There is a close conceptual relation between the notions of religious disenchantment and scientific naturalism. One way of resisting philosophical and cultural implications of the scientific image and the subsequent process of disenchantment can be found in attempts at sketching a reenchanted worldview. The main issue of accounts of reenchantment can be a rejection of scientific results in a way that flies in the face of good reason. Opposed to such reenchantment is scientific naturalism which implies an entirely disenchanted worldview. (...) However, one of the main problems of scientific naturalism are placement problems. A reenchanted worldview does have the conceptual resources to avoid placement problems, yet seems to throw out the baby with the bathwater. A dilemma results: the Scylla of an undesirable scientific naturalism and the Charybdis of a rampant, seemingly prescientific reenchanted worldview. In this article I argue that there is a safe middle passage between these two options, i.e. the recently proposed liberal naturalism which allows for a moderate normative reenchantment. Liberal naturalism lets us have it both ways: avoiding the placement problems while retaining a necessary and reasonable adherence to science, thereby avoiding both an all-too restrictive scientific naturalism. (shrink)

In this research, an agent-based model was developed to study the propagation of physical climate shocks through supply chain networks. By combining supply chain and financial models, the study examines the effects of climate shocks on firms’ production capacities and their subsequent impacts on firm default risk. A comprehensive mathematical framework is presented for the simulation of physical risks, their subsequent up- and downstream impacts along the supply chain, and the translation of physical impacts into an increased level of default (...) risk. The results highlight the importance of supply chains as a transmission channel for physical climate risks and emphasize the effectiveness of implementing adaptation measures. Practical examples demonstrate the model’s behavior under different hypothetical climate scenarios and identify the sectors most vulnerable to increases in the frequency and intensity of climate events. Overall, this study provides insights into the transmission dynamics of climate shocks and emphasizes the need for resilience against climate events in supply chain networks. (shrink)

This paper argues that the current discourse on epistemic injustice in social epistemology itself perpetuates epistemic injustice, namely hermeneutic injustice with regards to class and classism. The main reason is that debates on epistemic injustice have foremost focussed on issues related to gender, race, and disability while mostly ignoring class issues. I suggest that this is due to (largely unwarranted) fears about looming class reductionism. More importantly, this is omission is not innocuous, but problematic insofar as it has an unlikely (...) ally in neoliberal propaganda which features as one main goal stifling class consciousness. While this “allyship” is unwitting, this presents grounds for the discourse of epistemic injustice to consider re-centring class issues and classism. (shrink)

Two opposed movements of thought threaten philosophy as an autonomous practice from the inside: scientific naturalism and quietism. Naturalism (qua methodological thesis) threatens to turn philosophy into a mere ancilla of the sciences, quietism understood as the prescription to remain silent in philosophy would not countenance any more "positive" philosophy. This book reconstructs naturalism and quietism such that it becomes clear naturalism does have the potential to end philosophy as an autonomous practice and that quietism, correctly understood, does not. To (...) this end, this book provides arguments against the prevailing orthodox status of naturalism and a heterogenous reading of Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical quietism as the rejection of a certain kind of theories in philosophy, namely quasi-scientific theories. (shrink)

Narrativity is basically linked to the dynamics of the events and actions which are told and it depends on the pragmatic context, mainly on the narrator and his audience, i.e. on the discursive setting. These dynamics ask for an adequate theoretical frame, e.g. in the format of dynamical system theory or vector analysis. Furthermore, narrativity can be manifested in different modalities. We shall present some specimens of analysis in the linguistic modality (spontaneous oral tales, folktales), in the visual modality (painting (...) by Leonardo da Vinci, action movie in the series of Bond films), and in the musical modality (Blues music). The static analyses in the tradition of structuralism are replaced by morphodynamic schemes, by gesture and glance vectors, paths of pursuit and scenarios of conflict in action movies and eventually by harmonic sequences in the Blues. In this dynamic perspective, the notion of narrativity gains a different profile and it is freed from the preference for linguistic or logical categories. (shrink)

This paper aims to support my (2018) skeptical position on the possibility of a correct and philosophically significant specification of first-person authority. For this purpose, I critically examine the proposals presented by Doyle (2021) and Winokur (2022) in response to my position and argue that while these proposals contain some ingenious ideas, they ultimately fall short of providing correct and philosophically significant specifications. Ultimately, the search for an adequate specification of first-person authority remains unresolved.

The central idea of this essay is that philosophical thinking revolves around aporetic clusters, i.e., sets of individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent propositions. The task of philosophy is to dissolve such clusters, either by showing that the propositions in question, contrary to first impression, are compatible with each other, or by showing that it is permissible to abandon at least one of the propositions involved. This view of philosophical problems not only provides a very good description of well-understood philosophizing, but (...) is also better suited than others to explain some seemingly strange characteristics of philosophy, most notably its armchair character, the large variety of incommensurable doctrines by which it is characterized, and its concern with its own history. (shrink)

According to the transparency approach, achievement of self-knowledge is a two-stage process: first, the subject arrives at the judgment ‘p’; second, the subject proceeds to the judgment ‘I believe that p.’ The puzzle of transparency is to understand why the transition from the first to the second judgment is rationally permissible. After revisiting the debate between Byrne and Boyle on this matter, I present a novel solution according to which the transition is rationally permissible in virtue of a justifying argument (...) that begins from a premise referring to the mental utterance that is emitted in the course of judging ‘p.’. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory usually neglects two variables: the changes induced in the environment by the evolving organism, and individual uniqueness in sexually reproducing species. In order to fuel its maintenance and reproduction, an organism must average a positive net energy balance vis-a-v}s its environment. It achieves this via aptations, which consist of information (i.e., the internalization of all that is predictable about the environment, including the machinery to take advantage of this information) and stored energy (to operate the machinery, including a (...) safety margin to deal with events that are unpredictable in principle). Taking advantage of a prediction, however, interferes with what has been predicted; each adaptation by the organism therefore changes its environmental target. Today's organism is adapted to yesterday's environment, and today's predator inherits yesterday's prey image. This paper attempts to show that, over evolutionary time, the persistence of this asymmetric, time-lagged relationship is owed increasingly to genetically unique individuals. Individual uniqueness as resulting from sexual reproduction is janusfaced. It endows an evolving population with both a forward-looking (promethean) and backward-looking (protean) feature. A population made up of genetically unique individuals is promethean (creative) in its ability to exploit non-homogeneous resources and respond serendipitously to environmental change via new genotypes; it is protean (elusive) in presenting a pursuer (predator or parasite) with a scattered target. Furthermore, because of the asymmetry between the winnowing of the target gene pool by the pursuer, and the genetic fixation in the pursuer of an outdated target image, the target keeps evolving away from the pursuer at a speed and in a direction that are a function of the pursuer's success. This mechanism ensures an evolutionary time lag be102 W. Sterrer tween pursuer and target, which explains escalation, the stability of asymmetric coevolutionary systems such as the life/dinner principle, and the pervasiveness of the Red Queen effect. Individuality thus both promotes and retards the speed of evolution. Having probably originated simultaneously with predation, sex-generated individuality is a self-accelerating evolutionary process that may account for much of today's organismic and environmental complexity. (shrink)

This article aims to show that Williamson's anti-luminosity argument does not succeed if we presuppose a constitutive connection between the phenomenal and the doxastic. In contrast to other luminists, however, my strategy is not to critically focus on the refined safety condition in terms of degrees of confidence that anti-luminists typically use in this context. Instead, I will argue that, given a certain conception of what Chalmers calls ‘direct phenomenal concepts,’ luminosity is guaranteed even if the refined safety condition in (...) terms of degrees of confidence is taken for granted. (shrink)

Many philosophical theories of self-knowledge can be understood as attempts to explain why self-ascriptions enjoy a certain kind of authority that other-ascriptions lack (the Authority Thesis). The aim of this paper is not to expand the stock of existing explanations but to ask whether the Authority Thesis can be adequately specified. To this end, I identify three requirements that must be met by any satisfactory specification. I conclude that the search for an adequate specification of the Authority Thesis leads to (...) a dilemma: it either yields an interpretation under which the thesis is philosophically interesting but false, or it produces an interpretation under which the thesis is actually true but of minor philosophical interest. (shrink)

Every domain-specific ontology must use as a framework some upper-level ontology which describes the most general, domain-independent categories of reality. In the present paper we sketch a new type of upper-level ontology, which is intended to be the basis of a knowledge modelling language GOL (for: 'General Ontological Language'). It turns out that the upper- level ontology underlying standard modelling languages such as KIF, F-Logic and CycL is restricted to the ontology of sets. Set theory has considerable mathematical power and (...) great flexibility as a framework for modelling different sorts of structures. At the same time it has the disadvantage that sets are abstract entities (entities existing outside the realm of time, space and causality), and thus a set-theoretical framework should be supplemented by some other machinery if it is to support applications in the ripe, messy world of concrete objects. In the present paper we partition the entities of the real world into sets and urelements, and then we introduce several new ontological relations between these urelements. In contrast to standard modelling and representation formalisms, the concepts of GOL provide a machinery for representing and analysing such ontologically basic relations. (shrink)

Kendall Walton’s account of make-believe takes the social dimension of imagination into account. In this paper I aim to extend this suggestion and argue that works of fiction allow for encounters with concrete (yet fictitious) persons with a distinct point of view and a discernible perspective. These encounters allow us to contrast the perspective(s) that emerge from the work with one’s own. I will then discuss two moments of the social dimension: imagining fictional scenarios is a social practice, a game (...) we play together and in which we encounter others. Both of these moments shed light on the central role of fiction for the social community in which it is embedded and show how engaging with works of fiction can contribute to the inner cohesion and to the persistence of the group. (shrink)

Our senses provide us with information about the world, but what exactly do they tell us? I argue that in order to optimally respond to sensory stimulations, an agent’s doxastic space may have an extra, “imaginary” dimension of possibility; perceptual experiences confer certainty on propositions in this dimension. To some extent, the resulting picture vindicates the old-fashioned empiricist idea that all empirical knowledge is based on a solid foundation of sense-datum propositions, but it avoids most of the problems traditionally associated (...) with that idea. The proposal might also explain why experiences appear to have a non-physical phenomenal character, even if the world is entirely physical. (shrink)

The paper argues that Gareth Evans’ argument for transparent self-knowledge is based on a conflation of doxastic transparency with ascriptive transparency. Doxastic transparency means that belief about one’s own doxastic state, e.g., the belief that one thinks that it will rain, can be warranted by ordinary empirical observation, e.g., of the weather. In contrast, ascriptive transparency says that self-ascriptions of belief, e.g., “I believe it will rain”, can be warranted by such observation. We first show that the thesis of doxastic (...) transparency is ill-motivated and then offer a non-epistemic interpretation of ascriptive transparency by reference to the theory of explicit expressive acts: “I think it will rain” requires attendance to the weather because the utterance expresses a belief about the weather, not about ourselves. This will allow us to avoid what is often called “the puzzle of transparent self-knowledge” while remaining faithful to Evans’ linguistic observations. (shrink)

Die „Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre“ bleibt für den, der Fichte im philosophiegeschichtlichen Zusammenhang sehen will, der wichtigste Text; dies gilt auch dann noch, wenn die Akademie-Ausgabe abgeschlossen sein wird. Der Jenaer Fichte hat nicht nur auf seine Zeitgenossen am stärksten gewirkt, er war auch seinerseits damals noch am offensten für Einflüsse. Der vorliegende Kommentar – der erste, der den gesamten deutschen Text behandelt – bietet keine Paraphrase, keine Übersetzung in eine zeitgemäßere Sprache, keine „Darstellung“, die Fichtes Disposition durch eine eigene (...) ersetzt und damit – gewollt oder ungewollt – in Konkurrenz zum Original tritt. Er will vielmehr den Leser auf seinem dornigen Pfad Satz für Satz begleiten und bei keiner Schwierigkeit im Stich lassen. Die konkrete Erforschung literarischer Bezüge und Abhängigkeiten zeigt, wie sehr der „Selbstdenker“ Fichte – unbeschadet seiner Eigenständigkeit – nicht nur in der Philosophie, sondern im ganzen Geistesleben der Epoche verwurzelt ist. Durch die ausgiebigen, mit sprachlichen Erläuterungen versehenen Zitate entlegener Quellen ist der Kommentar zugleich eine Art Lesebuch. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to lay the groundwork for extending the idea of transparent introspection to wishes. First, I elucidate the notion of transparent introspection and highlight its advantages over rival accounts of self-knowledge. Then I pose several problems that seem to obstruct the extension of transparent introspection to wishes. In order to overcome these problems, I call into question the standard propositional attitude analysis of non-doxastic attitudes. My considerations lead to a non-orthodox account of attitudes in general (...) and wishes in particular in light of which the problems presented in Sect. 2 disappear. (shrink)

The creation of new institutions and the initiation of new forms of behaviour cannot be explained only on the basis of constitutive rules – they also require a broader commitment of individuals who participate in social practices and, thus, to become members of a community. In this paper, I argue that the received conception of constitutive rules shows a problematic intellectualistic bias that becomes particularly manifest in three assumptions: (i) constitutive rules have a logical form, (ii) constitutive rules have no (...) normative force, and (iii) rules are essentially tied to a sanctioning authority. I discuss these three claims in light of real-life examples. The goal of this discussion is to show that the normative force of constitutive rules is based on the shared commitment of participants who engage in the relevant practices. The inner cohesion and the persistence in time of these practices is possible only because participants continuously calibrate their own forms of behaviour to that of the other members of the community, which underscores the social dimension of constitution. (shrink)

The present essay seeks, by way of the Austrian example, to make a contribution to what might be called the philosophy of the supranational state. More specifically, we shall attempt to use certain ideas on the philosophy of Gestalten as a basis for understanding some aspects of that political and cultural phenomenon which was variously called the Austrian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, the Danube Monarchy or Kakanien.

In contrast to the successful previous year, 2020 turned out to be difficult, not only for the earth’s population due to COVID-19 but also for JDDM with an unusually small sixth volume. Looking back at these two very different years back-to-back led us to some reflection: As the COVID-19 pandemic forcefully illustrates, dynamic decision-making with all its complications and uncertainty is a topic of high relevance for modern societies.

In recent literature, there is a strong tendency to endorse the following argument: There are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible; if there are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, then the infallibility of those judgments is due to the relation of acquaintance; therefore, acquaintance explains why those particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences are infallible. The aim of this paper is to examine critically both the first and the second premise (...) of this argument. It will emerge that there might be a small class of judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, namely judgments involving direct phenomenal concepts. However, as I will try to show, the infallibility of such judgments, if existent at all, is not due to the relation of acquaintance. (shrink)

In his seminal paper, ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ (1978), Gareth Evans advanced an argument purporting to prove that the idea of indeterminate identity is incoherent. Aware that his argument was incomplete as it stands, Evans added a remark at the end of his paper, in which he explained how the original argument needed to be modified to arrive at an explicit contradiction. This paper aims to develop a modified version of Evans’ original argument, which I argue is more promising (...) than the modification that Evans proposed in his remark. Last, a structurally similar argument against the idea of indeterminate existence is presented. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to take a fresh look at a discussion about the distinct existences argument that took place between David Armstrong and Frank Jackson more than fifty years ago. I will try to show that Armstrong’s argument can be successfully defended against Jackson’s objections (albeit at the price of certain concessions concerning Armstrong’s view on the meaning of psychological terms as well as his conception of universals). Focusing on two counterexamples that Jackson put forward against Hume’s (...) principle (which is central to Armstrong’s argument), I will argue that they are either compatible with Hume’s principle, or imply a false claim. I will also look at several other considerations that go against Hume’s principle, such as, for example, Kripke’s origin essentialism and counterexamples from aposteriori necessity. (shrink)

The contemporary debate in the philosophy of literature is strongly shaped by the anticognitivist challenge, according to which works of literary fiction (that contain propositions that are neither literally true nor affirmed by the author) cannot impart (relevant) knowledge to the readers or enrich their worldly understanding. Anti-cognitivists appreciate works of literary fiction for their aesthetic values and so risk to reduce them to mere ornaments that are entertaining, but eventually useless. Many philosophers have reacted to this challenge by pointing (...) at ways in which works of literary fiction can be informative even though they lack worldly reference: it has been argued, for example, that works of fictions are thought experiments; that they add not to our theoretical knowledge, but to our know-how or to our phenomenal knowledge; or that that they help readers to understand the perspectives of others. A stubborn defense of literary cognitivism, however, risks to collapse into an instrumental understanding of literature. In my paper I suggest that both sides in the debate focus too narrowly on semantic features of the works in question that is tied to what I will call the “referential picture” of language. A shift perspective is needed: for one, we ought to fully appreciate that the term “literature” does not refer to a homogeneous phenomenon, but rather to a very heterogeneous and multifarious set of works that are read by many different readers for many different reasons in many different ways. Second, we need to understand that these works have in common much more than the semantic peculiarity of lacking worldly reference: they are a unique means of communication between authors and readers – and in particular the role of the latter is often neglected in contemporary debate. These two points should help us to get a more comprehensive understanding of the practice of literature and the vast range of values we can find works of literary fiction – and the interplay between them. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide an account of introspective knowledge concerning visual experiences that is in accordance with the idea of transparent introspection. According to transparent introspection, a person gains knowledge of her own current mental state M solely by paying attention to those aspects of the external world which M is about. In my view, transparent introspection is a promising alternative to inner sense theories. However, it raises the fundamental question why a person who pays attention (...) to something extra-mental should be epistemically justified in holding a belief about something intra-mental. In his Naturalizing the Mind, Fred Dretske solves this problem by conceiving of introspection concerning visual experiences as an inference based on a connecting belief. Although Dretske's account proves defective upon closer inspection, its essence can be salvaged by looking upon introspection as being a game of make-believe. (shrink)

We argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophical perspective on Gödel’s most famous theorem is even more radical than has commonly been assumed. Wittgenstein shows in detail that there is no way that the Gödelian construct of a string of signs could be assigned a useful function within (ordinary) mathematics. — The focus is on Appendix III to Part I of Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. The present reading highlights the exceptional importance of this particular set of remarks and, more specifically, emphasises (...) its refined composition and rigorous internal structure. (shrink)

Abstract: Brentano’s conception of scientific philosophy had a strong influence on his students and on the intellectual atmosphere of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. The aim of this article is to expose Brentano’s conception and to contrast his views with that of two traditions he is said to have considerably influenced: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. I will shed light on the question of how and to what extent Brentano’s conception of philosophy as a rigorous science has had an impact (...) on these two traditions. The discussion will show that both took their liberties in the interpretation of the thesis, a move that allowed them to liberate themselves from Brentano’s inheritance and to fully develop their own philosophical positions. (shrink)

The ontology of marketing, particularly the question of what products and brands are, is still largely unexplored. The ontological status of brands hinges on their relationship with products. Idealists about brands see perceptual or cognitive acts of consumers grouped under the heading ‘brand awareness’ or ‘brand image’ as constitutive for the existence of brands so that, in their view, tools of the marketing mix can influence relevant mental dispositions and attitudes. Brand realists, on the other hand, reject the view of (...) brands as mere marks or names and interpret them as emergent products with properties that afford branding in the sense of Gibson’s ecological psychology. Brand strength is a function of the degree to which brands occupy defensible niches in product space. Branding as a process involves changing external or internal boundaries of products. Several arguments are proposed in favor of brand realism. The fragments of an ontology of marketing are developed in a broadly Aristotelian framework. Brand realism has significant implications for a new understanding of issues ranging from the effects of advertising to financial brand valuation, the nature of trademarks, and marketing strategy in general. It permits one to treat brand equity as a real phenomenon not dependent on associations, attitudinal states such as brand loyalty, or spurious constructs such as brand character or personality. (shrink)

Der vorliegende "philologische" Kommentar beansprucht Kants Critik der reinen Vernunft aus ihren historischen Voraussetzungen zu erklären. Zu diesen gehört an erster Stelle Kants Sprache; sie ist nicht mehr die unsere, was den unvorbereiteten Leser von heute schon an der Semantik und Syntax vieler Sätze scheitern lässt. Neben einer Fülle von sprachlichen Erläuterungen und textkritischen Untersuchungen bringt der Kommentar reichliche Zitate aus den von Kant benutzten Logik- und Metaphysik-Lehrbüchern, die seine Rezeption der "dogmatischen" Philosophie Christian Wolffs und seiner Nachfolger belegen; lateinische (...) Texte werden dabei sowohl im Original als auch in deutscher Übersetzung geboten. Einzelne Motive werden ideengeschichtlich bis in die Antike zurückverfolgt; hieraus eröffnen sich Perspektiven für eine "Metakritik" von einem "vorkritischen" Standpunkt aus, die im Rahmen eines philologischen Kommentars nur angedeutet werden können. (shrink)

The distinction of things in themselves and appearances is an integral part of Kant’s transcendental idealism, yet it has often been met with rather significant hostility. Moreover, what surely has not contributed to the popularity of this Kantian doctrine is that there are, or at least there appear to be, two distinct models, detectable in Kant’s texts, to account for this distinction. Most commonly, these two models are called the “two aspect view” on the one hand and the “two world (...) view” on the other, but it is possible that these labels themselves invite misunderstandings and obscure rather than clarify what Kant had in mind with his distinction. In this paper, I shall first briefly discuss how these two models could be described and labelled in a more suitable manner, namely as the “one composite entity view” and the “two separate objects view”. Subsequently, I will enquire which of the models is pertinent for Kant’s solution to the 3rd antinomy. I will try to show that although the two models appear to be incompatible, it is at least plausible to read Kant as using both of them in this crucial text of his oeuvre. Moreover, Kant’s strategy in solving the freedom problem on the basis of an indirectly realist account of the divine intellect provides the clue to understanding how these seemingly incompatible models can co-exist without forcing Kant into maintaining contradictory claims. (shrink)

(For the English version, see below) Dieser Band schließt an die "Prozessontologie" von Wolfgang Sohst an. In vorliegenden Buch entwickelt er den Begriff der Emergenz auf der Grundlage einer Schichtenontologie. Kern dieser Theorie ist der Nachweis, dass die Struktur alles Gegebenen (also nicht nur des physischen Universums, sondern auch der irdischen Biosphäre und der aus ihr hervorgegangenen psychischen, sozialen und abstrakten Existenzformen) offen ist; es gibt keine absolute Entwicklungsgrenze der Weltstruktur. Alles Gegebene ist allerdings in Schichten gegliedert, beginnend mit (...) den protophysikalischen Weltzuständen über die quantenmechanische, die makrophysikalische und biologische Ebene bis hin zu den sozialen Strukturen menschlicher Wirklichkeit und den noch über sie hinausgehenden abstrakten Strukturen der reinen Symbolsysteme. -/- Der Begriff der Emergenz spielt hierin eine wichtige Rolle. Seine ideengeschichtliche Entwicklung seit den 1920er Jahren verlief allerdings unglücklich, weil von vornherein auf neue Einzelgegenstände und ihre Eigenschaften fixiert. Dabei ging sowohl die Prozesshaftigkeit der Welt verloren als auch die Einsicht, dass neue Strukturschichten der Welt nicht durch einzelne Gegenstände oder ihre Eigenschaften repräsentiert werden, sondern durch neue Gegenstands-, Zustands- und Prozesstypen. Dieser zunächst unauffällig erscheinende Unterschied zur traditionellen Emergenztheorie eröffnet vollkommen neue Zugänge und Verständnismöglichkeiten zur strukturellen Entwicklung des Weltganzen. (560 Seiten, Hardcover) -/- English version: This volume follows on from Wolfgang Sohst's "Process Ontology". In this book, he develops the concept of emergence on the basis of a layered ontology. The core of this theory is the proof that the structure of everything given (i.e. not only of the physical universe but also of the earthly biosphere and the mental, social and abstract forms of existence that emerged from it) is open; there is no absolute developmental limit of the world structure. However, everything given is divided into layers or strata, beginning with the proto-physical world states over the quantum-mechanical, the macrophysical, and biological level up to the social structures of human reality and the abstract structures of the pure symbol systems still going beyond them. -/- The concept of emergence plays an important role in this. However, its development in the history of ideas since the 1920s was unfortunate, because from the outset it was fixed on new individual objects and their properties. In the process, both the processuality of the world and the insight that new structural layers or strata of the world are not represented by individual objects or their properties, but by new types of objects, states, and processes, were lost. This differs from traditional emergence theory, which at first seems inconspicuous, and opens up entirely new approaches and ways of understanding the structural development of the world as a whole. (560 pages, hardcover). (shrink)

The existence of a Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) is not a given, as arguments contra are in balance with arguments pro. An intellectual tradition consists of a style of thought and of a worldview, as its formal and material modes. The former defines the way knowledge is appropriated, processed, and passed on whereas the latter amounts to its applications to various regions of reality – God, man, morality, society, the Church, etc. A model of the CIT is proposed that consists (...) of principles differentiated by the degree of centrality they have in a topological structure. The paper asserts the existence of a CIT because a non-stipulative, non-trivial, and non-circular case can be made for it. (shrink)

The key message of this book is that we come to know our own mental states, not by peering inward, but by focusing on the aspects of the external world to which we are intentionally related in virtue of having the mental states in question. Though many philosophers think that the idea of transparency, as it is called, may apply to self-knowledge of some mental states, it is often regarded as hopeless to widen its scope to self-knowledge of mental states (...) in general—for it seems that not all mental states make us aware of aspects of the external world. Barz rejects this view and take pains to show that the idea of transparency does apply across the board: not only to beliefs and visual experiences, but also to desires, intentions, bodily sensations and emotions. For this purpose, Barz carefully rethinks the nature of mind. He thereby develops, among other things, an original account of episodic mental states, challenges the orthodox view of propositional content and presents an account of emotions which integrates aspects of both cognitivist and non-cognitivist approaches. (shrink)

All statements describing physical reality are derived through interpretation of measurement results that requires a theory of the measuring instruments used to make the measurements. The ultimate measuring instrument is our body which displays its measurement results in our mind. Since a physical theory of our mind-body is unknown, the correct interpretation of its measurement results is unknown. The success of the physical sciences has led to a tendency to treat assumption in physics as indisputable facts. This tendency hampers the (...) development of new theories capable of addressing the foundations of mind. To show the possibility that false interpretations of experimental results have lead to equally false projections onto physical reality may have happened, the double slit experiment and special relativity experiments are examined in detail. I will show that strongly held a-priory beliefs characterizing measurement instruments have lead to unjustified but widely held concepts in physical theories. For example the assumption that material bodies have minds can change the interpretation of experiments to produce alternative physical theories. Since some material bodies have minds this paper calls for a review of the conscious observer’s role in the execution and interpretation of fundamental physics experiments in order to verify or challenge the basic beliefs adopted in standard physical theories. (shrink)

Since their formulation by Keith DeRose (1992), the so-called bank cases have played a major role in the discussion about whether knowledge depends on practical factors. According to the proponents of pragmatic encroachment, the proper conclusion to be drawn from the bank cases and similar examples is that knowledge of a proposition _p_ does not supervene on one’s evidence for or against _p_. In my view, this conclusion is ill-founded. The reason is that the bank cases and similar examples suffer (...) from an ambiguity concerning the known proposition — an ambiguity that has so far been overlooked. When this ambiguity is made explicit, it becomes clear that the conclusion does not follow. (shrink)

A brief introductory note to the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy on "Parts and Wholes", setting the background for the seven papers included in the rest of the issue (by K. Fine, H. Hudson, M. Johnston, K. Koslicki, C. Normore, P. M. Simons, and P. van Inwagen).

Possible-worlds accounts of mental or linguistic content are often criticized for being too coarse-grained. To make room for more fine-grained distinctions among contents, several authors have recently proposed extending the space of possible worlds by "impossible worlds". We argue that this strategy comes with serious costs: we would effectively have to abandon most of the features that make the possible-worlds framework attractive. More generally, we argue that while there are intuitive and theoretical considerations against overly coarse-grained notions of content, the (...) same kinds of considerations also prohibit an overly fine-grained individuation of content. An adequate notion of content, it seems, should have intermediate granularity. However, it is hard to construe a notion of content that meets these demands. Any notion of content, we suggest, must be either implausibly coarse-grained or implausibly fine-grained (or both). (shrink)

In a series of recent contributions it has been argued that Franz Brentano’s philosophical position constituted a unified system; Uriah Kriegel has called Brentano's philosophy as “the last grand system of Western philosophy”. The goal of the present paper is to scrutinise this claim and shed light on Brentano's methodological approach and his style of reasoning. I pay particular attention to two aspects: Brentano’s view that philosophy should be done in a rigorous, scientific manner and the fragmentary character of Brentano’s (...) work. I argue that both aspects stand in contrast to the very idea of system-philosophy: the maxim that philosophy should adopt the method of the natural sciences was intended by Brentano as a way of distancing himself from system-philosophy; while the fragmentary character of Brentano’s work does not fulfill the aspiration of system-philosophy to provide an answer to everything. Yet, the incompleteness of his work is not an arbitrary or contingent aspect; it is rather a necessary side-effect of his methodological views. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that introspective beliefs about one’s own current visual experiences are not immediate in the sense that what justifies them does not include other beliefs that the subject in question might possess. The argument will take the following course. First, the author explains the notions of immediacy and truth-sufficiency as they are used here. Second, the author suggests a test to determine whether a given belief lacks immediacy. Third, the author applies this test (...) to a standard case of formation of an introspective belief about one’s own current visual experiences and concludes that the belief in question is neither immediate nor truth-sufficient. Fourth, the author rebuts several objections that might be raised against the argument. (shrink)

First, I will discuss several reasons as to why there is still almost a reluctance to reading Kant’s philosophy in the context of the scholastic tradition. The focus will be on (i) the label “revolutionary” often attached to Kant’s thought thereby suggesting a radical break with the past, especially with regard to philosophers often perceived as conservative, and (ii) the issue of confessional ramifications (not unrelated to the first point) will also be touched upon, albeit briefly. Then, two examples will (...) be investigated with regard to which a recourse to this context provides important clues to the philosophical points at issue. These are Kant’s claims that on the one hand, existence is not a real predicate, and on the other, that appearances are nothing but representations. (shrink)

The current debate on literary cognitivism in the philosophy of fiction typically assumes that we can rigorously distinguish between fictional and factual, and focuses on the question of whether and how works of fiction can impart propositional knowledge to the reader. In this paper we suggest that this way of framing the debate may be problematic. We argue that works of fiction almost inevitably include a reference to the real world and that – contrary to what is usually assumed – (...) the exchange between fiction and reality is vivid as well as potentially fruitful. We shed a new light on these complex dynamics by building on the metaphors of trade exchange and smuggling between the two worlds. While the current debate exclusively focuses on cognitively relevant goods that “officially” cross the border through “customs”, as it were, we show that exchanges between fiction and reality run deeper. Indeed, as we show, a substantial part of the cognitive impact that we derive from fiction goes “under the table” and is “smuggled” from fiction to reality. As such, it bypasses the audience’s conscious control, which in turn explains the manipulative force that fiction can exert. Smuggling takes place when cognitively relevant contents are passed on to the reader in subliminal ways, as it happens when they imprint implicit biases or prejudices, shift perspectives or subtly modify habits or patterns of behavior. By elaborating on the metaphors of trade exchange and smuggling, we aim at presenting a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the relations between fiction and reality and on the impact that imagination has on our real-world beliefs. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Priest's modal Meinongianism might benefit from joining forces with two-dimensionalism. For this purpose, I propose a two-dimensional solution to a problem for modal Meinongianism that is posed by Beall, Sauchelli, and Milne, and show that, by taking recourse to two-dimensionalism, divergent intuitions about the question of whether fictional characters might exist can be reconciled. Moreover, two-dimensionalism helps to rebut Kroon's argument to the conclusion that modal Meinongianism cannot rule out the odd (...) claim that some non-existent objects have existence-entailing properties at the actual world. (shrink)