Zeno’s Arrow and Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way Chapter 2 contain paradoxical, dialectic arguments thought to indicate that there is no valid explanation of motion, hence there is no physical or generic motion. There are, however, diverse interpretations of the latter text, and I argue they apply to Zeno’s Arrow as well. I also find that many of the interpretations are dependent on a mathematical analysis of material motion through space and time. However, with modern philosophy and physics (...) we find that the link from no explanation to no phenomena is invalid and that there is a valid explanation and understanding of physical motion. Hence, those arguments are both invalid and false, which banishes the MMK/2 and The Arrow under this and derivative interpretations to merely the history of philosophy. However, a view that maintains their relevance is that each is used as a koan or sequence of koans designed to assist students in spiritual meditation practice. This view is partly justified by the realization that both Nāgārjuna and Zeno were likely meditation masters in addition to being logicians. The works are, therefore, not works that should be assessed as having valid arguments and true conclusions by the standards of modern analytic philosophy—contrary to some of the literature—but rather are therapeutic and perhaps more appropriately considered as part of an experientially focused philosophy such as existentialism, phenomenology or religion. (shrink)

Representing species-specific proteins and protein complexes in ontologies that are both human and machine-readable facilitates the retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of genome-scale data sets. Although existing protin-centric informatics resources provide the biomedical research community with well-curated compendia of protein sequence and structure, these resources lack formal ontological representations of the relationships among the proteins themselves. The Protein Ontology (PRO) Consortium is filling this informatics resource gap by developing ontological representations and relationships among proteins and their variants and modified forms. Because (...) proteins are often functional only as members of stable protein complexes, the PRO Consortium, in collaboration with existing protein and pathway databases, has launched a new initiative to implement logical and consistent representation of protein complexes. We describe here how the PRO Consortium is meeting the challenge of representing species-specific protein complexes, how protein complex representation in PRO supports annotation of protein complexes and comparative biology, and how PRO is being integrated into existing community bioinformatics resources. The PRO resource is accessible at http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro/. (shrink)

Robert Wilson’s The Eugenic Mind Project is a major achievement of engaged scholarship and socially relevant philosophy and history of science. It exemplifies the virtues of interdisciplinarity. As principal investigator of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project, while employed in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, Wilson encountered a proverbial big ball of mud with questions and issues that involved local individuals living through a painful set of memories and implicated his institutional home (...) in outstanding moral obligations. It is engaged scholarship because it required building relationships with affected persons and taking responsibility for his institution’s legacy, as well as transforming Wilson’s own outlook along the way. It is socially relevant philosophy and history of science because it brings to light issues that remain salient today, especially how eugenic themes are ubiquitous in societal discourse and evinced in everyday decisions. It is interdisciplinary because to accomplish this type of analysis requires intellectual gymnastics that range over diverse domains of research: from standpoint theory and disability studies to oral history and governmental policy; from the evolutionary biology of prosociality and variation to conceptual questions about the categorization of human traits and types. (shrink)

Morality is often thought of as non-rational or sub-rational. In Moral Notions, first published in 1967, Julius Kovesi argues that the rationality of morality is built into the way we construct moral concepts. In showing this he also resolves the old Humean conundrum of the relation between 'facts' and 'values'. And he puts forward a method of reasoning that might make 'applied ethics' (at present largely a hodge-podge of opinions) into a constructive discipline. Kovesi's general theory of concepts - important (...) in its own right - is indebted to his interpretation of Plato, and his three papers on Plato, first published here, explain this debt. This new edition of Moral Notions also includes a foreward by Philippa Foot, a biography of the author, and a substantial afterword in which the editors, Robert Ewin and Alan Tapper, explain the signficance of Kovesi's work. (shrink)

In the longstanding debate between liberals and libertarians over the morality of redistributive labor taxation, liberals such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin have consistently taken the position that such taxation is perfectly compatible with individual liberty, whereas libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard have adopted the (very) contrary position that such taxation is tantamount to slavery. In this paper, I argue that the debate over redistributive labor taxation can be usefully reconstituted as a debate over the (...) incidents (or components) of self-ownership, with liberals arguing for a narrow definition of the concept and libertarians arguing for a broad one. By using what Alan Ryan has called the “language of proprietorship,” I pinpoint precisely the source of the disagreement between liberals and libertarians and assess the relative strengths of their arguments. I also show that the respective definitions of self-ownership used by liberals and libertarians are deeply problematic—though for strikingly different reasons. (shrink)

In this paper I begin by explaining what epistemic injustice is and what ordinary language philosophy is. I then go on to ask why we might doubt the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy in examining epistemic injustice. In the first place, we might wonder how ordinary language philosophy can be of use, given that many of the key terms used in discussing epistemic injustice, including ‘epistemic injustice’ itself, are not drawn from our ordinary language. We might also have doubts about (...) the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy in this area, given ordinary language philosophers’ aversion to theory. Finally, we might have doubts about the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy due to the fact that the study of epistemic injustice is clearly a study of practical matters concerning the way the world is and has been historically. If ordinary language philosophy is just concerned with grammar, what use can it be to practical and social philosophy concerning current issues? In response to these worries, I demonstrate the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy in practice by applying the insights of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alan R. White to a problem that Miranda Fricker raises, but does not answer: about whether there is a confidence condition on knowledge. I also make use of Gilbert Ryle's distinction between ‘the use of ordinary language’ and ‘the ordinary use of an expression’ to show that the terminology used in examining epistemic injustice is ordinary in some sense. (shrink)

Many ethicists maintain that medical research on human subjects that presents no prospect of direct medical benefit must have a prospect of social benefit to be ethical. Payment is not the sort of benefit that justifies exposing subjects to risk. Alan Wertheimer has raised a serious challenge to this view, pointing out that in industry, social value is not considered necessary to make dangerous jobs ethical. This article argues that Wertheimer was correct to think that the ethics of hazard (...) pay should be the same in medical research and in business. Nevertheless, a qualified social benefit requirement should apply in both fields. For a study or a job with significant net physical risk to be ethical, it must have social value beyond the satisfaction of ordinary preferences, including the preference for money. The requirement derives from a non-absolutist version of the doctrine of double effect. If a risky study or a dangerous job has no distinctive social value, and hazard pay is subjects' or workers’ only reason to undergo risks, the very fact that they undergo risk is intended as a means to a financial end. Inviting people to enrol in such a study or to take such a job wrongfully treats people as mere means. By contrast, if a study or a job has social value, people can participate with a primary end other than money, even if they accept compensation. Researchers or employers do not intend but merely foresee risks to subjects or workers. (shrink)

In this essay, I look at some extraordinary actors who never got their due—actors who had distinguished careers, but never won an Academy Award for acting. I review the work of: Joseph Cotten; Orson Welles; Edward G. Robinson; Cary Grant; James Mason; Richard Burton; Claude Rains; Alan Ladd: Robert Mitchum; and Fred MacMurray. In each case, I explore the actor’s best work, what made his acting outstanding, and offer possible explanations why he was not so honored.

The aim of this study is to elucidate Burton’s conception of suicide. To understand it, it is first necessary to find out how Burton understood its main cause, melancholy. The first part of the study is therefore dedicated to an analysis of the concept of melancholy elaborated in his Anatomy of Melancholy. Conclusions drawn from this analysis are then used in the second part of this work to explain Burton’s notion of suicide and the treatment or prevention (...) he suggests. In both parts, the main focus is on the Anatomy of Melancholy, which is used to explain both Burton’s position and intentions which motivated the writing of this treatise and his lifelong interest in the subject. The study is thus a contribution to research which views Burton’s thoughts and work within a historical, cultural, and conceptual context of Early Modern world but also to investigations of the impact of the work and Burton’s strategy regarding the effect the work should have on readers. Conclusions of this study point out the complexity and sophistication of Burton’s concept of suicide and show that it significantly diverges from the view commonly taken by contemporary judges, coroners, clergy, and physicians who also sometimes dealt with this issue. (shrink)

In this book Alan Haworth tends to sneer at libertarians. However, there are, I believe, a few sound criticisms. I have always held similar opinions of Murray Rothbard‟s and Friedrich Hayek‟s definitions of liberty and coercion, Robert Nozick‟s account of natural rights, and Hayek‟s spontaneous-order arguments. I urge believers of these positions to read Haworth. But I don‟t personally know many libertarians who believe them (or who regard Hayek as a libertarian).

Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788) was a public servant from Konigsberg - dubbed der Magus im Norden - who maintained friendly relations with almost the entire Prus­sian intelligentsia of his time. He wrote various dense and idiosyncratic texts that never failed to both attract and offend his contemporaries. In "Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project", Robert Alan Sparling addresses this enigmatic thinker from the perspective of political philosophy. The basic scheme of Sparling's book is to pit Hamann against (...) the Enlighten­ment. In his introductory chapter, Sparling argues that the term Enlightenment must be understood in a double sense. For him, the term indicates a "historical movement" that took place in the eighteenth century as well as an "ongoing political project" that builds upon this historical movement. Sparling argues that Hamann's resistance against the Enlightenment as a historical movement can be made relevant for philosophical discussions in the present. This would imply that Hamann offers an alternative for the two traditions that dominate political philosophy today: the Enlightenment (as on­going political project) and the counter-Enlightenment (in the form of romanticism and post-modernism). The aim of Sparling's book is therefore twofold: (1) "to illuminate Hamann's location within the history of political thought" and (2) "to indicate his im­portance for political philosophy today" (ix). This review briefly examines both aims. (shrink)

Robert Adams characterizes actualism regarding possible worlds as «the view that if there are any true statements in which there are said to be nonactual possible worlds, they must be reducible to statements in which the only things there are said to be are things which there are in the actual world, and which are not identical with nonactual possibles.» In this paper, I will briefly explain actualism about possible worlds, showing that an essential pillar of the theory is (...) the claim that truth is distinct from, and ontologically prior to, truth in a world. The rest of the paper is premised on the idea that an interesting philosophical defense of this claim calls for an analysis of truth itself, and is not intended as an objection to actualism, but rather to underscore the interest actualists should have in the question of what truth is. First, I will consider the idea, drawn from Adams and Alan McMichael, that truth differs from truth in a world in its being a matter of correspondence between a proposition and an independent object; that object being, in McMichael's words, the `concrete universe'. Then, I will show that, given such an analysis of truth, the truth conditions for propositions about non-actual possibilities violate the central tenet of actualism, as articulated by Adams. (shrink)

Data indicate the ubiquity and rapid increase of depression wherever war, want and social upheaval are found. The goal of this paper is to clarify such claims and draw conceptual distinctions separating the depressive states that are pathological from those that are normal and normative responses to misfortune. I do so by appeal to early modern writing on melancholy by Robert Burton, where the inchoate and boundless nature of melancholy symptoms are emphasized; universal suffering is separated from the (...) disease states known as melancholy or melancholia, and normal temperamental variation is placed in contrast to such disease states. In Burton's time these distinctions and characterizations could be secured by the anchoring tenets of humoral theory. Without such anchoring, and in light of the findings and assumptions of today's biological diagnostic psychiatry, we must re-visit each of them. My goals here are to show the need for analytic foundations when claims are made about depression such as those cited above, and to draw attention to some contemporary attempts that may help provide those foundations, particularly, attempts to define disorder or disease. With adjustments, one of these (Cooper 2002) is shown to take us some way toward that goal. (shrink)

1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course.

Genes and the Agents of Life undertakes to rethink the place of the individual in the biological sciences, drawing parallels with the cognitive and social sciences. Genes, organisms, and species are all agents of life but how are each of these conceptualized within genetics, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and systematics? The 2005 book includes highly accessible discussions of genetic encoding, species and natural kinds, and pluralism above the levels of selection, drawing on work from across the biological sciences. The book (...) is a companion to the author's Boundaries of the Mind (2004), also available from Cambridge, where the focus is the cognitive sciences. The book will appeal to a broad range of professionals and students in philosophy, biology, and the history of science. You can download the table of contents and the first chapter here. (shrink)

A short presentation of Rawl's theory of justice and its revision in 'Political Liberalism' with an overview of criticism by Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick, Alan Buchanan, Amartya Sen and John Harsanyi.

This volume of twelve specially commissioned essays about species draws on the perspectives of prominent researchers from anthropology , botany, developmental psychology , the philosophy of biology and science, protozoology, and zoology . The concept of species has played a focal role in both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology , and the last decade has seen something of a publication boom on the topic (e.g., Otte and Endler 1989; Ereshefsky 1992b; Paterson 1994; lambert and Spence 1995; Claridge, Dawah, (...) and Wilson 1997; Wheeler and Meier 1999; Howard and Berlocher 1998). (shrink)

This out-of-print collection in the area of the history, politics, ethics, and theory of privacy includes selections from Peter Gay, Alan Westin, Walter Benjamin, Catharine MacKinnon, Seyla Benhabib, Anita Allen, Ann Jennings, Charles Taylor, Richard Sennett, Mark Wicclair, Martha Nussbaum, and Robert Nozick.

According to the decomposition thesis, perceptual experiences resolve without remainder into their different modality-specific components. Contrary to this view, I argue that certain cases of multisensory integration give rise to experiences representing features of a novel type. Through the coordinated use of bodily awareness—understood here as encompassing both proprioception and kinaesthesis—and the exteroceptive sensory modalities, one becomes perceptually responsive to spatial features whose instances couldn’t be represented by any of the contributing modalities functioning in isolation. I develop an argument for (...) this conclusion focusing on two cases: 3D shape perception in haptic touch and experiencing an object’s egocentric location in crossmodally accessible, environmental space. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The question of whether Wittgenstein was a liberal philosopher has received less attention than the question of whether he was a conservative philosopher but, as Robert Greenleaf Brice has recently argued, there are hints of liberalism in some of his remarks, and some philosophers, like Richard Eldridge, have argued that a kind of liberalism follows from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Richard Rorty has also drawn liberal conclusions from a philosophical viewpoint which draws on Wittgenstein’s work and Alice Crary has (...) suggested that the lessons learned from her own interpretation of Wittgenstein are “reflected in forms of social life that embody the ideals of liberal democracy”. Here I will argue both that Wittgenstein was not a liberal and that his philosophy does not imply a liberal viewpoint. The authors discussed here do not demonstrate that any broad ideological conclusions fol-low from Wittgenstein’s philosophical remarks. -/- RESUMEN La pregunta si Wittgenstein fue un filósofo liberal ha recibido menos atención que la de si fue un filósofo conservador, pero, como Robert Greenleaf Brice ha defendido recientemente, hay muchos indicios de liberalismo en algunas de sus observaciones, y algunos filó-sofos, como Richard Eldridge, han sostenido que hay un cierto tipo de liberalismo que se sigue de la filosofía de su última etapa. Richard Rorty ha sacado también conclusiones libera-les a partir de la perspectiva filosófica que se basa en la obra de Wittgenstein y Alice Crary ha sugerido que las lecciones aprendidas de su propia interpretación de Wittgenstein se “reflejan en formas de vida social que incorporan los ideales de la democracia liberal”. En este artículo, voy a defender tanto que Wittgenstein no era un liberal como que su filosofía no implica una perspectiva liberal. Los autores de que se discuten aquí no prueban que de las observaciones filosóficas de Wittgenstein se desprendan amplias conclusiones ideológicas de ningún tipo. (shrink)

We explore the ethics of deliberately exposing consenting adults to SARS-CoV-2 to induce immunity to the virus (“DEI” for short). We explain what a responsible DEI program might look like. We explore a consequentialist argument for DEI according to which DEI is a viable harm-reduction strategy. Then we consider a non-consequentialist argument for DEI that draws on the moral significance of consent. Additionally, we consider arguments for the view that DEI is unethical on the grounds that, given that large-scale DEI (...) would be highly likely to result in some severe illnesses and deaths, DEI amounts to a form of killing. Our thesis is that incorporating a DEI program alongside the status-quo “calibrate-the-curve” responses could have significant advantages at the early stages of pandemics. These potential advantages mean that, at a minimum, research into DEI would have been justified early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and that DEI programs should be explored as potential additions to our overall approach to emerging pandemics in the future. (shrink)

Who is recognised as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy influence both the content of a philosophical education and academic philosophy’s continuing demographic skew. The “philosophical who” and the “philosophical what” themselves are a partial function of matters that have been passed over in collective silence, even if that now feels to some like a silence belonging to the distant past. This paper discusses some philosophical silences regarding race, gender, and disability in the context of reflection on philosophical education (...) and on philosophical practice in the public sphere. It focuses on Charles Mills’ writings on race, Susan Babbitt’s on race and gender, and on more collaboratively-generated work on eugenics and disability. (shrink)

This paper examines a recent, influential argument for individualism in psychology defended by Jerry Fodor and others, what I call the argument from causal powers. I argue that this argument equivocates on the crucial notion of "causal powers", and that this equivocation constitutes a deep problem for arguments of this type. Relational and individualistic taxonomies are incompatible, and it does not seem in general to be possible to factor the former into the latter. The distinction between powers and properties plays (...) a central role in my argument. (shrink)

This essay joins Wilhelm Dilthey’s conception of the metaphysical impulse as a flight from the tragedy of human finitude with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s understanding of how language bewitches intelligence. We contend that there are features of the phenomenology of language that play a constitutive and pervasive role in the formation of metaphysical illusion.

This paper distinguishes and critiques several forms of pluralism about the levels of selection, and introduces a novel way of thinking about the biological properties and processes typically conceptualized in terms of distinct levels. In particular, "levels" should be thought of as being entwined or fused. Since the pluralism discussed is held by divergent theorists, the argument has implications for many positions in the debate over the units of selection. And since the key points on which the paper turns apply (...) beyond this specific issue, the paper may prove of general interest in thinking about the metaphysics of science. (shrink)

This chapter steps back from the important psychological work on collaborative remembering at the heart of the present volume to take up some broader questions about the place of memory in Western cultural thought, both historically and in contemporary society, offering the kind of integrative and reflective perspective for which philosophy is often known. In particular, the text aims to shed some light on the relationship between collaborative memory and the other two topics in this title—group-level cognizing and individuals—beginning with (...) the relationship between collective intentionality and collaborative remembering, and concluding with some brief comments on the politics of collaborative remembering by drawing on recent work that has been undertaken with eugenics survivors in Canada. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to provide a philosophical elucidation of the thesis of open theism. This task will be performed by utilising the conception of open theism, Generic Open Theism, provided by Alan Rhoda (and precisified in part by William Hasker). This conception will then be further elucidated through the employment of the notion of libertarianism, as proposed by Robert Kane, which will enable the thesis of Generic Open Theism to be shown to not be subject to (...) two important challenges: the Prophecy Challenge and the Divine Bodgery Challenge—which are challenges that focus on showing the incompatibility of perfect being theism, scripture and providence with the central tenets of Open Theism. Thus, in the end, one will be able to affirm the veracity of Open Theism within a scripturally grounded, perfect being theistic framework. (shrink)

Мы с детства задаём себе и другим вопрос «Что такое природа?» Правильный и верный ответ дают нам материалисты, диалектические материалисты. Природа – это объективная реальность, существующая вне нашего сознания и независимо от нашего сознания. Природа – это всё то, что нас окружает, и мы сами. Всё нас окружающее и мы сами принадлежим и существуем в природе. Природа – это всё. Нет в мире ничего и никого чтобы или кто бы не принадлежал природе. Понятие, категория «природа» – это самое широкое понятие. (...) Более объёмного понятия нет. Всё это прекрасно, всё это так. Но хочется конкретно всё это представить и охватить мысленным взором. «Природа существует абсолютно, безотносительно к чему-либо и к кому-либо» – это первый конкретный факт и первая конкретная истина, с которых, пожалуй, начинается научное познании природы. У автора настоящей статьи есть прочная стартовая позиция, большой задел. Это его результаты научного исследования в рамках научного проекта «Теория Природы» (ТП). В 2021 году издана одноименная книга «Теория Природы». ТП – это научная диалектико-материалистическая Революция в физике и космологии (космогонии). В рамках настоящей статьи с позиции единственно истинной и научной философии диалектического материализма и с опорой на революционную «Теорию Природы» решается фундаментальный вопрос, проблема «Что такое ПРИРОДА»? Как представляется автору, возможно, это предел нашего познания природы. (shrink)

В настоящей статье автор «Теории Природы» сообщает всему научному сообществу и философам о свершении научной Революции в физике, космогонии (космологии) и в философии. Автор также информирует читателей о противодействии в признании этой научной Революции со стороны партии современных физиков и скрытых причинах этого противодействия.

In A Philosophy of Humour, Alan Roberts presents a brief but extremely well-resourced overview of the history of the philosophy of humor (I will omit “u” for brevity, the soul of wit), and offers a new theory of humor focusing on the role of amusement. This text does not assume any prior acquaintance with theories of humor or philosophy, and in light of this, Roberts does well to define, either in the text or a brief note, the philosophical concepts (...) necessary to help the reader follow along. Even though the text is relatively short, Roberts covers a surprising amount of philosophical ground on humor including a considerable number of counterarguments from multiple disciplines. This is important as humor is not explicable from a single field of study, as it is a subject that is interwoven in just about every intellectual (and non-intellectual) domain. (shrink)

The psychiatric diagnostic system, as exemplified by the DSM, is a pseudo-scientific framework for diagnosing sick Cartesian isolated minds. As such, it completely overlooks the exquisite context sensitivity and radical context dependence of human emotional life and of all forms of emotional disturbance. In Descartes’s vision, the mind is a “thinking thing,” ontologically decontextualized, fundamentally separated from its world. Heidegger’s existential phenomenology mended this Cartesian subject-object split, unveiling our Being as always already contextualized, a Being-in-the-world. Here I offer a critique (...) of studies in “phenomenological psychopathology” that presuppose the validity of the psychiatric diagnostic system and leave it unchallenged. In this vein, I contend that all emotional disturbances are constituted in an indissoluble context of human interrelatedness. Specifically, I claim that all emotional disturbances, including those objectified by the DSM, take form in relational contexts of severe emotional trauma. There are no psychiatric entities, only devastating contexts. Additionally, I show that Heidegger’s analyses of Angst, world-collapse, uncanniness, and thrownness into Being-toward-death provide extraordinary philosophical tools for grasping the existential significance of such contexts of emotional trauma. Applying Heidegger’s concept of authenticity, I suggest that emotional health entails an ease of passage—i.e., an absence of dissociation—between the world of trauma and the world of everydayness. (shrink)

Drawing on a passage from Ramsey's Truth and Probability, we formulate a simple, plausible constraint on evaluating the accuracy of credences: the Calibration Test. We show that any additive, continuous accuracy measure that passes the Calibration Test will be strictly proper. Strictly proper accuracy measures are known to support the touchstone results of accuracy-first epistemology, for example vindications of probabilism and conditionalization. We show that our use of Calibration is an improvement on previous such appeals by showing how it answers (...) or sidesteps problems that have been raised for previous work in this area. (shrink)

This book demonstrates how the authors have experienced the power of phenomenology in their therapeutic work with patients, especially those struggling with horrific trauma; in their encounters with psychological and philosophical theories; and in their efforts to comprehend destructive ideologies and the collective traumas that give rise to them. The Power of Phenomenology presents the trajectory of this work. Each chapter begins with a contribution written by one or both authors, extending the power of phenomenological inquiry to one or more (...) of these diverse contexts. The contributions are followed, one or two at a time, by a dialogue between the authors, illustrating the dialectical process of their long collaboration. The unusual format seeks to bring the phenomenology of their collaborative efforts to life for the reader. (shrink)

In the present essay we explore a form of linguistic witchery (Wittgenstein) aimed at forging a sense of unity from incompatible visions of reality—namely, the formation of oxymoronic hybrids.

The author develops the claim that humans characteristically maintain a sense of protectedness by creating various forms of metaphysical illusion, replacing the tragic finitude and transience of human existence with a permanent and eternally changeless reality. One such illusion forms around planet earth itself, transformed into an indestructible metaphysical entity. It has become increasingly difficult, in the face of the ravages of climate change, to maintain the illusion of earth’s indestructibility, and with it, a sense of safety. The author refers (...) to the feelings evoked by the crumbling of metaphysical illusion as Apocalyptic anxiety¬—the dread of the end of human civilization. This Apocalyptic dread needs to be confronted (not evaded) in a comportment of dwelling—with our vulnerable planet and with our vulnerable fellow human beings. (shrink)

After noting how academic philosophers have shunned psychobiography, the author brings to focus the psychobiographical sources of Martin Heidegger's "turn" from a hermeneutic phenomenology to a form of metaphysical mysticism.

This article examines the relationship between totalitarianism and the metaphysical illusions on which it rests. Phenomenological investigation is claimed to loosen the grip of totalitarian ideology by exposing its origins in the “resurrective” illusions that seek to overcome the impact of collective trauma. Phenomenology is thus shown to have emancipatory power.

Scharff’s study of Heidegger’s earlier lectures and their debt to Dilthey’s phenomenology allow one to recognize the Diltheyan influences that pervade Being and Time, undistracted by Husserl’s super-Cartesianism.

The as-structure provided by language, even in the sciences, is always constitutive of experience and never merely designative. “From Saying…it comes to pass that the World is made to appear” (Heidegger 1971 [1957]: 101).

De Mul’s central thesis is that Dilthey’s Critique of Historical Reason can be understood as a radicalization of Kant’s recognition of the contingency and finitude of human reason.

“Nature as an objective reality”. This article presents a dialectical-materialistic understanding of nature and its evolution. The article presents an algorithm for the evolution of nature. The evolution of the Universe also unfolds within the framework of the evolution of nature. -/- «Природа как объективная реальность». В рамках настоящей статьи представлено диалектико-материалистическое понимание природы и её эволюции. В статье представлен алгоритм эволюции природы. В рамках эволюции природы разворачивается и эволюция Вселенной.

Since childhood, we ask ourselves and others the question “What is nature?” The correct and true answer is given to us by materialists, dialectical materialists. Nature is an objective reality that exists outside our consciousness and independently of our consciousness. Nature is everything that surrounds us, and ourselves. Everything that surrounds us and we ourselves belong to and exist in nature. Nature is everything. There is nothing and no one in the world that would not belong to nature. The concept, (...) category “nature” is the broadest concept. There is no more comprehensive concept. All this is wonderful, all this is true. But I want to specifically imagine all this and grasp it with my mind's eye. “Nature exists absolutely, without relation to anything or anyone” - this is the first concrete fact and the first concrete truth, with which, perhaps, the scientific knowledge of nature begins. The author of this article has a solid starting position, a large reserve. These are his results of scientific research within the framework of the scientific project “Theory of Nature” (TN). In 2021, the book of the same name? “Theory of Nature”, was published. TN is a scientific and dialectical-materialistic Revolution in physics and cosmology (cosmogony). Within the framework of this article, from the position of the only true and scientific philosophy of dialectical materialism and based on the revolutionary “Theory of Nature”, the fundamental question, the problem “What is NATURE” is solved? As it seems to the author, this is perhaps the limit of our knowledge of nature. (shrink)

This is the prologue to a collection of essays on eugenics and psychiatry.

The author offers his own solution to the problem of the matter of nature. The author considers this solution to be final for both philosophy and physics. The content of elementary particles is “pure” concrete matter of nature. Within the framework of this article, a solution to the problem (question) “What is NATURE?” is also offered. ********* Автор предлагает своё решение проблемы материи природы. Автор считает это решение окончательным и для философии и для физики. Содержимое элементарных частиц есть "чистая", конкретная (...) материя природы. В рамках настоящей статьи предлагается также решение проблемы (вопроса) "Что такое ПРИРОДА?" . (shrink)

As it seems to me, slavery remains in our lives. But at present, slavery takes the form of a lie, a lie in the mass consciousness of people. This lie is presented in various versions. The first version of the lie is the bourgeois ideological lie, the lie about the perfection and eternity of the bourgeois socio-economic formation and the bourgeois way of life. This lie is intended to obscure and discredit the communist socio-economic formation as the ultimate goal of (...) the scientific teaching of Marxism-Leninism. This lie is the core of the entire system of the big lie of modern society. The propaganda of this lie is carried out through all channels of the bourgeois media. Another big social lie is the religious lie. The central point of this lie is the unproven postulate of faith about the existence of a certain deity, God (the Almighty). In our time, believers make up a significant part of the population of the Earth. -/- The next lie is the lie of bourgeois-idealistic philosophy. The main point of this lie is expressed in the postulate of the primacy of the ideal over the material in nature, in our lives. Mystical, esoteric lies occupy a lot of space in our lives. But it turns out that there are also “scientific” lies. We are all accustomed to thinking that science is a synonym for truth, validity. We are all accustomed to thinking that if something is scientific, then it must necessarily be true. It turns out that this is not entirely true. For example, the theory of modern physics (TMF) is a false and anti-scientific theory. This is what this article will be about. Submission to modern lies is tantamount to submission to slavery. Resistance to modern lies is tantamount to resistance to slavery. +++++++++ Как мне представляется, рабство остаётся в нашей жизни. Но в настоящее время рабство имеет форму лжи, лжи в массовом сознании людей. Эта ложь представлена различными вариантами. Первый вариант лжи – это буржуазная идеологическая ложь, ложь о совершенстве и вечности буржуазной общественно-экономической формации и буржуазного образа жизни. Эта ложь предназначена для того чтобы заслонить собой и опорочить коммунистическую общественно-экономическую формацию, как конечную цель научного учения марксизма-ленинизма. Это стержень всей системы большой лжи современного общества. Пропаганда этой лжи ведётся по всем каналам буржуазных СМИ. Ещё одной большой общественной ложью является ложь религиозная. Центральным моментом этой лжи является бездоказательный постулат веры о существовании некоего божества, бога (всевышнего). В наше время верующие составляют значительную часть населения Земли. Следующая ложь – это ложь буржуазно-идеалистической философии. Главный момент этой лжи выражен в постулате о примате идеального над материальным в природе, в нашей жизни. Много места в нашей жизни занимает ложь мистическая, эзотерическая. Но вот оказывается есть и «научная» ложь. Все мы привыкли считать, что наука – это синоним истине, истинности. Все мы привыкли думать, если нечто является научным, то оно обязательно должно быть истинным. Оказывается, это не совсем так. Так, например, теория современной физики (ТСФ) является ложной и антинаучной теорией. Об этом и будет идти повествование в настоящей статье. Подчинение современной лжи равносильно подчинению рабству. Противостояние современной лжи равносильно противостоянию рабству. (shrink)

This article examines the fundamental question of philosophy. The author proposes to amend its classical scheme, developed by F. Engels, one of the founders of dialectical materialism, by adding a third side. This third side of the MQP should be the question of “the concrete representation of matter in nature (matter of nature)”. This is the fundamental question of physics and all natural science. The solution to this question is simple, clear, unambiguous: “the content of elementary particles is “pure”, concrete (...) matter of nature”. (shrink)

В настоящей статье рассматривается основной вопрос философии. Автор предлагает в его классическую схему, разработанную Ф. Энгельсом, одним из основоположником диалектического материализма внести изменение, добавив третью сторону. Этой третьей стороной ОВФ должен стать вопрос «о конкретном представлении материи в природе (материи природы)». Это основной вопрос физики и всего естествознания. Решение этого вопроса простое, ясное, однозначное: «содержимое элементарных частиц есть «чистая», конкретная материя природы». -/- This article examines the main question of philosophy (MQP). The author proposes to amend its classical scheme, developed (...) by F. Engels, one of the founders of dialectical materialism, by adding a third side. This third side of the MQP should be the question of "the concrete representation of matter in nature (matter of nature)". This is the main (fundamental) question of physics and all natural science. The solution to this question is simple, clear, unambiguous: "the content of elementary particles is "pure", concrete matter of nature". (shrink)