Compared to other forms of memory, episodic memory is commonly viewed as special for being distinctively metarepresentational and, relatedly, uniquely human. There is an inherent ambiguity in these conceptions, however, because “episodic memory” has two closely connected yet subtly distinct uses, one designating the recollective experience and the other designating the underlying neurocognitive system. Since experience and system sit at different levels of theorizing, their disentanglement is not only necessary but also fruitful for generating novel theoretical hypotheses. To show this, (...) I first argue that accepting the phenomenally conscious contents of episodic remembering as metarepresentational does not necessitate a metarepresentational conception of the episodic memory system. In its stead, I sketch an alternative account on which the metarepresentational character of episodic remembering is generated through the interaction of first-order outputs of the episodic memory system with other neurocognitive components of the brain. Complemented with a first-order account of the memory system, the system-experience distinction further supplies a novel understanding of the human uniqueness of episodic recollection, one that is compatible with there being an evolutionarily conserved episodic memory system. Overall, by distinguishing the two equivocal senses of “episodic memory” in our theorizing, we unearth an opportunity to understand how the distinctive phenomenology of our episodic recollection is related to and implemented in the cognitive architecture. (shrink)

Hoerl & McCormack claim that animals don't represent time. Because this makes a mystery of established findings in comparative psychology, there had better be some important payoff. The main one they mention is that it explains a clash of intuition about the reality of time's passage. But any theory that recognizes the representational requirements of agency can do likewise.

In déjà vu, a novel experience feels strangely familiar. Here we propose that this phenomenology is best seen as consisting in an illusory feeling of identification of the gist of the current scene or event, rather than in the intensity of the fluency-based, metacognitive feeling of familiarity.

Objectives: The growing rate of retraction of scientific publications has attracted much attention within the academic community, but there is little knowledge about the nature of such retractions in schizophrenia-related research. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of retractions of schizophrenia-related publications.

The System of the World, Isaac Newton's first draft for the third volume of his classic work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687; Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), is an important document in the history of science, using the principles of mechanics to construct the first complete scientific system on the workings of the universe in human history. -/- This book of 78 treatises briefly describes the principles established in the first two volumes of the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, then (...) applies these principles to the derivation of the actual orbits of the solar system and comets, laying out in layman's terms the universality of the law of gravitation and, from this, studying the shape of the earth, explaining the planetary precession and the tides of the oceans, probing the motion of the moon, and determining the orbits of comets. In this book, Newton does not construct abstract mathematical models, but analyses them in relation to astronomical phenomena, using only a small amount of mathematical language to explain these intriguing elements, making its content suitable for a general audience. -/- The appendices of this Chinese translation by Haixuan Pan(潘海璇) include Life of Sir Issac Newton by N. W. Chittenden, Newtonian Studies by Alexandre Koyré, which introduce Newton's life and main achievements, as well as the debates and evaluations of the main academic views of Newton by the leading philosophers and scientists of the time, and are important supplementary and reference materials when reading The System of the World. (shrink)

This chapter outlines the philosophy of the Pan-African conferences 1900–1945 and situates Pan-Africanism in a European context. It presents Pan-Africanism as part of European history and realities and as a conceptual framework for the African diaspora in Europe. It calls for reframing European histories and realities in ways that are neither racially exclusive nor nationalistic.

This paper connects the hard problem of consciousness to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. It shows that constitutive Russellian pan(proto)psychism (CRP) is compatible with Everett’s relative-state (RS) interpretation. Despite targeting different problems, CRP and RS are related, for they both establish symmetry between micro- and macrosystems, and both call for a deflationary account of Subject. The paper starts from formal arguments that demonstrate the incompatibility of CRP with alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics, followed by showing that RS entails Russellian pan(proto)psychism. (...) Therefore, CRP and RS are mutually supportive. It then provides a unified ontological picture by combining CRP and RS. The challenge faced by CRP, the combination problem, can be resolved by adopting a RS version of quantum mechanics. Technically, this is achieved by a co-consciousness relation capable of explaining the difference between first-person and third-person perspectives. The hierarchical structure of the relation removes any concern on the structural mismatch between the physical and the phenomenal. (shrink)

The evolution from pre-human primates to modern Homo sapiens is a complex one involving many domains, ranging from the material to the social to the cognitive, both at the individual and the community levels. This article focuses on a critical qualitative transition that took place during this evolution involving both the social and the cognitive domains. For the social domain, the transition is from the face-to-face forms of social interaction and organization that characterize the non-human primates that reached, with Pan, (...) a hiatus due to the centripetal effects that highly individualized behavior has on a social system. The transition is to the relation-based forms of social organization that evolved in the hominins ancestral to Homo sapiens and are universal in human societies today. For the cognitive domain, this transition involves going from behavior responding mainly to phenomenal level sensory inputs to behavior formed in accordance with the concept of a relation, initially abstracted from behavior patterns, then extending the concept of a relation beyond abstraction from behavior patterns to the concept of a relation generated recursively through constructing the relation of a relation. This extension made possible the construction of systems of relations; initially genealogical systems of relations constructed culturally using the logic of recursion, and subsequently, the symbolic, computational systems of kin term relations referred to by anthropologists as kinship terminologies. The latter are “constructed realities” in the sense this term is used by cultural anthropologists. It follows that the evolution of relation-based systems of social interaction is not adequately accounted for through population model evolutionary accounts such as the Dual Inheritance Theory of human evolution since “constructed realities” constitute collectively and publicly shared cultural knowledge rather than the individually and privately possessed knowledge that is assumed in the population model framework for human evolution. (shrink)

The scenario of Homo sapiens origin/s within Africa has become increasingly complex, with a pan-African perspective currently challenging the long-established single-origin hypothesis. In this paper, we review the lines of evidence employed in support of each model, highlighting inferential limitations and possible terminological misunderstandings. We argue that the metapopulation scenario envisaged by pan-African proponents well describes a mosaic diversification among late Middle Pleistocene groups. However, this does not rule out a major contribution that emerged from a single population where crucial (...) derived features—notably, a globular braincase—appeared as the result of a punctuated, cladogenetic event. Thus, we suggest that a synthesis is possible and propose a scenario that, in our view, better reconciles with consolidated expectations in evolutionary theory. These indicate cladogenesis in allopatry as an ordinary pattern for the origin of a new species, particularly during phases of marked climatic and environmental instability. (shrink)

Primatology tells that about seven million years ago a split began in primate evolution, a split that led to chimpanzee and human lineages (the pan-homo split). During these millions of years our human lineage has developed performances that our chimpanzee cousins do not possess, like reflective self-consciousness and language. We present here an evolutionary scenario that proposes a rationale for the pan-homo split. It is based on a pre-human anxiety that may have barred access to self-consciousness for the chimpanzee lineage. (...) The starting point of the scenario is the capability that had our pre-human ancestors for an elementary identification with conspecifics. We consider that the evolution of that capability has led to self-consciousness when identifications with conspecifics brought our ancestors to represent their own entity as existing, like conspecifics were represented. But the same identification process also took place with endangered and dying conspecifics. And this has produced a huge anxiety increase, source of important mental sufferings that our ancestors had to limit. Our hypothesis is that different modes of anxiety limitation have led to the pan-homo split. On one side the chimpanzee lineage would have limited an unbearable mental suffering by stopping the development of identifications with conspecifics, and by this also stopping a possible evolution toward self-consciousness. Such anxiety limitation process has led to today chimpanzees which possess a very limited consciousness of themselves. On the other side, our human lineage would have successfully developed anxiety limitation tools like caring, pleasure, anticipation, communication and imitation. With these tools accelerating the evolution of our lineage toward our human mind. The proposed pan/homo split process complements an existing evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness that has positioned anxiety management as a key contributor to the build-up of our human minds. Such overall perspective makes anxiety management a major source to many of our motivations and mental states, much more than assumed so far. Continuations are proposed for a better understanding about our modes of anxiety limitation (including evil behaviors), and also to introduce a possible evolutionary nature of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Conventional scientific realism is just the doctrine that our theoretical terms refer. Conventional antirealism denies, for various reasons, theoretical reference and takes theory to give us only information about the word of the perceptual where reference, it would appear, is secure. But reference fails for the perceptual every bit as much for the perceptual as for the theoretical, and for the same reason: the world is too complicated for us to succeed in attaching specific referents to our terms. That would (...) appear to leave us with a kind of latter day, representational idealism: All we have are representations. I argue that our representations tell us about an independent world without securing reference by showing that the world is very like the way it is represented in a range of different, often complementary modeling schemes. Though never exact, these representations are of something extra-representational because they present the world modally as going beyond what is represented explicitly. (shrink)

One of the early propositions on the nature of Southeast Asia comes from George Coedes’ 1968 The Indianized states of Southeast Asia, which assumes that Southeast Asia and its identity construction resulted from the region’s passive acceptance of culture from India and China. Such is the case that that the cultural landscape of the region becomes a mere accumulation of external influences. Robert Redfield’s notion of “great and little traditions” that Southeast Asian historians used in examining and understanding Southeast Asian (...) identity and history influenced these ideas. Zeus Salazar’s 1988 The Malayan connection, challenges this framing of Southeast Asian history. -/- This study aims to evaluate Salazar’s historiographical contributions to Southeast Asian studies, especially in terms of his efforts to problematize and establish the pan-Malayan identity of insular Southeast Asia. This will be undertaken through a critical review of his works such as Kabihasnang Asyano: Isang pangkasaysayang introduksyon [Asian civilization: A historical introduction] (1990); The Malayan connection (1998); Ang Pilipinong banua/banwa sa mundong Melano-Polynesiano [The Philippines in the Melano-Polynesian world] (2006); and, Asya: Kasaysayan at kabihasnan [Asia: History and civilization] (2010), as well as the works of some scholars in Southeast Asian Studies who have been influenced by Salazar and his works. The research will also show that the nationalist historiography that Salazar advocates emphasizes and highlights the Southeast Asian region’s Austronesian roots as the basis of the region’s cultural identity. (shrink)

This is a theoretical treatment of the term "Sha Zhu Pan" (杀猪盘) in Chinese, which translates to “Pig-Butchering” in English. The article critically examines the propagation and validation of "Pig Butchering," an animal metaphor, and its implications for the dehumanisation of victims of online fraud across various discourses. The study provides background information about this type of fraud before investigating its theoretical foundations and linking its emergence to the dehumanisation of fraud victims. The analysis highlights the disparity between academic literature, (...) subjected to rigorous peer-review processes, and sensationalised narratives prevalent in the media. While academic works subject "pig butchering" to critical scrutiny and refrain from endorsing derogatory terms to depict fraud victims, numerous media outlets employ this term uncritically, further worsening the predicament of these victims. "Pig butchering" is firmly rooted in the concept of dehumanisation, and this article underscores how language moulds perceptions of fraud and behaviour, extending to the development of preventive strategies. The role of law enforcement agencies in generating and disseminating materials is also a central theme, emphasising their responsibility as trusted sources of information. We suggest that these agencies should adopt non-victim shaming language to encourage victims to report crimes and alleviate the stigma attached to victimisation. Additionally, the article offers valuable cross-cultural insights by comparing metaphors from Chinese and Nigerian contexts. This comparative analysis enriches our comprehension of the global dimensions of online fraud and its cultural diversities, highlighting the substantial impact of language on perceptions and behaviours. We advocate for a departure from victim-blaming tendencies perpetuated by select media outlets, urging a more compassionate and accurate portrayal of those affected by online fraud. We, therefore, call for a more empathetic and accurate portrayal of individuals affected by online fraud, aligning with the broader objective of promoting understanding and support for these victims. (shrink)

Noi ancora non pensiamo autenticamente. M. Heidegger (1952) Che l'umanità sia progredita non c'è alcun dubbio, ma in quale senso, e a quale prezzo?

A novel way of making a non-stick frying pan using a topologically open surface is described. While the article has a slight humorous element to it, it is also intended to contain some serious philosophical points concerning the nature of infinitely divisible matter and the kind of contact that must occur between objects in order for them to interact.

Through Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics, the Philosophy of Organism, it will be argued that psychedelic experience is a vertical, lateral and temporal integration of sentience.

This essay conducts a diachronic examination of the thought of W.E.B. Du Bois. In so doing, it reveals a corpus that is marked by a tradition of thinking rarely acknowledged by scholars today: Black nationalism. Du Bois’s early focus on the relationship between racism and imperialism and ideological conflicts with Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey laid the basis for his intellectual maturation around the concept of self-determination. After synthesizing the insights of his former ideological rivals, this essay will show (...) that Du Bois affected a revolution in Black nationalist (and human) thought by making the common humanity and autonomy of African/African-descended peoples (and all colonized people) thinkable through the ideology of Pan-Africanism: a truly universal idea of freedom which was antagonistic to Westernism (Liberal Capitalist and Marxist thought). (shrink)

Recent discoveries of semantic compositionality in Japanese tits have enlivened the discussions on the presence of this phenomenon in wild animal communication. Data on semantic compositionality in wild apes are lacking, even though language experiments with captive apes have demonstrated they are capable of semantic compositionality. In this paper, I revisit the study by Boesch (Hum. Evol. 6:81–89, 1991) who investigated drumming sequences by an alpha male in a chimpanzee (_Pan troglodytes_) community in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. A (...) reanalysis of the data reveals that the alpha male produced semantically compositional combined messages of travel direction change and resting period initiation. Unlike the Japanese tits, the elements of the compositional expression were not simply juxtaposed but displayed structural reduction, while one of the two elements in the expression coded the meanings of both elements. These processes show relative resemblance to blending and fusion in human languages. Also unlike the tits, the elements of the compositional expression did not have a fixed order, although there was a fixed distribution of drumming events across the trees used for drumming. Because the elements of the expression appear to carry verb-like meanings, the compositional expression also resembles simple verb-verb constructions and short paratactic combinations of two clauses found across languages. In conclusion, the reanalysis suggests that semantic compositionality and phenomena resembling paratactic combinations of two clauses might have been present in the communication of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, not necessarily in the vocal modality. (shrink)

Herman Gorter (1864-1927) became famous as the author of May (1889) and Poems (1890). His opus magnum Pan, published in 1916, hardly acquired any readership at all, which is remarkable, given the monumental size and scope of this unique achievement, celebrating the imminent proletarian revolution and the advent of the communist era: a visionary work of global proportions. Gorter’s Pan will be assessed as thinking poetry, more precisely: as dialectical materialist poetry, as a work of art which articulates a dialectical (...) materialist worldview, not only concerning political economy and society, but also concerning nature and the universe as such, from the stars and galaxies of modern astrophysics down to the atoms and molecules of modern chemistry and quantum physics. Gorter’s monumental work is ‘thinking poetry’ in the Heideggerian sense of the term, sensitive to an imminent upheaval of Being as such, as well as a dialectical materialist artwork (albeit with a tinge of Spinozism) contributing (via the ‘school of poetry’) to a dialectical understanding of space, time, life and matter. In this article, I will focus on two crucial recurring motives: the motif of the shining crystal and the motif of the beaming galaxy. Via these motifs, so I suggest, Gorter aspires to bridge the gap between his epic-lyrical poetry and twentieth-century science. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article classical and Lacanian psychoanalysis is applied for interpretation of discourse and conduct of lieutenant Glahn, the protagonist of Knut Hamsun’s novel Pan. The analysis is based on the theory and case studies of psychoses from the main works by Sigmund Freud. The scene of Glahn shooting his hunting dog Asop – one of the most complicated episodes in a novel – became the starting point of this research. The application of psychoanalytic conception of paranoia to the (...) narrative helped throw light on the logic of action and clarify the connection between the protagonist’s deed and his discourse. A comparison of Hamsun’s text with Salvador Dali’s autobiographical writing The Secret Life of Salvador Dali and with the Lacan’s interpretation of the crime of Papin sisters helped identify paranoid mental structures in the narrative. (shrink)

The nature of human mind is a key subject for philosophy and for psychology. It is agreed that many of its characteristics and performances have been built during the last 7 million years of our primate evolution. That period began with what is called the pan-homo split, the divergence in primate evolution from the Last Common Ancestor (LCAncestor) we share with chimpanzees. The mental specificities that differentiate us from our chimpanzee cousins have been built up during that time. As consequence, (...) philosophical and psychological investigations relative to the nature of human mind should analyze that period. But this has been done only in a limited way so far. On part because the recent discipline of Evolutionary Psychology covers only a limited segment of that period and also because Husserl, the founding father of Phenomenology, took the position to not address a possible evolutionary nature of human mind (the “proscription of anthropology in Phenomenology”) [1]. We would like here to recall these limitations and introduce possible openings (this is a continuation of an already presented approach [18] [4]). Evolutionary Psychology is interested in the life and social habits of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in order to highlight mental states that were pertinent for them but do not fit with our today lives. The pre-human period considered by Evolutionary Psychology is the Pleistocene which began 2.5 million years ago. At about that time our homo-habilis ancestors were already significantly more evolved and more performant than the LCAncestor we share with chimpanzees (larger brain size, fabrication of stone tools, hands capable of precision grip, …). This means that at the beginning of the Pleistocene our ancestors were already well advanced in their evolution toward today humans. This shows that the build up of our human characteristics and specificities began before the Pleistocene, and neglecting the pre-Pleistocene time puts at risk of missing some root causes of our human specificities. This brings to consider that Evolutionary Psychology should take into account the pre-human period beginning at the pan-homo split, not only at the Pleistocene. Regarding philosophy, the proscription of anthropology in Phenomenology is currently challenged with some interest in Evolutionary Psychology [9] [8]. To avoid the risk of limiting human evolution to Pleistocene Phenomenology should explicitly plan to use anthropology on the whole evolutionary period beginning at pan-homo split. In such a perspective some help could come from an existing evolutionary scenario starting at pan-homo split and introducing a nature of self-consciousness associated to anxiety management [4]. The scenario introduces an Evolutionary Engine based on primate intersubjectivity which could have led our ancestors to build a representation of their own entity, thus leading to a natural build up of self-consciousness. Part of the scenario is also about identifications with suffering conspecifics which may have been the source of a huge anxiety, not taken into account so far and leading to an Evolutionary Anxiety intertwined with the nature of self-consciousness. It is shown that a synergy between the evolution of self-consciousness and anxiety management happened before Pleistocene, making pre-Pleistocene a key period for understanding the nature of our human minds. Overall, the scenario proposes a rationale for the pan-homo split, a tentative explanation of the divergence in pre-human primate evolution. It is also recalled that the concept of Evolutionary Anxiety makes available an entry point to the nature of human evil [14]. We present the above points and use the proposed evolutionary scenario for a reading of human evolution from last common ancestor to today humas. Continuations are introduced. (shrink)

W tekście omawiam tę część internetowej dyskusji, przeprowadzonej w listopadzie 2012 r. na stronie Polskiego Towarzystwa Bioetycznego, która dotyczyła niepewności na temat moralnego statusu embrionów ludzkich. W trakcie dyskusji PTB na temat Stanowiska Komitetu Bioetyki przy Prezydium PAN w sprawie preimplantacyjnej diagnostyki genetycznej (PDG) pojawił się następujący argument: skoro spór o moralny status embrionu jest nierozstrzygalny, to powinniśmy opowiedzieć się przeciwko moralnej dopuszczalności wykonywania PDG na embrionach, a także przeciwko prawnej dopuszczalności tego rodzaju diagnostyki. W tekście omawiam tezy Stanowiska i (...) zdań odrębnych, które wywołały tę część dyskusji, a potem koncentruję się na następujących problemach: (I) dopuszczalność stosowania narzędzi teorii decyzji w debatach etycznych; (II) procedura podejmowania decyzji przez ciała doradcze w sytuacji niepewności moralnej; (III) znaczenie osiągnięć nauk biologicznych przy ustaleniu statusu moralnego embrionu; (IV) możliwość kompromisu w sytuacji pluralizmu wartości; (V) znaczenie statusu moralnego embrionów dla oceny moralnej i prawnej dopuszczalności PDG. (shrink)

This article explicates the views on both race and ethnicity of these three prominent Latinx philosophers, compares them (somewhat), and offers some criticisms. Corlett jettisons race as a categorization of groups, but accepts a form of racialization somewhat at odds with this jettisoning. Gracia adopts as a general principle that an account of both ethnicity and race should help us see aspects of reality that would otherwise be obscured; but this is at odds with his regarding the Latin American view (...) of race as more rational than the U.S. version with its “one-drop rule.” The latter has structured the reality of race in the U.S. for African Americans. Alcoff is much more concerned with the phenomenology of race and ethnicity than the other two, and she clearly adds “pan-ethnicity” to the mix of concepts required to understand Latino/a Americans. I argue that she fails to see the agentic and political aspect of black identity in the U.S., and in a sense shares with Gracia a misplaced sense that the mixedness of Latin American racial identity is somehow to be preferred to the more binary U.S. form. (shrink)

We frame the question of what kind of subjective experience a brain simulation would have in contrast to a biological brain. We discuss the brain prosthesis thought experiment. Then, we identify finer questions relating to the original inquiry, and set out to answer them moving forward from both a general physicalist perspective, and pan-experientialism. We propose that the brain simulation is likely to have subjective experience, however, it may differ significantly from human experience. Additionally, we discuss the relevance of quantum (...) properties, digital physics, theory of relativity, and information theory to the question. (shrink)

Pada masa kolonialisme, sebagian besar wilayah-wilayah Muslim takluk ditangan negaranegara kolonial. Dalam konteks ini, dakwah Islam serta gerakan-gerakan Islam, dan pemikiran tentang Islam dari para tokoh Muslim terarahkan pada perlawanan terhadap kolonialisme. Salah satu di antaranya adalah Tan Malaka, yang merupakan seorang Muslim dengan pemikirannya yang berhaluan Marxis. Artikel ini mengkaji pemikiran Islam Tan Malaka dalam konteks dakwah Islam. Untuk itu digunakan metode filsafat untuk menemukan posisi dan tujuan dakwah Islam Tan Malaka. Hasil penelitian ini adalah bahwa posisi Tan Malaka (...) dalam dakwah Islam terletak pada konteks kolonialisme dan gerakan Pan-Islamisme. Tujuannya berupaya mangajak Komunisme bekerja sama dengan Pan-Islamisme. (shrink)

Compared with Western Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy seldom talks about "the other world". This difference can be further proved in language categories. What exists in language text is different from what exists in language structure or language categories. Language categories reflect the styles of deep thinking. The lacking of subjunctive in Chinese language reflects the indifference between facts and ultra-facts in Chinese minds. There is a pan-fact attention in Chinese culture, while an ultra-fact attention in Western culture. This difference also embodies (...) in the activities of religion, logic, mathematics and science. (shrink)

The ability to anticipate events, to foresight, is an adaptive advantage. We humans use it all the time. Animals have a limited access to it. Positioning foresight in human evolution is a complex subject (Suddendorf, 2013). Why and how are humans, and not chimpanzees, performant in anticipating events? We propose here to address that question with an evolutionary scenario that links self-consciousness to anxiety management (Menant, 2018). The scenario positions self-consciousness as “the capability to represent one’s own entity as existing (...) in the environment, like conspecifics are represented as existing” (making “thinking about oneself” possible). The scenario proposes that our pre-human ancestors were capable of some level of identifications with their conspecifics, and that its development has progressively brought our ancestors to represent themselves as existing in the environment like their conspecifics were represented, thus introducing self-consciousness. The scenario also proposes that identifications with suffering conspecifics have been the source of an important anxiety that had to be limited for evolution to continue. Some of our ancestors have not been able to limit that new anxiety. Their mental pain became unbearable. Their evolution was almost stopped, thus initiating the pan-homo split. Developing an ability to anticipate events has been a key contributor to anxiety limitation by providing information about the sufferings to come, and consequently allowing to limit and avoid them. In addition to that role of foresight in human evolution it is worth noticing that the associated chaining of mental events brings to propose foresight as an entry point to the concept of causality in human evolution. Regarding our chimpanzee cousins, the pan-homo split in the scenario positions them as not self-conscious, not capable of anticipation like humans are, and less anxious than humans. Continuations are proposed. (shrink)

In recent literature, panpsychism has been defended by appeal to two main arguments: first, an argument from philosophy of mind, according to which panpsychism is the only view which successfully integrates consciousness into the physical world (Strawson 2006; Chalmers 2013); second, an argument from categorical properties, according to which panpsychism offers the only positive account of the categorical or intrinsic nature of physical reality (Seager 2006; Adams 2007; Alter and Nagasawa 2012). Historically, however, panpsychism has also been defended by appeal (...) to a third argument based on considerations about the nature and observability of causation. This argument has not been much discussed in recent times. Here is a concise version from William James: "… the concrete perceptual flux, taken just as it comes, offers in our own activity-situations perfectly comprehensible instances of causal agency … If we took these experiences as the type of what actual causation is, we should have to ascribe to cases of causation outside of our life, to physical cases also, an inwardly experiential nature. In other words, we should have to espouse a so-called “pan-psychic” philosophy" (James 1911: 218). James here suggests that we have direct experience of causation in our own agency. He thereby directly contradicts David Hume, who famously denied that we have any experience of causation. James goes on to claim that if this experience is representative of causation in general, it follows that all causation is mental, and that panpsychism is true. This kind of argument for panpsychism can be called the argument from (experience of) causation. This chapter offers, first, a history of this argument and arguments closely related to it, and second, an analysis of the argument – is it valid, are its premises in any way defensible, and how does it relate to the other, more popular arguments for panpsychism from philosophy of mind and categorical properties? (shrink)

The problem of plant individuality is something which has vexed botanists throughout the ages, with fashion swinging back and forth from treating plants as communities of individuals (Darwin 1800 ; Braun and Stone 1853 ; Münch 1938 ) to treating them as organisms in their own right, and although the latter view has dominated mainstream thought most recently (Harper 1977 ; Cook 1985 ; Ariew and Lewontin 2004 ), a lively debate conducted mostly in Scandinavian journals proves that the issues (...) are far from being resolved (Tuomi and Vuorisalo 1989b ; Fagerström 1992 ; Pan and Price 2001 ). In this paper I settle the matter once and for all, by showing which elements of each side are correct. (shrink)

Este trabajo parte del análisis de Heidegger en “¿Para qué poetas?”, donde el autor interpreta la poesía de Hölderlin a partir de su elegía «Pan y vino», aquí expondremos algunas de sus explicaciones. También intentaremos entender la respuesta que da Hölderlin en la que asocia los poetas a los «sacerdotes del dios del vino». Para ello nos ayudaremos de las nociones que de Dioniso nos ofrecen tanto Nietzsche como Hölderlin, presentaremos semejanzas y diferencias de algunas de sus interpretaciones. Aparte de (...) eso, reflexionaremos sobre la visión del artista como un dios y la relación existente entre la poesía y la filosofía. Concluiremos con las reflexiones que Heidegger hace en su trabajo “Aclaraciones a la poesía de Hölderlin”, donde el autor sobrevalora el papel de la poesía, considerando incluso que los poetas pueden llegar a esclarecer pensamientos de cualquier filosofía pensada a medias. (shrink)

Although the idea of the Anthropocene originated in the earth sciences, there have been increasing calls for questions about the Anthropocene to be addressed by pan-disciplinary groups of researchers from across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We use data analysis techniques from corpus linguistics to examine academic texts about the Anthropocene from these disciplinary families. We read the data to suggest that barriers to a broadly interdisciplinary study of the Anthropocene are high, but we are also able to (...) identify some areas of common ground that could serve as interdisciplinary bridges. (shrink)

In the world there are concrete particulars that exhibit the kind of substantial unity that allows them to be called substances or “natural individuals”, as opposed to artifacts or mere conglomerates. Persons, animals, and possibly the most fundamental physical simples are all natural individuals. What gives these entities the ontological status of a substantial unity? Arguments from the philosophy of mind and arguments from general metaphysics show that physical properties alone cannot account for substantial unity. The ultimate intrinsic properties of (...) natural individuals resemble phenomenal mental properties rather than any other kind of known properties. Pan(proto-)psychism is thus supported by systematically related arguments from different areas of philosophical inquiry. A certain amount of skepticism regarding the full nature of absolutely intrinsic properties is nevertheless well-advised. (shrink)

Contrary to the dominant arguments put forth by Black feminist scholars, this essay argues that W.E.B. Du Bois’ pioneering role in establishing the principles of Black sociology, ethnological arguments and long-range development of Pan-Africanism as an ideological rival to colonial imperialism/Westernism suggests that the masculine roots informing his approach to the Black intellectual endeavor is a positive and humanistic rather than a restrictive marker of his thought. If Du Bois’ masculinization of Black agency and intellectual endeavors were simply indicative of (...) mimesis – his internalization of the very sexism against which he fought anchored to a view of freedom for Black people which materialized as a struggle among men over the control of the bodies of Black women – then there should be textual evidence demonstrating that he (like some of his Black female peers) supported the relegation of Black women to domesticity or was in favor of US imperialism against darker races abroad. But rather than an imitative aspiration towards Black nationalist patriarchy and the subordination of Black women to men’s will, the logical consequence of Du Bois’ masculinist (ethnological) thinking as it relates to the Black intellectual endeavor and the problem of race in America materialized as the formulation of Black sociology to study Black men and women as agents of history who were endowed with unique insights stemming from their experiences of marginalization, his articulation of an anti-colonial and egalitarian Black manhood, and his laying an intellectual basis for Pan-Africanism to emerge as an anti-colonial ideology. (shrink)

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

Is the great god Pan reborn? For a while there, it seemed every intellectual movement began with the prefix ‘post’, implying non-totality, but now there are indications that ‘pan’ (all) is returning to provide another answer to one of the most basic of ontological questions: What is the relationship of mind to matter? In this important book with 17 different authors, panpsychism is given its due.

David Furley's work on the cosmologies of classical antiquity is structured around what he calls "two pictures of the world." The first picture, defended by both Plato and Aristotle, portrays the universe, or all that there is (to pan), as identical with our particular ordered world-system. Thus, the adherents of this view claim that the universe is finite and unique. The second system, defended by Leucippus and Democritus, portrays an infinite universe within which our particular kosmos is only one of (...) countless kosmoi. Aristotle's argument in De caelo I.9 that the world is necessarily unique is an important contribution to this debate. This argument holds interest because it shows Aristotle wrestling with an apparent inconsistency in his own philosophy, as deeply-held convictions within his cosmology collide with an equally deeply-held conviction within his metaphysics. The following three principles, each of which Aristotle appears committed to, are inconsistent: -/- The cosmic uniqueness principle. The world is necessarily unique. The cosmic form principle. The world is an ordered, structured unity. As such, the world has a form. The possibility of multiple instantiation principle. For all F, if F is a form, it is possible that there exist multiple Fs. In De caelo I.9, Aristotle argues that we can establish the uniqueness of the universe, reject the multiple instantiation principle, yet still retain the distinction between 'this world' and 'world in general,' if the following is true (as it is): the world takes up all the matter that exists. Aristotle illustrates this argument with one of the stranger analogies in his corpus: imagine an aquiline nose that takes up all the flesh in the universe. If this were so, then there could not exist any other aquiline objects whatsoever. (For this reason, we dub the De caelo I.9 argument the 'Cosmic Nose argument.') This paper is an interpretation of how this argument is supposed to proceed and an assessment of its success. The first section states the problem Aristotle is confronted with, sorts through Aristotle's various statements of the Cosmic Nose argument, which exhibit some sloppiness, and reconstructs charitably a single argument. We also spend some time examining the significance of Aristotle's example of a gigantic aquiline nose. We argue that, even charitably reconstructed, the argument appears to commit a serious modal fallacy. The remainder of the paper explores whether this modal fallacy can be overcome. We conclude that, although not a cogent argument for the uniqueness of the world (as this would require a significant revision of our current astronomy), the Cosmic Nose argument does succeed on its own terms. However, it should not be regarded as a free-standing argument for the uniqueness of the world. Instead, it depends crucially on the earlier argument in De caelo I.8 for the universe's uniqueness; De caelo I.9 should be viewed as an attempt to extend the conclusion of De caelo I.8 and to show how this conclusion can be made consistent with Aristotle's metaphysical principles about the nature of form. (shrink)

In 1984 scientists in the former Soviet Union called for an ecological civilization. This idea was taken up in 1987 in China by Ye Qianji. Subsequently the notion of ecological civilization was promoted by the deputy director of China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Pan Yue, incorporated into the Central Commission Report to the Communist Party’s 17th Convention in November, 2007, and embraced as one of the key elements in its political guidelines. Characterized as the successor to agricultural and industrial (...) civilization, it is now being promoted as a goal for the whole of humanity in order to avert a global ecological disaster. The success or failure of this project to create an ecological civilization could determine whether humanity survives. But what does it mean to create an ecological civilization? What does ‘civilization’ mean, and then what would it mean to create an ‘ecological’ civilization? This essay seeks to answer this question. (shrink)

partial review of Thomas Nagel’s book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False is used to articulate some systems-theoretic ideas about the challenge of understanding subjective experience. The article accepts Nagel’s view that reductionist materialism fails as an approach to this challenge, but argues that seeking an explanation of mind based on emergence is more plausible than seeking one based on pan-psychism, which Nagel favors. However, the article proposes something similar to Nagel’s neutral (...) monism by positing a hierarchy of information processes that spans the domains of matter, life, and mind. As depicted in this hierarchy, subjective experience is emergent, but also continuous with informational phenomena at lower levels. (shrink)

Wedle Stanowiska Komitetu Bioetyki przy Prezydium PAN nr 2/2012 z dnia 8. czerwca 2012 r. w sprawie preimplantacyjnej diagnostyki genetycznej (PDG) jednym z głównych problemów wiążących się z prawnym uregulowaniem PDG jest nierozstrzygalność sporu na temat statusu moralnego ludzkich zarodków. Stanowisko i zgłoszone do niego zdania odrębne stwierdzają, że ci, którzy uznają, że wczesne zarodki mają pełny status moralny, nie mogą się zgodzić na diagnostykę preimplantacyjną. W artykule pokazuję, że przyjęcie nawet skrajnie konserwatywnego poglądu na status wczesnych embrionów ludzkich, czyli (...) uznanie ich za byty mające pełny status moralny i pełne prawo do życia, nie wystarczy, by skutecznie argumentować przeciw dopuszczalności PDG w sytuacji, w której nie możemy zagwarantować przeżycia wszystkich embrionów. Przedstawiony tu argument opiera się na powszechnie akceptowanej obecnie w etyce medycznej zasadzie poszanowania autonomii oraz odwołuje się do sposobu podejmowania decyzji w sytuacji niepewności charakterystycznego dla klasycznie rozumianej teorii decyzji. (shrink)

Seeking to expand on previous theories, this paper explores the AIR (Applying Intelligence to the Reflexes) approach to expert performance previously outlined by Geeves, Christensen, Sutton and McIlwain (2008). Data gathered from a semi-structured interview investigating the performance experience of Jeremy Kelshaw (JK), a professional musician, is explored. Although JK’s experience of music performance contains inherently uncertain elements, his phenomenological description of an ideal performance is tied to notions of vibe, connection and environment. The dynamic nature of music performance advocated (...) by the AIR approach is illustrated by the strategies that JK implements during performance. Through executing these strategies, JK attempts to increase the likelihood of vibe and connection by selectively exercising agency over performance variables within his control. In order to achieve this, JK must engage in ongoing monitoring of his performance, whereby the spotlight of his attention pans across a vast array of disparate performance processes (and levels within these processes) in order to ascertain how he can most effectively meet the specific demands of a given performance situation. It is hoped that future research compiling data from numerous interviews and sources as well as using different research methodologies will further unlock the potential that the AIR approach holds for understanding expert performance. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- Walking, illegally, down main Montreal thoroughfares with students in nightly demonstrations, with neighbors whom I barely knew before, banging pots and pans, and with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people on every 22nd of the month since March—this was unimaginable a year ago.1 Unimaginable that the collective and heterogeneous body, which is the “manif [demonstration]”, could feel so much like home, despite its internal differences. Unimaginable that this mutual dependence on one another could enable not only (...) collective protection from traffic and police but the affective strength and audacity to take back the street—a mutual dependence that includes the masked demonstrators ready to help when gassed by police. Unimaginable too that we would be breaking the law daily,2 that blocking traffic and seeing the city from the center of the street would become habit, and that as the “printemps érable” becomes summer, we would be investing our time in neighborhood assemblies, in weaving social bonds, and in sustaining and deepening the mobilization. -/- I say these actions were unimaginable not merely because the context that motivated the enlargement of the student movement into a popular struggle combines a number of unique features. Nor were they simply unimaginable because the Quebec I previously knew was marred by the Islamophobia and cultural racism made visible during the reasonable accommodation debates, a society whose mapping excluded me and for whose sake it would have been difficult to protest.3 Rather, I say these actions were unimaginable because the possibility of this popular and inclusive mobilization had not yet been created. It is this possibility that the Quebec student movement has created, I argue, not only in quantitative terms by engaging so many, but at the level of lived subjectivities and intercorporeal solidarity. The evolution of the movement should be understood, then, both as a swelling of its popular base and as an intensification and qualitative transformation of ways of life. (shrink)

This review article presents a critical evaluation of Christopher C. Knight’s central ideas expressed in his book entitled “Wrestling with the Divine, Religion, Science and Revelation”. The main position discussed is the one Knight calls sacramental panentheism or pan-sacramentalism. These terms refer to the idea that every natural thing can be the locus of God’s initiative as regards God’s self-communication. Using scientific analogies, one may want to defend the idea that culture offers a kind of possibility-space for revelation to happen, (...) somewhat like ecological niches are possibility-spaces for the evolution of biological species. The article argues that this view is inadequate because it implies that religious faith and its linguistic expression are a somewhat random process, sprouting up in various ways where conditions are favourable. It neglects the characteristic of revelation as a gift: God reaching out to us, not randomly, but intelligently and lovingly. (shrink)

Qualia are defined as subjective or private feelings associated with sensory and other experiences. This article argues that private feelings might be expressed by or in a personal brain and discusses possible neurobiological implications. Four issues are considered: Functional dualism implies that mental functions are realized as emergent properties of the brain. In practice, functional dualism is compatible with both substance dualism and pan-psychism. The (adult) human brain is the product of biological and environmental processes, including cultural influences, and is (...) individually unique. Part of the cerebral neuronal processing is molded by individual memories and previous experiences. Biological processes underlying the realization of qualia, including neural activities, escape conscious control. The temporal expression of qualia is in part consciously channeled by, for instance, actual situations and cultural habits. Neuroscientific explanations refer to general principles of nature, rather than to individual phenomena. Hence, future neurobiological approaches might aim to identify which neuronal processes are involved in qualia and how. It seems illusory to explain each quale. (shrink)

This paper addresses some apparent philosophical tensions between realism and enactivism by means of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. Enactivism’s Mind-Life Continuity thesis has been taken to commit it to some form of anti-realist ‘world-construction’ which has been considered controversial. Accordingly, a new realist enactivism is proposed by Zahidi (_Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,_ _13_(3), 461–475, 2014 ), drawing on Ian Hacking’s ‘entity realism’, which places subjects in worlds comprised of the things that they can successfully manipulate. We review this attempt, and (...) argue that whilst Zahidi rightly urges enactivists towards ‘internal realism’, he cannot sustain a non-negotiable aspect of realism that is crucial for scientific progress – the claim that multiple subjects inhabit _the same world_. We explore Peirce’s pragmatism as an alternative solution, foregrounding his distinction between existence and reality, and his inquiry-based account of cognition. These theoretical innovations, we argue, fruitfully generalize Zahidi’s _manipulation-based_ enactivist realism to a richer, _inquiry-based_ enactivist realism. We explore how this realism’s pan-species monism about truth encourages and supports the investigation of non-human animal cognition, and conclude by considering some implications of our discussion for long-standing realism debates within pragmatism. (shrink)

The metaphor of weighing reasons brings to mind a single (double-pan balance) scale. The reasons for φ go in one pan and the reasons for ~φ go in the other. The relative weights, as indicated by the relative heights of the two pans of the scale, determine the deontic status of φ. This model is simple and intuitive, but it cannot capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. A reason pushes the φ pan down toward permissibility (has justifying weight) (...) only insofar as it pushes the ~φ pan up toward impermissibility (has requiring weight). Thus, Single Scale is committed to Single Proportion (first pass): all reasons have the same proportion of justifying and requiring weight. Many normative theories reject Single Proportion, and they are not thereby confused about how to weigh reasons. One can be mistaken about the weight of a reason without being confused about how reasons are to be weighed. Single Scale is problematic, not because it appeals to the image of a scale, but because it appeals to the image of a single scale. We need two scales to capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. (shrink)

This paper defends pro-realism, the view that it is better if moral realism is true rather than any of its rivals. After offering an account of philosophical angst, I make three general arguments. The first targets nihilism: in securing the possibility of moral justification and vindication in objecting to certain harms, moral realism secures something that is non-morally valuable and even essential to the meaning and intelligibility of our lives. The second argument targets antirealism: moral realism secures a desirable independence (...) for moral justification that is qualitatively different from the anti-realistic construal of independence that is only explicable in terms of degrees of distance from our subjective responses and attitudes. Finally, I argue that while the pan-expressivist semantic program of quasi-realism has significant effects on what can be appropriately said in meta-ethical discourse, it provides no comfort to the pro-realist who is already angsty about anti-realism. (shrink)

The guiding premise of this chapter is that we, as teachers in higher education, must consider how the content and form of our teaching can foster inclusivity through a responsiveness to neurodiverse learning styles. A narrow pedagogical focus on lectures, textual engagement, and essay-writing threatens to exclude neurodivergent students whose ways of learning and making sense of the world may not be best supported through these traditional forms of pedagogy. As we discuss in this chapter, we, as engineering ethics educators, (...) designed and implemented a new engineering ethics exercise with which we aimed to promote inclusivity at the levels of form and content. At the content level, students were invited to critically engage with inclusivity-undermining ableist assumptions in technology development. This took shape, at the form level, through a hands-on ‘material tinkering’ workshop in which students collaboratively and creatively altered (or ‘hacked’) artifacts used in contexts of disability and healthcare, so as to operationalize values of inclusivity and accessibility. Our hunch was that this hands-on tinkering workshop would simultaneously encourage a meaningful way of engagement with these ethical issues and values, while also enacting a more inclusive learning environment by enriching the range of pedagogical activities and learning formats available to our students.As we aim to show in this chapter, we believe this hunch largely panned out – though there are clear areas for future improvement pertaining to the pilot exercise itself and the research we conducted on the exercise. We begin by offering a description of our tinkering exercise. We discuss the exercise’s source of inspiration (Sect. 16.2.1) and its implementation (Sect. 16.2.2), which is visually captured via photographic documentation. We then discuss (Sect. 16.3) how we utilized a triangulated research method to assess the pedagogical value of the exercise. After we discuss our findings, we conclude by identifying areas for future improvement (Sect. 16.4). (shrink)

An antinaturalist defense of causality of mental states. The argument is based on the properties of causal models in cognitive research. Bibliografia prac przywołanych w tekście -/- Damasio A., 1994/1999, Błąd Kartezjusza. Emocje, rozum i ludzki mózg, tłum. M. Karpiński, Poznań: Rebis. Davidson D., 1963/2001, „Actions, reasons, and causes”, w: (Davidson 2001), s. 3-19. Davidson D., 1967/2001, „Causal relations”, w: (Davidson 2001), s. 149-62. Davidson D., 1970/2001, „Mental events”, w: (Davidson 2001), s. 207-25. Davidson D., 1976/2001, „Hempel on explaining action”, (...) w: (Davidson 2001), s. 261-75. Davidson D., 2001, Essays on actions and events, Oxford: Clarendon. Farmer A., McGuffin P., Williams J., 2002, Measuring psychopathology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freedman D. A., Petitti D. B., 2002, „Salt, blood pressure, and public policy”, International Journal of Epidemiology, t. 31, s. 319–320. Greyson B., 2000, „Near-death experiences”, w: Varieties of anomalous experience. Examining the scientific evidence, red. E. Cardeña, S. J. Lynn i S. Krippner, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, s. 315-52. Judycki S., 1995, Umysł i synteza, Lublin: RW KUL. Judycki S., 2000, „Transkauzalność a determinizm”, Kognitywistyka i media w edukacji, t. 3, s. 73-86. Kawalec P. 2005, „Understanding science of the new millennium”, http://philsci archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002558/ Kawalec P., 2006, Jak odkryć przyczynę? Studium z ogólnej metodologii i filozofii nauki, Lublin 2006, w przygotowaniu. Kim J., 1998/2002, Umysł w świecie fizycznym, tłum. R. Poczobut, Warszawa: IFiS PAN. Lauritzen S., 1996, Graphical models, Oxford: Clarendon. Menzies P., 2003, „The causal efficacy of mental states”, w: Physicalism and mental causation. The metaphysics of mind and action, red. S. Walter i H.-D. Heckmann, w druku. Pearl J., 2000, Causality. Models, reasoning, and inference, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piłat R., 1999, Umysł jako model świata, Warszawa: IFiS PAN. Rosenbaum P., 2002, Observational studies, Nowy Jork: Springer. Sabom M., 1998, Life and death. One doctors’s fascinating account of near-death experiences, Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Spirtes P., Glymour C., Scheines R., 2000, Causation, prediction, and search, Cambridge, MA.: MIT. van Fraassen B., 1980, The scientific image, Oxford: Clarendon. van Fraassen B., 2002, The empirical stance, New Haven: Yale University Press. Woodward J., 2003, Making things happen: a theory of causal explanation, Nowy Jork: Oxford University Press. Żegleń U., 2003, Filozofia umysłu, Toruń: A. Marszałek. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz wurde zum Anlass des 25. Todestages von Hermann Buddensieg geschrieben. Es wird bestrebt an, die Gestalt dieses Übersetzers, Dichters, Literaturforschers, Philosophen und Publizisten zu erinnern. Es ist ein Versuch, die bisherigen Forschungsergebnisse zu sammeln und unser Wissen über die Aktivität eines Menschen zu ordnen, der in der Geschichte der Aufnahme der polnischen Literatur und Kultur in Deutschland eine Sonderstellung hat. Eine besondere Bedeutung wird seiner kongenialen Übertragung von Pan Tadeusz, seinem Vorsitz bei dem Mickiewicz-Gremium und der Redaktion der (...) „Mickiewicz-Blätter” zu geschrieben. (shrink)