Why are moral actions beautiful, when indeed they are? This paper assesses the view, found most notably in Schiller, that moral actions are beautiful just when they present the appearance of freedom by appearing to be the result of internal harmony (the Schillerian Internal Harmony Thesis). I argue that while this thesis can accommodate some of the beauty involved in contrasts of the ‘continent’ and the ‘fully’ virtuous, it cannot account for all of the beauty in (...) such contrasts, and so needs to be weakened considerably (to the Internal Harmony Thesis). To account for the remaining beauty that cannot be fully accommodated even by this revised thesis, as well as the beauty contained in contrasts that involve agents who experience internal conflict as a result of being sensitive to different sources of moral value to an appropriate extent, a number of further theses need to be posited: namely, that the beauty of some moral actions is to be accommodated in terms of internal disharmony (the Internal Disharmony Thesis), and in terms of a felt harmony between the appreciator of the action and the executor of the action (the Affective Harmony Thesis). As such, in contrast to Schiller, I suggest that we need to take a pluralist and context-sensitive approach to accommodating the beauty of moral actions. (shrink)

Many prominent writers on the philosophy of logic, including Michael Dummett, Dag Prawitz, Neil Tennant, have held that the introduction and elimination rules of a logical connective must be ‘in harmony ’ if the connective is to possess a sense. This Harmony Thesis has been used to justify the choice of logic: in particular, supposed violations of it by the classical rules for negation have been the basis for arguments for switching from classical to intuitionistic logic. The (...) Thesis has also had an influence on the philosophy of language: some prominent writers in that area, notably Dummett and Robert Brandom, have taken it to be a special case of a more general requirement that the grounds for asserting a statement must cohere with its consequences. This essay considers various ways of making the Harmony Thesis precise and scrutinizes the most influential arguments for it. The verdict is negative: all the extant arguments for the Thesis are weak, and no version of it is remotely plausible. (shrink)

This short paper argues that interreligious and intra-religious harmony is a necessary condition for social harmony, peace and progress. It is an attempt to develop arguments in favour of the above thesis with special reference to the teachings of Buddha and Vivekananda. Buddha taught human beings to be rational, analytical and moral in way of life. Buddha, therefore, taught openness, interdependence and middle path. Vivekananda also argues for universal religion which is based on scientific, rational and compassionate (...) human relations. He considers that the service of human beings is the service of God. It seems to be a direct impact of the compassionate teachings of Buddha upon Vivekananda. Both of them have indirectly contributed to what is called today the philosophical doctrine of Religious Pluralism which rests on the principle of ‘live and let live’. Both of them were against all kinds of ‘dogmatism, fanaticism and bigotry’. The proposed form of religious harmony is one of the golden ways or middle paths today for addressing many global issues for social harmony, peace and progress. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#67-68; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2020 P 1-14. (shrink)

Dees and Cramton have argued that we should take a deontological stand to make negotiations more ethical (“Promoting Honesty in Negotiation: An Exercise in Practical Ethics” BEQ, Vol. 3, #3). I suggest that their analysis is overdetermined, and that one can, in fact, reach the same conclusions through a Hobbesian approach to negotiation. I suggest that an equally valid way to develop ethical negotiation is through the consequentialist “Harmony Thesis” which posits that moral behavior is coextensive with beneficial (...) results. (shrink)

The thesis that, in a system of natural deduction, the meaning of a logical constant is given by some or all of its introduction and elimination rules has been developed recently in the work of Dummett, Prawitz, Tennant, and others, by the addition of harmony constraints. Introduction and elimination rules for a logical constant must be in harmony. By deploying harmony constraints, these authors have arrived at logics no stronger than intuitionist propositional logic. Classical logic, they (...) maintain, cannot be justified from this proof-theoretic perspective. This paper argues that, while classical logic can be formulated so as to satisfy a number of harmony constraints, the meanings of the standard logical constants cannot all be given by their introduction and/or elimination rules; negation, in particular, comes under close scrutiny. (shrink)

According to logical inferentialists, the meanings of logical expressions are fully determined by the rules for their correct use. Two key proof-theoretic requirements on admissible logical rules, harmony and separability, directly stem from this thesis—requirements, however, that standard single-conclusion and assertion-based formalizations of classical logic provably fail to satisfy :1035–1051, 2011). On the plausible assumption that our logical practice is both single-conclusion and assertion-based, it seemingly follows that classical logic, unlike intuitionistic logic, can’t be accounted for in inferentialist (...) terms. In this paper, I challenge orthodoxy and introduce an assertion-based and single-conclusion formalization of classical propositional logic that is both harmonious and separable. In the framework I propose, classicality emerges as a structural feature of the logic. (shrink)

The paper begins with a conceptual discussion of Michael Dummett's proof-theoretic justification of deduction or proof-theoretic semantics, which is based on what we might call Gentzen's thesis: 'the introductions constitute, so to speak, the "definitions" of the symbols concerned, and the eliminations are in the end only consequences thereof, which could be expressed thus: In the elimination of a symbol, the formula in question, whose outer symbol it concerns, may only "be used as that which it means on the (...) basis of the introduction of this symbol".' The intuitive philosophical content of Dummett's notions of harmony and stability is that harmony obtains if the grounds for asserting a proposition match the consequences of accepting it, and stability obtains if the converse also holds. Rules of inference define the meanings of a logical constant they govern if and only if they are stable. Gentzen observed that 'it should be possible to establish on the basis of certain requirements that the elimination rules are functions of the corresponding introduction rules.' One of the objectives of this paper is to specify such a function: I will specify a process by which it is possible to determine the elimination rules of logical constants from their introduction rules, and conversely, to determine the introduction rules from the elimination rules. I'll give the general forms of rules of inference and generalised reduction procedures for the normalisation of deduction. I'll give a formally precise characterisations of harmony and stability and show that deductions in logics that contain only constants governed by stable rules always normalise. (shrink)

A central thesis of the book is that we can assume "the worst" about what science tells us about the human animal without having to sacrifice any of the things that are of most importance to ethics: virtue and the good life, harmony of the ...

The thesis, typical among dualists, that there are no necessitation relations between events of consciousness and physical events implies that it is prima facie lucky that in our world the apparently existing psychophysical laws usually match events of consciousness and physical events in a “harmonious” way. The lucky psychophysical laws argument concludes that typical dualism amounts to a psychophysical parallelism that is prima facie too improbable to be true. I argue that an anthropic reasoning in the space of possible (...) worlds makes the appearance of a harmonious match situation unsurprising, and that this is all that is needed for the argument to be harmless to a typical dualist. (shrink)

Having recently emerged from the philosophical doldrums, the view that there are extrinsic dispositions has provoked questions about some aspects of their nature. One of the questions is whether causal bases of such dispositions would be extrinsic as well. Adopting the dominant causal conception of dispositional properties, I argue for the thesis of dispositional harmony, or for the proposition that dispositions agree with their bases in respect of intrinsicness (or lack thereof). The proposition is at odds with the (...) claim that the causal bases of extrinsic dispositions are intrinsic. As the claim was supported by appeal to the disposition of a key to open a door, I discuss the disposition, contending that it is intrinsic. Then I deflect a possible rejoinder by pointing out that the disposition is also multi-track. Dispositional harmony entails that if there were extrinsic dispositions, at least some extrinsic properties would be causally efficacious. (shrink)

David Lewis has argued against the thesis he calls "Desire as Belief", claiming it is incompatible with the fundamentals of evidential decision theory. I show that the argument is unsound, and demonstrate that a version of desire as belief is compatible with a version of causal decision theory.

Does possessing some human virtues make it impossible for a person to possess other human virtues? Isaiah Berlin and Bernard Williams both answered “yes” to this question, and they argued that to hold otherwise—to accept the harmony of the virtues—required a blinkered and unrealistic view of “what it is to be human.” In this essay, I have two goals: (1) to show how the harmony of the virtues is best interpreted, and what is at stake in affirming or (...) denying it; and (2) to provide a partial defense of the harmony of the virtues. More specifically, I show how the harmony of the virtues can be interpreted and defended within the kind of Aristotelian naturalism developed by philosophers such as Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Michael Thompson. I argue that far from being an embarrassing liability for Aristotelianism—based in an “archaic metaphysical biology”—the harmony thesis is an interesting and plausible claim about human excellences, supported by a sophisticated account of the representation of life, and fully compatible with a realistic view of our human situation. (shrink)

Do human beings have a special and distinguished place in reality? In Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality Thomas Hofweber contends that they do. We are special since there is an intimate connection between our human minds and reality itself. This book defends a form of idealism which holds that our human minds constrain, but do not construct, reality as the totality of facts. Reality as the totality of facts is thus not independent of our minds, and (...) our minds play a metaphysically special role in all of reality. But reality as the totality of things is taken to be completely independent of us. Hofweber's proposed form of conceptual idealism is formulated via the notion of a harmony between our minds and reality. This harmony is defended through considerations in the philosophy of language. How can one possibly defend a metaphysical thesis like idealism from considerations about our own representation? A key step in the book's argument is to consider a special class of concepts--inescapable concepts--which we cannot rationally replace with different ones. This leads to a new approach for making progress in metaphysics--immanent metaphysics--which is broadly neo-Kantian in spirit. (shrink)

The current text seeks to complement the concept of social outbreak referring to the political events of October 2019 in Chile with an idea of harmonization and utopian updating in affective-political terms. To do this, in the first place it will be established that it is possible to make a political-affective reading of the social outbreak, taking a detour through what would be the function of the affects in their political dimension, as articulators of communities, to later specify the affective (...) political sense in the context of our social outbreak. Secondly, it will be affirmed that, without denying the very idea of an explosion, at least in part there is also a decantation of a process of utopian harmonization and updating. To deploy these two statements, we will rely mainly on a 19th century author, Charles Fourier, who builds a materialist-affective theory that can provide important insights into our contingency. We will also carry out a reading of the RENACE intervention by Delight Lab to illustrate our thesis. (shrink)

Plato provocatively characterizes truth $$ in terms of harmony $$ at various points throughout his dialogues. While limited attention has been directed toward the role of musical concepts in Plato's general cosmology, not any attention has been directed toward how musical concepts function in relation to Plato's characterization of truth. In fact, this issue has had little occasion for consideration. Almost every contemporary translator empties terms such as $\grave\alpha\rho\mu o\nu\acute\iota\alpha,$ when co-incidental with $\acute\alpha\lambda\acute\eta\theta\varepsilon\iota\alpha,$ of their musical content. As a (...) consequence, I argue, Plato's characterization of truth is made readily amenable to contemporary conceptions of truth-not necessarily a good thing since it robs us of the original richness of Plato's thought. The dissertation explores how retaining the aural meaning latent within $\grave\alpha\rho\mu o\nu\acute\iota\alpha$ and other terms of musical import serves to elucidate the rich complexion of Plato's notion of $\acute\alpha\lambda\acute\eta\theta\varepsilon\iota\alpha.$ Ultimately, I show how Plato's use of musical terminology to characterize truth informs other features of his philosophical outlook, illustrate the cohesiveness and consistency of key texts believed problematic by other commentators, and underscore significant differences between Plato's $\acute\alpha\lambda\acute\eta\theta\varepsilon\iota\alpha$ and ideas of truth prevalent today. ;For Plato, I argue $\acute\alpha\lambda\acute\eta\theta\varepsilon\iota\alpha$ bears a meaning different from its primitive sense of oracular unconcealment and its later sense of correctness $,$ and a meaning also different from other terminological alternatives $.$ Truth, accordingly, turns out for Plato to be neither mysterious and groundless nor a matter of simple correspondence to an objective reality. The value of Plato's conception of truth as harmony consists in its ability to avoid the polarity of contemporary conceptions of truth as either objectively determinate or subjectively determinate . Truth is neither arbitrarily imposed upon the world by us, nor artificially imposed upon us by an antecedently structured and independent reality. The dissertation concludes by articulating reasons for favoring Plato's theory of truth, while noting a few underlying assumptions likely problematic for some contemporary philosophers. (shrink)

Some goals have special significance to agents. For instance, an agent could find her life worth living because she is pursuing her current goal, and the agent could also think that her previous life has no value because she did not pursue the current goal. If an agent’s current goal has special importance to the agent, then in terms of prudence the agent’s decision to obtain her current goal could be permissible even in the case where achieving her previous goal (...) brings out larger advantages. A widely endorsed thesis of prudence (i.e. the temporal neutrality thesis) does not successfully explain this phenomenon of goal achievement. Furthermore, the present-aim thesis and the harmony thesis also fail in explaining why an agent has prudential reason to prioritize her current goal. This paper introduces a new thesis of prudence, according to which an agent’s caring is significant in deciding whether the agent’s actions are prudentially permissible. In particular, after introducing this thesis named the care thesis, I argue that the care thesis can explain why an agent has reason to prioritize her current goal if the agent finds her life worth living due to her current goal. It is permissible that an agent obtains her current goal rather than previous goal because achieving her current goal benefits the agent’s cared one (i.e. the self who pursues her current goal). (shrink)

This paper addresses the contemporary thesis of psychophysical supervenience and its application to the interpretation of Aristotle’s psychological hylomorphism. It will be shown that the supervenience thesis, in its different versions, fails to explain the essential unity of the soul and of the psychophysical compound. Arguments will be provided on the basis of Aristotle’s discussion of the harmony theory of the soul (_de An_. I 4) and more generally on his methodological claims on the definition of the (...) soul and of its affections (_de An_. I 1). (shrink)

I aim to analyze in this dissertation what a desirable basic institutional structure looks like from the perspective of rationality. While the main topic is thus normative in nature, I start by clarifying in the first part what the notion of rationality exactly entails. I do so by focusing explicitly on the economic conception of rationality, according to which a rational individual is motivated to serve his self-interest on the basis of cost-benefit calculations. Such a Homo Economicus is characterized by (...) his intentional and instrumental actions, his perfectly informed beliefs and his exogenously given and egoistic preferences. In my view, however, this model is inadequate if one aims to understand what it means to be rational. The requirements that actions should be instrumental, beliefs should be based on perfect information and preferences should be exogenously given and egoistic in nature turn out to be overly demanding in this respect. That is why I propose to drop these assumptions in what I label the minimal conception of rationality. Since the latter turns out to be very formal indeed, I propose two further alternatives, which focus not so much on the choice of means to achieve certain goals, as they focus on the choice of these goals themselves. According to the first, broad conception, actions are rational if they are based on good reasons, which are further qualified as well-informed beliefs and autonomous preferences. According to the second, expressive conception, actions, beliefs and preferences are rational if they express the things the individual at hand cares about. The latter requires that individuals can reflect upon and identify with their reasons, which implies a capacity to reflect upon and distance themselves from their own bundle of preferences. In the second part of this dissertation, I try to show the value and limitations of these conceptions by applying them to the context of large-scaled elections. In this respect, it becomes immediately clear that the economic conception fails to explain why quite a lot of people go out and vote. After all, since a single vote has only an infinitesimal impact on the electoral result, it does not enable people to serve their interests or realize their goals. This leads to the so-called voting paradox, according to which no rational individual will decide to vote. The standard solution is to assume that individuals vote because they derive satisfaction from the very act itself. However, this strategy is rather ‘ad hoc’ and does not explain how people vote once they find themselves inside the voting booth. The expressive conception of rationality does better in this respect. It suggests that people vote because they care about democracy in general or about a specific political candidate or ideology. Since they conceive of themselves as being a good citizen, they express this aspect of their identity by going out to vote. In the third part of this dissertation, I analyze more fully the normative implications of the different conceptions of rationality. More specifically, I try to answer the question which basic institutional structure is desirable if one assumes that people are by and large rational. This immediately shows that both the normative issue and the explanatory issue are closely connected. In my view, proposals regarding institutional design and reform should be based on empirically adequate models of individual actions and motivations. This search for a realistic utopia goes against the conventional strategy of most economists. They rely on the Homo Economicus model, even if this fails to explain individual behavior. To explain more fully what the normative implications are of the counterfactual assumption that all people are economically rational, I focus on the work of James Buchanan. In his theory of constitutional choice, he argues in favor of a minimal state whose only task is to make sure that the market functions properly. Buchanan thus favors strict constitutional limitations for governments, which tend to expand beyond legitimate borders as soon as politicians and public servants are allowed to serve their own interests. In my view, however, the abovementioned criticisms of the Homo Economicus model have theoretical as well as normative implications. After all, the empirically supported fact that a majority of individuals does not act in economically rational ways creates more room for legitimate government intervention. Expressively rational citizens will, for example, more easily agree on the necessity and desirability of a collective provision of certain public goods. In addition, expressively rational politicians and public servants can be more easily trusted to serve the public interest rather than their narrowly defined self-interest. As an alternative to Buchanan’s one-sided focus on economic rationality and the market, I focus on the work of Samuel Bowles en Herbert Gintis. More specifically, I explore their work on the phenomenon of strong reciprocity, which refers to the widespread tendency of people to reward prosocial behavior and punish antisocial behavior, even if this is costly for themselves. Since this is clearly economically irrational, Bowles and Gintis propose to complement the Homo Economicus model with the Homo Reciprocans model. This model, which comes close to the expressive conception of rationality, is able to incorporate the insight that social norms surrounding reciprocity, cooperation and fairness are crucial in regulating interactions. At the normative level, Bowles and Gintis stress that such norms often lead to socially desirable outcomes, since they enable people to live in harmony without relying on coercive and costly government interventions. This suggests that the debate between proponents of the market on the one hand and the state on the other hand neglects the importance of communities where people spontaneously interact on the basis of generally prosocial norms. As such, the insights of Bowles and Gintis lead to a defense of a basic institutional structure in which markets, states and communities mutually complement and reinforce each other. They also justify a general optimism as regards to the capacity and motivation of people to try and improve the rules and institutions that govern their everyday lives. (shrink)

It has become something of a received view among contemporary scholars that Leibniz first adopted the pre-established harmony around the time of the Discourse on Metaphysics and Correspondence with Arnauld, i.e., 1686-87. However, in their recent contribution to the Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, Christia Mercer and Robert Sleigh Jr. have challenged this orthodoxy by claiming that Leibniz was committed to the doctrine, in all but name, by April 1676. In the present paper, I argue that the evidence that Mercer (...) and Sleigh present to support their somewhat radical thesis is problematic in a number of respects. But rather than embracing the ‘received view’, I present further evidence in favor of the view that Leibniz had in fact adopted the pre-established harmony by 1679. (shrink)

In both radical and mainstream environmental discourses, anthropocentrism (human centredness) is inextricably linked to modern industrial society's drive to control and dominate nature and the generation of our current environmental crisis. Such environmental discourses frequently argue for a retreat from anthropocentrism and the establishment of a harmonious relationship with nature, often invoking the supposed ecological harmony of indigenous peoples and/or other small-scale societies. In particular, the beliefs and values of these societies vis-à-vis their natural environment are taken to be (...) instrumental in their low environmental impact. Here it is argued that, aside from the empirically problematic nature of such claims, the beliefs of small-scale societies have been seen through an ethnocentric discursive framework which bifurcates belief systems into anthropocentric and ecocentric. Taking a meta-theoretical approach informed by Strong Structuration Theory, it is argued that the beliefs of small-scale societies about their relationship with nature should be recognised as lying on a continuum of anthropocentrism and understood in the context of their attempts to establish ‘environmental ontological security’ in the face of natural uncertainty. (shrink)

‘It is necessary to a Prince to learn how not to be good’. This quotation from Machiavelli’s The Prince has become the mantra of the standard dirty hands thesis. Despite its infamy, it features proudly in most conventional expositions of the dirty hands problem, including Michael Walzer’s original analysis. In this paper, I wish to cast a doubt as to whether the standard conception of the problem of DH—the recognition that, in certain inescapable and tragic circumstances an innocent course (...) of action is unfeasible—fully captures Machiavelli’s message and its terrifying implications. In particular, I argue that the standard DH thesis is inadequately ‘static’: it conceives the conflict between ordinary morality and political morality as a stark, momentary and rare paradox of action—an anomaly disrupting the normality of harmony. As such it misconceives both the extent and the nature of the rupture between morality and politics. In this sense, the argument I shall advance does just involve an exercise in the history of political thought. Rather, I want to suggest that, by virtue of its failure to take Machiavelli’s insights seriously, the standard DH thesis fails to live up to its purported capacity to capture the complexity and fragmentation of our moral cosmos and that, consequently, it is nothing more than a thinly veiled version of the idealism and monism it purports to reject. (shrink)

Excerpt (in lieu of abstract) My aim in this paper is to put the spotlight on the following questions: how do lay Christians understand the relation between science and religion, and what can this tell us about the relationship between science and Christianity in a more academic setting? My focus will be on lay Christians in the US, in particular White Evangelicals. I will argue that American lay Christians, as well as American laypeople more generally, view the relationship between science (...) and religion as one of conflict. By contrast, conflict is a minority view in the academic literature on science and religion, where most authors defend a harmonious relationship (such as independence, dialogue, and integration). This disconnect between the academic literature and public perception should lead us to reflect on the social role of the science and religion debate. (shrink)

SYMMETRY IN PHYSICS: FROM PROPORTION AND HARMONY TO THE TERM OF METALENGUAJE -/- Ruth Castillo Universidad Central de Venezuela -/- The revolutionary changes in physics require a careful exploration of the way in which concepts depend on the theoretical structure in which they are immerse. A historical reconstruction allows us to show how the notion of symmetry evolves from the definition as proportion and harmony to its consideration within the language of contemporary physics, as a linguistic meta-theoretical requirement (...) in physical theories. In contemporary terms, symmetry is a fundamental category of research to which the usual categories of the natural sciences can be reduce in: space, time, causality, interaction, matter, strength, etc ... Thus, symmetry is a concept with different meanings: heuristically symmetric models inspire scientists in the search for solutions to different problems. Methodologically, symmetric structures are use to make theories, laws with invariant properties. A description of nature in terms of symmetric structures and symmetry ruptures seems to be the proper way to describe the complexity of reality. (shrink)

The reception of the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus in Jewish thought of the 17th-century period is a good exemplification of the issue concerning the formation of the relationship between natural science and theology, or more broadly: between science and religion. The fundamental question concerning this relationship, which we can ask from today’s perspective of this problem, is: How does it happen that claims of a scientific nature, which are initially considered from a religious point of view to be incompatible (...) with the religious view of the world, are later accepted as possible to agree with this image of reality and are assimilated by a given religion? Based on the reception of the Copernican image of the universe by two representatives of Jewish philosophy in the 17th century—David Gans and Joseph Solomon Delmedigo—it is possible to trace this process and pose the thesis that it takes place according to two strategies. Within the framework of the first one, represented by Gans, in a situation of incompatibility between the scientific and religious images of nature, a scientific theory is sought that explains the observed phenomena and, on the other hand, satisfies the religious claims. Finding such a theory solves the problem of the incompatibility mentioned above of images of the world, gives the theory credibility from the religious point of view and constitutes an argument for its correctness. The second strategy, represented by Delmedigo, consists in refraining from pursuing a direct, immediate, and unequivocal reconciliation of the two images of the world while at the same time recognizing a properly justified scientific theory as correctly describing and explaining the phenomena occurring in nature. Consequently, the apparent incompatibility between the scientific and the religious worldview demands either a reformulation of religious statements in such a way as to remove this incompatibility or the restriction of the meaning of religious statements to the strictly religious and moral sphere, without the ambition to speak about nature. In either case, however, it is already a task for the representatives of the religion concerned who, when confronted with adequately justified scientific claims, to avoid exposing their religion to the accusation that its claims are unreasonable and anachronistic, undertake the task mentioned above of modifying or limiting the scope of their statements. It seems that in the representatives of Jewish thought and Judaism, who are the successors of Gans and Delmedigo, generally speaking, the second strategy has prevailed in this version, in which one abandons the claim of religion to statements about the material world at the price of a significant divergence of the paths of science and religion. Consequently, it treats them as different narratives, describing and explaining two separate spheres of reality. (shrink)

The harmony thesis claims that a virtuous agent will not experience inner conflict or pain when acting. The continent agent, on the other hand, is conflicted or pained when acting virtuously, making him inferior to the virtuous agent. But following Karen Stohr’s counterexample, we can imagine a case like a company owner who needs to fire some of her employees to save her company, where acting with conflict or pain is not only appropriate, but necessary in the situation. (...) This creates a problem for virtue ethicists because the virtue/continence distinction cannot easily be drawn in the case. One solution offered by Stohr is to claim that a virtuous agent will respond with an intensity of feeling corresponding to her correct judgment, whereas a continent agent will miss the mark: he will feel too much or too little pain in response to his correct judgment of value. This demarcation, I argue, is too strict because it entails something like a mean resembling a moral virtue or vice regarding pain, being inconsistent with our ordinary understanding of continence. In dealing with the difficulty, I argue that Aristotle’s virtue of endurance is better suited to account for the problem case. The following move explains why the case of the company owner is problematic: the company owner was missing a virtue on which we did not have the conceptual resources to elaborate. This points to a deeper problem in virtue ethics that needs to be addressed. (shrink)

The harmony thesis about a virtuous person, widely held by neo-Aristotelians, supposes that someone highly vulnerable to temptation is not virtuous at all. However, is that the only plausible picture of a virtuous person’s psychology? This essay aims to offer an alternative picture by discussing the account of virtue in the thought of Mengzi 孟子 and his conception of moral exemplars. First, I analyze the Mengzian moral exemplar as depicted in _Mengzi_ 1A7—specifically, the susceptibility of the nobleman (_junzi_ (...) 君子) to compassion and the relevant temptation. Then, I explain how this differs from neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical theories. This passage shows that there is a certain price to being virtuous in Mengzi’s virtue theory. By examining various ways of addressing this challenge, I explore Mengzi’s solution to it, which will shed light on Mengzi’s own way of specifying virtue and its significant advantage as a potential alternative to certain other approaches. (shrink)

From the first century BCE onwards, philosophers started to write commentaries on those Aristotle’s treatises that were meant for the internal use of his school. Plato’s works had been commented on already earlier, the first reported commentary originates in the 300s BCE. Commentaries are treatises that follow an object text in a more or less linear fashion. The format was not unknown before the first century BCE but new in extensive philosophical use. This review essay focuses on authors who commented (...) on Aristotle’s works. The commentaries emerged when Platonists and Aristotelians observed the need to teach the philosophy of these ancient masters to their students and to systematise their philosophy to respond to rival schools. In the late ancient schools, Plato and Aristotle were considered great thinkers, whose views needed to be studied carefully when considering any matter at hand. Many also argued that, despite the initial appearance to the contrary, there is no deep disagreement between Plato and Aristotle but, rather, a division of labour; Aristotle is dominant in natural philosophy and Plato in theology. However, this harmony thesis was not universally accepted. Despite their respect for Plato and Aristotle, the commentators were not mere followers of these authors. They developed, criticised and transformed the doctrines in significant ways, not only by suggesting different answers to the same questions but also by transforming the questions themselves. (shrink)

Contemporary virtue ethicists widely accept thethesis that a virtuous agent''s feelings shouldbe in harmony with her judgments about what sheshould do and that she should find virtuousaction easy and pleasant. Conflict between anagent''s feelings and her actions, by contrast,is thought to indicate mere continence – amoral deficiency. This ``harmony thesis'''' isgenerally taken to be a fundamental element ofAristotelian virtue ethics.I argue that the harmony thesis, understoodthis way, is mistaken, because there areoccasions where a virtuous agent (...) will findright action painful and difficult. What thismeans is that the generally accepteddistinction between continence and virtue isunsupportable. This conclusion affects severalwell-known accounts of virtuous action,including those of Philippa Foot and JohnMcDowell. A closer look at Aristotle, however, providesanother way of distinguishing betweencontinence and virtue, based in hiscategorization of goods as noble or base. Iargue that virtue is exhibited when anagent''s feelings harmonize with his correctjudgments of value, while discrepancies betweenfeelings and correct judgments of valueindicate continence. This understanding ofcontinence and virtue enables us to accommodatethe problem cases I raise. (shrink)

The thesis provides a new interpretation of Kant's claims for the epistemological significance of aesthetic judgment. I argue that the harmony of the imagination and the understanding in aesthetic judgment consists in a potentially unending activity of mental modeling, or "exhibiting," of figures corresponding to possible conceptual determinations of the perceptual form of a beautiful object. Since Kant holds just this capacity to exhibit concepts as figures in intuition to be a prerequisite to empirical conception, judgments of taste (...) are based on an activity underlying all cognition. ;I then turn to another area in which Kant claims a close connection between reflection and conception--his analysis of empirical concept formation and application. Kant states that we must presuppose a principle of reflective judgment in order to insure the discoverability of natural regularity. Kant recognizes that transcendental under-determines empirical law, but determining the extent to which Kant thinks this is true is of the utmost importance. Untempered, Kant's broad claims that the principle is necessary for the capacity to form and apply empirical concepts commits him to the un-Kantian position that a reflective principle is constitutive and not merely regulative. I find, however, that the principle is not required for the formation and application of any empirical concepts, but rather for those that purport to correspond to empirically real properties of things. ;Last, I place Kant's theory of reflection in a historical context, considering one Idealist criticism of it--that of Hegel in Faith and Knowledge. I argue that Hegel's Kant critique is best understood as an attempt to overturn the delicate balance Kant sought to strike in according a transcendentally necessary principle merely regulative status. (shrink)

This thesis is a study of the theories of pleasure as proposed in Plato’s Philebus, Aristotle’s EN VII.11-14 and EN X.1-5, with particular emphasis on the value of pleasure. Focusing on the Philebus in Chapters 1 and 2, I argue that the account of pleasure as restorative process of a harmonious state in the soul is in tension with Plato’s claim that some pleasures are good in their own right. I show that there are in fact two ways in (...) which pleasure can have value in the Philebus. The tension in Plato’s position arises because he focuses exclusively on only one way in which pleasure can have value. Chapter 3 deals with Aristotle’s response to Plato in EN VII.11-14. According to the standard interpretation only complete activities can be pleasures in their own right, but not incomplete activities. Since this interpretation attributes to Aristotle both an implausible view and a bad response to Plato, I offer a novel interpretation of EN VII.12 according to which the central contrast is not between complete and incomplete activities, but between states and their use. This interpretation is more faithful to Aristotle’s text and gives him a better response to Plato. In Chapter 4 I turn to the central claim of EN X.4-5 that pleasure perfects an activity. I argue that we cannot understand how pleasure functions unless we take into account the state whose activation is perfected by pleasure. In particular, the agent’s disposition of being a lover of a certain activity is crucial for explaining why the agent takes pleasure in it. The focus on the agent’s attitude highlights that the value of pleasure does not depend solely on the value of the activity. I suggest instead that pleasure is valuable when and because it is an appropriate response to a given situation. (shrink)

The thesis argued for in this work is that under certain conditions the use of violence is morally obligatory. The thesis is advanced as an alternative to both the pacifist and the liberal, right-oriented theses which are rooted in the idea that violence is evil. The defense consists of an exposition of the problems of the pacifist and liberal theses on the one hand and the development of a system that makes it possible to conceive of the use (...) of violence as morally obligatory on the other hand. ;The work begins with an examination of the socio-practical consequences of the idea that violent is evil--the blindness and insensitivity toward violence that most of us exhibit most of the time. Next comes an analysis of the pacifist and liberal moralities of violence that point out the two are grounded in similar utopian visions of a harmonious world and how they fail to be responsive to the demands of practice. The idea that violence is evil is examined next and a morally neutral conception of violence, an idea of non-abusive violence, is suggested as a preliminary to the consideration of an alternative morality of violence. ;The construction of an alternative begins with the outline of a schema for a moral system. The idea of human dignity is taken as its unifying notion and the ideals of justice, freedom and respect for persons as unfolding it. Moral rules understood as specifying moral obligation are taken as the mechanism of practical morality. The idea of moral policy is introduced as a middle ground between moral ideals and moral rules. The moral ideals are used to draw a distinction between savagery and a violent social world. The choice of a violent social world is understood as the choice of a world in which violence is morally regulated by rules that specify when we are morally obligated to use violence and when we are morally obligated to refrain from the use of violence. A discussion of such rules completes the construction of the alternative. (shrink)

This thesis attempts to show that Georg Lukacs' Marxist theory of realism is best understood, not as a self sufficient body of theory, but in the context of his pre- Marxist theory of literature and his,role in the Communist movement, A comparison of the theory expounded in "Die Seele and die Fonaen" and "Die Theorie des Romans" with the main positions of "Geschichte und Kiassenbewusstsein" reveals that it was remarkably easy for Lukacs to accommodate his literary theory within the (...) newly-acquired philosophy. An examination of Lukacs' career shows that his move to Marxism was motivated by a search for the practical instrument to implement the ideal which was the mainspring behind both his own life and, in his theory, all great literature, namely, the classical ideal of harmony. The resulting change in emphasis from aesthetics to political action led, in the thirties, to the attempt to synthesize both in a cultural campaign. Political pressure, combined with the genuine belief that the excesses of Stalinism were the acceptable price of resistance to the overriding threat of fascism, resulted in the employment of a rigid determinism, deplored ill others, which was incompatible with the core of his understanding of literary realism. The creation of realism was, however, for both the pre- Marxist and the Marxist Lukacs, ultimately inexplicable in materialist terms. (shrink)

This thesis is directed towards a philosophy of music by attention to conceptions and perceptions of space. I focus on melody and harmony, and do not emphasise rhythm, which, as far as I can tell, concerns time rather than space. I seek a metaphysical account of Western Classical music in the diatonic tradition. More specifically, my interest is in wordless, untitled music, often called 'absolute' music. My aim is to elucidate a spatial approach to the world combined with (...) a curiosity about the nature of the Pythagorean intervals. Thus one question I seek to answer is: What do the Pythagorean intervals import to music? In their original formulation by Pythagoras, and further, by Plato, their import seemed mystical and analogous to a 'harmony of the spheres.' In this spatial approach, the Pythagorean intervals are indicative of infinite depth. The faculty of hearing alone does not ordinarily spatially locate sources. Hearing is ordinarily combined with sight in order to spatially locate a sound. Yet we talk about music as if it were spatially located, that is, as if it were a visible object with a surface and themes or 'objects'. I explore the faculty of vision and consider in what ways the processes of vision might be similar to and distinct from audition. My source for this approach is David Marr's book 'Vision' and his theory of the 2 1/2-dimensional sketch. In a medium in which there is no spatial location, it is important to situate the listener. Newton solved the problem of location by demonstrating the effects of gravity. P. F. Strawson claims that an analogy of distance is required in hearing to situate the listener, that is, a sense of nearer to and further from a source or object that permits a perception of distance. I claim that in music, the key signature and the scalar relations of musical themes provide this analogy of distance. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton are studied for their accounts of motion, bodies, and space. From these metaphysicians can be gleaned elements of music that include form, motion, timbre, dynamics, and attraction. By incorporating motion, I aim to show that although we may not know the true nature of space, we can learn from hearing music that space is perceptible in other than three dimensions. (shrink)

The thesis deals with the concept of truth and the paradoxes of truth. Philosophical theories usually consider the concept of truth from a wider perspective. They are concerned with questions such as - Is there any connection between the truth and the world? And, if there is - What is the nature of the connection? Contrary to these theories, this analysis is of a logical nature. It deals with the internal semantic structure of language, the mutual semantic connection of (...) sentences, above all the connection of sentences that speak about the truth of other sentences and sentences whose truth they speak about. Truth paradoxes show that there is a problem in our basic understanding of the language meaning and they are a test for any proposed solution. It is important to make a distinction between the normative and analytical aspect of the solution. The former tries to ensure that paradoxes will not emerge. The latter tries to explain paradoxes. Of course, the practical aspect of the solution is also important. It tries to ensure a good framework for logical foundations of knowledge, for related problems in Artificial Intelligence and for the analysis of the natural language. Tarski’s analysis emphasized the T-scheme as the basic intuitive principle for the concept of truth, but it also showed its inconsistency with the classical logic. Tarski’s solution is to preserve the classical logic and to restrict the scheme: we can talk about the truth of sentences of a language only inside another essentially richer metalanguage. This solution is in harmony with the idea of reflexivity of thinking and it has become very fertile for mathematics and science in general. But it has normative nature | truth paradoxes are avoided in a way that in such frame we cannot even express paradoxical sentences. It is also too restrictive because, for the same reason we cannot express a situation in which there is a circular reference of some sentences to other sentences, no matter how common and harmless such a situation may be. Kripke showed that there is no natural restriction to the T-scheme and we have to accept it. But then we must also accept the riskiness of sentences | the possibility that under some circumstances a sentence does not have the classical truth value but it is undetermined. This leads to languages with three-valued semantics. Kripke did not give any definite model, but he gave a theoretical frame for investigations of various models | each fixed point in each three-valued semantics can be a model for the concept of truth. The solutions also have normative nature | we can express the paradoxical sentences, but we escape a contradiction by declaring them undetermined. Such a solution could become an analytical solution only if we provide the analysis that would show in a substantial way that it is the solution that models the concept of truth. Kripke took some steps in the direction of finding an analytical solution. He preferred the strong Kleene three-valued semantics for which he wrote it was "appropriate" but did not explain why it was appropriate. One reason for such a choice is probably that Kripke finds paradoxical sentences meaningful. This eliminates the weak Kleene three valued semantics which corresponds to the idea that paradoxical sentences are meaningless, and thus indeterminate. Another reason could be that the strong Kleene three valued semantics has the so-called investigative interpretation. According to this interpretation, this semantics corresponds to the classical determination of truth, whereby all sentences that do not have an already determined value are temporarily considered indeterminate. When we determine the truth value of these sentences, then we can also determine the truth value of the sentences that are composed of them. Kripke supplemented this investigative interpretation with an intuition about learning the concept of truth. That intuition deals with how we can teach someone who is a competent user of an initial language (without the predicate of truth T) to use sentences that contain the predicate T. That person knows which sentences of the initial language are true and which are not. We give her the rule to assign the T attribute to the former and deny that attribute to the latter. In that way, some new sentences that contain the predicate of truth, and which were indeterminate until then, become determinate. So the person gets a new set of true and false sentences with which he continues the procedure. This intuition leads directly to the smallest fixed point of strong Kleene semantics as an analytically acceptable model for the logical notion of truth. However, since this process is usually saturated only on some transfinite ordinal, this intuition, by climbing on ordinals, increasingly becomes a metaphor. This thesis is an attempt to give an analytical solution to truth paradoxes. It gives an analysis of why and how some sentences lack the classical truth value. The starting point is basic intuition according to which paradoxical sentences are meaningful (because we understand what they are talking about well, moreover we use it for determining their truth values), but they witness the failure of the classical procedure of determining their truth value in some "extreme" circumstances. Paradoxes emerge because the classical procedure of the truth value determination does not always give a classically supposed (and expected) answer. The analysis shows that such an assumption is an unjustified generalization from common situations to all situations. We can accept the classical procedure of the truth value determination and consequently the internal semantic structure of the language, but we must reject the universality of the exterior assumption of a successful ending of the procedure. The consciousness of this transforms paradoxes to normal situations inherent to the classical procedure. Some sentences, although meaningful, when we evaluate them according to the classical truth conditions, the classical conditions do not assign them a unique value. We can assign to them the third value, \undetermined", as a sign of definitive failure of the classical procedure. An analysis of the propagation of the failure in the structure of sentences gives exactly the strong Kleene three-valued semantics, not as an investigative procedure, as it occurs in Kripke, but as the classical truth determination procedure accompanied by the propagation of its own failure. An analysis of the circularities in the determination of the classical truth value gives the criterion of when the classical procedure succeeds and when it fails, when the sentences will have the classical truth value and when they will not. It turns out that the truth values of sentences thus obtained give exactly the largest intrinsic fixed point of the strong Kleene three-valued semantics. In that way, the argumentation is given for that choice among all fixed points of all monotone three-valued semantics for the model of the logical concept of truth. An immediate mathematical description of the fixed point is given, too. It has also been shown how this language can be semantically completed to the classical language which in many respects appears a natural completion of the process of thinking about the truth values of the sentences of a given language. Thus the final model is a language that has one interpretation and two systems of sentence truth evaluation, primary and final evaluation. The language through the symbol T speaks of its primary truth valuation, which is precisely the largest intrinsic fixed point of the strong Kleene three valued semantics. Its final truth valuation is the semantic completion of the first in such a way that all sentences that are not true in the primary valuation are false in the final valuation. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é explicar o sentido da tese do melhor dos mundos possíveis. Para Leibniz, o melhor deve ser compreendido no sentido do método de Formis optimis, isto é, como o que reenvia, em um gênero dado, à forma a mais determinada. Essa última é a um só tempo única e a mais racional. Assim, a perfeição do mundo não resulta do fato de que ele concentraria a maior quantidade de essência ou de bem (perfeição quantitativa), mas (...) do fato de que ele constitui a ordem a mais inteligível, na qual cada coisa, sem ser necessariamente a mais perfeita em si mesma, contribui, no entanto, com a harmonia universal, ou seja, a unidade de uma multiplicidade que preenche da melhor maneira possível os fins divinos (perfeição qualitativa).Abstract:The aim of this paper is to explain the significance of Leibniz's thesis of the best possible world. For Leibniz, the best is to be understood in the sense of the method de Formis optimis, as what refers, for a given sort of things, to the most determined form, which is both unique and the most rational one. Thus, the perfection of the world does not result from its containing the largest quantity of essence and of good (quantitative perfection), but from its forming the most intelligible order, in which every single thing, without being necessarily the best in itself, nevertheless contributes to the universal harmony, that is to the unity of a manifold fulfilling the divine ends in the best possible way (qualitative perfection). (shrink)

In present times, the notion of beauty finds itself in a strange situation. On one side, it has undergone a sort of new renaissance since the last decades of the XX century, thanks to the works of several philosophers and aestheticians. On the other side, it is a common loci both in aesthetics and art history that beauty has disappeared from modern and contemporary art, especially when visual arts and instrumental music are concerned. One of the most effective arguments in (...) sup-port of this thesis maintains that there is no connection between normative and descriptive judgments of beauty. I am going to argue that such connection exists, and that it lies in the intermediate role played by the properties of harmony and appropriateness, which belong to the aesthetic as well as to the non-aesthetic realm. This will help us to free the notion of beauty from the charges of ambiguity and abuse, and to restore its relevance in XX and XXI centuries arts. (shrink)

KK is the thesis that if you can know p, you can know that you can know p. Though it’s unpopular, a flurry of considerations has recently emerged in its favour. Here we add fuel to the fire: standard resources allow us to show that any failure of KK will lead to the knowability and assertability of abominable indicative conditionals of the form ‘If I don’t know it, p’. Such conditionals are manifestly not assertable—a fact that KK defenders can (...) easily explain. I survey a variety of KK-denying responses and find them wanting. Those who object to the knowability of such conditionals must either deny the possibility of harmony between knowledge and belief, or deny well-supported connections between conditional and unconditional attitudes. Meanwhile, those who grant knowability owe us an explanation of such conditionals’ unassertability—yet no successful explanations are on offer. Upshot: we have new evidence for KK. (shrink)

By comparing the role of harmony in Eryximachus’ discourse with other Platonic passages, especially from the Timaeus, this article aims to provide textual evidence concerning Plato’s conception of cosmological medicine as “harmonic techne”. The comparison with other dialogues will enable us to demonstrate how Eryximachus’ thesis is consistent with Plato’s cosmology — a cosmology which cannot be reduced to a physical conception of reality but represents the expression of a dialectical, and erotic cosmos, characterized by the agreement of (...) parts. Arguably, Eryximachus’ discourse is expression of the Platonic tendency to translate onto the philosophical plane the implications of a model peri physeos. Harmonic techne is thus always linked to the theme of moral responsibility: the philosopher is also doctor, musician and demiurges in his harmonizing activity. The speech of Eryximachus can be approached as a Platonic step which is fundamental for establishing the need for a “medicine” to cure disorder, with a view to obtaining a cosmos ordered according to the harmonic principle. (shrink)

The paper defends the thesis that Proclus Diadochus’ ideas are still relevant in modern culture. It appears that the ideas of Neoplatonism as a whole and these of Proclus’ in particular matter at least in some aspects of modern culture, such as the foundations of politics, the basic characteristics of philosophy and the fundamental aspects of understanding of the human existence. In the sphere of politics, one can note the ideas useful for creating of the non-totalitarian forms of ideology. (...) In contemporary philosophy the Neoplatonic studies can be interpreted as one of the bases of understanding of rational knowledge. The ideals of material harmony are essential for understanding of the human existence. (shrink)

This paper explores the thesis that both modernism and postmodernism, as contemporary cultural phenomena, have been unable to come to terms with the issue of human rationality in any positive way. As a result of this, nearly all of the stereotyped ways of relating theology and science through models of conflict, independence, consonance, harmony, integration, or dialogue are likely to be revealed as too simplistic generalizations about the relationship between these two dominant forces in our culture. What is (...) proposed is a postfoundationalist model where theology and science can rediscover the resources of rationality shared by these two reasoning strategies. Postfoundationalism in theology and science wants to point creatively beyond the confines of the local community, group, or culture toward a plausible form of interdisciplinary conversation. In taking seriously the role of local context and interpreted experience, postfoundationalism in theology and science should enable us to reach beyond the walls of our own communities in cross‐contextual, cross‐cultural and cross‐disciplinary conversation. (shrink)

Moral encroachment is the thesis that morality has an effect---unrecognized by traditional epistemology---on which doxastic states are epistemically appropriate. The thesis is increasingly popular among those who, in opposition to Gendler (2011), desire harmony between epistemic and moral demands on belief. This paper has three main goals. First, drawing on attractive structural principles concerning belief and justification, it is shown that a thoroughgoing harmony between moral and epistemic demands is implausible. This weakens the motivation for positing (...) moral encroachment, but a proponent might still hope that moral encroachment can have a significant effect, so that many of the central cases of apparent disharmony can be avoided. The next goal of the paper is to argue that any significant effect of moral encroachment would manifest itself in the credences which are most epistemically appropriate. Finally, it is shown that even a small effect of moral encroachment on credence is in tension with widely accepted basic constraints on epistemically appropriate credence. (shrink)

Moral encroachment is the thesis that morality has an effect---unrecognized by traditional epistemology---on which doxastic states are epistemically appropriate. The thesis is increasingly popular among those who, in opposition to Gendler (2011), desire harmony between epistemic and moral demands on belief. This paper has three main goals. First, drawing on attractive structural principles concerning belief and justification, it is shown that a thoroughgoing harmony between moral and epistemic demands is implausible. This weakens the motivation for positing (...) moral encroachment, but a proponent might still hope that moral encroachment can have a significant effect, so that many of the central cases of apparent disharmony can be avoided. The next goal of the paper is to argue that any significant effect of moral encroachment would manifest itself in the credences which are most epistemically appropriate. Finally, it is shown that even a small effect of moral encroachment on credence is in tension with widely accepted basic constraints on epistemically appropriate credence. (shrink)

We have it on the authority of Aristotle that “reason (nous) is the best thing in us” (EN X.7, 1177a20). This idealization of reason permeates his account of eudaimonia, a term commonly translated as ‘happiness’, which Aristotle identifies with living and doing well (EN I.4, 1095a18-20). In harmony with a certain intellectualism peculiar to the mainstream of ancient philosophical accounts of eudaimonia, Aristotle holds that living well requires the unique practical application of rationality of which only humans are capable (...) (EN I.7, 1098a13-15/EE I.7, 1217a25-27). This dissertation investigates Aristotle’s substantive view on the practical application of reason by examining how, according to him, human agents use reason to decide what to do, what kind of person to be, and indeed how to live well. A distinctively human way of making decisions is deliberation (bouleusis), an exercise of practical reason par excellence. The first chapter reconstructs Aristotle’s account of deliberation from a wide range of texts in the corpus. It argues that deliberation is a complex decision-making process that, for the most part, unfolds into four stages: (1) positing a provisional goal; (2) constructing a set of alternatives; (3) identifying the best alternative; (4) forming an intention to do the most proximate action as identified in the penultimate stage. This reading offers a comprehensive representation of Aristotle’s theory while rendering his theory more sophisticated—and indeed more modern—than the alternatives in recent years. Deciding what to do often requires that we confront the question, “Which is preferable (hairetōteron) or better (beltion) between two or more options?” In Topics III, a text widely acknowledged as the inaugural treatment of the logic of preference, Aristotle articulates a set of principles to guide our preference-ranking. While scholars pay historical homage to Aristotle, there is little engagement with his treatment of preference logic. The second chapter addresses the need for a current study and reassessment of Aristotle’s preference-ranking principles. It argues that, despite differences in scope and methodology between the Aristotelian and modern systems, the description inaugural treatment of preference logic comfortably, and accurately, applies to Topics III. When one looks at the role that Aristotle allows reason to play in the production and motivation of action, it is tempting to conclude that Aristotle endorses the Humean division of labor. For Aristotle claims that deliberation is about “the things towards the goal” (EN III.3, 1112b11-16) and that virtue (aretē) makes our goals right (EN VI.12, 1144a7-9). Chapter three seeks to show, against a recent influential quasi-Humean interpretation, that the primary function of practical reason is mapping the landscape of value corresponding to the agent’s reasoned conception of what eudaimonia consists in, as a rational being that she is. Aristotle notoriously defends the political subordination of individuals he believes to have a defective deliberative capacity. In Politics I.13, he claims that the deliberative faculty is undeveloped in children and “ineffectual” (akuron) in women (1260a12). The concluding chapter considers a puzzle about the development of the female’s deliberative faculty: How do women become ineffective in their deliberation, but freemen do not, given that all children have deliberative faculties that are unperfected? Drawing from the theories defended in previous chapters, I argue that the female’s deliberative defect is primarily due to her lack of moral education rather than inalterable sexual, biological differences—a thesis widely endorsed by scholars lately. (shrink)

Wren’s basic thesis is that moral obligation is logically involved in the very concept of human agency. Basic to the notion of agency or action is intention, and the book’s basic argument rests upon this latter notion. In addition to explicit intentions, human agency is also characterized by implicit or tacit intentions. In simplest terms, our sense of moral obligation is a tacit intention which characterizes all agency. At one level, tacit intention is a sheerly formal notion: "... that (...) tacit willingness to choose which is present in every explicit choice...". Because action as such is essentially social, however, we tacitly intend to participate as a member of a group of agents which entails a commitment to the promotion of harmony. This intention to harmony gives rise to the basic moral imperative: "Act in the way that maintains and promotes the most effective harmony among agents". (shrink)

The basic thesis of this paper is that communication is a fundamental activity of all human practices and that identity is constructed with the help of communication. Defining identity cannot be explained and understood exclusively from the standpoint of philosophy, sociology, political science or psychology. Given that the Latin root of the word communication, communio, refers to community, we can say that communication as a science best covers the relationships that people establish within the community such as schools, families, (...) work environment, social networks and forums. The activity of communication is the establishment of a community, i.e., sociability. To communicate means to unite something - to bring one?s actions into harmony with the community and with social life. In that sense, communication is in its essence a transition from the individual to the collective. In addition, any specific form of communication depends on the wider cultural and socio-political environment in which modern people operate. This paper aims to explore the impact of technology on individual identity, to answer questions about whether robots can have the same characteristics as personalities, and whether, and in what way, machines have an impact on people. The reason for asking such questions is the decision of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament to pass a law that will grant autonomous robots the status of?electronic personalities?. (shrink)

The general thesis of this paper is that the motives of the currently dominant global educational governance are rooted in a specific cultural milieu in the time of the Cold War, more precisely in the late 1950s, heading to a harmonious world. The more specific thesis is that a series of failures in the achievement of this harmonized globe led to reforms in educational governance, leading eventually to the development of instruments like large-scale assessments, such as PISA. The (...) concluding thesis of the paper is that precisely because the idea of global governance is rooted in a specific culture, its instruments run the risk of only affecting formal structures of education in other cultures rather the inner activities of the ‘educational fabric’. (shrink)

The intent of this thesis is to unravel some of the tangles which are encountered when one tries to define and explain freedom. There are actually two main arguments. The first is that freedom is to be defined relatively to the attaining of integration within oneself and with the world. The second is that a metaphysical framework significantly different from that which is typically used in debates regarding the possibility of freedom must be found, if an appropriate explanation of (...) freedom is to be given. The purpose is not to take sides with any of the dominant theories. Rather, it is to point towards what I consider to be a more fruitful way of understanding freedom. ;The thesis has a dominantly negative tone, since it is, for the most part, a criticism of the more popular views on freedom. It is argued that most definitions are one-sided or unintelligible and that most debates on freedom are based on inappropriate assumptions about the nature of personal power and about the sorts of conditions that are necessary for freedom to be possible. ;Despite its predominantly critical component, the thesis has a constructive component as well. The attempt is made to construct a definition for freedom. The definition, in a sense, announces itself as the process of eliminating and refining the popular definitions proceeds. Further, as explanations are eliminated and refined, one can begin to understand what sort of framework is needed in order to give an adequate account of freedom. In the end, I propose that freedom is to be defined as the attainment of an integrated personality and of a harmony with the world. Moreover, freedom can be explained only by using a modified concept of causality and of the self as having substance-like qualities. (shrink)