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

Trước những lo ngại về khí hậu toàn cầu ngày càng gia tăng, các quốc gia trên thế giới đã ký kết thỏa thuận toàn cầu nhằm thể hiện sự cam kết mạnh mẽ để chung tay tìm kiếm các giải pháp sáng tạo để giảm thiểu phát thải khí nhà kính và tác động của nó đối với môi trường. Việt Nam là một trong những thành viên tích cực tham gia và có trách nhiệm, nhưng đồng thời cũng (...) là một nước bị ảnh hưởng nặng nề nhất của biến đổi khí hậu. Nhận thấy sự cần thiết phải giải quyết vấn đề biến đổi khí hậu, Việt Nam đang triển khai nghiên cứu việc thành lập thị trường các-bon trong nước, trong đó việc xây dựng và vận hành một hệ thống lưu ký các-bon được coi là một trụ cột quan trọng, trên cơ sở học hỏi kinh nghiệm từ các mô hình trên thế giới. Bài viết này đi sâu vào việc phân tích, đánh giá điều kiện, bối cảnh của Việt Nam và rút ra bài học kinh nghiệm từ các hệ thống lưu ký trên thế giới để đề xuất các giải pháp xây dựng một hệ thống lưu ký các- bon hiệu quả cho Việt Nam. (shrink)

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

Propositions are traditionally regarded as performing vital roles in theories of natural language, logic, and cognition. This chapter offers an opinionated survey of recent literature to assess whether they are still needed to perform three linguistic roles: be the meaning of a declarative sentence in a context, be what is designated by certain linguistic expressions, and be the content of illocutionary acts. After considering many of the relevant choice-points, I suggest that there remains a linguistic basis for propositions, but not (...) for some of the traditional reasons. (shrink)

Speakers offer testimony. They also hedge. This essay offers an account of how hedging makes a difference to testimony. Two components of testimony are considered: how testimony warrants a hearer's attitude, and how testimony changes a speaker's responsibilities. Starting with a norm-based approach to testimony where hearer's beliefs are prima facie warranted because of social norms and speakers acquire responsibility from these same norms, I argue that hedging alters both components simultaneously. It changes which attitudes a hearer is prima facie (...) warranted in forming in response to testimony, and reduces how much responsibility a speaker undertakes in testifying. A consequence of this account is that speakers who hedge for strategic purposes deprive their hearers of warrant for stronger doxastic attitudes. (shrink)

Under which conditions are social relationships hierarchical, and under which conditions are they not? This article has three main aims. First, I will explain what this question amounts to by providing a more detailed description of the general phenomenon of social hierarchy. Second, I will provide an account of what social hierarchy is. Third, I will provide some considerations in favour of this account by discussing how it improves upon three alternative ways of thinking about social hierarchy that are sometimes (...) explicitly endorsed and sometimes suggested or presupposed in writings in philosophy and elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper claims that the standard characterization of the motivational role of belief should be supplemented. Beliefs do not only, jointly with desires, cause and rationalize actions that will satisfy the desires, if the beliefs are true; beliefs are also the practical ground of other cognitive attitudes, like imagining, which means beliefs determine whether and when one acts with those other attitudes as the cognitive inputs into choices and practical reasoning. In addition to arguing for this thesis, I take issue (...) with Velleman's argument that belief and imagining cannot be distinguished on the basis of motivational role. (shrink)

In dit artikel wordt de dominante metafysische oriëntatie in de hedendaagse meta-ethiek kritisch onder de loep genomen. Het hedendaagse debat, dat zich voornamelijk richt op de vraag hoe moraliteit metafysisch gezien 'in de werkelijkheid past', wordt gekenmerkt door een reeks complexe en soms esoterische discussies die, zo wordt betoogd, weinig bijdragen aan ons filosofische begrip van ethiek. Deze focus op metafysische grondslagen heeft geleid tot een tunnelvisie, waarin het debat gevangen zit tussen steeds ingewikkeldere vormen van non-cognitivisme, herconceptualisaties van 'objectiviteit' (...) en metafysische acrobatiek. Als alternatief wordt voorgesteld de aandacht in de meta-ethiek te verleggen naar het domein van praktisch redeneren. Door ons te concentreren op de patronen van geldige praktische argumentatie en het soort overwegingen dat mensen daadwerkelijk overtuigt, kunnen we wellicht een beter inzicht krijgen in de aard van ethische normativiteit en de rol ervan in ons leven. Het artikel pleit voor een meer pragmatische en minder metafysisch beladen benadering van de meta-ethiek, die zich richt op de daadwerkelijke praktijken van moreel redeneren en argumenteren. (shrink)

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

As artefacts, the worlds of digital games are designed and developed to fulfil certain expressive, functional, and experiential objectives. During play, players infer these purposes and aspirations from various aspects of their engagement with the gameworld. Influenced by their sociocultural backgrounds, sensitivities, gameplay preferences, and familiarity with game conventions, players construct a subjective interpretation of the intentions with which they believe the digital game in question was created. By analogy with the narratological notion of the implied author, we call the (...) figure to which players ascribe these intentions ‘the implied designer’. In this article, we introduce the notion of the implied designer and present an initial account of how appreciators ascribe meaning to interactive, fictional gameworlds and act within them based on what they perceive to be the designer’s intentions. (shrink)

Bas van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricism (CE) has been much discussed. There is, however, a curious feature of van Fraassen’s writings that has been overlooked up until now. This is that he sometimes capitalises certain key terms, notably “Induction”. This is done to differentiate a pragmatic small ‘i’ induction (which has epistemic import) from a rule-bound capital ‘I’ induction (which does not). In this paper, I argue that van Fraassen’s small letter/capital letter distinction reveals an underlying dualism, one that is reminiscent (...) of the notoriously problematic semantic dualism in Logical Positivism (between a theoretical language and an observation language). Despite partly developing CE to overcome Logical Positivism’s kind of dualism, van Fraassen seems to have tacitly endorsed it anyway. If so, then CE requires revision. It is, however, not clear how to conduct such a revision. It is not clear what the way forward should be once CE is understood as innately dualistic. (shrink)

Online therapy sessions and other forms of digital mental health services (DMH) have seen a sharp spike in new users since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having little access to their social networks and support systems, people have had to turn to digital tools and spaces to cope with their experiences of anxiety and loss. With no clear end to the pandemic in sight, many of us are likely to remain reliant upon DMH for the foreseeable future. As such, (...) it is important to articulate some of the specific ways in which the pandemic is affecting our self and world-relation, such that we can identify how DMH services are best able to accommodate some of the newly emerging needs of their users. In this paper I will identify a specific type of loss brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and present it as an important concept for DMH. I refer to this loss as loss of perceptual world-familiarity. Loss of perceptual world-familiarity entails a breakdown in the ongoing effortless responsiveness to our perceptual environment that characterizes much of our everyday lives. To cash this out I will turn to insights from the phenomenological tradition. Initially, my project is descriptive. I aim to bring out how loss of perceptual world-familiarity is a distinctive form of loss that is deeply pervasive yet easily overlooked-hence the relevance of explicating it for DMH purposes. But I will also venture into the space of the normative, offering some reasons for seeing perceptual world-familiarity as a component of well-being. I conclude the paper with a discussion of how loss of perceptual world-familiarity affects the therapeutic setting now that most if not all therapeutic interactions have transitioned to online spaces and I explore the potential to augment these spaces with social interaction technologies. Throughout, my discussion aims to do justice to the reality that perceptual world-familiarity is not an evenly distributed phenomenon, that factors like disability, gender and race affect its robustness, and that this ought to be reckoned with when seeking to incorporate the phenomenon into or mitigate it through DMH services. (shrink)

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

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

In the last decade, many problematic cases of scientific conduct have been diagnosed; some of which involve outright fraud others are more subtle. These and similar problems can be interpreted as caused by lack of scientific objectivity. The current philosophical theories of objectivity do not provide scientists with conceptualizations that can be effectively put into practice in remedying these issues. We propose a novel way of thinking about objectivity for individual scientists; a negative and dynamic approach.We provide a philosophical conceptualization (...) of objectivity that is informed by empirical research. In particular, it is our intention to take the first steps in providing an empirically and methodologically informed inventory of factors that impair the scientific practice. The inventory will be compiled into a negative conceptualization, which could in principle be used by individual scientists to assess objectivity of scientific practice. We propose a preliminary outline of a usable and testable instrument for indicating the objectivity of scientific practice. (shrink)

Prima facie, we make successful decisions as we act on and intervene in the world day-to-day. Epistemologists are often concerned with whether rationality is involved in such decision-making practices, and, if so, to what degree. Some, particularly in the post-structuralist tradition, argue that successful decision-making occurs via an existential leap into the unknown rather than via any determinant or criterion such as rationality. I call this view radical voluntarism (RV). Proponents of RV include those who subscribe to a view they (...) call Critical Complexity (CC). In this paper, I argue that CC presents a false dichotomy when it conceives of rationality in Cartesian – i.e. ideal and transcendental – terms, and then concludes that RV is the proper alternative. I then outline a pragmatist rationality informed by recent work in psychology on bounded rationality, ecological rationality, and specifically embodied rationality. Such a pragmatist rationality seems to be compatible with the tenets of post-structuralism, and can therefore replace RV in CC. (shrink)

Imaginative representations are crucial to the generation of action--both pretense and plain action. But well-known theories of imagination on offer in the literature [1] fail to describe how perceptually-formatted imaginings (mental images) and motor imaginings function in the generation of action and [2] fail to recognize the important fact that spatially rich imagining can be integrated into one's perceptual manifold. In this paper, I present a theory of imagining that shows how spatially rich imagining functions in the generation of action. (...) I also describe the imaginative structures behind two under-explored forms of action: semi-pretense and pretense layering. In addition, I suggest that my theory of imagining meshes better than the competitors with current work in cognitive and affective neuroscience. (shrink)

This paper adds to the philosophical literature on mechanistic explanation by elaborating two related explanatory functions of idealisation in mechanistic models. The first function involves explaining the presence of structural/organizational features of mechanisms by reference to their role as difference-makers for performance requirements. The second involves tracking counterfactual dependency relations between features of mechanisms and features of mechanistic explanandum phenomena. To make these functions salient, we relate our discussion to an exemplar from systems biological research on the mechanism for countering (...) heat shock—the heat shock response system—in Escherichia coli bacteria. This research also reinforces a more general lesson: ontic constraint accounts in the literature on mechanistic explanation provide insufficiently informative normative appraisals of mechanistic models. We close by outlining an alternative view on the explanatory norms governing mechanistic representation. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has now well and truly established itself as one of the main normative theories. It is now quite common, and indeed, expected, for virtue ethics to be included, alongside deontology and consequentialism, in any Moral Philosophy syllabus worth its salt. Students are typically introduced to virtue ethics only after studying the other two normative theories, and this often sets the scene for various sorts of misunderstandings, with students expecting virtue ethics to be based on the same set of (...) rules and assumptions as its rivals. Or at least, that is my experience. In this paper I want to focus on one such misunderstanding, which arises when trying to apply virtue ethics to our judgments of other people’s actions and behaviour. Although there are countless ways in which a theory can be misunderstood, it is worth guarding against this one in particular, given that it can lead someone who takes virtue ethics seriously to act in ways that are not virtuous, or even vicious. I begin by making a few remarks about the role of normative theory, and then go on to give four examples of how applying virtue ethics can lead to poor behaviour. In the final section I identify the mistake in question and conclude by noting how it can be avoided. (shrink)

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

In this work we consider the problem of the approximate hedging of a contingent claim in the minimum mean square deviation criterion. A theorem on martingale representation in case of discrete time and an application of the result for semi-continuous market model are also given.

In this work, we consider the problem of the approximate hedging of a contingent claim in the minimum mean square deviation criterion. A theorem on martingaỉe representation in the case of discrete time and an application of obtained result for semi-continous market model are given.

Imagination contributes to human agency in ways that haven't been well understood. I argue here that pathways from imagistic imagining to emotional engagement support three important agential capacities: 1. bodily preparedness for potential events in one's nearby environment; 2. evaluation of potential future action; and 3. empathy-based moral appraisal. Importantly, however, the kind of pathway in question (I-C-E-C: imagining-categorization-emotion-conceptualization) also enables engagement with fiction. So human enchantment with fiction is a consequence of imaginative pathways that make us the kind of (...) agents we are. Finally, I use this approach to address imaginative resistance and the paradox of fiction. [The version archived here is a penultimate draft. Please email me at [email protected] to receive a pdf of the final in accordance with fair use.]. (shrink)

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

Three puzzles about self-deception make this mental phenomenon an intriguing explanatory target. The first relates to how to define it without paradox; the second is about how to make sense of self-deception in light of the interpretive view of the mental that has become widespread in philosophy; and the third concerns why it exists at all. In this paper I address the first and third puzzles. First, I define self-deception. Second, I criticize Robert Trivers' attempt to use adaptionist evolutionary psychology (...) to solve the third puzzle (existence). Third, I sketch a theory to replace that of Trivers. Self-deception is not an adaptation, but a spandrel in the sense that Gould and Lewontin give the term: a byproduct of other features of human (cognitive) architecture. Self-deception is so undeniable a fact of human life that if anyone tried to deny its existence, the proper response would be to accuse this person of it. (Allen Wood, 1988). (shrink)

In this work we answer a long standing request for temporal embeddings of deontic STIT logics by introducing the multi-agent STIT logic TDS . The logic is based upon atemporal utilitarian STIT logic. Yet, the logic presented here will be neutral: instead of committing ourselves to utilitarian theories, we prove the logic TDS sound and complete with respect to relational frames not employing any utilitarian function. We demonstrate how these neutral frames can be transformed into utilitarian temporal frames, while preserving (...) validity. Last, we discuss problems that arise from employing binary utility functions in a temporal setting. (shrink)

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

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

Galileo proposed what has been called a proto-inertial principle, according to which a body un horizontal motion will conserve its motion. This statement is only true in counterfactual circumstances where no impediments are present. This paper analyzes how Galileo could have been justified in ascribing definite properties to this idealized motion. This analysis is then used to better understand the relation of Galileo’s proto-inertial principle to the classical inertial principle.

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

I raise the question of what cognitive attitude self-deception brings about. That is: what is the product of self-deception? Robert Audi and Georges Rey have argued that self-deception does not bring about belief in the usual sense, but rather “avowal” or “avowed belief.” That means a tendency to affirm verbally (both privately and publicly) that lacks normal belief-like connections to non-verbal actions. I contest their view by discussing cases in which the product of self-deception is implicated in action in a (...) way that exemplifies the motivational role of belief. Furthermore, by applying independent criteria of what it is for a mental state to be a belief, I defend the more intuitive view that being self-deceived that p entails believing that p. Beliefs (i) are the default for action relative to other cognitive attitudes (such as imagining and hypothesis) and (ii) have cognitive governance over the other cognitive attitudes. I explicate these two relations and argue that they obtain for the product of self-deception. (shrink)

I here defend historical entitlement theories of property rights against a popular charge. This is the objection that such theories fail because no convincing account of original appropriation exists. I argue that this argument assumes a certain reading of historical entitlement theory and I spell out an alternative reading against which it misfires. On this reading, the role of acts of original appropriation is not to justify but to individuate people’s holdings. I argue that we can identify which acts count (...) as original appropriation against the background of a general justification for a practice of property rights. On this view, what I will call ‘natural’ acts of original appropriation are acts by which a person begins to satisfy the general conditions for justified ownership. Finally, I offer an interpretation of John Locke's theory of appropriation along these lines and argue that it provides an attractive reading of his view. (shrink)

This paper explains a fallacy that often arises in theorizing about human minds. I call it the Factual Belief Fallacy. The Fallacy, roughly, involves drawing conclusions about human psychology that improperly ignore the large backgrounds of mostly accurate factual beliefs people have. The Factual Belief Fallacy has led to significant mistakes in both philosophy of mind and cognitive science of religion. Avoiding it helps us better see the difference between factual belief and religious credence; seeing that difference in turn enables (...) us to pose interesting normative questions about various mental states labeled “belief.”. (shrink)

This paper argues that "that"-clauses do not reference propositions because they are not intersubstitutible with other expressions that do reference propositions. In particular, "that"-clauses are shown to not be intersubstitutible with propositional anaphors like "so." The substitution failures are further argued to support a semantics on which "that"-clauses are predicates.

In the present paper I investigate the role that analogy plays in eighteenth-century biology and in Kant’s philosophy of biology. I will argue that according to Kant, biology, as it was practiced in the eighteenth century, is fundamentally based on analogical reflection. However, precisely because biology is based on analogical reflection, biology cannot be a proper science. I provide two arguments for this interpretation. First, I argue that although analogical reflection is, according to Kant, necessary to comprehend the nature of (...) organisms, it is also necessarily insufficient to fully comprehend the nature of organisms. The upshot of this argument is that for Kant our understanding of organisms is necessarily limited. Second, I argue that Kant did not take biology to be a proper science because biology was based on analogical arguments. I show that Kant stemmed from a philosophical tradition that did not assign analogical arguments an important justificatory role in natural science. Analogy, according to this conception, does not provide us with apodictically certain cognition. Hence, sciences based on analogical arguments cannot constitute proper sciences. (shrink)

Toon van Eijk: Spinoza in het licht van bewustzijnsontwikkeling De beroemde filosoof Spinoza is moeilijk te doorgronden. Emeritus hoogleraar Maarten van Buuren heeft in 2016 twee boeken over Spinoza gepubliceerd, waarin hij diens filosofie op nauwgezette en verhelderende manier analyseert. Volgens Van Buuren is de kern van Spinoza’s ethiek de bevrijding van bevoogding en het streven om in overeenstemming te leven met de wereld en met zichzelf. Een aantal sleutelbegrippen in Spinoza’s filosofie zijn de immanente, in de natuur-inwonende God, zelfbeschikking, (...) de rede, intuïtie, macht en zelftoe-eigening. In dit boek bespreekt Toon van Eijk deze sleutelbegrippen aan de hand van de analyse van Van Buuren en de filosofie van Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, de grondlegger van de Transcendente Meditatie (TM) techniek. Filosofische begrippen blijven echter tandeloos zonder mogelijkheden om deze ideeën te verwerkelijken. Een synthese van filosofisch redeneren en praktijken voor bewustzijnsontwikkeling is nodig. Hoewel Spinoza een ethiek zonder metafysica voorstond, is Van Eijk van mening dat daadwerkelijk wijs handelen moeilijk zonder enige metafysische bagage kan. (shrink)

In the Inner Chapters, arguments for a variety of different philosophical positions are present, including skepticism, relativism, particularism, and objectivism. Given that these are not all mutually consistent, we are left with the problem of reconciling the tensions among them. The various positions are described and passages from the Inner Chapters are presented illustrating each. A detailed commentary is offered on the opening of the Inner Chapters, arguing that it is best understood in an objectivist fashion. An interpretation is presented (...) of Zhuangzi's view of sagehood that reconciles the various arguments in the text. (shrink)

This paper uses classical logic for a simultaneous description of the syntax and semantics of a fragment of English and it is argued that such an approach to natural language allows procedural aspects of linguistic theory to get a purely declarative formulation. In particular, it will be shown how certain construction rules in Discourse Representation Theory, such as the rule that indefinites create new discourse referents and definites pick up an existing referent, can be formulated declaratively if logic is used (...) as a metalanguage for English. In this case the declarative aspects of a rule are highlighted when we focus on the model theory of the description language while a procedural perspective is obtained when its proof theory is concentrated on. Themes of interest are Discourse Representation Theory, resolution of anaphora, resolution of presuppositions, and underspecification. (shrink)

A conviction had by many Christians over many centuries is that natural language is inadequate for describing God. This is the doctrine of divine ineffability. Apophaticism understands divine ineffability as it being justified or proper to negate statements that describe God. This paper develops and defends a version of apophaticism in which the negation involved is metalinguistic. The interest of this metalinguistic apophaticism is two-fold. First, it provides a philosophical model of historical apophaticisms that shows their rational coherence. Second, metalinguistic (...) apophaticism enables a minimal understanding of ineffability that is independently plausible given its minor commitments. (shrink)

In this paper I compare McDowell′s conceptualism to Husserl′s later philosophy. I aim to argue against the picture provided by recent phenomenologists according to which both agree on the conceptual nature of experience. I start by discussing McDowell′s reading of Kant and some of the recent Kantian and phenomenological non-conceptualist criticisms thereof. By separating two kinds of conceptualism, I argue that these criticisms largely fail to trouble McDowell. I then move to Husserl’s later phenomenological analyses of types and of passive (...) synthesis. Although Husserl appropriates McDowell’s idea of conceptually ‘saddled’ intuitions as a ‘secondary passivity’, I argue that he also provides a strong case for non-conceptual synthesis. (shrink)

I raise three puzzles concerning self-deception: (i) a conceptual paradox, (ii) a dilemma about how to understand human cognitive evolution, and (iii) a tension between the fact of self-deception and Davidson’s interpretive view. I advance solutions to the first two and lay a groundwork for addressing the third. The capacity for self-deception, I argue, is a spandrel, in Gould’s and Lewontin’s sense, of other mental traits, i.e., a structural byproduct. The irony is that the mental traits of which self-deception is (...) a spandrel/byproduct are themselves rational. (shrink)

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I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s version were correct, then science should resemble art. In art, the artwork-selection practices that explain artwork-success appear faddish. They are prone to radical change over time. (...) Theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science are however not faddish. They are mostly stable; that is, long-lived and consistent over time. This is because scientists (explicitly or implicitly) subscribe to what I will call the testability norm: scientific theories must make falsifiable claims about the external physical world. The testability norm and not psycho-sociology explains the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science. Contra Wray, scientific anti-realists can then maintain that the external physical world (as expressed in the testability norm) explains theory-success. (shrink)

This article analyzes Mencius 7B.23, a concise passage that offers complex ethical dilemmas. It provides a close reading of the passage, along with relevant passages elsewhere in the text and, occasionally, in other texts. The narrow goal of the article is to present a coherent reading of the passage within the context of the Mencius as a whole. This reading suggests that while the passage touches upon a wide range of topics, including personal credibility and political responsibility, the overarching concern (...) is on being a morally superior person, on the difficult dilemmas such people may face, and on how they would respond to them. More broadly, the article shows that while the philosophical practice of "weighing circumstances" (quan 權) allows moral agents in exceptional cases to break certain moral or ritual rules, Mencius seems unwilling to apply this discretion when morality as a whole, or the integrity of the person who embodies it (shi 士), are involved. (shrink)