The experimental philosophy movement advocates the use of empirical methods in philosophy. The methods most often discussed and in fact employed in experimental philosophy are appropriated from the experimental paradigm in psychology. But there is a variety of other (at least partly) empirical methods from various disciplines that are and others that could be used in philosophy. The paper explores the application of corpus analysis to philosophical issues. Although the method is well established in linguistics, there are only a few (...) tentative attempts of philosophers to utilise it. Examples are introduced and the merit of corpus analysis is compared to that of using general internet search engines and questionnaires for similar purposes. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: The connection between time and the good life has already been worked out for a number of medical specialties and practices. However, what role does the temporality of the good life play for medicine as a whole? That is the central question of this article. Arguments: The good life is here understood as a meaningful life. Living meaningfully is only possible through present action. A fulfilled presence in this sense is therefore an essential aspect of the (...) temporality of the good life. Illness tends to prevent a fulfilled presence. In this respect, medical treatments aim to enable a fulfilled presence. A second structure of time, that is central to the good life, consists in the chronobiological rhythms, upon the maintenance and restoration of which health is critically dependent. Conclusion: The temporality of the good life has a twofold relevance for medicine as a whole. First, the purpose of medical treatment is to enable a fulfilled present. Second, this can and should be done by maintaining and restoring chronobiological rhythms. ++++ Der Zusammenhang von Zeit und gutem Leben wurde bereits für eine Reihe medizinischer Disziplinen und Praktiken herausgearbeitet. Doch welche Rolle spielt die Zeitlichkeit des guten Lebens für die Medizin insgesamt? Das ist die leitende Frage dieses Artikels. Dabei wird das gute Leben als sinnvolles Leben verstanden. In diesem Sinne wird für eine zweifache medizinische Relevanz der Zeitlichkeit des guten Lebens argumentiert: Erstens besteht der Sinn medizinischer Behandlungen in der Ermöglichung erfüllter Gegenwart. Zweitens kann und sollte ebendies u. a. durch die Wahrung und Wiederherstellung der chronobiologischen Rhythmen geschehen. (shrink)

That believing truly as a matter of luck does not generally constitute knowing has become epistemic commonplace. Accounts of knowledge incorporating this anti-luck idea frequently rely on one or another of a safety or sensitivity condition. Sensitivity-based accounts of knowledge have a well-known problem with necessary truths, to wit, that any believed necessary truth trivially counts as knowledge on such accounts. In this paper, we argue that safety-based accounts similarly trivialize knowledge of necessary truths and that two ways of responding (...) to this problem for safety, issuing from work by Williamson and Pritchard, are of dubious success. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently argued that consciousness properties are identical with some set of physical or functional properties and that we can explain away the frequently felt puzzlement about this claim as a delusion or confusion generated by our different ways of apprehending or thinking about consciousness. This paper examines David Papineau’s influential version of this view. According to Papineau, the difference between our “phenomenal” and “material” concepts of consciousness produces an instinctive but erroneous intuition that these concepts (...) can’t co-refer. I claim that this account fails. To begin with, it is arguable that we are mystified about physicalism even when the account predicts that we shouldn’t be. Further, and worse, the account predicts that an “intuition of distinctness” will arise in cases where it clearly does not. In conclusion, I make some remarks on the prospects for, constraints on, and alternatives to, a successful defence of the claim. (shrink)

Introduction to Engineering Ethics provides the background for discussion of the basic issues in engineering ethics. Emphasis is given to the moral problems engineers face in the corporate setting. It places those issues within a philosophical framework, and it seems to exhibit both their social importance and their intellectual challenge. The primary goal is to stimulate critical and responsible reflection on moral issues surrounding engineering practice and to provide the conceptual tools necessary for pursuing those issues. As per new ABET (...) 2000 guidelines, more and more introductory engineering courses cover engineering ethics as part of their instruction. Students preparing to function within the engineering profession need to be introduced to the basic issues in engineering ethics. This book places those issues within a wider philosophical framework than has been customary in the past and aims to stimulate critical and responsible reflection on the moral issues surrounding engineering practice and to provide the conceptual tools necessary for pursuing those issues. (shrink)

Das sinnvolle Leben ist nicht nur in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie wieder verstärkt ein Thema, sondern auch in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie. Bereits seit langer Zeit jedoch spielt es eine zentrale Rolle in der Existenzanalyse und Logotherapie, die der Psychiater Viktor E. Frankl entwickelt hat. Frankls eigenständige Sinntheorie wird in der gegenwärtigen philosophischen Sinndebatte allerdings weitestgehend ignoriert. Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, diesen Zustand zu beenden und die heutige philosophische Sinndebatte mit Frankl ins Gespräch zu bringen. Einerseits geht es darum, Frankls (...) Sinntheorie im Lichte der philosophischen Sinndebatte zu verstehen und zu bewerten: Was für eine Art von Sinntheorie vertritt er? Wie ist sie einzuordnen? Wie steht es um ihre innere Kohärenz, die Plausibilität seiner sinntheoretischen Überzeugungen und die Qualität ihrer Begründung? Andererseits soll geprüft werden, inwiefern Frankls Ansatz die gegenwärtige philosophische Sinndiskussion voranbringen kann: Gibt es bei ihm theoretische Elemente, die in der Philosophie zu wenig Beachtung finden? Kann er der philosophischen Sinntheorie wichtige Impulse geben? Die Analyse folgt in ihrer Struktur wesentlichen Elementen der Frankl’schen Sinntheorie, von den grundlegenden formalen und metaethischen Aspekten hin zu inhaltlichen Bestimmungen des Sinns und dem individuellen Umgang mit ihm: Zunächst wird die zentrale Bedeutung des Sinns für das menschliche Leben thematisiert, dann Fragen nach der metaethischen Einordnung, nämlich nach der subjektivistischen oder objektivistischen Ausrichtung sowie der Rolle des Supernaturalismus. Dann stehen mit der Selbsttranszendenz und dem Wertebezug sowie den drei Wertkategorien wesentliche Elemente der Sinnkonstituierung im Fokus der Betrachtung. Die Ergebnisse werden im Schlusskapitel zusammengefasst. Es zeigt sich, dass der theoretische Austausch in beide Richtungen fruchtbar sein kann, Frankls Denken allerdings auch einige Hindernisse bereithält. Sein Ansatz entpuppt sich mit seinem objektivistischen Charakter und der zentralen Rolle von Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbezug als an die heutige Sinndiskussion gut anschlussfähig, seine oftmals fehlenden Begründungen hingegen als gravierender methodischer Makel, bei dem eine Orientierung an modernen philosophischen Standards wünschenswert wäre. Wiederholt entsteht der Eindruck, dass seine Sinntheorie maßgeblich durch sein praktisches, therapeutisches Interesse geprägt ist. Einigen seiner Theoreme wird das Potential zugesprochen, die philosophische Sinntheorie bereichern zu können: Das sind die Situativität und Individualität des Sinns sowie die Gegebenheit der Sinnmöglichkeiten und die Verantwortung für ihre Verwirklichung. (shrink)

The majority of historians and teachers of history tend to believe that it was the Propaganda of the educated elite that led to the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Reynaldo Ileto already made a powerful critique on such perspective by analyzing the mentalité of the pobres y ignorantes, and showed that they indeed possessed a certain worldview that was far different from that of the Ilustrados of the Propaganda Movement. Ileto, however, remained within the limits of the Catholic ideology and its (...) appropriation by the masses in the 19th century. This paper aims to study ginhawa, a Filipino concept, as both a concept and an ideology. The paper argues that ginhawa was used by the natives in interpreting the workings of colonialism. (shrink)

In their paper "How Fundamental Physics represents Causality", Andreas Bartels and Daniel Wohlfarth maintain that there is place for causality in General Relativity. Their argument contains two steps: First they show that there are time-asymmetric models in General Relativity, then they claim to derive that two events are causally connected if and only if there is a time-asymmetric energy flow from one event to the other. In our comment we first give a short summary of their paper followed by a (...) section introducing and pondering different conceptions of causation since Bartels and Wohlfarth don’t explicitly declare which notion of causation they build on in the paper. In order to analyze their argument in detail we formalize their crucial step in logical terms. This helps to pose the question whether their proposed derivation is not just a definition in a more precise way. (shrink)

This article develops a criticism of Alain Badiou’s assertion that “mathematics is ontology.” I argue that despite appearances to the contrary, Badiou’s case for bringing set theory and ontology together is problematic. To arrive at this judgment, I explore how a case for the identification of mathematics and ontology could work. In short, ontology would have to be characterised to make it evident that set theory can contribute to it fundamentally. This is indeed how Badiou proceeds in Being and Event. (...) I review his descriptions of the ontological problematic at some length here, only to argue that set theory is a poor fit. Although philosophers working on questions of being were certainly occupied with matters of oneness and the part-whole relationship, I argue that Badiou’s discussion of philosophical sources points towards a mereological treatment, not a set-theoretic one. Finally, I suggest that Badiou’s philosophical interpretations of key set-theoretic results are better understood as some sort of analogising between mathematics, ontology, and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

Ang papel na ito ay isang pagtatangka ng paghahawan ng landas tungo sa potensyal ngginhawa bilang isang konseptong kultural-pilosopikal. Gagawin ang paghahawan mula sapagtititistis ng ilang datos mula sa kasaysayan, kultura at maging sa wikang Filipino. Nahahatiang papel sa dalawang bahagi: una, ang talakay sa lagay ng Pilosopiyang Pilipino; pangalawaang pagbubulaybulay tungkol sa ginhawa bilang konsepto, sa aspektong historikal, politiko-ekonomiko, at linggwistiko.

Since one of the connotations of maturity is development, the meaning of emotional maturity that we come to is to control and cultivate our ability to emote. Since this conception of emotional maturity is subsumed under a conception of the self, by describing the mechanism of the self as a process of development, we can also account for emotional maturity. The implications of this way of looking at emotional maturity, by looking at one’s self, reveal important problems about what the (...) mind is and how the mind functions in order for us to cope with and thrive in life. (shrink)

Vigorous debate over the moral propriety of cognitive enhancement exists, but the views of the public have been largely absent from the discussion. To address this gap in our knowledge, four experiments were carried out with contrastive vignettes in order to obtain quantitative data on public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement. The data collected suggest that the public is sensitive to and capable of understanding the four cardinal concerns identified by neuroethicists, and tend to cautiously accept cognitive enhancement even as they (...) recognize its potential perils. The public is biopolitically moderate, endorses both meritocratic principles and the intrinsic value of hard work, and appears to be sensitive to the salient moral issues raised in the debate. Taken together, these data suggest that public attitudes toward enhancement are sufficiently sophisticated to merit inclusion in policy deliberations, especially if we seek to align public sentiment and policy. (shrink)

Background: -/- One influential view is that vulnerability to major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a proneness to experience negative emotions in general. In contrast, blame attribution theories emphasise the importance of blaming oneself rather than others for negative events. Our previous exploratory study provided support for the attributional hypothesis that patients with remitted MDD show no overall bias towards negative emotions, but a selective bias towards emotions entailing self-blame relative to emotions that entail blaming others. More specifically, we (...) found a decreased proneness for contempt/disgust towards others relative to oneself (i.e. self-contempt bias). Here, we report a definitive test of the competing general negative versus specific attributional bias theories of MDD. Methods: -/- We compared a medication-free remitted MDD (n = 101) and a control group (n = 70) with no family or personal history of MDD on a previously validated experimental test of moral emotions. The task measures proneness to specific emotions associated with different types of self-blame (guilt, shame, self-contempt/disgust, self-indignation/anger) and blame of others (other-indignation/anger, other-contempt/disgust) whilst controlling for the intensity of unpleasantness. Results: -/- We confirmed the hypothesis that patients with MDD exhibit an increased self-contempt bias with a reduction in contempt/disgust towards others. Furthermore, they also showed a decreased proneness for indignation/anger towards others. Conclusions: -/- This corroborates the prediction that vulnerability to MDD is associated with an imbalance of specific self- and other-blaming emotions rather than a general increase in negative emotions. This has important implications for neurocognitive models and calls for novel focussed interventions to rebalance blame in MDD. (shrink)

Karaniwang itinuturing si Jose Rizal bilang tagapanguna ng paninindigan sa karapatan ng babae sa Asya. Eksplisito itong ipinahayag ng pambansang heroé sa pamamagitan ng kanyang liham sa mga kababaihan ng Malolos. Ang mga prinsipyong isinulong dito ni Rizal, ayon kay Lilia Quindoza-Santiago, ay nagtataglay ng mga implikasyon sa kilusang kababaihan sa bansa. Maliban sa liham na nabanggit, mapagkukunan din ng interpretasyon ang ilang babaeng tauhan ni Rizal sa kanyang mga nobela. Ilang bagay ang dapat itanong: habang kritikal nga si Rizal (...) sa patriarka, saan maitatakda ang hangganan ng kanyang paninindigan tungkol sa kalagayan ng babae sa kolonya? Paano naging bahagi ng kaniyang nasyonalismo ang mga imahenaryong nilikha niya tungkol sa babae? (shrink)

It's a common idea in philosophy that we possess a peculiar kind of "phenomenal concept" by which we can think about our conscious states in "inner" and "direct" ways, as for example, when I attend to the way a current pain feels and think about this feeling as such. Such phenomenal ways of thinking figure in a variety of theoretical contexts. The bulk of this article discusses their use in a certain strategy – the phenomenal concept strategy – for defending (...) the physicalist view that conscious states are reducible to brain states. It also considers, more briefly, how phenomenal concepts have been used to defend dualism about consciousness, and how they have been used to explain our special access to our consciousness. It concludes with a discussion about whether, and in what more precise sense of the term, we at all possess "phenomenal concepts" of our conscious states. (shrink)

This paper articulates a case for supposing that all shades of colour are visually complex.

Although philosophers have often held that causation is a purely descriptive notion, a growing body of experimental work on ordinary causal attributions using questionnaire methods indicates that it is heavily influenced by normative information. These results have been the subject of sceptical challenges. Additionally, those who find the results compelling have disagreed about how best to explain them. In this chapter, we help resolve these debates by using a new set of tools to investigate ordinary causal attributions—the methods of corpus (...) linguistics. We apply both more qualitative corpus analysis techniques and the more purely quantitative methods of distributional semantics to four target questions: Can corpus analysis provide independent support for the thesis that ordinary causal attributions are sensitive to normative information? Does the evidence coming from corpus analysis support the contention that outcome valence matters for ordinary causal attributions? Are ordinary causal attributions similar to responsibility attributions? Are causal attributions of philosophers different from causal attributions we find in corpora of more ordinary language? We argue that the results of our analyses support a positive answer to each of these questions. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis examines the phenomenon of Filipinization, specifically understood as the ideological construction of a “Filipino identity” or ‘Filipino subject-consciousness” within the highly determinate context provided by the Filipino ilustrado nationalists such as José Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and their fellow propagandists inasmuch as it leads to the nineteenth (19th) century construction of the modern Philippine nation. Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, this study undertakes a genealogical critique engaged on the concrete historical examination of what is meant by (...) the term “Filipino” across a select historical timeline (1864-1898) and the various notions of Filipino identity implied by the different contexts within which the term “Filipino” has been employed. More specifically, it undertakes a selective philosophical excavation of three seminal texts in the history of Filipinization, viz.: 1) the Manifiesto of Padre Jose Burgos; 2) the writings of the Filipino ilustrados in La Solidaridad; and 3) Jose Rizal’s Annotations on Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. -/- The philosophical claim of this work is the idea that Filipinization, taken as the differential construction of Filipino identity, is the effective translation of the colonial epistemic violence of Eurocentric racism and its consequent “horror of absolutism” into the homo-hegemony of Filipino nationalisms. By fetishizing the notion of a carefully constructed and essential “Filipino-identity,” Filipinization and the current nationalist discourses that utilize them, unwittingly, stands complicit with the same colonial violence and hegemony that they wish to combat. This happens precisely when the very structures of colonial oppression, on the ideological and practical levels, are transmogrified into nationalist ideals that assume legal and political power unto themselves in a self-referential and self-legitimating fashion. -/- Three processes will demonstrate the above thesis: first, by examining historical texts and setting itself against established nationalist historiographies, a genealogical analysis of the term “Filipino” reveals it as a pliable signifier whose semantics have evolved through time. From its originary referent in the Spanish criollo (creole), it has come to refer to people who would have been otherwise entirely alien to this class, viz., the mestizos (both Spanish and Chinese), the principalia (native elite), and eventually, the lowland Catholicized natives themselves. The historical hermeneutic of this identity-discourse in Padre José Burgos’ Manifiesto yields the fact that what gives the term “Filipino” its semantic consistency as a class concept is its essential constitution as a Hispanic and Catholic identity. -/- Second, from this semantic identification of the term “Filipino” as a Hispano-Catholic identity, we proceed to clarify the meaning of Filipinization in terms of the nationalist propaganda carried out by the Filipino ilustrados in the fortnightly periodical La Solidaridad. Here, the specific ilustrado construction of Filipino identity as a Spanish citizen (ciudadano Español) is revealed precisely as a political and legal construct that served as the basis for their own politics of social inclusion/exclusion. Filipinization can only be applied to those who have been hispanized and Christianized and never to those tribes who have resisted and remained outside Spanish colonial authority. Filipinization is thus revealed as a process of Hispanization and Christianization whereby the recipients of Spanish colonial hegemony are transformed into the religiously docile bodies of the Spanish Empire. -/- From this highly determinate context, the study proceeds to examine Rizal’s ontological grounding of collective Filipino-ness in the mythological construction of the pre-hispanic past as the source of a unique Filipino ancestrality. In his work on de Morga’s Sucesos, what is revealed is a mythologization that grounds a native, essential Filipino identity within a past unscathed by the Spanish colonial experience. Such mythologization, however, can only be possible through an anachronistic nationalist interpretation of historical data. Here, Filipinization is revealed as an exclusive prerogative, a nationalist program by which Rizal and the ilustrado class can combat the evils and excesses of the Spanish colonial enterprise. Ironically, though, this same struggle for emancipation also became an instrument by which the ilustrado class can retain their unjustified position of power over those who belonged to the colonial underside, thus, securing the possibility of perpetuating their own ilustrado bourgeois class interests. -/- Such discursive complicity is the essence of the myth of Filipinization: it presents nationalist identity discourse as an anti-colonial enterprise while being underlined by an economy of motives designed to cater primarily to the exclusive interests of the elite and ilustrado class. Thus, instead of securing the genuine, inclusive emancipation of all colonial subjects and a more humane existence for the poor and suffering majority, ilustrado nationalism has, ironically, merely reinforced those operative structures of colonial discrimination and oppression when the ilustrados: 1) grounded their racial theory upon the very same discourse of Eurocentric superiority that they are precisely supposed to question and 2) claimed a patrimony over Filipinas as their exclusive sovereign inheritance. These two factors illustrate how the manifest transfer of power from the Spanish Empire to the Philippine sovereign nation (and later as a nation-state) illustrate how Filipinization merely has transmogrified the face of Spanish colonialism into its new, subtle, and worse form in Filipino nationalism. -/- In this vein, the existence of the 19th century modern Philippine nation merely masked and deferred the crisis that was supposed to transfer power from the Spanish Empire to the multitude of the poor and suffering native indio majority. This crisis became all the more difficult to address be-cause of the duplicitous character of the discourse of Filipinization itself. It has not only effectively transferred power into the hands of the nationalist elite but also captured authentic emancipatory discourse within the identity-trap against which it can only hope to get out. This study concludes with the claim about the impossibility of ever escaping and overcoming the epistemic and practical violence necessarily contained within the historical discourse of colonialism. Or simply, we have no language or discourse that would enable us to overcome the complicity of Filipinization with the very (epistemic) violence against which it has set itself. (shrink)

The small improvement argument has been said to establish that the standard weak preference or value relation can be incomplete. We first show that the argument is one of three possible ‘small amendment arguments’, each of which would yield the same conclusion. Generalizing the analysis thus, we subsequently present a strong and a weak version of small amendment arguments and derive the exact rationality conditions under which they reveal incompleteness. The results show that the arguments (in any of their variants) (...) need not reveal a problem for the possibility of rational choice. In fact, it can be argued that they only reveal such a problem if the underlying relation is complete rather than incomplete. (shrink)

A visual experience, as understood here, is a sensory event that is conscious, or like something to undergo. This chapter focuses on three issues concerning such experiences. The first issue is the so-called ‘transparency’ of experiences. The chapter distinguishes a number of different interpretations of the suggestion that visual experiences are ‘transparent’. It then discusses in what sense, if any, visual experiences are ‘transparent’, and what further conclusions one can draw from that. The second issue is which properties we are (...) presented with in visual experiences. It is widely accepted that we sometimes experience red for example. But exactly which properties do we sometimes visually experience, and which properties do we never visually experience? The third issue is which particulars, if any, we are presented with in visual experiences. Do we for example sometimes visually experience mind-independent particulars like trees? Do we sometimes visually experience mind-dependent, particular ‘sense-data’? (shrink)

The concept of moral corruption has been pointed at as the root cause of our failure to make progress with acting towards a sustainable future. This chapter defines moral corruption as the agent’s strategy not to form the intentions needed to overcome the motivational obstacles of sustainable action. Moral corruption is considered similar to Kant’s radical evil; it causes our practical identities to be divided. The question then arises: how could we possibly strive for moral integrity, while simultaneously being infected (...) with the ‘disease’ of moral corruption? It is argued that we have an indirect motive for sustainable action in wanting to prevent our practical identity from falling apart. (shrink)

What could you learn if you saw a colour after being confined from birth to a black-and-white room? It turns out that this is surprisingly hard to say. I suggest that reflection on this question teaches us that colour perception has a richer content than we might have thought.

Colours and consciousness both present us with metaphysical problems. But what exactly are the problems? According to standard accounts, they are roughly the following. On the one hand, we have reason to believe, about both colour and consciousness, that they are identical with some familiar natural phenomena. But on the other hand, it is hard to see how these identities could obtain. I argue that this is an adequate characterisation of our metaphysical problem of colour, but a mischaracterisation of the (...) problem of consciousness. It mischaracterises the problem by presenting consciousness as more 'colour-like' than we have reason to take it to be. The real problem of consciousness is, I suggest, that almost nothing theoretically useful is known about this phenomenon at present. I also explore some implications of this perspective on the problem of consciousness. Given the shape of the problem, I argue that we can't rule out all forms of eliminativism about consciousness. Nor can we rule out that future research will close the ' explanatory gap' that consciousness gives rise to. (shrink)

According to an influential contextualist solution to skepticism advanced by Keith DeRose, denials of skeptical hypotheses are, in most contexts, strong yet insensitive. The strength of such denials allows for knowledge of them, thus undermining skepticism, while the insensitivity of such denials explains our intuition that we do not know them. In this paper we argue that, under some well-motivated conditions, a negated skeptical hypothesis is strong only if it is sensitive. We also consider how a natural response on behalf (...) of DeRose appears to be equally available to his primary rival (viz., the sensitivity theorist). (shrink)

This paper develops a proposal about phenomenal consciousness that is (somewhat) eliminativist in two respects. First, regarded in the light of some common ways of conceiving of consciousness, the proposal is "deflationary". Second, it opens up space for a development in which what we now naturally think about as consciousness turns out to be many different things.

This paper distinguishes two types of qualia theory, which I call Galilean and non-Galilean qualia theories. It also offers considerations against each type of theory. To my mind the considerations are powerful. In any case, they bring out the importance of distinguishing the two types of theory. For they show that different considerations come into play—or considerations come into play in quite different ways—in assessing the two types of theory.

This paper is an attempt to understand and assess Thomas Nagel's influential case against physicalism in the philosophy of mind. I show that Nagel has claimed that experience is "subjective", or "essentially connected with a single point of view" in at least three different senses: first, in the sense that it is essential to every experience that there be something it is like to have it; second, in the sense that what an experience is like for its possessor cannot be (...) understood by a radically different type of organism; and third, in the sense that an experience cannot be "apprehended" or "observed" from a third-person perspective. I also show that these three claims have entered into two different arguments for his view that experience cannot be accounted for in physicalist terms. By way of assessment, I suggest that physicalists have decent resources for responding to the second and third of Nagel's claims about the subjectivity of experience, but that they currently have less convincing things to say about the first claim. (shrink)

The study zeroed in on the perception of college students who are exposed to sights of poverty in their immediate environment. The student-participants were asked to provide their perception, understanding, and behaviour towards poverty using the photographs that they took on their own. In qualitative research practice, this methodology is called photo elicitation. It was revealed, among others, that the participants have shown negative perceptions about poverty. They strongly felt bad about each photograph that they took and what these images (...) portrayed. The participants visualized their community and thereby weaved analyses and opinions that encroached on various philosophical and sociological theories. There are four interrelated dominant images that were drawn: exteriority image, dirt-poor image, victim-blaming image, and hand-to-mouth image. (shrink)

Common everyday materials such as textiles, foodstuffs, soil or skin can have complex, mutable and varied appearances. Under typical viewing conditions, most observers can visually recognize materials effortlessly, and determine many of their properties without touching them. Visual material perception raises many fascinating questions for vision researchers, neuroscientists and philosophers, yet has received little attention compared to the perception of color or shape. Here we discuss some of the challenges that material perception raises and argue that further philosophical thought should (...) be directed to how we see materials. (shrink)

In this chapter, we outline the range of argument forms involving causation that can be found in everyday discourse. We also survey empirical work concerned with the generation and evaluation of such arguments. This survey makes clear that there is presently no unified body of research concerned with causal argument. We highlight the benefits of a unified treatment both for those interested in causal cognition and those interested in argumentation, and identify the key challenges that must be met for a (...) full understanding of causal argumentation. (shrink)

Background: Subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC) responses to self-blaming emotion-evoking stimuli were previously found in individuals prone to self-blame with and without a history of major depressive disorder (MDD). This suggested SCC activation reflects self-blaming emotions such as guilt, which are central to models of MDD vulnerability. -/- Method: Here, we re-examined these hypotheses in an independent larger sample. A total of 109 medication-free participants (70 with remitted MDD and 39 healthy controls) underwent fMRI whilst judging self- and other-blaming emotion-evoking statements. (...) They also completed validated questionnaires of proneness to self-blaming emotions including those related to internal (autonomy) and external (sociotropy) evaluation, which were subjected to factor analysis. -/- Results: An interaction between group (remitted MDD v. Control) and condition (self- v. other-blame) was observed in the right SCC (BA24). This was due to higher SCC signal for self-blame in remitted MDD and higher other-blame-selective activation in Control participants. Across the whole sample, extracted SCC activation cluster averages for self- v. other-blame were predicted by a regression model which included the reliable components derived from our factor analysis of measures of proneness to self-blaming emotions. Interestingly, this prediction was solely driven by autonomy/self-criticism, and adaptive guilt factors, with no effect of sociotropy/dependency. -/- Conclusions: Despite confirming the prediction of SCC activation in self-blame-prone individuals and those vulnerable to MDD, our results suggest that SCC activation reflects blame irrespective of where it is directed rather than selective for self. We speculate that self-critical individuals have more extended SCC representations for blame in the context of self-agency. (shrink)

Importance: Patients with remitted major depressive disorder (MDD) were previously found to display abnormal functional magnetic resonance imaging connectivity (fMRI) between the right superior anterior temporal lobe (RSATL) and the subgenual cingulate cortex and adjacent septal region (SCSR) when experiencing self-blaming emotions relative to emotions related to blaming others (eg, "indignation or anger toward others"). This finding provided the first neural signature of biases toward overgeneralized self-blaming emotions (eg, "feeling guilty for everything"), known to have a key role in cognitive (...) vulnerability to MDD. It is unknown whether this neural signature predicts risk of recurrence, a crucial step in establishing its potential as a prognostic biomarker, which is urgently needed for stratification into pathophysiologically more homogeneous subgroups and for novel treatments. -/- Objective: To use fMRI in remitted MDD at baseline to test the hypothesis that RSATL-SCSR connectivity for self-blaming relative to other-blaming emotions predicts subsequent recurrence of depressive episodes. -/- Design, setting, and participants: A prospective cohort study from June 16, 2011, to October 10, 2014, in a clinical research facility completed by 75 psychotropic medication-free patients with remitted MDD and no relevant comorbidity. In total, 31 remained in stable remission, and 25 developed a recurring episode over the 14 months of clinical follow-up and were included in the primary analysis. Thirty-nine control participants with no personal or family history of MDD were recruited for further comparison. -/- Main outcomes and measures: Between-group difference (recurring vs stable MDD) in RSATL connectivity, with an a priori SCSR region of interest for self-blaming vs other-blaming emotions. -/- Results: We corroborated our hypothesis that during the experience of self-blaming vs other-blaming emotions, RSATL-SCSR connectivity predicted risk of subsequent recurrence. The recurring MDD group showed higher connectivity than the stable MDD group (familywise error-corrected P < .05 over the a priori SCSR region of interest) and the control group. In addition, the recurring MDD group also exhibited RSATL hyperconnectivity with the right ventral putamen and claustrum and the temporoparietal junction. Together, these regions predicted recurrence with 75% accuracy. -/- Conclusions and relevance: To our knowledge, this study is the first to provide a robust demonstration of an fMRI signature of recurrence risk in remitted MDD. Additional studies are needed for its further optimization and validation as a prognostic biomarker. (shrink)

Cet article ne se veut pas un commentaire suivi de la réflexion de Wittgenstein sur les règles. Ce ne sera pas non plus un commentaire de l’interprétation que Kripke fait du « suivi de la règle » chez Wittgenstein. Il ne sera pas davantage une application des thèses de Wittgenstein ni une tentative d’application directe d’une interprétation de ces thèses à l’épistémologie de la simulation du vivant ; ce qui serait, en soi, d’ailleurs contestable. Ce travail vise seulement à approfondir (...) la réflexion sur le statut cognitif de la simulation informatique du vivant. À ce titre, qui est donc essentiellement épistémologique et ciblé, il se veut une suggestion d’interprétation conceptuelle de certaines formes de simulation informatique du vivant, suggestion elle-même adossée à une prolongation de certaines distinctions déjà effectuées par Wittgenstein et ses commentateurs au sujet des règles et de leur suivi. L’objectif est de chercher à voir si, par ce moyen, la simulation informatique du vivant, par contraste avec les pratiques plus traditionnelles de modélisation, ne pourrait pas être plus précisément expliquée et légitimée, dans ses apports épistémologiques, comme dans ses limites aussi. (shrink)

What is reality? It is postmodern or poststructuralist philosophers like Roland Barthes, who realized that it only seems that the media present reality in the form of facts, because they actually spread myths. Accordingly, Jacques Derrida made it clear that communication via media is not based on logic, but is characterized by a significant “différance” between a “marque” (trace) of the past and the expectations of the future. Both agreed, that the initial misunderstanding of the concept of reality must (...) be uncovered or "deconstructed". This is more than necessary for them, because media, be it pictures or language, in truth convey values that are culturally and socially significant. They ‘iterate’ these values subliminally, because what shows up are only placeholders and thus mere forms (“structures of graphematic”) that are superficially realised as facts (“stereotypes”). In this way, according to Barthes, we all accept without question the values hidden behind them, so that they can gain a normative power that unconsciously guides our thinking, our decisions and our actions. Afterwards, it is Judith Butler who critically asked: How can we ever escape from this? Given the power of the subliminal dominant discourses, she saw the only effective solution “im Umdeuten” (in reinterpretation) of their subliminal values. In order to finally escape this “parasitic existence at the ritual”, the media philosopher Walter Benjamin already suggested to trigger "Chockwirkungen” (shock effects) in the viewer. It is the German painter Karin Kneffel, so it shall be shown, who has realized this with her series Fruits and Interiors in the most beautiful photorealistic strategy. (shrink)

L’étude proposée ici se déroulera en trois moments. Il s’agit, dans un premier temps, de revenir sur la manière dont la question du rapport entre vérité et fiction est posée dans le Traité des sensations de Condillac. Il faut rappeler la justification du recours à la fiction d’une statue gagnant un sens à la fois dans le cadre d’une analyse portant sur l’origine des idées, c’est-à-dire du recours à l’imagination dans le contexte d’une enquête métaphysique ressortissant à la raison. Dans (...) un second temps, il faut se pencher sur ce qu’on peut appeler la fonction du romanesque dans le dispositif global de la fiction condillacienne, c’est-à-dire, non pas seulement ce qui revient au fictionnel, mais en propre à un art narratif visant des séquences événementielles singulières. Enfin, on terminera par quelques remarques sur ce qui est très souvent négligé dans les études portant sur ce texte – du moins en philosophie, et qui ne manque pourtant pas d’être curieux, à savoir, justement, son inscription dans le registre des Mémoires ou des pseudo-Mémoires. (shrink)

Dans l’histoire de la métaphysique, l’époque initiée par Descartes se caractérise par le projet de tirer toute connaissance de son propre fonds. C’est ce que Kant a exprimé par la révolution copernicienne : les structures universelles des objets de l’expérience (temporalité, spatialité, grandeur, force, mathématisabilité, etc.) se règlent sur les structures a priori impliquées dans la constitution du sujet transcendantal (les facultés et leurs formes pures). Par là, toute l’ontologie de l’objet d’expérience possible trouve son fondement dans une présupposition transcendantale (...) : celle de la préconstitution invariante du sujet transcendantal, caractérisée par un système de facultés (sensibilité, imagination, entendement, raison) et de formes pures (intuitions, schèmes, concepts et Idées pures). N’est-il pas possible d’élaborer une philosophie transcendantale qui fasse l’économie d’un tel présupposé ? Tel est le projet que l’auteur voit dans la phénoménologie husserlienne : un dépassement de la révolution copernicienne, dont le but n’est nullement de restaurer une ontologie réaliste, mais d’élucider l’essence du sujet transcendantal sans en présupposer l’identité, ni les facultés invariantes. En voici le principe : toute catégorie d’objets prescrit au sujet transcendantal une structure régulatrice, de sorte que le système des facultés du sujet peut être réélaboré au fil conducteur des types d’objets possibles. Dès lors se présente un cercle apparemment insoluble : l’essence du sujet pur se lit à partir des catégories d’objets, mais ces mêmes objets sont constitués par l’activité synthétique du sujet. Or, comment peut-on admettre le paradoxe selon lequel le sujet serait le produit de ses produits ? (shrink)

L'Amérique et le monde sont en train de s'effondrer à cause d'une croissance démographique excessive, la plupart du temps depuis un siècle, et maintenant tout cela, en raison de la population du tiers monde. La consommation des ressources et l'ajout de 3 milliards de plus vers 2100 s'effondreront la civilisation industrielle et provoqueront la famine, la maladie, la violence et la guerre à une échelle stupéfiante. La terre perd au moins 1% de sa terre arable chaque année, de sorte qu'il (...) s'approche de 2100, la plupart de sa capacité de croissance alimentaire aura disparu. Des milliards mourront et la guerre nucléaire est presque certaine. En Amérique, cela est considérablement accéléré par l'immigration massive et la reproduction des immigrants, combinée avec des abus rendus possibles par la démocratie. La nature humaine dépravée transforme inexorablement le rêve de démocratie et de diversité en cauchemar de la criminalité et de la pauvreté. La Chine continuera à submerger l'Amérique et le monde, tant qu'elle maintiendra la dictature qui limite l'égoïsme. La cause profonde de l'effondrement est l'incapacité de notre psychologie innée à s'adapter au monde moderne, ce qui conduit les gens à traiter les personnes sans lien de parenté comme si elles avaient des intérêts communs. L'idée des droits de l'homme est un fantasme maléfique promu par les gauchistes pour détourner l'attention de la destruction impitoyable de la terre par la maternité du 3e monde sans retenue. Ceci, plus l'ignorance de la biologie et de la psychologie de base, mène aux illusions d'ingénierie sociale des partiellement instruits qui contrôlent des sociétés démocratiques. Peu de gens comprennent que si vous aidez une personne, vous faites du mal à quelqu'un d'autre— il n'y a pas de repas gratuit et chaque article que quelqu'un consomme détruit la terre irréparable. Par conséquent, les politiques sociales partout sont insoutenables et une par une toutes les sociétés sans contrôles stricts sur l'égoïsme s'effondreront dans l'anarchie ou la dictature. Les faits les plus fondamentaux, presque jamais mentionnés, sont qu'il n'y a pas assez de ressources en Amérique ou dans le monde pour sortir un pourcentage important des pauvres de la pauvreté et les y maintenir. La tentative de faire cela est la faillite de l'Amérique et de détruire le monde. La capacité de la terre à produire des aliments diminue chaque jour, tout comme notre qualité génétique. Et maintenant, comme toujours, de loin le plus grand ennemi des pauvres est d'autres pauvres et non les riches. Sans changements dramatiques et immédiats, il n'y a aucun espoir pour empêcher l'effondrement de l'Amérique, ou tout pays qui suit un système démocratique. (shrink)

Bolzano fut le premier philosophe à établir une distinction explicite entre les procédés déductifs qui nous permettent de parvenir à la certitude d’une vérité et ceux qui fournissent son fondement objectif. La conception que Bolzano se fait du rapport entre ce que nous appelons ici, d’une part, « conséquence subjective », à savoir la relation de raison à conséquence épistémique et, d’autre part, la « conséquence objective », c’est-à-dire la fondation , suggère toutefois que Bolzano défendait une conception « explicativiste (...) » de la preuve : les preuves par excellence sont celles qui reflètent l’ordre de la fondation objective. Dans cet article nous faisons état des problèmes liés à une telle conception et argumentons en faveur d’une démarcation plus stricte entre la préoccupation ontologique et la préoccupation épistémologique dans l’élaboration d’une théorie de la preuve.Bolzano was the first to establish an explicit distinction between the deductive methods that allow us to recognise the certainty of a given truth and those that provide its objective ground. His conception of the relation between what we, in this paper, call “subjective consequence”, i.e. the relation from epistemic reason to consequence and “objective consequence”, i.e. grounding however suggests that Bolzano advocated an “explicativist” conception of proof : proofs par excellence are those that reflect the objective order of grounding. In this paper, we expose the problems involved by such a conception and argue in favour of a more rigorous demarcation between the ontological and the epistemological concern in the elaboration of a theory of proof. (shrink)

Cette note épistémologique porte sur le statut, en théorie de la décision, des concepts d’attitude par rapport au risque. A première vue, l’analyse axiomatique ne les exploite pas, ce qui reflète une certaine neutralité des modèles de décision au sujet de l’attitude par rapport au risque. Mais un examen plus poussé met en valeur la variation conditionnelle et le renforcement de l’attitude par rapport au risque, qui rattachent les concepts d’attitude par rapport au risque à l’analyse axiomatique.

In my paper I discuss the argument that the absence of the legal possibility to contract same-sex marriages is discriminatory. I argue that there is no analogy between the legal situation of same-sex couples and African-Americans, women or disabled persons in the nineteenth century. There are important natural differences between same-sex and different-sex couples that are good reasons for the legal disparities between them. The probability of having and raising children is one of them. Therefore, demanding that same-sex couples have (...) rights similar to those that married couples currently have in Poland and justifying that claim by alleged discrimination is neither correct nor fair. (shrink)

L’Amérique et le monde sont en train de s’effondrer à cause d’une croissance démographique excessive, la plupart pour le siècle dernier, et maintenant tout cela, en raison des personnes du 3e monde. La consommation de ressources et l’ajout de 4 milliards d’euros supplémentaires vont effondrer la civilisation industrielle et provoquer la famine, la maladie, la violence et la guerre à une échelle stupéfiante. La terre perd au moins 1% de sa terre maximale chaque année, de sorte qu’il approche de 2100, (...) la plupart de sa capacité de culture alimentaire aura disparu. Des milliards vont mourir et la guerre nucléaire est presque certaine. En Amérique, cela est considérablement accéléré par l’immigration massive et la reproduction des immigrants, combinée avec des abus rendus possibles par la démocratie. La nature humaine dépravée transforme inexorablement le rêve de démocratie et de diversité en cauchemar de la criminalité et de la pauvreté. La Chine continuera à submerger l’Amérique et le monde, tant qu’elle maintiendra la dictature qui limite l’égoïsme. La cause profonde de l’effondrement est l’incapacité de notre psychologie innée à s’adapter au monde moderne, ce qui conduit les gens à traiter des personnes sans lien de parenté comme s’ils avaient des intérêts communs. L’idée des droits de l’homme est un fantasme maléfique promu par les gauchistes pour détourner l’attention de la destruction impitoyable de la terre par la maternité du 3e monde sans retenue. Ceci, plus l’ignorance de la biologie de base et de la psychologie, conduit aux illusions d’ingénierie sociale des personnes partiellement instruites qui contrôlent les sociétés démocratiques. Peu de gens comprennent que si vous aidez une personne, vous faites du mal à quelqu’un d’autre, il n’y a pas de déjeuner gratuit et chaque article que quelqu’un consomme détruit la terre au-delà de la réparation. Par conséquent, les politiques sociales partout sont insoutenables et une à une toutes les sociétés sans contrôle strict sur l’égoïsme s’effondreront dans l’anarchie ou la dictature. Les faits les plus élémentaires, presque jamais mentionnés, sont qu’il n’y a pas assez de ressources en Amérique ou dans le monde pour sortir un pourcentage significatif des pauvres de la pauvreté et les y maintenir. La tentative de le faire est la faillite de l’Amérique et de détruire le monde. La capacité de la terre à produire des aliments diminue chaque jour, tout comme notre qualité génétique. Et maintenant, comme toujours, de loin le plus grand ennemi des pauvres est d’autres pauvres et non les riches. Sans changements dramatiques et immédiats, il n’y a aucun espoir pour empêcher l’effondrement de l’Amérique, ou tout autre pays qui suit un système démocratique. (shrink)

Le film est un drame psychologique se déroulant à bord d'une station spatiale en orbite autour de la planète Solaris. Les trois membres de l'équipage ont des problèmes psychologiques. Le psychologue Kris Kelvin est envoyé là pour évaluer la situation, mais il fait face aux mêmes phénomènes mystérieux que les autres. Pour Tarkovsky, le conflit existentiel exposé par Lem n'était que le point de départ du développement de la vie intérieure des personnages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11405.49129.

Einstein déclare que les théories évoluent à travers des déclarations basées sur l'observation, sous la forme de lois empiriques, à partir desquelles des lois générales sont obtenues. L'intuition et la pensée déductive jouent un rôle important dans ce processus. Après la phase initiale, l'investigateur développe un système de pensée guidée par des données empiriques, construit logiquement à partir d'hypothèses fondamentales (axiomes). La « vérité » d'une théorie résulte de sa corrélation avec un grand nombre d'observations uniques. Pour les mêmes données (...) empiriques, plusieurs théories peuvent différer. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36545.79205. (shrink)

Review of "In the Vale of Tears: On Marxism and Theology, Volume V," Roland Boer.

Les principaux aspects psychologiques et philosophiques détachés du film Solaris réalisé par Andrei Tarkovski, ainsi que les techniques cinématographiques utilisées par le réalisateur pour transmettre ses messages aux spectateurs. Dans « Introduction », je présente brièvement les éléments pertinents de la biographie de Tarkovski et un aperçu du roman Solaris de Stanislav Lem et du film Solaris réalisé par Andrei Tarkovsky. Dans « Technique cinématographique », je parle du rythme spécifique des scènes, du mouvement radical déclenché par Tarkovski dans le (...) cinéma moderne, du rôle des éléments symboliques et iconiques et des affinités avec le fantastique domaine de la littérature russe. Dans « Aspects psychologiques », j'analyse la question de la communication dans une société humaine de l'avenir considéré par Tarkovski comme rigide, de l'obsession de la maison et de l'évolution personnelle de Kris, Hari et de leurs relations. Dans « Aspects philosophiques », le film est analysé à travers la philosophie de l’esprit (dualisme cartésien, réductionnisme et fonctionnalisme), le problème de l’identité personnelle, la théorie des espaces hétérotopiques développée par Michel Foucault et les interprétations sémantiques pouvant être déduites du film. J'analyse également la question de l'identité personnelle à travers la philosophie de Locke. Les « Conclusions » montrent les idées générales de cet essai, à savoir que les tentatives de l'homme pour classer et maintenir des formes d'interaction avec des entités inconnues seront toujours condamnées à l'échec et refléteront une erreur majeure du monde panoptique dans lequel nous vivons. Dans ce cadre d'analyse de la philosophie de l'esprit, le fonctionnalisme semble être le plus intuitif. Solaris est toutefois un film qui commence par une recherche de réponses et vient apporter à ces réponses toute une gamme de questions différentes. -/- SOMMAIRE: -/- Abstract Introduction 1 Technique cinématographique 2. Aspects psychologiques 3. Aspects philosophiques Conclusions Bibliographie Notes -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20367.53929 . (shrink)

Dans cet article, il sera fait un bref rappel du modèle traditionnel d’interprétation des lois, toujours prescrit dans la doctrine, sinon épousé verbalement dans les tribunaux canadiens. Il sera démontré que ce modèle ne peut pas représenter toute la réalité du travail d’interprétation des juristes canadiens, pour plusieurs raisons. L’herméneutique, la sociologie critique, l’analyse du discours, prenant pour objet les textes législatifs, les jugements rendus, les arguments pratiques entendus, ont montré l’étendue du comportement réflexif réel, l’étendue du champ interprétatif visant (...) les circonstances d’une cause. Les textes législatifs donnent de fait de plus en plus de place à l’interprétation des circonstances pertinentes à l’encadrement de l’action des justiciables. Sur un plan empirique, l’analyse des jugements, de même que les prises de position de juges lorsqu’ils s’expriment en dehors du forum judiciaire, mettent en évidence la variété des motifs effectivement pris en considération, l’espace considérable de délibération éthique impliquant de fait tous les interprètes, qu’ils soient simples citoyens d’une communauté, inspirés par l’un ou l’autre des ordres sociaux, ou acteurs spécialisés de l’ordre juridique. Cet article se propose d’examiner comment se produit actuellement, en droit canadien ou québécois, l’interprétation des juristes, dans des processus décisionnels réflexifs, en situations complexes, voire même dans la perspective du développement des institutions. (shrink)