Impulse and momentum are basic concepts of mechanics introduced in the K to 12 curricula. Despite its basic concepts, students still have difficulties understanding the topic, especially when they are out of school due to the pandemic. After reopening the gates for face–to–face classes in the Philippines, the researchers found a significant reason to conduct a lesson study to improve teaching strategies on the topic. Lesson study is a development process wherein teachers work collaboratively to improve teachers teaching capacity. This (...) study was conducted at Plaridel National High School with 23 participants from Grade 9 Newton (Set A and B). The research was conducted in two cycles using a four – phase lesson study. The research lesson was implemented using a 4A Model lesson plan and the results were taken from the analysis of the lesson study observation sheets, along with the class proficiency level. The researchers used the following strategies to improve teaching, namely; (1) showing mastery of subject matter, (2) reviewing basic mathematical operations, (3) contextualizing the lesson, (4) allowing students to answer questions in mother tongue, (5) using collaborative activities, (6) giving rewards, and (7) applying proper time management. However, the findings still showed that both sets of students achieved beginning proficiency level. Despite the implementation of these strategies, the students still lack basic knowledge of the topic and mathematical operations, and they struggle to understand it. Thus, it is recommended to plan the lesson effectively, utilize other research instruments, and collect feedback from the students. (shrink)

Patient suffering of major depressive disorder (MDD) often complain that subjective time seems to “drag” with respect to physical time. This may point toward a generalized dysfunction of temporal processing in MDD. In the present study, we investigated temporal preparation in MDD. “Temporal preparation” refers to an increased readiness to act before an expected event; consequently, reaction time should be reduced. MDD patients and age-matched controls were required to make a saccadic eye movement between a central and an eccentric visual (...) target after a variable duration preparatory period. We found that MDD patients produced a larger number of premature saccades, saccades initiated prior to the appearance of the expected stimulus. These saccades were not temporally controlled; instead, they seemed to reflect reduced inhibitory control causing oculomotor impulsivity. In contrast, the latency of visually guided saccades was strongly influenced by temporal preparation in controls; significantly less so, in MDD patients. This observed reduced temporal preparation in MDD was associated with a faster decay of short-term temporal memory. Moreover, in patients producing a lot of premature responses, temporal preparation to early imperative stimuli was increased. In conclusion, reduced temporal preparation and short-term temporal memory in the oculomotor domain supports the hypothesis that temporal processing was altered in MDD patients. Moreover, oculomotor impulsivity interacted with temporal preparation. These observed deficits could reflect other underlying aspects of abnormal time experience in MDD. (shrink)

After the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released in April 2019 the first empirical images of a black hole, an astrophysical object previously thought “unseeable,” much of the public discourse has approached these images as straightforward visual depictions of a black hole. This article challenges this view by showing that the first images of a black hole went beyond merely making an invisible cosmic object visible and that the images published in April 2019 were just the first in a series of (...) black hole images the researchers continue producing. Drawing primarily on Sybille Krämer’s concept of the cartographic impulse, the article demonstrates that the Event Horizon Telescope images are, first and foremost, epistemic tools. These epistemic tools enable researchers to actively explore various physical aspects and dynamic properties of a black hole’s immediate environment and test theoretical predictions about it, thus making this elusive environment empirically knowable. To demonstrate this, the article analyses the mapping operations that combined automated algorithmic procedures with expert human judgment and through which these images were produced, read, and interpreted. It also examines how the different Event Horizon Telescope images relate to one another, which particular epistemic functions they fulfil in the research context, under which conditions, and with which limitations, thus tracing how these images facilitate the production of new scientific knowledge about black holes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 35.1 (2005) 8-21MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Klossowski's Reading of Nietzsche Impulses, Phantasms, Simulacra, StereotypesDaniel W. SmithIn his writings on Nietzsche, Pierre Klossowski makes use of various concepts—such as intensities, phantasms, simulacra and stereotypes, resemblance and dissemblance, gregariousness and singularity—that have no place in Nietzsche's own oeuvre. These concepts are Klossowski's own creations, his own contributions to thought. Although Klossowski consistently refused to characterize himself as a philosopher ("Je (...) suis une 'maniaque,'" he once said, "Un point, c'est tout!"),1 his work in its entirety was marked by an extraordinary conceptual creation. From this point of view, his Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle can be read as a work in philosophy—at least in the idiosyncratic sense given to this term by Gilles Deleuze, who defined philosophy as the creation or invention of concepts [Deleuze and Guattari 2]. No doubt, Klossowski remains an almost unclassifiable figure—philosopher, novelist, essayist, translator, artist—and attempting to analyze his work through the prism of philosophy may seem to be a reductive approach that belies the complexity of his exceptional oeuvre. Reading Klossowski as a conceptual innovator, however, at least has the advantage of allowing us to chart a consistent trajectory through his difficult and often labyrinthine text, without denying its other dimensions (affective, perceptive, literary, and so on). In what follows, then, I would like to examine three of Klossowski's most characteristic and important concepts—impulses and their intensities, phantasms, and simulacra and their stereotypes—as well as the precise interrelations he establishes among them. Taken together, these three concepts describe what Klossowski terms the tripartite economy of soul, which constitutes the implicit model through which he interprets Nietzsche's thought.1Impulses as Fluctuating IntensitiesKlossowski describes his books on both Nietzsche and Sade as "essays devoted not to ideologies but to the physiognomies of problematic thinkers who differ greatly from each other" ["Postface" 137, emphasis added]. This emphasis on the "physiognomy" of thinkers reflects Nietzsche's insistence on taking the body rather than the mind as a guide for philosophy since the body is a more accessible phenomenon, less surrounded by myth and superstition. "The body and physiology as the starting point," Nietzsche wrote. "Why?... The phenomenon of the body is the richer, clearer, more tangible [End Page 8] phenomenon.... Belief in the body is more fundamental than belief in the soul" [WP §§492, 489, 491]. Klossowski himself, however, when writing of the intensive status of the impulses, frequently makes use of the term "soul" (âme), owing in part, no doubt, to his interest in the theological literature of the mystics, such as Meister Eckhardt and Teresa of Avila. For the mystics, the depth of the soul is something irreducible and uncreated: it eludes the exercise of the created intellect, and can only be grasped negatively.2 Nonetheless, if one can find a similar apophaticism (or "negative theology") in Klossowski, it is related exclusively to the immanent and chaotic movements of the soul's intensive affects, and not to the transcendence of God. What is incommunicable in the soul (or body) are its "impulses"—their fluctuations of intensity, their rises and falls, their manic elations and depressive descents, which are in constant variation.Nietzsche himself had recourse to a highly varied vocabulary to describe what Klossowski summarizes in the term "impulse": "drive" (Triebe), "desire" (Begierden), "instinct" (Instinke), "power" (Mächte), "force" (Kräfte), "impulse" (Reize, Impulse), "passion" (Leidenschaften), "feeling" (Gefülen), "affect" (Affekte), "pathos" (Pathos), and so on.3 Klossowski frequently employs the musical term tonalité to describe these states of the soul's fluctuating intensities—their diverse tones, timbres, and changing amplitudes—which can take on various forms ("aggressiveness, tolerance, intimidation, anguish, the need for solitude, the forgetting of oneself" [NVC 6]). At bottom, what these impulses express are what Klossowski calls the "obstinate singularity" of the human soul, which is by nature noncommunicable; they constitute "the unexchangeable depth" (le fond inéchangeable) or "the unintelligible depth" (le fond unintelligible) of the soul. What makes every individual... (shrink)

Throughout the ages, people of all creeds, backgrounds, and cultures have dedicated their lives to search for a higher reality where the visionary experience of Cosmic Consciousness brought about through mystical union, is part of an inner process which may lead to enlightenment. Traditions in India hold that this urge to find the truth involves awakening kundalini energy. In its dormant state, this serpent energy is said to lie coiled up at the base of the spine. In search of a (...) biological basis of the religious impulse, we look at early embryonic human development, which is seen as being guided by higher cosmic forces. On approximately day 30-33, the human embryo begins to grow a tail, which then disappears. The corresponding development of the heart during this phase resembles that of reptiles. Linking the time lapse between the formation and absorption of the tail with an increase in voltage between the tail and the head suggests that on intake, the increase in charge could result in the potential at the base of the spine where it lies dormant until used either for procreation or reverse itself up to join the cosmic source from which it originated. To further our understanding of kundalini energy and its connection to light, we also consider these terms from various perspectives, including quantum physics. (shrink)

"My boat was moored beside an old bathing 'ghat' of the river, almost in ruins. The sun had set,"...https://youtu.be/VAhd2GNf1js. (http://philpapers.org/profile/112741).

In _Deaths in Venice_ Philip Kitcher explores the bearing that _Death in Venice_ by Thomas Mann may have on 'the oldest and deepest question of philosophy: _how to live_'. In this paper, I will distinguish two ways in which this question can be interpreted. One one reading, it amounts to the question 'how to lead a valuable or worthy life?', whereas on the other it involves a more elusive idea, namely, that a person may breath and walk and still be (...) dead in a relevant sense, that is, from the perspectivo in which being alive does not reduce to biological survival. In my view, Kitcher's reflection on Mann's novella relies on the first, more standard reading. I argue, though, that the being-alive interpretation sheds a more unified light on _Death in Venice_; in fact, I will conclude that the need to shift from one to another interpretation constitutes a fundamental concern in the novella. (shrink)

Experiences of urges, impulses, or inclinations are among the most basic elements in the practical life of conscious agents. This article develops a theory of urges and their epistemology. The article motivates a tripartite framework that distinguishes urges, conscious experiences of urges, and exercises of capacities that agents have to control their urges. The article elaborates the elements of the tripartite framework, in particular, the phenomenological contribution of motor imagery. It argues that experiences of urges and exercises of control over (...) urges play coordinate roles in enabling an agent’s awareness of their impulses. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the cause of morally self-defeating acts at the collective level is greed and, at the individual level, an unrestrained impulse for pleasure beyond Innocent Asouzu’s primordial instinct for self-preservation and ignorance. In investigating why humans act in self-defeating ways, Asouzu came up with two possible factors responsible for self-defeating acts: The primordial instinct for selfpreservation and ignorance. Besides Asouzu’s explanation, I here argue that the problem of self-defeating acts goes beyond the primordial instinct for (...) selfpreservation and ignorance to reveal a flaw characteristic of the human condition. At the collective level, the flaw responsible for self-defeating acts is greed and the unrestrained impulse for pleasure at the individual level. I employ the conversational method to interrogate the different views on self-defeating acts from Socrates to Asouzu and show why my explanation offers a better understanding of the problem. (shrink)

We explicate and evaluate arguments both for and against the insanity defense itself, different versions of the insanity defense (M'Naghten, Model Penal Code, and Durham (or Product)), the Irresistible Impulse rule, and various reform proposals.

Since its publication, the Psychopathic Personality Inventory and its revision (Lilien- feld & Andrews, 1996; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) have become increasingly popular such that it is now among the most frequently used self-report inventories for the assessment of psychopathy. The current meta-analysis examined the relations between the two PPI factors (factor 1: Fearless Dominance; factor 2: Self-Centered Impulsivity), as well as their relations with other validated measures of psychopathy, internalizing and externalizing forms of psychopathology, general personality traits, and (...) antisocial personality disorder symptoms. Across 61 samples reported in 49 publications, we found support for the convergent and criterion validity of both PPI factor 2 and the PPI total score. Much weaker validation was found for PPI factor 1, which manifested limited convergent validity and a pattern of correlations with central criterion variables that was inconsistent with many conceptualizations of psychopathy. (shrink)

The physiological constraints of our neuro-sensory instrumentation limit the information we receive and from which we fashion our impressions. These limitations precede the psychological issues of data generation and analysis described by Ioannidis [1]. Scientific models widely accepted for at least 50 years [2,3] suggest that the peripheral and central nervous systems do not provide direct information about phenomena as they exist in nature. Instead, perceptible phenomena stimulate sense organs to produce nerve impulses. Sensory nerve impulses are not replicas of (...) the phenomena stimulating their production. The brain, by obscure mechanisms, then fabricates personal experience from the sensory nerve impulses. The relationship of phenomena to the brain's experiential construct is unknown. Since evidence is produced by sense organs and the brain (neither of which incorporates bona fide replicas of phenomena), all scientific conclusions are likely false in the sense that they are not based on direct knowledge of phenomena as they exist in nature. (shrink)

The age of human civilization is given the name “the bend” based on a re-examination of the emergence of science, science theory content, and history. It is proposed that social and scientific conceptualizations of nature, reflected from perplexity involving mind matter paradox, logic and illogic, surface to be not only self defining but diverging from the course of whole nature as a result of freely applied will. Both reflexively and thoughtfully reflected assessments of the natural elements containing false notions of (...) proximity are responsible for human psychical impulse in response to naturally occurred, though abnormally caused impulse to cause suffering, resulting in the application of physical impulse to the environment. In order to expose this situation, the contents of Einsteins’ theory of relativity and Euclids’ Parallel Postulate are discussed in a perspective in which all point of reference is argued to contain specific physical attachments to emerged courses of history. A physical and conceptual (reflecting paradox of matter and mind, respectively) bend is proposed to have emerged on all levels from a unique and chronic (with respect to the age of civilization) physical problem that is conjectured to be of the same nature –i.e. a physical bend. The course of the earth civilization and nature (proposed to possess the natural feature of ‘bend’ innately) are theorized to diverge from one another as a result of freely transmittted impulse by civilization, over its’ course,originating from a natural physical disturbance. (shrink)

A naturalistic impulse has taken speculative analytic metaphysics in its critical sights. Importantly, the claim that it is desirable or requisite to give metaphysics scientific moorings rests on underlying epistemological assumptions or principles. If the naturalistic impulse toward metaphysics is to be well-founded and its prescriptions to have normative force, those assumptions or principles should be spelled out and justified. In short, advocates of naturalized or scientific metaphysics require epistemic infrastructure. This paper begins to supply it. The author first sketches (...) her conception of suitably naturalized or scientific metaphysics. She then lays out a number of candidate epistemic principles centring around the notion of theoretical constraint. The author offers several arguments for the principles, based on statistical likeliness, agreement, falsity avoidance, and methodological efficiency and inefficiency. Finally, she shows how scientific metaphysics satisfies the epistemic principles and is therefore preferable to its traditional rivals. (shrink)

Identification of factors that predict recurrent antisocial behavior is integral to the social sciences, criminal justice procedures, and the effective treatment of high-risk individuals. Here we show that error-related brain activity elicited during performance of an in- hibitory task prospectively predicted subsequent rearrest among adult offenders within 4 y of release (N =96). The odds that an offender with relatively low anterior cingulate activity would be rearrested were approximately double that of an offender with high activity in this region, holding (...) constant other observed risk factors. These results suggest a potential neurocognitive biomarker for persistent antisocial behavior. (shrink)

Environmental activism plays a vital role in raising awareness of environmental degradation and halting environmentally destructive activities, which is expected to contribute to safeguarding the Earth’s system against climate and biodiversity loss crises. Although the passion and commitment of environmental activists should be acknowledged, several groups of environmental activists are embracing the radical environmentalist movement. They support using illegal actions to achieve their primary goal of environmental protection. The actions perpetrated by radical environmentalist groups are not impulsive but rather part (...) of a deliberately planned and organized following a long-term strategy. (shrink)

Explanation has played myriad roles in truthmaker theory. The notion of explanation is sometimes thought to give content to the very idea of truthmaking, and is sometimes used as a weapon to undermine the entire point of truthmaker theory. I argue that the notion of explanation is dialectically useless in truthmaker theory: while it’s true that truthmaking offers a form of explanation, this claim is theoretically unilluminating, and leaves truthmaker theorists vulnerable to various kinds of attack. I advocate an alternative (...) approach to truthmaker theory that downplays the role of explanation, and show how it releases the enterprise from a variety of problematic commitments that have troubled truthmaker theorists. The “ontology-first” approach to truthmaking that I advocate not only restores the initial impulse behind truthmaking, but also has a number of theoretical advantages. Most prominently, it dodges the infamous problem of negative existentials, and lessens truthmaker theory’s dependence on contentious intuitive judgments about both explanation and truthmaking. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

The aim of the research is to show the need to defend the prosaic reconfiguration of humanity that we set up every day by using temporary resources. This implies to discuss the overvalued achievements of the philosophies that advocate a direct encounter with our raw reality, or that defend an absolutist project of construction of the being of man that ends by suffocating him instead of offering any kind of salvation. The hypothesis states that the possibility of existence of man, (...) understood as the existence of a sense of the human — and, consequently, of a world with a meaning for man — depends on that prosaic configuration of our home that we have to reenact every morning. The development of meaningful worlds — that exist only as long as man exists, and vice versa — is achieved through symbolic resources, such as the metaphor or the concept. This allows us to replace one thing with another, merrily deferring the direct encounter with our constitutive ontological problematicity. To think man's reality is philosophically bearable only through metaphors and concepts, that is, by spreading a mundane prose that does not, that cannot and that should not come to an end. This in spite of the vocation for epic heroism that characterizes philosophy, and in spite of its temerarious impulse to dive into the depths in order to face what we directly cannot speak of, not without becoming speechless. (shrink)

Motivationally unconscious (M-unconscious) states are unconscious states that can directly motivate a subject’s behavior and whose unconscious character typically results from a form of repression. The basic argument for M-unconscious states claims that they provide the best explanation to some seemingly non rational behaviors, like akrasia, impulsivity or apparent self-deception. This basic argument has been challenged on theoretical, empirical and conceptual grounds. Drawing on recent works on apparent self-deception and on the ‘cognitive unconscious’ I assess those objections. I argue (...) that (i) even if there is a good theoretical argument for its existence, (ii) most empirical vindications of the M-unconscious miss their target. (iii) As for the conceptual objections, they compel us to modify the classical picture of the M-unconscious. I conclude that M-unconscious states and processes must be affective states and processes that the subject really feels and experiences —and which are in this sense conscious— even though they are not, or not well, cognitively accessible to him. Dual process psychology and the literature on cold-hot empathy gaps partly support the existence of such M-unconscious states. (shrink)

If you focus your charitable giving on global causes where it will do the most good, how should you feel about passing by the local soup kitchen? Would the ideally virtuous agent have their (local) empathy still activated, but simply overridden by the recognition that distant others are in even greater need, leaving the agent feeling torn? Or would their empathetic impulses be wholeheartedly redirected towards the greatest needs? This chapter suggests a way to revise an outdated conception of moral (...) virtue to better meet the demands of a cosmopolitan moral outlook. (shrink)

This paper addresses the concept of play concerning human formation, especially as manifested in the philosophies of Gadamer and Schiller. Gadamer depicted understanding as an organic motion that unfolds through seeing differences and characterized play as a flexible back-and-forth movement or interplay between possibilities and transformations. Schiller structured play as the playful impulse similarly as an interactive moving force that connects the two seemingly oppositional impulses of reason and sensation and lets the two affect the other dialogically. Both Gadamer and (...) Schiller suggest that play, as in essence an inter-play, orients us into seeing more possibilities of making a refreshing sense of our intellectual and perceptual abilities and thereby transfiguring our living being into richer and fuller meaningfulness. (shrink)

On the eve of the tercentenary of Kant’s birth, just as it was a hundred years ago, Kantianism is simultaneously on the receiving end of the blows of history and attacks by rival philosophical parties, both progressivist and reactionary. The radical wings of both parties perceive modernity as a depressing, nauseating period which must be broken with by moving toward the past or toward the future. One of the most original and profound diagnoses of this attitude was offered by Hans (...) Jonas, who discerned in radical doctrines of a hundred years ago a similarity with the gnosticism of antiquity. Jonas’s diagnosis has not lost its relevance. That is why the central question addressed in this study is as follows: what prescription does the Kantian programme offer for modernity’s “gnostic dizziness?” I maintain that Kant’s critical turn is still an effective strategy by means of which to compensate for the sudden stresses and “gnostic impulses” provoked by the modern worldview revolution, bringing back an “orientation in thinking” which reorients the world process and individual activity. The imperative to always see and respect humanity in a particular individual warns against the “category mistake” committed by modern radicals who ascribe agency (subjectivity) to non-­human abstractions which cannot possess this property. In theory, Kant grounds the view that humanity should resign itself to the fact of its perspective being limited and local. Kantian practical philosophy provides the traveler with a map of regulative ideas and a “moral compass”, along with an explanation of disruptive factors, offering a working explanation of the situation and its possible outcomes. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” brings human beings back into focus and imagination to order, allowing for the hope that new challenges will be successfully met. (shrink)

Man essentially is a being who pursues meaning and love. Socrates’ speech in the Symposium well characterizes man as driven by Eros, or Love. Socrates, expounding Diotema’s Ladder of Love, explains that man is driven by the erotic impulse. Nowhere in her teachings does Diotema mention the concept of self-interest or maximizing profit as the essential nature of man. Despite this, the concept of man as the rational economic man dominates the human stage of thought. Why and how has this (...) concept of man taken precedence over the Platonic description? What has made for the triumph of Homo economicus? (shrink)

Call the ethos understanding rightness in terms of spiritual purity and piety, and wrongness in terms of corruption and sacrilege, the “fetish ethic.” Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues suggest that this ethos is particularly salient to political conservatives and non-liberal cultures around the globe. In this essay, I point to numerous examples of moral fetishism in mainstream academic ethics. Once we see how deeply “infected” our ethical reasoning is by fetishistic intuitions, we can respond by 1) repudiating the fetishistic impulse, (...) by 2) “sublimating” our fetishism into liberal rationales, or by 3) accepting the fetishism on its own terms. Of these options, I argue that sublimating our fetishism is not advisable, and that embracing our ethical fetishism isn’t as obviously misguided as some suggest. (shrink)

In 1964, the young Walter Kasper (born in 1933) was granted by the Faculty of Catholic Theology at Tübingen the licence to teach dogmatic theology on the basis of a thesis on Philosophie und Theologie der Geschichte in der Spätphilosophie Schellings (Philosophy and Theology of History in Schelling’s Late Philosophy). Kasper’s interest in Schelling, himself a student at the Evangelisches Stift at Tübingen, thus originated in the context of his university studies in the school of J.R. Geiselmann and developed in (...) parallel with his theological education. For this reason, it is impossible to form a correct idea of Kasper and his whole theology unless one is willing to take into account this background, not least because he himself has always consciously and forcefully recognised this fact and seen in it his own centre of gravity. Kasper’s work and thought were shaped in a lasting manner during his university years. In fact, his entire academic oeuvre has been nurtured from this fecund origin so much so that he became one of the most well known names associated with the Catholic school at Tübingen to which he gave a new, creative impulse having himself been profoundly inspired by it. ‘He always emphasised his own roots not only as a teacher of theology and a member of the teaching faculty of this institution, but also as bishop’ and cardinal. The principal intention of the present article is precisely this: to return to this beginning and elucidate these decisive years for Kasper in broad outline by way of a relecture and interpretation of his book on The Absolute in History and the particular manner in which he interpreted the so-called second Schelling, an author whom he approached in the wake of Walter Schulz and at practically the same time as Xavier Tilliette. The analysis will subsequently move on into the more properly theological field. (shrink)

Earth scientists have declared that we are living in “the Anthropocene,” but radical critics object to the implicit attribution of responsibility for climate disruption to all of humanity. They are right to object. Yet, in effort to implicate their preferred villains, their revised narratives often paint an overly narrow picture. Sharing the impulse of radical critics to tell a more precise and political story about how we arrived where we are today, this paper wagers that collective action is more effectively (...) mobilized when we identify multiple agencies and diverse historical processes as sites in need of urgent intervention. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The main informational components of consciousness are described as Operative Informational System (OIS) assuring the reactive short-time adaptation and Programmed Informational System (PIS), assuring the life maintenance and the species survival, working in an integrated manner with the informed matter IM (body). The defined informational subsystems allow to describe consciousness as a sum of cognition centers defined by Ibelieve, Iknow, Iwant, Ilove, Iam, Icreate and Icreated. The cognition center Ibelieve was defined as related with the anti-entropic field of the (...) bipolar universal matter/antimatter informational system, assisting the life structuring and health and explaining the precognition, psychokinesis, near-death experiences and other "paranormal" phenomena. PIS related activity of the cognition centers was described as the projected data in OIS by two components: (1) personal status as survival needs; (2) the info-consequences on oneself perception and action impulses perceived by Iam, Icreate and Icreated, reflecting together with Iknow, Iwant and Ilove the "normal" (regular) mind properties. (shrink)

In this article, the results of conceptualization of the definition of mind as an object of interdisciplinary applied research are described. The purpose of the theoretical analysis is to generate a methodological discourse suitable for a functional understanding of the mind in the context of the problem of natural language processing as one of the components of developments in the field of artificial intelligence. The conceptual discourse was realized with the help of the author's method of structural-ontological analysis, and developed (...) in the mainstream of the system-methodological tradition of the school of G.P. Shchedrovitsky and intended for descriptive research of subject areas of interdisciplinary objects of scientific study. As a result of the structural and ontological analysis of the super-system, the relevant place and role of the directly studied system (mind) are determined, and its primary process and material are localized and structural and functional connections are described. At the basic level, the mind is conceptualized as an energy process unfolding in a spatio-temporal environment and accompanied by archetypal structuring of neural impulses into images. The genesis of the system is separately analyzed by constructing a structural-ontological matrix that reflects the initial stage of the development of the mind. The primary process is concretized with the help of hetero- and homeostatic dichotomy, and also the most significant features of the consistent transformation of the material of the system and its ascent to verbal morphology are described. The structural-ontological comparison of the functioning of the verbal intelligence with the preverbal level has been carried out. The transformation of neural impulses of needs into words, as verbal units fixing semiotic values is analyzed. Structural-ontological connections that determine the reactive and prospective characteristics of the functioning of the system are disclosed. The position of the chronological primacy of "semiotic readiness" for language with respect to the debut of the latter as an information-sign model of the environment is argued. The hypothesis of domination at the initial stage of the development of the mind of exopsychic functions over endopsychic ones is formulated. The theoretical substantiation of the hypothesis of the inevitability of the ontology of language in the functional understanding of the mind is given, corresponding structural and ontological arguments are given, including those based on the ideas about the information relationship between affects and needs, according to the views of P.V. Simonov. The arguments are presented in favor of the non-alternative methodology of A. Turing in studies of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Given the irrationality and failures of human behaviour in the face of ecocide, the majority of humankind appears either unable or unwilling to change self-destructive ways of life. Rejecting common accounts, the author suggests that the reasons for our stubborn resistance to change go well beyond cognitive dissonance or any standard political and economic explanations. Nor is the answer to be found in human history alone. The driving forces underlying that resistance, the author argues, originate far back in evolutionary time (...) to the impulses governing all sentient creatures. -/- NB: The copy of this article is the final, pre-production version of the article published in the Architectural Research Quarterly. (shrink)

As the aim of the responsible robotics initiative is to ensure that responsible practices are inculcated within each stage of design, development and use, this impetus is undergirded by the alignment of ethical and legal considerations towards socially beneficial ends. While every effort should be expended to ensure that issues of responsibility are addressed at each stage of technological progression, irresponsibility is inherent within the nature of robotics technologies from a theoretical perspective that threatens to thwart the endeavour. This is (...) because the concept of responsibility, despite being treated as such, is not monolithic: rather this seemingly unified concept consists of converging and confluent concepts that shape the idea of what we colloquially call responsibility. From a different perspective, robotics will be simultaneously responsible and irresponsible depending on the particular concept of responsibility that is foregrounded: an observation that cuts against the grain of the drive towards responsible robotics. This problem is further compounded by responsible design and development as contrasted to responsible use. From a different perspective, the difficulty in defining the concept of responsibility in robotics is because human responsibility is the main frame of reference. Robotic systems are increasingly expected to achieve the human-level performance, including the capacities associated with responsibility and other criteria which are necessary to act responsibly. This subsists within a larger phenomenon where the difference between humans and non-humans, be it animals or artificial systems, appears to be increasingly blurred, thereby disrupting orthodox understandings of responsibility. This paper seeks to supplement the responsible robotics impulse by proposing a complementary set of human rights directed specifically against the harms arising from robotic and artificial intelligence technologies. The relationship between responsibilities of the agent and the rights of the patient suggest that a rights regime is the other side of responsibility coin. The major distinction of this approach is to invert the power relationship: while human agents are perceived to control robotic patients, the prospect for this to become reversed is beginning. As robotic technologies become ever more sophisticated, and even genuinely complex, asserting human rights directly against robotic harms become increasingly important. Such an approach includes not only developing human rights that ‘protect’ humans but also ‘strengthen’ people against the challenges introduced by robotics and AI [This distinction parallels Berlin’s negative and positive concepts of liberty ], by emphasising the social and reflective character of the notion of humanness as well as the difference between the human and nonhuman. This will allow using the human frame of reference as constitutive of, rather than only subject to, the robotic and AI technologies, where it is human and not technology characteristics that shape the human rights framework in the first place. (shrink)

Schiller was one of many early post-Kantians who wrestled with Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, a doctrine that continues to puzzle commentators today. Schiller’s own explanation of why we are prone to pursue happiness without restriction is, I argue, subtle and multilayered: it offers us a new genealogy of reflective agency, linking our tendency to egoism to the first emergence of reason within human beings. On the reading I defend, our drive for the absolute does not lead us directly to (...) moral autonomy; rather, it misleads us to seek the absolute in the field of our own impulses and inclinations. However, since this detour is the result of cognitive error, it involves no willful subordination of the moral law to self-love, and so nothing that bears the guilt of evil. (shrink)

One widely discussed feature of Paradiso 33 is Dante’s emphasis on his failure to represent in words and memory his pilgrim’s exalted vision of the Trinity. Against other interpretations of this canto, I will discuss why, despite the fact that the language of failure seeks to reinforce the poetic illusion that revelation’s authority is grounded in an unmediated access to divine truth, the theophantic moment “represented” in Paradiso 33 instead shows that revelatory experience is nothing but a product of the (...) impulse of natural reason to exceed its own legitimate scope—that is, the theophantic moment illustrates natural reason’s inherent tendency to overstep its own limits. Consequently, I shall argue, the poema sacro’s carefully constructed representations of the pilgrim’s revelatory insight are in fact grounded in Dante’s proto-humanist understanding of the authoritative role of natural reason in representing to ourselves the possibilities of our own spiritual and earthly beatitudes. (shrink)

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein cites the Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Koehler almost as often as he cites William James in his posthumously published writings on the philosophy of psychology. Yet, few treatments of the Wittgenstein–Koehler relation in the philosophical literature could be called sustained discussions. Moreover, most of them treat Koehler as a mere whipping boy for Wittgenstein, one more opportunity to criticize the practice of psychologists. This article emphasizes how much the two thinkers agreed, and the extent to which some (...) of Wittgenstein’s work not only agreed with but also has a logical structure parallel to some of Koehler’s text. Both thinkers hold that the theoretician should strive to recognize and resist the impulse to step in and purify, distill, streamline, or exclude phenomena: common, everyday experience for Koehler and common, everyday uses of words for Wittgenstein. They both aim to counteract the tendency to discount and disparage what is ordinary and common. (shrink)

This essay joins Wilhelm Dilthey’s conception of the metaphysical impulse as a flight from the tragedy of human finitude with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s understanding of how language bewitches intelligence. We contend that there are features of the phenomenology of language that play a constitutive and pervasive role in the formation of metaphysical illusion.

I argue for a type of relativism that allows different people to have conflicting accurate representations of the world. This is contrary to the view of most Anglo-American philosophers, who would, with Paul Boghossian in Fear of Knowledge, deny that “there are many radically different, yet ‘equally valid’ ways of knowing the world.” My argument is not a metaphysical argument about the ultimate nature of the outside world, but a psychological argument about the mental processes of representation. The argument starts (...) from a few principles of naïve (or folk) psychology, but is later extended to apply to mechanisms that do not have a “psychology.” Finally, I briefly discuss the anti-relativist impulse in philosophy, with particular reference to Boghossian’s example of non-scientific beliefs regarding Lakota origins. I argue that both we and the Lakotas have good reason to reject such beliefs while still remaining relativists. Being a relativist does not mean that you get to believe whatever you like. (shrink)

It has become orthodox to read Nietzsche as proposing the ‘sublimation’ of troublesome behavioural impulses. On this interpretation, he is said to denigrate the elimination of our impulses, preferring that we master them by pressing them into the service of our higher goals. My thesis is that this reading of Nietzsche’s conception of self-cultivation does not bear scrutiny. Closer examination of his later thought reveals numerous texts that show him explicitly recommending an eliminatory approach to self-cultivation. I invoke his theory (...) of the will to power in order to explain why he persistently valorises both elimination and sublimation as preconditions of healthy subjective unity. I conclude that which of these two approaches he recommends in a given situation depends on whether or not the impulse in question can be put to use within the overall economy of our drives. (shrink)

Despite their purported demographic and institutional decline, White evangelical voters were instrumental in the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and even more so in his 2020 loss. The story of Trump’s electoral successes among Christian voters in the last two elections is in large part the story of religious nationalism—and White Christian nationalism in particular—because Trump personifies the convergence of nationalism-infused forms of messianism and apocalypticism intrinsic to White evangelicalism, which culminate in QAnon cultic ideology. However, these same ethnoreligious/nationalist (...) patterns and logics extend much further back than Trump’s insurgent candidacy. This chapter traces the recurring, resurgent patterns of “zombie nationalism” among White evangelical Christians in the United States over the last half century that emerged in response to periods of significant societal change and certain recurring sociopolitical issues. In particular, alongside established elective affinities around ethnicity (whiteness) and religion (Christianity), this chapter makes the case for incorporating gender and sexual politics as key factors in the articulation and legitimation of religious nationalism in the United States. White Christian nationalism tends to reemerge as a salient political force during periods of rapid social change and diversification, driven by racialized religious grievances symptomatic of Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment, or the paradoxical internalization and reprojection of a person’s or group’s perceived endangerment, victimhood, and/or suffering, in order to gain power. Drawing on examples of marriage equality and reproductive rights, this chapter demonstrates how an understanding of sexual politics is key to both apprehending and breaking the cyclical reanimation of White Christian nationalism. Escaping the nihilistic impulses driving these cycles will require White evangelicals to develop new hermeneutical tools capable of transforming the exclusionary patterns of racism, ethnocentrism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy that fuel the engine of ressentiment animating zombie nationalism. (shrink)

This essay articulates a conception of responsibility and excuse in terms of the fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing and explores its implications for insanity, incompetence, and psychopathy. The fair opportunity conception factors responsibility into conditions of normative competence and situational control and factors normative competence into cognitive and volitional capacities. This supports a conception of incompetence that recognizes substantial impairment of either cognitive or volitional capacities as excusing, provided the agent is not substantially responsible for her own incompetence. This conception (...) helps frame the question whether psychopathy is excusing. The most common rationale for excusing psychopathy appeals to claims about cognitive incompetence. However, there are good philosophical and empirical reasons to be skeptical that psychopaths lack the relevant cognitive capacities. There is more to be said for a volitional rationale for excuse. The crucial question here is whether the problems psychopaths have with impulse control and conforming their behavior to the relevant moral and criminal norms are systematic enough to demonstrate genuine volitional incompetence. The available empirical evidence should leave us skeptical about the merits of this volitional rationale for excuse. (shrink)

In his book The Sensory Order, Hayek anticipates many of the central ideas behind what we now call the connectionist paradigm, and develops on this basis a theory of the workings of the human mind that extends the thinking of Hume and Mach. He shows that the idea of neural networks is can be applied not only in psychology and neurology but also in the sphere of economics. For the mind, from the perspective of The Sensory Order, is a dynamic, (...) relational affair that is in many respects analogous to a market process. The mind, as Hayek puts it, is a 'continuous stream of impulses, the significance of each and every contribution of which is determined by the place in the pattern of channels through which they flow' , so that the flow of representative neural impulses can be compared 'to a stock of capital being nourished by inputs and giving a continuous stream of outputs'. (shrink)

Today, dramatically increasing economic inequality, imminent climatological calamity, and a global pandemic now place the timeless debate over capitalism into stark relief. Though many seek to pin the blame on capitalism’s excesses, they would do well to recall the historical record of socialism’s deficiencies, namely, stifling innovation, lumbering inefficiency, and stagnation. Fortunately, our moral psychology affords a middle way between these two extremes. For while economic incentives have a tendency to let our civic and prosocial impulses atrophy from disuse, these (...) can also be rekindled when we are faced with highly compelling reasons to think and act for the greater good of all concerned. The coronavirus pandemic now unfolding might well offer us an opportunity to instill a culture of heightened moral self-awareness spurring a more virtuous form of capitalism. (shrink)

I defend two main theses. First, I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the cause of one’s actions in virtue of being (qua) the individual one is. Aristotle contrasts voluntary action not only with involuntary action but also with cases in which one acts (or does something) due to one’s nature (for example, in virtue of being a member of a certain species) rather than due to one’s own desires (i.e. qua (...) individual). An action can be attributed to one qua individual in two distinct ways depending on whether one is a rational or a non-rational animal. One is responsible for one’s action in both cases, but only in the former case is one also responsible for being the sort of individual that performs it. Aristotle also distinguishes two ways in which an action can be compelled while still being an action of the agent. In the first case, one is compelled by (physically) external forces or circumstances to act against one’s internal impulse. In the second case, one is compelled to act on (internal) impulses that are fixed by one’s nature against one’s own individual impulse. This latter kind of compelled action is only possible in the case of rational agents. Secondly, I argue that Aristotle’s conception of what it is to be a cause of an action inevitably brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame. On Aristotle’s view, any goal-directed behavior that is properly attributable to an individual is (normally) subject to standards that pertain to behavior of that sort. At the most basic level, these standards establish what counts as a successful realization of the goal that one aims at. Thus even in the case of non-rational animals (or children), one can judge the success of what they are doing and encourage (or discourage) similar behavior by praise or blame. These standards are applicable to one’s conduct simply insofar as one is the controlling origin (or efficient cause) of one’s action qua individual. In the case of rational agents the practice of praise and blame can involve a further normative layer since they can be praised or blamed not only for acting in a certain way so as to encourage or discourage them with a view to the future, but also for being – and having become – individuals of a certain sort. Nevertheless, the applicability of such evaluative judgments and of praise and blame is still warranted by one’s being the controlling origin of one’s actions qua the individual one is (in this case, qua rational individual). (shrink)

The chapter tackles the complex, tension-ridden, and often paradoxical relationship between relativism and conservatism. We focus particularly on radical conservatism, an early twentieth-century German movement that arguably constitutes the climax of conservatism’s problematic relationship with relativism. We trace the shared genealogy of conservatism and historicism in nineteenth-century Counter-Enlightenment thought and interpret radical conservatism’s ambivalent relation to relativism as reflecting this heritage. Emphasizing national particularity, historical uniqueness, and global political plurality, Carl Schmitt and Hans Freyer moved in the tradition of historicism, (...) stopping short of full relativism. Yet they utilized relativistic elements – such as seeing irrational decisions or the demands of “life” as the basis of politics – to discredit notions of universal political morality and law, thereby underpinning their authoritarian agendas. Oswald Spengler, by contrast, took the relativistic impulses to the extreme, interweaving his conservative authoritarianism and nationalism with full-fledged epistemic, moral, and political relativism. Martin Heidegger has recently been perceived as the key philosopher of radical conservatism, and his thought arguably channeled antimodern aspects of historicism into contemporary political thought. We conclude by analyzing how some radical conservative arguments involving cultural relativism and plurality still reverberate in contemporary theorists such as Samuel Huntington, Aleksandr Dugin, and Alain de Benoist. (shrink)

A common perception of Spinoza casts him as one of the precursors, perhaps even founders, of modern humanism and Enlightenment thought. Given that in the twentieth century, humanism was commonly associated with the ideology of secularism and the politics of liberal democracies, and that Spinoza has been taken as voicing a “message of secularity” and as having provided “the psychology and ethics of a democratic soul” and “the decisive impulse to… modern republicanism which takes it bearings by the dignity of (...) every man,” it is easy to understand how this humanistic image developed. Spinoza’s deep interest in, and extensive discussion of, human nature may have contributed to the emergence of this image as well. In this paper, I will argue that this common perception of Spinoza is mistaken and that Spinoza was in fact the most radical anti-humanist among modern philosophers. Arguably, Spinoza rejects any notion of human dignity. He conceives of God’s - and not man’s - point of view as the only objective perspective through which one can know things adequately, and it is at least highly questionable whether he allows for any genuine notions of human autonomy or morality. The notions of ‘humanism’ and ‘anti-humanism’ have been discussed extensively -mainly among continental philosophers - since the end of World War II. Because these notions carry a variety of historical, ideological, and philosophical meanings, it is important to provide at the outset at least a rudimentary clarification of my use of these two terms. By ‘humanism’ I mean a view which (1) assigns a unique value to human beings among other things in nature, (2) stresses the primacy of the human perspective in understanding the nature of things, and (3) attempts to point out an essential property of humanity which justifies its elevated and unique status. This definition of philosophical humanism has only little in common with the historical notion of Renaissance humanism, and seems to match quite well the common understanding of philosophical humanism suggested by current philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias. This notion of humanism should be understood in contrast to two competing positions. On the one hand, in contrast to the theocentric position that considers humanity to be radically dependent upon God, humanism affirms at least some degree of human independence. On the other hand, in contrast to the naturalist position which endorses the scientific examination of human beings just like any other objects in nature, humanists affirm the existence of a metaphysical and moral gulf between humanity and nature. This gulf assigns a special value to humanity and does not allow us to treat human beings like any other things in nature. For many humanists the nature/humanity gulf does not allow the application of the methods of natural sciences to the disciplines of the humanities. Humanism does not begin with modernity. In order to see how far back we can trace this position, we may recall Protagoras’ saying: “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” In modern philosophy, the humanistic position had regained dominant status since the Renaissance, and variants of this position were vigorously argued for by prominent thinkers such as Pico della Mirandola, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, and finally, Hegel. In this paper, I will argue that Spinoza was a foe, and not a friend, of this tradition. I suggest that, in contrast to these humanist philosophers, Spinoza considers man as a marginal and limited being in nature, a being whose claims and presumptions far exceed its abilities. “To what length will the folly of the multitude not carry them?.... [T]hey imagine Nature to be so limited that they believe man to be his chief part.” Arguably, Spinoza locates the origin of our most fundamental metaphysical and ethical errors in a human hubris which not only tries to secure humanity an exceptional place in nature but also attempts to cast both God and nature in its own human image. (shrink)

As historian Henning Schmidgen notes, the scientific study of the nervous system would have been “unthinkable” without the industrialization of communication in the 1830s. Historians have investigated extensively the way nerve physiologists have borrowed concepts and tools from the field of communications, particularly regarding the nineteenth-century work of figures like Helmholtz and in the American Cold War Era. The following focuses specifically on the interwar research of the Cambridge physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, and on the technology that led to his (...) Nobel-Prize-winning research, the thermionic vacuum tube. Many countries used the vacuum tube during the war for the purpose of amplifying and intercepting coded messages. These events provided a context for Adrian's evolving understanding of the nerve fiber in the 1920s. In particular, they provide the background for Adrian's transition around 1926 to describing the nerve impulse in terms of “information,” “messages,” “signals,” or even “codes,” and for translating the basic principles of the nerve, such as the all-or-none principle and adaptation, into such an “informational” context. The following also places Adrian's research in the broader context of the changing relationship between science and technology, and between physics and physiology, in the first few decades of the twentieth century. (shrink)

One of the main obstacles to the realization of intentions for future actions and to the successful pursuit of long-term goals is lack of self-control. But, what does it mean to engage in self-controlled behaviour? On a motivational construal of self-control, self-control involves resisting our competing temptations, impulses, and urges in order to do what we deem to be best. The conflict we face is between our better judgments or intentions and “hot” motivational forces that drive or compel us to (...) act in opposing ways. In contrast, on an executive construal of self-control, the emphasis is not on overcoming temptation, but on overriding or inhibiting “cold” automatically triggered routines and habits that are at odds with what we intend to do. Our general aim in this chapter is to contribute to the development of an overarching theory of self-control by exploring ways in which these two apparently competing frameworks can be reconciled. We propose that self-control is best understood as a hybrid set of skills. We draw on recent work on expert motor skill to highlight important ways in which experts differ from novices in the capacities they deploy and the ways in which they deploy them. We consider analogies (and disanalogies) between the domain of sports expertise and the domain of self-control. We end by considering how such a hybrid approach can help us reconcile a motivational and an executive approach to self-control. (shrink)

These essays are about education, learning, rational inquiry, philosophy, science studies, problem solving, academic inquiry, global problems, wisdom and, above all, the urgent need for an academic revolution. Despite this range and diversity of topics, there is a common underlying theme. Education ought to be devoted, much more than it is, to the exploration real-life, open problems; it ought not to be restricted to learning up solutions to already solved problems - especially if nothing is said about the problems that (...) provoked the solutions in the first place. There should be much more emphasis on learning how to engage in cooperatively rational exploration of problems: even five year olds could begin to learn how to do this. A central task of philosophy ought to be to keep alive awareness of our unsolved fundamental problems - especially our most fundamental problem of all, encompassing all others: How can our human world - and the world of sentient life more generally - imbued with the experiential, consciousness, free will, meaning and value, exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? This is both our fundamental intellectual problem and our fundamental problem of living. As far as the latter is concerned, we are at present heading towards disaster - as our immense, unsolved global problems tell us: population growth, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, vast inequalities of wealth and power around the world, pollution of earth, sea and air, our proclivity for war, and above all global warming. If we are to resolve our conflicts and global problems more intelligently, effectively and humanely than we have managed to do so far, then we have to learn how to do it. That, in turn, requires that our institutions of learning, our universities and schools, are rationally designed and devoted to the task. At present they are not. That is the crisis behind all the others. From the past we have inherited the idea that the basic intellectual aim of inquiry ought to be to acquire knowledge. First, knowledge is to be acquired; then, secondarily, it can be applied to help solve social problems. But this is dangerously and damagingly irrational, and it is this irrationality that is, in part, responsible for the genesis of our current global problems, and our current incapacity to solve them. As a matter of supreme urgency, we need to transform academia so that it becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards as good and wise a world as possible. This would involve putting problems of living - including global problems - at the heart of academia, problems of knowledge and technological know-how emerging out of, and feeding back into, the central task to help people tackle problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways. Almost every department and aspect of academia needs to change. We need a new kind of academic inquiry devoted, not just to knowledge, but rather to wisdom - wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, wisdom including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. So, this is what these essays seek to provoke: a concerted effort to transform our institutions of learning so that they become rationally and effectively devoted to helping us learn how to create a wiser world. With these essays before me, I can see that there is one crucial element of learning about which they say nothing - or nothing explicit. The vital role of play in learning. All mammals - or at any rate almost all mammals - learn by means of play. Cats, tigers, foxes and other predators learn to hunt by means of endless mock fights when kittens and cubs. Deer, sheep and antelope learn to escape by means of playful leaps and bounds when young. We are mammals too. Almost certainly, we learnt how to be adult human beings by means of play during the millions of years we evolved into homo sapiens living in hunting and gathering tribes. Children today, out of school, learn by means of play. Learning by means of play is almost certainly fundamental to our makeup. Education needs to exploit it. Schools and universities need to become places of play. Successful problem solving is often likely to be playful in character. The youthful Einstein called doing physics "getting up to mischief". But our most serious problems of living are so grim, so imbued with suffering, wasted lives and unnecessary death that the idea of approaching them in a playful spirit seems sacrilegious. We need to keep alive tackling of intellectual problems so that playful capacities can be exercised - if for no other reason (and other reasons there are, of course, aplenty). There are two really worthy impulses behind all rational inquiry: delight and compassion. (shrink)

During the century following the Council of Trent, two trends within Catholic religious orders matured: the first consisted in unifying and strengthening the Order’s culture by focussing on one author of reference; the other in elaborating a new way of presenting that author’s doctrines. In the case of the Friars Minor Conventuals, these trends were fostered in the second decade of the seventeenth century by the minister general of the Order, Giacomo Montanari, who promoted the idea that providing the Order (...) with new works featuring innovative didactic characteristics and a renewed defence of the doctrines of John Duns Scotus was a prime way to lead an authentic religious life. Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto’s “philosophiae cursus ad mentem Scoti” was probably the major result of this impulse. This essay examines the ways in which this process occurred and the outcomes to which it led. (shrink)

A comparative perspective in the study of religion has recently been taken up more and more often. It goes along with a growing awareness of cultural and religious plurality as well as of the importance of religion in terms of its role in the social, political, and economic processes of the contemporary world. This also gave an impulse to organize the two-day international seminar on “Comparative Methodology in Religious Studies” held in Kraków on 23–24 May 2013, at the Pedagogical University (...) of Cracow, Department of Philosophy and Sociology, in co-operation with the Editors of Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal. During the seminar a variety of methods applied in the comparative study of religion were discussed. The participants considered which of them seemed to be most beneficial or useful for a better understanding of the subject matter, and for capturing the uniqueness and divergence between Abrahamic, Indian (Dharmic), and other religious traditions. Some criteria for a proper comparison in the field of religion were defined and justified during this discussion. The presenters took into account both the sociological context of the analysis and philosophical consideration of the most fundamental questions within comparative methodology. (shrink)