Recent work in the philosophy of emotion focuses on challenging dualistic conceptualizations. Three of the most obvious dualisms are the following: 1. emotion opposes reason; 2. emotion is subjective, while reason is objective; 3. emotion lies internal to the subject, while reason is external. With challenges to these dualisms, one of the more interesting questions that has surfaced is the idea of emotional appropriateness in a particular context. Here, consider a widely held belief in the United States associates racialized groups (...) with specific emotions—most notably African American women with anger. Clearly these emotional attributions are essentialistic--and hence racist. But this response is too easy. The acknowledgement that emotion lies both internally in the subject and externally in the world opens the possibility of attributing an emotional temperament to a population group. Yet if an identity group has an emotional temperament, can they be accountable for emotionally appropriate behavior? (shrink)

David Benatar has argued both for anti-natalism and for a certain pessimism about life's meaning. In this paper, I propose that these positions are expressions of a deeply impersonal philosophical temperament. This is not a problem on its own; we all have our philosophical instincts. The problem is that this particular temperament, I argue, leads Benatar astray, since it prevents him from answering a question that any moral philosopher must answer. This is the question of rational authority, which requires the (...) moral philosopher to say why existing human agents have strong practical reasons to comply with the philosopher's dictates. A purely impersonal ethical system can never do this, and this is why Benatar has no answer to this question. (shrink)

Focusing on Immanuel Kant's lectures on anthropology, the essay endeavors to address long-standing concerns regarding both the relationship between these empirical investigations and Kant's better known universalism, and more pressingly, between Kant's own racism on display in the lectures, and his simultaneous promotion of a universal moral theory that would unhesitatingly condemn such attitudes. -/- Reprinted in: 'Philosophies of Difference: Nature, Racism, and Sexuate Difference' edited by R. Gustafsson, R. Hill, and H. Ngo (Routledge, 2019), pp. 125-144.

Abstract: This article explores the medical theories of the Dutch philosopher and physician Henricus Regius (1598-1679), who sought to provide clearer notions of medicine than the traditional theories of Jean Fernel, Daniel Sennert and Vopiscus Plempius. To achieve this, Regius overtly built upon the natural philosophy of René Descartes, in particular his theories of mechanical physiology and the corpuscular nature of matter. First, I show that Regius envisaged a novel partitioning of medicine, intended to make it independent in exposition but (...) conceptually grounded in natural philosophy. This served his overall purpose of making medicine a ‘clearer’ discipline. To this end Regius detaches the general notion of physiology as the study of the human body (which pertains to natural philosophy) from a medical physiology that concerns only health. Secondly, I show that Regius’s notions of health, disease, temperament and medicaments were the product of a Cartesian interpretation of traditional concepts, which was influenced by Santorio Santorio’s project of practicing medicine without occult elements. As a consequence, Regius’s classification of these notions is largely traditional. In conclusion, I show that Regius’s method of investigation in the area of natural philosophy consisted of a problem-solving procedure based on sensorial ideas. This approach can be traced back to Descartes, but was grounded on a purely empirical theory of knowledge, by which he rejected Descartes’s metaphysics. Regius’s order of exposition in natural philosophy and medicine, on the other hand, proceeds by definitions and divisions, and omits proofs. The reasons why Regius adopted this order were: 1) his rejection of Descartes’s metaphysical interpreta-tion of physics, and 2) his wish to emphasize the conceptual clarity and continuity of natural philosophy and medicine. (shrink)

In this précis of The Practical Origins of Ideas: Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering (OUP 2021), I summarize the key claims of the book. The book describes, develops, and defends an underappreciated methodological tradition: the tradition of pragmatic genealogy, which aims to identify what our loftiest and most inscrutable conceptual practices do for us by telling strongly idealized, but still historically informed stories about what might have driven people to adopt and elaborate them as they did. What marks out this methodological (...) tradition, I argue, is that it synthesizes two genres of philosophical genealogy that are standardly set against each other: state-of-nature fictions on the one hand and patiently documentary historiography on the other. These two genres of genealogy are usually taken to be mutually exclusive and to answer to radically different philosophical interests and temperaments. But I offer a systematic account of a tradition that combines both genres into a single genealogical method, augmenting genealogy’s power and range by harnessing the strengths and possibilities of both genres. (shrink)

Emotional creativity (EC) is a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience. EC has been found to be related to various constructs across different fields of psychology during the past 30 years, but a comprehensive examination of previous research is still lacking. The goal of this review is to explore the reliability of use of the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI) across studies, to test gender differences and to compare levels of EC in (...) different countries. Thirty-five empirical studies focused on EC were retrieved and the coefficients required for the meta-analysis extracted. The meta-analysis revealed that women showed significantly higher EC than men (total N = 3,555). The same gender differences were also found when testing scores from three ECI subscales, i.e. emotional novelty, emotional preparedness and emotional effectiveness/authenticity. When comparing EC in 10 different countries (total N = 4,375), several cross-cultural differences were revealed. The Chinese sample showed a significantly lower average ECI total score than all the other countries. Based on the integration of results, the avenues for future research on EC and the breadth of influence of the concept of EC across different fields of psychology are discussed. Keywords: Emotional Creativity, Review, Meta-Analyses, Meta-Analysis, Definition, Emotional Creativity Inventory, ECI, Reliability, Gender Differences, Cross-cultural, Cross-culture, Personality Traits, NEO Personality Inventory, Big Five, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, Introversion, Neuroticism, Emotions, Creativity, Cognition, Cognitive Abilities, Affect, Fantasy, Coping, Alexithymia, Anhedonia, Self-understanding, Motivation, Creativeness, Innovative Performance, Creative Ability, Artistic Creativity, Creative Thinking. MeSH Headings: Emotions, Creativity, Affect, Affective Symptoms, Gender, Sex, Gender Identity, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Transcultural Studies, Temperament, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Anhedonia, Creativeness, Cognition, Cognitive Function, Artistic Creativity, Creative Ability, Creative Thinking. (shrink)

Advocates of literary Darwinism, cognitive cultural studies, neuroaesthetics, digital humanities, and other such hybrid fields now seek explicitly to make the aims and methods of one or another humanities discipline approximate more closely the aims and methods of science, and at their most visionary, they urge as well the overall integration of the humanities and natural sciences. This essay indicates some major considerations—historical, conceptual, and pragmatic—that may be useful for assessing these efforts and predicting their future. Arguments promoting integration often (...) involve dubious teleological models of intellectual history and betray limited understandings of the distinctive epistemic orientations and cultural functions of the humanities vis-à-vis the sciences. Recurrent institutional difficulties encountered by scholars and/or scientists in hybrid fields reflect steep prestige differentials between the humanities and sciences, along with significant differences of training, experience, style, and temperament. Meanwhile, both the sciences and humanities are being shaken up by technological and related intellectual developments. Though worrisome, the new disciplinary configurations are thus likely to play out in surprising and, not inconceivably, positive ways. (shrink)

Most students of Tocqueville know of his remark, “There are three men with whom I live a little every day; they are Pascal, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.” In this paper I trace out the contours of Pascal’s influence upon Tocqueville’s understanding of the human condition and our appropriate response to it. Similar temperaments lead both Tocqueville and Pascal to emphasize human limitations and contingency, as Peter Lawler rightly emphasizes. Tocqueville and Pascal both emphasize mortality, ignorance of the most important subjects, (...) the effects of historical contingency on what we take to be human nature, and both represent the complex internal dynamic of human nature in terms of the interplay of “angel” and “brute.” The most important difference between them concerns their relative estimates of human power and the significance of human action. Whereas the motif of human weakness is fundamental for Pascal, Tocqueville repeatedly affirms that, under the right conditions, human beings are “powerful and free.” Beginning from Pascalian premises, and endeavoring to be more faithful to some of those premises than Pascal himself was, Tocqueville aims to illuminate the possibility of an amelioration of the human condition through a “new political science” that redeems the political realm without divinizing it. -/- . (shrink)

Although Nietzsche accepted a distant cousin of Brian Leiter’s “Doctrine of Types,” according to which, “Each person has a fixed psycho-physical constitution, which defines him as a particular type of person,” the details of his actual view are quite different from the flat-footed position Leiter attributes to him. Leiter argues that Nietzsche thought that type-facts partially explain the beliefs and actions, including moral beliefs and actions, of the person whom those type-facts characterize. With this much, I agree. However, the Doctrine (...) of Types as formulated by Leiter, is manifestly unsupported both by Nietzsche’s texts and as an empirical hypothesis. Although Leiter has teamed up with Joshua Knobe to shore up the empirical credentials of his version of the Doctrine of Types, and although Knobe is one of the best experimental philosophers currently working in moral psychology, their account of the Doctrine is wrong both textually and empirically. That is to say, Nietzsche did not hold the version of the Doctrine they attribute to him, and it’s a good thing he didn’t, because the version that he actually did hold is better empirically supported than the version that they attribute to him. For Nietzsche – and in reality – types are not immutable or fixed. Although not everyone is endowed with the same type, which type someone belongs to can (though needn’t) evolve over the course of her lifetime. In particular, whereas I agree with Leiter that the neo-Aristotelian account of character development is empirically inadequate, I do so not because I think no character development occurs but because I think that character development occurs in a different way. In addition, for Nietzsche – and in reality – types on their own are not normative. Character, which is normatively evaluable, only arises through the refinement, calibration, and development of temperament. It might seem like I’ve just set myself an ambitious-enough goal, but I want to do more in this paper. The main point I want to argue is that Nietzsche held a person-type-relative unity of virtue thesis, according to which what’s intrinsically good for a particular person is to develop and act from particular character traits that “fit” her type. (shrink)

Should we implement epistemically paternalistic measures outside of the narrow range of cases, like legal trials, in which their benefits and justifiability seem clear-cut? In this chapter I draw on theories of student-led pedagogy, and Jane Friedman’s work on norms of inquiry, to argue against this prospect. The key contention in the chapter is that facts about an inquirer’s interests and temperament have a bearing on whether it is better for her to, at any given moment, pursue epistemic goods via (...) outward-facing evidence-acquisition, or in a more introspective, ratiocinative fashion. This makes problems for any non-consultative approach to assisting people in inquiry, and speaks in favor of approaches which, as with student-led pedagogy, aim to ‘tap into’ the inquirer’s interests and temperament in helping them to learn. (shrink)

This paper examines the significance of Epicureanism for Nietzsche’s critique of Christian monotheism and his subsequent attempt to reanimate a kind of this-worldly, affirmative religiosity of immanence. After a brief overview of the pivotal role that Epicurus’ thought plays in the death of God, I focus on Epicurus’ own residual conception of the gods and the ways in which Nietzsche strategically retrieves it and puts it use in his writing. Nietzsche juxtaposes the distant, serene, indifferent Epicurean gods with the omniscient, (...) intrusive, jealous and needy God of middle-Eastern monotheisms. One might say that they constitute a ‘halfway house’ of sorts between Christianity and Nietzsche’s new Dionysian religion of the earth. But they also figure prominently in his own conflicted desire to intervene in the aleatory course of natural history and legislate the the future of humanity: Nietzsche finds he cannot simply look down with “the mocking and aloof eyes” of an Epicurean god upon the degeneration and diminution of the human being under Christian ascetic regimes of cultivation. Ultimately, Nietzsche fails to achieve the divine temperament of the Epicurean gods (looking down from afar on human ignorance, desire and suffering with a noble pathos of distance). Forthcoming 2022. (shrink)

Hegel’s treatment of character in §395 of Encyclopedia is considered together with the commentaries given in his lectures. In these texts Hegel addresses some philosophical problems concerning character. In Hegel’s view, in fact, human character has a “natural basis” and yet depends on a free individual choice. Attention is drawn at Kant’s treatment of the same subject matter in Anthropology form a pragmatic point of view, which is the source of Hegel’s tripartite arrangement of Naturell, temperament and character. Diverging from (...) Kant, however, Hegel introduces a dialectic development within the development of character. (shrink)

It can be said that both Plato's tripartite soul and Hippocrates' theory of temperament were influential in Galen's perception of ethics. In this respect, Galen, who presents a kind of composition of the effective philosophical and medical traditions of his day, is outside the tradition with his understanding of physicalist psychology. Considering the capacities of the soul as depending on the temperament of the body, Galen generally displays a deterministic attitude towards ethics, that is, the development of the soul. This (...) is because the natural and physical structure is difficult to change. On the other hand, Galen, whom we can call both a physician and a "philosophical therapist", argues that character traits (ethos) can be changed "to the extent that nature allows" through education and habituation at an early age. This article will try to determine and evaluate the possibility Galen ascribes to ethical change and development in humans in the context of character traits. (shrink)

According to epistemic two-dimensionalism, every expression is associated with two kinds of meaning: a primary intension (a “Fregean” component) and a secondary intension (a “Russellian” component). While the rst kind of meaning lines up with the speaker’s abilities to pick out referents of correctly employed expressions in hypothetical scenarios, the second kind of meaning is a version of what standard semanticists call “semantic content”—a kind of content which does not pivot on speaker abilities. Despite its conciliatory temperament, epistemic two-dimensionalism has (...) come under recent attack. It has been alleged that it is bound to attribute to speakers a priori identifying knowledge of the referents of correctly employed terms, and bound also to reject valid rules of inference such as exportation: P(a) → λx[P(x)](a) (see, e.g., Soames 2005. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Kant’s aesthetic theory of the sublime has particular relevance for his ethics of virtue. Kant contends that our readiness to revel in natural sublimity depends upon a background commitment to moral ends. Further lessons about the emotional register of the sublime allow us to understand how Kant can plausibly contend that the temperament of virtue is both sublime and joyous at the same time.

Williams’s famous argument against immortality rests on the idea that immortality cannot be desirable, at least for human beings, and his contention has spawned a cottage industry of responses. As I will intend to show, the arguments over his view rest on both a difference of temperament and a difference in the sense of desire being used. The former concerns a difference in whether one takes a forward-looking or a backward-looking perspective on personal identity; the latter a distinction between our (...) normal desire to continue living and the kind of desire implied in desiring immortality. Showing that there is some sense of identity and desire that support Williams’s conclusion goes some way toward providing support for his argument, if not a full-fledged defense of it. (shrink)

Objective: Acceptable preoperative psychosocial indicators of weight loss after obesity surgery in morbidly obese(MO) patients are still unknown. In this study, the association between personality traits, multidimensional perceived social support, and the percentage of excess weight loss (EWL) following obesity surgery was researched in MO patients. -/- Methods: Participants in this prospective study were recruited from MO patients who applied to the hospital’s obesity unit between July 2021 and June 2022. The study comprised 84 MO individuals. The Temperament and Personality (...) Inventory (TCI) was used to evaluate the personality traits of the MO. Perceived social support was measured using the multidimensional perceived social support scale. The percentage of weight loss after obesity surgery was compared with personality traits and perceived social support scores. Results: The mean age of the patients who were MO was 36.7 ±8.7 years. There were 22 men (25.3%) and 62 women (74.7%). The mean preoperative BMI was 46.2 ±63. The perceived social support score was 68.0±16.4. A univariate analysis found a positive relationship between 6 months and one year’s EWL and Self-Transcendence, a TCI subcategory (p=0.011,p=0.023). -/- Conclusion: Obesity treatment is a complex situation that requires a multidisciplinary approach. Given the potential physiological and psychological consequences of obesity surgery, it is critical to uncover psychological predictive factors such as personality traits that boost the success of obesity surgery and are connected with weight loss. As a result, knowing the individuals who self-transcendence before obesity surgery may be useful in predicting the success of obesity surgery and planning treatment. This requires large-scale research. (shrink)

In this thesis I offer an interpretation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism. I argue against interpreting Schopenhauer’s pessimism as if it were merely a matter of temperament, and I resist the urge to find a single standard argument for pessimism in Schopenhauer’s work. Instead, I treat Schopenhauer’s pessimism as inherently variegated, composed of several distinct but interrelated pessimistic positions, each of which is supported by its own argument. I begin by examining Schopenhauer’s famous argument that willing necessitates suffering, which I defend (...) against the misrepresentative interpretation advocated by Ivan Soll. I also offer a metaphysical reading of Schopenhauer’s claim that no amount happiness can compensate for the mere fact of suffering, based upon his negative conception of happiness. I proceed by analysing Schopenhauer’s criticisms of two prominent optimists, Leibniz and Rousseau. I attempt to salvage something of Schopenhauer’s counterargument against Leibniz that this is the worse of all possible worlds, and I also examine Schopenhauer’s claim that the optimistic metaphysics of a priori rationalistic philosophy cannot cope with the evidence of meaningless suffering. In the case of Rousseau, I interpret Schopenhauer’s brief objection to Rousseau’s assumption of original goodness, by means of an examination of Schopenhauer’s conception of the contrary doctrine, original sin. Next I consider the metaphysics of Schopenhauer’s account of eternal justice. After defending it against a number of objections, I argue that the nature of his version of eternal justice, which he admits constitutes a justification for suffering, does not conflict with the fact that he so strongly condemns Leibniz’s and Rousseau’s optimistic justifications for suffering. Finally I assess whether and to what extent Schopenhauer’s ethics of salvation are either pessimistic or optimistic. I conclude that the mere fact that salvation is possible is not necessarily a cause for optimism, but that Schopenhauer’s doctrine of salvation is made partly optimistic by the higher form of cognition that he describes as part of it. I also argue that Schopenhauer’s views on the essentially mystical nature of the state of salvation ultimately commit him to being neither positively optimistic nor positively pessimistic about salvation. I conclude overall with some brief remarks about the meaning of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and how in spite of its diverse nature, it is able to lay down a singular challenge to all future philosophers concerned with the question of suffering. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that for Kant, a combination of epigenesis and monogenesis is the condition of possibility of anthropology as he conceives of it and that moreover, this has crucial implications for the biological dimension of his account of human nature. More precisely, I begin by arguing that Kant’s conception of mankind as a natural species is based on two premises: firstly the biological unity of the human species (monogenesis of the human races); and secondly (...) the existence of ‘seeds’ which may or may not develop depending on the environment (epigenesis of human natural predispositions). I then turn to Kant’s account of man’s natural predispositions and show that far from being limited to the issue of races, it encompasses unexpected human features such as gender, temperaments and nations. These predispositions, I argue, are means to the realisation of Nature’s overall purpose for the human species. This allows me to conclude that man’s biological determinism leads to the species’ preservation, cultivation and civilisation. (shrink)

The Iliad is a work of great poetic temperament, and by analyzing its content we can see how, through the development of the theme of the Trojan War, cultural categories are created that have acquired an immeasurable value in the life of the human being. For this reason, it is worth pausing to analyze the text from different points of view, from which one can begin to understand how those categories are created that, without being aware of it, manifest themselves (...) in one way or another in daily life, such as the love for a child and the close friendship between two people, to name just a few. In this paper we have studied epithets, which have a certain importance in the composition of the Iliad. Therefore, we began by analyzing the genesis of this literary resource and its repercussions on the style of the work, all of this organized into four short sections. In this research, special emphasis was placed on answering whether the use of epithets contributes to the configuration of Zeus as an Olympian god. In order to answer this question, the value of the epithet as a literary resource was first taken into account, and then the epithets of the god Zeus were analyzed, observing if there is any relationship between the times they are mentioned, who uses them, and the location of this god at the top of Olympus. This specific case in the Iliad allowed us to draw conclusions that could perhaps be applied to epithets in general. -/- La Ilíada es una obra de un gran temple poético que al analizar su contenido se puede entrever cómo a través del desarrollo del tema de la guerra de Troya, se van creando categorías culturales, que han tomado un valor inconmensurable en la vida del ser humano. Por esto vale la pena detenerse a analizar el texto bajo diferentes puntos de vista, a partir de los cuales se pueda ir adentrándose a conocer cómo se van originando esas categorías que sin darse cuenta se manifiestan, de una u otra forma en la vida diaria, como lo es el amor por un hijo y la amistad entrañable entre dos personas, como para mencionar algunas. En este trabajo se estudiaron los epítetos, los cuales tienen una cierta importancia en la composición de la Ilíada. Por consiguiente se empezó analizando cómo fue surgiendo este recurso literario y su repercusión en el estilo de la obra; todo esto, organizado en cuatro cortas secciones. En esta investigación se hizo un énfasis especial en responder la pregunta de si el uso de los epítetos ayuda a configurar a Zeus como un dios olímpico. Para responderla, se tomó inicialmente el valor del epíteto como recurso literario, para luego analizar los epítetos del dios Zeus, observando si existe alguna relación entre las veces en que son mencionados, quién hace uso de ellos, y la ubicación de este dios en la cima del Olimpo. Este caso específico en la Ilíada permitió llegar a conclusiones que tal vez se puedan aplicar a los epítetos en general. (shrink)

I discuss how Aristotle’s formulation of the problem of moral luck relates to his natural philosophy. I review well-known passages from Nicomachean Ethics I/X and Eudemian Ethics I/VII and Physics II, but in the main focus on EE VII 14 (= VIII 2). I argue that Aristotle’s position there (rejecting the elimination of luck, but reducing luck so far as possible to incidental natural and intelligent causes) is not only consistent with his treatment of luck in Physics II, but is (...) to be expected, given that the dialectical path of EE VII 14 runs exactly parallel to that of Physics II 4-6. Although Aristotle resolves some issues that he raises, he cannot avoid the problem of constitutive moral luck that, as Thomas Nagel puts it, pertains to ‘the kind of person you are, where this is not just a question of what you deliberately do, but of your inclinations, capacities, and temperament’. The problem for Aristotle follows not only from his ethical positions, but also directly from his more general physical and political principles and assumptions. Furthermore, the problem touches the very essence of Aristotle’s moral theory. (shrink)

Richard Shusterman suggested that Maurice Merleau-Ponty neglected “‘lived somaesthetic reflection,’ that is, concrete but representational and reflective body consciousness.” While unsure about this assessment of Merleau-Ponty, lived somaesthetic reflection, or what the late Sam Mallin called “body phenomenology”—understood as a meditation on the body reflecting on both itself and the world—is my starting point. Another is John Dewey’s bodily theory of perception, augmented somewhat by Merleau-Ponty. -/- With these starting points, I spent roughly 20 hours with St. Benedict Restores Life (...) to a Young Monk (c. 1360), a work of tempera and gold leaf on panel, by Giovanni Del Biondo, active in Italy from 1356 to 1398, on display in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s permanent collection. Following Dewey’s suggestion that “[t]he eye ... is only the channel through which a total response takes place,” meaning that motor, emotional, intellectual and non-visual perceptual capacities become active when we encounter paintings, I describe how the work engaged a range of bodily modalities; and how reflecting on these, in turn, supplied phenomenal articulations of life negating, preserving and enhancing forces important in the culture that produced it, and famously discussed by Friedrich Nietzsche. By virtue of the approach adopted, I also demonstrate Dewey’s belief that intimate engagement with art entails a total coordination of one’s capacities around the artwork, while simultaneously reinforcing Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about perception and how we can find phenomenal articulations of concepts such as the Nietzschean ones just mentioned. While focusing on Del Biondo’s painting, my main purpose is to engage in body phenomenology practices, and to show, in the words of Shusterman, how “[w]e might sharpen our appreciation of art through more attention to our somaesthetic feelings involved in perceiving art” and indeed the world. (shrink)

Examinamos as respostas apresentadas por Cícero, Plutarco e Galeno, representantes da filosofia da época imperial, à pergunta pela possibilidade e legitimidade de uma therapeia das paixões. Tomando como ponto de partida uma reflexão sobre a natureza da alma e o estatuto das paixões, eles reacenderam o debate que remonta à poesia épica, na cena em que Aquiles se vê às voltas com o apelo de Atena para que acalme seu coração. Para tanto elegemos os seguintes textos: de Cícero, o livro (...) IV das Tusculanas, de Plutarco, os tratados Se as paixões da alma são mais nefastas que aquelas do corpo e Como refrear a cólera, e de Galeno, os tratados As paixões e os erros da alma e As faculdades da alma seguem os temperamentos do corpo.In this paper we examine the answers given by Cicero, Plutarch andGalen, all noted representatives of imperial Philosophy, to the question of thepossibility and legitimacy of a therapeia of the passions. Taking reflection on thenature of the soul and the status of the passions as starting point, they revivedthe debate that goes back to the scene in epic poetry where Achiles has todeal with Pallas Athene’s appeal to him to calm his heart. To that end we havechosen the following texts: Cicero’s Tusculans, book IV; Plutarch’s Whether thepassions of the soul are worse than those of the body and On the control of anger; and Galen’s On the passions and errors of the soul and That the faculties of the soul follow the temperaments of the body. (shrink)

Although trained in the Anglophone analytic tradition, the French education of his formative years seems to have left its mark on Ronnie de Sousa’s thinking and writing. He appeals to temperament as an explanation for fundamental attitudes to life: neither the quest for a source of meaning in God or nature, nor his own tendency to relish life’s meaninglessness can be grounded in reason. To show this, Ronnie has argued that there is no such thing as human nature, and that (...) appeals to evolution can neither guide us in choosing how to live, nor give us good reason to prefer the “normal” to the “deviant”. Instead, aesthetic reasons deserve to be given more weight than is granted by the alleged overriding character of morality. (shrink)

The vision and yearning of any Theater Administrator involves basically the tripartite objective of guaranteeing satisfaction, having a full house and maximizing profits. But due to the nature of theater as predominantly a collaborative art and the variances in temperament, aspiration and vocation of the various artistic endeavors, conflict often arise which militates against the attainment of the above objective by the theatre administrator. This work examines some conflict in the play production (the theater production) and prescribes certain measures, which (...) the theater administrator can adopt in order to surmount them. (shrink)

"It is difficult not to notice a curious unrest in the philosophic atmosphere of the time, a loosening of old landmarks, a softening of oppositions, a mutual borrowing from one another on the part of systems anciently closed, and an interest in new suggestions, however vague, as if the one thing sure were the inadequacy of extant school-solutions. The dissatisfactions with these seems due for the most part to a feeling that they are too abstract and academic. Life is confused (...) and superabundant, and what the younger generation appears to crave is more of the temperament of life in its philosophy, even though it were at some cost of logical rigor and formal purity." - William James (1904). -/- Abstract: The study of model-based reasoning (MBR) is one of the most interesting recent developments at the intersection of psychology and the philosophy of science. Although a broad and eclectic area of inquiry, one central axis by which MBR connects these disciplines is anchored at one end in theories of internal reasoning (in cognitive science), and at the other, in C.S. Peirce’s semiotics (in philosophy). In this paper, we attempt to show that Peirce’s semiotics actually has more natural affinity on the psychological side with ecological psychology, as originated by James J. Gibson and especially Egon Brunswik, than it does with non-interactionist approaches to cognitive science. In particular, we highlight the strong ties we believe to exist between the triarchic structure of semiotics as conceived by Peirce, and the similar triarchic stucture of Brunswik’s lens model of organismic achievement in irreducibly uncertain ecologies. The lens model, considered as a theory of creative abduction, provides a concrete instantiation of at least one, albeit limited, interpretation of Peirce’s semiotics, one that we believe could be quite fruitful in future theoretical and empirical investigations of MBR in both science an philosophy. (shrink)

The leaders of the Scientific Revolution were not Baconian in temperament, in trying to build up theories from data. Their project was that same as in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics: they hoped to find necessary principles that would show why the observations must be as they are. Their use of mathematics to do so expanded the Aristotelian project beyond the qualitative methods used by Aristotle and the scholastics. In many cases they succeeded.

The Emotions chapter (XXV) in James' Principles of Psychology traverses the entire range of experienced emotions from the “coarser” and more instinctual to the “subtler” emotions intimately involved in cognitive, moral, and aesthetic aspects of life. But Principles limits himself to an account of emotional consciousness and so there are few direct discussions in the text of Principles about what later came to be called moral psychology, and fewer about anything resembling philosophical ethics. Still, James’ short section on the subtler (...) emotions, when read in connection with his later philosophical writings, still provides insight on James’ views about how human emotion colors our moral psychology and agency. The paper tries to articulate how James' somatic account of emotion adds significantly to contemporary discussions at the borders of moral psychology and philosophy: discussions over the foreground/background distinction, emotional temperament, emotional learning, moral imagination, and selfhood and narrativity. The final section focuses on the neo-Jamesian character of "new sentimentalist" moral psychologists. Among the substantial connections I discuss between James and 1) between Jonathan Haidt’s “social intuitionism” and 2) Jesse Prinz’s "emotionism" are the critiques that they each share of the pretensions of hard universalist ethical theories. (shrink)

This work is a search for the basis of intersubjectivity in the African worldview conceptualized in Igwebuike philosophy. This piece found the basis of intersubjectivity of the African reality in Chi, which carries a variety of meanings among the Igbo - Afri can people. However, the nuance of Chi that is employed here is that which understands it as the divinity in every human person or the spark of the divine in created things. It understands Chi as the thumb print (...) or mark of Chukwu in each and every one of u s that places the other in a special place in relation to the self. This piece revealed that although Chi is a religious reality, it is conservative of the social institutions of the Igbo - African people. If I and the other have the thumb print of the same Chukwu, the spark of the Supreme Being, it then means that we relate in a special way that goes deeper than our individualities. This work, therefore, argued that our rootedness in Chukwu through Chi is what makes the other a part of me. To treat the other in a way that is undeserving of the divine mark in him or her not only affects the person(s), but the ontological structure to which I also belong and, thus, myself. The importance of Chi in this study is that the belief in Chi is as universal to the Igbo - speaking people as the belief in Chukwu, and it is a fundamental and outstanding characteristic of Igbo social structure and collective temperament. For the purpose of this study, the Igwebuike holistic approach of inquiry was adopted. Chi provides a cent ral and satisfying framework for the understanding of the interrelatedness and individuality of the Igbo - African reality. (shrink)

Hume describes his own “open, social, and cheerful humour” as “a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.” Why does he value a cheerful character so highly? I argue that, for Hume, cheerfulness has two aspects—one manifests as mirth in social situations, and the other as steadfastness against life’s misfortunes. This second aspect is of special interest to Hume in that it safeguards the other virtues. (...) And its connection with the first aspect helps explain how it differs from Stoic tranquility. For Hume, I argue, philosophy has a modest role in promoting human happiness by preserving cheerfulness. (shrink)

La quête de la “Métaphysique de l’acte d’être” passe inévitablement par Cornelio Fabro. La “Bibliothèque de la Revue Thomiste”, avec le concours des éditions “Parole et Silence”, a eu la bonne idée de rééditer son maître ouvrage : Participation et causalité selon Saint Thomas d’Aquin. Je m’attendais, comme dans mes explorations précédentes chez Gilson, Mercier et autres, à découvrir un auteur didactique, plus dialecticien et historien que philosophe, pour qui les pétitions de principe pèsent peu devant la faconde des dissertations. (...) Mais au contraire, je dois reconnaître que nous avons devant les yeux un exercice de philosophie de très grande classe, sans comparaison avec les précités. Tout le mal que j’en pourrai dire par la suite, à cause de mon tempérament atrabilaire, doit être mesuré à l’aune de ce jugement premier. (shrink)

Societies need markets, so just as trustworthy professionals are needed in fields such as healthcare, law and education, modern societies need trustworthy market managers, including corporate officers and directors. But in its screening of candidates, U.S. corporate business has lagged behind fields such as medicine and law, which in the nineteenth century addressed their need for screening by upgrading professional education and establishing licensing of individual practitioners. Corporate business, by contrast, has been too tolerant of problematic executives, particularly executives of (...) a type shown by recent research in psychology to exhibit a set of personality traits including below average concern about bad effects of their actions on other people. Over-representation of this problematic type has cost corporate business the trust and respect it could earn by resting fully on a time-honored alternative foundation already espoused by many trustworthy teachers and practitioners of business. Society needs these trustworthy people of business to work together to establish screening of candidates for high level corporate positions by upgrading MBA education and establishing licensing for these positions. For reasons again based on current findings in psychology, screening candidates for the MBA could be significantly strengthened by requiring historical studies, particularly history of the corporate legal structure in the U.S. and history of the MBA itself. Upgrading the MBA and establishing correlated licensing could open the way toward corrections in the legal form of the corporation to bring it into line with hospitals, law courts and universities as places where responsible professionals pursue their callings on behalf of society. (shrink)

The article deals with the means of constructing a naturalistic character, the model for which was proposed by French writers: the Goncourt brothers and Émile Zola. Naturalists draw their personage concept from the interpretation of its biological nature. The focus of its depiction is shifted to the study of fundamental features of human nature rather than “variables” of the historical forms of its manifestation. A naturalistic character, being “a biological being” rather than “a set of social relations,” is completely absorbed (...) by the environment. The “social” core of a realistic personage is based on the principles of typification, but the “biological” core of a naturalistic character cannot be a generalized type because in it the individual prevails over the typified. Images of Germinie Lacerteux and Thérèse Raquin from the Goncourts’ and Zola’s same-name novels respectively are considered to be prototypes of naturalistic characters. In Ukrainian literature, Ivan Franko interpreted and synthesized Western European experience using realistic and naturalistic art to create his own concept of “scientific realism.” The difference in Franko’s personage construction lies in the fact that he does not confine himself to the observation and description of his heroes’ behavior but offers a plan for correcting their deficiencies. (shrink)