John Ellis McTaggart defended an idealistic view of time in the tradition of Hegel and Bradley. His famous paper makes two independent claims (McTaggart1908): First, time is a complex conception with two different logical roots. Second, time is unreal. To reject the second claim seems to commit to the first one, i.e., to a pluralistic account of time. We compare McTaggarts views to the most important concepts of time investigated in physics, neurobiology, and philosophical phenomenology. (...) They indicate that a unique, reductionist account of time is far from being plausible, even though too many conceptions of time may seem unsatisfactory from an ontological point of view. (shrink)

Since J. McTaggart’s paper on “The Unreality of Time” the opposition of “A-theorists” and “B-theorists” establishes a focal point in the modern debate on the metaphysics of time: While “A-theorists” claim the existence of an objective present, moving along time positions, “B-theorists” maintain that time is just a set of ontologically equivalent coordinates, “now” being merely the indexical of the speaker’s position. Contemporary attempts to resolve the issue by resorting to the analysis of language or (...) to the theory of science seem to deliver no definite results. By contrast, practical and existential aspects of the two models promise to be more univocal guides in deciding between them. Particularly, C. D. Broad’s hybrid conception of a “growing block theory” attains special attractiveness in this regard. (shrink)

William Whewell’s philosophy of science is often overlooked as a relic of 19th century Whiggism. I argue however that his view – suitably modified – can contribute to contemporary philosophy of science, particularly to debates around scientific progress. The reason Whewell’s view needs modification is that he makes the following problematic claim: as science progresses, it reveals necessarily truths and thereby grants a glimpse of the mind of God. Modifying Whewell’s view will involve reinventing his notion of necessary truth as (...) the pragmatist notion of superassertibility. And, if scientific progress does not uncover necessary truths, then it does not reveal the mind of God. The result is an outline of an account of scientific progress that is piecemeal and fallibilist in nature, yet at the same time maintains key Whewellian themes of consilience and the unity of science. (shrink)

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

On a widely held view in aesthetics, appreciation requires disinterested attention. George Dickie famously criticized a version of this view championed by the aesthetic attitude theorists. I revisit his criticisms and extract an overlooked challenge for accounts that seek to characterize appreciative engagement in terms of distinctive motivation: at minimum, the motivational profile such accounts propose must make a difference to how appreciative episodes unfold over time. I then develop a proposal to meet this challenge by drawing an analogy (...) between how attention is guided in appreciation and how practical action is guided in ‘striving play’—a mode of game play recently foregrounded in the philosophy of games. On the resulting account, appreciation involves an ‘inverted’ motivational structure: the appreciating agent's attention is guided by cognitive goals taken up instrumentally, for the sake of the cognitive activity that results from attending under the guidance of those goals. (shrink)

McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time is generally believed to be a self-contained argument independent of McTaggart's idealist ontology. I argue that this is mistaken. It is really a demonstration of a contradiction in the appearance of time, on the basis of certain a priori ontological axioms, in particular the thesis that all times exist in parity. When understood in this way, the argument is neither obscure or unfounded, but arguably does not address those versions of (...) the A-theory that deny that all times exist in parity. (shrink)

Seeing how the idea of the ‘ruler cult’ and the necessary ‘myth-making’ to establish it exists to this day, as seen with the regime of a 21st century dictator like Kim Jong-il, it would be most interesting to see what parallels exist between cases of divine leadership and what we might learn about our contemporary cult rulers when looking at the dynamics of the two-millennia-old cult of the deified Emperor Augustus. As such, I have formulated a central question that focuses (...) on the reign of Divus Augustus, and in doing so provides opportunity to extrapolate from it new insights in similar but contemporary figures of leadership. A clear case of 'to understand motives in the present, one must look at actions in the past.'. (shrink)

McTaggart, in his famous paper, “The Unreality of Time” (1908), argues in favor of the sceptical claim that time is unreal. His main argument is based on detecting a paradox in our ordinary descriptions of time or events occurring in time. Based on our common sense conception of time, time and the events happening in it can be described in two ways: either as having the properties of “being past”, “being present” and “being (...) future”, or as having the properties of “being earlier than”, “being later than”, or “being simultaneous with”. McTaggart argues that employing the second sort of properties fails to properly explain “change” in time. However, having assumed the essentiality of the first type of properties to time, McTaggart argues that these properties will themselves lead to a paradox, according to which all events are at the same time in the past, present, and future. In this essay, we are going to provide a clear exposition of McTaggart’s argument and briefly review some of the main responses to it. We will then show that McTaggart’s argument will amount to error-theory about the content of our utterances about time. We will then employ Boghossian’s argument against error-theory (1990) to show why McTaggart’s argument leads to paradoxical conclusions. (shrink)

This paper’s aim is to establish an explanation for the separation of Northern minds, by examining the influence of a variety of factors on the shaping of people’s sense of identity at the time. Near the end of the 16th century the Groningers had proven to be a people with a mind of their own—impetuous, unruly and, in the end, unwilling to join the Republic in its efforts to liberate itself from its oppressive Spanish overlord. One by one the (...) Dutch cities had joined the revolution, but the city of Groningen refused. The ‘Ommelanden’—the city’s surrounding territory—however, did not—laying bare a critical disagreement between two ‘classes’: the Saxon city elite and the predominantly Frisian countryside nobles (Dutch plural: landjonkers/jonkheren). (shrink)

'The most famous of sanctuaries of Asclepius had their origin from Epidaurus’, Pausanias writes in his Hellados Periegesis (‘Description of Greece’). All across the Aegean and beyond, word of the salutary reputation of Epidaurian divinity had spread. And as tales of Epidaurus’ sanctuary of Asclepius travelled the lands and crossed the seas, so did the urge to ensure that the Epidaurian success formula was, as we say, coming soon to a place near you. So we know Epidaurus had managed to (...) make a name for itself: all the way from the Argolid Peninsula to Asia Minor and the shores of Northern Africa. But what exactly had led to its rise in prominence? What about Epidaurus allowed for it to transcend its local cult-status? And how did its celebrated reputation and meaning change across places and time? What, in other words, is the story of what is often simply referred to as the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus? (shrink)

If Jewish Bolsheviks could put an end to the imperial rule of the Romanovs, could they pose a threat to the vision of a Third Reigh? A question the German National Socialists are likely to have asked themselves before and on the eve of plotting the rise of the Nazi regime. After all, Europe had had a long-standing relationship with blaming the Jews for the world’s miseries. A relationship Germany was ready to refuel, as indicated by German Field Marshal Walter (...) von Reichenau, when he stated that ‘the most essential aim of war against the Jewish-bolshevistic system is a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of Asiatic influence from the European culture.’ But the German fears of Jewish interference with their great scheme for Europe’s future, must surely have been inspired by more than just the age-old conspiratorial allegation that Jews were the main forces behind world politics. As such, this essay will seek to inspect the apparent rise of antisemitic fears at the time, and put a case forward to show how religion played into all this. (shrink)

McTaggart, in his famous paper, “The Unreality of Time” (1908), argues in favor of the sceptical claim that time is unreal. His main argument is based on detecting a paradox in our ordinary descriptions of time or events occurring in time. Based on our common sense conception of time, time and the events happening in it can be described in two ways: either as having the properties of “being past”, “being present” and “being (...) future”, or as having the properties of “being earlier than”, “being later than”, or “being simultaneous with”. McTaggart argues that employing the second sort of properties fails to properly explain “change” in time. However, having assumed the essentiality of the first type of properties to time, McTaggart argues that these properties will themselves lead to a paradox, according to which all events are at the same time in the past, present, and future. In this essay, we are going to provide a clear exposition of McTaggart’s argument and briefly review some of the main responses to it. We will then show that McTaggart’s argument will amount to error-theory about the content of our utterances about time. We will then employ Boghossian’s argument against error-theory (1990) to show why McTaggart’s argument leads to paradoxical conclusions. (shrink)

The article is aimed to describe one of the aspects of the phenomenological analysis of time, namely the role of motion. One of the not published manuscripts of Husserl in which he reconsiders the problematic of transcendental aesthetics of Kant from phenomenological positions undertakes a basis. Aspects of the problem of time are considered in the light of Husserl’s interpretation to the purposes of transcendental aesthetics. The concept of motion is connected with the process of a constitution of (...) phantom, a problem of identity of a thing, specific character of causality, a unity of perception. This spectrum of problems of the transcendental-phenomenological aesthetics underlines the difference of Husserl’s concept of consciousness of time as directed on the present, as «Gegenwärtigung». (shrink)

An examination of McTaggart’s [1908] argument for the unreality of time.

The intention of this critical review of McTaggart’s 1908 paper is to bring about a distinction between Time and Motion . This distinction is crucial to our understanding of both time as well as motion because so far they have ben treated by all as one and the same. McTaggart, by at least recognizing two different “series” which he calls the A-series and the B-series, has given us a starting point to further understand this distinction. In the process (...) of establishing this distinction we will find ourselves encountering new concepts hitherto unrecognized in philosophy and physics and eventually understand the basis of the numerous paradoxes that time and motion involve dating all the way back to Zeno. (shrink)

In the debate about Heidegger’s commitment to National Socialism is often referred to his membership in the „Committee for the Philosophy of Right“ of the „Academy for German Law“ that was founded by then „Reichsminister“ Hans Frank in 1934. Since the protocols of the Committee were destroyed and there is no relevant information in other writings, nothing can be said about the frequency and content of the meetings. It is only documented that the committee was dissolved in 1938. However, in (...) the past year the philosopher Sidonie Kellerer and the semiotician François Rastier referred to a document that, they say, proves that Heidegger was in the committee until 1941/42 and that the latter participated „in practice“ (Rastier) in the Holocaust. The said document was depicted for the first time in the above mentioned FAZ publication and will be analysed in the present essay. It is exluded in it that the document proves the continuity of the „Committee for the Philosophy of Right“ until 1941/42 or even the participation mentioned. It is rather possible to conclude in the frame of high probability that in the document were listed only the names and addresses of possible experts for the conversion of the Civil Code into a „Volksgesetzbuch“. The allegation of the committee’s participation in the Holocaust is rejected as being untenable. The publication of the article in the FAZ triggered the „Debate about Heidegger and Fake News“. In der Debatte um das Engagement des Philosophen Martin Heidegger für den Nationalsozialismus wird oft auf seine Mitgliedschaft in dem vom damaligen Reichsminister Hans Frank gegründeten „Ausschuss für Rechtsphilosophie“ innerhalb der „Akademie für Deutsches Recht“ verwiesen, der 1934 gegründet wurde. Da die Protokolle des Ausschusses zerstört wurden und auch in anderen Schriften keine diesbezüglichen Angaben zu finden sind, lässt sich nichts über die Häufigkeit und den Inhalt der Tagungen sagen. Es ist nur belegt, dass der Ausschuss 1938 offiziell aufgelöst wurde. Im vergangenen Jahr, im September 2017, referierten die Philosophin Sidonie Kellerer und der Linguist François Rastier jedoch auf ein Schriftstück, das belege, dass Heidegger bis 1941/42 in dem Ausschuss war und dieser auch „in der Praxis“ (Rastier) am Holocaust teilgenommen habe. Das Schriftstück wurde in der obigen Publikation der FAZ erstmals abgebildet und wird hier im Detail analysiert. Dabei kann begründetermaßen ausgeschlossen werden, dass das besagte Dokument den Fortbestand des „Ausschusses für Rechtsphilosophie“ oder die genannte Teilhabe belege. Nach hinreichender Analyse muss vielmehr in dem Rahmen hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit geschlossen werden, dass dort nur Namen und Adressen von potentiellen Gutachtern für die Umwandlung des BGB in ein „Volksgesetzbuch“ aufgelistet wurden. Der Vorhalt einer Teilhabe des Ausschusses am Holocaust wird als ganz unhaltbar zurückgewiesen. Die Publikation des Artikels in der FAZ löste die „Debatte über Heidegger und Fake News“ aus. (shrink)

The lectures on Heidegger‘s Being and Time held at a congress in Siegen (by Charles Bambach, Dieter Thomä, Johannes Fritsche, Rainer Marten et al.) and published in a book in the spring of 2019, are subject to a revision here. In particular, the works of the group around Emmanuel Faye are considered sect-like sessions of the intention to interpret Being and Time by the later Nazi identity of its author. Due to the dominance of these interpretations, the conference (...) is criticized under this aspect as „Congress of Braunfärber“ (i.e. those who dye it brown). Die auf einem Kongress in Siegen gehaltenen Vorträge zu Heideggers Sein und Zeit (von Charles Bambach, Dieter Thomä, Johannes Fritsche, Rainer Marten u.a.), im Frühling 2019 in Buchform publiziert, werden hier einer Revision unterzogen. Insbesondere die Arbeiten der Gruppe um Emmanuel Faye werden dabei als sektenhafte Sessionen des Unternehmen bewertet, „Sein und Zeit von der späteren nazistischen Mission seines Verfassers her zu lesen“. Aufgrund der Dominanz dieser Deutung wird die Tagung in Siegen wird unter diesem Gesichtspunkt als “Kongress der Braunfärber“ kritisiert. (shrink)

One of the most famous and most important commentaries of the Neoplatonist Simplicius treats the Physics of Aristotle. Several times, having commented the text within the Aristotelian frame, Simplicius treats the same subject again but now under a Neoplatonist perspective. These texts are called corollaries and one of them is about time. Discussing other Neoplatonist views about time (esp. Pseudo-Archytas, Plotinus, Damascius, Jamblichus), he tries to clarify the nature of our physical time arising from and differentiating (diakrisis) (...) a ”first“ unmoving time. What Simplicius calls ”first time“ is the very first difference in being, identical with the fact that the soul (psyche) contains the structure of the totality of things in itself before they exist materially (vorweg-bei-anderem-Sein der Seele), which makes possible the original synthesis of becoming. Following this line, our physical time brings unity to the ever changing nature. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to characterize the issue whether tense is real. Roughly, this is the issue whether, given any tensed representation, its tense corresponds in some suitably direct way to some feature of reality. The task is to make this less rough. Eight characterizations of the issue are considered and rejected, before one is endorsed. On this characterization, the unreality of tense is equivalent to the unity of temporal reality. The issue whether tense is real, so (...) characterized, is then related to Kant’s deduction of the categories in his Critique of Pure Reason. It is argued that Kant’s deduction does not provide the argument for the unreality of tense that it may appear to. The conclusion drawn at the end of the essay is that the unreality of tense cannot be argued for—not because tense is real, but because, even if it is unreal, its unreality is basic. (shrink)

Der Artikel analysiert die Aussagen Fichtes zur ästhetischen Diskussion seiner Zeit und die von ihm entwickelte Kulturauffassung als Mittler zwischen empirischen und transzendentalen Ich bis hin zur Aufnahme seiner Theoreme in der Jenaer Frühromantik. The article analyzes Fichte's statements on the aesthetic discussion of his time and the conception of culture he developed as a mediator between the empirical and transcendental ego up to the inclusion of his theorems in the Jena early romantic period.

Definition of the problem: The connection between time and the good life has already been worked out for a number of medical specialties and practices. However, what role does the temporality of the good life play for medicine as a whole? That is the central question of this article. Arguments: The good life is here understood as a meaningful life. Living meaningfully is only possible through present action. A fulfilled presence in this sense is therefore an essential aspect of (...) the temporality of the good life. Illness tends to prevent a fulfilled presence. In this respect, medical treatments aim to enable a fulfilled presence. A second structure of time, that is central to the good life, consists in the chronobiological rhythms, upon the maintenance and restoration of which health is critically dependent. Conclusion: The temporality of the good life has a twofold relevance for medicine as a whole. First, the purpose of medical treatment is to enable a fulfilled present. Second, this can and should be done by maintaining and restoring chronobiological rhythms. ++++ Der Zusammenhang von Zeit und gutem Leben wurde bereits für eine Reihe medizinischer Disziplinen und Praktiken herausgearbeitet. Doch welche Rolle spielt die Zeitlichkeit des guten Lebens für die Medizin insgesamt? Das ist die leitende Frage dieses Artikels. Dabei wird das gute Leben als sinnvolles Leben verstanden. In diesem Sinne wird für eine zweifache medizinische Relevanz der Zeitlichkeit des guten Lebens argumentiert: Erstens besteht der Sinn medizinischer Behandlungen in der Ermöglichung erfüllter Gegenwart. Zweitens kann und sollte ebendies u. a. durch die Wahrung und Wiederherstellung der chronobiologischen Rhythmen geschehen. (shrink)

J. McTaggart argues that the philosophical conception of time is constituted by the notions of fluid and static time. Since, on his view, neither notion is philosophically viable, he concludes that time is nothing but an illusion that arises from our distorted perception of essentially atemporal reality. In the paper, I argue that despite McTaggart’s failure to prove the unreality of time as such, he does succeed in establishing his lesser claim that the concept of (...) fluid time is without any ontological import whatsoever. (shrink)

Heidegger Being and Time, Sein und Zeit (1927): An Index -/- By -/- Daniel Fidel Ferrer -/- and -/- Ritu Sharma -/- 1. Heidegger, Martin, -- 1889-1976. 2. Heidegger, Martin, -- 1889-1976 -- Concordances. 3. Heidegger, Martin, -- 1889-1976 -- Indexes. 4). Metaphysics. 5). Philosophy, German. 6). Heidegger, Martin; -- Wörterbuch. 7). Sein und Zeit. English. 8). Ontology. 9). Space and time. 10). Being and Time [Sein und Zeit]. I. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. II. (...) Sharma, Ritu. -/- Pages for this volume 1-655. Total words indexed: 24,638. For the two volumes that are indexed: pages 1 to 1106. Total pages in this volume is 654. The actual texts are not included because of copyright. This is an experiment in to indexing two different languages: German and English in the same index. -/- The following is a machine index of two volumes written by Martin Heidegger. The first volume is the German edition of Sein und Zeit, GA 2. The second is the same volume only translated into English by Joan Stambaugh as Being and Time (1996). -/- Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (German edition Sein und Zeit) published in 1927 is one of the most famous philosophical book published in the 20th century; and remains his most renowned book. Being and Time is listed in the overall ranking of the 100 most cited books of the 20th century. Boston Public Library ranks it as number 1 out of 100. Argument from authority, Being and Time is an incredibly influential book. Example from the Main Index: -/- Abandon[5], 1051, 1089, 1090, 1092 abandon[2], 679, 749 abandoned[5], 677, 808, 841, 970, 992 abandoning[2], 780, 1099 Abandonment[1], 1040 abandonment[4], 875, 945, 1098, 1099 abandonrnent[1], 1092 abandons[1], 972 Abart[1], 216 Abbiendung[1], 271. (shrink)

This paper argues that the principle of continuity that underlies Benjamin’s understanding of what makes the reality of a thing thinkable, which in the Kantian context implies a process of “filling time” with an anticipatory structure oriented to the subject, is of a different order than that of infinitesimal calculus—and that a “discontinuity” constitutive of the continuity of experience and (merely) counterposed to the image of actuality as an infinite gradation of ultimately thetic acts cannot be the principle on (...) which Benjamin bases the structure of becoming. Tracking the transformation of the process of “filling time” from its logical to its historical iteration, or from what Cohen called the “fundamental acts of time” in Logik der reinen Erkenntnis to Benjamin’s image of a language of language (qua language touching itself), the paper will suggest that for Benjamin, moving from 0 to 1 is anything but paradoxical, and instead relies on the possibility for a mathematical function to capture the nature of historical occurrence beyond paradoxes of language or phenomenality. (shrink)

Was heißt die existenziale Analytik? Um diese Grundfrage der Fundamentalontologie zu beantworten, geht der Autor von der Problematik des Ich-Sagens aus. Während der Marburger Vorlesungen entstand der Begriff Dasein durch Heideggers Umdeutung der aristotelischen Seele anhand des leiblich-lebensweltlichen Subjektivitätsbegriffs Husserls. Dabei entwickelte Heidegger mittels des Diltheyschen Begriffs Bedeutsamkeit das Noema als Zeug hermeneutisch weiter. Um das Sein eines Ich durch Handlungsprädikate auszulegen, ist es notwendig, mit der Bedeutsamkeit der Welt vorbegrifflich vertraut zu sein. Das Verstehen als Weltvertrautheit ist das Existenzial, (...) d. h. die Bedingung der Möglichkeit für das Ich-Sagen. So schlägt der Autor vor, die Schemata: Das Umwillen seiner , das Wovor und das Um-zu als Schematismus der Handlung zu deuten. Darüber hinaus wird untersucht, warum die geschichtliche Rationalität trotz seiner Aufnahme der praktischen Philosophie Aristoteles’ und Kants von Heidegger vernachlässigt wurde. (shrink)

Inspired by Bas van Fraassen’s Stance Empiricism, Anjan Chakravartty has developed a pluralistic account of what he calls epistemic stances towards scientific ontology. In this paper, I examine whether Chakravartty’s stance pluralism can exclude epistemic stances that licence pseudo-scientific practices like those found in Scientology. I argue that it cannot. Chakravartty’s stance pluralism is therefore prone to a form of debilitating relativism. I consequently argue that we need (1) some ground or constraint in relation to which epistemic stances can be (...) ranked by degrees, and (2) some way to demarcate science from pseudo-science so that we know what epistemic stances are about. Regarding (1), I argue that empirical detectability can serve as the ground in relation to which epistemic stances are ranked by degrees. Regarding (2), I argue for ranking sciences on a continuum according to established institutional criteria, rather than attempting to draw a strict demarcation. (shrink)

This essay surveys the main objections to aesthetic hedonism, the view that aesthetic value is reducible to the value of aesthetic pleasure or experience. Hedonism is the dominant view of aesthetic value, but a spate of recent criticisms has drawn its accuracy into question. I introduce some distinctions crucial to the criticisms, before using the bulk of the essay to identify and review six major lines of argument that hedonism's critics have employed against it. Whether or not these arguments suffice (...) to refute hedonism decisively, I argue that its privileged status, as the sole contender in aesthetic value theory, is detrimental to downstream research on aesthetic phenomena. The essay concludes with an overview of current work and promising avenues of inquiry into non-hedonic alternatives. (shrink)

William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science is sometimes glossed over as a footnote to Kant. There is however a key feature of Whewell’s account worth noting. This is his appeal to Aristotle’s form/matter hylomorphism as a metaphor to explain how mind and world merge in successful scientific inquiry. Whewell’s hylomorphism suggests a middle way between rationalism and empiricism reminiscent of experience pragmatists like Steven Levine’s view that mind and world are entwined in experience. I argue however that Levine does (...) not adequately explain exactly how mind and world entwine. He could nonetheless do so if he appealed to Whewell’s hylomorphic metaphor. We may prefer a reductive metaphysical explanation, but I suggest that pragmatists only have recourse to metaphor in this case. Both reductive and metaphorical explanations can enjoy great explanatory power if they exhibit a suitable measure of what I will call sematic distance. Semantic distance measures how close or how far apart explanandum and explanans are from each other in meaning. Metaphorical explanation - as evident in Whewell’s hylomorphism and as detailed via the notion of semantic distance - presents a valuable new explanatory tool to those who hold that mind and world are entwined sans recourse to metaphysics. (shrink)

Epistemic pluralists in the philosophy of science often argue that different epistemic perspectives in science are equally warranted. Sandra Mitchell – with her Integrative Pluralism (IP) – has notably advocated for this kind of epistemic pluralism. A problem arises for Mitchell however because she also wants to be an epistemological pluralist. She claims that, not only are different epistemic perspectives in science equally warranted in different contexts, but different understandings of these epistemic perspectives in science are also equally warranted in (...) different contexts. The problem is that Mitchell argues that her understanding of epistemic perspectives in science (IP) is the correct one, and it is dilemmic to then claim that there is more than one such understanding. As solution, I suggest that we abandon epistemological pluralism and instead follow Feyerabend in being opportunistic pluralists. We can adopt pluralism as a short-term strategy in the pursuit of a long-term unitary goal. This unitary goal is what philosophers of understanding call objectual understanding, the kind of understanding that Integrative Pluralism tacitly aspires to anyway. (shrink)

State legitimacy is often said to have two aspects: an internal and an external one. Internally, a legitimate state has the right to rule over its subjects. Externally, it has a right that outsiders not interfere with its domestic governance. But what is the relation between these two aspects? In this paper, I defend a conception of legitimacy according to which these two aspects are related in an importantly asymmetrical manner. In particular, a legitimate state’s external right to rule affords (...) it protections that include and go beyond what its internal right to rule enables it to do. This asymmetrical view, I argue, is preferable to its two main rivals: the view that a state’s internal and external legitimacy are separate issues, and the view that internal and external legitimacy are mirroring. (shrink)

Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In this paper, I argue that TAP includes various (explicit or implicit) metaphysical commitments: commitments to (1) scientific realism, (...) (2) downward causation and teleology, and (3) modal realism. If TAP is to hang together as the kind of robust philosophical thesis it evidently aspires to be, it needs an account – an account that is currently absent – of its metaphysical commitments. It is however unclear how such an account can be developed since various dilemmas present themselves when one explores how subscribers to TAP might do so. (shrink)

Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither approach adequately accounts for how successful action is possible in complex systems. Agents regularly perform successful actions without (...) obeying (explicit or implicit) algorithmic rules (as the analytic approach suggests) and without an existential leap to action (as the post-modern approach suggests). We offer an alternative: A common-sense pragmatist epistemology, one that focuses on the kind of actions making up most agents’ successful moment-to-moment actions in complex systems. Successful actions obtain when agents apply ceteris paribus rules-of-thumb during predictive and decisional practices while achieving some desired goal. (shrink)

This article asks whether states have a right to close their borders because of their right to self-determination, as proposed recently by Christopher Wellman, Michael Walzer, and others. It asks the fundamental question whether self-determination can, in even its most unrestricted form, support the exclusion of immigrants. I argue that the answer is no. To show this, I construct three different ways in which one might use the idea of self-determination to justify immigration restrictions and show that each of these (...) arguments fails. My conclusion is that the nature and value of self-determination have to do with the conditions of genuine self-government, not membership of political society. Consequently, the demand for open borders is fully consistent with respect to self-determination. (shrink)

It is often alleged that Cantor’s views about how the set theoretic universe as a whole should be considered are fundamentally unclear. In this article we argue that Cantor’s views on this subject, at least up until around 1896, are relatively clear, coherent, and interesting. We then go on to argue that Cantor’s views about the set theoretic universe as a whole have implications for theology that have hitherto not been sufficiently recognised. However, the theological implications in question, at least (...) as articulated here, would not have satisfied Cantor himself. (shrink)

Several complexity theorists draw a sharp and ontologically robust distinction between (merely) complicated systems and (genuinely) complex systems. I argue that this distinction does not hold. Upon fine-grained analysis, ostensibly complicated systems turn out to be complex systems. The purported boundary between the complicated and the complex appears to be vague rather than sharp. Systems are complex by degrees.

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

Digital technologies create and shape our environments, the infosphere, where we spend increasingly more time. Through exploration of such concepts as "latency", "real time" and "unreal time", this article discusses how time has changed due to the digital revolution over the past half-century.

Douglas Edwards is arguably the most prominent contemporary advocate of moderate alethic pluralism. Significantly influenced by Crispin Wright and Michael Lynch, his work on the nature of truth has become widely discussed in the topical literature. Edwards labels his version of moderate alethic pluralism determination pluralism. At first blush, determination pluralism appears philosophically promising. The position deserves thoughtful consideration, particularly because of its capacity to accommodate the scope problem. I argue, however, that upon analysis the view is better understood as (...) a form of metaphysical dualism or what I will call meta-dualism. Furthermore, determination pluralists face a dilemma; there appears to be an instability at the core of their dualistic model. On the one horn of the dilemma, they need a clear metaphysical demarcation at the interface of their two necessary domains. On the other horn, they seem to need to a metaphysically vague boundary at the interface of their two necessary domains. Determination pluralism needs substantial revision. (shrink)

Some alethic pluralists maintain that there are two kinds of truths operant in our alethic discourse: a realist kind and an anti-realist kind. In this paper, we argue that such a binary conception cannot accommodate certain social truths, specifically truths about race. Most alethic pluralists surprisingly overlook the status of racial truths. Douglas Edwards is, however, an exception. In his version of alethic pluralism—Determination Pluralism—racial truths are superassertible (anti-realist) true rather than correspondence (realist) true. We argue that racial truths exhibit (...) features of both superassertibility (anti-realism) and correspondence (realism). This suggests a fuzzy boundary between realist and anti-realist kinds of truth. There may be a continuum rather than a dichotomy of truths. We conclude by sketching one way for alethic pluralists to accommodate such a notion. (shrink)

One of the theories that have been produced in linguistics in the light of J. E. McTaggart’s influential essay “The Unreality of Time” (1908) is a critique of reality that may be attributed to the semantics of tenses in natural languages. This chapter from my book The Linguistic Picture of the World: Alice’s Adventures in Many Languages proposes an alternative approach to the semantics of time, not as a dubious product of linguists’ imagination, i.e. not as something (...) that can easily be discarded from the philosophy of language but rather as a firm category of human thinking. Particular emphasis is placed on the idea of time as it is expressed by the seemingly rather contradictory morphology of the past, present, and future. (shrink)

For more than one decade, Andy Clark has defended the now-famous extended mind thesis, the idea that cognitive processes leak into the world. In this paper I analyse Clark’s theoretical justification for the thesis: explanatory simplicity. I argue that his way of justifying the thesis leads into contradiction, either at the level of propositional attitude ascriptions or at the theoretical level. I evaluate three possible strategies of dealing with this issue, concluding that they are all likely to fail and that (...) therefore, as regards explanatory simplicity, the burden of proof is on Clark’s side. The paper divides into two main sections: in “Simplicity and Coherence”, I define the two concepts that are important in this context (simplicity and explanatory coherence). In “How to Cope with Coherence”, these two concepts are applied to the central thought experiment, the Inga/Otto case. It will be shown that justifying the extended mind thesis by reference to simplicity may cause trouble, because ‘extended’ behavioural descriptions are likely to yield rather complicated explanations. (shrink)

Paul Cilliers has developed a novel post-structural approach to complexity that has influenced several writers contributing to the current complexity literature. Concomitantly however, Cilliers advocates for modelling complex systems using connectionist neural networks (rather than analytic, rule-based models). In this paper, I argue that it is dilemmic to simultaneously hold these two positions. Cilliers’ post-structural interpretation of complexity states that models of complex systems are always contextual and provisional; there is no exclusive model of complex systems. This sentiment however appears (...) at odds with Cilliers’ promotion of connectionist neural networks as the best way to model complex systems. The lesson is that those who currently follow Cilliers’ post-structural approach to complexity cannot also develop a preferred model of complex systems, and those who currently advocate for some preferred model of complex systems cannot adopt the post-structural approach to complexity without giving up the purported objectivity and/or superiority of their preferred model. (shrink)

The idea that law claims authority (LCA) has recently been forcefully criticized by a number of authors. These authors present a new and intriguing objection, arguing that law cannot be said to claim authority if such a claim is not justified. That is, these authors argue that the view that law does not have authority viciously conflicts with the view that law claims authority. I will call this the normative critique of LCA. In this article, I assess the normative critique (...) of LCA, focusing predominantly on the arguments presented by its most incisive proponent Philip Soper. I defend a twofold conclusion. First, LCA, understood roughly along the lines put forward by Joseph Raz, is part of the most attractive analysis of law. Second, proponents of the normative critique, and in particular Soper, are committed to accepting LCA. (shrink)

Most treatments of territorial rights include a discussion (and rejection) of Locke. There is a remarkable consensus about what Locke’s views were. For him, states obtain territorial rights as the result of partial transfers of people’s property rights. In this article, I reject this reading. I argue that (a) for Locke, transfers of property rights were neither necessary nor sufficient for territorial rights and that (b) Locke in fact held a two-part theory of territorial rights. I support this reading by (...) appealing to textual and contextual evidence. I conclude by drawing a lesson from Locke’s views for current debates on territorial rights. (shrink)

While some are currently debating whether time may or may not be an illusion, others keep devoting their time to the science of consciousness. Time as such may be seen as a physical or a subjective variable, and the limitations in our capacity of perceiving and analyzing temporal order and change in physical events definitely constrain our understanding of consciousness which, in return, constrains our conceptual under-standing of time. Temporal codes generated in the brain have been (...) considered as the key to insight into neural function and, ultimately, as potential neural substrates of consciousness itself. On the basis of cur-rent evidence and opinion from neuroscience and philosophy, we consider the interrelation between con-sciousness and time in the light of Hegel and Heidegger’s concepts of Sein (Being) and Zeit (Time). We suggest that consciousness can be defined in terms of a succession of psychological moments where we realize that we exist in, and are part of, a present moment in time. This definition places all other percep-tual or sensorial processes which may characterize phenomenal experience at a different level of analysis and centers the debate around consciousness on the fundamental identity link between awareness of the Ich (I) and awareness of what Heidegger termed Ursprüngliche Zeit (original time). We argue that human consciousness has evolved from the ability to be aware of, to remember, and to predict temporal order and change in nature, and that the limits of this capacity are determined by limits in the functional plasticity of resonant brain mechanisms. Although the conscious state of the Self is the ultimate expression of this evolution, it is devoid of any adaptive function as such. (shrink)

The most discussed of architectural marvels tend to be the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or the Parthenon at Athens, supposedly because they are the ones we happen to have nominated ‘world wonders’; but that doesn’t mean all the rest of temple-type sites to be found across the greater Mediterranean area have less wonder about them. On the contrary; when wanting to explore and explain the role temples played in the lives of their ‘subscribers’ and a (...) temple site’s place as often the nucleus of a community, the Serapeum at Alexandria is as excellent a piece of architecture to examine as any. (shrink)

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

Dit werkstuk betrekt zich op de vraag of de de facto legitimiteit van Knoet de Grote als koning van Angelsaksisch Engeland, te verklaren is aan de hand van de theorieën over legitimiteit zoals gepostuleerd door Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (1864—1920). Bestaande literatuur over Knoet de Grote zijn troonsbestijging, zoals dat van vooraanstaand 19e-eeuws historicus Edward Augustus Freeman, zou een ‘geromantiseerd’ beeld hebben geschetst van de kwestie. Dit werkstuk zal kijken of dit beeld, aan de hand van Webers theorie over waar (...) legitimiteit in gegrond kan zijn, ten eerste terecht te noemen is en, ten tweede, of het Knoets status als legitiem vorst van het ‘Angelsaksische’ volk goed kan verklaren. (shrink)