Generic statements, such as "Bees are striped" are thought to be a central vehicle by which essentialist beliefs are transmitted. But work on generics and essentialism almost never focuses on the type of properties mentioned in generic statements. We test the hypothesis that teleological properties, what something is for, affect categorization judgments more strongly than behavioral, biological, or social properties. In Experiment 1, participants categorized properties as being either behavioral, biological, social, or teleological. In Experiment 2, we used the top (...) four properties from each group to describe a generic noun or a specific individual. Participants then categorized creatures that had one of their properties transformed. We found that changes to teleological properties had the strongest impact on categorization judgments. In Experiment 3, we also found that teleological properties mattered more in an induction task. We suggest that teleological properties play this privileged role in categorization because they are treated as essential properties. (shrink)

The oil and gas industry is a complex data-driven industry with compute-intensive, data-intensive and business-intensive features. Cloud computing and big data have a broad application prospect in the oil and gas industry. This research aims to highlight the cloud computing and big data issues and challenges from the informatization in oil and gas industry. In this paper, the distributed cloud storage architecture and its applications for seismic data of oil and gas industry are focused on first. Then,cloud desktop for oil (...) and gas industry applications are also introduced in terms of efficiency, security and usability. Finally, big data architecture and security issues of oil and gas industry are analyzed. Cloud computing and big data architectures have advantages in many aspects, such as system scalability, reliability, and serviceability. This paper also provides a brief description for the future development of Cloud computing and big data in oil and gas industry. Cloud computing and big data can provide convenient information sharing and high quality service for oil and gas industry. (shrink)

Fine’s discussion of McTaggart’s paradox and tense realism may be the most significant progress in the philosophy of time in recent years. Fine reformulates McTaggart’s paradox and develops a novel realist theory called fragmentalism. According to Fine, one major advantage of fragmentalism is its ability to account for the connection between reality and tensed truths. I will argue that fragmentalism cannot give an adequate account of this connection. The reason is that while external relations between fragments are required by this (...) kind of account, these relations are not allowed in fragmentalism. (shrink)

Mathematical cognition is one of the most important cognitive functions of human beings. The latest brain and cognitive research have shown that mathematical cognition is a system with multiple components and subsystems. It has phylogenetic root, also is related to ontogenetic development and learning, relying on a large-scale cerebral network including parietal, frontal and temporal regions. Especially, the parietal cortex plays an important role during mathematical cognitive processes. This indicates that language and visuospatial functions are both key to mathematical cognition. (...) All of those advances have important implications for basic mathematical education. (shrink)

Plakias has recently argued that there is nothing wrong with publishing defences of philosophical claims which we don't believe and also nothing wrong with concealing our lack of belief, because an author's lack of belief is irrelevant to the merit of a published work. Fleisher has refined this account by limiting the permissibility of publishing without belief to what he calls ‘advocacy role cases’. I argue that such lack of belief is irrelevant only if it is the result of an (...) inexplicable incredulity or the result of a metaphilosophical or epistemic stance that is unrelated to the specific claim. However, in many real-life cases, including Fleisher's advocacy role cases, our doubts regarding the claims we defend arise from reasons that have something to do with the insufficiency of the philosophical evidence supporting the claim, and publishing an unconditional defence of a claim without revealing our doubts is impermissible as it involves withholding philosophically relevant reasons. Plakias has also argued that discouraging philosophers from publishing claims they don't believe would be unfair to junior philosophers with unsettled views. I propose that we should change our academic practices that pressure philosophers to publish articles that pretend to be defences of settled views. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen's thorough critique of Eric Voegelin's "New Science of Politcs" is - in my oppinion - the best commentary on Voegelin that has been written so far.

Criticism and Creative Compensation: Andreas Schönberger, Immanuel Kant et al. In: Sabine Coelsch-Foisner (2023) Kreativität, schöpferischer Wille und (Über)Lebensstrategie. Winter, Heidelberg. -/- Creativity as a survival strategy requires the creative will to succeed in an academic environment. In addition to previous education, originality and the quality of one's own preliminary work, conviction of one's own abilities and flexibility in the choice of topics, activities and places are important prerequisites for success. The spirit of optimism in the age of the Enlightenment (...) and the stormy rise of idealism, the possi- bility of documenting academic achievements and partly self-awarded qualifica- tions in self-financed printed works, and the administrative gaps in the system were enough to annoy Immanuel Kant – at least briefly. (shrink)

Radical democratic thinking is becoming intrigued by the material situatedness of its political agents and by the role of nonhuman participants in political interaction. At stake here is the displacement of narrow anthropocentrism that currently guides democratic theory and practice, and its repositioning into what we call ‘the nonhuman condition’. This Critical Exchange explores the nonhuman condition. It asks: What are the implications of decentering the human subject via a new materialist reading of radical democracy? Does this reading dilute political (...) agency? Or should this be seen, on the contrary, as an invitation for new voices and demands to enter into democratic assemblages? How might engagement with the more-than-human disrupt or extend theories of radical democracy? Hans Asenbaum and Amanda Machin discuss the human democratic subject both through radical democratic and new materialist lenses. They suggest that a new materialist decentred subject does not lose agency but further gains political responsibility in radical democracy. Jean-Paul Gagnon highlights the possibility of becoming through loss. In losing our anthropocentric arrogance—our understanding of being other and better than animal—we become more connected and discover our place in human-nonhuman assemblages. Melissa Orlie agrees that something can be gained through renouncing dominant human fantasies and presents a ‘radical democratic naturalism’. By renouncing land violence and acknowledging nature’s subjectivity, we can further nonexploitative radical democratic politics. This is where the notion of ‘tidalectic’ processes introduced by James L. Smith is helpful. Focusing on water and the Indigenous knowledges around rivers, he considers how democracy and community can be reimagined as plural, cyclical and attentive to the nonhuman with which the human is inevitably entangled. Diana Leong offers a different approach. Considering the nonhuman from the perspective of Black Studies demands an awareness to how blackness has long been constituted as non- or partially human. (shrink)

Current radical democratic politics is characterized by new participatory spaces for citizens’ engagement, which aim at facilitating the democratic ideals of freedom and equality. These spaces are, however, situated in the context of deep societal inequalities. Modes of discrimination are carried over into participatory interaction. The democratic subject is judged by its physically embodied appearance, which replicates external hierarchies and impedes the freedom of self-expression. To tackle this problem, this article seeks to identify ways to increase the freedom of the (...) subject to explore its multiple self. Understanding the self as inherently fugitive, the article investigates participatory, deliberative and agonistic concepts of self-transformation. As all of them appear limited, it introduces a transformative perspective in democratic thought. Enriching the transformative perspective with queer and gender theory, the article generates the concept of a politics of becoming, which, through radical democratic practices of disidentification, advances the freedom of the subject to change. (shrink)

First published in 1949 expressly to introduce logical positivism to English speakers. Reichenbach, with Rudolph Carnap, founded logical positivism, a form of epistemofogy that privileged scientific over metaphysical truths.

In this paper, I examined whether evidence from the neuroscience of morality supports the standard models of phronesis, i.e., Jubilee and Aretai Centre Models. The standard models explain phronesis as a multifaceted construct based on interaction and coordination among functional components. I reviewed recent neuroscience studies focusing on brain networks associated with morality and their connectivity to examine the validity of the models. Simultaneously, I discussed whether the evidence helps the models address challenges, particularly those from the phronesis eliminativism. Neuroscientific (...) evidence supported the importance of brain networks, i.e., the default mode, salience, and central executive functioning networks, in moral functioning in general. The findings favorably supported the multifaceted and integrative nature of phronesis proposed by the standard models. Finally, I considered how the two models could explain the mechanisms of phronesis more integratively based on neuroscientific findings. At the end of this paper, with the evidence, I proposed several practical ideas to promote the cultivation of phronesis, e.g., the consideration of coordination among components for moral functioning and the use of moral exemplars. (shrink)

This study develops a Science–Technology–Society (STS)-based science ethics education program for high school students majoring in or planning to major in science and engineering. Our education program includes the fields of philosophy, history, sociology and ethics of science and technology, and other STS-related theories. We expected our STS-based science ethics education program to promote students’ epistemological beliefs and moral judgment development. These psychological constructs are needed to properly solve complicated moral and social dilemmas in the fields of science and engineering. (...) We applied this program to a group of Korean high school science students gifted in science and engineering. To measure the effects of this program, we used an essay-based qualitative measurement. The results indicate that there was significant development in both epistemological beliefs and moral judgment. In closing, we briefly discuss the need to develop epistemological beliefs and moral judgment using an STS-based science ethics education program. (shrink)

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

The third-generation cognitive science adopts the method of imaging and simulating the human brain, whereby it uses high-tech brain imaging technology and computer neural simulation technology to explain the complex relationship between human cognitive activity, language ability and brain nerves, and reveal the secrets of the advanced functions of the human brain. Based on the third- generation cognitive science, this paper introduces the neural mechanisms of language production and language processing and reveals the interrelationship between language research and neural simulation (...) under the third-generation cognitive science. (shrink)

The work of Thomas White represents a systematic attempt to combine the best of the new science of the seventeenth century with the best of Aristotelian tradition. This attempt earned him the criticism of Hobbes and the praise of Leibniz, but today, most of his attempts to navigate between traditions remain to be explored in detail. This paper does so for his ontology of accidents. It argues that his criticism of accidents in the category of location as entities over and (...) above substances was likely aimed at Francisco Suárez, and shows how White’s worries about the analysis of location were linked with his broader cosmological views. White rejects real qualities, but holds that the quantity of a substance is somehow distinct from its bearer. This reveals a common ground with some of his scholastic interlocutors, but lays bare a deep disagreement with thinkers like Descartes on the nature of matter. (shrink)

According to Stephen Davies, there is no such thing as free beauty. Using actual and imaginary examples, he tries to show that our aesthetic evaluations of objects inevitably pay heed to the kinds to which they belong or in which we judge them to belong. His examples are not as compelling as he thinks, however. Furthermore, nature looked at through a microscope (or a telescope) provides us with a particular class of counter-examples which have not been dealt with by Davies (...) and which put considerable pressure on his account. (shrink)

In its origins educational neuroscience has started as an endeavor to discuss implications of neuroscience studies for education. However, it is now on its way to become a transdisciplinary field, incorporating findings, theoretical frameworks and methodologies from education, and cognitive and brain sciences. Given the differences and diversity in the originating disciplines, it has been a challenge for educational neuroscience to integrate both theoretical and methodological perspective in education and neuroscience in a coherent way. We present a multi-level framework for (...) educational neuroscience, which argues for integration of multiple levels of analysis, some originating in brain and cognitive sciences, others in education, as a roadmap for the future of educational neuroscience with concrete examples in moral education. (shrink)

Herman Philipse considers “religious beliefs, faith and religion [to be] incompatible with science or reason”; he defines religion scientifically and specifically rejects religious doctrine. He describes reason “… as the whole of methods of empirical scientific research and critical discursive thinking as they have evolved in the scientific tradition and will continue to develop in the future” and he defines “… the phenomenon of conscience as a mental organ that can be scientifically explained and that makes the religious explanation superfluous (...) …”. Herman Philipse classifies science as the highest in rank, discards religion and sees philosophy, a rational view of the world, as based solely on the sciences. For his subject, Hans Achterhuis “… primarily cites biologists, ethologists and evolutionary psychologists with a philosophical interest” because “they presently have more to offer [him] than do his immediate colleagues”. Furthermore, “… it will be clear that ethologists and sociobiologists are of the opinion that the violent behaviour of human beings must be understood in part from the point of view of the evolutionary history of the sort ….. most philosophers and anthropologists are not aware of this. Their considerations suggest that violence only entered our world together with humankind”. Achterhuis’s choice is a “historic concept of violence”. (shrink)

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that draws (...) both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

ToM & AI. -/- „TOM!“ No answer. „TOM!“ No answer. „What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!“ No answer. „The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for „style,“ not service – she could have (...) seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.“ Langhorne Clemens (1876) Tom Sawyer. (shrink)

Karl Philipp Moritz edited Gnothi Sauton, the Journal of Empirical Psychology (1783-1793), which stands as the first of numerous psychological and psychiatric periodicals. We evaluated 124 psychiatric or neurological case reports from the journal according to modern diagnostic criteria and present a brief outline of the contributors' and patients' sociodemographic characteristics, selected case reports and the surmised risk factors. A reliable diagnostic reassignment of the well-described cases was feasible; this may indicate that patients retain similar psychiatric disturbances over the centuries. (...) As in the popular literature of the period, examples of' sentimental students' and 'desperate soldiers' represented the most frequently discussed, prototypical high-risk personalities in the Journal, which marked the step from literature to empirical science. The influences of this case material upon contemporary psychiatric writing and thought are reviewed. (shrink)

John Abercrombie (1780–1844) was considered the most eminent Scottish physician of his time. In his Pathological and Practical Researches on the Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord (1836. Edinburgh: John Carfrae and Son, 3rd ed.) he described the cases of 140 patients with cerebral disorders, 48 of whom suffered from language disturbances. Despite the overwhelming clinical and neuropathological evidence of a close association between language disorder and right-sided hemiparesis or diseases of the left hemisphere, and in spite of his (...) great interest in language disorders, he made no attempt to localize the aphasic syndrome to a specific brain area. (shrink)

The VIA Inventory of Strengths and the VIA model were originally developed to assess and study 24 character strengths. In this paper, I discuss how the VIA Inventory and its character strength model can be applied to the field of moral education with moral philosophical considerations. First, I review previous factor analysis studies that have consistently reported factors containing candidates for moral virtues, and discuss the systematic structure and organization of VIA character strengths. Second, I discuss several issues related to (...) the VIA model, including a lack of previous studies that directly support the moral justifiability of the model and the presence of a fundamental virtue component required for optimal moral functioning in virtue ethics, phronesis, practical wisdom, in the model. Finally, I propose future directions for research on the VIA model in order to address the aforementioned issues and facilitate the application of the model in moral education. (shrink)

Incremental implicit theories are associated with a belief regarding it is possible to improve one’s intelligence or ability through efforts. Previous studies have demonstrated that incremental implicit theories contributed to better academic achievement and positive youth development. Our study aimed to examine whether incremental implicit theories of morality significantly influenced change in students’ engagement in voluntary service activities. In our study, 54 Korean college students for Study 1 and 180 Korean 8th graders for Study 2 were recruited to conduct two (...) two-wave studies. We surveyed participants’ implicit theories of morality and participation in voluntary service activities. The effect of implicit theories of morality on change in service engagement was analyzed through regression analysis. In Study 1, the moral growth mindset significantly moderated longitudinal change in service engagement. In Study 2, the moral growth mindset significantly influenced engagement in art-related activities, while it significantly moderated change in engagement in youth-related activities. (shrink)

The objective of this report is twofold. In the first place it aims to demonstrate that a four-dimensional local U(1) gauge invariant relativistic quantum mechanical Dirac-type equation is derivable from the equations for the classical electromagnetic field. In the second place, the transformational consequences of this local U(1) invariance are used to obtain solutions of different Maxwell equations.

As is well known, Einstein was dissatisfied with the foundation of quantum theory and sought to find a basis for it that would have satisfied his need for a causal explanation. In this paper this abandoned idea is investigated. It is found that it is mathematically not dead at all. More in particular: a quantum mechanical U(1) gauge invariant Dirac equation can be derived from Einstein's gravity field equations. We ask ourselves what it means for physics, the history of physics (...) and for the actual discussion on foundations. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen's thorough critique of Eric Voegelin's "New Science of Politcs" is - in my oppinion - the best commentary on Voegelin that has been written so far.

Some stories of moral exemplars motivate us to emulate their admirable attitudes and behaviors, but why do some exemplars motivate us more than others? We systematically studied how motivation to emulate is influenced by the similarity between a reader and an exemplar in social or cultural background (Relatability) and how personally costly or demanding the exemplar’s actions are (Attainability). Study 1 found that university students reported more inspiration and related feelings after reading true stories about the good deeds of a (...) recent fellow alum, compared to a famous moral exemplar from decades past. Study 2A developed a battery of short moral exemplar stories that more systematically varied Relatability and Attainability, along with a set of non-moral exemplar stories for comparison. Studies 2B and 2C examined the path from the story type to relatively low stakes altruism (donating to charity and intentions to volunteer) through perceived attainability and relatability, as well as elevation and pleasantness. Together, our studies suggest that it is primarily the relatability of the moral exemplars, not the attainability of their actions, that inspires more prosocial motivation, at least regarding acts that help others at a relatively low cost to oneself. (shrink)

This paper looks at the critical reception of two central claims of Peter Auriol’s theory of cognition: the claim that the objects of cognition have an apparent or objective being that resists reduction to the real being of objects, and the claim that there may be natural intuitive cognitions of nonexistent objects. These claims earned Auriol the criticism of his fellow Franciscans, Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham. According to them, the theory of apparent being was what had led Auriol to (...) allow for intuitive cognitions of nonexistents, but the intuitive cognition of nonexistents, at its turn, led to scepticism. Modern commentators have offered similar readings of Auriol, but this paper argues, first, that the apparent being provides no special reason to think there could be intuitions of nonexistent objects, and second, that despite his idiosyncratic account of intuition, Auriol was no more vulnerable to scepticism than his critics. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine why moral exemplars are useful and even necessary in moral education despite several critiques from researchers and educators. To support my point, I review recent AI research demonstrating that exemplar-based learning is superior to rule-based learning in model performance in training neural networks, such as large language models. I particularly focus on why education aiming at promoting the development of multifaceted moral functioning can be done effectively by using exemplars, which is similar to exemplar-based learning (...) in AI model training. Furthermore, I discuss the potential limitations and issues related to exemplar-applied moral education with findings from recent studies in AI research raising concerns about model biases and toxic outcomes. I attempt to propose ways to address the concerns regarding employing moral exemplars as well. As remedies, I suggest that autonomy-supporting deliberative and reflective learning processes should be utilized. Furthermore, based on the discussion, I examine how macroscopic socio-cultural aspects influence the effectiveness of exemplar-applied moral education. Suggestions for moral educators and future directions for research in moral education are briefly discussed. (shrink)

The present study aimed to develop effective moral educational interventions based on social psychology by using stories of moral exemplars. We tested whether motivation to engage in voluntary service as a form of moral behavior was better promoted by attainable and relevant exemplars or by unattainable and irrelevant exemplars. First, experiment 1, conducted in a lab, showed that stories of attainable exemplars more effectively promoted voluntary service activity engagement among undergraduate students compared with stories of unattainable exemplars and non-moral stories. (...) Second, experiment 2, a middle school classroom-level experiment with a quasi-experimental design, demonstrated that peer exemplars, who are perceived to be attainable and relevant to students, better promoted service engagement compared with historic figures in moral education classes. (shrink)

The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has mainly focused on the relatedness and attainability of moral exemplars for predicting motivation outcomes. The data for this study consisted of synthesized data sets from previous studies examining the motivational impacts of distinct moral exemplars and intervention methods. The main syntheses for these data sets used Multilevel Modeling (MLM) (...) focusing on relatability, attainability, and intervention methods, corresponding to relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the SDT, respectively, as predictors. In general, there was a significant interaction effect between the attainability or relatability, and the intervention method. Autonomous instruction methods, which support autonomy, were demonstrated to boost motivational outcomes. Implications from this study support the employment of SDT to examine the use of moral exemplars in moral education and were consistent with previous exemplar studies. (shrink)

This essay develops a new conceptual framework of science and engineering ethics education based on virtue ethics and positive psychology. Virtue ethicists and positive psychologists have argued that current rule-based moral philosophy, psychology, and education cannot effectively promote students’ moral motivation for actual moral behavior and may even lead to negative outcomes, such as moral schizophrenia. They have suggested that their own theoretical framework of virtue ethics and positive psychology can contribute to the effective promotion of motivation for self-improvement by (...) connecting the notion of morality and eudaimonic happiness. Thus this essay attempts to apply virtue ethics and positive psychology to science and engineering ethics education and to develop a new conceptual framework for more effective education. In addition to the conceptual-level work, this essay suggests two possible educational methods: moral modeling and involvement in actual moral activity in science and engineering ethics classes, based on the conceptual framework. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spinoza and the Theory of Organism HANS JONAS I CARTESIANDUALISMlanded speculation on the nature of life in an impasse: intelligible as, on principles of mechanics, the correlation of structure and function became within the res extensa, that of structure-plus-function with feeling or experience (modes of the res cogitans) was lost in the bifurcation, and thereby the fact of life itself became unintelligible at the same time that the explanation (...) of its bodily performance seemed to be assured. The impasse became manifest in Occasionalism : its tour de force of an extraneous, divine "synchronization" of the outer and the inner world (the latter denied to animals) not only suffered from its extreme artificiality, the common failing of such ad hoc constructions, but even at so high a cost failed to accomplish its theoretical purpose by its own terms. For the animal machine, like any machine, raises beyond the question of the "how" that of the "what for" of its functioning---of the purpose for which it had thus been constructed by its maker.1 Its performance, however devoid of immanent teleology, must serve an end, and that end must be someone's end. This end may (directly) be itself, as indeed Descartes had implied when declaring self-preservation to be the effect of the functioning of the organic automaton. In that case the existence as such of the machine would be its end--either terminally, or in turn to benefit something else. In the former case, the machine would have to be more than a machine, for a mere machine cannot enioy its existence. But since, by the rigorous conception of the res extensa, it cannot be more than a machine, its function and/or existence must serve something other than itself. Automata in Descartes ' time were mainly for entertainment (rather than work). But the raison d'etre of the living kingdom could not well be seen in God's indulging his mechanical abilities or in the amusement of celestial spectators--especially since mere complexity of arrangement does not create new quality and thus add something to the unrelieved sameness of the simple substratum that might enrich the spectrum of being. For quality, beyond the primitive determinations of the extended per se, is the subjective creature of sensation, the confused representation of quantity in a mind; and thus organisms cannot harbor it because as mere machines they lack mentality, and pure spirits cannot because they lack sensuality, or the privilege of confusion and thereby of illusion with its possible enjoyment. And as to their intellectual enjoyment, even that, deprived of the thrill of discovery by the same token, would pale in the contemplation of what to sufficiently large The concept of "machine," adopted for its strict confinementto efficientcause, is still a finalisticconcept,even thoughthe final cause is no longer internal to the entity, as a mode of its own operation,but external to it as antecedent design. [43] 44 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY intellects is nothing but the ever-repeated exemplification of the same few, elementary (and ultimately trivial) truths. There remained, then, the time-honored--Stoic as well as Christian--idea that plants and animals are for the benefit of Man. Indeed, since the existence of a living world is the necessary condition for the existence of any of its members, the self-justifying nature of at least one such member (= species) would justify the existence of the whole. In Stoicism, Man provided this end by his possession of reason, which makes him the culmination of a terrestrial scale of being that is also self-justifying throughout all its grades (the end as the best of many that are good in degrees) ; in Christianity, by his possession of an immortal soul, which makes him the sole imago Dei in creation (the end as the sole issue at stake) ; and Cartesian dualism radicalized this latter position by making man even the sole possessor of inwardness or "soul" of any kind, thus the only one of whom "end" can meaningfully be predicated as he alone can entertain ends. All other life then, the product of physical necessity, can be considered his means. However, this traditional idea, in its anthropocentric vanity never a... (shrink)

Do we love for reasons? It can seem as if we do, since most cases of non‐familial love seem *selective*: coming to love a non‐family‐member often begins with our being drawn to them for what they are like. I argue, however, that we can vindicate love's selectivity, even if we maintain that there are no reasons for love; indeed, that gives us a simpler, and hence better, explanation of love's selectivity. We don't, in short, come to love *for* reasons. That (...) which seemed like evidence for thinking that there are reasons for love, then, turns out to militate against that view: how can these purported reasons be reasons for love, if they don't engender (in virtue of rationalizing) it? (shrink)

We explored the relationship between 24 character strengths measured by the Global Assessment of Character Strengths (GACS), which was revised from the original VIA instrument, and moral functioning comprising postconventional moral reasoning, empathic traits and moral identity. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) was employed to explore the best models, which were more parsimonious than full regression models estimated through frequentist regression, predicting moral functioning indicators with the 24 candidate character strength predictors. Our exploration was conducted with a dataset collected from 666 (...) college students at a public university in the Southern United States. Results showed that character strengths as measured by GACS partially predicted relevant moral functioning indicators. Performance evaluation results demonstrated that the best models identified by BMA performed significantly better than the full models estimated by frequentist regression in terms of AIC, BIC, and cross-validation accuracy. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of the findings for future studies addressing character strengths and moral functioning. (shrink)

In response to its current crisis, scholars call for the revitalisation of democracy through democratic innovations. While they make ample use of life metaphors describing democracy as a living organism, no comprehensive understanding of ‘life’ has been established within democratic theory. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement articulates the urgency of refocusing on life and its meaning through radical democratic practice. This article employs a grounded theory approach, enriched with participatory methods, to develop a radical democratic concept of life in (...) conversation with BLM. It conceptualises life as the existence of a perspective that constantly transforms through its fundamental interconnectedness. Building on this concept, the article outlines four principles of a living democracy that go beyond the revitalisation discourse. A living democracy (1) safeguards the existence of all humans and nonhumans, (2) nurtures a diversity of perspectives, (3) fosters social and planetary connectivity, and (4) enables self- and collective transformation. (shrink)

I explored the association between components constituting the basis for moral and optimal human functioning, i.e., moral reasoning, moral identity, empathy, and purpose, via network analysis. I employed factor scores instead of composite scores that most previous studies used for better accuracy in score estimation in this study. Then, I estimated the network structure among collected variables and centrality indicators. For additional information, the structure and indicators were compared between two groups, participants who engaged in civic activities highly versus lowly. (...) The results demonstrated significant intra- and inter-scale associations in the network. The network structure was invariant across the two groups. Despite the network invariance, I found that the global connectivity between and centrality indicators of examined factors were higher among the high civic engagement group in general. I discussed the implications of the findings in research on moral functioning based on moral psychology and virtue ethics. (shrink)

The search for the extensions of sentences can be guided by Frege’s “principle of compositionality of extension”, according to which the extension of a composed expression depends only on its logical form and the extensions of its parts capable of having extensions. By means of this principle, a strict criterion for the admissibility of objects as extensions of sentences can be derived: every object is admissible as the extension of a sentence that is preserved under the substitution of co-extensional expressions. (...) The question is: what are the extensions of elementary sentences containing empty singular terms, like ‘Vulcan rotates’. It can be demonstrated that in such sentences, states of affairs as structured objects (but not truth-values) are preserved under the substitution of co-extensional expressions. Hence, such states of affairs are admissible (while truth-values are not) as extensions of elementary sentences containing empty singular terms. (shrink)

When we participate in political debate or protests, we are judged by how we look, which clothes we wear, by our skin colour, gender and body language. This results in exclusions and limits our freedom of expression. The Politics of Becoming explores radical democratic acts of disidentification to counter this problem. Anonymity in masked protest, graffiti, and online de-bate interrupts our everyday identities. This allows us to live our multiple selves. In the digital age, anonymity becomes an inherent part of (...) everyday communication. Through our smart devices we express our selves differently. As cyborgs, our identities are disrupted and reassembled. We curate self-representations on social media, create avatars, share selfies and choose the skin colour of our emojis. The Politics of Becoming encourages us to engage in a revolution of the self. Democratic pluralism is not only a matter of institutional design but also about how we express our identities. Inner revolutions change our personal realities and plant a seed for democratic futures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were analyzed with Bayesian multilevel modeling to explore which factors significantly predicted outcome variables at the story level. The analysis results demonstrated that the main effect of perceived relatability and the interaction effect between attainability and relatability shall be included in the best prediction model, and thus, were (...) deemed to predict the outcome variables significantly. The main effect of relatability as well as its interaction with attainability positively predicted elevation and pleasantness. We discussed educational implications of the findings in terms of how relatability may be the first point of emphasis for moral educators to focus on and attainability can then bolster the effectiveness. These relatable and attainable moral exemplars can be sources for moral elevation and pleasantness, which promote motivation to emulate moral behavior presented by the exemplars. (shrink)

A classical probabilistics explanation for a typical quantum effect in Hardy's paradox is demonstrated.

Although some previous studies have investigated the relationship between moral foundations and moral judgment development, the methods used have not been able to fully explore the relationship. In the present study, we used Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) in order to address the limitations in traditional regression methods that have been used previously. Results showed consistency with previous findings that binding foundations are negatively correlated with post-conventional moral reasoning and positively correlated with maintaining norms and personal interest schemas. In addition to (...) previous studies, our results showed a positive correlation for individualizing foundations and post-conventional moral reasoning. Implications are discussed as well as a detailed explanation of the novel BMA method in order to allow others in the field of moral education to be able to use it in their own studies. (shrink)

Wolfgang Spohn's theory of ranking functions is an elegant and powerful theory of the structure and dynamics of doxastic states. In two recent papers, Spohn has applied it to the analysis of conditionals, claiming to have presented a unified account of indicative and subjunctive (counterfactual) conditionals. I argue that his analysis fails to account for counterfactuals that refer to indirect causes. The strategy of taking the transitive closure that Spohn employs in the theory of causation is not available for counterfactuals. (...) I have a close look at Spohn's treatment of the famous Oswald-Kennedy case in order to illustrate my points. I sketch an alternative view that seems to avoid the problems. (shrink)

In May 2017, my book ‘Conversations on Art and Aesthetics’ appeared. It contains conversations with, and photographic portraits of, ten prominent philosophers of art. They are Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The book has two main aims. One is to provide a broad and accessible overview of what aesthetics as a subfield of philosophy has to offer. The other is to stimulate new work in (...) this area of research. In this brief paper I’d like to say a bit more about this second objective. Current research is rarely conducted or communicated in the form of conversations, so the question arises: how can a book like mine fit with and feed into a research culture which is very much dominated by the format of the journal article? (shrink)

In Popper's Logik der Forschung, a theoretical system is a set of sentences that describe a particular sub-area of science, in particular of empirical science. The goal of axiomatizing a theoretical system is to specify a small number of "axioms" describing all presuppositions of the sub-area under consideration, so that all other sentences of this system can be derived from them by means of logical or mathematical transformations. The paper discusses two philosophical interpretations of these proper axioms. First, proper axioms (...) stipulate the use of the signs for the basic concepts of the system. Consequently, the proper axioms turn out to be analytic relative to a class of interpretations of the underlying logic. Hence, they cannot be falsified by refuting their logical consequences because these consequences are analytic as well. Secondly, proper axioms are synthetic, falsifiable and uncertain sentences. Hence, they are not immunized against falsification by refuting their logical consequences. (shrink)

Gödel’s slingshot-argument proceeds from a referential theory of definite descriptions and from the principle of compositionality for reference. It outlines a metasemantic proof of Frege’s thesis that all true sentences refer to the same object—as well as all false ones. Whereas Frege drew from this the conclusion that sentences refer to truth-values, Gödel rejected a referential theory of definite descriptions. By formalising Gödel’s argument, it is possible to reconstruct all premises that are needed for the derivation of Frege’s thesis. For (...) this purpose, a reference-theoretical semantics for a language of first-order predicate logic with identity and referentially treated definite descriptions will be defined. Some of the premises of Gödel’s argument will be proven by such a reference-theoretical semantics, whereas others can only be postulated. For example, the principle that logically equivalent sentences refer to the same object cannot be proven but must be assumed in order to derive Frege’s thesis. However, different true (or false) sentences can refer to different states of affairs if the latter principle is rejected and the other two premises are maintained. This is shown using an identity criterion for states of affairs according to which two states of affairs are identical if and only if they involve the same objects and have the same necessary and sufficient condition for obtaining. (shrink)