Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen | : This paper explores a novel metaethical theory according to which value judgments express conditional beliefs held by those who make them. Each value judgment expresses the belief that something is the case on condition that something else is the case. The paper aims to reach a better understanding of this view and to highlight some of the challenges that lie ahead. The most pressing of these revolves around the correct understanding of the nature of the (...) relevant cognitive attitudes. It is suggested that the distinction between “dormant attitudes” and “occurrent attitudes” helps us to understand these conditional beliefs. | : Cet article explore une nouvelle théorie méta-éthique selon laquelle les jugements de valeur expriment les croyances conditionnelles des sujets qui les font. Chaque jugement de valeur exprimerait la croyance selon laquelle quelque chose est le cas à la condition que quelque chose d’autre le soit. L’objectif de cet article est de parvenir à une meilleure compréhension de ce point de vue et de souligner certaines de ses difficultés. La plus urgente d’entre elles concerne la compréhension adéquate de la nature des attitudes cognitives pertinentes. Nous suggérons que la distinction entre « attitudes dormantes » et « attitudes occurrentes » permettrait de mieux comprendre les croyances conditionnelles. (shrink)

The values-based approach to welfare holds that it is good for one to realize goals, activities, and relationships with which one strongly (and stably) identifies. This approach preserves the subjectivity of welfare while affirming that a life well lived must be active, engaged, and subjectively meaningful. As opposed to more objective theories, it is unified, naturalistic, and ontologically parsimonious. However, it faces objections concerning the possibility of self-sacrifice, disinterested and paradoxical values, and values that are out of sync with physical (...) and emotional needs. This paper revises the values-based approach, emphasizing the important—but limited—role consciously held values play in human agency. The additional components of human agency in turn explain why it is important for one’s values to cohere with one’s fixed drives, hard-wired emotional responses, and nonvolitionally guided cognitive pro- cesses. This affords promising responses to the objections above. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Background Men with antisocial personality disorder show lifelong abnormalities in adaptive decision making guided by the weighing up of reward and punishment information. Among men with antisocial personality disorder, modifi cation of the behaviour of those with additional diagnoses of psychopathy seems particularly resistant to punishment. Methods We did a case-control functional MRI (fMRI) study in 50 men, of whom 12 were violent off enders with antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, 20 were violent off enders with antisocial personality disorder but (...) not psychopathy, and 18 were healthy non-off enders. We used fMRI to measure brain activation associated with the representation of punishment or reward information during an event-related probabilistic response-reversal task, assessed with standard general linear-model-based analysis. Findings Offenders with antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy displayed discrete regions of increased activation in the posterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula in response to punished errors during the task reversal phase, and decreased activation to all correct rewarded responses in the superior temporal cortex. This finding was in contrast to results for off enders without psychopathy and healthy non-off enders. Interpretation Punishment prediction error signalling in off enders with antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy was highly atypical. This finding challenges the widely held view that such men are simply characterised by diminished neural sensitivity to punishment. Instead, this fi nding indicates altered organisation of the information processing system responsible for reinforcement learning and appropriate decision making. This difference between violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder with and without psychopathy has implications for the causes of these disorders and for treatment approaches. (shrink)

I offer a close reading of the first part of Sartre's The Transcendence of the Ego, arguing that contrary to widely held interpretation, one of Sartre's main goals in that text is to defend the view that consciousness does not necessitate self-awareness, that not all conscious states need be, ipso facto, states of self-awareness. In addition, I explain that this view about the conceptual relationship between consciousness and self-awareness has important methodological implications. One of the standard strategies for accounting (...) for the possibility of the type of capacity to have I* thoughts and attitudes is based on the assumption that being conscious necessarily entails being self-aware in at least a minimal sense, and then proceeds to explain how it I*-thoughts and attitudes are possible on the basis of those minimal states of self-awareness. Yet if Sartre's account of self-awareness is so much as plausible, this kind of strategy is bound to be incomplete. By helping itself to a notion of minimal self-awareness that is purportedly constitutive of consciousness, it fails to account for what is, by its own lights, the most fundamental form of self-awareness. (shrink)

E-learning has taken it full fudged emergence with regards to Covid Scenario. Also, the lockdown of schools and playgrounds, the restriction of outdoor activities, physical and social isolation leads to the behavioural change among school children. Students are more attached to their schools, teachers and friends. But Covid 19 has changed the entire situation changed and they were held in their home itself. Students were not able to meet their friends and teachers, they especially miss their school and class (...) environment. It is to be noted that maintaining social isolation and following “Stay at Home” plays a very high impact among school students. Also, the lockdown created for families and children sit inside their homes. Which ,We cannot leave children’s education as it is. In order to continue their education, Indian Government has taken many efforts .Even schools are doing their best to bridge the gap between teachers and students by providing online education because of the absence of regular classroom education. Because of the introduction of online class by schools, on the one side students are not missing the education, on the other side students and parents faces a lot of problems (Physical and mental. It also puts them at the risk of unsupervised access to websites and other unwanted sites in internet. (shrink)

This is a thoroughly revised version of a paper that I originally presented at the "Kant in Asia" international conference on "The Unity of Human Personhood, held in Hong Kong in May of 2009. After explaining what Kant means by his "architectonic" form of reasoning, I argue that the Yijing (the Chinese "Book of Changes") exhibits the same type of reasoning. I contrast two uses of architectonic reasoning: divining the truth vs. divination. The article concludes with an illustration of (...) how the Yijing might be used as a guidebook for obtaining wisdom. (shrink)

This short essay introduces a set of articles I compiled for a special issue of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy in 2011. Most of the essays are revised versions of papers originally presented at the "Kant in Asia" international conference on "The Unity of Human Personhood", held in Hong Kong in May of 2009, and subsequently published in the collection entitled Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010). After introducing the papers in the special issue, (...) the essay proposes an unconventional way of mapping the Yijing, according to four "levels of perspectives": 0 + 4 + 12 + (4x12) = 64. I predict that this new map can be used to demonstrate a one-to-one correspondence between the Yijing's 64 gua (hexagrams) and the basic principles of Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is, in part, a report on the conclusions reached at a retreat on Part One of Kant's Conflict of the Faculties, held at the Center for Insight into Philosophic Health, Education, and Renewal, in Mendocino, California. It argues that Kant's distinction between the public and private spheres does not remove but intensifies the philosopher's duty to influence the general public. I conclude with some reflections on how a Kantian philosopher might have a positive influence on religious communities. (...) Includes an appendix coauthored by Richard W. Mapplebeckpalmer. (shrink)

This chapter investigates Spinoza's conception of reason, focusing on (i) the difference between reason and the imagination, and (ii) the difference between reason and intuitive knowledge. The central interpretive debate this chapter considers is about the scope of rational cognition. Some commentators have argued that it is only possible to have rational cognition of properties that are universally shared, whereas intuitive knowledge may grasp the essences of particular individuals. Another prominent interpretation is that reason differs from intuition only in virtue (...) of its form or manner of apprehension, and not in virtue of the content or ideas it apprehends. However, authors on both sides of the debate have held that reason is incapable of grasping singular things. After summarizing the debate, this chapter presents an argument that Spinozan reason is not blind to particulars: it is (at least sometimes) capable of grasping the causal structure that characterizes an individual. (shrink)

This collection of papers is the fifth in a series of books from RUSHSAP, UNESCO Bangkok offering Asia and Pacific perspectives on ethics - each focusing on specific themes. The contents come from submitted papers to the UNESCO Bangkok Bioethics conferences held in 2005 and they are assembled thematically. They also include discourse from the conference, as intercultural communication is part of the essence of deliberation on bioethics.

A striking feature of post-modernism is its distrust of the subject. If the modern period, beginning with Descartes, sought in the subject a source of certainty, an Archimedian point from which all else could be derived, post- modernism has taken the opposite tack. Rather than taking the self as a foundation, it has seen it as founded, as dependent on the accidents which situate consciousness in the world. The same holds for the unity of the subject. Modernity, in its search (...) for a single foundation, held the subject to be an indissoluble unity. Post-modernism’s position, by contrast, is announced by Nietzsche: “The assumption of one single subject is perhaps unnecessary; perhaps it is just as permissible to assume a multiplicity of subjects, whose interaction and struggle is the basis of our thought and our consciousness in general? ...My hypotheses: The subject as multiplicity.” Given this, there is a natural correspondence between the success of post- modernism and the current interest in multiple personality disorder. In the latter, we actually have the experience of a “multiplicity of subjects” in their interaction and struggle. The subject stands there before us “as multiplicity.” It gives us a concrete case, one which raises some of the pressing questions associated with the post-modern denial of the subject. Confronting it, we ask: how real are the personalities composing the multiplicity of this disordered self? What, in fact, does this multiplicity tell us about the self? about its genesis and status? What does it reveal about “our thought and consciousness in general”? I plan, in the short compass of this paper, to sketch some answers to these questions. §1. A brief description of MPD. The American Psychiatric Association gives two criteria for (MPD) multiple personality disorder. First, and most obviously, there is “the existence within the person of two or more distinct personalities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern. (shrink)

This dissertation discusses the work of Thomas Hobbes, and has two main themes. The first is Hobbes's materialism, and the second is Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers, in particular his place in the mechanist movement that is said to have replaced Aristotelianism as the dominant philosophy in the seventeenth century. -/- I argue that Hobbes does not, for most of his career, believe the general materialist view that bodies are the only substances. He believes, rather, that ideas, which are our (...) main mechanism for thinking about the world, allow us to understand many bodies, but not to understand every thing we recognize to exist. The incomprehensible things include God---and, early in Hobbes's career, the human mind. Discussing materialism and our knowledge of God leads me to engage with the debate over Hobbes's alleged atheism. I argue that the evidence for Hobbes's atheism is weak at best. Hobbes is a sincere theist, though his view is sometimes unusual. -/- My discussion of Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers has three parts. In chapter five I argue that Hobbes's views about method are in important ways similar to Zabarella's. In chapter six I look at Hobbes's rejection of the view, held by some scholastic Aristotelians, that accidents can sometimes exist without inhering in substances. Thus we see two sides of Hobbes's interaction with the Aristotelian tradition. Sometimes that interaction is just rejection, but at other times Hobbes takes over views from that tradition. Then in chapter seven I consider whether, and in what sense, Hobbes is a mechanist. I argue that the narrative of mechanism and Aristotelianism is a less powerful explanation than it has seemed to some to be, because it is hard to see what mechanists have in common. (shrink)

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)

Michael Sandel’s latest book is not a scholarly work but is clearly intended as a work of public philosophy—a contribution to public rather than academic discourse. The book makes two moves. The first, which takes up most of it, is to demonstrate by means of a great many examples, mostly culled from newspaper stories, that markets and money corrupt—degrade—the goods they are used to allocate. The second follows from the first as Sandel’s proposed solution: we as a society should deliberate (...) together about the proper meaning and purpose of various goods, relationships, and activities (such as baseball and education) and how they should be valued. -/- Public philosophy is a different genre from academic philosophy, but that does not mean that it cannot be held to high standards. In my view, while this book does provide food for thought and food for conversation, it nevertheless has significant failings as a work of public philosophy rather than journalistic social activism on the model of Naomi Klein’s No logo (1999). (shrink)

To follow the legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a RUSA Sponsored One-Day Facutly Development Programme on “Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Indian Constitution and Indian Society” organised by the Department of Philosophy and P.G. Department of Public Administation held on 20th January, 2016 was a creative and fruitful effort to bring together the scholars and academicians from several disciplines to participate in the deliberations related to the conceptual understanding and insights of the philosophy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.

Edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978. Includes a foreword by Freeman Dyson. Chapter authors: G. Vesey, R.L. Gregory, H.C. Longuet-Higgins, N.K. Humphrey, H.B. Barlow, D.M. MacKay, B.D. Josephson, M. Roth, V.S. Ramachandran, S. Padfield, and (editorial summary only) E. Noakes. A scanned pdf is available from this web site (philpapers.org), while alternative versions more suitable for copying text are available from https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245189. -/- Page numbering convention for the pdf (...) version viewed in a pdf viewer is as follows: 'go to page n' accesses the pair of scanned pages 2n and 2n+1. Applicable licence: CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0. (shrink)

Schwenkler (2012) criticizes a 2011 experiment by R. Held and colleagues purporting to answer Molyneux’s question. Schwenkler proposes two ways to re-run the original experiment: either by allowing subjects to move around the stimuli, or by simplifying the stimuli to planar objects rather than three-dimensional ones. In Schwenkler (2013) he expands on and defends the former. I argue that this way of re-running the experiment is flawed, since it relies on a questionable assumption that newly sighted subjects will be (...) able to appreciate depth cues. I then argue that the second way of re-running the experiment is successful both in avoiding the flaw of original Held experiment, and in avoiding the problem with the first way of re-running the experiment. (shrink)

R. M. Hare has argued for and defended a ‘two-level’, view of moral agency. He argues that moral agents ought to rely on the rules of ‘intuitive moral thinking’ for their ‘everyday’ moral judgments. When these rules conflict or when we do not have a rule at hand, we ought to ascend to the act-utilitarian,‘critical’ level of moral thinking. I argue that since the rules at the intuitive level of moral thinking necessarily conflict much more often than Hare supposes, and (...) since we often do not have ready-made rules for our moral judgments, we must necessarily use critical moral thinking very frequently. However, act-utilitarian judgements at this level will sharply conflict with our strongly held ‘intuitive’ moral convictions. I show that Hare's attempt to balance these two aspects of moral judgment requires us to simultaneously adopt two conflicting sets of moral standards, and thus an attempt to inculcate such standards constitutes a ‘schizophrenic’ moral education. Finally, I briefly outline an alternative conception of moral education, based on Aristotelian phronesis. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between the three-place relation, R is a reason for X to do A and the two-place relation, R is a reason to do A. I consider three views on which the former is to be analyzed in terms of the latter. I argue that these views are widely held, and explain the role that they play in motivating interesting substantive ethical theories. But I reject them in favor of a more obvious analysis, which goes (...) the other way around. (shrink)

It is widely held that the influence of risk on rational decisions is not entirely explained by the shape of an agent’s utility curve. Buchak (Erkenntnis, 2013, Risk and rationality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, in press) presents an axiomatic decision theory, risk-weighted expected utility theory (REU), in which decision weights are the agent’s subjective probabilities modified by his risk-function r. REU is briefly described, and the global applicability of r is discussed. Rabin’s (Econometrica 68:1281–1292, 2000) calibration theorem strongly suggests (...) that plausible levels of risk aversion cannot be fully explained by concave utility functions; this provides motivation for REU and other theories. But applied to the synchronic preferences of an individual agent, Rabin’s result is not as problematic as it may first appear. Theories that treat outcomes as gains and losses (e.g. prospect theory and cumulative prospect theory) account for risk sensitivity in a way not available to REU. Reference points that mark the difference between gains and losses are subject to framing, many instances of which cannot be regarded as rational. However, rational decision theory may recognize the difference between gains and losses, without endorsing all ways of fixing the point of reference. In any event, REU is a very interesting theory. (shrink)

This is a series of lectures on formal decision theory held at the University of Bayreuth during the summer terms 2008 and 2009. It largely follows the book from Michael D. Resnik: Choices. An Introduction to Decision Theory, 5th ed. Minneapolis London 2000 and covers the topics: -/- Decisions under ignorance and risk Probability calculus (Kolmogoroff Axioms, Bayes' Theorem) Philosophical interpretations of probability (R. v. Mises, Ramsey-De Finetti) Neuman-Morgenstern Utility Theory Introductory Game Theory Social Choice Theory (Sen's Paradox of (...) Liberalism, Arrow's Theorem) . (shrink)

This paper discusses a philosophical issue in taxonomy. At least one philosopher has suggested thc taxonomic principle that scientific kinds are disjoint. An opposing position is dcfcndcd here by marshalling examples of nondisjoint categories which belong to different, cocxisting classification schcmcs. This dcnial of thc disjoinmcss principle can bc recast as thc claim that scientific classification is "int<-:rcst—rclativc". But why would anyone have held that scientific categories arc disjoint in the first place'? It is argued that this assumption is (...) nccdcd in one attempt t0 dcrivc csscntialism. This shows why the csscntialist and intc-:rcst—r<-zlativc approaches to classification arc in conflict. (shrink)

We study whether robots can satisfy the conditions for agents fit to be held responsible in a normative sense, with a focus on autonomy and self-control. An analogy between robots and human groups enables us to modify arguments concerning collective responsibility for studying questions of robot responsibility. On the basis of Alfred R. Mele’s history-sensitive account of autonomy and responsibility it can be argued that even if robots were to have all the capacities usually required of moral agency, their (...) history as products of engineering would undermine their autonomy and thus responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the concept of an illocutionary rule - i.e., the rule of the form "X counts as 7 in context C" - and examine the role it plays in explaining the nature of verbal communication and the conventionality of natural languages. My aim is to find a middle ground between John R. Searle's view, according to which every conventional speech act has to be explained in terms of illocutionary rules that underlie its performance, and the view (...) held by Ruth G Millikan, who seems to suggest that the formula "X counts as Y in context C" has no application in our theorizing about human linguistic practice. I claim, namely, that the concept of an illocutionary rule is theoretically useful, though not explanatorily basic. I argue that using the formula "X counts as Y in context C" we can classify illocutionary acts by what Millikan calls their conventional outcomes, and thereby make them susceptible to naturalistic explanation. (shrink)

The article provides an analysis of the European Court of Human Rights judgments in the case of Lautsi v. Italy (application no. 30814/06), also known as the Italian crucifix case. The applicant claimed that displaying crucifixes in the Italian State-school classrooms attended by her children was contrary to the principle of secularism, by which she wished to bring up her children, and therefore infringed her right to ensure their education and teaching in conformity with her religious and philosophical convictions, and (...) also breached her freedom of conviction and religion, as protected by Article 9 of the Convention. In its judgment of November 3, 2009, the seven-judge Chamber declared that there had been a violation of Article 2 (right to education) of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights taken together with Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) of the Convention. The judgment was given unanimously and none of the judges appended a separate opinion. The Italian Government asked for the case to be referred to the Grand Chamber by virtue of Article 43 of the Convention. In the judgment of the Grand Chamber, delivered on March 18, 2011, the Court held, by fifteen votes to two (and with separate opinions of six judges), that there had been no violation of Protocol No. 1 and no violation of the Convention itself. The analysis in the article is focused on selected principal factors determining the Court's decision. It shows that the proposal for the Court to recognize secular convictions as those protected by Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 or Article 9 of the Convention has no sufficient basis in the Convention itself and in earlier Court's case-law and, even, may be considered as promotion of religious intolerance, threatening the freedom to publicly manifest a religion or belief, as guaranteed by Article 9 of the Convention. -/- Opracowanie zawiera analizę wyroków Europejskiego Trybunału, które zapadły w sprawie Soile Lautsi (app. 30814/06), zwaną „włoska sprawa krzyża” (Italian Crucifix Case). W sprawie tej skarżąca zarzucała, że okazywanie znaku krzyża w klasach włoskich szkół państwowych, do których uczęszczały jej dzieci, jest sprzeczne z zasadą sekularyzmu, zgodnie z którą chciała ona wychować swoje dzieci i dlatego stanowi naruszenie jej prawa do wychowania i nauczania zgodnego z jej religijnymi i filozoficznymi (moralnymi) przekonaniami, oraz stanowi naruszenie wolności religijnej, gwarantowanej art. 9 Konwencji. W wyroku siedmioosobowej izby ogłoszonym 3 listopada 2009 r. izba uznała naruszenie art. 2 (Prawo do nauki) Protokołu dodatkowego nr 1 do Konwencji o ochronie praw człowieka i podstawowych wolności w powiązaniu z art. 9 (Wolność myśli, sumienia i wyznania) Konwencji. Wyrok zapadł jednomyślnie i żaden z sędziów nie dołączył do wyroku swoich uwag. Rząd Włoch złożył wniosek w trybie przewidzianym art. 43 Konwencji o przekazanie sprawy do Wielkiej Izby. W wyroku Wielkiej Izby ogłoszonym 18 marca 2011 r. Trybunał uznał zdecydowaną większością głosów – 15 za wobec 2 przeciw (sześciu sędziów dołączyło swoje uwagi), że nie doszło do naruszenia ani Protokołu nr 1, ani samej Konwencji. Analizy koncentrują się na wybranych zagadnieniach, kluczowych dla argumentacji Trybunału. Analizy te pokazują, że postulowanie przez izbę uznania za prawo podmiotowe radykalnie pojętej negatywnej wolności religijnej, oraz postulowanie - tak przez izbę, jak i przez Wielką Izbę - ochrony przekonań sekularystycznych jako przekonań chronionych art. 2 Protokołu dodatkowego nr 1 lub art. 9 Konwencji, nie posiada należytego uzasadnienia ani w samej Konwencji, ani w dotychczasowym orzecznictwie Trybunału, a co więcej – może być uznane za propagowanie nietolerancji religijnej, godzącej przede wszystkim chronioną art. 9 Konwencji wolność publicznego uzewnętrzniania przekonań religijnych i filozoficznych. (shrink)

German idealism stems in large part from Fichte’s response to a dilemma involving the concepts of pantheism, freedom and time: either time is the form of the determination of modes of substance, as held by a pantheistic or ‘dogmatic’ person, or the form of acts generated by human freedom, as held by an idealistic person. Fichte solves the dilemma by refuting dogmatism and deducing time from idealism’s first principle. But his diagnosis is more portentous: by casting the lemmas (...) in terms of person-types, he unintentionally invites Schelling’s philosophical rethinking of personality. In his middle period, Schelling argues for the consistency of the concepts of pantheism, freedom and time, claiming that it depends on a ‘good’ as opposed to ‘evil’ personality. However, since on his view personality is an absolute or originally undecided capacity for good and evil, the trio’s consistency is entirely contingent. In §1, I trace Fichte’s resolution of the dilemma. In §§2-3, I reconstruct Schelling’s arguments for consistency from the Freiheitsschrift and Weltalter, texts written just a few years apart. In §4, I allay a Kantian worry that this consistency relies problematically on the liberty of indifference or Willkür. (shrink)

This collection of essays is the product of a conference on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (Apo) held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. The essays address three main questions: (1) “How does the APo model of scientific knowledge, focused as it is on the construction of syllogisms, relate to the scientific accounts Aristotle presents elsewhere, especially in the biological treatises?’ (2) ‘How do the arguments and views presented in the APo relate to other aspects of (...) Aristotle’s philosophy?’ and (3) ‘How do the remarks in the concluding chapter of the APo concerning perception, memory, experience, and the grasp of the universal add up to an explanation of how we come to know first principles?’ The papers by J.G. Lennox, M. Leunissen and R. McKirahan address the first two questions, while those by M. Tuominen and G. Salmieri discuss the well-known passage in Apo II 19. (shrink)

The present book, “Essays on Positive Philosophy” is an anthology of revised papers presented in several places. I am thankful to the organizers of the seminars who gave me an opportunity to share my ideas on their platform. The first paper “Philosophy and Values in Public Affairs: An Appraisal” presented in National Seminar on Philosophy in Practice: Making Sense of Human Existence organized by Society for Philosophical Praxis Counselling and Spiritual Healing held on 23rd Feb, 2014 at Department of (...) Philosophy, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. This paper discusses the nature of philosophy and different values and their use in public affairs. Second paper “Higher Education and Research in India: An Overview” presented in 28th National Conference of Council for Teacher Education on the theme “Emerging Perspectives in Indian Teacher Education: Search for Identity and Building Humane Society” held on November 1-2, 2014 organized by CTE (HSC) at Kurukshetra which discuss status of higher education and research. The last paper, “The Role of Religious and Spiritual Values in Shaping Humanity (A Study of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Religious Philosophy) in 3rd International Dharma-Dhamma Conference on Harmony of Religions: Welfare of Humankind, held on 24-26 October, 2015 at Indore (MP). This paper is related to the religious philosophy of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar. Since philosophy, education and religion are highly inter-related subjects, you can find my views about them in my these papers. Hope this short volume will help us to understand some basics of these subjects. (shrink)

The following is a mock debate on schizophrenia set in the 1960s at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, between two fictional characters, Dr. Brian L. Zacou, a qualitative sociologist and Institute Professor Emeritus at the University of Prague; Dr. Wytt Thomas, a professor of psychology at Harvard University; two notable historical figures: Dr. Michel Foucault [20th-century philosopher, historian, academic and theorist] and Dr. R. D. Laing [20th-century psychiatrist and experimental researcher and author] and the writer of this compendium [artist and (...) writer Alexej Savreux; himself a diagnosed schizophrenic]. We model it as a transcription of a debate held at that juncture. It explores the historical framework of schizophrenia, the deep-seated aspects and reality of psychosis, a critique of psychiatry, and a sociological perspective on psychosis. We devote the first chapter to the historical framework and an explanation of the reality of schizophrenia. The second chapter is a critique of mainstream psychiatry, and the third chapter is a resolution between the mock debaters on the social framework and how best to come out unscathed in post-modernity. The remarks from Foucault and Laing are paraphrased from the works “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason” (Foucault) and “The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness” (Laing) and are annotated with footnotes along with a few other sources. The writer has taken great liberties in constructing this mock debate, including the usage of anachronisms, and also determines his findings based on what we refer to as the anti-symmetry underpinning the biopsychosocial reality of schizophrenia and the social framework that ensues, generated by popular responses to abstract disease concepts associated with insanity. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

According to proponents of the extended mind, bio-external resources, such as a notebook or a smartphone, are candidate parts of the cognitive and mental machinery that realises cognitive states and processes. The present chapter discusses three areas of ethical concern associated with the extended mind, namely mental privacy, mental manipulation, and agency. We also examine the ethics of the extended mind from the standpoint of three general normative frameworks, namely, consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent (...) ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)

This introduction to the Journal of Business Research special issue on anti-consumption briefly defines and highlights the importance of anticonsumption research, provides an overview of the latest studies in the area, and suggests an agenda for future research on anti-consumption.

The embedding and promotion of social change is faced with aparadoxical challenge. In order to mainstream an approach to socialchange such as responsible research and innovation and makeit into a practical reality rather than an abstract ideal, we need tohave conceptual clarity and empirical evidence. But, in order to beable to gather empirical evidence, we have to presuppose that theapproach already exists in practice. This paper proposes a social labmethodology that is suited to deal with this circularity. Themethodology combines the (...) defining features of social labs emergingfrom the literature such as agility and real-world focus withestablished theories and approaches such as action research andexperiential learning. Thereby it enables the parallel investigationand propagation of RRI. The framework thus constructed provides atheoretical embedding of sociallabs and overcomes some of theknown limitations of the constitutive approaches. (shrink)

In his book “Minds and Computers: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence”, Matt Carter presents a comprehensive exploration of the philosophical questions surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). Carter argues that the development of AI is not merely a technological challenge but fundamentally a philosophical one. He delves into key issues like the nature of mental states, the limits of introspection, the implications of memory decay, and the functionalist framework that allows for the possibility of AI. Carter contrasts functionalism with (...) reductive materialism, highlighting how the former accommodates the concept of artificial minds. He also emphasizes the significance of computationalism, which combines functionalism with computational theory to provide a robust explanation for mental processes. The book further discusses formal systems, the role of register machines in computation, and the inherent challenges in AI research, particularly in developing natural language processing systems. Carter’s work underscores the limitations of current computational models of cognition while remaining hopeful that advances in neuroscience may lead to stronger AI systems in the future. (shrink)

In the quest for mental peace and philosophical insight, the most profound approach is to let the mind function freely, without the interference of a controlling thinker. This essay explores the philosophical and cognitive implications of an unimpeded mind, drawing from Eastern traditions such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism, alongside contemporary cognitive science. It argues that the natural rhythm of thought is disrupted by the ego’s need for control, leading to mental fragmentation and turbulence. By embracing the concept of “no-mind” (...) or non-interference, individuals can achieve a harmonious flow of consciousness. Contemporary cognitive science supports this view, showing that reducing self-referential thinking enhances cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation. This harmonious state, akin to the flow experienced by top athletes and artists, offers a path to greater psychological well-being and deeper philosophical understanding. (shrink)

The article “Philosophy is crucial in the age of AI” by Anthony Grayling and Brian Ball explores the significant role philosophy has played in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its continuing relevance in guiding the future of AI technologies. The authors trace the historical contributions of philosophers and logicians, such as Gottlob Frege, Kurt Godel, and Alan Turing, in shaping the foundational principles of AI. They argue that philosophical inquiry remains essential, especially in addressing complex issues like consciousness, (...) creativity, and the alignment of AI with human values. The article emphasizes the interdisciplinary collaboration needed to navigate the ethical and societal challenges posed by advancing AI systems, suggesting that philosophy is crucial in ensuring these technologies develop responsibly and ethically. (shrink)

The translational research community, in general, and the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) community, in particular, share the vision of repurposing EHRs for research that will improve the quality of clinical practice. Many members of these communities are also aware that electronic health records (EHRs) suffer limitations of data becoming poorly structured, biased, and unusable out of original context. This creates obstacles to the continuity of care, utility, quality improvement, and translational research. Analogous limitations to sharing objective data in (...) other areas of the natural sciences have been successfully overcome by developing and using common ontologies. This White Paper presents the authors’ rationale for the use of ontologies with computable semantics for the improvement of clinical data quality and EHR usability formulated for researchers with a stake in clinical and translational science and who are advocates for the use of information technology in medicine but at the same time are concerned by current major shortfalls. This White Paper outlines pitfalls, opportunities, and solutions and recommends increased investment in research and development of ontologies with computable semantics for a new generation of EHRs. (shrink)

This study emphasizes the importance of enhancing food safety and hygiene practices among sidewalk vendors to safeguard public health in Balayan Public Market. Employing a mixed-methods approach, with both quantitative and qualitative components, a diverse sample of 55 consumers, 5 sidewalk vendors, and 5 market administrators was selected using a combination of purposive and random sampling techniques under non-probability sampling. Microbial investigations were conducted during both the initial sampling and testing phase (A) and subsequent sampling and testing phase (B) on (...) popular street food items at Lipa Quality Control Inc., including chicken nuggets, chicken nugget sauce (sweet and vinegar), Isaw, Isaw sauce, Proben, Proben sauce, Calamares, Calamares Vinegar Sauce, Kwek- Kwek, and Kwek-Kwek sauce. The findings reveal that “Isaw and Chicken Nuggets Sauce (Sweet)” had a result of “Too Numerous To Count (TNTC),” indicating an extraordinarily high bacteria count. This underscores the imperative need to raise awareness and provide targeted guidance to sidewalk vendors regarding essential food handling, storage, and sanitation practices. Therefore, a sanitary action plan is developed to promote community engagement, educational initiatives, and regulatory support, enhancing food safety practices among sidewalk vendors and ensuring a safer and healthier food environment. (shrink)

This essay explores the psychological freedom that emerges from the acceptance of death, arguing that it should not be seen as merely a one-sided freedom of death without the complementary freedom of life. While death is often met with dread and fear, it can foster a sense of authenticity and alignment with personal values. However, this realization must also emphasize the importance of life, as the goal of psychological well-being lies in living, not just acknowledging death. This balance allows us (...) to live fully, prioritize meaningful experiences, and discard trivial concerns. By drawing on Carl Sagan’s reflections on humanity’s insignificance within the cosmos, this essay encourages empowered and responsible living that embraces both life and death. (shrink)

This essay challenges the notion of avoiding uncomfortable thoughts and emotions in mental health. It argues that accepting these experiences, as supported by therapies like Exposure and Response Prevention for Pure OCD, promotes greater wellbeing. By cultivating a compassionate relationship with inner experiences, individuals can foster resilience amidst challenges.

A longish (12 page) discussion of Richard Sorabji's excellent book, with a further discussion of what it means for a theory of emotions to be a cognitive theory.

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as low (...) priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future programmatic changes. (shrink)

A hard choice is a situation in which an agent is unable to make a justifiable choice from a given menu of alternatives. Our objective is to present a systematic treatment of the axiomatic structure of such situations. To do so, we draw on and contribute to the study of choice functions that can be indecisive, i.e., that may fail to select a non-empty set for some menus. In this more general framework, we present new characterizations of two well-known choice (...) rules, the maximally dominant choice rule and the top-cycle choice rule. Together with existing results, this yields an understanding of the circumstances in which hard choices arise. (shrink)

This article identifies and compares meanings of wildfire risk mitigation for stakeholders in the Front Range of Colorado, USA. We examine the case of a collaborative partnership sponsored by government agencies and directed to decrease hazardous fuels in interface areas. Data were collected by way of key informant interviews and focus groups. The analysis is guided by the Circuit of Culture model in communication research. We found both shared and differing meanings between members of this partnership (the ‘‘producers’’) and other (...) stakeholders not formally in the partnership (the ‘‘consumers’’). We conclude that those promoting the partnership’s project to mitigate risk are primarily aligned with a discourse of scientific management. Stakeholders outside the partnership follow a discourse of community. We argue that failure to recognize and account for differences in the way risk mitigation is framed and related power dynamics could hamper the communicational efforts of the collaborative partnership and impact goals for fuels reduction. We recommend ways that both groups can capitalize on shared meanings and how agency managers and decision makers can build better working relationships with interface communities and other external stakeholders. (shrink)

This qualitative case study investigates the environmental implications of tourist arrivals in Matabungkay Beach, Lian, and their impact on the destination image. Through in-depth interviews with seven key stakeholders, including local residents, business owners, and environmental activists, the study explores perceptions, concerns, and potential solutions regarding the intersection of tourism and environmental sustainability. Findings reveal a complex relationship between tourism and environmental degradation, with participants expressing concerns about poor waste management, impacts on destination image, and health concerns. These challenges not (...) only threaten the natural beauty and biodiversity of the area but also tarnish the destination's image, affecting its appeal to tourists and potential investors. Despite these challenges, participants highlight existing initiatives and potential solutions, including community-based conservation efforts, sustainable tourism practices, and enhanced regulations. Collaboration among stakeholders is emphasized as crucial for achieving a balance between tourism development and environmental preservation. The study underscores the need for comprehensive strategies includes formulated an ordinance for comprehensive waste management and pollution control ordinance to optimize the destination image of Matabungkay Beach while addressing its environmental challenges. By integrating sustainable practices and fostering community engagement, the destination can enhance its appeal while safeguarding its natural resources for future generations. (shrink)

While every health care system stakeholder would seem to be concerned with obtaining the greatest value from a given technology, there is often a disconnect in the perception of value between a technology’s promoters and those responsible for the ultimate decision as to whether or not to pay for it. Adopting an empirical ethics approach, this paper examines how five Canadian medical device manufacturers, via their websites, frame the corporate “value proposition” of their innovation and seek to respond to what (...) they consider the key expectations of their customers. Our analysis shows that the manufacturers’ framing strategies combine claims that relate to valuable socio-technical goals and features such as prevention, efficiency, sense of security, real-time feedback, ease of use and flexibility, all elements that likely resonate with a large spectrum of health care system stakeholders. The websites do not describe, however, how the innovations may impact health care delivery and tend to obfuscate the decisional trade-offs these innovations represent from a health care system perspective. Such framing strategies, we argue, tend to bolster physicians’ and patients’ expectations and provide a large set of stakeholders with powerful rhetorical tools that may influence the health policy arena. Because these strategies are difficult to counter given the paucity of evidence and its limited use in policymaking, establishing sound collective health care priorities will require solid critiques of how certain kinds of medical devices may provide a better (i.e., more valuable) response to health care needs when compared to others. (shrink)