By definition, pain is a sensory and emotional experience that is felt in a particular part of the body. The precise relationship between somatic events at the site where pain is experienced, and central processing giving rise to the mental experience of pain remains the subject of debate, but there is little disagreement in scholarly circles that both aspects of pain are critical to its experience. Recent experimental work, however, suggests a public view that is at odds with this conceptualisation. (...) By demonstrating that the public does not necessarily endorse central tenets of the “mental” view of pain (subjectivity, privacy, and incorrigibility), experimental philosophers have argued that the public holds a more “body-centric” view than most clinicians and scholars. Such a discrepancy would have important implications for how the public interacts with pain science and clinical care. In response, we tested the hypothesis that the public is capable of a more “mind-centric” view of pain. Using a series of vignettes, we demonstrate that in situations which highlight mental aspects of pain the public can, and does, recognize pain as a mental phenomenon. We also demonstrate that the public view is subject to context effects, by showing that the public’s view is modified when situations emphasizing mental and somatic aspects of pain are presented together. (shrink)

Both patients and clinicians frequently report problems around communicating and assessing pain. Patients express dissatisfaction with their doctors and doctors often find exchanges with chronic pain patients difficult and frustrating. This chapter thus asks how we could improve pain communication and thereby enhance outcomes for chronic pain patients. We argue that improving matters will require a better appreciation of the complex meaning of pain terms and of the variability and flexibility in how individuals think about pain. We start by examining (...) the various accounts of the meaning of pain terms that have been suggested within philosophy and suggest that, while each of the accounts captures something important about our use of pain terms, none is completely satisfactory. We propose that pain terms should be viewed as communicating complex meanings, which may change across different communicative contexts, and this in turn suggests that we should view our ordinary thought about pain as similarly complex. We then sketch what a view taking seriously this variability in meaning and thought might look like, which we call the “polyeidic” view. According to this view, individuals tacitly occupy divergent stances across a range of different dimensions of pain, with one agent, for instance, thinking of pain in a much more “bodycentric” kind of way, while another thinks of pain in a much more "mindcentric” way. The polyeidic view attempts to expand the multidimensionality recognised in, e.g., biopsychosocial models in two directions: first, it holds that the standard triumvirate— dividing sensory/cognitive/affective factors— needs to be enriched in order to capture important distinctions within the social and psychological dimensions. Second, the polyeidic view attempts to explain (at least in part) why modulation of experience by these social and psychological factors is possible in the first place. It does so by arguing that because the folk concept of pain is complex, different weightings of the different parts of the concept can modulate pain experience in a variety of ways. Finally, we argue that adopting a polyeidic approach to the meaning of pain would have a range of measurable clinical outcomes. (shrink)

I’d like to begin, if I may, by repeating myself. When I spoke at the Institute’s official launch last June, I quoted W.V. Quine’s remark that logic is an old subject, and since 1879 it has been a great one; and I commented that whatever the truth of this, it is undeniably true that philosophy is an old subject and has been a great one since the 5th century BC. The foundation of an institute of philosophy in the University of (...) London has been, in my opinion, a great thing for philosophy and for the University. Our mission is to promote and support philosophy of the highest quality in all its forms, inside and outside the university. With our programmes of events, fellowships and research facilitation, I think we have been carrying out this mission pretty well since our foundation in 2005. But I have already said enough in public about the Institute. Given the occasion, it is appropriate for me to say something instead about philosophy itself. (shrink)

Studie se zabývá tím, jak se v českých zemích obráželo bouřlivé období vývoje biologického myšlení od přelomu 19. a 20. století do první světové války, kdy vedle sebe existovaly velmi různé názory na evoluci. Mnohovrstevnatost teoretickou přitom doplňuje i kulturní a vědecká mnohovrstevnatost českých zemí, kde se jednak mísí vlivy německé a české biologie na svých autonomních institucích, a jednak lze spatřovat rozdíly i mezi lokálními centry Prahou a Brnem se svými badatelskými tradicemi a nezávislými vazbami na další centra ve (...) Vídni a evropských univerzitách. Centrem zájmu jsou teoreticky uvažující biologové, kteří buď sami dlouhodobě profilovali české biologické myšlení, anebo na něj měli díky zdejšímu působení přímý vliv. V letech ca 1900–1915 došlo k prvnímu otevřenému a diskutovanému vrcholu v české recepci evolucionismu a před jednoznačnými pozicemi a „velkými teoriemi“ má navrch spíše prostředkování diferencované zahraniční diskuse, podněty vlastní experimentální práce a opatrné očekávání od nového studia variability a dědičnosti. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

Edmund Husserl obdržel v roce 1927 nabídku od Jamese Louise Garvina, britského editora Encyclopædia Britannica, ať napíše pro novou, tehdy čtrnáctou edici článek „Fenomenologie“. Garvin stanovil rozsah článku na 4000 slov a termín vydání na září roku 1929. Husserl pracoval na článku v časovém rozmezí mezi zářím a prosincem roku 1927, během kterého vyhotovil celkem čtyři verze. Husserl požádal o spolupráci na prvních třech verzích svého žáka Martina Heideggera, který toho času zastával profesorský stolec na univerzitě v Marburku. Heidegger strávil (...) v říjnu 1927 u Husserla několik dní, během kterých intenzivně pracovali na řečeném článku. Nicméně jejich spolupráce vedla ke vzájemnému profesnímu odcizení, protože práce na formulování článku dala vytanout nepřekonatelným obsahovým diferencím mezi oběma filosofy. Na základě Heideggerových nepřijatelných návrhů a připomínek Husserl nakonec sepsal finální, čtvrtou verzi článku již sám. Tuto poslední verzi čítající 7000 slov pak Husserl předal oxfordskému učenci Christopheru V. Salmonovi, který ji měl zkrátit a přeložit do angličtiny. Salmon sice v únoru roku 1928 opravdu dodal do redakce EB text čítající 3844 slov bez bibliografie, ovšem nejednalo se vpravdě o překlad, nýbrž dost svévolnou parafrázi. Tato podoba Husserlova článku se pak objevovala ve čtrnácté edici EB, jež se vydávala až do roku 1974, jen do roku 1956, kdy byla nahrazena článkem napsaným Johnem N. Findlayem. Původní podoba Husserlova článku byla poprvé zveřejněna až roku 1962 v rámci jeho sebraných spisů známých pod označením Husserliana, podle jejichž IX. svazku jsme vyhotovili předložený překlad z německého jazyka. Podle této edice rovněž uvádíme paginaci, která je uvedena v hranatých závorkách, přičemž stránkový přechod indikuje v textu umístěná značka |.U příležitosti 80. výročí Husserlova skonu, který připadl na rok 2018, bylo naším záměrem připomenout přínos a odkaz tohoto našeho krajana tím, že napravíme absenci překladu jeho patrně nejvíce instruktivního, přehledného a programového textu, který byť ve zkomolené podobě anglického „překladu“, po dlouhou dobu seznamoval učenou veřejnost s tím, co je to fenomenologie. (shrink)

Člověk se od jiných živočišných druhů odlišuje mnoha způsoby, k nejpodstatnějším z nichž patří rozum, jazyk a také schopnost řídit se pravidly. V tomto textu argumentuji, že je to především ta poslední schopnost, která je klíčová a bez které jsou ty další nepředstavitelné. Člověk je společenská bytost nejenom v tom smyslu, že žije ve společenstvích, ale i v tom, že tato společenství jsou strukturována složitým pletivem pravidel, která zásadním způsobem determinují modus vivendi lidí, kteří je tvoří, a v důsledku toho (...) determinují i člověka jako takového. Soustava pravidel může vytvořit jistý „vnitřní prostor" - to jest tato pravidla můžeme přijímat a tím vstoupit do tohoto prostoru, nebo je můžeme jenom zaznamenávat. Dialektika těchto dvou postojů nám umožňuje nahlédnout, že ač je normativní rozměr pro člověka jakožto společenskou bytost naprosto klíčový a těžko postižitelný běžnými vědeckými metodami „nezúčastněného pozorování", není tento normativní rozměr ničím esoterickým, něčím, co by bylo z hlediska vědy pochybné. (shrink)

The competence is the second must important need for a person, after autonomy. The competence is an indicator for a social integration, for quality of participation in groups. The current definition of competence used in education is proposed from a III- stage of culture, but our definition is from V cultural stage (David Logan). In our work we compare the human condition with the light. We are in the same time individual person and also parts in a supra-individual systems. Between (...) this two position we must found the middle way to be and act. From modern physical theory to religion, from Heidegger to Patsy Rodemburg Presence, from Berne transactional analyse Buber I-Tou and nonviolent communication, from classical education limits to modern coaching perspective (Tim Gallwy), the most important cultural point of view is integrated in a equilibrated perspective that respect individual condition and understand the importance of cultures. I recognized three level of participation - to itself, in relation and to social systems cultures. After introduction that present this new perspective, the part two is dedicated to personal perspective, the next part to relation, including unconditional love, and the four part to culture importance. In the last part I try to take a look to the competence development. (shrink)

Recenzio Kiraly V. Istvan Death and History c. konyverol.

Antologia revistei Philobiblon editata in 2011.

Review the Istvan Kiraly V.'s book: Death and History.

This book is a translation of W.V. Quine's Kant Lectures, given as a series at Stanford University in 1980. It provide a short and useful summary of Quine's philosophy. There are four lectures altogether: I. Prolegomena: Mind and its Place in Nature; II. Endolegomena: From Ostension to Quantification; III. Endolegomena loipa: The forked animal; and IV. Epilegomena: What's It all About? The Kant Lectures have been published to date only in Italian and German translation. The present book is filled out (...) with the translator's critical Introduction, "The esoteric Quine?" a bibliography based on Quine's sources, and an Index for the volume. (shrink)

CUPRINS CONTUR Re-Introducere sau: Dincolo de „teoria şi practica” informării şi documentării – Spre o hermeneutică posibilă şi necesară ......................................................... 11 Desfăşurătorul întâlnirilor Atelierului Hermeneutica Bibliohtecaria (Philobiblon) .................................................................................................... ......... 21 FOCUS Noul Program al revistei şi Politica ei Editorială: PHILOBIBLON – Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Humanities .............. 29 Raluca TRIFU, István KIRÁLY V., Consideraţii filosofice, epistemologice şi scientometrice legate de sensurile ştiinţei şi profesiei bibliotecare – Pentru situarea proiectului unei cercetări ............................................................ 31 Valeria SALÁNKI, Cultura organizaţională şi comunicarea în (...) bibliotecă - Studiu asupra culturii organizaţionale în Biblioteca Centrală Universitară „Lucian Blaga” din Cluj ........................................................................................ 44 Raluca TRIFU, István KIRÁLY V., Globalizare şi Individualizare, sau: Marketingul ca metaforă pentru reasumarea şi reconturarea sensurilor serviciilor de bibliotecă – O iniţiativă şi o experienţă românească .................114 Claudiu GAIU, Gabriel Naudé (1600-1653 ) – în slujba Puterii şi a Cărţii ..... 128 Alin Mihai GHERMAN, Timpul scrierii – Manuscrisele .................................... 140 Dana Maria MĂRCUŞ, Sărbătoarea cărţii. Percepţia societăţii româneşti interbelice asupra cărţii şi lecturii ...................................................................... 148 Orsolya ANTAL,Taine în jurul unei satire în spirit voltairian în limbă maghiară de la sfârşitul secolului al XVIII-lea .................................................................... 197 Kinga PAPP, Colligatul Ms 354 şi dramele pierdute ale lui József Mártonfi ....213 Gabriela RUS, Roxana BĂLĂUCĂ, Venceslav Melka în colecţia Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare „Lucian Blaga” Cluj-Napoca ........................................ 222 5 Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria – Antologie Philobiblon - Volumul V Nicolina HALGAŞ, Dimensiunea educativă a bibliotecii publice prin servicii de animaţie pentru copii ....................................................................................... 249 Tünde JANKÓ, Alina NEALCOŞ, Maria CRIŞAN, Mariana GROS, Carmen GOGA, Biblioteca Filială de Ştiinţe Economice - Tradiţional versus modern ................271 Adriana MAN SZÉKELY, Emil SALAMON, Colaborarea Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare „Lucian Blaga” din Cluj-Napoca cu Banca Mondială ............. 290 ORIZONTURI Aurel Teodor CODOBAN, Mass-media şi filosofia – Filosoful ca jurnalist, sau sinteza unei ideologii ostensive ............................................................................. 301 Marian PETCU, Şcoala de ziaristică de la Bucureşti (1951-1989) – Istorii recente .................................................................................................... .. 314 Marcel BODEA S., Timpul matematic în mecanica clasică – o perspectivă epistemologică...................................................................................... ................... 332 Florina ILIS, Fenomenul science fiction şi feţele timpului ................................ 354 Rodica FRENŢIU, Yasunari Kawabata şi nostalgia timpului fără timp ......... 373 Rodica TRANDAFIR, Timpul şi muzica .............................................................. 390 István KIRÁLY V., Întemeierea filosofiei şi ateismul la tânărul Heidegger - Prolegomene la o perspectivă existenţial-ontologică ......................................423 Elena CHIABURU, Consideraţii privitoare la vînzarea la Cochii Vechi şi mezat .................................................................................................... ............... 437 Vlad POPOVICI, Istoriografia medicală românească (1813-2008) .................463 Gheorghe VAIS, Remodelări urbane în Clujul perioadei dualiste (1867-1918)..... 481 Cristina VIDRUŢIU, Ciuma – profilul unei recurenţe istorice supusă unui transplant artistic .................................................................................................. 497 Anna Emese VINCZE, Iluziile pozitive din perspectiva psihologiei evoluţioniste .................................................................................................... 506 6 Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria – Antologie Philobiblon - Volumul V REFLEXII Florentina RĂCĂTĂIANU, Irina Petraş, Literatura română contemporană - O panoramă - Recenzie ...................................................................................... 527 Raluca TRIFU, Filosofia informaţiei si cibernetica – Recenzie ......................... 530 Iulia GRAD, Tematizări în eticile aplicate – perspective feministe (Mihaela Frunză) - Recenzie ................................................................................534 Adrian GRĂNESCU, Biblioteca lui Hitler, cărţile care i-au format personalitatea, de Timothy W. Ryback – Recenzie ............................................. 537 În colecţia BIBLIOTHECA BIBLIOLOGICA au apărut ..............................551 Revista PHILOBIBLON – Volumele apărute ......................................... 556. (shrink)

Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790. In this book, Maimon seeks to further the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason by establishing a new foundation for transcendental philosophy in the idea of difference. Kant judged Maimon to be his most profound critic, and the Essay went on to have a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German Idealism. A more recent admirer (...) was Gilles Deleuze who drew on Maimon's Essay in constructing his own philosophy of difference. This long-overdue translation makes Maimon's brilliant analysis and criticism of Kant's philosophy accessible to an English readership for the first time. The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translators' notes, a bibliography of writings on Maimon and an index. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the essay, all of which bring the book's context alive for the modern reader. (shrink)

The phenomenal character of perceptual experience involves the representation of colour, shape and motion. Does it also involve the representation of high-level categories? Is the recognition of a tomato as a tomato contained within perceptual phenomenality? Proponents of a conservative view of the reach of phenomenal content say ’No’, whereas those who take a liberal view of perceptual phenomenality say ’Yes’. I clarify the debate between conservatives and liberals, and argue in favour of the liberal view that high-level content can (...) directly inform the phenomenal character of perception. (shrink)

The analysis of moral subject in consequentialist ethics (as a kind of nonutilitaristic consequentialism) aims to show, that moral subject is of basie importance for it - regardeless to the fact, that its analysis focuses predominantly on action and its concequences. It is the moral subject, which enables the action and its consequences to be performed. So understanding the conditions of moral subjecťs action means understanding the moral subject itself. This understanding draws upon the typology of moral subjects that makes (...) the prediction of certain kinds of action as well as oftheir consequencies possible. (shrink)

Tim Button explores the relationship between words and world; between semantics and scepticism. -/- A certain kind of philosopher – the external realist – worries that appearances might be radically deceptive. For example, she allows that we might all be brains in vats, stimulated by an infernal machine. But anyone who entertains the possibility of radical deception must also entertain a further worry: that all of our thoughts are totally contentless. That worry is just incoherent. -/- We cannot, then, be (...) external realists, who worry about the possibility of radical deception. Equally, however, we cannot be internal realists, who reject all possibility of deception. We must position ourselves somewhere between internal realism and external realism, but we cannot hope to say exactly where. We must be realists, for what that is worth, and realists within limits. -/- In establishing these claims, The Limits of Realism critically explores and develops several themes from Hilary Putnam’s work: the model-theoretic arguments; the connection between truth and justification; the brain-in-vat argument; semantic externalism; and conceptual relativity. The book establishes the continued significance of these topics for all philosophers interested in mind, logic, language, or the possibility of metaphysics. (shrink)

objects are standardly taken to be causally inert, but this claim is rarely explicitly argued for. In the context of his platonism about musical works, in order for musical works to be audible, Julian Dodd argues that abstracta are causally efficacious in virtue of their concrete tokens participating in events. I attempt to provide a principled argument for the causal inertness of abstracta by first rejecting Dodd’s arguments from events, and then extending and generalizing the causal exclusion argument to the (...) abstract/concrete distinction. For reasons of parsimony, if concrete tokens or instantiations of abstract objects account for all causal work, then there is no reason to attribute causal efficacy to abstracta, and thus reason to maintain their causal inertness. I then consider how one of the main arguments against causal exclusion, namely Stephen Yablo’s notion of “proportionality”, could be modified to support the causal efficacy of abstracta. I argue that from a few simple premises Yablo’s account in fact supports their causal inertness. Having a principled reason for the causal inertness of abstracta appears to entail that the musical platonist must admit that we never literally hear the musical work, but only its performances. I sketch a solution to this problem available to Dodd, so that the musical platonist can maintain that musical works are abstract objects and are causally inert while retaining their audibility. (shrink)

The term ‘Political Theology’ was not coined in the twentieth century. I am not absolutely sure about who was the first to introduce the term. As we shall shortly see, Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) used the term as part of the title to one of the chapters of his 1792/3 Lebensgeschichte, and it is the primary aim of my chapter to explain his understanding of the term. The idea that views about the divine (‘theology’) – true or false – could have (...) an important role in establishing (or undermining) political order and authority, or even in the promotion of the ideal state, goes back to Maimonides, al-Farabi, and ultimately, Plato. We are likely to hear echoes of these writers in the current chapter. Still, in addressing the background of Maimon’s discussion of political theology, I will focus on the one text which exerted the most significant influence on Maimon’s discussion of the issue: Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise (1670). In order to explain Maimon’s understanding of political theology, we will proceed in the following order. In the first part of the chapter we will have our first encounter with the term and the role of secrets in religious matters. The second part will study Maimon’s definitions of, and distinctions among, various forms of religion. In the third and final part we will explore Maimon’s views about “the greatest of all the mysteries of the Jewish religion” and about the nature of that religion. (shrink)

Friedrich Hayek’s defense of neoliberal free market capitalism hinges on the distinction between economies and catallaxies. The former are orders instituted via planning, whereas the latter are spontaneous competitive orders resulting from human action without human design. I argue that this distinction is based on an incomplete semantic history of “economy.” By looking at the meaning of “oikonomia” in medieval providential theology as explained by Giorgio Agamben and Joseph Vogl, I argue how Hayek’s science of catallactics is itself a secularization (...) of providential theology. This exposes Hayek to three criticisms: he unjustifiably neglects the possibility of tendencies toward spontaneous disorder in free markets, he condemns the “losers” of neoliberal competition to being providential waste on the road to general prosperity, and he imposes on people the duty to consent to a neoliberal order that hinders them from cultivating their inoperativity. (shrink)

Brentano’s account of what he called intentionale Inexistenz — what we now call intentionality — is without question one of the most important parts of his philosophy, and one of the most influential ideas in late 19th-century philosophy. Here I will explain how this idea figures in Brentano’s central text, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Brentano 1995a). I will then briefly explain how Brentano’s ideas about intentionality evolved after the first publication of this work in 1874, and how they were (...) then misinterpreted by some influential analytic philosophers. (shrink)

Recent innovations in digital technologies are fundamentally transforming the world of work. A digital gig economy is emerging that threatens to displace traditional labour relations based on legally regulated labour contracts. Companies like Uber, Deliveroo, or Amazon Mechanical Turk rely increasingly on 'independent contractors' who earn piece-rate wages by completing tasks sent to them via their smartphones. This development understandably pushes workers to desire more autonomy, but what would workers' autonomy mean in the digital age? This book argues that the (...) digital gig economy undermines workers' autonomy by putting digital technology in charge of workers' surveillance, leading to exploitation, alienation, and exhaustion. To secure a more sustainable future of work, digital technologies should instead be transformed into tools that support human development instead of subordinating it to algorithmic control. The best guarantee for human autonomy is a politics that transforms digital platforms into convivial tools that obey the rhythm of human life. (shrink)

This paper studies the relationship between labelled and nested calculi for propositional intuitionistic logic, first-order intuitionistic logic with non-constant domains and first-order intuitionistic logic with constant domains. It is shown that Fitting’s nested calculi naturally arise from their corresponding labelled calculi—for each of the aforementioned logics—via the elimination of structural rules in labelled derivations. The translational correspondence between the two types of systems is leveraged to show that the nested calculi inherit proof-theoretic properties from their associated labelled calculi, such as (...) completeness, invertibility of rules and cut admissibility. Since labelled calculi are easily obtained via a logic’s semantics, the method presented in this paper can be seen as one whereby refined versions of labelled calculi (containing nested calculi as fragments) with favourable properties are derived directly from a logic’s semantics. (shrink)

The phenomenology of agency has, until recently, been rather neglected, overlooked by both philosophers of action and philosophers of consciousness alike. Thankfully, all that has changed, and of late there has been an explosion of interest in what it is like to be an agent. 1 This burgeoning field crosses the traditional boundaries between disciplines: philosophers of psychopathology are speculating about the role that unusual experiences of agency might play in accounting for disorders of thought and action; cognitive scientists are (...) developing models of how the phenomenology of agency is generated; and philosophers of mind are drawing connections between the phenomenology of agency and the nature of introspection, phenomenal character, and agency itself. My aim in this paper is not to provide an exhaustive survey of this recent literature, but to provide a.. (shrink)

The ability to focus on relevant information is central to human cognition. It is therefore hardly unsurprising that the notion of relevance appears across a range of different dis- ciplines. As well as its central role in relevance-theoretic pragmatics, for example, rele- vance is also a core concept in the affective sciences, where there is consensus that for a particular object or event to elicit an emotional state, that object or event needs to be relevant to the person in whom (...) that state is elicited. Despite this, although some affective scientists have carefully considered what emotional relevance might mean, surprisingly little research has been dedicated to providing a definition. Since, by contrast, the relevance-theoretic notion of relevance is carefully defined, our primary aim is to compare relevance as it exists in affective science and in relevance theory, A further aim is to redress what we perceive to be an imbalance: Affective scientists have made great strides in understanding the processes of emotion elicitation/responses etc., but despite the fact that among humans the communication of information about emotional states is ubiquitous, pragmatists have tended to ignore it. We conclude, therefore, that affective science and relevance theory have much to learn from each other. (shrink)

CATEGORY: Philosophy play; historical fiction; comedy; social criticism. -/- STORYLINE: Tim, a physics professor with a certain taste for young female university students, recently got a new appointment at a London university. But, as it turns out, he is still unsatisfied. Why? Is it because Rachael unexpectedly left him under strange circumstances? Or does it have to do with his sudden departure from another university? Or is it his research? When Tim meets Christianus for a brown-bag discussion on philosophy and (...) science, new facts and perspectives are revealed. -/- TOPICS: In the course of the play, Tim and Christianus discuss different metaphysical, epistemological, and ontological ideas. Many of these are either related to isssues in the philosophy of science (explanation, methodology, scientific investigation, etc.), or to issues in human psychology and the philosophy of mind (the self vs. the mind, dualism, ‘Who am I?’, etc.). In one scene, for example, Tim tries to invoke ‘Ockham’s Razor’ (or ‘Occam’s Razor’) to quickly dismiss some of Christianus’s metaphysical ideas (see Scene VII: Ockham’s Raisin; Scene XIII: The Raisin Tale Revisited); in another scene, Christianus introduces his ‘Postman’ scenario, and the idea that successful (‘scientific’) prediction or forecasting is not necessarily a sure sign of true understanding (see Scene XV: The Postman Always Turns Twice). -/- NOTES: This work features elaborate footnotes and comments (including full bibliographical references) by the author, to enhance the reader's experience of the play and its philosophizing characters. (shrink)

We provide a direct method for proving Craig interpolation for a range of modal and intuitionistic logics, including those containing a "converse" modality. We demonstrate this method for classical tense logic, its extensions with path axioms, and for bi-intuitionistic logic. These logics do not have straightforward formalisations in the traditional Gentzen-style sequent calculus, but have all been shown to have cut-free nested sequent calculi. The proof of the interpolation theorem uses these calculi and is purely syntactic, without resorting to embeddings, (...) semantic arguments, or interpreted connectives external to the underlying logical language. A novel feature of our proof includes an orthogonality condition for defining duality between interpolants. (shrink)

This thesis introduces the "method of structural refinement", which serves as a means of transforming the relational semantics of a modal and/or constructive logic into an 'economical' proof system by connecting two proof-theoretic paradigms: labelled and nested sequent calculi. The formalism of labelled sequents has been successful in that cut-free calculi in possession of desirable proof-theoretic properties can be automatically generated for large classes of logics. Despite these qualities, labelled systems make use of a complicated syntax that explicitly incorporates the (...) semantics of the associated logic, and such systems typically violate the subformula property to a high degree. By contrast, nested sequent calculi employ a simpler syntax and adhere to a strict reading of the subformula property, making such systems useful in the design of automated reasoning algorithms. However, the downside of the nested sequent paradigm is that a general theory concerning the automated construction of such calculi (as in the labelled setting) is essentially absent, meaning that the construction of nested systems and the confirmation of their properties is usually done on a case-by-case basis. The refinement method connects both paradigms in a fruitful way, by transforming labelled systems into nested (or, refined labelled) systems with the properties of the former preserved throughout the transformation process. To demonstrate the method of refinement and some of its applications, we consider grammar logics, first-order intuitionistic logics, and deontic STIT logics. The introduced refined labelled calculi will be used to provide the first proof-search algorithms for deontic STIT logics. Furthermore, we employ our refined labelled calculi for grammar logics to show that every logic in the class possesses the effective Lyndon interpolation property. (shrink)

Taddeo’s recent article, ‘Information Warfare: A Philosophical Perspective’ (Philos. Technol. 25:105–120, 2012) is a useful addition to the literature on information communications technologies (ICTs) and warfare. In this short response, I draw attention to two issues arising from the article. The first concerns the applicability of ‘information warfare’ terminology to current political and military discourse, on account of its relative lack of contemporary usage. The second engages with the political and ethical implications of treating ICT environments as a ‘domain’, with (...) its ramifications for the pursuit of ‘dominion’, particularly through military action. (shrink)

Abstract objects are standardly taken to be causally inert, however principled arguments for this claim are rarely given. As a result, a number of recent authors have claimed that abstract objects are causally efficacious. These authors take abstracta to be temporally located in order to enter into causal relations but lack a spatial location. In this paper, I argue that such a position is untenable by showing first that causation requires its relata to have a temporal location, but second, that (...) if an entity is temporally located then it is spatiotemporally located since this follows from the theory of Relativity. Since abstract objects lack a spatiotemporal location, then if something is causally efficacious, it is not abstract. (shrink)

Wij presenteren Berardi’s herwerking van de ideologiekritiek in drie stappen. Eerst schetsen wij de context waarin Berardi de ideologiekritiek herdenkt. Hij bouwt verder op de ontdekking van Deleuze en Guattari dat de taal van het kapitalisme niet de code, maar de axiomatiek is. De economische wetenschap biedt, volgens hen, mensen geen identiteit aan, maar bestaat uit een reeks commando’s die stromen van geld, arbeid, elektriciteit, enzovoort reguleert. Daaraan koppelt Berardi de observatie dat het hedendaagse kapitalisme vooral tekens verhandelt in plaats (...) van producten waarnaar zulke tekens zouden verwijzen. In een tweede stap brengen wij tegen deze opvatting in dat Berardi nog steeds vasthoudt aan de representatieve waarde van de economische wetenschap. Deze laatste zou enkel een afbeelding bieden van de realiteit en die vervalsen in het voordeel van het status quo. Sociologen uit de traditie van de actor-netwerktheorie (ANT) hebben dat echter betwist. Zij beweren dat de economische wetenschap de economische realiteit niet zozeer afbeeldt, maar actief vormgeeft. De economische wetenschap heeft de mens geschapen naar zijn evenbeeld: als homo oeconomicus. Het is dan ook een vergissing om de economische wetenschap te bekritiseren voor haar valse representaties. Zij maakt die immers waar. In een derde en laatste stap leggen wij in Berardi’s teksten een nieuw criterium bloot voor ideologiekritiek. In plaats van de economische wetenschap te bekritiseren voor haar valse uitspraken over de realiteit, moeten wij nagaan of de economische wetenschap een manier van leven promoot die mensen in staat zijn te onderhouden. De economische wetenschap is dan ideologisch als en slechts als zij een onhoudbare vorm van leven propageert. Volgens Berardi kan de hedendaagse economische wetenschap hiervan terecht beschuldigd worden. In zijn psychopathologie van het kapitalisme wijst hij immers op de negatieve psychische gevolgen van het hedendaagse kapitalisme, namelijk de instandhouding van een cyclus tussen paniek en depressie, een verlies aan betekenisvol menselijk contact en een neiging tot neurotisch vasthouden aan oude economische recepten die hun failliet reeds meermaals bewezen hebben. Niet de waarheid zal ons verlossen, maar in de verlossing ligt het ware leven. (shrink)

According to conventional wisdom, the split-brain syndrome puts paid to the thesis that consciousness is necessarily unified. The aim of this paper is to challenge that view. I argue both that disunity models of the split-brain are highly problematic, and that there is much to recommend a model of the split-brain—the switch model—according to which split-brain patients retain a fully unified consciousness at all times. Although the task of examining the unity of consciousness through the lens of the split-brain syndrome (...) is not a new one—such projects date back to Nagel’s seminal paper on the topic—the time is ripe for a re-evaluation of the issues. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that perceptual experience is a form of intentionality, i.e., that it has representational content. Many philosophers take this to mean that like belief, experience has propositional content, that it can be true or false. I accept that perceptual experience has intentionality; but I dispute the claim that it has propositional content. This claim does not follow from the fact that experience is intentional, nor does it follow from the fact that experiences are accurate or inaccurate. I (...) end by considering the relationship between this question and the question of whether experience has non-conceptual content. (shrink)

Much recent discussion has focused on the nature of artifacts, particularly on whether artifacts have essences. While the general consensus is that artifacts are at least intention-dependent, an equally common view is function essentialism about artifacts, the view that artifacts are essentially functional objects and that membership in an artifact kind is determined by a particular, shared function. This paper argues that function essentialism about artifacts is false. First, the two component conditions of function essentialism are given a clear and (...) precise formulation, after which counterexamples are offered to each. Second, ways to handle the counterexamples suggested by Randall Dipert and Simon Evnine are considered and rejected. Third, I then consider the prospects for restricting function essentialism to so-called technical artifacts, as Lynne Baker does, and argue that this, too, fails. This paper thereby consolidates the scattered literature on function essentialism and shows that, despite the seeming plausibility of the thesis, it should be rejected as an account of artifact essences. (shrink)

There are empirical grounds to doubt the effectiveness of a common and intuitive approach to teaching debiasing strategies in critical thinking courses. We summarize some of the grounds before suggesting a broader taxonomy of debiasing strategies. This four-level taxonomy enables a useful diagnosis of biasing factors and situations, and illuminates more strategies for more effective bias mitigation located in the shaping of situational factors and reasoning infrastructure—sometimes called “nudges” in the literature. The question, we contend, then becomes how best to (...) teach the construction and use of such infrastructures. (shrink)

Many philosophers are impressed by the progress achieved by physical sciences. This has had an especially deep effect on their ontological views: it has made many of them physicalists. Physicalists believe that everything is physical: more precisely, that all entities, properties, relations, and facts are those which are studied by physics or other physical sciences. They may not all agree with the spirit of Rutherford's quoted remark that 'there is physics; and there is stamp-collecting',' but they all grant physical science (...) a unique ontological authority: the authority to tell us what there is. Physicalism is now almost orthodox in much philosophy, notably in much recent philosophy of mind. But although often invoked, it is rarely explicitly defined. It should be. The claim that everything is physical is not as clear as it seems. In this paper, we examine a number of proposed definitions of physicalism and reasons for being a physicalist. We will argue both that physicalism lacks a clear and credible definition, and that in no non-vacuous interpretation is it true. We are concerned here only with physicalism as a doctrine about the empirical world. In particular, it should not be confused with nominalism, the doctrine that there are no universals.2 Nominalism and physicalism are quite independent doctrines. Believers in universals may as consistently assert as deny that the only properties and relations are those studied by physical science. And nominalists may with equal consistency assert or deny that physical science could provide enough predicates to describe the world. That is the question which concerns physicalists, not whether physical predicates name real universals. (We will for brevity write as if they do, but we do not need that assumption.). (shrink)

Some have claimed that people with very different beliefs literally see the world differently. Thus Thomas Kuhn: ‘what a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual—conceptual experience has taught him to see’ (Kuhn 1970, p. ll3). This view — call it ‘Perceptual Relativism’ — entails that a scientist and a child may look at a cathode ray tube and, in a sense, the first will see it while the second won’t. The (...) claim is not, of course, that the child’s experience is ‘empty’; but that, unlike the scientist, it does not see the tube as a cathode ray tube. One way of supporting this claim is to say that one cannot see something as an F unless one has the concept F. Since the child plainly lacks the concept of a cathode ray tube, it cannot see it as a cathode ray tube. Although Perceptual Relativism is hard to believe, this supporting suggestion is not so implausible. After all, when we see (and more generally, perceive) the world, the world is presented to us in a particular way; so how can we see it as being that way unless we have some idea or conception of the way it is presented? We need not be committed to a representative theory of perception to think that perceptions in some sense represent the world. We can express this by saying that perceptions have content. Now it is a commonplace that the contents of beliefs and the other propositional attitudes involve concepts. The belief that this thing is a cathode ray tube involves, in some sense, the concept cathode ray tube. So the line of thought behind Perceptual Relativism may be expressed thus: seeing an F as an F is a state with content. (shrink)

This work provides proof-search algorithms and automated counter-model extraction for a class of STIT logics. With this, we answer an open problem concerning syntactic decision procedures and cut-free calculi for STIT logics. A new class of cut-free complete labelled sequent calculi G3LdmL^m_n, for multi-agent STIT with at most n-many choices, is introduced. We refine the calculi G3LdmL^m_n through the use of propagation rules and demonstrate the admissibility of their structural rules, resulting in auxiliary calculi Ldm^m_nL. In the single-agent case, we (...) show that the refined calculi Ldm^m_nL derive theorems within a restricted class of (forestlike) sequents, allowing us to provide proof-search algorithms that decide single-agent STIT logics. We prove that the proof-search algorithms are correct and terminate. (shrink)

According to Streeck and Vogl, the neoliberalization of the state has been the result of political-economic developments that render the state dependent on financial markets. However, they do not explain the discursive shifts that would have been required for demoting the state to the role of an agent to bondholders. I propose to explain this shift via the performative effect of neoliberal agency theory. In 1976, Michael Jensen and William Meckling claimed that corporate managers are agents to shareholding principals, which (...) implied that their main task was the procurement of shareholder value. Agency theory subsequently prescribes a series of measures to ensure the alignment of principal and agent interests in corporations. The diffusion of agency theory, however, moved beyond corporate governance to reconfigure the state. Due to its reliance on capital markets, the state supposedly likewise becomes an agent of the investment public and should procure bondholder value. (shrink)

This paper develops my (BJPS 2009) criticisms of the philosophical significance of a certain sort of infinitary computational process, a hyperloop. I start by considering whether hyperloops suggest that "effectively computable" is vague (in some sense). I then consider and criticise two arguments by Hogarth, who maintains that hyperloops undermine the very idea of effective computability. I conclude that hyperloops, on their own, cannot threaten the notion of an effective procedure.

P.F. Strawson argued that ‘mature sensible experience (in general) presents itself as … an immediate consciousness of the existence of things outside us’ (1979: 97). He began his defence of this very natural idea by asking how someone might typically give a description of their current visual experience, and offered this example of such a description: ‘I see the red light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of the elms; I see the dappled deer (...) grazing in groups on the vivid green grass…’ (1979: 97). In other words, in describing experience, we tend to describe the objects of experience – the things which we experience – and the ways they are when we are experiencing them. Some go further. According to Heidegger. (shrink)

Elements of Mind (EM) has two themes, one major and one minor. The major theme is intentionality, the mind’s direction upon its objects; the other is the mind–body problem. I treat these themes separately: chapters 1, and 3–5 are concerned with intentionality, while chapter 2 is about the mind–body problem. In this summary I will first describe my view of the mind–body problem, and then describe the book’s main theme. Like many philosophers, I see the mind–body problem as containing two (...) sub–problems: the problem of mental causation and the problem of consciousness. I see these problems forming the two horns of a dilemma. Just as the problem of mental causation pushes us towards physicalism, so the problem of consciousness pushes us away from it. Each problem reveals the inadequacy of the solution to the other. Essentially the problem of mental causation is the conflict between (i) the apparent fact that mental states and events have effects in the physical world and (ii) a general principle about the causal nature of the physical world, which is sometimes called the ‘causal closure’ or the ‘causal completeness’ of the physical world. This principle says that all physical effects have physical causes which are enough to bring them about. The problem then is simple: how can a mental cause have a physical effect if that effect also has a physical cause which is enough to bring it about? Barring massive overdetermination of our actions by independent causes, it seems that the best answer is to identify the mental and the physical causes. And this is traditionally how physicalists have argued for their identity theory of mind and body. However, many physicalists reject the identity theory, and therefore they have to solve the mental causation problem in some other way. At present, there is no consensus among physicalists on which of the currently proposed solutions is correct. In chapter 2 of EM I propose an alternative, which I call ‘emergentism’. Inspired by the rejection of the identity theory, Emergentism is the idea that mental properties are genu.. (shrink)

Can a person be harmed or wronged by being brought into existence? Can a person be benefited by being brought into existence? Following David Heyd, I refer to these questions as “genethical questions”. This chapter examines three broad approaches to genethics: the no-faults model, the dual-benchmark model, and the parity model. The no-faults model holds that coming into existence is not properly subject to moral evaluation, at least so far as the interests of the person that is to be brought (...) into existence are concerned. The dual benchmark model allows that coming into existence can be subject to moral evaluation, but holds that our judgments about the kinds of lives worth starting ought not be aligned with our judgments about the kinds of lives worth sustaining. I argue against both the no-faults and dual benchmark models. In their place, I argue for a parity approach to genethics, according to which our judgments about the conditions under which life is worth creating ought to be constrained by our judgments about the conditions under which life is worth continuing. (shrink)

This paper shows how to derive nested calculi from labelled calculi for propositional intuitionistic logic and first-order intuitionistic logic with constant domains, thus connecting the general results for labelled calculi with the more refined formalism of nested sequents. The extraction of nested calculi from labelled calculi obtains via considerations pertaining to the elimination of structural rules in labelled derivations. Each aspect of the extraction process is motivated and detailed, showing that each nested calculus inherits favorable proof-theoretic properties from its associated (...) labelled calculus. (shrink)

I advocate scepticism about epistemic blame; the view that we have good reason to think there is no distinctively epistemic form of blame. Epistemologists often find it useful to draw a distinction between blameless and blameworthy norm violation. In recent years, this has led several writers to develop theories of 'epistemic blame.' I present two challenges against the very idea of epistemic blame. First, everything that is supposedly done by epistemic blame is done by epistemic evaluation, at least according to (...) a prominent view about the social role of epistemic evaluation. Parsimony considerations count against introducing an idle mechanism that does the same work as an existing one. Second, no current theory of epistemic blame includes a plausible account of the force of epistemic blame or the practices that could express it. I conclude that we should give up the notion of epistemic blame. (shrink)

Standard Type Theory, STT, tells us that b^n(a^m) is well-formed iff n=m+1. However, Linnebo and Rayo have advocated the use of Cumulative Type Theory, CTT, has more relaxed type-restrictions: according to CTT, b^β(a^α) is well-formed iff β > α. In this paper, we set ourselves against CTT. We begin our case by arguing against Linnebo and Rayo’s claim that CTT sheds new philosophical light on set theory. We then argue that, while CTT ’s type-restrictions are unjustifiable, the type-restrictions imposed by (...) STT are justified by a Fregean semantics. What is more, this Fregean semantics provides us with a principled way to resist Linnebo and Rayo’s Semantic Argument for CTT. We end by examining an alternative approach to cumulative types due to Florio and Jones; we argue that their theory is best seen as a misleadingly formulated version of STT. (shrink)

‘It is of the very nature of consciousness to be intentional’ said Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘and a consciousness that ceases to be a consciousness of something would ipso facto cease to exist’.1 Sartre here endorses the central doctrine of Husserl’s phenomenology, itself inspired by a famous idea of Brentano’s: that intentionality, the mind’s ‘direction upon its objects’, is what is distinctive of mental phenomena. Brentano’s originality does not lie in pointing out the existence of intentionality, or in inventing the terminology, which (...) derives from scholastic discussions of concepts or intentiones.2 Rather, his originality consists in his claim that the concept of intentionality marks out the subject matter of psychology: the mental. His view was that intentionality ‘is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon manifests anything like it’.3 This is Brentano’s thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental. Despite the centrality of the concept of intentionality in contemporary philosophy of mind, and despite the customary homage paid to Brentano as the one who revived the terminology and placed the concept at the centre of philosophy, Brentano’s thesis is widely rejected by contemporary philosophers of mind. What is more, its rejection is not something which is thought to require substantial philosophical argument. Rather, the falsity of the thesis is taken as a starting-point in many contemporary discussions of intentionality, something so obvious that it only needs to be stated to be recognised as true. Consider, for instance, these remarks from the opening pages of Searle’s Intentionality: Some, not all, mental states and events have Intentionality. Beliefs, fears, hopes and desires are Intentional; but there are forms of nervousness, elation and undirected anxiety that are not Intentional.... My beliefs and desires must always be about something. But my nervousness and undirected anxiety need not in that way be about anything.4 Searle takes this as obvious, so obvious that it is not in need of further argument or elucidation. (shrink)

Michel Houellebecq’s Anéantir has received mixed reviews. Houellebecq’s focus on loving intimacy and care for the elderly within the nuclear family allegedly showcases his transformation from an embittered critic of the capitalist status quo to an apolitical novelist interested in the private sphere. I argue that this criticism overlooks Houellebecq’s concerns about old age and love in his earlier novels and how they relate to his social critique. Particularly Houellebecq’s Possibilité d’une île presents a critique of lonely precarity as the (...) dominant mode of being-in-the-world today. Though critics of post-Fordism have already described post-Fordist forms of life as opportunistic, fearful, and cynical, Houellebecq adds that this uncertain marketized lifestyle also leads to bitterness that increases with old age. By confronting Houellebecq’s phenomenology of contemporary life to Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, I argue that, whereas Heidegger highlights the role of anxiety and death in fostering a sense of meaning to human existence, Houellebecq rather argues that such an authentic confrontation with death has become impossible in contemporary culture and that love is instead the emotional tonality most responsive to the cultivation of a meaningful good life. (shrink)

Explanation does not exist in a metaphysical vacuum. Conceptions of the structure of a phenomenon play an important role in guiding attempts to explain it, and erroneous conceptions of a phenomenon may direct investigation in misleading directions. I believe that there is a case to be made for thinking that much work on the neural underpinnings of consciousness—what is often called the neural correlates of consciousness—is driven by an erroneous conception of the structure of consciousness. The aim of this paper (...) is lay bare some connections between the explanation of consciousness and the structure of consciousness, and to argue for a conception of the structure of consciousness that is more adequate than that which currently drives much research into the neural correlates of consciousness. (shrink)