There is a renewed interest amongst scholars in the practice of pil- grimage. Over the past two decades, pilgrim -/- numbers have risen significantly, whilst forms of ''implicit'' or ''alternative'' spirituality have gained visibility and now coexist with -/- organised religions, sometimes sharing the same ritualistic space. There is probably no better place to look at the coexistence of -/- old and new forms of ritual expression than in the Camino to Santiago. To better understand the meanings attributed to this (...) -/- pilgrimage, we undertook a survey with over 470 pilgrims at various locations along the Camino. The findings confirm that -/- individuals with various, often contrasting, motivations and expectations walk side by side on this pilgrimage route. We -/- suggest that the results cannot be read simplistically as either confirming a ''post-secularisation'' trend or a religious revival. (shrink)

Montague and Kaplan began a revolution in semantics, which promised to explain how a univocal expression could make distinct truth-conditional contributions in its various occurrences. The idea was to treat context as a parameter at which a sentence is semantically evaluated. But the revolution has stalled. One salient problem comes from recurring demonstratives: "He is tall and he is not tall". For the sentence to be true at a context, each occurrence of the demonstrative must make a different truth-conditional contribution. (...) But this difference cannot be accounted for by standard parameter sensitivity. Semanticists, consoled by the thought that this ambiguity would ultimately be needed anyhow to explain anaphora, have been too content to posit massive ambiguities in demonstrative pronouns. This article aims to revived the parameter revolution by showing how to treat demonstrative pronouns as univocal while providing an account of anaphora that doesn't end up re-introducing the ambiguity. (shrink)

Philosophers now seem to agree that frequentism is an untenable strategy to explain the meaning of probabilities. Nevertheless, I want to revive frequentism, and I will do so by grounding probabilities on typicality in the same way as the thermodynamic arrow of time can be grounded on typicality within statistical mechanics. This account, which I will call typicality frequentism, will evade the major criticisms raised against previous forms of frequentism. In this theory, probabilities arise within a physical theory from statistical (...) behavior of almost all initial conditions. The main advantage of typicality frequentism is that it shows which kinds of probabilities (that also have empirical relevance) can be derived from physics. Although one cannot recover all probability talk in this account, this is rather a virtue than a vice, because it shows which types of probabilities can in fact arise from physics and which types need to be explained in different ways, thereby opening the path for a pluralistic account of probabilities. (shrink)

Since the end of the Cold War, international ethicists have focused largely on issues outside the traditional scope of security studies. The nuclear ethics literature needs to be revived and reoriented to address the new and evolving 21st century nuclear threats and policy responses.

Many philosophers have argued that large language models (LLMs) subvert the traditional undergraduate philosophy paper. For the enthusiastic, LLMs merely subvert the traditional idea that students ought to write philosophy papers “entirely on their own.” For the more pessimistic, LLMs merely facilitate plagiarism. We believe that these controversies neglect a more basic crisis. We argue that, because one can, with minimal philosophical effort, use LLMs to produce outputs that at least “look like” good papers, many students will complete paper assignments (...) in a way that fails to develop their philosophical abilities. We argue that this problem exists even if students can produce better papers with AI and even if instructors can detect AI-generated content with decent reliability. But LLMs also create a pedagogical opportunity. We propose that instructors shift the emphasis of their assignments from philosophy papers to “LLM dialogues”: philosophical conversations between the student and an LLM. We describe our experience with using these types of assignments over the past several semesters. We argue that, far from undermining quality philosophical instruction, LLMs allow us to teach philosophy more effectively than was possible before. (shrink)

A traditional problem with the performative hypothesis is that it cannot assign proper truth-conditions to a declarative sentence. This paper shows that the problem is solved by adopting a multidimensional semantics on which sentences have more than just truth-conditions. This is good news for those who want to at least partially revive the hypothesis. The solution also brings into focus a lesson about what issues to consider when drawing the semantics/pragmatics boundary.

This paper discusses the phenomenon of Kāpil Maṭh (Madhupur, India), a Sāṃkhyayoga āśrama founded in the early twentieth century by the charismatic Bengali scholar-monk Swāmi Hariharānanda Ᾱraṇya (1869–1947). While referring to Hariharānanda’s writings I will consider the idea of the re-establishment of an extinct spiritual lineage. I shall specify the criteria for identity of this revived Sāṃkhyayoga tradition by explaining why and on what assumptions the modern reinterpretation of this school can be perceived as continuation of the thought of Patañjali (...) and Īśvarakṛṣṇa. The starting point is, however, the question whether it is possible at all to re-establish a philosophical tradition which had once broken down and disappeared for centuries. In this context, one ought to ponder if it is likely to revitalise the same line of thinking, viewing, philosophy-making and practice in accordance with the theoretical exposition of the right insight achieved by an accomplished teacher, a master, the founder of a “new”revived tradition declared to maintain a particular school identity. Moreover, I refer to a monograph of Knut A. Jacobsen (2018) devoted to the tradition of Kāpil Maṭh interpreted as a typical product of the nineteenth-century Bengali renaissance. (shrink)

John Norton says that philosophers have been led astray for thousands of years by their attempt to treat induction formally. He is correct that such an attempt has caused no end of trouble, but he is wrong about the history. There is a rich tradition of non-formal induction. In fact, material theories of induction prevailed all through antiquity and from the Renaissance to the mid-1800s. Recovering these past systems would not only fill lacunae in Norton’s own theory but would highlight (...) areas where Norton has not freed himself from the straightjacket of formal induction as much as he might think. This essay begins that recovery. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that large language models (LLMs) subvert the traditional undergraduate philosophy paper. For the enthusiastic, LLMs merely subvert the traditional idea that students ought to write philosophy papers “entirely on their own.” For the more pessimistic, LLMs merely facilitate plagiarism. We believe that these controversies neglect a more basic crisis. We argue that, because one can, with minimal philosophical effort, use LLMs to produce outputs that at least “look like” good papers, many students will complete paper assignments (...) in a way that fails to develop their philosophical abilities. We argue that this problem exists even if students can produce better papers with AI and even if instructors can detect AI-generated content with decent reliability. But LLMs also create a pedagogical opportunity. We propose that instructors shift the emphasis of their assignments from philosophy papers to “LLM dialogues”: philosophical conversations between the student and an LLM. We describe our experience with using these types of assignments over the past several semesters. We argue that, far from undermining quality philosophical instruction, LLMs allow us to teach philosophy more effectively than was possible before. (shrink)

The central thesis defended here is that modernity can best be understood as a struggle between two main traditions of thought: the Radical or “True” Enlightenment celebrating the world and life as creative and promoting the freedom of people to control their own destinies, and the Moderate or “Fake” Enlightenment which developed to oppose the democratic republicanism and nature enthusiasm of the Radical Enlightenment. While the Radical Enlightenment has promoted democracy, the central concern of the Moderate Enlightenment has been to (...) promote “possessive individualism” and the control of nature and people by discovering their laws of behaviour. While it has on occasion promoted religious tolerance and freedom of expression, the greater concern of the Moderate Enlightenment has always been defence of property rights and the power of those with property. It is argued here that process philosophy is the highest development of the philosophy of the Radical Enlightenment and needs to be appreciated as such if the Radical Enlightenment is to be revived and process philosophy advanced. (shrink)

The main foci of this paper are to delineate the distinction between appearance and reality in the light of Sree Sankara’s Advaita Philosophy and to look at how Sankara’s notion of appearance and reality is enjoying a contemporary revival, and it is important to try to develop an understanding of why this is so. The central theme of the notion of Sankara philosophy is that Brahman or the absolute spirit is the only reality and everything else is an illusory (...) appearance of Brahman. The major essence of Sankara’s Philosophy can be expressed in the form of a half verse, ‘Brahma Satyam Jagat Mitya Jivo Brahmaiva Na apara' which means ‘Brahman is real the world is unreal and the so-called jiva nondifferent from Brahman'. In the current consciousness study, Sree Sankara’s notion of Brahman and Jagat is so conundrum in the material life of postmodern people. But it is inevitable to believe that Sree Sankara’s philosophy is not a conundrum for common people in contemporary society but the very conundrum for the non-common people. (shrink)

The viability of a naïve realist theory of memory was a lively debate for philosophers of mind in the first half of the twentieth century. More recently, though, naïve realism has been largely abandoned as a non-starter in the memory literature, with representationalism being the standard view held by philosophers of memory. But rather than being carefully argued, the dismissal of naïve realism is an assumption that sits at the back of much recent theorizing in the philosophy of memory. In (...) this paper, we identify three reasons why philosophers of memory have felt compelled to outright reject naïve realism. We argue that none of those reasons are successful. Thus, far from being a non-starter, we argue that naïve realism is a theoretical perspective that needs to be given serious consideration in current philosophy of memory debates. (shrink)

The Epicurean account of the origin of language appealed to eighteenth-century thinkers who tried to reconcile a natural history of language with

the biblical account of Adamic name-giving. As a third way between Aristotelian linguistic conventionality and what was perceived as a Platonic supernatural congruence between words and things, Epicurus’

theory allowed for a measure of contingency to emerge in the evolution of initially natural signs. This hypothesis was taken up by authors as different from one another as Leibniz, Vico, Condillac and (...) Mendelssohn. By integrating the Epicurean account of language into their own theories, however, these authors also revived the tensions inherent in the ancient thesis and had to confront the ensuing difficulties in innovative ways. (shrink)

While the claim that certain functional states are sufficient for conscious experience has received substantial critical attention, the claim that functional states are necessary is rarely addressed. Yet the latter claim is perhaps now more common than the former. I aim to revive and revise a neglected argument against the necessity claim, by Michael Antony. The argument involves manipulating a conscious subject's brain so as to cancel a disposition which is supposedly crucial to the realization of an experience that the (...) subject is having at the time. The key step in the argument is to show that, contrary to what the functional necessity claim implies, the experience can survive such a manipulation. I defend that key step in a new way, by arguing that since the manipulation cannot influence the subject's thoughts, emotions, or behavior, there is no reason to suppose that it alters his conscious experience. (shrink)

Mario Bunge’s Causality and Modern Science is arguably one of the best treatments of the causal realist tradition ever to have been written, one that defends the place of causality as a category in the conceptual framework of modern science. And yet in the current revival of causal realism in contemporary metaphysics, there is very little awareness of Bunge’s work. This paper seeks to remedy this, by highlighting one particular criticism Bunge levels at the Aristotelian view of causation and (...) illustrating its relevance for contemporary powers-based accounts. Roughly, the Aristotelian view depicts interactions between objects as involving a unidirectional exertion of influence of one object upon another. This idea of unidirectional action is central to the Aristotelian distinction between active and passive powers, and its corresponding distinction between active and passive objects. As Bunge points out, modern physics does not recognise the existence of any unidirectional actions at all; all influence comes in the form of reciprocal action, or interaction. If this is right, all notions deriving from or influenced by the idea of unidirectional actions—such as the concept of mutual manifestation and reciprocal disposition partners—risk being false by the same measure. Bunge drew the conclusion that the Aristotelian view is ontologically inadequate, but still advocated its use as the most useful approximation available in science. He considered, but ultimately rejected the possibility of a modified view of causation built on reciprocal action, because, in his view, it couldn’t account for the productivity of causation. Bunge’s critique of this particular aspect of the Aristotelian view cannot be overlooked in contemporary metaphysics, but it is possible to construe a modified view of causation that takes the reciprocity of interactions seriously without loss of productivity. (shrink)

I examine some of the key scientific pre-commitments of modern psychology, and argue that their adoption has the unintended consequence of rendering a purely psychological analysis of mind indistinguishable from a purely biological treatment. And, since these pre-commitments sanction an “authority of the biological”, explanation of phenomena traditionally considered the purview of psychological analysis is fully subsumed under the biological. I next evaluate the epistemic warrant of these pre-commitments and suggest there are good reasons to question their applicability to psychological (...) science. I conclude that experiential aspects of reality give us reason to remain open to the need for psychological explanation in the treatment of mind. (shrink)

Giacinto Tredici (1880-1964; Bishop of Brescia from 1934 to 1964) was the main supporter of cardinal Desirè Mercier's philosophical thesis in Italy and one of the main protagonists of the Thomistic revival in Italian philosophy in the first years of XX century. The Thomistic revival was not simply in seminaries and pontifical universities but throughout the world in colleges and universities. Giacinto Tredici was a teacher of philosophy (from 1904 to 1910) and theology (from 1910 to 1924). In (...) this paper Tredici's philosophical works are analysed and evaluated. (shrink)

This paper raises a moral issue for contemporary post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals in Iran. According to traditional Islamic teachings, ethics enables people to transcend from this mundane world and offers guidance on ways to improve virtues. Most contemporary Iranian Muslim intellectuals have attempted to pave the way for accomplishing this goal. After clarifying the ways in which Iranian Muslim intellectuals have faith in virtue ethics as a best possible moral normative theory, we claim that virtue ethics fails to support some of (...) our modern problems in the realm of politics such as human rights and democracy. Also, we argue that virtue ethics is not a good theory for ordinary average people who have weakness of will. A preliminary conclusion of the paper will be that utilitarianism, generally, and principle of utility, specifically, is a better solution to the modern problems. This, we believe, has been overlooked from the eyes of post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals. Yet, we suggest that among different versions of utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism is more justified to do this job. (shrink)

For this special issue, dedicated to the historical break in what one might call ‘the politics of feeling’ between ancient ‘passions’ (in the ‘soul’) and modern ‘emotions’ (in the ‘mind’), I will suggest that the pivotal difference might be located instead between ancient and modern conceptions of the passions. Through new interpretations of two exemplars of these conceptions, Plato’s Phaedrus and Descartes’ Passions of the Soul, I will suggest that our politics today need to return to what I term Plato’s (...) ‘psychological virtue’ (drawing on virtue’s dual senses as ‘goodness’ and ‘power’), defined as a dynamic tension among mindful desire (nous), carnal desire (epithumia) and societal desire (thumos) achieved through rational discourse (logos). The upshot of this concept of psychological virtue, is that mind, at least via discourse, is also a desiring force, and thus capable of helping create new actions for souls in the political world. (shrink)

The article deals with the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2013/14 and how it was connected to the European idea. It analyzes the performative, revolutionary and theopolitical character of the event and raises the question of what meaning the experience of the Maidan can have for the renewal of European identity. In linking the idea of Europe with the struggle for freedom and dignity, the Maidan event unfolds a communitarian and meaningful political force that connects the Ukrainian nation, the idea (...) of Europe, and the desire for self-determi­nation, for which people stake their lives. The essay takes a look at the forms and functions of political liturgy as well as the meaning of martyrdom and its ritualized remembrance. The revolutionary appropriation of political sovereignty by the people and the theopolitical dimensions of the event are reflected upon, both in their political power and significance for a European identity and in the associated dangers of mythologizing and idealizing Europe. (shrink)

This essay interprets the much-neglected Second Part of The Conflict of the Faculties, entitled “An old question raised again: Is the human race constantly progressing?”, by showing the close relationship between the themes it deals with and those Kant addresses in the Supplements and Appendices of Perpetual Peace. In both works, Kant portrays the philosopher as having the duty to promote a “secret article”, without which his vision of a lasting international peace through the agency of a federation of states (...) is bound to fail. Both works identify this article as involving the necessity of publicity as a transcendental condition for peace, and call for philosophers to engage politicians and lawyers in a creative attitude towards lawmaking. Kant’s visionary program has failed to reach its goal up to now, not because it is too idealistic, but because philosophers have failed to take up the challenge. (shrink)

On an old narrative, dating back to Leibniz and developed in nineteenth-century historiography, occasionalism was revived in the early modern period as an ad hoc response to the problems of mind-body union and interaction arising from Descartes's metaphysics. According to Leibniz, Descartes gave up the struggle, leaving his disciples to iron out this most scandalous of wrinkles in his system. A line of followers—Clauberg, Geulincx, La Forge, Le Grand, Arnauld, Cordemoy, and above all, Malebranche—dusted off the discredited doctrine of occasionalism (...) in order to deal with the question of how unextended minds could interact with extended bodies. Plainly stated, the solution was as dissatisfying to Leibniz as it has... (shrink)

The fear of the unknown is the lived reality of the handloom industry in India. Handloom is the second largest employment provider in the country, after agriculture. According to the 2019-20 National Census of Handloom Weavers, there are 31.44 lakh households engaged in weaving and allied activities, out of which 87% are in rural areas. The objective of this article is to study the social enterprises that are looking for innovative ways to receive the handloom sector in the post-pandemic period. (...) Further its aim to study the digital impact on the handloom sector, especially on women. (shrink)

Humphry Osmond wrote to Aldous Huxley in 1956 proposing the term “psychedelic,” coined from two Greek words to mean “mind manifesting.” The scholars, one a psychiatrist and the other a celebrated novelist and philosopher, were exuberant about the potential of drugs for accessing the mind. Huxley favored a phrase from William Blake: -/- If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. -/- He postulated that psychedelics disturbed the “cerebral reducing valve” (1954), and (...) that this was in fact the shared mechanism for regular drug trips, as well as schizophrenic and mystical experiences. If it were the case, the drugs could offer a chemical shortcut to the divine, and a reasonable way to scientifically study mental illness. -/- With such ideas in vogue, the 1950s were heady years, at least for research on psychedelic drugs. More than 750 articles were published on LSD alone. Some studies made use of the drug experience to model schizophrenia, others to develop treatments for alcoholism. And as Nicolas Langlitz explains in Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research Since the Decade of the Brain, the brain as filter – the idea of gates or doors (which, yes, also gave name to the band) – would go on to serve as a significant shared conceptual matrix for psychopharmacologic research, from experimental psychosis to experimental mysticism (10). (shrink)

Este capítulo presenta una mirada hacia la historia del renacimiento afroperuano en paralelo con la historia del contrapunto de zapateo criollo, una de las prácticas que más destacó el renacimiento. Enfatizando en las nociones de ruptura y acontecimiento del filósofo francés Alain Badiou, se examinan ambos como rupturas que constituyen una nueva historia. En el caso específico del contrapunto esta ruptura está dada por la transición de ser un concurso a ser una práctica escénica. Este documento es el primero en (...) enumerar, hasta donde tengo conocimiento, los cambios fundamentales que esta transición implica: ya no hay un juez, el público cobra un rol fundamental, intervienen más de dos zapateadores, se cierra con una coreografía común. El hecho de que no haya un juez que determine un ganador sella el carácter dialéctico del contrapunto de zapateo escénico. Estas páginas buscan rescatar ese interacción dialéctica de zapateador con zapateador como algo que podemos aplicar a nuestra vida, en la relación que guardamos con los demás. Una relación simultáneamente de admiración, afecto y desafío para crecer. -/- ENGLISH: This chapter presents a parallel of this history of the Afro-Peruvian revival or "renacimiento", as I would rather call it, and the history of the "contrapunto de zapateo", a step dance that unfolds as a "battle" or relationship of challenge. Emphasizing the concepts of Rupture and Event propposed by French philosopher Alain Badiou, I examine both as ruptures that constitute new histories. In the specific case of the Contrapunto, this rupture is given by the transition from being a contest to being a scenic practice. This document, to the best of my knowledge, is the first one to enumerate the fundamental changes that characterize this transition: there is no longer a judge, the audience thus plays a fundamental role, more than two dancers can partake, and the contrapunto closes with a common choreography. The fact that there is no longer a judge that rules for a winner, seals the dialectic nature of the stated contrapunto. Finally, these pages conclude revaluing the dialectic interaction between dancer and dancer as something that we can also apply to life in the relation that we uphold with others; a relationship that simultaneously involves admiration, affect and challenge in order to grow together. -/- CITE: Miranda Medina, Juan Felipe. El renacimiento afroperuano y el renacer del contrapunto [The Afro-Peruvian "renacimiento" and the "renacimiento" of the contrapunto]. In "Cultura Afroperuana. Encuentro de Investigadores 2019", Ministerio de Cultura. pp. 155-170. -/- ISBN: 978-612-4391-32-3. (shrink)

The revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics can be seen as a response to the modern problem of disenchantment, that is, the perceived loss of meaning in modernity. However, in Virtue and Meaning, David McPherson contends that the dominant approach still embraces an overly disenchanted view. In a wide-ranging discussion, McPherson argues for a more fully re-enchanted perspective that gives better recognition to the meanings by which we live and after which we seek, and to the fact that human beings (...) are the meaning-seeking animal. In doing so, he defends distinctive accounts of the relationship between virtue and happiness, other-regarding demands, and the significance of linking neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics with a view of the meaning of life and a spiritual life where contemplation has a central role. This book will be valuable for philosophers and other readers who are interested in virtue ethics and the perennial question of the meaning of life. (shrink)

The revival of republicanism was meant to challenge the hegemony of liberalism in contemporary political theory on the grounds that liberals show insufficient concern with institutional protection against political misrule. This article challenges this view by showing how neorepublicanism, particularly on Philip Pettit’s formulation, demands no greater institutional protection than does political liberalism. By identifying neutrality between conceptions of the good as the constraint on institutional requirements that forces neorepublicanism into the liberal framework, the article shows that neutrality is (...) what neorepublicans must jettison to offer a tenable critique of liberalism. Only then can neorepublicans ensure greater protection against misrule by demanding that citizens participate more actively in politics. They can then also criticize liberalism for failing to appreciate the importance of such protection. (shrink)

The revival of analytic metaphysics in the latter half of the twentieth century is typically understood as a consequence of the critiques of logical positivism, Quine’s naturalization of ontology, Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, clarifications of modal notions in logic, and the theoretical exploitation of possible worlds. However, this explanation overlooks the work of metaphysicians at the height of positivism and linguisticism that affected metaphysics of the late twentieth century. Donald C. Williams is one such philosopher. In this paper I (...) explain how Williams’s fundamental ontology and philosophy of time influenced in part the early formation of David Lewis’s metaphysics. Thus, Williams played an important role in the revival of analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

In response to the problem of Hell, Buckareff and Plug (Relig Stud 41:39–54, 2005; Relig Stud 45:63–72, 2009) have recently proposed and defended an ‘escapist’ conception of Hell. In short, they propose that the problem of Hell does not arise because God places an open-door policy on Hell. In this paper, I expose a fundamental problem with this conception of Hell—namely, that if there’s an open door policy on Hell, then there should be one on Heaven too. I argue that (...) a coherent conception of Heaven cannot have such a policy. Hence, escapism is not an adequate response to the problem of Hell. (shrink)

The fate of optimality modeling is typically linked to that of adaptationism: the two are thought to stand or fall together (Gould and Lewontin, Proc Relig Soc Lond 205:581–598, 1979; Orzack and Sober, Am Nat 143(3):361–380, 1994). I argue here that this is mistaken. The debate over adaptationism has tended to focus on one particular use of optimality models, which I refer to here as their strong use. The strong use of an optimality model involves the claim that selection is (...) the only important influence on the evolutionary outcome in question and is thus linked to adaptationism. However, biologists seldom intend this strong use of optimality models. One common alternative that I term the weak use simply involves the claim that an optimality model accurately represents the role of selection in bringing about the outcome. This and other weaker uses of optimality models insulate the optimality approach from criticisms of adaptationism, and they account for the prominence of optimality modeling (broadly construed) in population biology. The centrality of these uses of optimality models ensures a continuing role for the optimality approach, regardless of the fate of adaptationism. (shrink)

The revival of the philosophy of mathematics in the 60s following its post-1931 slump left us with two conflicting positions on arithmetic’s ontological relationship to set theory. W.V. Quine’s view, presented in 'Word and Object' (1960), was that numbers are sets. The opposing view was advanced in another milestone of twentieth-century philosophy of mathematics, Paul Benacerraf’s 'What Numbers Could Not Be' (1965): one of the things numbers could not be, it explained, was sets; the other thing numbers could not (...) be, even more dramatically, was objects. Curiously, although Benacerraf’s article appeared in the heyday of Quine’s influence, it declined to engage the Quinean position squarely, even seemed to think it was not its business to do so. Despite that, in my experience, most philosophers believe that Benacerraf’s article put paid to the reductionist view that numbers are sets (though perhaps not the view that numbers are objects). My chapter will attempt to overturn this orthodoxy. (shrink)

During the realist revival in the early years of this century, philosophers of various persuasions were concerned to investigate the ontology of truth. That is, whether or not they viewed truth as a correspondence, they were interested in the extent to which one needed to assume the existence of entities serving some role in accounting for the truth of sentences. Certain of these entities, such as the Sätze an sich of Bolzano, the Gedanken of Frege, or the propositions of (...) Russell and Moore, were conceived as the bearers of the properties of truth and falsehood. Some thinkers however, such as Russell, Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, and Husserl in the Logische Untersuchungen, argued that instead of, or in addition to, truth-bearers, one must assume the existence of certain entities in virtue of which sentences and/or propositions are true. Various names were used for these entities, notably 'fact', 'Sachverhalt', and 'state of affairs'. (1) In order not to prejudge the suitability of these words we shall initially employ a more neutral terminology, calling any entities which are candidates for this role truth-makers. (shrink)

Alienation has been recently revived as a central theme in critical theory. Current debates, however, tend to focus on normative rather than on explanatory issues. In this paper, I confront the latter and advance an account of alienation that bears on the mechanisms that bring it about in order to locate alienation as a distinctive social and psychological fact. In particular, I argue that alienation can be explained as a disruption induced by social factors in the sense of mental ownership (...) that comes with the first personal awareness of being a subject of attitudes, emotions, and actions, and outline how social factors can play a structuring causal role in the process that brings it about. In the first section, I introduce the theme and explain why it is important to focus on the mechanisms that underlie alienation. In the second section, I maintain that understanding how alienation works is crucial to make sense of false consciousness. In the third section, I consider the relevance of mental ownership to explaining alienation and discuss existing evidence about whether and how it can fail. In the final section, I argue that disturbances in the simulation routines that support social cognition might underpin alienation, and outline how social factors might play a structuring causal role in this connection. (shrink)

Pragmatism’s heartening recent revival (spearheaded by Richard Rorty’s bold intervention into analytic philosophy Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) has coalesced into a distinctive philosophical movement frequently referred to as ‘neopragmatism’. This movement interprets the very meaning of pragmatism as rejection of metaphysical commitments: our words do not primarily serve to represent non-linguistic entities, but are tools to achieve a range of human purposes. A particularly thorough and consistent version of this position is Huw Price’s global expressivism. We here (...) critically appraise Price’s understanding of a commitment to pragmatism as a rejection of metaphysics, and argue that such rejection is not as easy or desirable as Price claims. First we argue that Price’s global expressivism itself draws on significant metaphysical assumptions (a ‘word-world’ dualism, and a nominalism concerning the meaning of general terms). Then we seek to resolve neopragmatist anxieties about metaphysics by arguing that metaphysics is indispensable for pragmatist philosophizing insofar as it seeks ways for human beings to realise themselves through practices of understanding reality and their place in it. If, as we argue, metaphysics consists in a maximally general inquiry into the nature and structure of reality, to try to block it seems a puzzling exercise in epistemic self-harm. (shrink)

Th e recent revival of Berkeley studies in the last three decades or so make it interesting to look back at George Santayana’s discussion of Berkeley. Th ough Santayana understood the latter’s arguments for immaterialism, he claimed no one could both seriously accept immaterialism, and live, as Berkeley certainly did, an embodied life. As he writes of Berkeley, “Th is idealist was no hermit” (205). Santayana claimed that without matter there was nothing (“no machinery”) for the soul to work (...) on. For a soul (mind) the machinery consists of material objects including one’s body. In this, paper, aft er some introductory comments, particularly on some aspects of early modern philosophy, e.g. the theory of ideas, which Berkeley largely accepts, and the metaphysics of indirect realism which he rejects, I look at the issue of human embodiment, and conclude, although Santayana perhaps misread important aspects of Berkeley’s discussion, he is largely correct in noting that Berkeley’s idealism/immaterialism can’t capture the special relation we have to our bodies. (shrink)

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media (...) such as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? _Thomistic Principles and Bioethics_ presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern. (shrink)

What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or oppression. We criticize that view and make the case for an alternative and more empirically-oriented approach, grounded in epistemic rather than moral commitments. We make two related claims: (i) ideology critique can debunk beliefs and practices by uncovering how, empirically, they are produced by self-justifying power, and (...) (ii) the self-justification of power should be understood as an epistemic rather than moral flaw. Drawing on the recent realist revival in political theory, we argue that this genealogical approach has more radical potential, despite being more parsimonious than morality-based approaches. We demonstrate the relative advantages of our view by discussing the results of empirical studies on the contemporary phenomenon of neopatriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa. (shrink)

Interest has been revived in the creation of a "bill of rights" for Internet users. This paper analyzes users' rights into ten broad principles, as a basis for assessing what users regard as important and for comparing different multi-issue Internet policy proposals. Stability of the principles is demonstrated in an experimental survey, which also shows that freedoms of users to participate in the design and coding of platforms appear to be viewed as inessential relative to other rights. An analysis of (...) users' rights frameworks that have emerged over the past twenty years similarly shows that such proposals tend to leave out freedoms related to software platforms, as opposed to user data or public networks. Evaluating policy frameworks in a comparative analysis based on prior principles may help people to see what is missing and what is important as the future of the Internet continues to be debated. (shrink)

Panentheism has seen a revival over the past two decades in the philosophical literature. This has partially triggered an interest in Indian models of God, which have traditionally been seen as panentheistic. On the other hand, panentheism has been often associated with panpsychism, an old ontological view that sees consciousness as fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world and which has also enjoyed a renaissance in recent decades. Depending on where one places fundamentality (whether on the microlevel or on (...) the cosmic-level) there will be two types of panpsychism: micropsychism and cosmopsychism. Despite the apparently rich connection between Indian traditions and panpsychism, especially in its cosmopsychist version, recent work within cross-cultural analytic philosophy of mind seems to be mostly focused on atheistic traditions, such as Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism. My goal in this paper is to contribute to the cross-cultural debate over panentheism and Indian models of God, as well as to the debate on the connections between panpsychism, cosmopsychism and Indian traditions, by examining one of the most important and often quoted texts in Indian religious and philosophical traditions: the theistic Bhavagad Gītā. From a more specific standpoint, the paper has a threefold goal: to offer a panentheistic reconstruction of the Gītā’s concept of God, to show how this panentheistic model of God entails a form of theistic cosmopsychism, and to locate the Gītā’s cosmopsychism within a broader map of cosmopsychist views. Based on this reconstructive analysis of the Gītā’s cosmopsychism, I also outline some few reflections on the philosophical prospects of theistic cosmopsychism. (shrink)

Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) emphasize the roles arguers play in the conduct and evaluation of arguments, and lay particular stress on arguers’ acquired dispositions of character, that is, virtues and vices. The inspiration for VTA lies in virtue epistemology and virtue ethics, the latter being a modern revival of Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle is also, of course, the father of Western logic and argumentation. This paper asks to what degree Aristotle may thereby be claimed as a forefather by VTA.

Ingvar Johansson has argued that there are not only determinate universals, but also determinable ones. I here argue that this view is misguided by reviving a line of argument to the following effect: what makes determinates falling under a same determinable similar cannot be distinct from what makes them different. If true, some similarities — imperfect similarities between simple determinate properties — are not grounded in any kind of property-sharing. I suggest that determinables are better understood as maximal disjunctions of (...) brutely and imperfectly similar determinates. Such brute similarities have been thought to clash with realism about universals. I argue that this worry stems from the mistaken assumption that perfect and imperfect similarities are relations of a same kind. If exact and inexact resemblances are distinct and heterogeneous explananda, the realist about universals might explain the first thanks to property-sharing, while happily leaving imperfect similarities between properties unexplained. (shrink)

The recent revival of metaphysical frameworks in Western consciousness studies, such as panpsychism, cosmopsychism and its idealistic and monistic versions, is viewed from the standpoint of an extended and more consistent spiritual emergentist evolutionary cosmology in the light of the Indian mystic, poet and philosopher Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950). This integral Vedantic cosmology will be outlined and thus furnish a more coherent metaphysical framework, inside which several of the issues and shortcomings that vitiated the previous ontologies can find their natural (...) accommodation. We will also point out how this this ontology is well in line with modern scientific findings and, in some respects, even anticipated them. (shrink)

This paper attempts to revive interest in the speech act theory of literature by looking into Monroe C. Beardsley's account in particular. Beardsley's view in this respect has received, surprisingly, less attention than deserved. I first offer a reconstruction of Beardsley's account and then use it to correct some notable misconceptions. Next, I show that the reformulation reveals a hitherto unnoticed discrepancy in Beardsley's position and that this can be explained away by a weak version of intentionalism that Beardsley himself (...) actually tolerates. Finally, I assess the real difficulty of Beardsley's theory and its relevance today. (shrink)

According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ability to feel pleasure and pain. Hedonism has had many advocates historically, but has relatively few nowadays. This is mainly due to three highly influential objections to it: The Philosophy of Swine, The Experience Machine, and The Resonance Constraint. In this paper, I attempt to revive hedonism. I begin by giving a precise new definition of it. I then argue that the right (...) motivation for it is the ‘experience requirement’ (i.e., that something can benefit or harm a being only if it affects the phenomenology of her experiences in some way). Next, I argue that hedonists should accept a felt-quality theory of pleasure, rather than an attitude-based theory. Finally, I offer new responses to the three objections. Central to my responses are (i) a distinction between experiencing a pleasure (i.e., having some pleasurable phenomenology) and being aware of that pleasure, and (ii) an emphasis on diversity in one’s pleasures. (shrink)

Recent events have revived questions about the circumstances that ought to trigger therapists' duty to warn or protect. There is extensive interstate variation in duty to warn or protect statutes enacted and rulings made in the wake of the California Tarasoff ruling. These duties may be codified in legislative statutes, established in common law through court rulings, or remain unspecified. Furthermore, the duty to warn or protect is not only variable between states but also has been dynamic across time. In (...) this article, we review the implications of this variability and dynamism, focusing on three sets of questions: first, what legal and ethics-related challenges do therapists in each of the three broad categories of states (states that mandate therapists to warn or protect, states that permit therapists to breach confidentiality for warnings but have no mandate, and states that give no guidance) face in handling threats of violence? Second, what training do therapists and other professionals involved in handling violent threats receive, and is this training adequate for the task that these professionals are charged with? Third, how have recent court cases changed the scope of the duty? We conclude by pointing to gaps in the empirical and conceptual scholarship surrounding the duty to warn or protect. (shrink)

Since Boorse [Philos Sci 44(4):542–573, 1977] published his paper “Health as a theoretical concept” one of the most lively debates within philosophy of medicine has been on the question of whether health and disease are in some sense ‘objective’ and ‘value-free’ or ‘subjective’ and ‘value-laden’. Due to the apparent ‘failure’ of pure naturalist, constructivist, or normativist accounts, much in the recent literature has appealed to more conciliatory approaches or so-called ‘hybrid accounts’ of health and disease. A recent paper by Matthewson (...) and Griffiths [J Med Philos 42(4):447–466, 2017], however, may bear the seeds for the revival of purely naturalist approach to health and disease. In this paper, I defend their idea of Biological Normativity against recent criticism by Schwartz [J Med Philos Forum Bioethics Philos Med 42(4):485–502, 2017] and hope to help it flower into a revival of naturalist approaches in the philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

What is virtue? How can we lead moral lives? Exploring how contemporary moral philosophy has led to a revival of interest in the concepts of 'virtue', 'character' and 'flourishing', this is an accessible and critical introduction to virtue ethics. The book includes chapter summaries and guides to further reading throughout to help readers explore, understand and develop a critical perspective towards this important school of contemporary ethical thought.

This paper aims to understand how we reason from historical premises to normative conclusions, tracing this question through the work of Muhammad Iqbal. On our reading, he wavers between two views of history, one a kind of natural science, and the other akin to religious interpretation. These tell different stories about the lessons we draw from history.

The contemporary revival of Eucharistic ecclesiology has occurred alongside a new understanding of the episcopacy as a distinct grade of holy orders. Both of these developments make possible a new synthetic understanding of the presbyterate, building on classical theological approaches to orders that incorporate both of these perspectives. In this essay, I will attempt to show how the theology of the presbyterate articulated by Thomas Aquinas might help supplement and be supplemented by that of John Zizioulas. The synthesis I (...) propose has the merit of corresponding with much of the classical approach to orders, while advancing a new thesis on the Eucharistic role of the presbyterate that establishes a clearer connection between contemporary ecclesiology and the theology of holy orders. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to revive wave theory in the philosophy of sound. Wave theory identifies sounds with compression waves. Despite its wide acceptance in the scientific community as the default position, many philosophers have rejected wave theory and opted for different versions of distal theory instead. According to this current majority view, a sound has its stationary location at its source. I argue against this and other alternative philosophical theories of sound and develop wave theory into a more defensible form. (...) Philosophers of sound tend to emphasise how sounds are experienced to be in their arguments. Most often, it is assumed that that which appears to be a distally located bearer of auditory properties in an auditory experience is a sound. Chapter 1 argues that if this distal entity is the sound source instead, many of the existing theories of sound will be severely affected. Chapter 2 discusses auditory perception and criticises the common assumption that we hear non-sound entities in virtue of hearing sounds. I show that this assumption begs the question against certain theories of sound and that the contrary view that sound sources can be directly heard is more plausible. If sound sources can be directly heard, then features commonly attributed to sounds based on auditory experiences might rather be features of sound sources. I examine eight of such features in Chapter 3. Only four of them survive. Chapters 4 and 5 review the existing theories of sound. After a taxonomy of existing theories of sound, each theory is criticised one-by-one. Some of them are problematic precisely because they rely on the implausible assumption that that which appears to be distally located in an auditory experience is a sound rather than a sound source. Lastly, Chapter 6 focuses on wave theory. It begins with two positive arguments for wave theory in general, followed by my replies to two common objections in the literature. I then move on to develop my version of wave theory. There are two core aspects of my view. The first one is a metaphysics of compression waves; the second is an account of what it is to hear compression waves. After comparing my view with a similar theory, I demonstrate the explanatory power of my view in two steps. First, the eight commonly accepted features of sounds examined in Chapter 3 are revisited. It turns out that my view can accommodate all of them. Second, explanations for four special sound-related phenomena are offered at the end of the chapter. I conclude in the last chapter with the suggestion that, as a philosopher, the best way to defend wave theory is to offer a better understanding of auditory perception which explains how compression waves are experienced. (shrink)