In this paper I will give an analysis of what I call ‘generalizing detached self-reference’ within a general account of reference to the first person. With generalizing detached self-reference an agent attributes properties to a range of individuals by putting himself into their shoes, or simulating them. I will show that generalizing detached self-reference plays an important role in the semantics of natural language, in particular in the English generic one and in what syntacticians call arbitrary PRO.

This article investigates a central yet perplexing term yiming in the ‘Qiwulun’ chapter of the Zhuangzi. Yiming describes a crucial way to detach from epistemic distinctions and debates. This term is often explained as ‘using ming’ or contradictorily as ‘stopping ming’. Yet neither of the two explanations can provide a full understanding of how yiming is adopted. I take three steps to explain yiming. First, taking an etymological approach, I argue that ming can be formulated as ‘X shining on Y’. (...) Second, I use the formula of ‘X shining on Y’ to account for yiming and argue that this term refers specifically to ‘using tian to shine on everything’. Third, I unpack a cluster of tian-associated metaphors, which provides a deep understanding of yiming as an ideal way to mental tranquility. (shrink)

The development of artificial womb technology is proceeding rapidly and will present important ethical and theological challenges for Christians. While there has been extensive secular discourse on artificial wombs in recent years, there has been little Christian engagement with this topic. There are broadly two primary uses of artificial womb technology—ectogestation as a form of enhanced neonatal care, where some of the gestation period takes place in an artificial womb, and ectogenesis, where the entire gestation period is within an artificial (...) womb. Ectogestation for the latter weeks or months of pregnancy could be possible within a decade or so, while ectogenesis for humans is far more speculative. Ectogestation is likely to significantly decrease maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality, and so there is a strong case for supporting its development. Ectogenesis, however, may bring a number of challenges, including the commodification of children, and the pathologizing of pregnancy and childbirth. Its long-term effects on those who are created through this process are also unknown. In the event that it becomes ubiquitous, we may also find the central theological significance of pregnancy and birth diminished. The dilemma for Christians is that the development of ectogestation seems likely to normalise the use of artificial gestation, and, in time, pave the way for ectogenesis. (shrink)

In this article I propose to reframe debates about ideals of emotion in medicine, abandoning the current binary setup of this debate as one between ‘clinical detachment’ and empathy. Inspired by observations from my own field work and drawing on Sky Gross’ anthropological work on rituals of practice as well as Henri Lefebvre’s notion of rhythm, I propose that the normative drive of clinical practice can be better understood through the notion of attunement. In this framework individual types of (...) emotions are not, as such, appropriate or inappropriate, but are evaluated depending on their synchronicity with the specific rhythms of the practice. To set up this proposal, I show how typical arguments about emotions in medicine—what I call emotion-entity focused frameworks—are insufficient. I then draw on ethnographic observations from two orthopaedic departments and interviews with medical practitioners to show (1) how clinical practice is driven by rhythmicity, shaped in the case of orthopaedic surgery by a clinical aim of efficient, controlled intervention, and (2) how clinicians continuously refer to this drive and the flow of rhythms when evaluating inappropriate or problematic emotion. I argue that the use of a rhythm framework rather than ideals of detachment or empathy allows for a sensitivity to the complexity and situation-dependent elements of emotional ideals in clinical practice; and I end by proposing the term ‘attuned concern’—which stresses the importance of regulation and adjustment to circumstances rather than of maintaining a constant distance/involvement—as a more fitting alternative to ‘clinical detachment’. (shrink)

A commonly accepted claim by philosophers investigating the nature of evil is that the evil person is, in some way, the mirror image of the moral saint. In this paper I will defend a new version of this thesis. I will argue that both the moral saint and the morally evil person are characterized by a lack of conflict between moral and non-moral concerns. However, while the saint achieves this unity through a reconciliation of the two, the evil person does (...) so by eliminating moral concerns from her character. (shrink)

The following discourse is a brief yet appealing comparative analysis of two viewpoints on the same subject of Karma Yoga (detached 'witness–consciousness' through action) written separately by two stalwarts of Indian philosophy: Rabindranath Tagore (1915) and Swami Vivekananda (1896).

For each of the many goals of an agent it is true that the agent wants its realization. Given further very plausible assumptions, one can show that there is no good reason for an agent not to want the realization of all of his goals. However, it seems also true that reaching all of one’s goals would be extremely boring; most human beings would consider such a life not worth living. In this respect, leading a life is like playing some (...) game: A game loses its point if one always easily wins. Human agents not only pursue goals but they also have the second-order desire to lead the life of a goal-pursuer. More precisely, they want to be goal-pursuers such that many but not all of their goals are being realized. I argue here that they have a good reason not to want the realization of all of their goals. Now, all this constitutes an antinomy: Apparently, there are very plausible arguments both for affirming as well as denying that an agent has good reasons not to want the realization of his goals. This antinomy is similar to the preface-paradox about beliefs which has a convincing solution (due to Frank Ramsey). I argue, however, that there is no such solution in the case of goals. This leaves us with the question what a solution could look like. (shrink)

Karen Stohr’s book On Manners argues persuasively that rules of etiquette, though conventional, play an essential moral role, because they “serve as vehicles through which we express important moral values like respect and consideration for the needs, ideas, and opinions of others”. Stohr frequently invokes Kantian concepts and principles in order to make her point. In Part 2 of this essay, I shall argue that the significance of etiquette is better understood using a virtue ethics framework, like that of Confucianism, (...) rather than the language of Kantianism. Within the Chinese tradition, Daoists have frequently been critics of Confucian ritualism. Consequently, in Part 3, I shall consider some possible Daoist critiques of Stohr’s work. (shrink)

This article engages with two fundamental attitudes toward animals who are used for human consumption: attention and ironic detachment. Taken as polarities linked with animal consumption and the refusal thereof, I discuss how these two attitudes are shaped and manifested during moments of encounter with the animals in question. Starting from a striking photograph from the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in China, I explore the embodiment of these attitudes in the “gaze” of human participants during the encounter with (...) animals who are going to be killed for food. (shrink)

The practice of social studies continues to be a complicated scientific endeavor. From an epistemological point of view, the social sciences, unlike the natural sciences, do not conform to the predominant definition of science. The existing differences among expositions of “science,” “inquiry,” and “studies” lie with the contested role of the intellectual who is embarked on understanding the social realm. The “maturity” of the social sciences is usually discussed in the context of objectivity and rationality. But continuing epistemological debates would (...) be insufficient without reference to the scholar as a human studying humans. The philosophy of science has focused mainly on the procedures of knowledge accumulation, neglecting social context and its implications for inquiry. To address this neglect, this essay sets out first to retrace doubts about the role of the scholar that emerged with the institutionalization of the social sciences at the outset of the twentieth century and then to rethink these issues in terms of recent scientific developments. What surfaces is a new, participatory role for scholars that demands responsible contextualization and a broader conception of causal stories. (shrink)

A wide range of more objectivist norms appear to leave uncharted an important part of normative space. In the beginning of this paper I briefly outline two broad ways of seeking more subject-directed norms: perspectivism and feasibilism. According to feasibilism, the ultimate reason why more objectivist norms are inadequate on their own is not that they fail to take into account the limits of an agent’s perspective, but that they are not sensitive to limits on what ways of choosing, acting, (...) and believing are feasible in a given situation. I think of these ways of choosing, acting, and believing in terms of an agent's dispositions. In this paper I focus on a knowledge-first implementation of feasibilism, a view in epistemology that supplements a knowledge norm with a norm urging one to manifest dispositions that are among the most knowledge-conducive feasible ones. A view with different norms that sometimes cannot be jointly satisfied raises questions about the status of these norms. By drawing on two general hypotheses about the relationship between succeeding (e.g. knowing) and manifesting dispositions conducive to success, I argue for a view on which the prescriptive and the hypological come radically apart. The result is that an epistemic analogue of a thesis that many have assumed to hold in the moral realm should be rejected. This thesis is Only Blameworthy for Wrongs: we can only ever be blameworthy for acts that are morally wrong. I argue that on the picture presented, we can be epistemically blameworthy for doxastic states that do not violate any prescriptive epistemic norms. I then generalise the considerations to the moral realm, arguing against Only Blameworthy for Wrongs. (shrink)

An emotional deficit in individuals with psychopathy has been regarded as a potential factor in the disinhibition of selfish behaviors, which can be an impediment to a successful life in human society. However, recent studies in the field of economics have made clear that emotional function is associated with irrational decision-making. In the present study, to test whether psychopathy may have a positive aspect in a social setting, we examined the decision-making of college students with high and low tendencies for (...) psychopathy in the ultimatum game, which illustrates conflict between fairness and economic utility. We also investigated electrodermal responses to fair and unfair offers for each group. Compared to low psychopathic controls, individuals with a high tendency toward psychopathy more often choose economic utility by accepting unfair offers. Whereas controls more often exhibited an electrodermal response to unfair offers compared to fair offers, high psychopathic individuals did not show a similar difference between the types of offer. The results suggest that the affective deficit of psychopathy might be associated with insensitivity to unfairness and may contribute to a rational decision to accept unfair offers. Hence, psychopathy can be rational in some social situations. (shrink)

This paper examines the nature of “asceticism” (rīyāḍat) in Sufism, revolving around the works of the 13th century Persian Sufi Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī Balkī and exploring two critical inquiries: Firstly, it seeks to determine whether Rūmī’s mystical perspective on asceticism is world-rejecting or world-affirming. Secondly, it investigates potential parallels and divergences between Rūmī and Meister Eckhart’s stances—specifically, through the Dominican’s Sermons and Treatises—and assesses the implications for the two figures. In examining Rūmī’s works, the current research primarily relies (...) on secondary sources within the Persian intellectual tradition to provide an intracultural context. Utilizing horizontal and vertical interpretations, this study examines critical themes in Rūmī’s works, such as love, detachment (zuhd), the world’s deceptive nature, and seclusion. The findings reveal that Rūmī’s asceticism is not “monastic” (ruhbānī); instead, it balances moderate abstinence and worldly engagement, underpinned by the Quran and the ḥadīth teachings. Rūmī and Eckhart underscore asceticism as an inner transformation rather than mere physical austerity, emphasizing inner purification, self-transcendence, and spiritual detachment as routes to divine unity. The two thinkers’ teachings are catalysts for profound personal transformation and a more fulfilling life in today’s world. (shrink)

This paper raises an underappreciated paradox for classical theism. Love seems to be an inherently biased and partial relation. Justice seems to require the opposite, detached impartiality (think of the attributes of the just judge). But if these are conceptual facts, then classical theism is guilty of ascribing inconsistent attributes to God: perfect love and perfect justice. I resolve this paradox in a manner that weighs in favor of the principle of divine simplicity.

Wide-scopers argue that the detachment of intuitively false ‘ought’ claims from hypothetical imperatives is blocked because ‘ought’ takes wide, as opposed to narrow, scope. I present two arguments against this view. The first questions the premise that natural language conditionals are true just in case the antecedent is false. The second shows that intuitively false ‘ought’s can still be detached even WITH wide-scope readings. This weakens the motivation for wide-scoping.

According to the predictive coding theory of cognition , brains are predictive machines that use perception and action to minimize prediction error, i.e. the discrepancy between bottom–up, externally-generated sensory signals and top–down, internally-generated sensory predictions. Many consider PCT to have an explanatory scope that is unparalleled in contemporary cognitive science and see in it a framework that could potentially provide us with a unified account of cognition. It is also commonly assumed that PCT is a representational theory of sorts, in (...) the sense that it postulates that our cognitive contact with the world is mediated by internal representations. However, the exact sense in which PCT is representational remains unclear; neither is it clear that it deserves such status—that is, whether it really invokes structures that are truly and nontrivially representational in nature. In the present article, I argue that the representational pretensions of PCT are completely justified. This is because the theory postulates cognitive structures—namely action-guiding, detachable, structural models that afford representational error detection—that play genuinely representational functions within the cognitive system. (shrink)

Introduction -/- 1 Précis -/- 2 Methodology: Introducing digital humanities to the history of philosophy 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Core constructs 2.3 Operationalizing the constructs 2.4 Querying the Nietzsche Source 2.5 Cleaning the data 2.6 Visualizations and preliminary analysis 2.6.1 Visualization of the whole corpus 2.6.2 Book visualizations 2.7 Summary -/- Nietzsche’s Socio-Moral Framework -/- 3 From instincts and drives to types 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The state of the art on drives, instincts, and types 3.2.1 Drives 3.2.2 Instincts 3.2.3 Types 3.3 (...) The semantic neighborhood of drive, instinct, and type 3.4 A theory of (the relations among) instincts, drives, and types 3.4.1 Drives are act-directed rather than outcome-directed dispositions 3.4.2 The reflexive turn in Nietzsche’s drive psychology 3.4.3 Triggers of drive-displacement 3.4.4 Instincts are innate drives 3.4.5 Types are constellations of instincts and other drives 3.4.6 To what extent are types, instincts, and drives fixed? 3.5 Summary -/- 4 From types to virtues 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The state of the art on virtues and values 4.2.1 Virtues 4.2.2 Values 4.3 The semantic neighborhood of virtue and value 4.4 On (the relations among) instincts, drives, types, values, virtues, and values 4.4.1 Virtues are well-calibrated drives 4.4.2 Nietzsche’s type-relative unity of virtue thesis 4.4.3 The type of the criminal 4.4.4 Nietzschean exemplarism and his ad hominem attacks 4.5 Summary -/- 5 Socializing Nietzschean virtues 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Higher-order types 5.2.1 Social character construction 5.2.2 Reflexive character construction 5.3 Eponymous trait terms and Nietzschean summoning 5.3.1 Eponymous trait terms 5.3.2 Nietzschean summoning 5.4 Summary -/- Nietzschean virtues -/- 6 Curiosity 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Curiosity in virtue epistemology 6.3 Curiosity and its affiliated emotions 6.4 Curiosity, perspectivism, and inquiry 6.5 Curiosity as a virtue 6.5.1 A preliminary characterization 6.5.2 Curiosity in the middle through late works 6.6 Summary -/- 7 Courage 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Intellectual courage in contemporary virtue epistemology 7.3 Courage as a virtue 7.3.1 A preliminary characterization 7.3.2 Courage in the middle through late works 7.4 Summary -/- 8 Pathos of distance 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Contempt and disgust in contemporary moral psychology 8.3 The semantic neighborhood of contempt, disgust, and the pathos of distance 8.4 Nietzsche on contempt 8.4.1 Spernere mundum 8.4.2 Spernere neminem 8.4.3 Spernere se ipsum 8.4.4 Spernere se sperni 8.4.5 Nietzsche aims to induce what he considers fitting contempt in receptive readers 8.5 Nietzsche on disgust 8.5.1 The use of disgust: detaching from an ideal 8.5.2 The danger of disgust 8.6 The pathos of distance 8.7 Prospects for a Nietzschean democratic ethos 8.8 Summary -/- 9 Sense of humor 9.1 Introduction 9.2 The semantic neighborhood of laughter, humor, and comedy 9.3 The Nietzschean sense of humor and its functions 9.3.1 From episodic laughter to the sense of humor 9.3.2 Affirmation and inquiry 9.3.3 Negation and inquiry 9.3.4 Affiliation with like-minded inquirers 9.4 Summary -/- 10 Solitude 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Solitude in virtue theory and Nietzsche scholarship 10.3 The semantic neighborhood of solitude 10.4 An account of Nietzschean solitude 10.5 Summary -/- Conclusion -/- 11 Conscience & integrity 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Conscience and integrity in contemporary moral psychology and Nietzsche scholarship 11.2.1 Conscience and integrity in contemporary moral psychology 11.2.2 Conscience and integrity in Nietzsche commentary 11.3 The semantic neighborhood of conscience and integrity 11.4 Distinguishing conscience, good conscience, bad conscience, and intellectual conscience 11.4.1 Conscience 11.4.2 Good conscience 11.4.3 Bad conscience 11.4.4 Intellectual conscience and integrity 11.5 Summary -/- 12 Prospectus 12.1 Future directions in moral psychology 12.2 Future directions in Nietzsche scholarship 12.3 Future directions in digital humanities and the history of philosophy . (shrink)

Many people believe that the abortion debate will end when at some point in the future it will be possible for fetuses to develop outside the womb. Ectogenesis, as this technology is called, would make possible to reconcile pro-life and pro-choice positions. That is because it is commonly believed that there is no right to the death of the fetus if it can be detached alive and gestated in an artificial womb. Recently Eric Mathison and Jeremy Davis defended this position, (...) by arguing against three common arguments for a right to the death of the fetus. I claim that their arguments are mistaken. I argue that there is a right to the death of the fetus because gestating a fetus in an artificial womb when genetic parents refuse it violates their rights not to become a biological parent, their rights to genetic privacy and their property rights. The right to the death of the fetus, however, is not a woman's right but genetic parents’ collective right which only can be used together. (shrink)

Excellence in sport performance is normally taken to be a matter of superior performance of physical movements or quantitative outcomes of movements. This paper considers whether a wider conception can be afforded by certain kinds of nature based sport. The interplay between technical skill and aesthetic experience in nature based sports is explored, and the extent to which it contributes to a distinction between different sport-based approaches to natural environments. The potential for aesthetic appreciation of environmental engagement is found to (...) be strongly dependent on whether or not environmental engagement is exploited for the end of producing a quantifiable result or enhancing technical skill. It is also argued that an existential rather than spectatorial attitude to aesthetic experience is offered by specifically nature oriented sport. Aesthetic experience achieved in this way is therefore neither passive nor detached, but extends Berleant's concept of participatory environmental aesthetics and underpins both an alternate (wide) conception of excellence in sport activity and a richer experience of aesthetic engagement than more objectivised standpoints. (shrink)

Nontransitive responses to the validity Curry paradox face a dilemma that was recently formulated by Barrio, Rosenblatt and Tajer. It seems that, in the nontransitive logic ST enriched with a validity predicate, either you cannot prove that all derivable metarules preserve validity, or you can prove that instances of Cut that are not admissible in the logic preserve validity. I respond on behalf of the nontransitive approach. The paper argues, first, that we should reject the detachment principle for naive (...) validity. Secondly, I show how to add a validity predicate to ST while avoiding the dilemma. (shrink)

There’s a certain pleasure in fantasizing about possessing knowledge, especially possessing secret knowledge to which outsiders don’t have access. Such fantasies are typically a source of innocent entertainment. However, under the right conditions, fantasies of knowledge can become epistemically dangerous, because they can generate illusions of genuine knowledge. I argue that this phenomenon helps to explain why some people join and eventually adopt the beliefs of epistemic communities who endorse seemingly bizarre, outlandish claims, such as extreme cults and online conspiracy (...) theory groups. It can be difficult to grasp how members of such groups come to believe the theories they endorse. I argue that one route to such beliefs is via deep absorption in fantasies of knowledge, which can lead entire groups to become collectively detached from reality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This paper traces the earliest development of the most basic principle of deduction, i.e. modus ponens (or Law of Detachment). ‘Aristotelian logic’, as it was taught from late antiquity until the 20th century, commonly included a short presentation of the argument forms modus (ponendo) ponens, modus (tollendo) tollens, modus ponendo tollens, and modus tollendo ponens. In late antiquity, arguments of these forms were generally classified as ‘hypothetical syllogisms’. However, Aristotle did not discuss such arguments, nor did he call (...) any arguments ‘hypothetical syllogisms’. The Stoic indemonstrables resemble the modus ponens/tollens arguments. But the Stoics never called them ‘hypothetical syllogisms’; nor did they describe them as ponendo ponens, etc. The tradition of the four argument forms and the classification of the arguments as hypothetical syllogisms hence need some explaining. In this paper, I offer some explanations by tracing the development of certain elements of Aristotle’s logic via the early Peripatetics to the logic of later antiquity. I consider the questions: How did the four argument forms arise? Why were there four of them? Why were arguments of these forms called ‘hypothetical syllogisms’? On what grounds were they considered valid? I argue that such arguments were neither part of Aristotle’s dialectic, nor simply the result of an adoption of elements of Stoic logic, but the outcome of a long, gradual development that begins with Aristotle’s logic as preserved in his Topics and Prior Analytics; and that, as a result, we have a Peripatetic logic of hypothetical inferences which is a far cry both from Stoic logic and from classical propositional logic, but which sports a number of interesting characteristics, some of which bear a cunning resemblance to some 20th century theories. (shrink)

Proponents of the view which I call ‘moral antitheodicy’ call for the theistic discourse of theodicy to be abandoned, because, they claim, all theodicies involve some form of moral impropriety. Three arguments in support of this view are examined: the argument from insensitivity, the argument from detachment, and the argument from harmful consequences. After discussing the merits of each argument individually, I attempt to show that they all must presuppose what they are intended to establish, namely, that the set (...) of premises advanced in any given theodicy will be untenable. I conclude by discussing what uses there might be for the moral critique of theodicy, if it cannot be used to ground a global rejection of theodical practice. (shrink)

First-person reports of Major Depressive Disorder reveal that when an individual becomes depressed a profound change or ‘shift’ to one’s conscious experience occurs. The depressed person reports that something fundamental to their experience has been disturbed or shifted; a change associated with the common but elusive claim that when depressed one finds oneself in a ‘different world’ detached from reality and other people. Existing attempts to utilise these phenomenological observations in a psychiatric context are challenged by the fact that this (...) experiential ‘shift’ characteristic of depression appears mysterious and resists analysis in scientific terms. This paper offers a way out of this predicament. The hypothesis proposed is that when an individual becomes depressed, the individual departs from a state of ordinary wakeful consciousness and enters a distinctive global state of consciousness akin to dreaming and the psychedelic state. After unpacking and motivating this hypothesis in the context of research in consciousness science, I outline two of its important implications for the neurobiology of depression and psychedelic psychiatry. The upshot is a promising and conceptually well-motivated hypothesis about depression which is apt for empirical uptake and development. (shrink)

Patients suffering from depersonalization complain of feeling detached from their body, their mental states, and actions or even from themselves. In this chapter, I argue that depersonalization consists in the lack of a phenomenal feature that marks my experiences as mine, which is usually called “mineness,” and that the study of depersonalization constitutes a neglected yet incomparable probe to assess empirically the scope, role, and even the nature of mineness. Here is how I will proceed. After describing depersonalization (§2) and (...) arguing that it involves a lack of mineness (§3) I will confront a series of objections (§4). I will then spell out what depersonalization can teach us about the scope of mineness (§5), about its role and psychological function (§6) and even about its nature (§7). (shrink)

The social world contains institutions, groups, objects, and more. This essay explores a puzzle about the essences of social items. There is widespread consensus against social essences because of problematic presuppositions often made about them. But it is argued that essence can be freed from these presuppositions and their problems. Even so, a puzzle still arises. In a Platonic spirit, essences in general seem detached from the world. In an Aristotelian spirit, social essences in particular seem embedded in the world. (...) The puzzle is that these inclinations are individually plausible but jointly incompatible. The essay has four aims: to clarify and refine the puzzle; to explore the puzzle's implications for essence in general and for social essences in particular; to illustrate the fruitfulness of the general distinction between detached and embedded; and to develop this distinction to sketch a novel solution to the puzzle. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a new solution to the old problem of how best to understand the meaning of the word ‘logos’ in the extant writings of Heraclitus, especially in fragments DK B1, B2 and B50. On the view I defend, Heraclitus was neither using the word in a perfectly ordinary way in these fragments, as some have maintained, nor denoting by it some kind of general principle or law governing change in the cosmos, as many have claimed. Rather, (...) I argue, Heraclitus deliberately traded on the ordinary use of the word in his time (to refer to a written or spoken presentation of things as ‘thus and so’) to denote the world’s constant presentation of itself as ‘thus and so’ to all of us in our experience – a kind of cosmic self-revelation. I show how this captures the sense in which ‘the logos’ is said to be ‘common’ (xunos) and to be the kind of thing most people fail to comprehend even before hearing Heraclitus’ own account, all without detaching Heraclitus’ use of the word from its ordinary contemporary meaning. This interpretation suggests Heraclitus was a thinker more centrally concerned with human (mis)understanding than with speculative cosmology. (shrink)

The paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it provides what appears to be the first game-theoretic modeling of Napoleon’s last campaign, which ended dramatically on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo. It is specifically concerned with the decision Napoleon made on 17 June 1815 to detach part of his army against the Prussians he had defeated, though not destroyed, on 16 June at Ligny. Military historians agree that this decision was crucial but disagree about whether it was rational. (...) Hypothesizing a zero-sum game between Napoleon and Blücher, and computing its solution, we show that it could have been a cautious strategy on the former's part to divide his army, a conclusion which runs counter to the charges of misjudgement commonly heard since Clausewitz. On the other hand, the paper addresses methodological issues. We defend its case study against the objections of irrelevance that have been raised elsewhere against “analytic narratives”, and conclude that military campaigns provide an opportunity for successful application of the formal theories of rational choice. Generalizing the argument, we finally investigate the conflict between narrative accounts – the historians' standard mode of expression – and mathematical modeling. (shrink)

This chapter explores the idea that causal inference is warranted if and only if the mechanism underlying the inferred causal association is identified. This mechanistic stance is discernible in the epidemiological literature, and in the strategies adopted by epidemiologists seeking to establish causal hypotheses. But the exact opposite methodology is also discernible, the black box stance, which asserts that epidemiologists can and should make causal inferences on the basis of their evidence, without worrying about the mechanisms that might underlie their (...) hypotheses. I argue that the mechanistic stance is indeed a bad methodology for causal inference. However, I detach and defend a mechanistic interpretation of causal generalisations in epidemiology as existence claims about underlying mechanisms. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to the recent debate about whether rationality is normative – that is, very roughly, about whether we should have attitudes which fit together in a coherent way. I begin by explaining an initial problem – the “detaching problem” – that arises on the assumption that we should have coherent attitudes. I then explain the prominent “wide-scope” solution to this problem, and some of the central objections to it. I end by considering the options that arise (...) if we reject the wide-scope solution. (shrink)

A widespread Western conception about the sanctity of the human body and its parts prevents from any morally acceptable disposition of these objects. However, this entails nothing but a dualistic conception of the human being as a composite of detachable parts — namely, body and mind. Understood as the antechamber of legal rights, moral rights perform an important — yet frequently overlooked — justifying function that permeates the political discourse. Although the connection among moral, political and legal discourses should be (...) properly acknowledged, certain boundaries are to mediate among each scope for the sake of certainty and accuracy. Intermediate realities, as the so-called human rights, serve to connect the moral and legal domains, still they also blur the lines along which the discourse is deployed. Moral entities are essentially inalienable, to the extent that they demarcate the moral status of the subject. By contrast, legal rights are essentially negotiable and, thus, alienable. The controversial instance of bodily rights will serve to test the assertions above. (shrink)

According to a perhaps naive, but still dominant positivistic view of science, scientific knowledge is the only reliable knowledge. It is reliable because it is objective. It derives its objectivity from the objectivity of observation made by a detached observer. The way in which empirical scientists look at the world is sometimes described as “scientific attitude.” In order to be objective observers, scientists must be indifferent, disinterested, neutral and impartial. Personal opinions or preferences have to be suspended. No subjective elements (...) are allowed to intrude. Science is believed to be reliable if it is based on objective and verifiable observational statements which can be transmitted into laws and theories. The spectacular achievements of natural science and technology in today’s world appear to support the belief in the objectivity, reliability, and even supremacy of scientific knowledge. But is this view truly justified? Does science offer the best possible route to reliable knowledge, not only of natural but also of social phenomena? Should pre-scientific forms of knowledge, such as ethics, be seen as a matter of individual preferences or subjective emotions, and therefore be disregarded as knowledge? Before I attempt to answer these questions, I shall address the issue of objectivity in science. I believe that the understanding of this issue will help us to evaluate rightly the scientific claim to know and to assess the place of science among other forms of knowledge. (shrink)

Comparative psychology, the multidisciplinary study of animal behavior and psychology, confronts the challenge of how to study animals we find cute and easy to anthropomorphize, and animals we find odd and easy to objectify, without letting these biases negatively impact the science. In this Element, Kristin Andrews identifies and critically examines the principles of comparative psychology and shows how they can introduce other biases by objectifying animal subjects and encouraging scientists to remain detached. Andrews outlines the scientific benefits of treating (...) animals as sentient research participants who come from their own social contexts and with whom we will be in relationship. With discussions of science's quest for objectivity, worries about romantic and killjoy theories, and debates about chimpanzee cognition between primatologists who work in the field and those in the lab, Andrews shows how scientists can address the different biases through greater integration of the subdisciplines of comparative psychology. (shrink)

This study explores entrepreneurship research in Vietnam, a lower-middle-income country in Southeast Asia that has witnessed rapid economic growth since the 1990s but has nonetheless been absent in the relevant Western-centric literature. Using an exclusively developed software, the study presents a structured dataset on entrepreneurship research in Vietnam from 2008 to 2018, highlighting: low research output, low creativity level, inattention to entrepreneurship theories, and instead, a focus on practical business matters. The scholarship remains limited due to the detachment between (...) the academic and entrepreneur communities. More important are the findings that Vietnamese research on entrepreneurship, still in its infancy, diverges significantly from those in developed and emerging economies in terms of their content and methods. These studies are contextualized to a large extent to reflect the concerns of a developing economy still burdened by the high financial and nonfinancial costs. (shrink)

Several conditions for being an intrinsically intentional agent are put forward. On a first level of intentionality the agent has representations. Two kinds are described: cued and detached. An agent with both kinds is able to represent both what is prompted by the context and what is absent from it. An intermediate level of intentionality is achieved by having an inner world, that is, a coherent system of detached representations that model the world. The inner world is used, e.g., for (...) conditional and counterfactual thinking. Contextual or indexical representations are necessary in order that the inner world relates to the actual external world and thus can be used as a basis for action. To have full-blown intentionality, the agent should also have a detached self-awareness, that is, be able to entertain self-representations that are independent of the context. (shrink)

This paper critically evaluates what it identifies as ‘the institutional theory of freedom’ developed within recent neo-Hegelian philosophy. While acknowledging the gains made against the Kantian theory of autonomy as detachment it is argued that the institutional theory ultimately undermines the very meaning of practical agency. By tying agency to institutionally sustained recognition it effectively excludes the exercise of practical reason geared toward emancipation from a settled normative order. Adorno's notion of autonomy as resistance is enlisted to develop an (...) account of practical reason that is neither institutionally constrained nor without appropriate consideration of the historical location of the practical agent. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due to inaccurate (...) descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue. (shrink)

It is often assumed that neural representation, with content that is in principle detachable from the flow of natural-factive information, is necessary to perceptually experience an object. In this paper we present and discuss two cases challenging this assumption. We take them to show that it is possible to experience an object with which you are interacting through your sensory systems without those systems constructing a representation of the object. The first example is viewing nearby medium-sized groups of objects. The (...) second is hearing objects through misbound sounds. These cases bring out two different ways object representation can fail while object experience persists, suggesting that object experience requires only that the object be revealed through sensory information, not full-blown representation. Constructing object representations is one way sensory systems reveal objects, but it is not the only way. Object representation in neural sensory systems is relatively demanding, rare, and fragile; object experience is relatively easy, pervasive, and robust. We conclude that even minimal forms of neural phenomenal internalism are false. (shrink)

Digital records, from chat transcripts to social media posts, are being used to create chatbots that recreate the conversational style of deceased individuals. Some maintain that this is merely a new form of digital memorial, while others argue that they pose a variety of moral hazards. To resolve this, I turn to classical Chinese philosophy to make use of a debate over the ethics of funerals and mourning. This ancient argument includes much of interest for the contemporary issue at hand, (...) including the use of impersonators of the dead to help the bereaved to deal well with their grief. I connect this historical discussion with a modern trend in clinical psychology that reframes therapeutic interventions with bereaved individuals. The trend directs practitioners away from facilitating detachment and toward affirming continuing bonds. I conclude that these chatbots can offer an important source of support to mourners, but also discuss parameters and features of social context that will be important to avoid the moral hazards identified by sceptics. (shrink)

A dynamic semantics for iffy oughts offers an attractive alternative to the folklore that Chisholm's paradox enforces an unhappy choice between the intuitive inference rules of factual and deontic detachment. The first part of the story told here shows how a dynamic theory about ifs and oughts gives rise to a nonmonotonic perspective on deontic discourse and reasoning that elegantly removes the air of paradox from Chisholm's puzzle without sacrificing any of the two detachment principles. The second part (...) of the story showcases two bonus applications of the framework suggested here: it offers a response to Forrester's gentle murder paradox and avoids Kolodny and MacFarlane's miners paradox about deontic reasoning under epistemic uncertainty. A comparison between the dynamic semantic proposal made in this paper and a more conservative approach combining a static semantics with a dynamic pragmatics is provided. (shrink)

This paper revisits some classic thought experiments in which experiences are detached from their characteristic causal roles, and explores what these thought experiments tell us about qualia epiphenomenalism, i.e., the view that qualia are epiphenomenal properties. It argues that qualia epiphenomenalism is true just in case it is possible for experiences of the same type to have entirely different causal powers. This is done with the help of new conceptual tools regarding the concept of an epiphenomenal property. One conclusion is (...) that it is not obvious if qualia epiphenomenalism is false; and it is also not obvious what should make us believe that it is false—or for that matter, true. Connections between qualia epiphenomenalism, physicalism, and non-physicalist property dualism are further explored. (shrink)

This chapter develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, called 'Discourse Contextualism' (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of claims of law from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. (...) Though the semantics is descriptivist, it avoids Dworkin’s influential criticism of so-called “semantic theories of law,” and elucidates the nature of “theoretical disagreements” about the criteria of legal validity. The account sheds light on the social, interpersonal function of normative uses of language in legal discourse. It also gives precise expression to Hart’s and Raz’s intuitive distinctions among types of legal claims (internal/external, committed/detached), while giving them a uniform type of analysis. The proposed semantics and pragmatics of legal claims provides a fruitful framework for further theorizing about the nature and metaphysics of law, the relation between law and morality, and the apparent practical character of legal language and judgment. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a broader account of legal discourse and practice. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical insights provided by Anne Truitt's minimalist sculptures, as viewed through the phenomenological lenses of Hannah Arendt's investigations into the co-constitution of reality and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's investigations into perception. Artworks in their material presence can lay out new ways of relating and perceiving. Truitt's works accomplish this task by revealing the interactive motion of our embodied relations and how material objects can actually help to ground our reality and hence human potentiality. Merleau-Ponty shows how our prereflective (...) bodies allow incompossible perceptions to coexist. Yet this same capacity of bodies to gather multiple perceptions together also lends itself to the illusion that we see from only one perspective. If an ethical perspective becomes reified into one position, it then becomes detached from reality, and the ethical potential is actually lost. At the same time, phenomenologically understood, the real world does not exist in terms of static matter, but is instead a web of contextual relations and meanings. An ethics that does not take embodied relations into account—that allows for only one perspective—ultimately loses its capacity for flexibility, and for being part of a common and shared reality. (shrink)

In his pioneering sociological theory, which makes phenomenological concepts fruitful for the social sciences, Alfred Schütz has laid foundations for a characterization of an manifold of distinct domains of experience. My aim here is to further develop this pluralist theory of experience by buttressing and extending the elements of diversity that it includes, and by eliminating or minimizing lingering imbalances among the domains of experience. After a critical discussion of the criterion-catalogue Schütz develops for the purpose of characterizing different cognitive (...) styles, I move on to examine its application to one special style, the lifeworld. I appeal, on the one hand, to Husserl's characterization of the lifeworld as a world of perception, and on the other hand to the layer-model of the lifeworld developed by Schütz and Thomas Luckmann. A consequence of this approach is that the lifeworld appears as a socially definable context that is detached from other experiences but on an equal footing with them with respect to their claim of validity. The term "lifeworld" does not denote a category that encompasses culture or nature but refers to a delimited action-space. Finally, I draw upon Schütz' s criterion-catalogue to characterize two domains of experience outside of the lifeworld, which play a central role for the process of differentiation of experience in modernity and for the phenomenological analysis of types of experience: experimental science and subjectivity. (shrink)

This Article defines four distinct conceptions of cruelty found in underdeveloped form in domestic and international criminal law sources. The definition is analytical, focusing on the types of agency, victimization, causality, and values in each conception of cruelty. But no definition of cruelty will do justice to its object until complemented by the kind of understanding practical reason provides of the implications of the phenomenon of cruelty. -/- No one should be neutral in relation to cruelty. Eminently, cruelty in criminal (...) law, a human-created phenomenon, vigorously calls for responses in the form of preventive and corrective action on the part of private and public actors. It is in this sense that cruelty is a problem of practical reason, one of action preoccupied with its legal or moral obligations, rational grounds, value commitments, and actual consequences. -/- However, the connection between conceptions of cruelty and the implications practical reason can draw from the correct application of a conception of cruelty to phenomena in the world remains too detached to be able to capture and explain people's actual experiences both of seeing cruelty in the world and of confronting the question of what to do about cruelty and how to address its cultural and institutional aspects. Something is missing. -/- What is missing is the integration of conceptions of cruelty and the practical reason implications of detecting cruelty in the world into normative models which operate as meaning matrixes for cognition, meaning, and action. This Article undertakes this explanatory task through an exercise of reconstructing seminal philosophical ideas about cruelty. The result is that the four conceptions of cruelty are placed within three distinct normative models, which ultimately render intelligible legal conceptions of cruelty and legal reactions to it. (shrink)

Robustly realistic metaphysical readings of Kant’s mature views have become popular in recent years, largely because of the apparent coherence of applying unschematized categories like that of causation to things in themselves. There is, however, an overlooked problem that arises even for robust realist readings that privilege unschematized categories. The problem is that Kant provides all the elements for what is now called a ‘debunking explanation’ of metaphysical representations of things in themselves. His account of the categories as arising from (...) mere forms of judgment, and being applied primarily for the unity of consciousness, is detached from the issue of whether there are causes among things in themselves. This detachment seems to imply that it would be a huge coincidence if unschematized categories corresponded to any such causes. After making this argument, using the category of causation as my central case, I consider three potential responses: that Kant’s account implicitly appeals to things in themselves’ causation, that Kant has a separate account of non-coincidental representation, and that Kant’s account is merely incomplete in a way that poses no debunking threat. None of these responses, I argue, are successful, so I conclude that either robustly realistic metaphysical readings are mistaken, or there is internal incoherence in Kant’s views. (shrink)

We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o, P, t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o, (...) q, t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the way they are described. Contra Bennett, who famously argued that the semantics of event names ultimately depends on “local context and unprincipled intuitions”, we show how the lexicon provides systematic principles for individuating such clusters and classifying them into kinds. Finally, we address some open challenges in the semantics of locative and manner modifiers. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's Either-Or is a book about the choice between aesthetic, ethical, and religious approaches to life. I show that Either-Or also contains a proposal for philosophy of science, and in particular, about the ideal epistemic state for human beings. Whereas the Cartesian-Hegelian tradition conceived of the ideal state as one of detached deliberation -- i.e. "seeing the world as it is in itself" -- Kierkegaard envisions the ideal state as the achievement of equilibrium between the "spectator" and "actor" aspects of (...) the human being. Kierkegaard's proposal thus sets the stage for Niels Bohr's "epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics". (shrink)

Abstract: In this article, we explore what are ethical forms of holding service users responsible in mental health care contexts. Hanna Pickard has provided an account of how service users should be held responsible for morally wrong or seriously harmful conduct within contexts of mental health care, called the clinical stance. From a clinical stance one holds a person responsible for harm, but refrains from emotionally blaming the person and only considers the person responsible for this conduct in a detached (...) sense. Her account is based on what are considered best practices in the treatment of people with borderline personality disorder and addiction. We ask if this account generalizes across different diagnostic criteria and different clinical contexts. To begin to answer this question, we compare the clinical stance to an account of what are considered best practices in the treatment of service users at a specialized clinic for people with autism spectrum disorder in the Netherlands. We refer to this alternative account as the nurturing stance and highlight relevant similarities and differences between the clinical stance and the nurturing stance. We conclude with suggestions for further research and theorizing. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic epithets) have long played various roles and achieved diverse ends in works of art. Focusing on basic aspects of an aesthetic object or work, this article examines the interpretive relation between point of view and content, asking how aesthetic contextualization shapes the impact of such terms. Can context, particularly aesthetic contexts, detach the derogatory force from powerful epithets and racist and sexist images? What would it be about aesthetic contexts that would make this possible? The (...) article puts into aesthetic contexts both Absolutist and Reclaimer views about the power of derogatory terms, applying an inferential role semantics, developed for language, to both words and images. The Reclaimer’s position, that derogation is a matter of pragmatics, of use, emphasizes the context-sensitivity of the term, that is matters who says it, to whom, when, where, and why. Understanding derogatory terms used as hate speech helps to make this position clear. The Absolutist’s position, that no contextual variations can detach the derogation from these deeply derogatory terms, is developed here through attention to subordinating images in pornography. The article argues that art may be able to achieve the deviant interpretations that the Reclaimer needs to undermine the derogations while maintaining sensitivity and awareness of the history of oppression. (shrink)