In this paper we propose and analyze a game-theoretic model of the epistemology of peer disagreement. In this model, the peers' rationality is evaluated in terms of their probability of ending the disagreement with a true belief. We find that different strategies---in particular, one based on the Steadfast View and one based on the Conciliatory View---are rational depending on the truth-sensitivity of the individuals involved in the disagreement. Interestingly, the Steadfast and the Conciliatory Views can even be rational simultaneously in (...) some circumstances. We tentatively provide some reasons to favor the Conciliatory View in such cases. We argue that the game-theoretic perspective is a fruitful one in this debate, and this fruitfulness has not been exhausted by the present paper. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Petrus van Musschenbroek's research on the strength of materials in relation to his methodological views. In the latter, van Musschenbroek emphasizes the importance of repeating and varying experiments. This is related to his views on the complexity of nature, which play a role in his views onmathematics, laws of nature, causes, and experimental method. In each case, the construction of an (experimental) history is presented as a first step in experimental philosophy, necessary to deal with (...) the complexity of nature. The experimental research on the strength ofmaterials can likewise be seen as aimed at the construction of an (experimental) history. His experimental practice takes the form of a systematic variation of parameters and the performance of an extensive series of experiments on different kinds of substances. In his experimental reports, van Musschenbroek repeatedly points to the utility of his experimental results. This utilitarian attitude is typical for the experimental history literature as discussed by Klein. Van Musschenbroek himself also presents his work as an experimental history. However, unlike the examples discussed by Klein, van Musschenbroek's experimental history is characterized by a systematic experimental method. I argue that this method can be seen as an example of exploratory experimentation in Steinle's sense. Finally, I suggest that with its emphasis on the nature and properties of specific materials, it could be fruitful to read van Musschenbroek's experimental history in light of the emergence of engineering as a discipline in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a historical and philosophical discussion of the so-called “science wars”. The term “science wars” refers to a series of debates which took place in the second half of the 1990s and which centered on the status of science and the nature of scientific knowledge. On the one hand, a group of authors reacted against what they perceived as a “postmodern” attack on science. This in turn led to several reactions from those who were labeled as (...) “postmodernists”. Among these, some authors in turn claimed that it were the scientists and their epigones who were the real aggressors, using the authority of science to attack any form of critical thinking and even democracy itself. I first provide a short historical overview and analysis of the science wars. The aim of this overview is to show how critics of postmodernism ignored differences between different approaches in science studies and in this way constructed the idea of the existence of a homogeneous postmodern attack on science. This resulted in an intellectual trench war, in which more nuanced positions got overlooked, being trapped in the no man’s land between two extreme positions. After this historical overview, I explore this no man’s land. I discuss several scholars and approaches within science studies that had been grouped together by critics of postmodernism. I will focus on the differences between these approaches, thus providing a more nuanced picture of science studies. Finally, I argue for the relevance of revisiting the science wars. Blindly labelling (certain approaches in) science studies as “anti science” disables us from using important insights from these studies, insights which could be relevant in dealing with complex societal issues in which scientific knowledge plays a role such as climate change. (shrink)

I examine Dr. van den Berg’s review article of ‘’Philosophy from Africa –a text with readings’’, with a view to setting aside the false allegation concerning the racist intentions of the editors.

These notes contain an annotated edition of the only four extant letters of Burchard de Volder to Philipp van Limborch. In the first letter De Volder provides Van Limborch with some information about the subscription to the Dordrecht Confession of Faith by professors. In the second letter De Volder comments upon Van Limborch’s De veritate religionis Christianae. This letter is interesting as it provides insights into De Volder’s views on religion and theology. The third letter served as a cover letter (...) for De Volder’s sending to Van Limborch a copy of the honestum testimonium on Jacobus Arminius that was requested by Arminius’s widow in 1611. In the fourth letter Volder comments upon the visit that Pieter Burman had paid him. The visit was an episode in the quarrel between Pieter Burman, his brother Frans Burman jr., and Van Limborch, caused by Van Limborch’s remark, in his Theologia Christiana, that Frans Burman sr. had used Spinoza’s words while treating the issue of divine omnipotence in his Synopsis theologiae. (shrink)

The Louvre Museum is the largest of the world's art museums by its exhibition surface. These represent the Western art of the Middle Ages in 1848, those of the ancient civilizations that preceded and influenced it (Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman), and the arts of early Christians and Islam. At the origin of the Louvre existed a castle, built by King Philip Augustus in 1190, and occupying the southwest quarter of the current Cour Carrée. In 1594, Henri IV decided (...) to unite the palace of the Louvre with the palace of the Tuileries built by Catherine de Medicis. The Cour Carrée was built by the architects Lemercier and then Le Vau, under the reign of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The Department of Paintings currently has about 7,500 paintings (of which 3,400 are exposed), covering a period that goes from the Middle Ages to 1848 (date of the beginning of the Second Republic). By including the deposits, the collection is, with 12,660 works, the largest collection of ancient paintings in the world. With rare exceptions, the works after 1848 were transferred to the Musée d'Orsay when it was created in 1986. CONTENTS: Louvre Museum - Variety of exhibited works - The Royal Palace - The collections - - Eastern antiquities - - Arts of Islam - - Egyptian Antiquities - - Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities - - Paintings - - - French school - - - Northern Schools (Flanders, Netherlands, Germany) - - - Italian School - - - Other schools Painting - Definitions - Painting genres - - The landscape - - Still life Paintings - FRANCOIS BOUCHER - - Vulcan presenting arms to Venus for Aeneas - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione - RUBENS - - Helena Fourment with children - LOUIS DAVID - - Madame Récamier - REMBRANDT - - Portrait of Heindrickje Stoffels - VELAZQUEZ - - Portrait of the Infanta Margarita - SIMONE MEMMI - - Jesus Christ walking on Calvary - JAN STEEN - - The Bad Company - HANS HOLBEIN - - Erasmus - CORREGGIO - - Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine - LANCRET - - Conversation - JAN VAN DER MEER (VERMEER) - - The Lacemaker - VAN DYCK - - Charles I at the Hunt - FRANÇOIS CLOUET - - Elisabeth of Austria (1554-1592), Wife of Charles IX and Queen of France (1570 - 1574) - DELACROIX - - The Barque of Dante - EL GRECO - - Saint Louis, King of France, and a page - REMBRANDT - - Pilgrims at Emmaus (The Supper at Emmaus) - GERARD DAVID - - Marriage at Cana - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens, Vice-Queen of Naples - RUBENS - - La Kermesse (The Village Fête, or Noce de village) - FRANS HALS - - The Gypsy Girl - DECAMPS - - The Sonneurs - HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER - - Anne of Cleves - P. PRUD’HON - - Psyche transported to Heaven - PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE - - Portrait of Richelieu - LANCRET - - The Autumn - L. DAVID - - Madame Seriziat - COROT - - Recollection of Mortefontaine - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - La belle ferronnière - CORREGGIO - - Venus and Cupid with a Satyr - WATTEAU - - Pilgrimage to Cythera (The Embarkation for Cythera) - NICOLAS POUSSIN - - The Inspiration of the Poet - PRUD’HON - - The Empress Josephine (1763-1814) - FRAGONARD - - The Bathers - H. RIGAUD - - Louis XIV (1638–1715) - TERBURG - - The Concert - LEOPOLD ROBERT - - The Pilgrimage to the Madonna of the Arch - LARGILLIERE - - Family Portrait - MANTEGNA - - Parnassus - MEMLING - - The Virgin and Child between St James and St Dominic - FRAGONARD - - The Music Lesson - JEAN VAN EYCK - - The Virgin of chancellor Rolin - PAOLO VERONESE - - Susannah and the Elders - FRANÇOIS BOUCHER - - Diana leaving her bath - GÉRICAULT - - The Raft of the Medusa - MURILLO - - Assumption of the Virgin - CLAUDE GELLEE (LORRAIN) - - Ulysses returning Chryseis to her father (Marine, setting sun) - INGRES - - Madame Riviere - E. MURILLO - - The Young Beggar - GREUZE - - The Broken Pitcher - PIETER DE HOOCH - - Card players in an opulent interior - POUSSIN - - Et in Arcadia ego - QUENTIN MATSYS - - The moneylender and his wife - ANDREA SOLARIO - - Madonna with the Green Cushion - TITIEN - - Woman with a Mirror - DAVID TENIERS (the Younger) - - The Works of Mercy - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) - Armand Dayot . (shrink)

To this day, a hundred and fifty years after Mendeleev's discovery, the overal structure of the periodic system remains unaccounted for in quantum-mechanical terms. Given this dire situation, a handful of scientists in the 1970s embarked on a quest for the symmetries that lie hidden in the periodic table. Their goal was to explain the table's structure in group-theoretical terms. We argue that this symmetry program required an important paradigm shift in the understanding of the nature of chemical elements. The (...) idea, in essence, consisted of treating the chemical elements, not as particles, but as states of a superparticle. We show that the inspiration for this came from elementary particle physics, and in particular from Heisenberg's suggestion to treat the proton and neutron as different states of the nucleon. We provide a careful study of Heisenberg's last paper on the nature of elementary particles, and explain why the Democritean picture of matter no longer applied in modern physics and a Platonic symmetry-based picture was called for instead. We show how Heisenberg's Platonic philosophy came to dominate the field of elementary particle physics, and how it found its culmination point in Gell-Mann's classification of the hadrons in the eightfold way. We argue that it was the success of Heisenberg's approach in elementary particle physics that sparked the group-theoretical approach to the periodic table. We explain how it was applied to the set of chemical elements via a critical examination of the work of the Russian mathematician Abram Ilyich Fet the Turkish-American physicist Asim Orhan Barut, before giving some final reflections. (shrink)

This review paper provides a detailed overview and critical analysis of the philosophical literature on the Rietdijk–Putnam–Maxwell argument for the four-dimensionality of the world. After briefly introducing the debate on the dimensionality of the world, I present the arguments by Rietdijk, Putnam and Maxwell, and highlight the differences between them. I subsequently raise a total of eleven objections against the Rietdijk–Putnam–Maxwell argument, and conclude that its validity is underdetermined by the formalism of special relativity.

The debate on the conventionality of simultaneity and the debate on the dimensionality of the world have been central in the philosophy of special relativity. The link between both debates however has rarely been explored. The purpose of this paper is to gauge what implications the former debate has for the latter. I show the situation to be much more subtle than was previously argued, and explain how the ontic versus epistemic distinction in the former debate impacts the latter. Despite (...) claims to the contrary, I conclude that special relativity leaves the debate on the dimensionality of the world underdetermined. (shrink)

Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls towards (...) the other end of the spectrum. Second, inspired by Hoefer, we argue that an interval of auxiliary conditions corresponds to a region in phase space, and to a bundle of possible block universes. We thus make room for a form of non-nomological indeterminism. Third, we combine crucial elements from the works of Hoefer and List; we attempt to give a libertarian reading of this combination. On our proposal, throughout spacetime, there is a certain amount of freedom that can be interpreted as the result of agential choices. Fourth, we focus on the principle of alternative possibilities throughout and propose three ways of strengthening it. (shrink)

The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to closely explore the nature of Einstein’s block universe and to tease out its implications for the nature of time and human freedom. Four questions, in particular, are central to this dissertation, and set out the four dimensions of this philosophical investigation: (1) Does the block universe view of time follow inevitably from the theory of special relativity? (2) Is there room for the passage of time in the block universe? (3) Can we (...) distinguish past from future in the block universe? (4) Is there room for human freedom in the block universe? Although the answer of most philosophers would be yes, triple no, my own answer, controversially, is no, triple yes. -/- I thereby challenge the status quo with respect to each of these metaphysical questions, and argue that none of these questions can be answered from looking at physics alone. Physics may constrain our metaphysics, but it certainly does not settle it. What is needed in order to answer these questions, are additional metaphysical assumptions that fall outside the scope of modern physics. My primary goal in this dissertation, therefore, is not to settle the debates on the nature of time and human freedom, but to clarify them by expliciting the metaphysical assumptions that are otherwise left implicit. (shrink)

In Metaphysics M.2, 1077a9-14, Aristotle appears to argue against the existence of Platonic Forms on the basis of there being certain universal mathematical proofs which are about things that are ‘beyond’ the ordinary objects of mathematics and that cannot be identified with any of these. It is a very effective argument against Platonism, because it provides a counter-example to the core Platonic idea that there are Forms in order to serve as the object of scientific knowledge: the universal of which (...) theorems of universal mathematics are proven in Greek mathematics is neither Quantity in general nor any of the specific quantities, but Quantity-of-type-x. This universal cannot be a Platonic Form, for it is dependent on the types of quantity over which the variable ranges. Since for both Plato and Aristotle the object of scientific knowledge is that F which explains why G holds, as shown in a ‘direct’ proof about an arbitrary F (they merely disagree about the ontological status of this arbitrary F, whether a Form or a particular used in so far as it is F), Plato cannot maintain that Forms must be there as objects of scientific knowledge - unless the mathematics is changed. (shrink)

Contemporary society engenders complex and controversial contradictions as a consequence of the schism between the experience of a rapidly changing world and the incapability or the lack of an appropriate view of that world. This is why we should encourage the efforts towards a global thought of the world. Such a worldview can help us to understand and explain reality. However, we should be critical towards a mere theoretical approach of that world. A worldview should not be confined to the (...) abilities of our mind. In this article we propose to consider the body as an agent of our encounter with the world. By means of the philosophy of Michel Foucault and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, we will investigate the place and meaning of the body for our thought of the world. (shrink)

In this paper, we turn to the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy. In his work La Création du Monde ou la Mondialisation of 2002 the French philosopher analyses the process of globalisation. Rather than denoting a new homogeneity, the term refers to a world horizon characterized in its interpalpable multiplicity of cultural, socio-economical, ideological and politico-moral content. According to Nancy, globalisation refers to ag-glome-ration: the decay of what once was a globe and now nothing more than a glome. On the one (...) hand, Nancy indicates that the world has changed by an unknown increase of techno-science, the worsening of inequalities between growing populations and by the changing and disappearing of given certainties, views and identities of the world and of man. On a large scale, this deformation is due to the relation between the capitalist evolution and the capitalising of worldviews. On the other hand, due to the inter-palpability of the multiplicity, this means that on our planet there is only space for one world. The world gradually becomes the only world. In this paper we will investigate what Nancy means with the becoming-world of the world and how this relates to our being in the world. For Nancy globalisation reveals two possible destinies of our relation with the world. In La Création du Monde ou la Mondialisation he discerns globalisation from mondialisation to analyze these two possibilities. We will investigate this distinction of Nancy and its consequences for everyday life. (shrink)

The block universe theory of time is commonly said to be incompatible with temporal becoming. This confuses Maudlin who upholds both eternalism and passage. The aim of this paper is to answer Maudlin’s plea for clarification by distinguishing four degrees of temporal becoming. After discussing their respective compatibility with the block universe, I show that Maudlin asks much less from temporal becoming than most philosophers of time. Consequently, his form of becoming is compatible with the block universe, whereas the stronger (...) forms of becoming are not. (shrink)

This chapter gives an overview of the evolution of the position of the rare-earth elements in the periodic system, from Mendeleev’s time to the present. Three fundamentally different accommodation methodologies have been proposed over the years. Mendeleev considered the rare-earth elements as homologues of the other elements. Other chemists looked upon the rare earths as forming a special intraperiodic group and therefore clustered the rare-earth elements in one of the groups of the periodic table. Still others adhered to the intergroup (...) accommodation of the rare earths, according to which the rare-earth elements do not show any relationship with the other elements, so that they had to be placed within the periodic table as a separate family of elements. The intergroup accommodation became the preferred one in the twentieth century. The advantages and disadvantages of the different representations of the modern periodic table are discussed. (shrink)

The heated debates and severe conflicts between the atomists and the anti-atomists of the latter half of the nineteenth century are well known to the historian of science. The position of Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev towards these nineteenth century debates on atomism will be studied in this paper. A first attempt will thus be offered to reconcile Mendeleev’s seemingly contradictory comments and ambiguous standpoints into one coherent view.

According to Leininger, presentists and growing blockers cannot explain why past and present regularities persist in the future. In order to do so, they would have to appeal to enforcers, such as causation, laws or dispositions. But in a world with no future, these enforcers are powerless and cannot guarantee future regularity. I disagree and argue that Leininger’s coordination problem can be met by distinguishing type- from token-level necessitation. Whereas token-level necessitation is cross-temporal and subject to Leininger’s coordination problem, type-level (...) necessitation is atemporal and immune to the coordination problem. For this solution to work, though, type-level necessitation must be ontologically prior to token-level necessitation. This forces us to adopt a Platonist position according to which universals are transcendent, and not immanent. (shrink)

At the heart of chemistry lies the periodic system of chemical elements. Despite being the cornerstone of modern chemistry, the overall structure of the periodic system has never been fully understood from an atomic physics point of view. Group-theoretical models have been proposed instead, but they suffer from several limitations. Among others, the identification of the correct symmetry group and its decomposition into subgroups has remained a problem to this day. In an effort to deepen our limited understanding of the (...) periodic law, we have extended the traditional Lie algebraic framework to account for the peculiar degeneracy structure of the periodic system. Starting from the four-dimensional hidden symmetry and accidental degeneracy of the hydrogen atom, as first revealed by Fock in 1935, our research has mainly focussed on the way this SO(4) symmetry of the Coulomb potential gets broken in the periodic system as a consequence of the transformation of the hydrogenic (n, l) filling order to the Madelung (n+l, n) order due to electronic repulsions, relativistic effects and spin-orbit couplings. In this PhD dissertation, a new left-step format of the periodic table is first proposed on the basis of the Madelung rule. Following the particle physics tradition, the chemical elements are then considered as various states of some 'atomic matter', which is described by a non-compact spectrum-generating dynamical Lie group. The chemical elements are shown to form a basis for a single infinite-dimensional degeneracy space of the SO(4,2) ⊗ SU(2) group. An explanation for the period doubling is then proposed in terms of a particular symmetry breaking of the SO(4,2) group to the anti de Sitter SO(3,2) group. The Madelung rule is rationalised on the basis of nonlinear Lie algebras which reflect the screening of the Coulomb hole. This opens new perspectives for a symmetry-based understanding of how the periodic law emerges from its quantum mechanical foundations, and holds the future promise of complementing our current phenomenological approach by a direct atomic physics approach. (shrink)

Evidence-Based Medicine has little consideration for mechanisms and philosophers of science and medicine have recently made pleas to increase the place of mechanisms in the medical evidence hierarchy. However, in this debate the notions of mechanisms seem to be limited to 'mechanistic processes' and 'complex-systems mechanisms,' understood as 'componential causal systems'. I believe that this will not do full justice to how mechanisms are used in biological, psychological and social sciences and, consequently, in a more biopsychosocial approach to medicine. Here, (...) I propose, following (Kuorikoski, 2009), to pay more attention to 'abstract forms of interaction' mechanisms. The present work scrutinized review articles on depression and medically unexplained pain, which are considered to be of multifactorial pathogenesis, for their use of mechanisms. In review articles on these disorders there seemed to be a range of uses between more 'abstract forms of interaction' and 'componential causal system' mechanisms. I therefore propose to expand the notions of mechanisms considered in medicine to include that of more 'abstract forms of interaction' to better explain and manage biopsychosocial disorders. (shrink)

Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither approach adequately accounts for how successful action is possible in complex systems. Agents regularly perform successful actions without (...) obeying (explicit or implicit) algorithmic rules (as the analytic approach suggests) and without an existential leap to action (as the post-modern approach suggests). We offer an alternative: A common-sense pragmatist epistemology, one that focuses on the kind of actions making up most agents’ successful moment-to-moment actions in complex systems. Successful actions obtain when agents apply ceteris paribus rules-of-thumb during predictive and decisional practices while achieving some desired goal. (shrink)

This essay argues that there are theoretical benefits to keeping distinct—more pervasively than the literature has done so far—the psychological states of imagining that p versus believing that in-the-story p, when it comes to cognition of fiction and other forms of narrative. Positing both in the minds of a story’s audience helps explain the full range of reactions characteristic of story consumption. This distinction also has interesting conceptual and explanatory dimensions that haven’t been carefully observed, and the two mental state (...) types make distinct contributions to generating emotional responses to stories. Finally, the differences between the mental states illuminate how a given story can be both shared with others and at the same time experienced as personal. (shrink)

The paper by Monteiro, Musten and Compson (2014) is to be commended for providing a comprehensive discussion of the compatibility issues arising from the integration of mindfulness – a 2,500-year-old Buddhist practice – into research and applied psychological domains. Consistent with the observations of various others (e.g., Dunne, 2011; Kang & Whittingham, 2010), Monteiro and colleagues have not only highlighted that there are differences in how Buddhism and contemporary mindfulness interventional approaches interpret and contextualize mindfulness, but there are also differing (...) interpretations of mindfulness within Buddhism. These apparent differences within Buddhism are arguably more noticeable when making comparisons across Buddhist vehicles (i.e., Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), but to a lesser extent intra-vehicular differences can also be said to exist (i.e., differences between Buddhist traditions of the same vehicle). This commentary investigates the validity of some of these different Buddhist constructions of mindfulness, and then discusses how a better understanding of their scriptural and conceptual soundness (or lack thereof) may help to reconcile some of the actual and perceived incompatibility between Buddhist practice and contemporary secular mindfulness-based approaches. (shrink)

Compared to its sister disciplines—philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology—philosophy of chemistry remains a relatively young field of philosophical endeavour. Having originated in the late...

This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to popular sovereignty; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': a non-moralised normative account of how to shore up belief in (...) legitimacy while steering clear of both raw domination and ideological distortions. (iii) The EU's current legitimation story draws on a tradition of popular sovereignty that sits badly with the supranational delegation and pooling of sovereign powers. We conclude by suggesting that the EU's legitimation deficit may be best addressed demoicratically, by recovering the value of popular sovereignty at the expense of a degree of state sovereignty. (shrink)

This paper considers a particular instance in which a liberal state –Germany -makes a claim for the limitation of tolerance of religious expression on the grounds of harm. I examine this claim with reference to three basic positions: Firstly,I examine Denise Meyerson’s argument that the domain of religion constitutes an area of intractable dispute and that the state is not entitled to limit liberty in this domain because it cannot justify limitations in a neutrally acceptable way. I argue that Ludin (...) is entitled to wear the Kopftuch on grounds of her right to religious freedom and that the attempt to deny her this entitlement constitutes a breach of individual rights. Meyerson’s arguments rest on the acceptability of Rawls’s idea of public reason. I therefore, secondly, examine Jeremy Waldron’s objections to the use of the deliberative discipline of public reason in cultural disputes as well as his objections to the use of the politics of identity which, he claims, distort our ability to engage in reasoned public debate. I argue that bracketing identity claims eliminates what is peculiar about Ludin’s case.This I bring out, thirdly, by drawing on the views of Melissa Williams, who advances the idea of sensitivity to others’ reasons as reasons, which defines a position midway between Meyerson and Waldron. It is apparent that Ludin’s dilemma is twofold: her status as ‘metic’-as member of a minority at the margins of mainstream German culture, and her status as ‘Muslimin’-as one believed to be suffering sexual discrimination in her own culture, form a double-bind of oppression. They are connected in a way that challenges the integration policies of the German state. (shrink)

A philosophical analysis of the future of art must explicate art’s nature, as well as discuss the historical nature of art practice. Only so can one explain those contemporary developments in art which have led many people to doubt whether art even has a future. Arguably, art practice as we know it started with the installing of the modern system of the fine arts. I explain the pragmatics of art so understood, and suggest that we can define art, internally. We (...) need not resort to a nominalist approach that claims that something is a work of art if some representative of the art world says it is. Instead of such empty proceduralism, I explain how all art’s focal objects, persons and activities are mutually adjusted and can only be understood in light of the whole. Within that whole of art practice, the contemporary samples of art’s alleged failure can be assessed. Now the modern system treats the arts as aesthetic, and prescribes that to judge a work one has to experience it for oneself. Why this should be so, I explain in terms of the perceivability of the artist in the work. Next, art develops as a whole rather than in a piecemeal manner. Particular contemporary works may alienate the audience from art practice, yet once they are recognisably in a procedure which has clear artistic potency they can be incorporated fruitfully in the modern system as explained. In all, the future of art is the future of the modern system, unless the system as a whole goes. We see this happen with the Taliban, but do not ourselves seem to be vulnerable to such onslaught. Yet, our culture may be in the process of eliminating the human mind from the objective reality, and if nothing stops us, art too will come to an end. Luckily, by then we will not be such as to lament that demise. (shrink)

Als Plato de hedendaagse academie zou aanschouwen, zou hij niet alleen stomverbaasd zijn over de massificatie en de byzantijnse bureaucratie, maar gezien het ethische doel van de universiteit zou hij ook reden hebben om bezorgd te zijn.

What does it mean to have “strong beliefs”? My thesis is that it can mean two very different things. That is, there are two distinct psychological features to which “strong belief” can refer, and these often come apart. I call the first feature epistemic confidence and the second identity centrality. They are conceptually distinct and, if we take ethnographies of religion seriously, distinct in fact as well. If that’s true, it’s methodologically important for the psychological sciences to have measures that (...) tease them apart. In this paper, I critique some measures that are currently in use and propose some strategies for developing measurement tools that track the distinction in question. (shrink)

This paper challenges the two aims of Michael Cholbi’s Rational Will View (RWV) which are to (1) offer an account of why paternalism is presumptively or pro tanto wrong and (2) relate the relative wrongness of paternalistic interventions to the rational powers that such interventions target (Sections 1 and 2). Some of a paternalizee’s choices harm their future selves in ways that would be wrong if they were done to others. I claim this challenges Cholbi’s second aim (2) because the (...) cases his account deems particularly wrong turn out to be not to be as wrongful as expected (Section 3). When this second aim is challenged, it has knock-on effects on the capacity of the RWV to discern which cases of paternalism are generally more wrongful than others, which undermines Cholbi’s first aim (1). I consider responses on behalf of Cholbi’s view but conclude that the account is insufficient on its own to vindicate its two aims (Section 4). Finally, I draw on recent work that adopts ideas from the practical reasoning literature to help determine paternalism’s wrongness (Section 5). I argue this helps Cholbi’s view withstand my objections, but we must remain skeptical of why interceding with rational powers is particularly wrong. (shrink)

In an earlier issue, I argue (2014) that psychology and epistemology should distinguish religious credence from factual belief. These are distinct cognitive attitudes. Levy (2017) rejects this distinction, arguing that both religious and factual “beliefs” are subject to “shifting” on the basis of fluency and “intuitiveness.” Levy’s theory, however, (1) is out of keeping with much research in cognitive science of religion and (2) misrepresents the notion of factual belief employed in my theory. So his claims don’t undermine my distinction. (...) I conclude by suggesting some approaches to empirically testing our views. (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)

I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by presenting a range of empirical evidence that religious cognitive attitudes tend to lack properties characteristic of factual belief, just as attitudes like hypothesis, fictional imagining, and assumption for the sake of argument generally lack such properties. Furthermore, religious credences have distinctive properties of their own. To summarize: factual beliefs (...) are practical setting independent, cognitively govern other attitudes, and are evidentially vulnerable. By way of contrast, religious credences have perceived normative orientation, are susceptible to free elaboration, and are vulnerable to special authority. This theory provides a framework for future research in the epistemology and psychology of religious credence. (shrink)

Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics has generally been received as an attempt to restore the determinism of classical physics. However, although this interpretation, as Bohm initially proposed it in 1952, does indeed have the feature of being deterministic, for Bohm this was never the main point. In fact, in other publications and in correspondence from this period, he argued that the assumption that nature is deterministic is unjustified and should be abandoned. Whereas it has been argued before that Bohm’s commitment (...) to determinism was connected to his interest in Marxism, I argue for the opposite: Bohm found resources in Marxist philosophy for developing a nondeterministic notion of causality, which is based on the idea of infinite complexity and an infinite number of levels of nature. From ca. 1954 onwards, Bohm’s conception of causality further weakened, as he developed the idea of a dialectical relation between causality and chance. (shrink)

van Els, Paul. "Echo's van de Weg" (Echoes of the Dao). Dutch translation of Huainanzi chapter 12. Het Trage Vuur 40 (December 2007): 29–35.

van Els, Paul. "Tegen aanvalsoorlogen" (Against Offensive Warfare). Dutch translation of Mozi chapters 17, 18, and 19. Het Trage Vuur 40 (December 2007): 8–19.

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.

In this paper, we report on the development of The Sustainable Port video game, which aims to simulate the complex dynamics and decisions occurring in the present and future development of a port area considering environmental aspects (CO2 emissions) and profit. To evaluate if this game fulfills its purpose, we asked 75 students and 34 employees at the Port of Rotterdam (PoR) to play The Sustainable Port. Our results show that PoR employees score higher than students suggesting a transfer between (...) real-life experience of being an employee in the port and performance in the game. Furthermore, port participants reported that The Sustainable Port can be successfully used to start discussions about the future of the Port of Rotterdam and to raise awareness about the complexity characterizing the decision-making processes occurring in a port environment. Our results, taken together, provide evidence of the effectiveness of The Sustainable Port in simulating dynamics occurring in port development and give us optimism about future applications. (shrink)

Kant’s views on animals have received much attention in recent years. According to some, Kant attributed the capacity for objective perceptual awareness to non-human animals, even though he denied that they have concepts. This position is difficult to square with a conceptualist reading of Kant, according to which objective perceptual awareness requires concepts. Others take Kant’s views on animals to imply that the mental life of animals is a blooming, buzzing confusion. In this article I provide a historical reconstruction of (...) Kant’s views on animals, relating them to eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition. I reconstruct the views of Buffon and Reimarus and show that (i) both Buffon and Reimarus adopted a conceptualist position, according to which concepts structure the cognitive experience of adult humans, and (ii) that both described the mental life of animals as a blooming, buzzing confusion. Kant’s position, I argue, is virtually identical to that of Reimarus. Hence Kant’s views on animals support a conceptualist reading of Kant. The article further articulates the historical antecedents of the Kantian idea that concepts structure human cognitive experience and provides a novel account of how the ideas of similarity and difference were conceptualized in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition. (shrink)

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)

Book Review K. Brad Wray: Resisting Scientific Realism. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2018, xii + 224 pp, £ 75.00 (Hardcover), ISBN: 9781108231633. By Ragnar van der Merwe. In The Journal for the General Philosophy of Science.

In dit artikel betwist ik het gangbare idee dat de rede ontoereikend is voor morele motivatie, met name in relatie tot universele ethische kwesties. Door een uitgebreide verkenning van de Dual-Process Theory (DPT) stel ik dat onze morele intuïties zowel trainbaar zijn als een inherente neiging hebben naar universalistische overwegingen. Ik betoog dat sociale rechtvaardiging en de drang naar rationele argumentatie een cruciale rol spelen in het vormen en veranderen van onze morele standpunten. Concluderend pleit ik voor een herwaardering van (...) klassiek moreel redeneren en stel ik dat een universele ethiek psychologisch realistischer is dan eerder werd aangenomen. (shrink)

Jill de Villiers has argued that children's mastery of sentential complements plays a crucial role in enabling them to succeed at false-belief tasks. Josef Perner has disputed that and has argued that mastery of false-belief tasks requires an understanding of the multiplicity of perspectives. This paper attempts to resolve the debate by explicating attributions of desires and beliefs as extensions of the linguistic practices of making commands and assertions, respectively. In terms of these linguistic practices one can explain why desire-talk (...) will precede belief-talk and why even older children will have difficulty attributing incompatible desires. (shrink)

It is argued that, contrary to prevailing opinion, Bas van Fraassen nowhere uses the argument from underdetermination in his argument for constructive empiricism. It is explained that van Fraassen’s use of the notion of empirical equivalence in The Scientific Image has been widely misunderstood. A reconstruction of the main arguments for constructive empiricism is offered, showing how the passages that have been taken to be part of an appeal to the argument from underdetermination should actually be interpreted.

The guiding premise of this chapter is that we, as teachers in higher education, must consider how the content and form of our teaching can foster inclusivity through a responsiveness to neurodiverse learning styles. A narrow pedagogical focus on lectures, textual engagement, and essay-writing threatens to exclude neurodivergent students whose ways of learning and making sense of the world may not be best supported through these traditional forms of pedagogy. As we discuss in this chapter, we, as engineering ethics educators, (...) designed and implemented a new engineering ethics exercise with which we aimed to promote inclusivity at the levels of form and content. At the content level, students were invited to critically engage with inclusivity-undermining ableist assumptions in technology development. This took shape, at the formal level, through a hands-on ‘material tinkering’ workshop in which students collaboratively and creatively altered (or ‘hacked’) artifacts used in contexts of disability and healthcare, so as to operationalize values of inclusivity and accessibility. Our hunch was that this hands-on tinkering workshop would simultaneously encourage a meaningful way of engagement with these ethical issues and values, while also enacting a more inclusive learning environment by enriching the range of pedagogical activities and learning formats available to our students. As we aim to show in this chapter, we believe this hunch largely panned out - though there are clear areas for future improvement pertaining to the pilot exercise itself and the research we conducted on the exercise. We begin by offering a description of our tinkering exercise. We discuss the exercise’s source of inspiration (2.1) and its implementation (2.2), which is visually captured via photographic documentation. We then discuss (3) how we utilized a triangulated research method to assess the pedagogical value of the exercise. After we discuss our findings, we conclude by identifying areas for future improvement (4). (shrink)