Berkeley and Hume object to Locke's account of abstraction. Abstraction is separating in the mind what cannot be separated in reality. Their objection is that if a is inseparable in reality from b, then the idea of a is inseparable from the idea of b. The former inseparability is the reason for the latter. In most interpretations, however, commentators leave the former unexplained in explaining the latter. This article assumes that Berkeley and Hume present a unified front against Locke. (...) Hume supplements Berkeley's argument just where there are gaps. In particular, Hume makes explicit something Berkeley leaves implicit: The argument against Locke depends on the principle that things are inseparable if and only if they are identical. Abstraction is thinking of one of an inseparable pair while not thinking of the other. But doing so entails thinking of something while not thinking of it. This is the fundamental objection. (shrink)

We argue that prevailing definitions of Berkeley’s idealism fail to rule out a nearby Spinozist rival view that we call ‘mind-body identity panpsychism.’ Since Berkeley certainly does not agree with Spinoza on this issue, we call for more care in defining Berkeley’s view. After we propose our own definition of Berkeley’s idealism, we survey two Berkeleyan strategies to block the mind-body identity panpsychist and establish his idealism. We argue that Berkeley should follow Leibniz and further develop his account of the (...) mind’s unity. Unity—not activity—is the best way for Berkeley to establish his view at the expense of his panpsychist competitors. (shrink)

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy ‘at the bedside’? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions – about what we should do in any given situation – (...) are embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case, what it is that we feel we can claim to know, as well as the meaning we ascribe to different aspects of the situation or to our perception of it. Philosophy concerns fundamental questions: it is a discipline requiring us to examine the underlying assumptions we bring with us to our thinking about practical problems. Traditional academic philosophers divide their discipline into distinct areas that typically include logic: questions about meaning, truth and validity; ontology: questions about the nature of reality, what exists; epistemology: concerning knowledge; and ethics: how we should live and practice, the nature of value. Any credible attempt to analyse clinical reasoning will require us to think carefully about these types of question and the relationships between them, as they influence our thinking about specific situations and problems. So, the answers to the question we posed, about the role of philosophy at the bedside, are numerous and diverse, and that diversity is illustrated in the contributions to this thematic edition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and (...) Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

The delusory quest for disembodiment, against which the quest for re-embodiment is reacting, is characteristic of macroparasites who live off the work, products and lives of others. The quest for disembodiment that characterizes modernism and postmodernism, it is argued, echoes in a more extreme form the delusions on which medieval civilization was based where the military aristocracy and the clergy, defining themselves through the ideal forms of Neo-Platonic Christianity, despised nature, the peasantry and in the case of the clergy, women. (...) This argument is used to expose and reveal the oppressive and ecologically destructive drive underlying the aspirations of the dominant classes in the modern/postmodern world to disembodiment, whether this be seen as the quest to be unbounded by time and place, to be free of dependence on labour and natural resources, to be free of the humdrum of everyday life by entering ‘virtual’ worlds, or, as with post-humanists, to overcome the limits of the body by fusing with technology. These modern and postmodern forms of the quest for disembodiment, it is suggested, now threaten civilization, the future of humanity and most terrestrial life. This analysis is used to clarify the liberating mission of the grand narrative for re-embodiment, exemplified by the quest for Inclusive Democracy, Earth Democracy, Ecological Civilization, or for an Ecozoic Age. The grand narrative of the Age of Re-embodiments is shown to be inseparable from the struggle for truth, justice and liberty as central to real democracy empowering people to augment rather than undermine the conditions for life. (shrink)

The question of what ontological insights can be gained from the knowledge of physics (keyword: ontic structural realism) cannot obviously be separated from the view of physics as a science from an epistemological perspective. This is also visible in the debate about 'scientific realism'. This debate makes it evident, in the form of the importance of perception as a criterion for the assertion of existence in relation to the 'theoretical entities' of physics, that epistemology itself is 'ontologically laden'. This is (...) in the form of the assumption that things (or entities) in themselves exist as such and such determined ones (independent of cognition, autonomously). This ontological assumption is not only the basis of our naïve understanding of cognition, but also its indispensable premise, insofar as this understanding is a fundamentally passive, 'receptive' one. Accordingly, just as 'perception' is the foundation, ('objective') description is the aim of cognition, that which cognition is about. In this sense, our idea of cognition and our idea of the things are inseparably linked. Without the ontological premise mentioned we just would not know what cognition is, but it is basically just a kind of image that we have in our minds (an assumption that helps us understand 'cognition'). Epistemology not only shares this basic assumption (which it also shares with metaphysics), but it revolves (unlike metaphysics) entirely around it by making the idea and demand of 'certainty' a condition of 'real' knowledge. As 'certainty' is a subjective criterion this entails the 'remodelling' of the real, holistic cognitive situation (to which metaphysics adheres) into a linear subject-object-relation (which results in the strict 'transcendence' of the objects). And it also establishes, due to its 'expertise' in matters of cognition, the 'primacy of epistemology' over all other sciences. Now, on closer inspection, however, the expertise of epistemology seems not all that dependable, because it basically consists only of paradigms which, from the point of view of the holism of the real cognitive situation itself, are nothing more than relatively simplistic interpretations of this situation. However, we do not yet know what another conception of cognition might look like (which is not surprising given the high rank of the phenomenon of cognition in the hierarchy of phenomena according to their complexity). 'Certainty' as a criterion of cognition is thus excluded from the outset, and thus the linear relational model of cognition appears as what it is, a gross distortion of the real, holistic cognitive situation. The significance of this argumentation with regard to physics is that the linear epistemological model of cognition itself is a major obstacle to an adequate epistemological understanding of physics. This is because it is fixed 'a priori' to an object-related concept of cognition, and to 'description' as the only mode of ('real') cognition. But physics (without questioning our naïve notion of cognition on the level of epistemology) simply works past it and its basic assumptions. Its cognitive concept (alias heuristic) is fundamentally different from that of metaphysics. The acceptance of the real, holistic cognitive situation is, in my opinion, the condition for an adequate understanding of physics' heuristic access to objects, its transcendental, generalizing cognitive concept, as well as its ontological relevance and dimension of its own. (shrink)

What type of artificial systems will claim to be conscious and will claim to experience qualia? The ability to comment upon physical states of a brain-like dynamical system coupled with its environment seems to be sufficient to make claims. The flow of internal states in such systems, guided and limited by associative memory, is similar to the stream of consciousness. A specific architecture of an artificial system, termed articon, is introduced that by its very design has to claim being conscious. (...) Non-verbal discrimination of the working memory states of the articon gives it the ability to experience different qualities of internal states. Analysis of the flow of inner states of such a system during typical behavioral process shows that qualia are inseparable from perception and action. The role of consciousness in learning of skills — when conscious information processing is replaced by subconscious — is elucidated. Arguments confirming that phenomenal experience is a result of cognitive processes are presented. Possible philosophical objections based on the Chinese room and other arguments are discussed, but they are insufficient to refute articon’s claims that it is conscious. Conditions for genuine understanding that go beyond the Turing test are presented. Articons may fulfill such conditions and in principle the structure of their experiences may be arbitrarily close to human. (shrink)

Abstract: In 1934 Gadamer delivered the lecture Plato und die Dichter. Its central topic was the relationship between poetry, philosophy and politics in Plato’s thought. Gadamer developed an original phenomenological investigation on Plato’s ethical-political philosophy and the role that art played in it, in which the dimension of language and the meaning of utopia are structural for his arguments. This article aims, in the first place, to elucidate some political dimensions of Plato und die Dichter. In order to do this, (...) I will carry out a critical review of Donatella Di Cesare’s and Dennis Schmidt’s contemporary readings of these aspects. In the conclusions, after briefly analysing in the third section the relationship between phrónēsis, aretḗ and andreía in the Platonic dialogues, I will try to demonstrate how these notions illuminate the question of the seduction of power (neglected by Schmidt in his reading of Gadamer’s Plato), as well as the inseparability of this problem with respect to the dialectical conception of utopia. It will be suggested that it is possible, from and beyond the Gadamerian reading of Plato, to rethink the idea of civil disobedience and the political value of the myth from standpoint of utopia. // Resumen: En 1934 Gadamer pronunció la conferencia Plato und die Dichter,cuyo tema central era la relación entre poesía, filosofía y política en el pensamiento platónico. Allí desarrolló una original investigación fenomenológica sobre la filosofía ético-política de Platón y el lugar que el arte ocupaba en ella, en la que la dimensión del lenguaje y el significado de la utopía son estructurales para sus argumentaciones. El presente artículo se propone, en primer lugar, elucidar algunos aspectos de la dimensión política de Plato und die Dichter. Para ello, se realizará una revisión crítica de las lecturas contemporáneas de estos aspectos por parte de Donatella Di Cesare y Dennis Schmidt. En las conclusiones, tras analizar brevemente en el tercer apartado la relación entre phrónēsis, aretḗ y andreía en los diálogos platónicos, intentaré demostrar cómo estas nociones alumbran la cuestión de la seducción del poder (descuidada por Schmidt en su lectura del Platón gadameriano), así como la inseparabilidad de este problema con respecto a la concepción dialéctica de la utopía. A partir de esto último se sugerirá que es posible, a partir y más allá de la lectura gadameriana de Platón, repensar la idea de “desobediencia civil” y el valor político del mito desde el punto de vista de la utopía. (shrink)

Mencius, referred to as second sage in Chinese philosophy history, grounds his theory about original goodness of human nature on psychological components by bringing in something new down ancient ages. Including the principles of virtuous action associated with Confucius to his doctrine, but by composing them along psychosocial development, he theorizes utterly out of the ordinary that makes all the difference to the school. In his argument stated a positive opinion, he explains the method of forming individuals' moral awareness (...) by means of inseparable integrity of feelings and thoughts, saying human being are born innately good. According to Mencius, heart-mind correlation is the motivational complement of inner incentives. Knowledge and virtue, which are extensions of inborn goodness, comprehended intuitively; then affective motives respond to circumstance, what is learned transmits to cognitive process and eventually behavior emerges. Comparing during the years of Warring State period he lived, in western geography Aristotle, who is one of the pioneers of Greek philosophy, argues deductive and inductive methods in mental activity. On the other hand, Mencius uses analogical reasoning throughout his self-titled work. This essay is an attempt to assert that most postulates of developmental theories, which have been considered an integral part of modern psychology, begin with Mencius in early era. Secondly, this study also aims to discuss the main paradigm of Mencius across emotivist-rationalist opposition, which keeps emotion above thought as well as reason above emotion. (shrink)

Abstract: The so-called “crisis of the humanities” can be understood in terms of an asymmetry between the natural and social sciences on the one hand and the humanities on the other. While the sciences approach topics related to human experience in quantificational or experimental terms, the humanities turn to ancient, canonical, and other texts in the search for truths about human experience. As each approach has its own unique limitations, it is desirable to overcome or remove the asymmetry between them. (...) The present article seeks to do just that by advancing and defending the following two claims: (a) that humanity is ubiquitous wherever language is used; and (b) that anything that can be experienced by humans is in need of an interpretation. Two arguments are presented in support of these claims. The first argument concerns the nature of questions, which are one of the fundamental marks or manifestations of human language. All questions are ultimately attempts to find meanings or interpretations of what is presented. As such, in questioning phenomena, one seeks to transcend the negative space or oppression of imposed structures; in doing so, one reveals one’s humanity. Second, all phenomena are textual in nature: that which astrophysicists find in distant galaxies or which cognitive neuroscientists find in the structures of the human brain are no less in need of interpretation than the dialogues of Plato or the poems of Homer. Texts are ubiquitous. The implications of these two arguments are identified and discussed in this article. In particular, it is argued that the ubiquity of humanity and textuality points to a view of human nature that is neither individualistic nor collectivist but rather integrational in suggesting that the realization of oneself is inseparable from the realization of others. (shrink)

Although there is increasing recognition that theory and practice in science are often inseparably intertwined, discussions of scientific controversies often continue to focus on theory, and not practice or methodologies. As a contribution to constructing a framework towards understanding controversies linked to scientific practices, we introduce the notion of borrowed epistemic credibility, to describe the situation in which scientists exploit fallacious similarities between accepted tenets in other fields to garner support for a given position in their own field. Our proposal (...) is based on the analysis of a recent controversy in phylogeography, a biological subdiscipline concerned with the study of the historical causes of variation in genetic diversity within species in concrete biogeographical locations. Through a review of the arguments that support the two conflicting phylogeographic schools, we show that ‘theory’ plays essentially no role as a foundation of the controversy, whereas both sides borrow epistemic credibility from sources such as formal logic, similarity of results to those in other scientific areas, the authority of prominent scientists, or the presumed superiority of quantitative vs. verbal reasoning. Our case study underscores the indivisibility of theory and practice and provide a means to re-examine important philosophical issues such as the meaning of inference, rationality, justification, and objectivity in scientific practice. (shrink)

(First paragraphs.) The idea that our language somehow influences our thought can be found in philosophical and scientific traditions of different continents and with different roots and objectives. Yet, beyond the mere theoretical, explorations of the idea are relatively scarce, and are mostly limited to relations between very concrete conceptual categories and subjective experiencing and remembering – to some kind of ‘psychologies of folk-ontology’. Thought as process, reasoning or ‘thinking’, and the role of more complex or abstract concepts in (such) (...) thought tend to be mostly ignored in psychology and philosophy. Conceptual and intellectual history, on the other hand, cannot be accused of such neglect, but the common lack of a comparative perspective in those fields precludes any generalized inference. Furthermore, while a comparative study on the role of complex or abstract concepts in thought as process and its products (the aggregate ‘thought’ of schools, ages, and regions) could result in a considerable enrichment of our understanding of the relationships between language and thought, it would not necessarily be recognized as such because of a fundamental difference in the nature of the concepts involved, affecting the boundary of ‘language’ in the pair ‘language and thought’. More concretely, while the concepts of the ‘psychologies of folk-ontology’ are rather concrete categories of ‘things’ or aspects of experienced reality (hence, ‘folk-ontology’), the abstract concepts of (comparative) conceptual history, such as ‘society’ or ‘reason’, are categories of ideas. Consequently, conceptual history is inseparably tied to the history of ideas, and there is no strict boundary line between concepts, theories, ideas, and aggregate thought in general. It could, therefore, be argued that a comparative conceptual history would be a study of the influence of ideas on thought, rather than of language on thought. That argument, however, would either void language of content, or make the dubious claim that folk-ontology is a fundamentally different type of content than theoretical content. The ‘psychologies of folk-ontology’ study the influence of folk-ontological categories on folk-ontological thought (experiencing and remembering), and a comparative conceptual history would study the influence of theoretical categories (or conceptualized ideas) on theoretical thought (thinking, reasoning, etc.), and there does not seem to be a good reason to exclude either type of categories from ‘language’. Perhaps it should be argued instead that the ambiguous term ‘language’ in the pair ‘language and thought’ would better be replaced with ‘concepts’ or ‘categories’. (shrink)

Les approches de la tradition philosophique de la morale reposent principalement sur des concepts et des théories métaphysiques et théologiques. Parmi les concepts éthiques traditionnels, le plus important est la théorie du commandement divin (DCT). Selon la DCT, Dieu donne des fondements moraux à l'humanité par sa création et par la Révélation. Morale et Divinité sont inséparables depuis la civilisation la plus lointaine. Ces concepts plongent dans un cadre théologique et sont principalement acceptés par la plupart des adeptes des trois (...) traditions abrahamiques : le judaïsme, le christianisme et l'islam : la partie la plus considérable de la population humaine. Tenant la foi et la Révélation pour ses fondements, les Théories du Commandement Divin ne sont pas strictement sujettes à la démonstration. Les opposants à la conception de la morale du Commandement divin, fondée sur l'impossibilité de démontrer ses présupposés métaphysiques et religieux, ont tenté pendant de nombreux siècles (mais sans succès) d'en dévaloriser l'importance. Ils ont soutenu l'argument selon lequel il ne montre pas de preuves matérielles et de cohérence logique et, pour cette raison, ne peut pas être considéré à des fins scientifiques ou philosophiques. Ce n'est qu'une croyance et, en tant que tel, doit être compris. Outre ces oppositions extrêmes, de nombreux autres concepts contreviennent aux théories du Commandement Divin, d'une manière ou d'une autre, en partie ou en totalité. (shrink)

My dissertation presents a comprehensive rethinking of the Kantian imperative, articulating it on the basis of what I call originary sense. Calling primarily upon the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard, I show (1) that sense constitutes the ontologically most basic dimension of our worldly being and (2) that the way in which this sense happens is determinative for our experience of the ethical imperative. By originary sense I mean to name something that is neither sensible sense (...) (sensation) nor intelligible sense (meaning), but rather a kind of unity of these two that is ontologically anterior to their separation. In the first chapter I follow Merleau-Ponty’s argument in Phenomenology of Perception that sensible sense and intelligible sense belong originarily together at the level of the lived body. We are able to intend the meaning of worldly situations (Husserl’s Sinngebung) only insofar as we are responsive in an embodied way to the imperatives that are given in the sensible itself. The intelligible lawfulness so characteristic of the Kantian imperative is thus shown to be grounded in a more fundamental unity of intelligible and sensible sense. The second chapter follows Merleau-Ponty’s later works, especially The Prose of the World and The Visible and the Invisible, showing how the sensibility that is inseparable from the imperative introduces important limitations to the universalizing tendencies of Kant’s moral philosophy, drawing us back to the irreducible situatedness of ethical situations. In the third chapter I turn to the very different articulation of sense given by Gilles Deleuze, primarily in his Logic of Sense. I show there that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological conception of sense does not allow us to think the singularity of the imperative, the fact that the ethical command weighs on a me that cannot be grasped in terms of the generalities of my public identity. This singularity corresponds broadly to the idea of dignity in Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that Deleuze, who conceptualizes sense as an event, gives us the resources to think singularity and to understand what it entails for our ethical practice. Finally, I attempt in the fourth chapter to think these two sides of the imperative—its demand for universality and its emphasis on singularity and dignity— together in the idea of libidinal sense. Calling on Jean-François Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy and, to a lesser extent, on Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, I show that these two apparently incompatible requirements of the imperative have a common source in the event of libidinal investment (cathexis). In thus locating the source of the imperative in originary, libidinal sense, I hope both to shed some light on the irreducible complexity of our ethical being and to present a more humane, less moralizing version of the imperative than is typically articulated in moral philosophy. (shrink)

El Naturalismo Trascendental del Ultimo Wittgenstein The present article considers an internal tension in Wittgenstein's late philosophy. In what I call his 'naturalism', Wittgenstein circumscribes philosophical reflection to natural objects, to «making natural history». In his 'transcendentalism' he focuses on the «possibility of phenomena» and distinguishes philosophical method from the method of the natural sciences. I show that his 'transcendentalism' is present in his discussion of rules and prívate language, arguing for an interpretation in terms of a kantian type of (...) transcendental synthesis. But far from contradicting his 'naturalism', both tendencies are inseparable and essential to the main purpose of his Philosophical Investigations. (shrink)

The pedagogical work of the Church, in all his aspects, is inseparable related to the divine Word of God. Therefore, we can truly say that the Christian pedagogy is a perennial reality, nourished and defended by the confessional spirit of Orthodox Tradition. The exemplification of this apologetic work is realized first of all through the scriptural arguments of confession. On the other hand, without fathers and teachers we cannot reach the correct level of understanding. Therefore, in our study we will (...) underline the pedagogical figure of the spiritual father, meaning the role and importance of Avva. Not eventually, the concept of pedagogia perennis (in Latin) can be justified through the liturgical dimension of the Church’s life. Here we can discover the mystical and ascetical character of the confession of faith, in an apologetic overview, like St. Paul says: “It is a body and a Spirit … a Lord, a faith, a Baptism, one God and Father of all, Wich is over all and through all in all” (Ef. 4, 4-6). (shrink)

The statement everyone wants to live a fulfilled and happy life may seem simple, self-evident, and even trivial at first glance. However, upon closer philosophical analysis, can we unequivocally assert that people are truly focused on well-being? Assuming they are, the question becomes: what guidelines should be followed and how should one behave in order to achieve true well-being and attain their goals? One popular viewpoint is that cultivating moral virtues and personal qualities is essential for a life of "true" (...) well-being, rather than mere pleasure. This perspective is not particularly original, as it was advocated quite clearly by Aristotle. However, we must ask: what guarantees that virtue will lead to well-being? Can we really ignore the common-sense doubt that virtue (and moral life), as Kant points out, may not be rewarded with any form of well-being or "happiness" in the broadest sense during our earthly existence? How might we address this doubt? If questions about the relationship between happiness and virtue have been asked since ancient times, why don't we have definitive answers yet? Perhaps there is something wrong with the questions themselves, as is often the case in philosophy. Views on this relationship have influenced the modification of theories that philosophers have put forth in order to provide satisfactory answers. One such theory is the renewed and modernized ethics of virtue, which places the greatest emphasis on building an individual's moral character, assuming that Aristotelian character virtues such as courage, honesty, generosity, prudence, self-control, and compassion will enable us to lead a happy and fulfilling life. "Virtues" refer to a wide range of "excellences" or activities that individuals can use to perfect themselves. For example, an ordinary person might accept that courage can make their life more fulfilling, but it's important to recognize that virtues cannot be acquired overnight. Furthermore, many people believe that virtues are innate qualities that one either possesses or lacks. In contrast, ethics of virtue provides guidance and instructions for developing virtues over extended periods of time, as well as for continuously "practicing" the development of moral characteristics that will make us better individuals. The central and most significant concept in ethics of virtue is the golden mean, which can be interpreted in various ways. Essentially, ethics of virtue offers a path to a life filled with pleasure, harmony, and virtuous action. However, this collection of essays, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, is not exclusively concerned with virtues or ethics. Knowledge, as well as the processes of belief formation and justification of those beliefs, are also essential to ethics of virtue. Going back to the systematic Greek philosopher and his teacher, we can emphasize that virtues and knowledge are inseparable. Without the epistemology of virtues, even a thematic collection like this one would be incomplete. The Epistemology of Virtue is a relatively new branch of philosophy that has emerged as a response to questions about the value-neutrality of science. For a long time, the separation of values and scientific inquiry has been viewed as the correct methodological approach. However, it is clear that every scientist is also a human being with their own virtues and flaws. It is naive to assume that a scientist can leave their values and moral qualities outside the laboratory and treat their colleagues in the team differently than they would treat other people in their everyday life. Taking this into account, we can notice that Epistemology of Virtue is a theory that examines the influence of virtues on the processes of acquiring knowledge. Epistemic virtues refer to qualities that enable individuals to acquire knowledge and make reliable judgments. These virtues include traits such as openness to diverse testimonies and arguments, critical thinking, a tendency to question one's own assumptions, and the ability to identify errors in one's own thought processes. Just like in virtue ethics, the Epistemology of Virtue raises the question of how we can cultivate the necessary virtues and how these virtues can have a positive impact on both individuals and society. The field also explores how epistemic virtues can be put into practice, such as in educational settings, scientific research, and various social activities. Finally, we turn to a topic that is often overlooked in philosophy - human flaws. While ethics typically views flaws as the opposite of virtues, requiring correction both individually and socially, the Epistemology of Virtue questions what happens when flaws occur in knowledge-related qualities. Do these flaws also need to be eliminated, or are they an inherent part of the process of acquiring knowledge and making judgments? At first glance, prejudices, stereotypes, dogmatism, conformism, closed-mindedness towards arguments and evidence, as well as uncritical acceptance of authority, can all hinder our ability to acquire knowledge. Epistemologists view these qualities as vices, rather than flaws like ethicists do. The Epistemology of Vices is the newest of the three branches of philosophy covered in this thematic collection, and it examines the ways in which false and untrue beliefs develop and persist in society. This area of study seeks to answer questions about how people form delusions and whether it is possible to overcome them. On the other hand, the Epistemology of Virtue is like the "older brother" that supervises these vices. It contributes to the investigation and overcoming of vices by developing virtues that enable individuals to more accurately assess the truthfulness of their beliefs. However, even though vices can have a destructive impact on knowledge acquisition, the question remains: are vices always detrimental in every context? Conversely, can virtues be detrimental? For example, does a virtue like solidarity sometimes hinder the efficient formation of true beliefs in time-sensitive situations such as finding a vaccine to combat a virus pandemic? Can vices be useful? Can stubbornness and uncooperativeness sometimes help a research team by allowing two sides to reach the same goal through different paths? Within this collection, some of these questions will receive answers, some of which may confirm existing impressions, while others may surprise readers. The thematic collection, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, consists of four interesting chapters and 21 papers that cover the selected topic through the prism of philosophical disciplines such as ethics, epistemology, the history of philosophy, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. In this introduction, we will not discuss the contents of the articles so as not to disrupt the intended integral approach to reading the collection. A significant feature of this collection is the continuity that extends from one paper to another, from topic to topic, and from problem to problem. Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude to the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade for their support in realizing this collection, as well as to our colleagues from the Department and Institute of Philosophy who have made this collection a relevant and significant achievement with their contributions. We are also thankful to the reviewers of the collection as a whole, as well as to the referees of individual articles, who have provided us with detailed comments and remarks that have made this collection clearer and more comprehensive. We owe a special thanks to our colleagues from Zagreb, Rijeka, and Maribor, whose exceptional papers have contributed to making this collection an unabashed international contribution to debates about the ethics and epistemology of virtues and vices. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate, within the framework of realistic interpretations of the wave function in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, the mathematical and physical nature of the wave function. I argue against the view that mathematically the wave function is a two-component scalar field on configuration space. First, I review how this view makes quantum mechanics non- Galilei invariant and yields the wrong classical limit. Moreover, I argue that interpreting the wave function as a ray, in agreement many physicists, Galilei invariance (...) is preserved. In addition, I discuss how the wave function behaves more similarly to a gauge potential than to a field. Finally I show how this favors a nomological rather than an ontological view of the wave function. (shrink)

We offer a critical assessment of the “exclusion argument” against free will, which may be summarized by the slogan: “My brain made me do it, therefore I couldn't have been free”. While the exclusion argument has received much attention in debates about mental causation (“could my mental states ever cause my actions?”), it is seldom discussed in relation to free will. However, the argument informally underlies many neuroscientific discussions of free will, especially the claim that advances in (...) neuroscience seriously challenge our belief in free will. We introduce two distinct versions of the argument, discuss several unsuccessful responses to it, and then present our preferred response. This involves showing that a key premise – the “exclusion principle” – is false under what we take to be the most natural account of causation in the context of agency: the difference-making account. We finally revisit the debate about neuroscience and free will. (shrink)

In this article I argue that "Timaeus" 48e-52d, the passage in which Plato introduces the receptacle into his ontology, Contains the material for a satisfactory response to the third man argument. Plato's use of "this" and "such" to distinguish the receptacle, Becoming, And the forms clarifies the nature of his ontology and indicates that the forms are not, In general, self-predicative. This result removes one argument against regarding the "Timaeus" as a late dialogue.

I present a cumulative case for the thesis that we only know propositions that are certain for us. I argue that this thesis can easily explain the truth of eight plausible claims about knowledge: -/- (1) There is a qualitative difference between knowledge and non-knowledge. (2) Knowledge is valuable in a way that non-knowledge is not. (3) Subjects in Gettier cases do not have knowledge. (4) If S knows that P, P is part of S’s evidence. (5) If S knows (...) that P, ~P is epistemically impossible for S. (6) If S knows that P, S can rationally act as if P. (7) If S knows that P, S can rationally stop inquiring whether P. (8) If S knows each of {P1, P2, … Pn}, and competently deduces Q from these propositions, S knows that Q. -/- I then argue that the skeptical costs of this thesis are outweighed by its explanatory power. (shrink)

Much of the discussion surrounding the ethics of abortion has centered around the notion of personhood. This is because many philosophers hold that the morality of abortion is contingent on whether the fetus is a person - though, of course, some famous philosophers have rejected this thesis (e.g. Judith Thomson and Don Marquis). In this article, I construct a novel argument for the immorality of abortion based on the notion of impairment. This argument does not assume that the (...) fetus is a person - indeed, I concede (for the sake of argument) that the fetus is not a person - and hence the morality of abortion is not contingent on whether the fetus is a person. I finish by answering a plethora of objections to my argument, concluding that none of them are successful. (shrink)

Kant’s “primacy of the practical” doctrine says that we can form morally justified commitments regarding what exists, even in the absence of sufficient epistemic grounds. In this paper I critically examine three different varieties of Kant’s “moral proof” that can be found in the critical works. My claim is that the third variety—the “moral-psychological argument” based in the need to sustain moral hope and avoid demoralization—has some intriguing advantages over the other two. It starts with a premise that more (...) clearly coheres with Kant’s mature account of moral motivation, and it invokes plausible empirical-psychological theses to motivate a commitment to the full-blown classical deity—the result Kant clearly wanted. From the point of view of its structure, I think this third variety of moral argument also has the most by way of contemporary interest. (shrink)

Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument is that because self-creation is required to be truly morally responsible and self-creation is impossible, it is impossible to be truly morally responsible for anything. I contend that the Basic Argument is unpersuasive and unsound. First, I argue that the moral luck debate shows that the self-creation requirement appears to be contradicted and supported by various parts of our commonsense ideas about moral responsibility, and that this ambivalence undermines the only reason that Strawson gives (...) for the self-creation requirement. Second, I argue that the self-creation requirement is so demanding that either it is an implausible requirement for a species of true moral responsibility that we take ourselves to have or it is a plausible requirement of a species of true moral responsibility that we have never taken ourselves to have. Third, I explain that Strawson overgeneralizes from instances of constitutive luck that obviously undermine moral responsibility to all kinds of constitutive luck. (shrink)

Emphasizing the importance of language is a key characteristic of philosophical reflection in general and of bioethics in particular. Rather than trying to eliminate the historicity and ambiguity of language, a continental approach to bioethics will make conscious use of it, for instance by closely studying the history of the key terms we employ in bioethical debates. Continental bioethics entails a focus on the historical vicissitudes of the key signifiers of the bioethical vocabulary, urging us to study the history of (...) terms such as “bioethics,” “autonomy,” “privacy,” and “consensus.” Instead of trying to define such terms as clearly and unequivocally as possible, a continental approach rather requires us to take a step backwards, tracing the historical backdrop of the words currently in vogue. By comparing the original meanings of terms with their current meanings, and by considering important moments of transition in their history, obfuscated dimensions of meaning can be retrieved. Thus, notwithstanding a number of methodological challenges involved in etymological exercises, they may foster moral articulacy and enhance our ability to come to terms with moral dilemmas we are facing. (shrink)

Sometimes, thinking a thought and saying something to oneself are the same event. Call this the ‘thinking-as-speaking’ thesis. It stands in opposition to the idea that we think something first, and then say it. One way to argue for the thesis is to show that the content of a token thought cannot be fully represented by a token mental state before the production of the utterance which expresses it. I make an argument for that claim based on speech act (...) theory. Many inner speech utterances are inner speech acts; as such they are individuated by an amalgam of semantic content and illocutionary force, which only come together with the performance of the speech act. Call the performance of a speech act its meaning and call its meaning its content. Since a token thought is individuated by its content it follows that the content of the speech act is not represented by any token mental state before the speech act is performed. Metaphysically, a thought, when it is an inner speech act, is not an object of any kind, but an action – the action of performing the speech act. I illustrate my argument with the action of deciding something. (shrink)

Can we experience emotion without the feeling of accelerated heartbeats, perspiration, or other changes in the body? In his paper “What is an emotion”, William James famously claimed that “if we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind” (1884, p. 193). Thus, bodily changes are essential to emotion. This is known as the Subtraction Argument. The Subtraction Argument (...) is still used to support Embodied theories of emotion. Proponents of Disembodied theories, however, have different intuitions regarding the role of bodily changes in the experience of emotion. In order to advance this debate, I conducted a series of studies testing people’s intuitions regarding the Subtraction Argument. Results show that, against James’ claims, most people consider that their hypothetical (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) emotions persist in the absence of bodily feelings. Furthermore, Study 1 found that participants’ responses were not related to individual differences in reflection or interoceptive awareness. These results pose a problem for Embodied theories of emotion and challenge extant explanations for the persistence of emotional experience in cases of impaired interoception. (shrink)

The modal ontological argument (MOA) proceeds from God’s possible existence to God’s actual existence. A prominent objection to the MOA is that it suffers from a symmetry problem: an exactly parallel modal ontological argument can be given for God's non-existence. Several attempts have been made to break the symmetry between the arguments. This draft is a mostly comprehensive survey of those attempts. -/- The draft was initially written as a supplement to the 2024 Summer edition of the SEP (...) entry on Ontological Arguments. However, the draft is not included in the SEP entry. (shrink)

Abstract: The article presents and critically discusses Walton's (and Reed's and Macagno's) argument scheme approach to a theory of good argumentation. In particular, four characteristics of Walton's approach are presented: 1. It presents normative requirements for argumentation in the form of argument schemes, i.e. relatively concrete type descriptions. 2. These schemata are enthymematic, i.e. they omit some of the premises required by other approaches. 3. The actual argument schemes are usually supplemented by critical questions. 4. The method (...) is inductive, bottom-up, gaining the normative schemata by abstraction from empirically collected groups of similar arguments. These characteristics, among others, are then discussed on the basis of four adequacy conditions: AC1: effectiveness in achieving the epistemic goal of obtaining and communicating justified acceptable opinions; AC2: completeness in capturing the good argument types; AC3: efficiency in achieving the goals; AC4: justification of the argument schemes. The discussion then reveals a number of weaknesses in Walton's argument schemes; among other things, they are neither effective (in the defined sense) nor truly justified. Contributing factors to these problems include the schema approach, i.e. not looking at the form of arguments, and the lack of epistemological foundations in the development of good types of arguments. However, the critical analyses reveal a better alternative: an epistemological approach based on epistemological principles. The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the scheme Practical Inference, which confirms the general criticism in detail. (shrink)

The hole argument concludes that substantivalism about spacetime entails the radical indeterminism of the general theory of relativity (GR). In this paper, I amend and defend a response to the hole argument first proposed by Butterfield (1989) that relies on the idea of counterpart substantivalism. My amendment clarifies and develops the metaphysical presuppositions of counterpart substantivalism and its relation to various definitions of determinism. My defence consists of two claims. First, contra Weatherall (2018) and others: the hole (...) class='Hi'>argument is not a blunder resulting from a mistaken view on how mathematical physics works, and requires a developed (meta)metaphysical response. Second, contra Melia (1999) and others: one can be content with a notion of determinism for GR which is not sensitive to merely haecceitistic differences. (shrink)

Heidegger’s ontological views, his observations about liberalism and fascism, and his evaluative commitments are three premises of an argument for fascism. The ontological premise is that integrated wholes and objects of a creator or user’s will are ontologically superior, as Being and Time suggests in discussing Being-a-whole, creating art, and using equipment. The social premise is that fascist societies are wholes integrated by dictatorial will, while liberal societies are looser aggregates of free individuals, as Heidegger describes in his 1930s (...) seminars. The evaluative premise, shared with the medieval tradition and expressed in his notebook remarks about war, is that ontological superiority makes things better. The conclusion that fascism is better than liberalism should be rejected along with the evaluative premise. (shrink)

The central focus of this article is to provide a new “Love Argument” for the necessary truth of the Latin “model” of the doctrine of the Trinity—termed “Latin Trinitarianism”—from an a priori standpoint. This new argument, called the Agápēic Argument, will be formulated in light of the metaphysical notions of a “trope,” introduced by D. C. Williams, and “multiple location,” posited by Antony Eagle, and the ethical concept of agápē, proposed by Alexander Pruss. Doing this will provide (...) a specific argument that provides strong grounds for affirming the necessary truth of the Trinity, without, however, being subject to the primary objections that have been often raised against the existing versions of the argument. (shrink)

The Enhanced Indispensability Argument appeals to the existence of Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena to justify mathematical Platonism, following the principle of Inference to the Best Explanation. In this paper, I examine one example of a MEPP—the explanation of the 13-year and 17-year life cycle of magicicadas—and argue that this case cannot be used defend the EIA. I then generalize my analysis of the cicada case to other MEPPs, and show that these explanations rely on what I will call (...) ‘optimal representations’, which are representations that capture all that is relevant to explain a physical phenomenon at a specified level of description. In the end, because the role of mathematics in MEPPs is ultimately representational, they cannot be used to support mathematical Platonism. I finish the paper by addressing the claim, advanced by many EIA defendants, that quantification over mathematical objects results in explanations that have more theoretical virtues, especially that they are more general and modally stronger than alternative explanations. I will show that the EIA cannot be successfully defended by appealing to these notions. (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would (...) fine-tune at all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

In my article "Even if the fetus is not a person, abortion is immoral: The impairment argument" (this journal), I defended what I called “The impairment argument” which purports to show that abortion is immoral. Bruce Blackshaw (2019) has argued that my argument fails on three accounts. In this article, I respond to his criticisms.

Derk Pereboom's Four-Case Argument is among the most famous and resilient manipulation arguments against compatibilism. I contend that its resilience is not a function of the argument's soundness but, rather, the ill-gotten gain from an ambiguity in the description of the causal relations found in the argument's foundational case. I expose this crucial ambiguity and suggest that a dilemma faces anyone hoping to resolve it. After a thorough search for an interpretation which avoids both horns of this (...) dilemma, I conclude that none is available. Rather, every metaphysically coherent interpretation invites either a hard- or soft-line reply to Pereboom's argument. I then consider a recharacterization of the dilemma which seems to clear the way for the defence of a revised Four-Case Argument. I address this rejoinder by identifying a still more fundamental problem shared by all viable interpretations of the manipulation cases, showing that each involves a type of manipulation which undermines the victim's agency. Because this diagnosis supports a soft-line reply to every viable interpretation of the argument and can be endorsed by any compatibilist, I consider it the final piece of the Soft-line Solution to the Four-Case Argument. Finally, I suggest a new taxonomy of manipulation arguments, arguing that none that employs the suppressive variety of manipulation found in Pereboom's argument offers a threat to compatibilism. (shrink)

It is commonly argued that the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for life favors both a design hypothesis as well as a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis. The claim that the fine-tuning of this universe supports a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis has been forcefully challenged however by Ian Hacking and Roger White. In this paper we take this challenge even further by arguing that if it succeeds, then not only does the fine-tuning of this universe fail to support a multiverse hypothesis, but (...) it tends to favor a single-universe hypothesis instead. (shrink)

According to Schopenhauer’s compensation argument for pessimism, the non-existence of the world is preferable to its existence because no goods can ever compensate for the mere existence of evil. Standard interpretations take this argument to be based on Schopenhauer’s thesis that all goods are merely the negation of evils, from which they assume it follows that the apparent goods in life are in fact empty and without value. This article develops a non-standard variant of the standard interpretation, which (...) accepts the relevance of the negativity thesis but rejects that the argument assumes that life’s goods are all empty and valueless. Instead, it argues that whatever value negative goods might possess, they do not have the kind of value to compensate for positive evils. This involves additional development of the negativity thesis and a defence of it against objections from Byron Simmons (2021). (shrink)

In this paper, we give a new argument for the existence of moral luck. The argument is based on a manipulation case in which two agents both lack second-order control over their actions, but one of them has first-order control. Our argument is, we argue, in several respects stronger than standard arguments for moral luck. Five possible objections to the argument are considered, and its general significance for the debate on moral luck is briefly discussed.

The aim of this paper is to explore Deleuze's use of Kant's argument from incongruent counterparts, which Kant uses to show the existence of what he calls an “internal difference” within things. I want to explore how Deleuze draws out an important distinction between the concept and the Idea, and provides an incisive account of his relationship to both the Kantian and Leibnizian projects. First, I look at Kant's use of the argument to provide a refutation of the (...) Leibnizian account of space, before showing how this criticism in fact rests on the question of the conceptual determination of object. Second, I show how Deleuze develops a taxonomy of difference on the basis of his reading of Kant's argument. Finally, I look at what Deleuze sees as the limitations in Kant's understanding of this concept and Deleuze's attempt to overcome these limitations through the introduction of the notion of the Idea, which will provide a genetic and nonconceptual account of the object. In doing so, I show why Deleuze takes the formulation of an adequate account of difference to be one of the central aims of his own metaphysics. (shrink)

According to perdurantism, objects persist by being spread out over time, just as composite three-dimensional objects are spread out over space. Just as a composite three-dimensional object is spread out over space by having spatial parts, objects persist, according to perdurantism, by having temporal parts. Perdurantism can be stated more precisely by saying what exactly a temporal part is. In the sequel, Theodore Sider's definition of "instantaneous temporal part" shall be assumed: x is an instantaneous temporal part of y at (...) instant t =df. x exists at, but only at, t; x is part of y at t; and x overlaps at t everything that is part of y at t. Much more could be and has been said about how perdurantism should be formulated. Though interesting in their own right, nothing of importance here turns on these matters of formulation. (shrink)

In a recent article, Bernáth and Tőzsér (2021) defend what they call the Bias Argument, a new skeptical argument from expert peer disagreement. They argue that the best contrastive causal explanation for disagreement among leading experts in philosophy is that they adopt their positions in a biased way. But if the leading experts are biased, non-experts either are also biased or only avoid bias through epistemic inferiority. Recognizing this is expected to prompt one to decrease one‘s confidence in (...) one‘s philosophical beliefs. This paper argues that some beliefs are immune to a key premise of the Bias Argument. To show this, the paper develops the concepts of self-favoring theories, decisive support, and standing-incommensurable disagreements. A plausible example of a self-favoring theory, dubbed Mere Reformed Protestantism, is sketched. Many disagreements over self-favoring theories and over beliefs decisively supported by self-favoring theories are shown to be standing-incommensurable. It is then argued that when non-experts are in standing-incommensurable disagreements with experts, the standards of assessing expertise are themselves controverted. This result undercuts the move in the Bias Argument from expert bias to non-expert bias. Finally, a couple reservations about the role of self-favoring theories in philosophy are addressed. (shrink)

This chapter discusses methodology in feminist history of philosophy and shows that women philosophers made interesting and original contributions to the debates concerning the cosmological argument. I set forth and examine the arguments of Mary Astell, Damaris Masham, Catherine Trotter Cockburn, Emilie Du Châtelet, and Mary Shepherd, and discuss their involvement with philosophical issues and debates surrounding the cosmological argument. I argue that their contributions are original, philosophically interesting, and result from participation in the ongoing debates and controversies (...) about the cosmological argument, causal principles, and necessary existence. (shrink)

The KK thesis says (roughly) that if S knows that P, then S knows that S knows that P. Though controversial, KK may be able to neatly explain an otherwise puzzling datum: namely, that assertions of the form “P, but I don’t know if I know that P” are infelicitous. If KK is true, those assertions are unknowable, and hence guaranteed to violate a knowledge norm on assertion. For many, the fact that KK (if true) can so explain that datum (...) is a strong consideration in its favor. This paper undermines that argument for KK. It first goes on the offensive, arguing that the more plausible “weak KK” gives a worse explanation of the datum. It then proposes an explanation which does not rely on any version of KK, but rather a "believe that you know" norm on assertion. Together, these moves undermine the linguistic argument for KK, and so significantly weaken the case for KK. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically discuss one of the more influential arguments for mereological universalism, what I will call ‘the Vagueness Argument’. I argue that a premise of the Vagueness Argument is not well supported and that there are at least two good reasons for thinking that the premise in question is false.

The recent debate surrounding scientific realism has largely focused on the “no miracles” argument (NMA). Indeed, it seems that most contemporary realists and anti-realists have tied the case for realism to the adequacy of this argument. I argue that it is mistake for realists to let the debate be framed in this way. Realists would be well advised to abandon the NMA altogether and pursue an alternative strategy, which I call the “local strategy”.

Many philosophers, psychologists, and medical practitioners believe that killing is no worse than letting die on the basis of James Rachels's Bare-Difference Argument. I show that his argument is unsound. In particular, a premise of the argument is that his examples are as similar as is consistent with one being a case of killing and the other being a case of letting die. However, the subject who lets die has both the ability to kill and the ability (...) to let die while the subject who kills lacks the ability to let die. Modifying the latter example so that the killer has both abilities yields a pair of cases with morally different acts. The hypothesis that killing is worse than letting die is the best explanation of this difference. (shrink)

This paper analyses the anti-reductionist argument from renormalisation group explanations of universality, and shows how it can be rebutted if one assumes that the explanation in question is captured by the counterfactual dependence account of explanation.

Emily Thomas's seminal book The Meaning of Travel has brought the philosophy of travel back into the public eye in recent years. Thomas has shown that the topic of travel can be approached from numerous different perspectives, ranging from the historical to the conceptual‐analytical, to the political or even social‐philosophical perspectives. This article introduces another perspective, which Thomas only indirectly addresses, namely the argumentation‐theoretical perspective. It is notable that contemporary philosophy of travel lacks the nineteenth‐century approach of using diagrams and (...) maps to examine arguments for and against travel. Since this approach starts with Schopenhauer, we first introduce his argument maps, discuss their advantages and disadvantages, and argue that a modified version is suitable to visualize and analyze arguments for and against traveling as presented in Thomas's work. (shrink)

Moral abolitionists claim that morality ought to be abolished. According to one of their most prominent arguments, this is because making moral judgments renders people significantly less tolerant toward anyone who holds divergent views. In this paper we investigate the hypothesis that morality’s tolerance-decreasing effect only occurs if people are realists about moral issues, i.e., they interpret these issues as objectively grounded. We found support for this hypothesis (Studies 1 and 2). Yet, it also turned out that the intolerance associated (...) with realism is mediated by moral conviction and perceived consensus. People tend to feel more strongly about those moral issues they ground objectively and, in doing so, are more prone to display the vice of moral smugness toward those who disagree with them. The remedy for this that has been recommended is humility which we found (Study 3) is indeed related to reduced intolerance, in part by predicting a reduction in realism, but also in part through a direct connection to intolerance. These results put pressure on abolitionists’ “argument from intolerance.”. (shrink)