There is a fundamental ontological difference between two kinds of entity: things and objects. Unlike things, objects are not identical to any fusion of particulars. Unlike things, objects do not have mereological parts. While things are ontologically innocent, objects are not. Objects are meaty. I defend the distinction between things and objects, and provide an account of the nature of objects.

I begin by considering a question that has driven much scholarship on transcendental idealism: are appearances numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear, or numerically distinct? I point out that much of the debate on this question has assumed that this is equivalent to the question of whether they are the same objects, but go on to provide textual, historical, and philosophical evidence that “object” (Gegenstand) and “thing” (Ding) have different meanings for Kant. A thing (...) is a locus of intensively gradable causal force, reality. I argue that appearances and things in themselves are not identical as objects, because the very concept of object-identity is tied, for Kant, to the concept of an intellect that would cognize the numerical identity of the objects in question. Because no intellect can be both discursive and intellectual, no intellect could cognize the numerical identity of objects across the phenomenal/noumenal divide, and thus the claim that they are identical has no content. However, the very same things, the same reality, can be given to our sensible intellects, and to divine intuitive intellect, as two non-overlapping domains of objects. Identity readers are thus shown to be right about the same thing relation, while non-identity readers are vindicated on the numerical identity of objects. (shrink)

Among the contemporary philosophers using the concept of the Anthropocene, Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers are prominent examples. The way they use this concept, however, diverts from the most common understanding of the Anthropocene. In fact, their use of this notion is a continuation of their earlier work around the concept of a ‘parliament of things.’ Although mainly seen as a sociology or philosophy of science, their work can be read as philosophy of technology as well. Similar to Latour’s claim (...) that science is Janus-headed, technology has two faces. Faced with the Anthropocene, we need to shift from technologies of control to technologies of negotiations, i.e., a parliament of things. What, however, does a ‘parliament of things’ mean? This paper wants to clarify what is conceptually at stake by framing Latour’s work within the philosophy of Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers. Their philosophy implies a ‘postlinguistic turn,’ where one can ‘let things speak in their own name,’ without claiming knowledge of the thing in itself. The distinction between object and subject is abolished to go back to the world of ‘quasi-objects’ (Serres). Based on the philosophy of science of Latour and Stengers the possibility for a politics of quasi-objects or a ‘cosmopolitics’ (Stengers) is opened. It is in this framework that their use of the notion of the Anthropocene must be understood and a different view of technology can be conceptualized. (shrink)

In Logique du Fantasme, Lacan argues that the compulsion to repeat does not obey the same discharge logic as homeostatic processes. Repetition installs a realm that is categorically different from the one related to homeostatic pleasure seeking, a properly subjective one, one in which the mark “stands for,” “takes the place of,” what we have ventured to call “an event,” and what only in the movement of return, in what Lacan calls a “thinking of repetition,” confirms and ever reconfirms this (...) point of no return, which is also a qualitative cut and a structural loss. The kind of “standing for” Lacan intends here with the concept of repetition is certainly not something like an image or a faithful description. No, what Lacan wishes to stress is that this mark is situated at another level, at another place, it is “entstellt,” and as such, it is punctually impinging upon the bodily dynamics without rendering the event, without having an external meta-point of view, but cutting across registers according to a logics that is not the homeostatic memory logics. This paper elaborates on this distinction on the basis of a confrontation with what Freud says about the pleasure principle and its beyond in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and also takes inspiration from Freud’s Project for a Scientific Psychology. We argue that Lacan’s theory of enjoyment takes up and generalizes what Freud was after in Beyond the Pleasure Principle with the Wiederholungszwang, and pushes Freud’s thoughts to a more articulated point: to the point where a subject is considered to speak only when it has allowed the other, through discourse, to have impacted and cut into his bodily pleasure dynamics. (shrink)

In earlier chapters, we described debates between objectivists and relativists over methodology in the sciences, and over science and values. We have been led to talk about the role of value judgments in various areas of thought, but in this final chapter we turn more directly to the age – old question of the objectivity of values. Objectivists and relativists populate debate over this question just as we found them populating other questions we have addressed. There is a general, deep (...) – seated worry about ascribing objectivity two things human – centered. Talk of the objectivity of values seems odd in light of any notion of objectivity that draws upon a mind–independence, since values and valuings are so clearly terms of relation with the judgments of valuers. But neither are judgments of value merely subjective if they result in actions likely to affect the interests of others, or if they are responsive to reasons and criticism. (shrink)

A lot of work in metaphysics relies on linguistic analysis and intuitions. Do we want to know what sort of things there are or could be? Then let’s see what sort of things there must be in order for what we truthfully say to be true. Do we want to see whether x is distinct from y? Then let’s see whether there is any statement that is true of x but not of y. And so on. In this paper I (...) argue that this way of proceeding is full of traps and is bound to be pretty useless unless we already have a good idea of what sort of things there are, and of how we are going to count them. (shrink)

Two questions are addressed in this paper. First, what is it to see? I argue that it is veridical experience of things outside the perceiver brought about by looking. Second, what is it to see a material object? I argue that it is experience of an occupant of a spatial region that is a logical subject for other visual features, able to move to another spatial region, to change intrinsically, and to interact with other material objects. I show how (...) this theory is different from the idea that object-seeing is merely the visual segregation of a region of the visual field. Finally, I argue that we do not object-see objects reflected in mirrors, surfaces of back-lit objects, and depictions of objects. (shrink)

Perceptual malleability and diversity can stem from perceptual learning, expertise, genetics, disease, or accident. Perceptual malleability and diversity force us to reject the claim that perceptual capacities, perceptual experience, and perceptual content are universal across subjects and times. And it casts doubt on the presumption of a universal human perceptual nature. However, it does not directly challenge perceptual objectivity, understood as the claim that one can perceive a world of things and features that are independent from oneself and one's experiences (...) and that could be perceived by other subjects. (shrink)

In Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, C.D. Broad advanced a distinctive ontology of things and processes. He argues that neither things nor processes are reduced to each other but instead are reduced to some further kind of entity: “absolute process.” This paper will present Broad's theory of absolute processes and argue that they are best understood as tropes by developing a version of Donald C. Williams's trope ontology. This process ontology of tropes is then defended against objections in the contemporary metaphysics (...) literature. (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that (...) of dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)

In Metaphysics Γ, Aristotle argues against those who seem to accept contradictions. He distinguishes between the Sophists, who deny the principle of non-contradiction through arguments, and the Natural Philosophers, whose physical investigations lead to the acceptance of objective contradictions. Heraclitus’ name appears throughout the discussion. Usually, he is associated with the discussion against the Sophists. In this paper, I explore how the discussion with the Natural Philosophers may illuminate both the interpretation of Heraclitus by Aristotle and Heraclitus’ own worldview. To (...) refute the Natural Philosophers, Aristotle proposes a general reconstruction of their reasoning. Roughly, relying on sensory evidence (A1), they see that the same thing changes from one opposite to another (A2). Such a change appears to characterize a generation out of non-being, which a Natural Philosopher does not accept (A3). To solve the problem, despite their different worldviews, Natural Philosophers hint at a state in which opposites co-occur, characterizing an objective contradiction (C). Looking at the discussion in Metaphysics Γ and Heraclitus fragments, sections 1–3 show how assumptions A1, A2, and A3 easily apply to Heraclitus. The case of the conclusion is more challenging. In the case of the Pluralists, the co-existence of opposites characterizes a state in which there is no generation. Such a view does not fit Heraclitus’ mobilism. To argue that Aristotle’s argument is general enough to encompass dynamic views, I examine his problematization of accepting the change of change in Metaphysics K and Physics V. There, after re-stating several points that appear in Metaphysics Γ, Aristotle argues that accepting the becoming of another becoming leads to a state of contradiction in which the becoming is perishing. Heraclitus’ B8, cited in Nicomachean Ethics, gives evidence that, for Aristotle, Heraclitus puts a process at the origin of an opposite process. Moreover, after examining the expression ‘living the death/dying the life’ in B62, I argue that Heraclitus was aware that his worldview implied a dynamic objective contradiction. Finally, an analysis of elemental changes in B36 proves that accepting objective contradictions does not make Heraclitus’ worldview less attractive. (shrink)

Consciousness in the form of sense-certainty wants to apprehend its particular object as being-there (existing). But as demonstrated in previous articles in this series, the only truth of sense-certainty is merely that something is, and because everything is, being is universal. Here it will be shown that perception is the consciousness of the universal as the truth of a particular being. And because universality is the very principle of perception, both object and the I are also universal. Because (...) this universality is arrived at through a mediating process or thinking, it is not just an immediate ‘happening’ as is found in sense-certainty - rather, it proves to be a logically necessitated content. (shrink)

The one-world interpretation of Kant's idealism holds that appearances and things in themselves are, in some sense, the same things. Yet this reading faces a number of problems, all arising from the different features Kant seems to assign to appearances and things in themselves. I propose a new way of understanding the appearance/thing in itself distinction via an Aristotelian notion that I call, following Kit Fine, a ‘qua-object.’ Understanding appearances and things in themselves as qua-objects provides a clear (...) sense in which they can be the same things while differing in many of their features. (shrink)

Two hundred and sixty-three subjects each gave examples for one of five geographic categories: geographic features, geographic objects, geographic concepts, something geographic, and something that could be portrayed on a map. The frequencies of various responses were significantly different, indicating that the basic ontological terms feature, object, etc., are not interchangeable but carry different meanings when combined with adjectives indicating geographic or mappable. For all of the test phrases involving geographic, responses were predominantly natural features such as mountain, river, (...) lake, ocean, hill. Artificial geographic features such as town and city were listed hardly at all for geographic categories, an outcome that contrasts sharply with the disciplinary self-understanding of academic geography. However, geographic artifacts and fiat objects, such as roads, cities, boundaries, countries, and states, were frequently listed by the subjects responding to the phrase something that could be portrayed on a map. In this paper, we present the results of these experiments in visual form, and provide interpretations and implications for further research. (shrink)

Our day-to-day experience of the world regularly brings us into contact with middlesized objects such as apples, dogs, and other human beings. These objects possess observable properties, properties that are available or accessible to the unaided senses, such as redness and roundness, as well as properties that are not so available, such as chemical ones. Both of these kinds of properties serve as valuable sources of information about our familiar middle-sized objects at least to the extent that they enable us (...) to understand the behaviours of those objects and their effects on each other and on us. I see the apple on the table before me, and in doing so I see its redness, its roundness, and so on. I do not see, but know that it has, a certain chemical constitution. The knowledge gained of the apple by means of both properties tells me something about the nature of that apple. In general, most, if not all, of the properties that objects in the observable world possess serve as the basis of our knowledge of such objects. But the subject-predicate form of much of our discourse and thought about objects suggests that substances are one kind of thing, properties another. We use subject terms such as names to identify objects, predicate terms to attribute properties to them. What, then, is it for an object to have a property? And what is the relation between an object and its properties? (shrink)

Kant’s doctrine of the “transcendental object” has always puzzled interpreters. On the one hand, he says that the transcendental object is the object to which we relate our representations. On the other hand, he declares the transcendental object to be unknowable and identifies it with the thing in itself. I argue that this poses a problem that Kant only in the B edition of the Critique solves in a satisfactory manner. According to this solution, we (...) ascribe sensible predicates to things in themselves, but only insofar as they appear. I conclude that this could motivate a phenomenalist account of Kant’s idealism, but one that gives due weight to the role of things in themselves. (shrink)

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is gradually being established as the new computing paradigm, which is bound to change the ways of our everyday working and living. IoT emphasizes the interconnection of virtually all types of physical objects (e.g., cell phones, wearables, smart meters, sensors, coffee machines and more) towards enabling them to exchange data and services among themselves, while also interacting with humans as well. Few years following the introduction of the IoT concept, significant hype was generated as a result of (...) the proliferating number of IoT-enabled devices, which (according to many projections) are expected to amount to several billion in the next years. During recent years, this hype has been turning to reality, as a wave of IoT applications with significant social and economic has been emerging. Data analytics is the process of deriving knowledge from data, generating value like actionable insights from them. This article reviews work in the IoT and big data analytics from the perspective of their utility in creating efficient, effective and innovative applications and services for a wide spectrum of domains. We review the broad vision for the IoT as it is shaped in various communities, examine the application of data analytics across IoT domains, provide a categorization of analytic approaches and propose a layered taxonomy from IoT data to analytics. IoT data analysis is an integral element of any non- trivial IoT system. Nevertheless, IoT analytics are still in their infancy, as IoT data still remain largely unexploited. (shrink)

Internet, a revolutionary invention, is always transforming into some new kind of hardware and software making it unpreventable for anyone. The type of communication that we see today is either human-to-human or human-to-device, but the Internet of Things (IoT) promises a great future for the internet where the type of communication is machine-to-machine (M2M). The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a paradigm in which objects provide with sensors, actuators, and processors communicate with each other to serve a meaningful (...) purpose. In this paper we discussed IoT and its architecture. Further we explained different applications of IoT for users, IoT advantages and disadvantages. (shrink)

Worlds, Lewis says this: Let us say that something persists iff, somehow or other, it exists at various times; this is the neutral word. Something perdures iff it persists by having different temporal parts, or stages, at different times, though no one part of it is wholly present at more than one time; whereas it endures iff it persists by being wholly present at more than one time. Perdurance corresponds to the way a road persists through space; part of it (...) is here, and part of it is there, and no part is wholly present at two different places. Endurance corresponds to the way a universal, if there are such things, would be wholly present wherever and whenever it is instantiated. Endurance involves overlap: the content of two different times has the enduring thing as a common part. Perdurance does not.1 Lewis's remarks suggest the following formulations of the two views in the 3D/4D controversy.2.. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that presentism -- the view that the way things are is the way things presently are -- is not undermined by the objection from being-supervenience. This objection claims, roughly, that presentism has trouble accounting for the truth-value of past-tense claims. Our demonstration amounts to the articulation and defence of a novel version of presentism. This is brute past presentism, according to which the truth-value of past-tense claims is determined by the past understood as a fundamental (...) aspect of reality different from things and how things are. (shrink)

Objective reasons are given by the facts. Subjective reasons are given by one’s perspective on the facts. Subjective reasons, not objective reasons, determine what it is rational to do. In this paper, I argue against a prominent account of subjective reasons. The problem with that account, I suggest, is that it makes what one has subjective reason to do, and hence what it is rational to do, turn on matters outside or independent of one’s perspective. After explaining and establishing this (...) point, I offer a novel account of subjective reasons which avoids the problem. (shrink)

The special composition question asks, roughly, under what conditions composition occurs. The common sense view is that composition only occurs among some things and that all and only ‘ordinary objects’ exist. Peter van Inwagen has marshaled a devastating argument against this view. The common sense view appears to commit one to giving what van Inwagen calls a ‘series-style answer’ to the special composition question, but van Inwagen argues that series-style answers are impossible because they are inconsistent with the transitivity of (...) parthood. In what follows I answer this objection in addition to other, less troubling objections raised by van Inwagen. (shrink)

This article juxtaposes two of the most influential thinkers of the previous century, Georges Bataille and Martin Heidegger: my overarching claim will be that a contrastive approach allows a better understanding of two central dynamics within their work. First, I show that both were deeply troubled by a certain methodological anxiety; namely, that the practice of writing might distort and deform their insights. By employing a comparative strategy, I suggest that we can gain a better understanding of the very specific (...) form this fear takes in them: in each case, it is articulated and justified in terms of the ‘chose’ or ‘Ding’ (‘thing’) or the ‘objet’ or ‘Objekt’ (‘object’). Second, I argue that close textual comparison allows us to identify an important, new dimension in their reactions to this shared anxiety: the thing or object which was originally the site of the anxiety gradually becomes, through series of ontological and textual shifts, the solution to it. I track this transformation across a range of case studies including Heidegger’s later work on the term ‘Ding’ and Bataille’s treatment of prostitution. I close by indicating how these results might create avenues for further research. (shrink)

What colour does a white wall look in the pinkish light of the late afternoon? Philosophers disagree: they hold variously that it looks pink, white, both, and no colour at all. A new approach is offered. After reviewing the dispute, a reinterpretation of perceptual constancy is offered. In accordance with this reinterpretation, it is argued that perceptual features such as color must always be predicated of perceptual objects. Thus, it might be that in pinkish light, the wall looks white and (...) the light looks pink. The paper concludes by discussing some criteria for object identification in perceptual states. (shrink)

"I have a tree, which grows here in my close, / That mine own use invites me to cut down, / And shortly I must fell it" (Shakespeare 2001, 168)—Timon's lament, which in Shakespeare's rendition occurs shortly before its utterer's demise "upon the beached verge of the salt flood" (2001, 168) beyond the perimeter of Athens, is an indictment of the nature that Timon finds unable to escape. Having given away his wealth in misguided generosity to a host of parasitic (...) sycophants, Timon turns misanthropic when his "friends" reject his requests for help in kind to repay his debts, eventually exiling himself from the city with the intent of sustaining himself on nothing but water and roots. Yet he soon finds that removing .. (shrink)

Some things look more complex than others. For example, a crenulate and richly organized leaf may seem more complex than a plain stone. What is the nature of this experience—and why do we have it in the first place? Here, we explore how object complexity serves as an efficiently extracted visual signal that the object merits further exploration. We algorithmically generated a library of geometric shapes and determined their complexity by computing the cumulative surprisal of their internal skeletons—essentially (...) quantifying the “amount of information” within each shape—and then used this approach to ask new questions about the perception of complexity. Experiments 1–3 asked what kind of mental process extracts visual complexity: a slow, deliberate, reflective process (as when we decide that an object is expensive or popular) or a fast, effortless, and automatic process (as when we see that an object is big or blue)? We placed simple and complex objects in visual search arrays and discovered that complex objects were easier to find among simple distractors than simple objects are among complex distractors—a classic search asymmetry indicating that complexity is prioritized in visual processing. Next, we explored the function of complexity: Why do we represent object complexity in the first place? Experiments 4–5 asked subjects to study serially presented objects in a self‐paced manner (for a later memory test); subjects dwelled longer on complex objects than simple objects—even when object shape was completely task‐irrelevant—suggesting a connection between visual complexity and exploratory engagement. Finally, Experiment 6 connected these implicit measures of complexity to explicit judgments. Collectively, these findings suggest that visual complexity is extracted efficiently and automatically, and even arouses a kind of “perceptual curiosity” about objects that encourages subsequent attentional engagement. (shrink)

An age-old proposal that to be is to be a unity, or what I call a grouping, is updated and applied to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (WSRTN). I propose the straight-forward idea that a thing exists if it is a grouping which ties zero or more things together into a new unit whole and existent entity. A grouping is visually manifested as the surface, or boundary, of the thing. In regard to WSRTN, when (...) we subtract away all existent entities, the resulting "nothing" is the entirety, the all. That “nothing is the complete definition of the situation. An entirety/all is a grouping, meaning that “nothing” is itself an existent entity. One objection might be that being a grouping is a property so how can it be there in "nothing"? The answer is that it is only once all known existent entities, including all properties and the mind visualizing this, are removed does this “nothing” gain the entirety/all grouping property. Therefore, the very lack of all existent entities is itself what allows this new property to be present and thereby to allow "nothing" to be an existent entity. This entirety/all grouping property is inherent, or intrinsic, to “nothing” and cannot be removed to get a more pure “nothing”. While the ideas that “nothing” is a “something” that exists necessarily isn’t new, the grouping, or any, mechanism for how this can be so is. (shrink)

In her analysis of the politics of biotechnology, Sheila Jasanoff argued that modern democracy cannot be understood without an analysis of the ways knowledge is created and used in society. She suggested calling these ways to “know things in common” civic epistemologies. Jasanoff thus approached knowledge as fundamentally social. The focus on the social nature of knowledge allows drawing parallels with some developments in philosophy of science. In the first part of the paper, I juxtapose Jasanoff’s account with the philosopher (...) Helen Longino’s approach. Longino argued that objectivity of scientific knowledge is made possible by the social nature of knowledge production. In the process of community-wide discussion, claims that are not intersubjectively acceptable are rejected and communally acceptable knowledge emerges. Longino called this knowledge-creating critical dialogue transformative. I suggest that Longino’s account can be seen as providing epistemological support for the civic epistemologies Jasanoff described. They are capable of producing knowledge in the normative philosophical sense of the word to the degree that they are able to support this transformative critical dialogue. In the second part of the paper, I explore in the light of Longino’s criteria for effective knowledge-productive dialogue one of the controversies in biotechnology policy that Jasanoff analysed. I suggest that Longino’s criteria allow identifying some fundamental obstacles for initiating and maintaining this kind of responsive critical dialogue and that the controversy can be seen as caused by inability to overcome these obstacles. In such a case, the controversy signals an epistemic failure as well as a failure of democratic policy. (shrink)

Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, is considered as one of the prominent figures in African anti-colonial literature. What makes his works specific is the way he approaches the issues of colonization of Africa in an objective manner and through an innovative language which aims at providing a pathology; a pathological reading meant to draw on the pre-colonial and colonial history without any presumptions so as to present the readers with possible alternative African discourses in future. His first novel Things (...) Fall Apart can be taken as the best representative of such a penchant in Achebe. The present study seeks to approach Things Fall apart by reflecting on those discursive features which have provided the ground for constructing such a pathological reading and an alternative to the colonial discourse. To this end, some key terms introduced by Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin such as ‘hybridity’, ‘otherness’ and ‘polyphony’, constitute the cornerstone of this study. Presumably, such an innovative reading of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is to lead to a better understanding of his discourse and the efforts made by him to help the African readers figure out how to piece together what once fell apart; what they can rely on for building an independent future in the so-called postcolonial era. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of myth and phenomenology in Pierre Schaeffer’s research into music and sound, and argues that engagement with these themes allows us to rethink the legacy and contemporary value of Schaeffer’s thought in sound studies. In light of critique of Schaeffer’s project, in particular that developed by Brian Kane and Schaeffer’s own apparent self-disavowal, this paper returns to Schaeffer’s early remarks on the “myth of the seashell” in order to examine the conditions of this critique. While (...) Kane argues that Schaeffer’s recourse to myth, coupled with his adoption of Husserlian phenomenology, leads to a closure of his inquiry and a failure to accommodate the contingency of his position, this paper argues that Schaeffer’s myth of the seashell brings into focus an open-ended, motivating phenomenological problem concerning subjectivity and objectivity that runs through his thought. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gaston Bachelard and Gilles Deleuze, this paper considers the epistemological significance of this moment in Schaeffer’s thought, suggesting a “problematic” account of the myth of the seashell that puts Schaeffer into conversation with contemporary work in epistemology. (shrink)

The thesis that existence is radically different from the determinacy of an actually existing thing –Kant considers this thesis to be the unsurmountable objection against the cosmological and the ontological argument– is the same thesis that demands a specific explanation of the existence of that actually existing thing. The notion of existence that results from its complete exclusion from the realm of the contents thoroughgoing determined by real predicates requires, thus, precisely because this thoroughness excludes it, a specific (...) reason that explains that in the actually existing thing its own actual existence is in fact united with its own determinacy; that notion of existence, however, cancels at the same time the requirement of a sufficient reason of the existence of what actually exists, and again for the same reason, namely, because since existence is as such excluded from the determinacy of the existing things, it radically differs from the specific realm where determinacy is constituted (that is why existing things are thoroughgoing determined as possible), and, therefore, it invalidates any application to itself of the logical laws that are valid only for the merely possible domain of determinacy. (shrink)

A great deal of music making that occurs amongst young people in our communities has its origins in self initiated out-of-school activity. This making reflects the social setting where the musical work is produced, including the manner in which the music is developed and how the musical activity is evaluated by the students. Recognising the origin of where the work is made is taken in this paper as an analogue of the thing (Heidegger, 1949). The thing in Heidegger, (...) is not seen as just an object, de-contextualised and removed from the artist or where the thing was made, but is seen as the embodiment of a shared experience of making and meaning. Following Heidegger’s discussion of the thing this paper considers the difficulty teachers face in evaluating the made musical object developed out-of-school. An instance is provided of 'Joe' devising electronic dance music within a virtual online community. (shrink)

Kant says that it can be rational to accept propositions on the basis of non-epistemic or broadly practical considerations, even if those propositions include “transcendental ideas” of supersensible objects. He also worries, however, about how such ideas (of freedom, the soul, noumenal grounds, God, the kingdom of ends, and things-in-themselves generally) acquire genuine positive content in the absence of an appropriate connection to intuitional experience. How can we be sure that the ideas are not empty “thought-entities (Gedankendinge)”—that is, speculative fancies (...) that do not and perhaps even cannot have referents in reality? In this paper I argue for an account of the fundamental problem here (i.e. that it is based in a concern about whether or not the objects of such ideas are "really possible" in Kant's technical sense). I then critically evaluate Kant's three proposed solutions to the problem. The third one involves an appeal to the complicated doctrine of "symbolization" that becomes prominent in Kant's later works. -/- . (shrink)

The paper argues -- against the standard view in metaphysics -- that the existence of ordinary objects like tomatoes is (near-enough) established by the fact that such things are apparently encountered in perception.

Evolution and geometry generate complexity in similar ways. Evolution drives natural selection while geometry may capture the logic of this selection and express it visually, in terms of specific generic properties representing some kind of advantage. Geometry is ideally suited for expressing the logic of evolutionary selection for symmetry, which is found in the shape curves of vein systems and other natural objects such as leaves, cell membranes, or tunnel systems built by ants. The topology and geometry of symmetry is (...) controlled by numerical parameters, which act in analogy with a biological organism’s DNA. The introductory part of this paper reviews findings from experiments illustrating the critical role of two-dimensional (2D) design parameters, affine geometry and shape symmetry for visual or tactile shape sensation and perception-based decision making in populations of experts and non-experts. It will be shown that 2D fractal symmetry, referred to herein as the “symmetry of things in a thing”, results from principles very similar to those of affine projection. Results from experiments on aesthetic and visual preference judgments in response to 2D fractal trees with varying degrees of asymmetry are presented. In a first experiment (psychophysical scaling procedure), non-expert observers had to rate (on a scale from 0 to 10) the perceived beauty of a random series of 2D fractal trees with varying degrees of fractal symmetry. In a second experiment (two-alternative forced choice procedure), they had to express their preference for one of two shapes from the series. The shape pairs were presented successively in random order. Results show that the smallest possible fractal deviation from “symmetry of things in a thing” significantly reduces the perceived attractiveness of such shapes. The potential of future studies where different levels of complexity of fractal patterns are weighed against different degrees of symmetry is pointed out in the conclusion. (shrink)

The Meaning of Things explores the meanings of household possessions for three generation families in the Chicago area, and the place of materialism in American culture. Now regarded as a keystone in material culture studies, Halton's first book is based on his dissertation and coauthored with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. First published by Cambridge University Press in 1981, it has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian. The Meaning of Things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary (...) urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling. Translations: Il significato degli oggetti. Italian translation. Rome: Edizione Kappa, 1986. Der Sinn der Dinge. German translation. Munich: Psychologie Verlags Union, 1989. Japanese translation 2007. Targyaink tukreben. Hungarian translation, 2011. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, in the first section, that Schopenhauer was a direct perceptual realist. I think Schopenhauer’s critique of Kant in the Appendix to WWR 1 is largely bound together by his view that Kant was still welded to a pre-critical indirect perceptual realism which creates the various points of tension or compromise formations that Schopenhauer enumerates. In the second section I go on to argue that this perceptual direct realism sheds light on his account of compassion, in (...) particular making it more plausible that he is a direct realist about our perception of the emotions, or wills, of others (at least in the appropriate circumstances). This helps to resolve a problem identified in the literature, especially by David Cartwright. In the last section I address an objection, and show that far from being an objection, it in fact strengthens my position. (shrink)

The indeterminacy problem is one of the most prominent objections against naturalistic theories of content. In this essay I present this difficulty and argue that extant accounts are unable to solve it. Then, I develop a particular version of teleosemantics, which I call ’explanation-based teleosemantics’, and show how this outstanding problem can be addressed within the framework of a powerful naturalistic theory.

I shall begin with the assumption that there are, among our mental acts. some which stand in direct contact with ohjects in the material world. The aim of this paper will he to clarify and to draw out certain implications of this somewhat trivial assumption, and ultimately to say something about the ontological structure of those of our acts which effect the function of bringing us into contact with material acts which serve. as we might say, as the most external (...) points of consciousness which touch the objects consciousness is trying to grasp. Amongst material objects I shall include not only material things such as tables. (shrink)

Kant holds that in order to have knowledge of an object, a subject must be able to “prove” that the object is really possible—i.e., prove that there is neither logical inconsistency nor “real repugnance” between its properties. This is (usually) easy to do with respect to empirical objects, but (usually) impossible to do with respect to particular things-in-themselves. In the first section of the paper I argue that an important predecessor of Kant’s account of our ignorance of real (...) possibility can be found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In the middle sections I discuss the way in which our inability to prove the real possibility of things-in-themselves motivates Kant’s famous prohibition on certain kinds of knowledge-claims about them. In the final section I examine Hegel’s attempts to dissolve this problem of real repugnance and thereby remove an inherited obstacle to speculative knowledge of the supersensible. -/- . (shrink)

In his book The Things We Mean, Stephen Schiffer advances a subtle defence of what he calls the ‘face-value’ analysis of attributions of belief and reports of speech. Under this analysis, ‘Harold believes that there is life on Venus’ expresses a relation between Harold and a certain abstract object, the proposition that there is life on Venus. The present essay first proposes an improvement to Schiffer’s ‘pleonastic’ theory of propositions. It then challenges the face-value analysis. There will be such (...) things as propositions only if they possess conditions of identity and distinctness. By analyzing Frege’s theory of propositions (Gedanken), I argue that such conditions may be found for the special case of beliefs and sayings advanced as premises and conclusions of deductive arguments. These conditions, however, are not applicable to most ordinary beliefs and sayings. Ordinary attributions and reports, then, do not place thinkers and speakers in relations to propositions. A bonus is exposure of the fallacy in the Putnam-Taschek objection to Frege’s theory of sense and reference. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that there are some strong philosophical and exegetical reasons to argue that according to the view developed in the first chapter of Aristotle’s De Memoria, the objects of memory are non-present, or absent, things and events rather than our past acts of awareness of them. We argue that on Aristotle’s account, the objects of memory can be particulars or universals, perceptibles or intelligibles, and that all these kinds of things are past in the same sense, (...) namely, in the sense of previously having been present to the perceiver or knower. Aristotle’s claim that we remember that we previously learned or saw something is the description of how, rather than what, we remember. Keywords: Aristotle, memory, past, pathos, present. (shrink)

Considering whether existence, i.e., being, is a thing might seem like the height of aimless metaphysical chin stroking. However, the issue—specifically, whether existence is a quality—is significant, bearing on how reality, this all-encompassing totality, is. On one view, reality at large is ontologically fixed, the sum total of things does not (and cannot) vary; on another view, reality is ontologically transient, the sum total of things varies. I first show that if existence is a thing, that reality is (...) ontologically fixed follows. So I consider whether existence is indeed a thing. I demonstrate that “it” could not be: existence is no existent. I then discuss what it is to exist, given existence is nothing at all. I maintain there are no grounds for the view that reality is ontologically fixed. I argue, from the irrefragable basis of temporal differentiation—the world going from thus…to as so—that reality is ontologically transient. I consider some objections to ontological transience and conclude by considering the key to understanding the overall structure in reality and what it reveals about how very inconstant all this is. (shrink)

Kilimanjaro is an example of what some philosophers would call a ‘vague object’: it is only roughly 5895 m tall, its weight is not precise and its boundaries are fuzzy because some particles are neither determinately part of it nor determinately not part of it. It has been suggested that this vagueness arises as a result of semantic indecision: it is because we didn’t make up our mind what the expression “Kilimanjaro” applies to that we can truthfully say such (...) things as “It is indeterminate whether this particle is part of Kilimanjaro”. After reviewing some of the limitations of this approach, I will propose an alternative account, based on a new semantic relation—multiple reference—capable of holding in a one-many pattern between a term and several objects in the domain. I will explain how multiple reference works, what differentiates it from plural reference and how it might be used to accommodate at least some aspects of our ordinary discourse about vague objects. (shrink)

A resolution to the Russell Paradox is presented that is similar to Russell's “theory of types” method but is instead based on the definition of why a thing exists as described in previous work by this author. In that work, it was proposed that a thing exists if it is a grouping tying "stuff" together into a new unit whole. In tying stuff together, this grouping defines what is contained within the new existent entity. A corollary is that (...) a thing, such as a set, does not exist until after the stuff is tied together, or said another way, until what is contained within is completely defined. A second corollary is that after a grouping defining what is contained within is present and the thing exists, if one then alters what is tied together (e.g., alters what is contained within), the first existent entity is destroyed and a different existent entity is created. A third corollary is that a thing exists only where and when its grouping exists. Based on this, the Russell Paradox's set R of all sets that aren't members of themselves does not even exist until after the list of the elements it contains (e.g. the list of all sets that aren't members of themselves) is defined. Once this list of elements is completely defined, R then springs into existence. Therefore, because it doesn't exist until after its list of elements is defined, R obviously can't be in this list of elements and, thus, cannot be a member of itself; so, the paradox is resolved. This same type of reasoning is then applied to Godel's first Incompleteness Theorem. Briefly, while writing a Godel Sentence, one makes reference to a future, not yet completed and not yet existent sentence, G, that claims its unprovability. However, only once the sentence is finished does it become a new unit whole and existent entity called sentence G. If one then goes back in and replaces the reference to the future sentence with the future sentence itself, a totally different sentence, G1, is created. This new sentence G1 does not assert its unprovability. An objection might be that all the possibly infinite number of possible G-type sentences or their corresponding Godel numbers already exist somehow, so one doesn't have to worry about references to future sentences and springing into existence. But, if so, where do they exist? If they exist in a Platonic realm, where is this realm? If they exist pre-formed in the mind, this would seem to require a possibly infinite-sized brain to hold all these sentences. This is not the case. What does exist in the mind is the system for creating G-type sentences and their corresponding numbers. This mental system for making a G-type sentence is not the same as the G-type sentence itself just as an assembly line is not the same as a finished car. In conclusion, a new resolution of the Russell Paradox and some issues with proofs of Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem are described. (shrink)

Frege famously held that numbers play the role of objects in our language and thought, and that this role is on display when we use sentences like "The number of Jupiter's moons is four". I argue that this role is an example of a general pattern that also encompasses persons, times, locations, reasons, causes, and ways of appearing or acting. These things are 'objects' simply in the sense that they are answers to questions: they are the sort of thing (...) we search for and specify during investigation or inquiry. I support this epistemological conception of objects by studying specificational sentences, a class of sentences which includes Frege's original example. I defend an analysis of such sentences as question-answer pairs, and show how to formally represent this analysis using game-theoretical semantics. (shrink)

The Levelling-Down Objection is a standard objection to monistic egalitarian theories where equality is the only thing that has intrinsic value. Most egalitarians, however, are value pluralists; they hold that, in addition to equality being intrinsically valuable, the egalitarian currency in which we are equal or unequal is also intrinsically valuable. In this paper, I shall argue that the Levelling-Down Objection still minimizes the weight that the intrinsic badness of inequality could have in the overall intrinsic evaluation of outcomes, (...) given a certain way of measuring the badness of inequality, namely, the Additive Individual-Complaints Measure. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian metaethical naturalism is a modern attempt at naturalizing ethics using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics. Proponents of this view argue that moral virtue in human beings is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of goodness supposedly also found in the realm of non-human living things. Many critics question whether neo-Aristotelian naturalism is tenable in light of modern evolutionary biology. Two influential lines of objection have appealed to an evolutionary understanding of human nature and natural teleology to argue against (...) this view. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of these two seemingly different lines of objection as raising instances of the same dilemma, giving neo-Aristotelians a choice between contradicting our considered moral judgment and abandoning metaethical naturalism. I argue that resolving the dilemma requires showing a particular kind of continuity between the norms of moral virtue and norms that are necessary for understanding non-human living things. I also argue that in order to show such a continuity, neo-Aristotelians need to revise the relationship they adopt with empirical science and acknowledge that the latter is relevant to assessing their central commitments regarding living things. Finally, I argue that to move this debate forward, both neo-Aristotelians and their critics should pay attention to recent work on the concept of organism in evolutionary and developmental biology. (shrink)

David Lewis holds that a single possible world can provide more than one way things could be. But what are possible worlds good for if they come apart from ways things could be? We can make sense of this if we go in for a metaphysical understanding of what the world is. The world does not include everything that is the case—only the genuine facts. Understood this way, Lewis's “cheap haecceitism” amounts to a kind of metaphysical anti-haecceitism: it says there (...) aren't any genuine facts about individuals over and above their qualitative roles. (shrink)

Epistemological objections to moral realism allege that realism entails moral skepticism. Many philosophers have assumed that theistic moral realists can easily avoid such objections. In this article, I argue that things are not so easy: theists run the risk of violating an important constraint on replies to epistemological objections, according to which replies to such objections may not rely on substantive moral claims of a certain kind. Yet after presenting this challenge, I then argue that theists can meet it, successfully (...) replying to the objections without relying on the problematic kinds of substantive moral claims. Theists have a distinctive and plausible reply to epistemological objections to moral realism. (shrink)