Proceedings of Philosophical Festival Drift 2014. Theme: Under Influence. Includes lectures by Katrien Schaubroeck, Philippe Descola, Markus Gabriel, Ray Brassier, Francesco Berto, Henk Oosterling, and Tomáš Sedlácek (among others). Lectures are in Dutch or English.

In this paper, we take up an old issue that of pragmemes, broached by Mey and further explored by Capone. It is not easy to define pragmemes and distinguish them sufficiently from speech acts (units of language use broached by Austin and Searle) or from Wittgensteinian language games or from macro speech acts (see van Dijk on macrostructures) or from Goffman’s scripts. The best idea we could develop about pragmemes is that they instantiate the triple articulation of language, proposed by (...) Jock Wong; being essentially composed of phonological-syntactic units, that have a certain content relative to a social situation and to a certain culture, pragmemes express a certain function (or illocutionary force), like, e.g., modifying society or some aspect of it. They are part of a chapter that can be called either “societal pragmatics” or “emancipatory pragmatics,” to use the words by Mey. In fact, knowledge of how language is used to diminish the rights of people and to propagate the “status quo” may be instrumental to give rights and power to ordinary human beings who are oppressed by political and economical structures. -/- . (shrink)

Drawing upon the recent theoretical framework of Burkean concept of identification (ID), the current study aims at probing the interaction of content and form in two letters penned by Iran’s Supreme Leader and addressed to the Youth on Jan. and Nov. 2015. To this end, the study seeks (i) to determine a role ID takes in the conveyance of intended assumptions to the targeted readers; and (ii) to observe if the writer’s objectives, i.e. to identify himself with the readers and (...) to realize his politically-religiously-infused creeds, result in success or failure; moreover, (iii) it seeks to determine how he achieved his end to attenuate the impacts of blazing inferno of Islamophobia and anti-Islam sentiments in his addressees. The whole corpus (about 3000 words), in light of van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive approach, is critically perused to seek out contextually-coded expressions. The study tries to set out a manner in which political text/talk could be analyzed rhetorically employing ID concept. It was found that ID as a two-way process is a key component for both parties to identify with. It makes the readers align themselves with the writer and helps the writer to associate with the readers and accomplish his goals. (shrink)

This paper examines the origin, range and meaning of the Principle of Action and Reaction in Kant’s mechanics. On the received view, it is a version of Newton’s Third Law. I argue that Kant meant his principle as foundation for a Leibnizian mechanics. To find a ‘Newtonian’ law of action and reaction, we must look to Kant’s ‘dynamics,’ or theory of matter. I begin, in part I, by noting marked differences between Newton’s and Kant’s laws of action and reaction. I (...) argue that these are explainable by Kant’s allegiance to a Leibnizian mechanics. I show (in part II) that Leibniz too had a model of action and reaction, at odds with Newton’s. Then I reconstruct how Jakob Hermann and Christian Wolff received Leibniz’s model. I present (in Part III) Kant’s early law of action and reaction for mechanics. I show that he devised it so as to solve extant problems in the Hermann-Wolff account. I reconstruct Kant’s views on ‘mechanical’ action and reaction in the 1780s, and highlight strong continuities with his earlier, pre-Critical stance. I use these continuities, and Kant’s earlier engagement with post-Leibnizians, to explain the un-Newtonian features of his law of action and reaction. (shrink)

This paper examines the young Kant’s claim that all motion is relative, and argues that it is the core of a metaphysical dynamics of impact inspired by Leibniz and Wolff. I start with some background to Kant’s early dynamics, and show that he rejects Newton’s absolute space as a foundation for it. Then I reconstruct the exact meaning of Kant’s relativity, and the model of impact he wants it to support. I detail (in Section II and III) his polemic engagement (...) with Wolffian predecessors, and how he grounds collisions in a priori dynamics. I conclude that, for the young Kant, the philosophical problematic of Newton’s science takes a back seat to an agenda set by the Leibniz-Wolff tradition of rationalist dynamics. This results matters, because Kant’s views on motion survive well into the 1780s. In addition, his doctrine attests to the richness of early modern views of the relativity of motion. (shrink)

Newton rested his theory of mechanics on distinct metaphysical and epistemological foundations. After Leibniz's death in 1716, the Principia ran into sharp philosophical opposition from Christian Wolff and his disciples, who sought to subvert Newton's foundations or replace them with Leibnizian ideas. In what follows, I chronicle some of the Wolffians' reactions to Newton's notion of absolute space, his dynamical laws of motion, and his general theory of gravitation. I also touch on arguments advanced by Newton's Continental followers, such as (...) Leonhard Euler, who made novel attempts to defend his mechanical foundations against the pro-Leibnizian attack. This examination grants us deeper insight into the fate of Newton's mechanics on the Continent during the early eighteenth century and, more specifically, sheds needed light on the conflicts and tensions that characterized the reception of Newton's philosophy of mechanics among the Leibnizians. (shrink)

My thesis in this paper is: the modern concept of laws of motion—qua dynamical laws—emerges in 18th-century mechanics. The driving factor for it was the need to extend mechanics beyond the centroid theories of the late-1600s. The enabling result behind it was the rise of differential equations. -/- In consequence, by the mid-1700s we see a deep shift in the form and status of laws of motion. The shift is among the critical inflection points where early modern mechanics turns into (...) classical mechanics as we know it. Previously, laws of motion had been channels for truth and reference into mechanics. By 1750, the laws lose these features. Instead, now they just assert equalities between functions; and serve just to entail (differential) equations of motion for particular mechanical setups. This creates two philosophical problems. First, it’s unclear what counts as evidence for the laws of motion in the Enlightenment. Second, it’s a mystery whether these laws retain any notion of causality. That subverts the early-modern dictum that physics is a science of causes. (shrink)

Much early modern metaphysics grew with an eye to the new science of its time, but few figures took it as seriously as Emilie du Châtelet. Happily, her oeuvre is now attracting close, renewed attention, and so the time is ripe for looking into her metaphysical foundation for empirical theory. Accordingly, I move here to do just that. I establish two conclusions. First, du Châtelet's basic metaphysics is a robust realism. Idealist strands, while they exist, are confined to non-basic regimes. (...) Second, her substance realism seems internally coherent, so her foundational project appears successful.I have two aims in this paper. Historically, I show that du Châtelet's main source of inspiration was Christian... (shrink)

We contrast two theoretical positions on the relation between phenomenal and access consciousness. First, we discuss previous data supporting a mild Overflow position, according to which transient visual awareness can overflow report. These data are open to two interpretations: (i) observers transiently experience specific visual elements outside attentional focus without encoding them into working memory; (ii) no specific visual elements but only statistical summaries are experienced in such conditions. We present new data showing that under data-limited conditions observers cannot discriminate (...) a simple relation (same versus different) without discriminating the elements themselves and, based on additional computational considerations, we argue that this supports the first interpretation: summary statistics (same/different) are grounded on the transient experience of elements. Second, we examine recent data from a variant of ‘inattention blindness’ and argue that contrary to widespread assumptions, it provides further support for Overflow by highlighting another factor, ‘task relevance’, which affects the ability to conceptualize and report (but not experience) visual element. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Modern philosophy of physics debates whether motion is absolute or relative. The debate began in the 1600s, so it deserves a close look here. Primarily, it was a controversy in metaphysics, but it had epistemic aspects too. I begin with the former, and then touch upon the latter at the end.

Much scholarship has claimed the physics of Emilie du Châtelet’s treatise, Institutions de physique, is Newtonian. I argue against that idea. To do so, I distinguish three strands of meaning for the category ‘Newtonian science,’ and I examine her book against them. I conclude that her physics is not Newtonian in any useful or informative sense. To capture what is specific about it, we need better interpretive categories.

I examine here if Kant can explain our knowledge of duration by showing that time has metric structure. To do so, I spell out two possible solutions: time’s metric could be intrinsic or extrinsic. I argue that Kant’s resources are too weak to secure an intrinsic, transcendentally-based temporal metrics; but he can supply an extrinsic metric, based in a metaphysical fact about matter. I conclude that Transcendental Idealism is incomplete: it cannot account for the durative aspects of experience—or it can (...) do so only with help from a non-trivial metaphysics of material substance. (shrink)

I emphasize two merits of Eric Watkins’ account in "Kant on Laws": the strong evidential support it has, and the central place it gives to Kant’s laws of mechanics. Then, I raise two questions for further research. 1. What kind of evidential reasoning confirms a Kantian law? 2. Do natures explain Kantian laws? If so, how?

I argue that the key dynamical concepts and laws of Newton's Principia never gained a solid foothold in Germany before Kant in the 1750s. I explain this absence as due to Leibniz. Thus I make a case for a robust Leibnizian legacy for Enlightenment science, and I solve what Jonathan Israel called “a meaningful historical problem on its own,” viz. the slow and hesitant reception of Newton in pre-Kantian Germany.

Newton had a fivefold argument that true motion must be motion in absolute space, not relative to matter. Like Newton, Kant holds that bodies have true motions. Unlike him, though, Kant takes all motion to be relative to matter, not to space itself. Thus, he must respond to Newton’s argument above. I reconstruct here Kant’s answer in detail. I prove that Kant addresses just one part of Newton’s case, namely, his “argument from the effects” of rotation. And, to show that (...) rotation is relative to matter, Kant changes the meaning of ‘relative motion.’ However, that change puts Kant’s doctrine in deep tension with Newton’s science. Based on my construal, I correct earlier readings of Kant by John Earman and Martin Carrier. And, I argue that we need to revise Michael Friedman’s influential view of Kant. Kant’s struggle, I conclude, illustrate the difficulties that early modern relationists faced as they turned down Newtonian absolute space ; and it typifies their selective engagement with Newton’s case for it. (shrink)

I uncover here a conflict in Kant’s natural philosophy. His matter theory and laws of mechanics are in tension. Kant’s laws are fit for particles but are too narrow to handle continuous bodies, which his doctrine of matter demands. To fix this defect, Kant ultimately must ground the Torque Law; that is, the impressed torque equals the change in angular momentum. But that grounding requires a premise—the symmetry of the stress tensor—that Kant denies himself. I argue that his problem would (...) not arise if he had kept his early theory of matter as made of mass points, or “physical monads.”. (shrink)

The problem of trickster leadership is discussed in this chapter in the context of the Romanian experience of modernity. This experience has emerged as a Post-Byzantine condition; it was strongly marked by the forty years of communist regimes and was loaded with a high amount of duplicity and ambivalence. The chapter argues that the communist type of trickster leadership in Romania was the outcome of a clash between two types of corruption: a domestic one and a global one. The idea (...) of ‘forms without substance’, coined in 1868 by the historian Titu Maiorescu, is shown to be indicative of the exilic condition in which Romanians remained caught even after their country became independent. The description of this paradoxical condition is followed by a review of the main eras of Romania as a modern state, arguing that this condition has led to an accumulation of disharmony and the absurd in the social fabric of the people. (shrink)

Early modern foundations for mechanics came in two kinds, nomic and material. I examine here the dynamical laws and pictures of matter given respectively by Newton, Leibniz, and Kant. I argue that they fall short of their foundational task, viz. to represent enough kinematic behavior; or at least to explain it. In effect, for the true foundations of classical mechanics we must look beyond Newton, Leibniz, and Kant.

I explain and assess here Huygens’ concept of relative motion. I show that it allows him to ground most of the Law of Inertia, and also to explain rotation. Thereby his concept obviates the need for Newton’s absolute space. Thus his account is a powerful foundation for mechanics, though not without some tension.

I examine here if Kant’s metaphysics of matter can support any late-modern versions of classical mechanics. I argue that in principle it can, by two different routes. I assess the interpretive costs of each approach, and recommend the most promising strategy: a mass-point approach.

This Element analyzes Kant’s metaphysics and epistemology of the exact science of nature. It explains his theory of true motion and ontology of matter. In addition, it reconstructs the patterns of evidential reasoning behind Kant’s foundational doctrines.

Nghiên cứu xác định các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến Vận dụng kế toán môi trường của các doanh nghiệp sản xuất tỉnh Hưng Yên. Kết quả nghiên cứu xác định có 5 nhân tố ảnh hưởng, bao gồm: Lĩnh vực hoạt động sản xuất của doanh nghiệp; Nguồn lực tài chính; Nhận thức của chủ thể doanh nghiệp và Áp lực của các bên liên quan; Quy mô doanh nghiệp ảnh hưởng đến việc vận dụng kế toán môi trường. (...) Trong đó, nhân tố Lĩnh vực hoạt động sản xuất tác động mạnh nhất đến việc Vận dụng kế toán môi trường trong các doanh nghiệp sản xuất tại tỉnh Hưng Yên. (shrink)

This chapter looks at Euler’s relation to Newton, and at his role in the rise of ‘Newtonian’ mechanics. It aims to give a sense of Newton’s complicated legacy for Enlightenment science, and to raise awareness that some key ‘Newtonian’ results really come from Euler.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Newton's Metaphysics: Essays by Eric SchliesserMarius StanEric Schliesser. Newton's Metaphysics: Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 328. Hardback, $99.90.Newton owes his high regard to the quantitative science he left us, but his overall picture of the world had some robustly metaphysical threads woven in as well. Posthumous judgment about the value of these threads has varied wildly. Christian Wolff thought him a metaphysical rustic, as did Hans (...) Reichenbach some two centuries later ("Die Bewegungslehre bei Newton, Leibniz und Huygens," Kant-Studien 29 [1924]: 416–38). In the 1960s, the tide would turn, as Howard Stein and James Edward McGuire separately began to show that Newton's metaphysics was not just sophisticated, but often more compelling than its early modern alternatives (see respectively "Newtonian Spacetime," Texas Quarterly 10 [1967]: 174–200; and Tradition and Innovation: Newton's Metaphysics of Nature [Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995]). Eric Schliesser's book unfolds in that same register of appreciative, high scholarship, and it attests to the enduring attraction of its subject.The book grew out of previous discrete papers, to which he added a few more for this occasion. Accordingly, it does not come with a master argument. Rather, it is an in-depth exploration of some key metaphysical themes in Newton. As such, it befits its subject figure, who reflected on themes and concepts while stopping short of working out systems.The first major theme is Newton and Spinozism. The latter does not denote Spinoza's metaphysics. In fact, Schliesser explains, Newton shared with Spinoza some weighty commitments, for example, to space being actually infinite, and to substance monism: "for Newton, there is strictly speaking only one genuine substance," namely, God (33). Rather, "Spinozism" is an interpreter's category for a bundle of three theses: identifying God and nature; denying final causation in the physical world; and the assumption of "blind" metaphysical necessity. Some counted Hobbes and John Toland as Spinozist in this sense, and even Epicurus, avant la lettre. Newton and his followers argued vehemently against this package, as Schliesser shows in chapters 4, 5, and 8. Their chief complaint was that Spinozism is unable to account for the "origin of motion," for a certain type of order, and for the stability of cosmological structure—and to do so in a way that "meets the standards of Newtonian mechanics" (122). This interpretive lens allows Schliesser to draw Kant in, by reading his youthful Theory of Heaven as a possible Spinozist reply to their objections (chapter 3). [End Page 157]A second theme is the metaphysics of mechanics, where Schliesser weaves together several strands. One is the ontology of gravity, for which he offers a novel construal: for Newton, gravity counts as real, but in a qualified sense. Namely, it is not essential and not intrinsic: "even after creation, a lonely partless particle of matter in the universe would not be said to gravitate." And gravity is relational: a "shared quality" of two or more bits of matter, which obtains in virtue of their sharing a nature (19). Another strand is Newton's ontology of time—really, a subtle, difficult topic long neglected. Famously, Newton in Principia defends absolute, true, and mathematical time. The question is what these three qualifiers denote, and whether Newton thought they were synonymous. Schliesser in chapter 7 argues for the provocative view that "absolute" and "true" time are not identical concepts; rather, they pick out different entities. These entities share a common structure, namely, metric and topological. That makes them species of "mathematical" time (179). But, Schliesser contends, Newton has unequal warrant for his two concepts of time.Yet another theme is formal causation. It comes to the fore in chapter 5, which grapples with Newton's opaque idea that space is an "emanative effect." Schliesser explains that here, "emanation picks out a species of formal causation" (147), but in a novel, early modern sense that comes from Bacon, not Aristotle. If space has a formal cause, then so has its twin brother, time, the topic of chapter 7. God is their common formal cause. Then in chapter 6 (coauthored with Zvi Biener) Schliesser adds that, for Newton, laws... (shrink)

This essay surveys the main objections to aesthetic hedonism, the view that aesthetic value is reducible to the value of aesthetic pleasure or experience. Hedonism is the dominant view of aesthetic value, but a spate of recent criticisms has drawn its accuracy into question. I introduce some distinctions crucial to the criticisms, before using the bulk of the essay to identify and review six major lines of argument that hedonism's critics have employed against it. Whether or not these arguments suffice (...) to refute hedonism decisively, I argue that its privileged status, as the sole contender in aesthetic value theory, is detrimental to downstream research on aesthetic phenomena. The essay concludes with an overview of current work and promising avenues of inquiry into non-hedonic alternatives. (shrink)

On an influential view, Newton's mechanics is built into Kant's very theory of exact knowledge. However, Newtonian dynamics had serious explanatory limits already known by 1750. Thus, we might worry that Kant's Analytic is too narrow to ground enough exact knowledge. In this paper, I draw on Enlightenment dynamics to show that Kant's notion of determinate objecthood is sufficiently broad, non-trivial, and still relevant to the present.

In dit artikel wordt de dominante metafysische oriëntatie in de hedendaagse meta-ethiek kritisch onder de loep genomen. Het hedendaagse debat, dat zich voornamelijk richt op de vraag hoe moraliteit metafysisch gezien 'in de werkelijkheid past', wordt gekenmerkt door een reeks complexe en soms esoterische discussies die, zo wordt betoogd, weinig bijdragen aan ons filosofische begrip van ethiek. Deze focus op metafysische grondslagen heeft geleid tot een tunnelvisie, waarin het debat gevangen zit tussen steeds ingewikkeldere vormen van non-cognitivisme, herconceptualisaties van 'objectiviteit' (...) en metafysische acrobatiek. Als alternatief wordt voorgesteld de aandacht in de meta-ethiek te verleggen naar het domein van praktisch redeneren. Door ons te concentreren op de patronen van geldige praktische argumentatie en het soort overwegingen dat mensen daadwerkelijk overtuigt, kunnen we wellicht een beter inzicht krijgen in de aard van ethische normativiteit en de rol ervan in ons leven. Het artikel pleit voor een meer pragmatische en minder metafysisch beladen benadering van de meta-ethiek, die zich richt op de daadwerkelijke praktijken van moreel redeneren en argumenteren. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the discourse around evil from the perspective of philosophical anthropology. Through an analysis of the religious symbolism of evil and an associated quest for a complete study of being, I intend in this article to explore fresh ways of establishing the relation between our rhetorical practices of evil and moral responsibility. I draw on Ricoeur’s work on the primary symbols of evil, which can be seen as a means for clarifying and extending our understanding of (...) evil and moral responsibility. I employ the concept of “the double intentionality of symbol” to advance an expressive-performative model of speaking about the full shape of moral responsibility. At stake in my paper is the possibility of recognizing the need to valorise subordinate resources of knowledge that might prevent us from studying and responding to the elusive reality of evil in intellectual abstraction. (shrink)

A volume of papers inspired by the work of George E. Smith on confirmation and evidence in advanced science—from Newton's gravitation theory to the physics of molecules.

Richard Rorty is well known as a propagandist of pragmatism and of a "post-philosophical" culture in which many traditional philosophical debates are dismissed as outrightly fruitless. The paper is mainly concerned with Rorty's dismissal of the realism-antirealism debate. The shift from argument to propaganda which is typical of much of Rorty's reasoning is critically investigated from different perspectives. In particular, it is argued that Rorty cannot convincingly establish a pragmatist position beyond realism and antirealism, and that pragmatism seems to be (...) inadequate with respect to scientific practice. Finally, the fruitfulness of the realism-antirealism debate is defended. (shrink)

This article is a study on Paul’s mystical experiences using an interpretive framework that relies on multiple grounds: Alfred Schutz’s phenomenology of the “multiple realities” applied to the problem of religion, political anthropology and general scholarship on Paul. The aim of this study is also multiple: I seek to draw an interpretive insight into those mystical experiences that have been traditionally attributed to Paul by using a hermeneutic lens provided by Schutzian phenomenology, to clarify this hermeneutic method as such and (...) explore its interpretive potential for the phenomenology of religion in general, and to interpret the results of this analysis from the reflexive-historical perspective of political anthropology. (shrink)

Leibniz is committed to a form of cosmic eternity, on account of his natural theology and foundations for dynamics. However, his views on perpetuum mobiles entail that a particularly attractive type of cosmic eternity is out of reach for Leibniz.

Accountability for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its societal challenges is undetermined, and it is unclear whether business or society should carry these responsibilities. Despite severe criticism from some, many organizations continue to invest in and promote CSR. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to increase the understanding of the phenomenon from the perspective of a purposeful sample of participants who contribute to CSR execution and who were representatives of the 10 organizations identified as active promoters. The participant corporations (...) (case studies), in Europe and North America, were mainly in the telecommunications industry. Study data came from 11 face-to-face, semistructured interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) and other CSR key participants, a review of corporate archival records, and a review of other sources regarding the effective implementation of CSR in these organizations. The conceptual framework consisted of Carroll’s constructs of CSR based on economic, legal, social, and discretionary elements. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the interview data and identify factors leading corporations to continue to engage in CSR. These factors were economic, social impact, legal compliance, or good reputation, sponsored by transformational or adaptive leaderships and endorsed by visionary CEOs. The findings may enlighten and motivate other organizations to engage in CSR programs and connect stakeholders’ contribution to a broadened positive social change. (shrink)

Cover Philosophical Mechanics in the Age of Reason Katherine Brading and Marius Stan Description From pebbles to planets, tigers to tables, pine trees to people; animate and inanimate, natural and artificial; bodies are everywhere. Bodies populate the world, acting and interacting with one another, and they are the subject-matter of Newton's laws of motion. But what is a body? And how can we know how they behave? In Philosophical Mechanics in the Age of Reason, Katherine Brading and Marius (...) Stan examine the struggle for a theory of bodies. -/- At the beginning of the 18th century, physics was the branch of philosophy that studied bodies in general. Its primary task was to provide a qualitative account of the nature of bodies, including their essential properties, causal powers, and generic behaviors. Pursued by a variety of figures both canonical (from Leibniz to Kant) and less familiar (from Du Châtelet and Euler to d'Alembert and Lagrange), this proved a difficult task. At stake were the appropriate epistemologies and methods for theorizing about the natural world. Solutions demanded the combined resources of philosophy, physics, and mechanics: what Brading and Stan call a “philosophical mechanics.” -/- Brading and Stan analyze a century of widespread, concerted efforts to solve “the problem of bodies,” they examine the consequences of the many failures, both for the problem itself and for philosophy more generally. They reveal relationships among disparate themes of 18th century physics and philosophy, from the nature of matter to the motion of a vibrating string; causation to the principle of least action; and the role of subtle matter in collision theory to analytic mechanics. All of these, Brading and Stan argue, are related to the eventual emergence of physics as an independent discipline, autonomous from philosophy, more than a century after Newton's Principia. This book provides a new framing of natural philosophy and its transformations in the Enlightenment; and it proposes an account of how physics and philosophy evolved into distinct fields of inquiry. (shrink)

This book offers a theoretical investigation into the general problem of reality as a multiplicity of ‘finite provinces of meaning’, as developed in the work of Alfred Schutz. A critical introduction to Schutz’s sociology of multiple realities as well as a sympathetic re-reading and reconstruction of his project, Experiencing Multiple Realities traces the genesis and implications of this concept in Schutz’s writings before presenting an analysis of various ways in which it can shed light on major sociological problems, such as (...) social action, social time, social space, identity, or narrativity. (shrink)

Iconic photographs are visual arguments depicting an, often dramatic, particular situation showing victims of disasters. Spectators watching the photo of the particular situation, empathise with it, and project the feelings evoked onto the events that form the context for the scene in the picture. This mobilises them into political action. In the process, however, the depicted personal misery is perused to exemplify the larger events. The tragedy of iconic photographs is analysed not as the misery experienced by the depicted persons, (...) but as the breach of their right to shame which is required for the photo to acquire iconicity. Examples are addressed, as well as the contrast classes of the self-portrait and Byzantine icons. (shrink)

A critical discussion of J.B. Shank, 'Before Voltaire: the French Origins of "Newtonian" Mechanics,' University of Chicago Press, 2018.

In this article , I first engage in some conceptual clarification of what the words "imagine," "imagining," and "imagination" can mean. Each has a constructive sense, an attitudinal sense, and an imagistic sense. Keeping the senses straight in the course of cognitive theorizing is important for both psychology and philosophy. I then discuss the roles that perceptual memories, beliefs, and genre truth attitudes play in constructive imagination, or the capacity to generate novel representations that go well beyond what's prompted by (...) one's immediate environment. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the multiple meanings that the invention of the brick – this simple artefact that has permitted the raising of complex and durable buildings – has brought to civilisation and to humans in their relationship with the world. I suggest that bricks may have brought a number of novel experiences to society, whose meanings are important for the understanding of the modern condition and its emphasis on rationalism, replicability, precision, standardisation and modularity among other principles. (...) I also point out that bricks, along with rectangular types of packaging, are eminently liminal objects that entail a peculiar form of violence. (shrink)

One of the important components considered in this research approach is given by the study on teaching-learning strategies, methods and techniques in the lessons aimed at organizing economic activities. It is understood that such a topic takes into account, on the one hand, a series of aspects related to an economic issue, and on the other hand, issues of a methodological / didactic nature found in the teaching-learning-assessment activity. At the same time, the approach that is intended to be highlighted (...) reflects the practical-theoretical dimension of such a possible approach in class. Under these conditions, the research approach assumed involves an analysis focused, on the one hand, on the theoretical aspects related to the approached topic, and on the other hand, on the conceptual-theoretical operationalization with practical implications. In other words, there is an interest in valorizing and capitalizing on the contents approached both theoretically and practically. Therefore, it is considered that we will analyze, from a theoretical and pragmatic perspective, the strategies, methods and teaching-learning techniques at the level of economic-themed classes, also revealing the impact it has in the economic-educational dimension. (shrink)

De burgemeester van Etterbeek liet tijdens de afgelopen periode van vrieskou daklozen van straat halen. Soms tegen hun wil in. Omdat het soms nodig is om mensen tegen zichzelf te beschermen.

The core insight of neutral monism is that there might be something underlying both mind and matter which is neither and of which mind and matter could be seen as particular manifestations. In this paper, I shall present some directions for developing neutral monism as a metaphysical position on the mind-brain problem and argue that its core insight may be applied to other debates in philosophy of mind, in particular debates about the metaphysics of phenomenologies, such as the phenomenology of (...) thought and cognitive phenomenologies. (shrink)