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 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)

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 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.

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)

Recently, there is a renewed debate concerning the role of perspective in vision. Morales et al. (2020) present evidence that, in the case of viewing a rotated coin, the visual system is sensitive to what has often been called “perspectival shapes.” It has generated vigorous discussions, including an online symposium by Morales and Cohen, an exchange between Linton (2021) and Morales et al. (2021), and most recently, a fierce critique by Burge and Burge (2022), in which they launch various conceptual (...) and empirical objections. Although Morales and Firestone (2022) have responded to them recently, and we are in agreement with Morales and Firestone in general, there are further problems in Burge and Burge (2022) that are worth highlighting. The main point of this comment is that what the Burge–Burge team call “viewpoint-dependent relational properties” are simply instances of what the Morales–Firestone team call “perspectival shapes”; the confusion arises from Burge and Burge’s misconstrual of Morales et al.’s claims. This shows that conceptually, the two teams are in large agreement, as Morales and Firestone (2022) also point out, and the focus should be put on the empirical disagreements, which has been covered by Morales and Firestone (2022). Relatedly, we argue that Burge and Burge (2022) misinterpret Morales et al. (2020) as supporting a new entity in perception science, and that this misinterpretation is a primary source of their apparent disagreement. This is worth pointing out because such misunderstanding generates many unnecessary quarrels that hinder progress. (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)

Liver transplantation (LT) activities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been curtailed in many countries. The impact of various policies restricting LT on outcomes of potential LT candidates is unclear. We studied all patients on the nationwide LT waitlists in Hong Kong and Singapore between January 2016 and May 2020. We used continuous time Markov chains to model the effects of different scenarios and varying durations of disruption on LT candidates.

Xinxue （The philosophy of mind） founded by ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty for over 700 years. Its ideas have deeply influenced East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Korea in the field of social philosophy, and even indirectly promoted Japan's Meiji Restoration movement. At the same time, scholars from all over the world have conducted numerous studies and explorations on it, but overall, there is a lack of systematic exploration and research on it. This (...) article starts with the concept of a system, combines the content of Xinxue and integrates it into a complete, logical, and comprehensive system of Xinxue. (shrink)

Xinxue （The philosophy of mind） founded by ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty for over 700 years. Its ideas have deeply influenced East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Korea in the field of social philosophy, and even indirectly promoted Japan's Meiji Restoration movement. At the same time, scholars from all over the world have conducted numerous studies and explorations on it, but overall, there is a lack of systematic exploration and research on it. This (...) article starts with the concept of a system, combines the content of Xinxue and integrates it into a complete, logical, and comprehensive system of Xinxue. (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- (...) class='Hi'>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)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 3, Page 606-622, May 2022.

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.

This paper gives a definition of self-reference on the basis of the dependence relation given by Leitgeb (2005), and the dependence digraph by Beringer & Schindler (2015). Unlike the usual discussion about self-reference of paradoxes centering around Yablo's paradox and its variants, I focus on the paradoxes of finitary characteristic, which are given again by use of Leitgeb's dependence relation. They are called 'locally finite paradoxes', satisfying that any sentence in these paradoxes can depend on finitely many sentences. I prove (...) that all locally finite paradoxes are self-referential in the sense that there is a directed cycle in their dependence digraphs. This paper also studies the 'circularity dependence' of paradoxes, which was introduced by Hsiung (2014). I prove that the locally finite paradoxes have circularity dependence in the sense that they are paradoxical only in the digraph containing a proper cycle. The proofs of the two results are based directly on König's infinity lemma. In contrast, this paper also shows that Yablo's paradox and its nested variant are non-self-referential, and neither McGee's paradox nor the omega-cycle liar paradox has circularity dependence. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce and defend the recurrent model for understanding bodily spatial phenomenology. While Longo, Azañón and Haggard (2010) propose a bottom-up model, Bermúdez (2017) emphasizes the top-down aspect of the information processing loop. We argue that both are only half of the story. Section 1 intro- duces what the issues are. Section 2 starts by explaining why the top- down, descending direction is necessary with the illustration from the ‘body-based tactile rescaling’ paradigm (de Vignemont, Ehrsson and Haggard, (...) 2005). It then argues that the bottom-up, ascending direction is also necessary, and substantiates this view with recent research on skin space and tactile field (Haggard et al., 2017). Section 3 discusses the model’s application to body ownership and bodily self-representation. Implications also extend to topics such as sense modality individuation (Macpherson, 2011), the constancy- based view of perception (Burge, 2010), and the perception/cognition divide (Firestone and Scholl, 2016). (shrink)

How can we acquire understanding? Linda Zagzebski has long claimed that understanding is acquired through, or arises from, mastering a particular practical technê. In this paper, I explicate Zagzebski’s claim and argue that the claim is problematic. Based on a critical examination of Zagzebski’s claim, I propose, in conclusion and in brief, a new claim regarding the acquisition of understanding.

Regulative virtue epistemology argues that intellectual virtues can adjust and guide one’s epistemic actions as well as improve on the quality of the epistemic actions. For regulative virtue epistemologists, intellectual virtues can be cultivated to a higher degree; when the quality of intellectual virtue is better, the resulting quality of epistemic action is better. The intellectual virtues that regulative epistemologists talk about are character virtues (such as intellectual courage and open-mindedness) rather than faculty virtues (such as sight and hearing), since (...) they don’t think that faculty virtues could be cultivated. This article refers to Xunzi’s philosophy, explaining how a regulative faculty-based virtue epistemology is possible. If this explanation works, on the one hand, a new branch of contemporary virtue epistemology is shown, and, on the other hand, a clear theoretical framework of Xunzi’s epistemology is constructed. (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)

There have recently been various empirical attempts to answer Molyneux’s question, for example, the experiments undertaken by the Held group. These studies, though intricate, have encountered some objections, for instance, from Schwenkler, who proposes two ways of improving the experiments. One is “to re-run [the] experiment with the stimulus objects made to move, and/or the subjects moved or permitted to move with respect to them” (p. 94), which would promote three dimensional or otherwise viewpoint-invariant representations. The other is “to use (...) geometrically simpler shapes, such as the cube and sphere in Molyneux’s original proposal, or planar figures instead of three-dimensional solids” (p. 188). Connolly argues against the first modification but agrees with the second. In this article, I argue that the second modification is also problematic (though still surmountable), and that both Schwenkler and Connolly are too optimistic about the prospect of addressing Molyneux’s question empirically. (shrink)

What should we do about “tainted” public commemorations? Recent events have highlighted the urgency of reaching a consensus on this question. However, existing discussions appear to be dominated by two naïve opposing views – to remove or preserve them. My aims in this essay are two-fold. First, I argue that the two views are not naïve, but undergirded by concerns with securing self-respect and with the character of our engagement with the past. Second, I offer a qualified defence of vandalising (...) tainted commemorations. The defence comprises two parts. I consider two prominent suggestions – to install counter-commemorations and to add contextualising plaques – and argue that they are typically beset with difficulties. I then argue that in some circumstances, constrained vandalism is a response to tainted commemorations which effectively adjudicates the demands of the two opposing views. (shrink)

The overflow debate concerns this following question: does conscious iconic memory have a higher capacity than attention does? In recent years, Ned Block has been invoking empirical works to support the positive answer to this question. The view is called the “rich view” or the “Overflow view”. One central thread of this discussion concerns the nature of iconic memory: for example how rich they are and whether they are conscious. The first section discusses a potential misunderstanding of “visible persistence” in (...) this literature. The second section discusses varieties of attention relevant to this debate. The final section discusses the most prominent alternative interpretation of the Sperling paradigm—the postdiction interpretation—and explains how it can be made compatible with a weaker version of the rich or overflow view. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a virtue-theoretic approach to semantics, according to which the study of linguistic competence in particular, and the study of meaning and language in general, should focus on a speaker's interpretative virtues, such as charity and interpretability, rather than the speaker's knowledge of rules. The first part of the paper proffers an argument for shifting to virtue semantics, and the second part outlines the nature of such virtue semantics.

Phronesis, or practical wisdom, is a capacity the possession of which enables one to make good practical judgments and thus fulfill the distinctive function of human beings. Nir Eisikovits and Dan Feldman convincingly argue that this capacity may be undermined by statistical machine-learning-based AI. The critic questions: why should we worry that AI undermines phronesis? Why can’t we epistemically defer to AI, especially when it is superintelligent? Eisikovits and Feldman acknowledge such objection but do not consider it seriously. In this (...) paper, we argue that there is a way to reconcile Eisikovits and Feldman with their critic by adopting the principle of epistemic heed, according to which we should exercise our rational capacity as much as possible while heeding a superintelligence’s output whenever possible. (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)

According to Dreyfusian anti-intellectualism, know-how or expertise cannot be explained in terms of know-that and its cognates but only in terms of intuition. Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus do not exclude know-that and its cognates in explaining skilled action. However, they think that know-that and its cognates (such as calculative deliberation and perspectival deliberation) only operate either below or above the level of expertise. In agreement with some critics of Dreyfus and Dreyfus, in this paper, I argue that know-that and (...) its cognates are constitutive of rather than external to know-how and expertise. However, unlike those critics, who argue for this point only from a phenomenological point of view, my argument adopts a (telic) normative point of view. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: First, to generalize Quine's epistemology, to show that what Quine refutes for traditional epistemology is not only Cartesian foundationalism and Carnapian reductionism, but also any epistemological program if it takes atomic verificationist semantics or supernaturalism, which are rooted in the linguistic/factual distinction of individual sentences, as its underlying system. Thus, we will see that the range of naturalization in the Quinean sense is not as narrow as his critics think. Second, to normalize Quine's (...) epistemology, to explain in what sense Quinean naturalized epistemology is normative. The reason I maintain that critics miss the point of Quinean naturalized epistemology is that they do not appreciate the close connection between Quine's naturalistic approach and his holistic approach to epistemology. To show this I shall reconstruct Quine's argument for naturalizing epistemology within his systematic philosophy, and focus specifically on his holism and its applications, on which Quine relies both in arguing against traditional epistemology, and in supporting his theses of underdetermination of physical theory and indeterminacy of translation. This is the key to understanding the scope and the normativity of Quine's epistemology. In the conclusion I will point out what the genuine problems are for Quinean naturalized epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper, the author will explore the relationship between agency and intentionality of the artificial agent in the following seven ways.

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)

We can classify the (truth-theoretic) paradoxes according to their degrees of paradoxicality. Roughly speaking, two paradoxes have the same degrees of paradoxicality, if they lead to a contradiction under the same conditions, and one paradox has a (non-strictly) lower degree of paradoxicality than another, if whenever the former leads to a contradiction under a condition, the latter does so under the same condition. In this paper, we outline some results and questions around the degrees of paradoxicality and summarize recent progress.

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)

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)

Many biologists, especially in ecology and evolution, analyze their data by estimating fits to a set of candidate models and selecting the best model according to the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) or the Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC). When the candidate models represent alternative hypotheses, biologists may want to limit the chance of a false positive to a specified level. Existing model selection methodology, however, allows for only indirect control over error rates by setting a threshold for the difference in AIC (...) scores. We present a novel theoretical framework for parametric Neyman-Pearson (NP) model selection using information criteria that does not require a pre-data null and applies to three or more non-nested models simultaneously. We apply the theoretical framework to the Error Control for Information Criteria (ECIC) procedure introduced by Cullan et al. (J Appl Stat 47: 2565–2581, 2019), and we show it shares many of the desirable properties of AIC-type methods, including false positive and negative rates that converge to zero asymptotically. We discuss implications for the compatibility of evidentialist and severity-based approach to evidence in philosophy of science. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the complex interaction between attention, fixation, and one species of change blindness. The two main interpretations of the target phenomenon are the ‘blindness’ interpretation and the ‘inaccessibility’ interpretation. These correspond to the sparse view (Dennett 1991; Tye, 2007) and the rich view (Dretske 2007; Block, 2007a, 2007b) of visual consciousness respectively. Here I focus on the debate between Fred Dretske and Michael Tye. Section 1 describes the target phenomenon and the dialectics it entails. Section (...) 2 explains how attention and fixation weigh in these debates, and argues that Dretske’s hyper-rich view fails precisely because he overlooks certain effects of attention and fixation. Section 3 explains why Tye’s view is also unsatisfying, mainly because he misconceives the degree of access. Section 4 then puts forward the positive model covariance, which has it that the degree of cognitive access tracks the degree of phenomenology, and contrasts it with Block’s view on the Sperling iconic memory paradigm. The paper ends with a discussion of levels of seeing, which involve crowding, indexing, and other visual phenomena. Change ‘blindness’ is a set of phenomena that was discovered about two decades ago, yet an entirely satisfying understanding is still lacking. To move forward, a more detailed understanding of attention and fixation is called for. (shrink)

Tennis champion Maria Sharapova has a habit of grunting when she plays on the court. Assume that she also has a habit of hitting the ball in a certain way in a certain situation. The habit of on-court grunting might be bad, but can the habit of hitting the ball in a certain way in a certain situation be classified as intelligent? The fundamental questions here are as follows: What is habit? What is the relation between habit and skill? Is (...) there such a thing as intelligent habit? In this paper I expound the nature of habit by developing and defending a Rylean conception of habit, according to which an acquired disposition is a habit if and only if the manifestation of the disposition is repeated, automatic, and uniform. One implication of this conception is that there is no such thing as intelligent habit. A practical application in athletic expertise is that sport coaches can help athletes go beyond repeated, automatic, and uniform dispositions in sport. (shrink)

This paper investigates the complicated relations between various versions of naturalism, behaviorism, and mentalism within the framework of W. V. O. Quine's thinking. It begins with Roger Gibson's reconstruction of Quine's behaviorisms and argues that it lacks a crucial ontological element and misconstrues the relation between philosophy and science. After getting clear of Quine's naturalism, the paper distinguishes between evidential, methodological, and ontological behaviorisms. The evidential and methodological versions are often conflated, but they need to be clearly distinguished in order (...) to see whether Quine's argument against mentalism is cogent. The paper argues that Quine's naturalism supports only the weakest version of behaviorism, that is, the evidential one, but this version is compatible with mentalistic semantics. Quine's opposition to mentalism is an overreaction from the behaviorist camp. By contrast, Jerry Fodor's objection to Jose Luis Bermudez is an overreaction from the opposite direction. (shrink)

关于人类意识起源和本质问题的探讨由来已久，各领域如哲学、社会学、生物学和心理学等都有不同定义和解释，但是至今为止都没有得到广泛的认同，主要原因是由意识的复杂性导致了各领域都不能全面、合理和充分地认识其 起源和本质，成为千古奇案，所以有必要对其进行深入探讨。 本文根据各学科的知识分析、汇总和归纳，得出如下结论：意识的起源来自自然物质；意识的本质为物质信息；意识的能力是物质信息的复杂度和有序度的利用程度；意识具有先天性、物质性、系统性、复杂性、动态性、差异性 和自我性属性 .

The truth table method, natural deduction, and the truth tree method, the three validity proving methods standardly taught in an introductory logic course, are too clumsy for the battlefield of real-life. The “short truth table” test is handy at times, but it stumbles at many other times. In this paper, we set up a general method that can beat all the methods mentioned above in a contest of speed. Furthermore, the procedure can be step-by-step paraphrased in a natural language, so (...) that, unlike the other methods, a real-life logical problem can be analyzed and explained in a real-life language too. (shrink)

The term “consciousness” is very often, though not always, interchangeable with the term “awareness,” which is more colloquial to many ears. We say things like “are you aware that ...” often. Sometimes we say “have you noticed that ... ?” to express similar thoughts, and this indicates a close connection between consciousness (awareness) and attention (noticing), which we will come back to later in this chapter. Ned Block, one of the key figures in this area, provides a useful characterization of (...) what he calls “phenomenal consciousness.” For him, phenomenal consciousness is experience. Experience covers perceptions, e.g., when we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste, we typically have experiences, such as seeing colors and smelling odors. It also covers bodily awareness, e.g., we typically have experiences of our own bodily temperature and positions of limbs. Consciousness is primarily about this experiential aspect of our mental lives. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on the representations of Black women in contrast to Black men found within Frantz Fanon’s philosophical work Black Skin, White Masks. I propose that while Fanon’s racial dialectical work is very significant, he often lacks acknowledgement of the multidimensionality of the Black woman’s lived experience specifically. Drawing on the theory of intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, I argue that Fanon does not recognize the different layers of oppression operating in Black women’s lives to the degree (...) that he fails to include them within his framework of both liberation and resistance from racial oppression. (shrink)

古代中国明朝哲学家王阳明创立的心学已有七百多年，它继承了中国古代的哲学，比如孔孟之道和宋明理学等的内容，创立了心学。其理念在社会哲学领域深深地影响了中国、日本和朝鲜等东亚国家，甚至于间接地推动了日本的 明治维新运动，成为千年一圣。同时世界各地的学者对心学的研究和探讨也是层出不穷，但是总体而言，缺乏对心学理论体系性的探讨和研究。 本文从体系概念着手，结合心学的内容，经过梳理后整合成一个完整的、逻辑的和全面的心学体系。.

Timothy Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits has been highly influential since the beginning of this century. It can be read as a systematic response to scepticism. One of the most important notions in this response is the notion of «evidence,» which will be the focus of the present paper. I attempt to show primarily two things. First, the notion of evidence invoked by Williamson does not address the sceptical worry: he stipulates an objective notion of evidence, but this begs the (...) question against his opponent. Second, his related thesis «Evidence equals Knowledge» does not sit well with his own content externalism: he promises to relate epistemology to philosophy of mind, but he fails to live up to this commitment in his crucial chapter on scepticism. Other minor problems concerning evidence will also be discussed in due course. (shrink)

In the present article, I attempt to relate Saul Kripke's “sceptical paradox” to some issues about the self; specifically, the relation between the self and its mental states and episodes. I start with a brief reconstruction of the paradox, and venture to argue that it relies crucially on a Cartesian model of the self: the sceptic regards the Wittgensteinian “infinite regress of interpretation” as the foundation of his challenge, and this is where he commits the crucial mistake. After the diagnosis, (...) I attempt to sketch my own model of the self and its mental states and episodes. This tentative picture binds meaning and the self together, stressing the subjective aspect of meaning without committing the same fallacy. The solution ventured here is relatively independent of the secondary literatures on the sceptical paradox of following rules, for it aims to provide a new angle to understand and meet the challenge presented by the sceptic. (shrink)

This paper develops the situational model of primate beliefs from the Prior-Lurz line of thought. There is a strong skepticism concerning primate beliefs in the analytic tradition which holds that beliefs have to be propositional and non-human animals do not have them. The response offered in this paper is twofold. First, two arguments against the propositional model as applied to other animals are put forward: an a priori argument from referential opacity and an empirical argument from varieties of working memory. (...) Second, the Prior-Lurz situational model based on state of affairs as opposed to propositions is introduced and defended with two significant modifications. With this model of primate beliefs we can make progress in understanding how other primates can have certain mindreading capacity. (shrink)