The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Despite a growing interest in and sympathy with Confucianism, there remains a stereotyped conception of Confucian civil order as a form of authoritarian hierarchy that is responsible for various oppressions in ancient China and is reprehensible from a modern egalitarian perspective. One central target of this modern criticism is the Confucian maxim of sangang 三綱, whose underlying idea is essential for regulating the relationship between sovereign and subject, father and son, and husband and wife in traditional Confucian society. Tu Wei-ming (...) translates sangang as the “Three Bonds” and argues that it is the “least defensible legacy of Confucian ethics” from the “modern egalitarian and liberal perspective.” For Tu.. (shrink)

This chapter offers a brief introduction to Xuanxue Wei Jin Dynasty philosophy.

This paper explores the elusive dialectic between concentration and forgetfulness, consciousness and unconsciousness in spontaneous artistic creation favoured by artists and advocated by critics in Chinese art history, by examining texts on painting and tracing back to ancient Daoist philosophical ideas, in a comparison with Kantian and post-Kantian aesthetics. Although artistic spontaneity in classical Chinese aesthetics seems to share similarities with Kant’s account of spontaneity in the art of genius, the emphasis on unconsciousness is valued by classical Chinese artists and (...) critics inspired by the Daoist idea of ‘Wu Wei’ (acting without conscious intention or effort). As the Qing painter Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) claimed when admitting his failure to copy the Yuan master Ni Zan (1301–1374), Ni Zan’s success in natural and untrammelled expression lies ‘in between having an intention and not having one’. A similar idea about the dialectic of consciousness and unconsciousness in artistic spontaneity was suggested by Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theatre (1880), which demonstrated that while self-consciousness might disturb and hinder the naturalness of artistic expression and thus encourage affectation, it does not mean that there is no role for consciousness. Although the views on unconsciousness in art and the co-play of consciousness and unconscious in artistic creation by Schelling, Schiller, Goethe, and even Nietzsche might get inspirations from Kant’s hidden view of the unconscious, Kant’s emphasis on the harmonious cooperation between imagination and understanding disguises his inexplicit idea of the unconscious. This paper will demonstrate that while in both Classical Chinese and European cultural contexts, artists, critics and philosophers talk about the same elusive relation, the philosophical explanations of the same phenomenon are essentially distinctive. (shrink)

This seventh volume of Collected Papers includes 70 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2013-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 122 co-authors from 22 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel-Nasser Hussian, C. Alexander, Mumtaz Ali, Yaman Akbulut, Amir Abdullah, Amira S. Ashour, Assia Bakali, Kousik Bhattacharya, Kainat Bibi, R. N. Boyd, Ümit Budak, Lulu Cai, Cenap Özel, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Chunlai Du, Chunxin Bo, Rituparna Chutia, Cu Nguyen Giap, Dao The (...) Son, Vinayak Devvrat, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Fahad Alsharari, Feng Yongfei, S. Ganesan, Shivam Ghildiyal, Bibhas C. Giri, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ahmed Refaat Hawas, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, Hongbo Wang, Hongnian Yu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Saeid Jafari, Temitope Gbolahan Jaiyeola, Naeem Jan, R. Jeevitha, Jun Ye, Anup Khan, Madad Khan, Salma Khan, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Kifayat Ullah, Kishore Kumar P.K., Sujit Kumar De, Prasun Kumar Nayak, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Anam Luqman, Luu Quoc Dat, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa M. Malik, Nivetha Martin, Mai Mohamed, Parimala Mani, Mingcong Deng, Mohammed A. Al Shumrani, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Farshid Mofidnakhaei, Muhammad Shoaib, Muhammad Riaz, Karthika Muthusamy, Nabeela Ishfaq, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Sumera Naz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Noor ul Amin, Dragan Pamučar, Gabrijela Popović, S. Krishna Prabha, Surapati Pramanik, Priya R, Qiaoyan Li, Yaser Saber, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Saleem Abdullah, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Abdulkadir Sengür, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahzaib Ashraf, Shouzhen Zeng, Shio Gai Quek, Shuangwu Zhu, Shumaiza, Sidra Sayed, Sohail Iqbal, Songtao Shao, Sundas Shahzadi, Dragiša Stanujkić, Željko Stević, Udhayakumar Ramalingam, Zunaira Rashid, Hossein Rashmanlou, Rajkumar Verma, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Desmond Jun Yi Tey, Selçuk Topal, Naveed Yaqoob, Yanhui Guo, Yee Fei Gan, Yingcang Ma, Young Bae Jun, Yuping Lai, Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Wei Yang, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Lemnaouar Zedam. (shrink)

Michael Weisberg’s account of scientific models concentrates on the ways in which models are similar to their targets. He intends not merely to explain what similarity consists in, but also to capture similarity judgments made by scientists. In order to scrutinize whether his account fulfills this goal, I outline one common way in which scientists judge whether a model is similar enough to its target, namely maximum likelihood estimation method. Then I consider whether Weisberg’s account could capture the judgments involved (...) in this practice. I argue that his account fails for three reasons. First, his account is simply too abstract to capture what is going on in MLE. Second, it implies an atomistic conception of similarity, while MLE operates in a holistic manner. Third, Weisberg’s atomistic conception of similarity can be traced back to a problematic set-theoretic approach to the structure of models. Finally, I tentatively suggest how these problems might be solved by a holistic approach in which models and targets are compared in a non-set-theoretic fashion. (shrink)

Di er ci Qimeng (The second Enlightenment), by Wang Zhihe and Fan Meijun, is a timely book in Chinese about constructing a philosophical and practical way to contend with China's postmodernization. It combines Whitehead's process philosophy with a focus on Chinese modernity in order to map out a desirable postmodern society. It addresses the problem on several dimensions from policy making to basic value systems. The range of themes can be seen from the topics of the book's twelve chapters: (...) (1) Reverence for Land—Toward a Constructive Postmodern Agriculture; (2) Becoming Fully Human—Toward a Postmodern Organic Education; (3) Survival of the Harmonious-Toward a Constructive Postmodern Harmonious Culture; (4) Beauty .. (shrink)

This essay develops an inferential account of model explanation, based on Mauricio Suárez’s inferential conception of scientific representation and Alisa Bokulich’s counterfactual account of model explanation. It is suggested that the fact that a scientific model can explain is essentially linked to how a modeler uses an established model to make various inferences about the target system on the basis of results derived from the model. The inference practice is understood as a two-step activity, with the first step involving making (...) counterfactual statements about the model itself and the second step involving making hypothetical statements transferring over claims derived from the model onto the target. To illustrate how this two-step activity proceeds, an agent-based simulation model is discussed. (shrink)

This study aims to provide a coherent new interpretation of the notorious anti-hedonism of Speusippus, Plato’s nephew and the second scholarch of the Academy, by reconsidering all the relevant sources concerning his attitude toward pleasure—sources that seem to be in tension or even incompatible with each other. By reassessing Speusippus’ anti-hedonism and Aristotle’s response, it also sheds new light on the Academic debate over pleasure in which he and Aristotle participated: This debate is not merely concerned with the truth and (...) credibility of the arguments for or against hedonism; there are also notable differences among the participants in their understanding of the practical significance of evaluating hedonic experiences. This new interpretation allows us to better understand Aristotle’s selective representation of the intra-school debate and some neglected features of his responses to different interlocutors. (shrink)

This paper examines Aristotle’s vocabulary of pain, that is the differences and relations of the concepts of pain expressed by synonyms in the same semantic field. It investigates what is particularly Aristotelian in the selection of the pain-words in comparison with earlier authors and specifies the special semantic scope of each word-cluster. The result not only aims to pin down the exact way these terms converge with and diverge from each other, but also serves as a basis for further understanding (...) Aristotle’s philosophical conception of pain. (shrink)

Die Disziplin, die als „Juristische Methodenlehre“ bezeichnet wird, ist gegenwärtig chinesischen Juristen nicht fremd, sie stammt aber ursprünglich aus dem deutschen Sprachraum. In der Literatur finden sich auch verwandte Ausdrücke wie „Juristische Methodologie“, „Juristische Methodik“ bzw.„Methodenlehre der Rechtswissenschaft“. Seit Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts wurde ihre Rezeption in China durch zwei Übersetzungen gekennzeichnet, nämlich die „rechtswissenschaftliche Methodenlehre“ (faxue fangfalun) und die „rechtliche Methodenlehre“ (falü fangfalun). Neben der herkömmlichen Methodenlehre entwickelte sich auch eine jüngere Theorie der juristischen Argumentation, die die weltweite Aufmerksamkeit (...) sogar außerhalb Deutschlands auf sich lenken konnte und deren Bestand in China einen ganz selbständigen Abschnitt verdient. Als Hintergrund dafür soll von vornherein ein Blick auf die Entwicklungen der chinesischen Rechtstheorie und Rechtsphilosophie nach 1978 und demzufolge auf die Entstehung der Methodenfrage in der chinesischen Rechtswissenschaft geworfen werden. (shrink)

I propose a dynamic causal approach to characterizing the notion of a mechanism. Levy and Bechtel, among others, have pointed out several critical limitations of the new mechanical philosophy, and pointed in a new direction to extend this philosophy. Nevertheless, they have not fully fleshed out what that extended philosophy would look like. Based on a closer look at neuroscientific practice, I propose that a mechanism is a dynamic causal system that involves various components interacting, typically nonlinearly, with one another (...) to produce a phenomenon of interest. (shrink)

E. Husserl’s reflections in Logical Investigations on “intentional feelings” and “non-intentional feelings” are significant in both his later ethical explorations and M. Scheler’s thought on ethics. Through the incorporation of the views of Husserl and Scheler, we find that the phenomenology of the intentional feeling-acts is not only the foundation of the non-formal ethics of values in Scheler’s phenomenology, but also at least the constitutive foundation of the ethics of Husserl’s first orientation.

The debate over the value of pleasure among Eudoxus, Speusippus, and Aristotle is dramatically documented by the Nicomachean Ethics, particularly in the dialectical pros-and-cons concerning the so-called argument from contraries. Two similar versions of this argument are preserved at EN VII. 13, 1153b1–4, and X. 2, 1172b18–20. Many scholars believe that the argument at EN VII is either a report or an appropriation of the Eudoxean argument in EN X. This essay aims to revise this received view. It will explain (...) why these two arguments differ in premises, contents and purposes, and why these distinctions matter for a proper assessment of Aristotle’s understanding of pleasure and pain in general and his dialectical art in particular. (shrink)

This paper reconciles an inconsistency between the benefits of mind wandering and a prominent conception of attention in philosophy and cognitive psychology, namely, the prioritization view. Since we prioritize the information in a task less if we are doing it while mind wandering compared to solely concentrating on it, why does our performance in the task sometimes improve when we are mind wandering? To explain this, we offer a conception of diffuse attention that generalizes from external to internal forms of (...) attention and captures deep commonalities between the two (Chun et al. 2011). We conceptualize mind wandering as an instance of internal diffuse attention that also induces diffuse attention in other concurrent tasks. Moreover, pace the prioritization view, certain tasks are in fact better performed with diffuse attention, which prioritizes information less than focused attention. Our account of mind wandering as an instance of the more general category of diffuse attention improves upon current leading philosophical views of mind wandering (such as Irving 2016) by better explaining the interaction between mind wandering and other tasks. (shrink)

Polger and Shapiro argue that their official recipe, a criterion for judging when the phenomenon of multiple realization exists, renders MR less widespread than its proponents have assumed. I argue that, although Polger and Shapiro’s criterion is a useful contribution, they arrive at their conclusion too hastily. Contrary to Polger and Shapiro, I claim that the phenomenon of multiple realization in the biological world, judged by their criterion, is not as scarce as they suggest. To show this, an updated official (...) recipe, namely a multiple mechanistic realization thesis, integrating Polger and Shapiro’s criterion with a compositional conception of realization, is developed. Then, three examples of varied kinds are examined, showing that cases of MR are not so hard to find in the biological world. (shrink)

This paper reexamines Theophrastus’ Metaphysics 11a18–26, an obscure testimony about Speusippus, the second head of the Platonic Academy. As opposed to the traditional interpretation, which takes this passage as Theophrastus’ polemic against Speusippus’ doctrine of value, I argue that he here dialectically takes advantage of, rather than launches an attack on, the Platonist. Based on this new reading, I further propose a revision and a reassessment of the ‘gloomy metaphysics’ of Speusippus which will shed new light on his ethics.

A fundamental entity is an entity that is ‘ontologically independent’; it does not depend on anything else for its existence or essence. It seems to follow that a fundamental entity is ‘modally free’ in some sense. This assumption, that fundamentality entails modal freedom (or ‘FEMF’ as I shall label the thesis), is used in the service of other arguments in metaphysics. But as I will argue, the road from fundamentality to modal freedom is not so straightforward. The defender of FEMF (...) should provide positive reasons for believing it, especially in light of recent views that are incompatible with it. I examine both direct and indirect routes to FEMF. (shrink)

Through a comparative study of the meanings and origins of justice symbolized in the Greek word dikē and the Chinese word yi 毅, this essay explores an alternative understanding of justice exemplified in Mencius' teaching and illuminates a possibility of social and political justice that originates in the human heart instead of reason. On the basis of a genealogical study of yi that identifies its root meanings as "the dignity of the self" and "amity and affinity," this study recovers and (...) revives a way of justice that may preserve and promote the dignity of the individual and the solidarity of political community at once without succumbing to the violence and rigidity of traditional Western metaphysics. In so doing, it highlights a long overlooked dimension of early Confucian moral practice and establishes its unique relevancy for the contemporary debates on justice. (shrink)

Plato’s nephew Speusippus has been widely accepted as the historical person behind the mask of the anti-hedonists in Phlb. 42b–44c. This hypothesis is supported by, inter alia, the link between Socrates’ char- acterization of them as δυσχερεῖς and the frequent references of δυσχέρεια as ἀπορία to Speusippus in Aristotle’s Metaphysics MN. This study argues against assigning any privileged status to Speusippus in the assimilation of δυσχέρεια with ἀπορία. Instead, based on a comprehensive survey of how δυσχερ- words were used in (...) classical antiquity, the semantic shift of δυσχέρεια can be explained in an alternative way. (shrink)

Despite Donald Davidson's influential criticism of the very notion of conceptual schemes, the notion continues enjoying its popularity in contemporary philosophy and, accordingly, conceptual relativism is still very much alive. There is one major reason responsible for Davidson's failure which has not been widely recognized: What Davidson attacks fiercely is not the very notion, but a notion of conceptual schemes, namely, the Quinean notion of conceptual schemes and its underlying Kantian scheme-content dualism. However, such a notion simply cannot carry the (...) weight of conceptual relativism for it does not catch the essences of conceptual relativism. Consequently, I argue that the very notion of conceptual schemes and conceptual relativism have survived Davidson's attack. Therefore, the failure of the Quinean notion of conceptual schemes and Kantian scheme-content dualism, even if Davidson can claim victory, does not mark the end of the very notion of conceptual schemes.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

This article argues for the explanatory autonomy of psychology drawing on cases from the multilevel modeling practice. This is done by considering a multilevel linear model in personality and social psychology, and discussing its philosophical implications for the reductionism debate in philosophy of psychology. I argue that this practice challenges the reductionist position in philosophy of psychology, and supports the explanatory autonomy of psychology.

Various theorists have endorsed the “communication argument”: communicative capacities are necessary for morally responsible agency because blame aims at a distinctive kind of moral communication. I contend that existing versions of the argument, including those defended by Gary Watson and Coleen Macnamara, face a pluralist challenge: they do not seem to sit well with the plausible view that blame has multiple aims. I then examine three possible rejoinders to the challenge, suggesting that a context-specific, function-based approach constitutes the most promising (...) modification of the communication argument. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify Plato’s notions of the natural and the neutral state in relation to hedonic properties. Contra two extreme trends among scholars—people either conflate one state with the other, or keep them apart as to establish an unsurmount- able gap between both states, I argue that neither view accurately reflects Plato’s position because the natural state is real and can coincide with the neutral state in part, whereas the latter, as an umbrella term, can also be realized (...) in a non-natural condition. The clarification of the relation between the two states will shed light on the degree to which Plato admits and constrains the hedonic value for a good human life; further, this will call attention to some (not well explored) parallel thoughts in the medical tradition to which Plato is indebted. (shrink)

Nearly thirty years ago, Robert Alexy in his book The Concept and Validity of Law as well as in other early articles raised non-positivistic arguments in the Continental European tradition against legal positivism in general, which was assumed to be held by, among others, John Austin, Hans Kelsen and H.L.A. Hart. The core thesis of legal positivism that was being discussed among contemporary German jurists, just as with their Anglo- American counterparts, is the claim that there is no necessary connection (...) between law and morality. Robert Alexy has argued, however, that the law, besides consisting conceptually of elements of authoritative issuance and social efficacy, necessarily lays a claim to substantial correctness, which is derived from analytical arguments. Furthermore, if this claim to substantial correctness necessarily requires the incorporation of moral elements into law, then the ‘necessary connection thesis’, as defended by non-positivism, can be justified. Some of the most significant objections to this sort of claim, stemming from the Anglo-American world, are those introduced by Joseph Raz. In his ‘Reply’ to Robert Alexy, Raz raises at least three interesting criticisms, including, first, the ambiguity of ‘legal theory in the positivistic tradition’, second, the indeterminate formulations of the ‘separation thesis’, and, third, the necessary claim of law to legitimate authority as a moral claim. As a point of departure, I will argue that Raz’s three criticisms are misleading. For they do not enhance our understanding of the genuine compatibility or incompatibility between legal positivism and non-positivism. Despite the frequently reformulated theses of legal positivism and the various kinds of opponents responding thereto, the essential divergence between legal positivism and non-positivism was and remains the answer to the question of the relation between law and morality. Furthermore, I will clarify that in the strictest sense there can be three and only three logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality: the connection between them is either necessary, or impossible (i. e. they are necessarily separate), or contingent (i. e. they are neither necessarily connected nor necessarily separate). The first position is non-positivistic, while the latter two positions are, indeed, both positivistic, but in different forms: one may be called ‘exclusive’ legal positivism, the other ‘inclusive’ legal positivism. I will continue by showing that these three positions stand to one another in the relation of contraries, not contradictories, and that, taken together, they exhaust the logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality, never mind the tradition or authority from which these positions are derived. Raz mentions, however, many changeable formulations of the separation thesis, which even leads him to acknowledge ‘necessary connections between law and morality’. One who is trying to understand legal positivism would no doubt be puzzled by this claim. Nevertheless, I will argue that this is an alternative strategy of legal positivism, and it points to naturalistically oriented view. Although this necessary separation between law and morality, understood naturalistically, strikes one as strengthening the separation, in the end it leads to a weakened notion of necessity. This weakened necessary separation thesis, however, cannot be justified through the so-called claim of the law to legitimate authority, defended by Raz, for it is difficult to answer the question of whether a normally justified but factual authority can gain legitimate authority. Finally, the necessary connection between law and morality in a strong sense can still be justified by the claim of law to correctness, as per Alexy’s argument. (shrink)

The concept of human dignity has been criticized as either too thick or too thin. However, according to the non-positivistic standpoint, the legal normativity of human dignity can be justified and thus strengthened by means of its moral correctness. From the individual perspective, Mencius’ understanding of human dignity as an intrinsic value and Kant’s formula of ‘man as an end in itself’ can be adequately understood based on the differentiation of, as well as the connection between, principium diiudicationis and principium (...) executionis, between will and choice, and between homo phaenomenon and homo noumenon (that is, ‘humanity in the personality’). From the social perspective, since the dual dimensions of the individual and the social person are both fictive constructions, even Radbruch, once as a supporter of social law, has not replaced the concept of ‘legal person’ and, in the post-War period, acknowledges individualistic human dignity as the criterion for applying the famous ‘disavowal formula’. On the one hand, human dignity shows at least a weak normative character, which requires, firstly, balancing between the exercise of state powers and the constitutional review under the guidance of the dual dimensions of man and, secondly, optimization of the principle of human dignity in individual cases. On the other hand, through the necessary connection between the concept of dignity and that of personality, human dignity can exhibit a strong normative character, which unavoidably requires a metaphysical justification. (shrink)

Imagine that only the state can meet the need for housing but decides not to do so. Unsurprisingly, participants in a vignette experiment deem this scenario unjust. Hence, justice ratings increase when the living situation improves. To a lesser extent, this also holds beyond the need threshold, understood as the minimum amount necessary for a decent life. Surprisingly, however, the justice evaluation function is highly convex below this point. The resulting S-shaped curve is akin to the value function in prospect (...) theory, with the need threshold providing the point of reference and inflection. A control treatment without needs-information supports this interpretation. Needs-information furthermore compresses the perceived injustice of arbitrary inequality. As in prospect theory, such reference dependency suggests biases in judgment and decision making. A consequence may be that the lot of the poorest in society does not receive the attention it would otherwise get. (shrink)

Comparative philosophy between two disparate cultural-philosophic traditions, such as Western and Chinese philosophy, has become a new trend of philosophical fashion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Having learned from the past, contemporary comparative philosophers cautiously safeguard their comparative studies against two potential pitfalls, namely cultural universalism and cultural relativism. The Orientalism that assumed the superiority of the Occidental has become a memory of the past. The historical pendulum has apparently swung to the other extreme. The more recent (...) "reverse Orientalism" has started to reclaim the superiority of the Oriental. We have even been told that the twenty-first... (shrink)

Why is mutual understanding between two substantially different comprehensive language communities often problematic and even unattainable? To answer this question, the author first introduces a notion of presuppositional languages. Based on the semantic structure of a presuppositional language, the author identifies a significant condition necessary for effective understanding of a language: the interpreter is able to effectively understand a language only if he/she is able to recognize and comprehend its metaphysical presuppositions. The essential role of the knowledge of metaphysical presuppositions (...) in understanding is further strengthened by developing a truth-value conditional theory of understanding. It is concluded that if the interpreter approaches an incompatible alien language from the standpoint of the interpreter's own language by projecting the metaphysical presuppositions of his/her own language upon the alien language, then the mutual understanding between the two language communities is doomed to failure. (shrink)

Les questions les plus fondamentales de la phénoménologie du sentir de Max Scheler concernent la place de l’intentionnalité dans la phénoménologie du sentir et la structuration de la sphère émotionnelle. Dans la première section, nous nous focaliserons avant tout sur la différence entre les sentiments non intentionnels et le sentir intentionnel, en comparant sur ce point les positions de Scheler et de Husserl. En effet, Scheler critique ces deux thèses fondamentales de Husserl: 1) les actes affectifs et leurs corrélats (« (...) valeurs ») doivent être associés aux représentations et à leurs corrélats (« choses », Sachen ); 2) les actes affectifs, en tant qu’actes non objectivants, sont fondés dans les actes objectivants. D’une part, pour Scheler, la valeur est un objet unique en son genre du sentir des valeurs, et le sentir intentionnel est donc un acte indépendant. D’autre part, Scheler a d’abord entrepris de dépasser la séparation entre acte objectivant et acte non objectivant. Dans ce contexte, la recherche actuelle consacrée à Scheler se heurte à de nombreuses difficultés relatives à la structuration de la sphère émotionnelle en rapport avec la hiérarchie des modalités axiologiques et avec l’a priori corrélationnel. Dans la deuxième section, nous expliquerons d’abord les idées de Scheler, puis en discuterons les difficultés. C’est par le « commerce vivant » avec le monde dans le sentir intentionnel et dans les actes émotionnels intentionnels, par les corrélats intentionnels (valeurs matérielles), que Scheler se sépare du formalisme en éthique. A travers un « apriorisme matériel » qui présente trois espèce d’a priori (a priori axiologique, a priori émotionnel et a priori corrélationnel), l’éthique matérielle phénoménologique des valeurs de Sche­ler est guidée par l’esprit d’un « objectivisme et absolutisme éthique rigoureux ». (shrink)

It is widely agreed that reactive attitudes play a central role in our practices concerned with holding people responsible. However, it remains controversial which emotional attitudes count as reactive attitudes such that they are eligible for this central role. Specifically, though theorists near universally agree that guilt is a reactive attitude, they are much more hesitant on whether to also include shame. This paper presents novel arguments for the view that shame is a reactive attitude. The arguments also support the (...) view that shame is a reactive attitude in the sense that concerns moral accountability. The discussion thereby challenges both the view that shame is not a reactive attitude at all, suggested by philosophers such as R. Jay Wallace and Stephen Darwall, and the view that shame is a reactive attitude but does not concern moral accountability, recently defended by Andreas Carlsson and Douglas Portmore. (shrink)

The current discussions of conceptual schemes and related topics are misguided; for they are based on a tacit assumption that the difference between two schemes consists in the different distributions in truth-values. I argue that what should concern us, in the discussions of conceptual schemes and related issues, is not truth-values of assertions, but rather the truth-value-status of the sentences used to make the assertions. This is because the genuine conceptual innovation between alternative theories or languages does not lie in (...) differences in determining truth-values of their sentences, but turns on whether these sentences have truth-values when considered within the context of a competing one. This new interpretation of the notion of conceptual schemes, which I refer to as presuppositional languages, is not only good in itself—for establishing the intelligibility and tenability of the notion—but quite beneficial in its effect on other related issues. (shrink)

Based on the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on the origin of ethics, one can ask the question of whether the principle of ethics is reason orfeeling/emotion, or whether ethics is grounded on reason or feeling/emotion. The development of Kant’s thoughts on ethics shows the tension between reason and feeling/emotion. In Kant’s final critical ethics, he held to a principle of “rational a priori.” On the one hand, this is presented as the rational a priori principle being the binding principle (...) of judgment. On the other hand, it is presented as the doctrine of “rational fact” as the ultimate argument of his ethics. Husserl believed that Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori totally disregarded the a priori essential laws of feeling. Like Husserl, Scheler criticized Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori, and therefore developed his own theory of an “emotional a priori”. Both of them focused their critiques on the grounding level of ethics. Scheler, however, did not follow Husserl all the way, but criticized him and reflected on his thoughts. At last, he revealed the primary status of a phenomenological material ethics of value. (shrink)

On the one hand, Scheler's critique of Kant's concept of a priori benefits from Husserl to a large extent, and it complements and deepens Husserl's. On the other hand, Scheler also critiques Husserl's definition of a priori. Husserl's material a priori as ideal object primarily thanks to his so-called "Bolzano- turn". In this connection, Scheler grabs hold of the relation of Husserl to Bolzano from the very beginning. For Scheler, Husserl thinks in a "platonic" way, and still falls in a (...) new type of "Platonism", or rather, logical Platonism, although he correctly refuses the ordinary Platonism. In Scheler's view, Husserl's phenomenological reduction is "not purely" executed, and therefore his phenomenological experience is problematic, or more precisely, the relation between categorial intuition and sensuous intuition is problematic. The final aim of Scheler's critique of Husserl's phenomenological understanding of "objective a priori" is to win the primary position of categorial intuition and its content , ethical insight and its correlate , and ultimately of phenomenological ethics of material value.Einerseits nimmt Schelers Kritik an Kant bezüglich des Begriffs des Apriori die Einsichten Husserls in großem Umfang auf. Schelers Kritik an Kant ergänzt und vertieft die Husserlsche Kant-Kritik. Andererseits kritisiert er aber auch Husserls Bestimmung des Apriori. Vor allem verdankt sich das materiale Apriori als idealer Gegenstand bei Husserl der sogenannten “Bolzano’schen Wendung”. Von Anfang an kritisiert Scheler Husserl in diesem Punkt, indem er dem Verhältnis zwischen Bolzano und Husserl immer präziser nachging. Für Scheler unterliegt Husserl mit Recht keinem platten Platonismus. Aber dennoch verfahre Husserl immerhin “platonistisch”, er unterliege einem “Neoplatonismus”, bzw. einem logischen Platonismus. Weil die phänomenologische Reduktion bei Husserl nach Schelers Meinung “nicht reinlich” durchgeführt wird, ist die phänomenologische Erfahrung bei Husserl problematisch, genauer gesagt ist das Verhältnis zwischen der kategorialen Anschauung und der sinnlichen Anschauung problematisch. Der Endzweck von Schelers Kritik an der phänomenologischen Auffassung des gegenständlichen Apriori bei Husserl besteht darin, die primäre Stelle der kategorialen Anschauung und ihrer Gehalte , sowie der sittlichen Einsicht und ihrer Korrelate und zuletzt der phänomenologisch materialen Wertethik zu gewinnen.S jedne strane, Schelerova kritika Kantova pojma a priori u velikoj mjeri duguje Husserlu, te dopunjuje i produbljuje Husserlovu. S druge strane, Scheler kritizira i Husserlovu definiciju apriorija. Husserlov materijalni a priori kao idealni predmet prvenstveno proizlazi iz njegova takozvanog bolzanovskog obrata. Prema Scheleru, Husserl razmišlja na "platonski" način te upada u novi tip "platonizma" ili, točnije, logičkog platonizma, iako s pravom odbacuje obični platonizam. Scheler smatra da Husserlova fenomenološka redukcija nije izvedena "čisto" te da je stoga njegovo fenomenološko iskustvo proble- matično ili, točnije, problematičan je odnos između kategorijalnog zora i osjetilnog zora. Krajnji cilj Schelerove kritike Husserlova fenomenološkog shvaćanja "objektivnog a priori" jest zadobivanje primarne pozicije kategorijalnog zora i njegova sadržaja , etičkog uvida i njegova korelata te, na koncu, fenomenološke etike materijalne vrijednosti. (shrink)

Love is often seen as the most intimate aspect of our lives, but it is increasingly engineered by a few programmers with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Nowadays, numerous dating platforms are deploying so-called smart algorithms to identify a greater number of potential matches for a user. These AI-enabled matchmaking systems, driven by a rich trove of data, can not only predict what a user might prefer but also deeply shape how people choose their partners. This paper draws on Jürgen Habermas’s “colonization (...) of the lifeworld” thesis to critically explore the insidious influence of delegating romantic decision-making to an algorithm. The love lifeworld is colonized inasmuch as online dating algorithms encroach into our romantic relations to the extent that communicative action within romance is replaced by the technocratic rules of an algorithm. (shrink)

Kuhn's alleged taxonomic interpretation of incommensurability is grounded on an ill defined notion of untranslatability and is hence radically incomplete. To supplement it, I reconstruct Kuhn's taxonomic interpretation on the basis of a logical-semantic theory of taxonomy, a semantic theory of truth-value, and a truth-value conditional theory of cross-language communication. According to the reconstruction, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values when considered within (...) the context of the other due to the unmatchable taxonomic structures underlying them. So constructed, Kuhn's mature interpretation of incommensurability does not depend upon the notion of truth-preserving translatability, but rather depends on the notion of truth-value-status-preserving cross-language communication. The reconstruction makes Kuhn's notion of incommensurability a well grounded, tenable and integrated notion.Author Keywords: Incommensurability; Thomas Kuhn; Taxonomic structures; Lexicons; Truth-value; Untranslatability; Cross-language communication. (shrink)

on how to justify the rationality of sciences.

According to the received translational interpretation of incommensurability, incommensurability is viewed as untranslatability due to radical variance of meaning or reference of the terms in two competing scientific languages. The author argues that the translational approach to incommensurability does not effectively clarify the concept of incommensurability. Since it cannot provide us with tenable, integrated concept of incommensurability, it should be rejected.

Against the received translation-failure interpretation, this book presents a presuppositional interpretation of incommensurability, that is, the thesis of incommensurability as cross-language communication breakdown due to the incompatible metaphysical presuppositions underlying two competing presuppositional languages, such as scientific languages. This semantically sound, epistemologically well-established, and metaphysically profound interpretation not only affirms the tenability of the notion of incommensurability and confirms the reality of the phenomenon of incommensurability, but also makes some significant contributions to the discussion of many related issues, such as (...) the notion of conceptual schemes, the notion of truth-value status and truth-value conditions, and the issue of cross-language understanding and communication. (shrink)

The current discussions of conceptual schemes and related topics are misguided; for they have been focused too much on the truth-conditional notions of meaning/concepts and translation/interpretation in Tarski's style. It is exactly due to such a Quinean interpretation of the notion of conceptual schemes that the very notion of conceptual schemes falls prey to Davidson's attack. We argue that what should concern us in the discussions of conceptual schemes and related issues, following the initiatives of I. Hacking, T. Kuhn, and (...) N. Rescher, is not the truth-values of assertions, but rather the truthvalue-status of the sentences used to make the assertions. This is because the genuine conceptual innovation between alternative theories/languages does not lie in differences in determining the truth-values of their sentences, but turns on whether these sentences have truth-values when considered within the context of a competing one. The core of conceptual relativism does not consist in the claim that different conceptual schemes may yield incommensurable truth claims, but rather that different conceptual schemes may yield incompatible truth-value-status and therefore lead to distinct perceptions of reality. Conceptual schemes are no longer seen as sentential languages consisting of a set of sentences accepted as true, but rather seen as metaphysical presuppositions of presuppositional languages.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to show how Davidson’s anti-sceptical argument can respond to the closureRK-based radical scepticism. My approach will focus on the closureRK principle rather than the possibility that our beliefs could be massively wrong. I first review Davidson’s principle of charity and the triangulation argument, and then I extract his theory on content of a belief. According to this theory, content of a belief is determined by its typical cause and other relevant beliefs. With this constraint on (...) content, I argue that doubt must be local. Furthermore, since one cannot rationally believe that one’s commitment to the cause of beliefs could be false, our commitment to the denial of a sceptical hypothesis is not a knowledge-apt belief. Therefore, the closureRK principle is not applicable to rational evaluations of this commitment. As a result, the closureRK-based sceptical argument fails while the closureRK principle remains. (shrink)

It is a common wisdom that linguistic communication is different from linguistic understanding. However, the distinction between communication and understanding is not as clear as it seems to be. It is argued that the relationship between linguistic communication and understanding depends upon the notions of understanding and communication involved. Thinking along the line of propositional understanding and informative communication, communication can be reduced to mutual understanding. In contrast, operating along the line of hermeneutic understanding and dialogical communication, the process of (...) understanding is in essence a process of communication. However, dialogical communication should not be confused with propositional understanding. Conversely, hermeneutic understanding should not be confused with informative communication either. The former is dialogical in nature while the latter is monological. (shrink)

El concepto de dignidad humana ha sido considerado o demasiado denso o demasiado delgado. Sin embargo, desde el punto de vista del no-positivismo, la normatividad jurídica de la dignidad humana puede ser justificada y reforzada por medio de su corrección moral. Desde una perspectiva individual, la comprensión de Mencio sobre la dignidad humana como un valor intrínseco y el imperativo categórico de Kant (el ser humano como un fin en sí mismo) podrían ser adecuadamente comprendidos con base en la diferencia (...) (así como la conexión) entre el principium diiudicationis y el principium executionis, entre voluntad y “elección”; así como entre homo phaenomenon y homo noumenon (es decir, humanidad en la persona de los seres humanos). Desde una perspectiva social, las dimensiones del individuo y la persona social son construcciones ficticias; inclusive Radbruch -alguna vez defensor del derecho social- no remplazó el concepto de “persona jurídica” y, en el periodo de posguerra, reconoció la dignidad humana individual como el criterio para aplicar su famosa “fórmula de Radbruch". Por una parte, la dignidad humana muestra cuando menos un carácter normativo débil, el cual requiere, primero, ponderar entre el ejercicio de los poderes estatales y el control de constitucionalidad bajo la guía de la dimensión dual del ser humano y, segundo, la optimización del principio de la dignidad humana en casos particulares. Por otra, a través de la conexión necesaria entre el concepto de dignidad y personalidad, la dignidad humana puede exhibir un carácter normativo fuerte, el cual requiere inevitablemente una justificación metafísica. (shrink)