosophie. Tatsächlich wird Christian Wolffs Theologia naturalis in jüngster Zeit auch als Paradebeispiel für die so genannte „gemäßigte“ Aufklärungsphilosophie angesehen. Denn er suchte nicht nur die Harmonie zwischen vernünftiger Gotteserkenntnis und christlicher Offenbarung nachzuweisen, sondern auch die Vertreter der „radikalen“ Aufklärungsphilosophie zu bekämpfen. Auf (...) der anderen Seite wurde Wolff selbst damals als Feind der christlichen Religion auf die Anklagebank gesetzt, wie Spinoza und Hobbes. Sein Versuch, die Offenbarung zu rechtfertigen, scheint auch mit den aufklärerischen Anforderungen seiner Philosophie widersprüchlich zu sein. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob Wolffs affirmative Stellungnahme zur christlichen Tradition mit seinem autonomen Rationalismus inhaltlich verträglich ist. Angesichts des scheinbar widersprüchlichen Zuges der Philosophie Wolffs und der gegensätzlichen Interpretationen von seiner Philosophie sind Detailstudien vonnöten. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird versucht, Wolffs Argumentationsstrategie in der natürlichen Theologie und der natürlichen Religion genau zu prüfen, um die Frage beantworten zu können: Wie wendete Christian Wolff seine philosophische Methode auf die Theologie an, um es für möglich zu halten, dass der Gebrauch des Verstandes unbeschränkt wird und zugleich dies der Religion nicht schaden würde? In den vier Kapiteln dieser Arbeit werden der Wunderbeweis, das Verhältnis der natürlichen Religion zur Moral, die Spinozismus-Kritik und der Beweis der Offenbarungsreligion bei Christian Wolff behandelt, da ihm damals vorgeworfen wurde, dass seine Philosophie das biblische Wunder, die natürliche und geoffenbarte Religion abgeschafft und den Weg der Radikalen beschritten hätte. Als Ergebnis wird sich herausstellen, dass der Beweis der Wahrheit der Offenbarungsreligion, um die Begierde der Christen nach dem Naturgesetz zu bestimmen, den roten Faden in Christian Wolffs Lebenswerk ausmacht. Wolffs Argumente für die natürliche und geoffenbarte Religion sind einerseits durchaus vereinbar mit den Forderungen seiner philosophischen Methode. Seine Gegner haben mit Recht in diesen Argumenten das größte Risiko für die Offenbarungsreligion gesehen. Andererseits hat Christian Wolff die Offenbarungsreligion nicht mit einer bloßen apologetischen Absicht verteidigt. Er war davon sehr überzeugt, dass sein System diese minimale Anforderung erfüllen konnte. Ihm lag mehr an der Frage, wie die christlichen Glaubenssätze die Begierde der Christen bestimmen, sodass sie auch nach dem Naturgesetz handeln können. (shrink)

Objectives: The growing rate of retraction of scientific publications has attracted much attention within the academic community, but there is little knowledge about the nature of such retractions in schizophrenia-related research. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of retractions of schizophrenia-related publications.

A longstanding orthodoxy holds that the Mohists regard the promotion of li (benefit, 利) as their ultimate normative criterion, meaning that they measure what is yi (just, 義) or buyi (unjust, 不義) depending on whether it maximizes li or not. This orthodoxy dates back at least to Joseph Edkins (1859), who saw Mozi as a utilitarian and an ally of Bentham. In this paper, we will argue that this orthodoxy should be reconsidered because it does not square with several passages (...) from the Mozi. That the Mohists place a strong weight on the promotion of ‘li for the whole world (tianxia zhi li, 天下之利)’ is uncontroversial. We argue, however, that in certain cases the Mohist moral calculus diverges in its rationale or outcome from li-promotionalism. This position rejects the orthodoxy by showing that Mohism and li-promotionalism are not entirely coterminous. (shrink)

The knowledge problem is based on the questions of what people can know, how they can know, and how they can reach the all-encompassing knowledge of the object. These problems have had an important place in the history of thought from the classical period to the contemporary period. In the history of Islamic thought, the problem of knowledge has been discussed as a fundamental issue. In this article, we will examine how Shihāb ad-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191), an Islamic philosopher who (...) lived in the 12th century, handled the problem of know- ledge. Suhrawardī deals with and criticizes the conceptual knowledge, which is the knowing as the philosophers called Peripatetic. The conceptual knowledge, which is defined as the occurrence of an image of something in the mind, suggests that in order to know something, it is necessary to have an image of that thing. Such type of knowledge, according to Suhrawardī, is far from giving the essence of the object because it is a type of knowledge which realized through an image or sense data. Rather, he proposes knowledge by presence, a type of knowledge that is acquired through direct cognition of reality. In knowledge by presence, one knows something directly without any prior knowledge and any mediation such as form or representation. Self-knowledge is a type of information obtained through knowledge by presence. With the thesis of knowledge by presence, Suhrawardī tries to show that Aristotle’s epistemology cannot give exact knowledge and aims to show th. (shrink)

In his “Treatise on Death, Life, Ghosts, and Spirits” (Sasaeng gwisin chaek 死生 鬼神策), Yulgok Yi I (1536-1584) rejects the Buddhist accounts of an afterlife because the dead have neither vital stuff (gi 氣; C. qi) nor consciousness (jigak 知覺; C. zhijue) when their death is natural and complete. Without these, there can neither be reward nor retribution, which is the basis of an afterlife. Yet, at the same time, Yulgok commends Confucian sacrifices for the dead. When there is utmost (...) sincerity (seong 誠; C. cheng) and pattern-principle (ri 理; C. li) to do so, the living can gather the dead’s already dissipated vital stuff. Yulgok argues that this is possible because the spirits of descendants are the spirits of their ancestors. This paper asks three questions that arise from the “Treatise” by bringing together Yulgok’s various works. First, how do the dead, with only pattern-principle, motivate the living to gather the dissipated vital stuff? Second, Yulgok explains that the living may gather the dissipated vital stuff of their ancestors by virtue of having the same spirit, but what does he mean by the “same spirit”? Third, why does Yulgok restrict certain classes from certain sacrifices when individuals can gather even the dissipated vital stuff with utmost sincerity? While answering each question, this paper aims to channel the discussions of vital stuff and objects to those of emotional and mental states, using a sacrifice as a medium. (shrink)

Li (禮) and yi (義) are two central moral concepts in the Analects. Li has a broad semantic range, referring to formal ceremonial rituals on the one hand, and basic rules of personal decorum on the other. What is similar across the range of referents is that the li comprise strictures of correct behavior. The li are a distinguishing characteristic of Confucian approaches to ethics and socio-political thought, a set of rules and protocols that were thought to constitute the wise (...) practices of ancient moral exemplars filtered down through dynasties of the past. However, even while the li were extensive and meant to be followed diligently, they were also understood as incapable of exhausting the whole range of activity that constitutes human life. There were bound to be situations in life where there would be no obvious recourse to the li for guidance. As part of their reflections on the good life, the Confucians maintained another moral concept that seemed to cover morally upright exemplary behavior in these types of situations. This concept is that of yi or rightness. In this chapter, I begin with a brief historical sketch to provide some context, and will then turn to li and yi in turn. In the end, I will suggest how li and yi were both meant to facilitate the supreme value of social harmony that pervades much of the Analects and serves as its ultimate orientation. (shrink)

Seguramente lo más interesante de la suspensión de la cuenta de Twitter del ya expresidente Trump después del asalto al Capitolio no sea el debate tan manido sobre los límites de la libertad de expresión, sino el hecho mucho más significativo de que hoy es Twitter quien decide sobre el estado de excepción. Para desentrañar esta particular relación entre técnica y estado de excepción tan característica de nuestro predicamento contemporáneo, hay que leer a Giorgio Agamben. En este sentido, el libro (...) de Juan Evaristo Valls Boix, Política sin obra, ofrece una introducción tan divulgativa como profunda al trabajo del filósofo político italiano. Este ejemplar se enmarca dentro de la colección Pensamiento político posfundacional de la Editorial Gedisa, que lleva desempeñando, en los últimos años, una labor pedagógica admirable a la hora de dar a conocer al público, en lengua castellana y catalana, los principales filósofos y filósofas de lo político que han problematizado cualquier tipo de fundacionalismo –Lyotard, Foucault, Arendt, Derrida, Lefort, Laclau, Mouffe, Badiou, Rancière, Butler, Nancy, Abensour y Anzaldúa, entre otros y otras–. Cuando llega el turno de introducir a Agamben, la directora de la colección, Laura Llevadot, ya avisa que se trata de una auténtica “introducción a la vida no fascista”, haciendo un guiño al prólogo de Foucault sobre el Anti-Edipo de Deleuze y Guattari. (shrink)

There are few institutions that talk about virtues as much as military organizations. These military virtues are not, however, possessed by individuals in isolation; they are inculcated and influenced by the countless ways in which values are shared, both among military members and between individuals and the military itself. Unfortunately, a normative framework that is extremely well-suited to capture this significant link between individual virtue and shared valuing, namely Confucian virtue theory, is too often underappreciated in militaries in general and (...) in military moral education in particular. Focusing on the normative significance of ritual and decorum, I analyze this shortcoming and consider how more explicitly incorporating Confucian virtue theory into military education could provide a sturdier foundation for the essential link between individual virtue and collective valuing. -/- Analyzing the Confucian the virtue of princispled ritual etiquette (li 禮), I demonstrate that while such attention to ritual might seem questionable when considering the classic rituals often used as examples, once the pervasive presence of military rituals becomes apparent, such attention to principled ritual etiquette begins to seem far less anachronistic. Analyzing principled ritual etiquette in relationship to righteousness (yi 義) and benevolence (ren 仁), I argue that Confucian virtue theory provides a significant and distinct way to analyze modern military virtues, concluding with an analysis of how that framework can highlight the significance of ritualistic behavior on virtue development without promoting excessive and corrosive subservience. -/- . (shrink)

In the Lunyu, Confucius remarks on the implausibility—or impossibility—of a life lacking in xin 信, reliability (2.22). In existing discussions of Confucian philosophy, this aspect of life is often eclipsed by greater emphasis on Confucian values such as ren 仁 (benevolence), li 禮 (propriety) and yi 義 (rightness). My discussion addresses this imbalance by focusing on reliability, extending current debates in two ways. First, it proposes that the common translation of xin as denoting coherence between a person’s words and deeds (...) is inadequate. The translation fails to capture the longer-term consistency in a person’s actions and behaviours in different circumstances across time. Second, it explores how the Lunyu passages discuss the processes of learning that prepare a person for reliable action. (shrink)

This seventh volume of Collected Papers includes 70 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2013-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 122 co-authors from 22 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel-Nasser Hussian, C. Alexander, Mumtaz Ali, Yaman Akbulut, Amir Abdullah, Amira S. Ashour, Assia Bakali, Kousik Bhattacharya, Kainat Bibi, R. N. Boyd, Ümit Budak, Lulu Cai, Cenap Özel, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Chunlai Du, Chunxin Bo, Rituparna Chutia, Cu Nguyen Giap, Dao The (...) Son, Vinayak Devvrat, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Fahad Alsharari, Feng Yongfei, S. Ganesan, Shivam Ghildiyal, Bibhas C. Giri, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ahmed Refaat Hawas, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, Hongbo Wang, Hongnian Yu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Saeid Jafari, Temitope Gbolahan Jaiyeola, Naeem Jan, R. Jeevitha, Jun Ye, Anup Khan, Madad Khan, Salma Khan, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Kifayat Ullah, Kishore Kumar P.K., Sujit Kumar De, Prasun Kumar Nayak, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Anam Luqman, Luu Quoc Dat, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa M. Malik, Nivetha Martin, Mai Mohamed, Parimala Mani, Mingcong Deng, Mohammed A. Al Shumrani, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Farshid Mofidnakhaei, Muhammad Shoaib, Muhammad Riaz, Karthika Muthusamy, Nabeela Ishfaq, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Sumera Naz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Noor ul Amin, Dragan Pamučar, Gabrijela Popović, S. Krishna Prabha, Surapati Pramanik, Priya R, Qiaoyan Li, Yaser Saber, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Saleem Abdullah, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Abdulkadir Sengür, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahzaib Ashraf, Shouzhen Zeng, Shio Gai Quek, Shuangwu Zhu, Shumaiza, Sidra Sayed, Sohail Iqbal, Songtao Shao, Sundas Shahzadi, Dragiša Stanujkić, Željko Stević, Udhayakumar Ramalingam, Zunaira Rashid, Hossein Rashmanlou, Rajkumar Verma, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Desmond Jun Yi Tey, Selçuk Topal, Naveed Yaqoob, Yanhui Guo, Yee Fei Gan, Yingcang Ma, Young Bae Jun, Yuping Lai, Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Wei Yang, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Lemnaouar Zedam. (shrink)

Abstract Human by nature are social beings. They tend to connect and relate with one another in spite of the individual differences they possess. As to the famous quote of an English poet John Donne, “No man is an island.” Man should necessarily relate with one another in order to thrive. But bearing in mind the individual differences of human beings, we cannot exclude the possibility of chaos, disorder, and discordance. That is why in a diverse society, man needs a (...) moral guide in order to achieve a harmonious social life. Man needs to resort to ethical views and principles in order to enrich their nature as social beings. Throughout the history of philosophy, there were various ethical views being introduced by different philosophers. One of the great traditions that offered major contribution in the field of ethics was the Chinese or Oriental tradition. The most notable philosopher in Chinese thought was Confucius. In this paper, the researcher will investigate the concept of Virtue in the light of the Confucian Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi, and Xin. These are considered to be the five constant virtues of Confucianism. Ren is the virtue of benevolence and humanity; Yi is that of honesty and uprightness; Zhi is knowledge and wisdom; Xin is faithfulness and integrity; and Li is propriety, good manners, and worship. The researcher will try to discuss each concept in order to have a better outlook on Confucian ethics. These virtues serve as the basis in developing a harmonious society and good government. The main question of this paper is: What is Confucius’ view on the five constant virtues? This paper only limits to the book of Confucius entitled, “The Analects” which is also supplemented by different secondary sources. The first part of this paper will discuss the background of Confucius and the five constant virtues in general. The second part of the paper will be an exposition of the five constant virtues. Then, the third part of the paper will be a brief discussion on the notion of gentleman – the end of the five constant virtues. The last part is the conclusion of the paper. (shrink)

This volume includes nineteen articles by scholars from Asia, North America, and Europe on Chinese thinkers from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Included here are intellectual biographies of literati such as Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi, Hu Hong, Wang Yangming, and Dai Zhen. Essays are arranged chronologically, and most begin with a biographical sketch of their subject. They provide variety rather than uniformity of approach, but all in all these essays are remarkably rich and offer (...) much new material on both familiar and lesser-known thinkers. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science in contemporary times is closer than ever. From the methodology perspective, scientific and philosophical research has a clear sequential relationship. It is highlighted in the following aspects: 1. the methodology of scientific research, including theoretical assumptions and data modeling, parallels with apparent similarities in conceptual analysis and logical deduction in philosophy;2. consistency of analytical argumentation methods in scientific research and philosophical research;3. naturalism is currently a research approach that both scientific and philosophical research adopt. (...) There has been a significant dispute over the relationship between philosophy and science among contemporary philosophers. This dispute focuses on the impact of scientific development on philosophy research. Nowadays, no one would deny the existence of this impact, but there is no consensus on the impact's nature, scope, and role. Wittgenstein's conception of certainty can provide valuable insights to understand the relationship between philosophy and science. In addition, we conclude the pragmatic turn in cognitive science because we misinterpret the cognitive scientists' emphasis on action as a practical claim and interpret the cognitive scientists' views with pragmatism. The theoretical analysis and research suggestions philosophers provide are becoming essential focuses in contemporary artificial intelligence research, including the interpretability of computer technology, the ethical norms of artificial intelligence technology, and the possible conception of human beings in the future. The interdisciplinary study of science and philosophy will achieve more significant development. In sum, understanding the nature of philosophy can be given a new explanation from a future perspective. The future outlook here refers to the starting point from possible world scenarios that can be conceived and traced back to all the facts happening in the present world, thereby giving an appropriate explanation to the real world. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science in contemporary times is closer than ever. From the methodology perspective, scientific and philosophical research has a clear sequential relationship. It is highlighted in the following aspects: 1. the methodology of scientific research, including theoretical assumptions and data modeling, parallels with apparent similarities in conceptual analysis and logical deduction in philosophy;2. consistency of analytical argumentation methods in scientific research and philosophical research;3. naturalism is currently a research approach that both scientific and philosophical research adopt. (...) There has been a significant dispute over the relationship between philosophy and science among contemporary philosophers. This dispute focuses on the impact of scientific development on philosophy research. Nowadays, no one would deny the existence of this impact, but there is no consensus on the impact's nature, scope, and role. Wittgenstein's conception of certainty can provide valuable insights to understand the relationship between philosophy and science. In addition, we conclude the pragmatic turn in cognitive science because we misinterpret the cognitive scientists' emphasis on action as a practical claim and interpret the cognitive scientists' views with pragmatism. The theoretical analysis and research suggestions philosophers provide are becoming essential focuses in contemporary artificial intelligence research, including the interpretability of computer technology, the ethical norms of artificial intelligence technology, and the possible conception of human beings in the future. The interdisciplinary study of science and philosophy will achieve more significant development. In sum, understanding the nature of philosophy can be given a new explanation from a future perspective. The future outlook here refers to the starting point from possible world scenarios that can be conceived and traced back to all the facts happening in the present world, thereby giving an appropriate explanation to the real world. (shrink)

Xunzi's philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used (...) as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together. (shrink)

Many philosophers endorse “exclusionism”, the view that no instance of relearning qualifies as a case of genuine remembering, and vice versa. Appealing to simulationist, distributed causalist, and trace minimalist theories of remembering, I develop three conditional arguments against exclusionism. First, if simulationism is right to hold that some cases of remembering involve reliance on post-event testimonial information, then remembering does not exclude relearning. Second, if distributed causalism is right to hold that memory traces are promiscuous, then remembering does not exclude (...) relearning. Finally, if trace minimalism is right to hold that vicarious experiences sometimes produce the minimal traces that ground remembering, then remembering does not exclude relearning. While advocates of these theories might incorporate additional conditions designed to accommodate exclusionism, the only reason they can appeal to in favor of doing so is intuition: neither the fundamental components of the theories nor the empirical results on which they are based provide a reason to endorse exclusionism. An investigation of exclusionism thus raises metaphilosophical questions, so far overlooked in philosophy of memory, about the appropriate role of intuition in theorizing about remembering. (shrink)

Here I respond to Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer’s “The Evil of Death: A Reply to Yi.” They developed an influential strategy in defense of the deprivation account of death’s badness against the Lucretian symmetry problem. The core of their argument consists in the claim that it is rational for us to welcome future intrinsic goods while being indifferent to past intrinsic goods. Previously, I argued that their approach is compatible with the evil of late birth insofar as an (...) earlier birth would have generated more goods in the future. In reply, Brueckner and Fischer argue that my critique fails to appreciate an important aspect of their thought experiment, which aims only to show that the deprivation of past goods per se is not bad for us. Thus, purportedly, my critique poses no threat to their view. Here I argue that since the deprivation account explains the evil of death with recourse to how one’s life would have fared had one lived longer, it ought to respond to the symmetry problem with reference to how one’s life would have fared had one been born earlier. However, it is not generally true that the life one would have had with an earlier birth is not preferable to one’s actual life, because in many cases such a life would contain more future goods. (shrink)

Does self-control require willpower? The question cuts to the heart of a debate about whether self-control is identical with some psychological process internal to the agents or not. Noticeably absent from these debates is systematic evidence about the folk-psychological category of self-control. Here, we present the results of two behavioral studies (N = 296) that indicate the structure of everyday use of the concept. In Study 1, participants rated the degree to which different strategies to respond to motivational conflict exemplify (...) self-control. Participants distinguished between intra-psychic and externally-scaffolded strategies and judged that the former exemplified self-control more than the latter. In Study 2, participants provided various solutions to manage motivational conflict and rated their proposals on effectiveness. Participants produced substantially more intra-psychic strategies, rated them as more effective, and advised them at a higher rate than externally-scaffolded strategies. Taken together, these results suggest that while people recognize a plurality of strategies as genuine instances of self-control, purely internal exercises of self-control are considered more prototypical than their externally-scaffolded counterparts. This implies a hierarchical structure for the folk psychological category of self-control. The concept encompasses a variety of regulatory strategies and organizes these strategies along a hierarchical continuum, with purely intra-psychic strategies at the center and scaffolded strategies in the periphery. (shrink)

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between knowledge management systems, particularly emphasizing knowledge acquisition and dissemination, and their impact on academic staff's teaching motivation. By employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), data from 676 academic staff at higher education institutions in Vietnam was analyzed, revealing a complex interplay of factors. Notably, positive associations were found between knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and teaching motivation. However, the interaction effect of knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination appeared to be negatively associated with teaching motivation. (...) This suggests the possible existence of a resource curse of knowledge in improving staff’s teaching motivation. It is recommended that the knowledge systems are refined to reduce complexity and that staff are trained with better knowledge processing methods for reducing resource curse risks. (shrink)

In analyzing oppressive systems like racism, social theorists have articulated accounts of the dynamic interaction and mutual dependence between psychological components, such as individuals’ patterns of thought and action, and social components, such as formal institutions and informal interactions. We argue for the further inclusion of physical components, such as material artifacts and spatial environments. Drawing on socially situated and ecologically embedded approaches in the cognitive sciences, we argue that physical components of racism are not only shaped by, but also (...) shape psychological and social components of racism. Indeed, while our initial focus is on racism and racist things, we contend that our framework is also applicable to other oppressive systems, including sexism, classism, and ableism. This is because racist things are part of a broader class of oppressive things, which are material artifacts and spatial environments that are in congruence with an oppressive system. (shrink)

Much of our know-how is acquired through practice: we learn how to cook by cooking, how to write by writing, and how to dance by dancing. As Aristotle argues, however, this kind of learning is puzzling, since engaging in it seems to require possession of the very knowledge one seeks to obtain. After showing how a version of the puzzle arises from a set of attractive principles, I argue that the best solution is to hold that knowledge-how comes in degrees, (...) and through practice a person gradually learns how to do something. However, the two standard accounts of know-how in the literature, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, cannot properly account for the distinctive way in which know-how is gradually acquired by practice, a process in which conceptual representations and practical abilities are intimately interwoven. Drawing on Gareth Evans's work, I outline an account that may do so, and use this account to distinguish between two forms of learning to explain why skill generally cannot be learnt through testimony, and requires practice. (shrink)

This book addresses key conceptual issues relating to the modern scientific and engineering use of computer simulations. It analyses a broad set of questions, from the nature of computer simulations to their epistemological power, including the many scientific, social and ethics implications of using computer simulations. The book is written in an easily accessible narrative, one that weaves together philosophical questions and scientific technicalities. It will thus appeal equally to all academic scientists, engineers, and researchers in industry interested in questions (...) related to the general practice of computer simulations. (shrink)

It is well-known that racism is encoded into the social practices and institutions of medicine. Less well-known is that racism is encoded into the material artifacts of medicine. We argue that many medical devices are not merely biased, but materialize oppression. An oppressive device exhibits a harmful bias that reflects and perpetuates unjust power relations. Using pulse oximeters and spirometers as case studies, we show how medical devices can materialize oppression along various axes of social difference, including race, gender, class, (...) and ability. Our account uses political philosophy and cognitive science to give a theoretical basis for understanding materialized oppression, explaining how artifacts encode and carry oppressive ideas from the past to the present and future. Oppressive medical devices present a moral aggregation problem. To remedy this problem, we suggest redundantly layered solutions that are coordinated to disrupt reciprocal causal connections between the attitudes, practices, and artifacts of oppressive systems. (shrink)

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist’s world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent’s propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support anti-intellectualism and (...) argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate attention-control account, according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified, skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention’s activation; hence, the need for reflecting throughout performance. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that if an agent acts intentionally, she must know what she is doing. Although the scholarly consensus for many years was to reject the thesis in light of presumed counterexamples by Donald Davidson, several scholars have recently argued that attention to aspectual distinctions and the practical nature of this knowledge shows that these counterexamples fail. In this paper I defend a new objection against the thesis, one modelled after Timothy Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument. Since this argument relies on (...) general principles about the nature of knowledge rather than on intuitions about fringe cases, the recent responses that have been given to defuse the force of Davidson’s objection are silent against it. Moreover, the argument suggests that even weaker theses connecting practical entities with knowledge are also false. Recent defenders of the thesis that there is a necessary connection between knowledge and intentional action are motivated by the insight that this connection is non-accidental. I close with a positive proposal to account for the non-accidentality of this link without appeal to necessary connections by drawing an extended analogy between practical and perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Normal interpersonal treatment is often based on the existence of the rational nature of both the agent and the target of the treatment, and their relationship is reciprocal and mutual. However, when the rational person confronts the irrational person, such as the mentally retarded or vegetative person, the reciprocal relationship cannot be maintained because the targeted person loses his or her rational capacity. But this inequality does not deprive the object of action of the right to be treated rationally, because (...) people treat the irrationally disabled not according to the principle of reason but according to the principle of emotion - specifically, the principle of love. The principle of love often disregards the specific conditions of the object of treatment and still treats them reasonably. Thus, the emotional principle has a broader application in interpersonal treatment. (shrink)

The two main theories of perceptual reasons in contemporary epistemology can be called Phenomenalism and Factualism. According to Phenomenalism, perceptual reasons are facts about experiences conceived of as phenomenal states, i.e., states individuated by phenomenal character, by what it’s like to be in them. According to Factualism, perceptual reasons are instead facts about the external objects perceived. The main problem with Factualism is that it struggles with bad cases: cases where perceived objects are not what they appear or where there (...) is no perceived object at all. The main problem with Phenomenalism is that it struggles with good cases: cases where everything is perfectly normal and the external object is correctly perceived, so that one’s perceptual beliefs are knowledge. In this paper we show that there is a theory of perceptual reasons that avoids the problems for Factualism and Phenomenalism. We call this view Propositionalism. We use ‘proposition’ broadly to mean the entities that are contents of beliefs and other doxastic attitudes. The key to finding a middle ground between Phenomenalism and Factualism, we claim, is to allow our reasons to be false in bad cases. Despite being false, they are about the external world, not our phenomenal states. (shrink)

Item response theory (IRT) is a modern psychometric framework for estimating respondents’ latent traits (e.g., ability, attitude, and personality) based on their responses to a set of questions in psychological tests. The current study adopted an item response tree (IRTree) method, which combines the tree model with IRT models for handling the sequential process of responding to a test item, to score individual moral inclination for the CNI test—a broadly adopted model for examining humans’ moral decision-making with three parameters generated: (...) sensitivity to moral norms, sensitivity to consequences, and inaction preference. Compared to previous models for the CNI test, the resulting EIRTree-CNI Model is able to generate individual scores without increasing the number of items (thus, less subject fatigue or compromised response quality) or employing a post hoc approach that is deemed statistically suboptimal. The model fits the data well, and the subsequent test also supported the concurrent validity and the predictive validity of the model. Limitations are discussed further. (shrink)

Tscha Hung was a member of the Vienna Circle who achieved high international academic recognition. He dedicated his entire life to spreading the philosophy of the Circle to China and developed deep insights in his criticisms to that philosophy. Hung was a witness to the encounter of Western and Chinese philosophy in the twentieth century. His debate with Fung You-lan on metaphysics reflects different understandings of the nature of philosophy and metaphysics as well as different perspectives. Hung defended the position (...) of metaphysics in Chinese philosophy in his own way and engaged in a contemporary reconstruction of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

Peirce’s pragmatic maxim is closely related to his conception of abduction. The acquisition of the actual effect required by the method of scientific reasoning expressed by Peirce’s maxim must be accomplished by resorting to abductive logic. Abductive logic starts from a surprising fact, derives a hypothetical explanation about that fact, and finally arrives at the possibility that the hypothesis is true. This is the process of abductive reasoning, as provided by Peirce, which is distinct from induction and deduction and generates (...) explanatory views. Peirce opposed a unified and unchangeable concept of causality. He used different interpretations of causality to illustrate the considerable differences in people’s understanding of cause and effect in different periods. The concept of pragmatism, as developed from the pragmatic maxim to abduction and then to scientific inference to the best explanation, is precisely what Peirce initially proposed, and inference to the best explanation is the starting point and the final result of the pragmatic maxim. (shrink)

This article aims to develop a new account of scientific explanation for computer simulations. To this end, two questions are answered: what is the explanatory relation for computer simulations? And what kind of epistemic gain should be expected? For several reasons tailored to the benefits and needs of computer simulations, these questions are better answered within the unificationist model of scientific explanation. Unlike previous efforts in the literature, I submit that the explanatory relation is between the simulation model and the (...) results of the simulation. I also argue that our epistemic gain goes beyond the unificationist account, encompassing a practical dimension as well. (shrink)

By “epistemic pragmatism” in general I will understand the claim that whether propositions instantiate certain key epistemic properties (such as being known or being justifiably believed) depends not just on factors traditionally recognized as epistemic, but also on pragmatic factors, such as how costly it would be to the subject if the proposition were false. In what follows I consider two varieties of epistemic pragmatism. According to what I shall call moderate epistemic pragmatism, how much evidence we need in favor (...) of a proposition in order to know that the proposition is true depends on our preferences. According to what I shall call extreme epistemic pragmatism, on the other hand, our preferences influence our epistemic position at a more basic level, because they help determine how much justification we actually have in favor of the proposition in question. Simplifying brutally, moderate epistemic pragmatism has it that the more worried we are about a proposition’s being false, the more justification we need in order to know it, whereas extreme epistemic pragmatism has it that the more worried we are about a proposition’s being false, the less justification we have for it. Recently, Fantl and McGrath have presented an interesting argument for moderate epistemic pragmatism, an argument which relies on the principle that (roughly) knowledge is sufficient for action (KA). In this paper I argue that KA, together with a plausible principle about second-order evidence, entails extreme epistemic pragmatism. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

In the last decades there has been a great controversy about the scientific status of emotion categories. This controversy stems from the idea that emotions are heterogeneous phenomena, which precludes classifying them under a common kind. In this article, I analyze this claim—which I call the Variability Thesis—and argue that as it stands, it is problematically underdefined. To show this, I examine a recent formulation of the thesis as offered by Scarantino (2015). On one hand, I raise some issues regarding (...) the logical structure of the claim. On the other hand, and most importantly, I show that the Variability Thesis requires a consensus about what counts as a relevant pattern of response in different domains, a consensus that is lacking in the current literature. This makes it difficult to assess what counts as evidence for or against this thesis. As a result, arguments based on the Variability Thesis are unwarranted. This raises serious concerns about some current empirical theories of emotions, but also sheds light on the issue of the scientific status of emotion categories. (shrink)

Self-control is the ability to inhibit temptations and persist in one’s decisions about what to do. In this article, we review recent evidence that suggests implicit beliefs about the process of self-control influence how the process operates. While earlier work focused on the moderating influence of willpower beliefs on depletion effects, we survey new directions in the field that emphasize how beliefs about the nature of self-control, self-control strategies, and their effectiveness have effects on downstream regulation and judgment. These new (...) directions highlight the need to better understand the role of self-control beliefs in naturalistic decision-making. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop the concept of episodic value, which describes a form of value connected to a particular object or individual expressed and delivered through a narrative. Narrative can bestow special kinds of value on objects, as exemplified by auction articles or museum collections. To clarify the nature of episodic value, I show how the notion of episodic value fundamentally differs from the traditional axiological picture. I extend my discussion of episodic value to argue that the notion of (...) episodic value readily incorporates the role of narratives into the construction of identity in personal and social contexts. My main contentions are twofold. First, events or experiences from our personal narratives are episodically valuable insofar as they contribute to shaping our narrative identities. Second, when engaged in a collective action, we write a joint narrative with other participants that confers special meanings on the actions of each participant. (shrink)

Richard Feldman has proposed and defended different versions of a principle about evidence. In slogan form, the principle holds that ‘evidence of evidence is evidence’. Recently, Branden Fitelson has argued that Feldman’s preferred rendition of the principle falls pray to a counterexample related to the non-transitivity of the evidence-for relation. Feldman replies arguing that Fitelson’s case does not really represent a counterexample to the principle. In this note, we argue that Feldman’s principle is trivially true.

Critics across the political spectrum have worried that ordinary uses of words like 'racist', 'sexist', and 'homophobic' are becoming conceptually inflated, meaning that these expressions are getting used so widely that they lose their nuance and, thereby, their moral force. However, the charge of conceptual inflation, as well as responses to it, are standardly made without any systematic investigation of how 'racist' and other expressions condemning oppression are actually used in ordinary language. Once we examine large linguistic corpora to see (...) how these expressions are actually used, we find that English speakers have a rich linguistic repertoire for qualifying the degree to which and dimensions along which something is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. These facts about ordinary usage undermine the charge of conceptual inflation. Without awareness of facts about ordinary usage, theorists risk making linguistic prescriptions that are unnecessary or counterproductive. (shrink)

Evidentialism and Reliabilism are two of the main contemporary theories of epistemic justification. Some authors have thought that the theories are not incompatible with each other, and that a hybrid theory which incorporates elements of both should be taken into account. More recently, other authors have argued that the resulting theory is well- placed to deal with fine-grained doxastic attitudes (credences). In this paper I review the reasons for adopting this kind of hybrid theory, paying attention to the case of (...) credences and the notion of probability involved in their treatment. I argue that the notion of probability in question can only be an epistemic (or evidential) kind of probability. I conclude that the resulting theory will be incompatible with Reliabilism in one important respect: it cannot deliver on the reductivist promise of Reliabilism. I also argue that attention to the justification of basic beliefs reveals limitations in the Evidentialist framework as well. The theory that results from the right combination of Evidentialism and Reliabilism, therefore, is neither Evidentialist nor Reliabilist. (shrink)

La migración internacional nos enfrenta con problemas irresolubles desde la figura moderna del Estado nacional, su concepto de ciudadanía y su noción de justicia. Juan Carlos Velasco critica las limitaciones y la orientación de las políticas contemporáneas que nos hacen percibir a la migración como una “invasión”, y propone un modo radicalmente diferente de entender e intervenir el fenómeno desde lo trasnacional. Nacer de uno u otro lado de una línea divisoria es un evento azaroso, no obstante delimitar la (...) frontera es una construcción histórico-política: la desigualdad en las oportunidades que ofrecen las naciones es una situación estructural de injusticia que se perpetúa con las políticas de exclusión de los migrantes y la deslegitimación de su derecho a buscar una vida mejor. Esa circunstancia genera fracturas sociales, injustificables pero normalizadas, que imposibilitan alcanzar la justicia global. Velasco presenta un análisis completo que abarca las dimensiones política, jurídica y moral del tema, en el que lleva a la filosofía política a un terreno práctico del que se desprenden las claves para entender y actuar en esta nueva era en la que, debido a los conflictos sociales y políticos, la migración vuelve a ser argumento de discusión relevante. (Texto de la CONTRAPORTADA del libro). (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to trace the origin of the systematic cross-cultural variations in referential intuitions by investigating the effects of perspective taking on people’s responses in the Gödel-style probes through two novel experiments. Here is how we will proceed. In section 2, we first briefly introduce the MMNS (2004) study, and then critically review the two relevant studies conducted by Sytsma and colleagues (i.e., Sytsma and Livengood 2011; Sytsma et al. 2015). In section 3, we introduce the literature (...) on cross-cultural variation in perspective taking in cultural psychology, which together with the conjecture of perspectival ambiguity leads to the hypothesis of our current study. In sections 4 and 5, two new experiments on how perspective taking affects people’s responses in hypothetical stories modelled on the Gödel thought experiment will be reported. Based on the empirical findings, in section 6 we argue that the robust cross-cultural variations thus far observed in people’s responses to the Gödel cases are largely attributable to culturally specific perspective-taking strategies, which provides new support for the proposal previously made by Sytsma and Livengood (2011). The implications of the experimental results for the ongoing work of testing the theories of refence of names and for the current metaphilosophical debate on the robustness of philosopher’s intuitions are also drawn in this section. Finally, the major conclusions and contributions of the current study are highlighted in section 7. (shrink)

Huw Price and Ken Wharton claimed recently in their paper published in The Conversation that quantum mechanics shows that the future can influence the past. According to their paper, many scientists are convinced about it. However, there is still something mystical for philosophers. The first is about the definition of retrocausality and its philosophical relation to causality. Second, it is concerned with understanding the relationship between cause and effect, not only scientifically but also logically. In this talk, I will answer (...) the two questions by analyzing the concept of temporality and by examining the counterfactual and overdetermination. I found a tension in understanding the concept of necessity in the physical and logical sense. Finally, I will argue that the time reversal asymmetry does not imply retrocausality, and the phenomenon of retrocausality does not exist in reality but only in logic. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibility of integrating the enactive and the Free Energy Principle’s (FEP) approaches to life and mind. Both frameworks have been linked to the life-mind continuity thesis, but recent debates challenge their potential integration. Critics argue that the enactive approach, rooted in autopoiesis theory, has an internalist view of life and a contentful view of cognition, making it challenging to account for adaptive behavior and minimal cognition. Similarly, some find the FEP’s stationary view of life biologically implausible. (...) Here, I address recent challenges in integrating the FEP and enactivism, thereby focusing on the life-mind continuity thesis. I suggest that the FEP, without explicitly defining life and mind, can be used to model the autopoietic dynamics of organisms. Additionally, I argue that the enactive conception of cognition as sense-making overcomes issues associated with contentful views of cognition. Furthermore, I refute the misinterpretation of the FEP’s assertion of stationary organisms, allowing for the modeling of enactive adaptive behavior through free energy minimization. Ultimately, I offer a constructive and interactionist approach to life and mind, transcending internalist and externalist perspectives. (shrink)

In this work, we discuss the failure of the principle of truth functionality in the quantum formalism. By exploiting this failure, we import the formalism of N-matrix theory and non-deterministic semantics to the foundations of quantum mechanics. This is done by describing quantum states as particular valuations associated with infinite non-deterministic truth tables. This allows us to introduce a natural interpretation of quantum states in terms of a non-deterministic semantics. We also provide a similar construction for arbitrary probabilistic theories based (...) in orthomodular lattices, allowing to study post-quantum models using logical techniques. (shrink)

The enactive approach to cognition and the phenomenological tradition have in common a wide conception of ‘intentionality’. Within these frameworks, intentionality is understood as a general openness to the world. For classical phenomenologists, the most basic subjective structure that allows for such openness is time-consciousness. Some enactivists, while inspired by the phenomenological tradition, have nevertheless argued that affectivity is more basic, being that which gives rise to the temporal flow of consciousness. In this paper, I assess the relationship between temporality (...) and affectivity from both a phenomenological and an enactive perspective. I argue that, as opposed to the classical phenomenological view (which favours temporality), and to the enactive view (which favours affectivity), we must take affectivity and temporality as co-emergent. Jointly, affectivity and temporality constitute the basic structures of intentionality. Additionally, using examples from phenomenological psychopathology, I conclude that all intentionality is defined by an anticipatory and affective structure that gives rise to general feelings related to our bodily possibilities in the world. (shrink)

Though there is a wide and varied literature on ethical supererogation, there has been almost nothing written about its epistemic counterpart, despite an intuitive analogy between the two fields. This paper seeks to change this state of affairs. I will begin by showing that there are examples which intuitively feature epistemically supererogatory doxastic states. Next, I will present a positive theory of epistemic supererogation that can vindicate our intuitions in these examples, in an explanation that parallels a popular theory of (...) ethical supererogation. Roughly, I will argue that a specific type of epistemic virtue—the ability to creatively think up plausible hypotheses given a body of evidence—is not required of epistemic agents. Thus, certain exercises of this virtue can result in supererogatory doxastic states. In presenting this theory, I will also show how thinking about epistemic supererogation can provide us a new way forward in the debate about the uniqueness thesis for epistemic rationality. (shrink)

I argue for a novel interpretation of Leibniz’s conception of the kind of contingency that matters for freedom, which I label ‘agential contingency.’ In brief, an agent is free to the extent that she determines herself to do what she judges to be the best of several considered options that she could have brought about had she concluded that these options were best. I use this novel interpretation to make sense of Leibniz’s doctrine that the reasons that explain free actions (...) are merely inclining and not necessitating. (shrink)