The celebrated Russian philosopher, Evald Ilyenkov, draws on Spinoza to solve a key philosophical problem: how exactly does the mind connect to the real world? However, the proposed solution has come under much criticism, for example in a recent special issue of Studies of East European Thought (74, 3). This paper aims to clearly explain the solution, overcoming misunderstandings that are evident in the special issue. The kernel of the solution is an argument that human cognition rests on practical activity. (...) In practical activity humans do not act on a fixed structure within their own bodies, in the manner, say, that the activity of water is determined by its fixed structure, H2O. Instead, human practical activity directly connects with and continually adapts to the structures and causal powers of external bodies. Awareness of practical activity thereby gives the human mind access to a mode of activity that is in direct contact and ever-greater accordance with the objects of the real world. The paper will elaborate and develop this kernel, with particular attention to the notion of ‘causal powers’ that it contains, by drawing from the revival in philosophy and the social sciences of what has been termed ‘causal powers realism’. The paper thereby opens new insights and connections regarding the Spinoza-Ilyenkov solution, alleviating the potential for misunderstandings evident in the special issue. (shrink)

Hume is not a philosopher who has been viewed, on the whole, with excessive sympathy. Slips and inadequacies of argument, which are the inevitable consequence of human fallibility, are treated by his critics not with charity but with delight; and there are few who think it necessary to state his argument at its strongest before proceeding to refute it. A striking example of this procedure may be found in Antony Flew's paper ‘Another Idea of Necessary Connection’. The example is (...) striking because Flew is normally one of the most sympathetic of Hume's critics and he might have been expected, in dealing with Humes view of causal necessity, to have proceeded with exceptional fairness, the incidental being identified and discarded and the essential view standing forth at its strongest. This, as I shall show, is not what occurs; but first let us consider what we are to take the essential view to be. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:217 HUME'S IDEAS ABOUT NECESSARY CONNECTION 1. Introduction Hume asks, "What is our idea of necessity, when we say that two objects are necessarily connected together"? He later says that he has answered this question, but it is difficult to see what his answer is, or even to see precisely what the question was. Currently there are two main ways of understanding Hume's views about our idea (...) of necessary connection. These interpretations divide on the question whether Hume allows that we can speak meaningfully of an objective and necessary connection between two events. The one interpretation, which I will call epistemological, says that Hume does allow meaning to that phrase. On this view, justification is the only topic of Hume's negative message about necessary connection. We can mean what we say when we talk about necessary connection, but we cannot justify what we (meaningfully) say. That, according to this interpretation, is the negative outcome toward which Hume aims his investigation of the origin of our idea of necessary connection. He isn't denying we have that very idea; he is denying that its origin allows us to justify applying it to anything. The other interpretation, which I will call psychological, says that Hume does not allow meaning to the phrase, "an objective and necessary connection between two events." According to this interpretation, once we see the origin of our idea of necessary connection, we realize that we cannot mean by "necessary connection" what we thought we meant. Those words allow us to speak only of a certain 218 feeling in our minds, not of an objective feature of the world. Of course, the psychological interpretation partly resembles the epistemological one: it, too, denies that we can justify saying objective necessary connections exist. But on the psychological interpretation this follows a fortiori from the central negative claim, a claim which itself concerns meaning, not justification. In what follows, I will present these two interpretations more carefully and critically, and then I will advance my own. I think Hume was trying to express a view very different in kind from either of the two I've just mentioned. I think we can get a good idea of the kind of view Hume had by looking at Newton's treatment of gravitational force. Roughly, Newton thought that while there certainly are gravitational forces in objects, we can say nothing about them except that they are whatever it is that accounts for a specific set of observable regularities. Hume's views about necessary connection, or causal power, are roughly parallel. He does not doubt that we may speak meaningfully of objective necessary connections — rE we mean just some unknown quality in objects that underlies the constant conjunction of their sensible qualities. Inevitably we try to mean something more than this, but any such attempt is doomed to failure. Showing that we cannot mean something more is the point of investigating the origin of the "idea." I will be arguing that with this interpretation we can handle the sets of texts and problems that undercut the prevailing two interpretations, and reconcile those sets of texts with one another, despite their apparent inconsistency. This interpretation also has the advantage of attributing to Hume a view closely connected with a 219 distinctively eighteenth-century way of setting up these problems. Finally, I think the interpretation brings out nicely an instructive and central failing of Hume's views about necessary connection. 2. The Epistemological View Although there are hints of this kind of interpretation in other books, it is really articulated and defended only in Barry Stroud's book, 2 Hume. In what follows here, I mean to be sketching out and commenting on that interpretation. Hume wants to find out what our idea of necessary connection is. He conducts his investigation according to the dictum, "as we have no idea, that is not deriv'd from an impression, we must find some impression, that gives rise to this idea of necessity, if we assert we have really such an idea." (T 155) He argues, of course, that among our experiences of causes and effects, there are no impressions of necessary connection. Our experiences of... (shrink)

We should drop the marketplace of ideas as our go-to metaphor in free speech discourse and take up a new metaphor of the connected city. Cities are more liveable when they have an integrated mix of transport options providing their occupants with a variety of locomotive affordances. Similarly, societies are more liveable when they have a mix of communication platforms that provide a variety of communicative affordances. Whereas the marketplace metaphor invites us to worry primarily about authoritarian control over (...) the content that circulates through our communication networks, the connected-city metaphor invites us to worry, more so, about the homogenization of the tools and formats through which we communicate. I argue that the latter worry demands greater attention under emerging technological conditions. (shrink)

On Berkeley’s immaterialist ontology, there are only two kinds of created entities: finite spirits and ideas. Ideas are passive, and so there is no genuine idea-idea causation. Finite spirits, by contrast, are truly causally active on Berkeley’s view, in that they can produce ideas through their volitional activity. Some commentators have argued that this account of causation is inconsistent. On their view, the unequal treatment of spirits and ideas is unfounded, for all that can be observed (...) in either case are mere patterns of regularity; Berkeley should therefore adopt a full-blown occasionalism and follow Malebranche in holding that God is the only true cause. Other commentators have argued that Berkeley denies the tenet that causes necessitate their effects – that is, the idea that causation involves necessary connection – and that in this way he can avoid inconsistency. This paper argues that Berkeley can subscribe to the thesis that finite spirits are truly causally active without falling into inconsistency, even if it is granted that Berkeleyan causes necessitate their effects. His differing treatment of spirits and of ideas is well founded, since ideas are transparent in a way our notions of spirits are not. (shrink)

One of the greatest of Hume's philosophical achievements, which becomes in its turn an assumption presupposed by some of the others, is perhaps best stated at the end of the First Enquiry : ‘If we reason a priori , anything may appear able to produce anything. The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun; or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits. It is only experience, which teaches us the nature and (...) bounds of cause and effect, and enables us to infer the existence of one object from that of another’ 164). (shrink)

Scholars agree that Hegel had an important influence on John Dewey's early work.1 Unfortunately, the precise nature of this influence is not always easy to discern; in his early works, Dewey mentions Hegel only rarely, and seldom refers to him. However, in his letters and in his later works, Dewey concedes that Hegel had a strong influence on his philosophy. For example, in a 1930 essay, "From Absolutism to Experimentalism," Dewey acknowledges the influence of Hegel, noting that "acquaintance with Hegel (...) has left a permanent deposit in my thinking."2This paper is dedicated to the investigation of an important but not particularly well known, connection between the work of Hegel and Dewey's early educational ideas.3 .. (shrink)

Hume seems to tell us that our ideas are copies of our corresponding impres-sions, that we have an idea of necessary connection, but that we have no corresponding impression, since nothing can be known to be really necessarily connected. The paper considers two ways of reinterpreting the doctrine of the origins of ideas so as to avoid the apparent inconsistency. If we see the doctrine as concerned primarily with establishing conditions under which we possess an idea, there (...) is no need for an idea’s “corresponding” impression to be one of which the idea is true. It would be enough that the impression be in some way appropriate for making us master of the idea. Alternatively, if we see the doctrine as concerned primarily with fixing the content of ideas, we might see it operating in the case of causation rather as it must in the case of secondary qualities, conceived in a certain distinctive way. Even if there is “really” no red in the objects , we may regard the idea of red as properly ascribed to any object apt to cause typical sensations in us . Likewise, we may regard the idea of necessary connection as properly ascribed to any pair of objects apt to cause typical habits in us . This view may do justice to Hume’s wish to affirm both that there is such a thing as necessity, resident in the mind, and that there are no knowable necessary connections.Hume parece nos dizer que nossas idéias são cópias de nossas impressões correspondentes, que temos uma idéia de conexão necessária, mas que não temos nenhuma impressão correspondente, visto que nada pode ser conhecido como estando realmente conectado necessariamente. O artigo considera dois modos de se reinterpretar a doutrina das origens das idéias de forma a evitar a aparente inconsistência. Se interpretarmos a doutrina como dizendo respeito fundamentalmente ao estabelecimento das condições sob as quais possuímos uma idéia, não há nenhuma necessidade de uma impressão “correspondente” da idéia ser aquela da qual a idéia é verdadeira. Seria suficiente que a impressão fosse, de alguma maneira, apropriada para que apreendêssemos a idéia. Caso contrário, se interpretarmos a doutrina como interessada fundamentalmente em fixar o conteúdo das idéias, poderíamos ver isto como operando no caso de causação mais propriamente que no caso de qualidades secundárias, concebido de certo modo característico. Mesmo que “realmente” não exista vermelho nos objetos , nós podemos considerar a idéia de vermelho como bem aplicada a qualquer objeto capaz de causar sensações típicas em nós . Igualmente, podemos considerar a idéia de conexão necessária como bem aplicada a qualquer par de objetos apropriado para nos causar hábitos típicos . Esta visão pode fazer justiça à intenção de Hume de afirmar tanto que há tal coisa como necessidade, residente na mente, como que não há nenhuma relação necessária que se possa conhecer. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialists hold that the world is populated by irreducibly dispositional properties, called “potencies,” “powers,” or “dispositions.” Each of these properties is marked out by a characteristic stimulus and manifestation bound together in a metaphysically necessary connection. Dispositional essentialism faces an old objection from David Hume. Hume argues, in his Treatise of Human Nature, that we have no adequate idea of necessary connection. The epistemology of the Treatise allegedly rules the idea out. Dispositional essentialists usually respond by attacking (...) Hume’s epistemology. In this paper, I give an alternative response. I argue that we can draw an idea of necessary connection from the Treatise’s relations of ideas. We are able, therefore, to overcome Hume’s objection without needing to attack his epistemology or its related principles. (shrink)

This article explores J.G.A. Pocock’s insight that “traces” of civic republican discourse survived within the dominant liberal paradigm of modern political thought. It does so by tracking classical republican themes in the works of American pragmatist John Dewey and English pluralist Harold Laski. The main contribution of the article is to show that the 1920s pluralist theory of the state can be interpreted as a reformulation of the classical republican critique of modern liberal conceptions of state sovereignty. In particular, I (...) suggest that Laski can be viewed as a kind of republican pluralist inspired by Aristotle and Harrington as well as by American pragmatism, itself a late outgrowth of the republican tradition in US history. (shrink)

In this chapter, I present a new theodicy, which I call the connection building theodicy. The basic idea behind this theodicy is that virtuous responses to evil allow for certain types of ongoing, intrinsically valuable connections of appreciation, contribution, and what I call “intimacy” between personal agents. Because of their ongoing character, arguably, the value of these connections will eventually outweigh the disvalue of the evils that God must allow in order for them to exist. After presenting the basic (...) idea of the theodicy, I consider a series of objections, and argue for its philosophical, theological, and practical fruitfulness. I do not claim this theodicy offers the sole reason why God allows evil, only that it provides an important and neglected set of reasons. (shrink)

Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies consists of thirteen thematically linked essays on different aspects of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by one of the leading commentators on his work. After an opening overview of Wittgenstein's philosophy the following essays fall into two classes: those that investigate connections between the philosophy of Wittgenstein and other philosophers and philosophical trends, and those which enter into some of the controversies that, over the last two decades, have raged over the interpretation of one aspect or another (...) of Wittgenstein's writings. The connections that are explored include the relationship between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the humanistic and hermeneutic traditions in European philosophy, Wittgenstein's response to Frazer's Golden Bough and the interpretation of ritual actions, his attitude towards and criticisms of Frege, the relationship between his ideas and those of members of the Vienna Circle on the matter of ostensive definition, and a comparison of Carnap's conception of the elimination of metaphysics and of Strawson's rehabilitation of metaphysics with Wittgenstein's later criticisms of metaphysics. The controversies into which Hacker enters include the Diamond-Conant interpretation of the Tractatus, Winch's interpretation of the Tractatus conception of names, Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's discussion of following a rule, and Malcolm's defence of the idea that Wittgenstein claimed that mastery of a language logically requires that the language be shared with other speakers. These far-ranging essays, several of them previously unpublished or difficult to find, shed much light upon different aspects of Wittgenstein's thought, and upon the controversies which it has stimulated. (shrink)

The idea of the numinous is often raised in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic contexts, but it is rarely itself subjected to close scrutiny. This volume examines how the numinous has gained currency in the post-modern world, demonstrating how the numinous is no longer confined to religious discourses but is included in humanist, secular and scientific views of the world. Questions of soul and spirit are increasingly being raised in connection with the scientific exploration of the psyche, and especially in the (...) context of psychotherapy. The contributors to this volume are interested in exploring the numinous in the human psyche, in clinical work, world events, anthropology, sociology, philosophy and the humanities. They originate from multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural backgrounds, bringing a variety of approaches to subjects including: · Witchcraft: the numinous power of humans · Jung and Derrida: the numinous, deconstruction and myth · Accessing the numinous: Apolline and Dionysian pathways · The role of the numinous in the reception of Jung The Idea of the Numinous will fascinate all analytical psychologists, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists interested in investigating the overlap between therapeutic and religious interests. (shrink)

he importance of gender equality and of women’s work in relation to the environment is regarded as a crucial question for development in “third‐world” rural societies. “Development” and a certain standard of welfare make these issues appear to be less urgent in a wealthier country such as Sweden. In this article, I trace some of the contradictions and connections in the ways in which gender equality is conceptualized in women’s struggles vis‐à‐vis environmental issues in rural areas in Sweden and India. (...) The article throws light on two important insights: First, in Sweden, where gender equality has been actively pursued as the bedrock of modern societal organizing, the space to organize as women in relation to environmental issues was fraught with ambiguity. Second, development discourses about equality and empowerment of oppressed third‐world women not only bear on how gender equality is conceptualized and practiced in the global South but also shape the space for gender equality in the North. Analyzing the two cases in relation to each other reveals the travel of ideas and conversations across distant geographical spaces. While ideas about the independent, empowered woman are used to deny agency to women’s collectives in India, gendered discrimination has taken different forms in Sweden, making it more difficult to contest. Understanding how this takes place opens an opportunity for interruption in an order and a space that appears to have become narrower under the umbrella of development, welfare, and growth. It brings into question the category of development in a southern but particularly so in a northern context, where the North, and especially Sweden, is taken as a referent for questions of development and gender equality. -/- . (shrink)

Most literature on vagueness deals with the phenomenon as applied to predicates. On the contrary, even the idea of vague connectives seems to be taken as an oxymoron. The goal of this article is to propose an understanding of vague logical connectives based on vague quantifiers. The main idea is that the phenomenon of vagueness translates to connectives in terms of the property of Abnormality. I also argue that Prior’s Tonk can, according to this approach, be considered a vague connective. (...) In order to do so, I provide a sound and complete interpretation for it, based on Strict-Tolerant semantics, in which Tonk has a non-normal truth-table. (shrink)

The history of ideas is most prominently understood as a highly specialized group of methods for the study of abstract ideas, with both diachronic and synchronic aspects. While theorizing the field has focused on the methods of study, defining the object of study – ideas – has been neglected. But the development of the theories behind material culture studies poses a sharp challenge to these narrow approaches. It both challenges the integrity of the notion of abstract (...) class='Hi'>ideas and also offers possibilities for enlarging the scope of the ways in which we can study ideas historically. It is proposed here to regard ideas as mental relations deeply connected to human communication by both thinking and doing. This connection of ideational thought to human production and behavior is a deep foundation for the history of ideas as an interdisciplinary historiographic means of understanding moral life. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on a use of an idea of evolution in transhumanist discussions about technologies, human enhancement, and a concept of posthuman. Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory stands at the origin of transhumanist thought and provides a theoretical foundation for many contemporary transhumanists. However, in the paper I argue that the idea of evolution used by these writers mostly cannot be interpreted as direct continuation of Darwin’s notion of evolutionary theory. The text is divided into three sections. The (...) first section deals with Kurzweil’s term of evolution of our universe heading to the singularity. In the second section, I point out a metaphor which occurs in some transhumanist texts – the comparison of childhood and adulthood to natural and conscious evolution. The last section focuses on connection between the notions of progress, evolution, and human enhancement. (shrink)

Looking at a number of memorials, memory sites and artworks relating to the Holocaust the book uses this idea of synaesthetic perception to explore trauma, memory and the production of art in relation to painful memories.

Some philosophers and activists have been sceptical about the relevance of pursuing animal justice to progress racial justice. Routinely, these sceptics have argued that allying animal and racial justice struggles is politically unfeasible, counterproductive, distractive and disruptive for the achievement of racial justice. The conclusion of these sceptics is that animal justice is either a barrier or irrelevant to racial justice and, as such, activists should not ally both struggles. In this article, I wish to contest the arguments that forward (...) the idea that these struggles should not be addressed together, especially in the case of addressing anti-Black racial injustices. I offer a negative argumentative strategy to forward my thesis; namely, I offer reasons to reject the arguments that are sceptical about the relevance of addressing animal justice to achieve progress in racial justice. I contend that racial injustice is partly fuelled by the capacity contract. The capacity contract, in turn, is intertwined with the way humans treat animals. Owing to the fact that speciesism fuels the contract that incites racism, then addressing speciesism is instrumentally relevant for overcoming racial injustices. Moreover, I demonstrate in this article that not only are there various ways that anti-racist and anti-speciesist struggles are interconnected, but also that the project of addressing them together is politically feasible and desirable. (shrink)

Do concepts exist independently of the mind? Where does objective reality diverge from subjective experience? John Burbidge calls upon the work of some of the foremost thinkers in philosophy to address these questions, developing a nuanced account of the relationship between the mind and the external world. In Ideas, Concepts, and Reality John Burbidge adopts, as a starting point, Gottlob Frege's distinction between "ideas," which are subjective recollections of past sensations, and "concepts," which are shared by many and (...) make communication possible. Engaging with Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and many others, the book argues that concepts are not eternal and unchanging, as Frege suggested, but open to revision. We can move from ideas to thoughts, Burbidge suggests, that can be refined to the point where they acquire independent and objective status as concepts. At the same time, they are radically connected to other concepts which either complement or are differentiated from them. Ideas, Concepts, and Reality offers a fresh perspective on the ways in which rigorous thought differs from other operations of the mind. Daringly inventive and accessibly written, the book will appeal to philosophers at all levels of interest. (shrink)

In this collectively written article, the authors interrogate contemporary power constellations that run between control and connectivity. Regimes of individualism, hierarchies of assumed classifications and imperialistic subjectivities sustain the basis for political control that organises connections and divisions used to justify hierarchical dominations and distributions. This makes anti-oppression practices that value differing forms of connectivity and intra-dependence (between humans, more than humans, disciplines, all things considered to be of different bodies) nearly unimaginable. The authors offer/reconfigure/understand connectivity as a practice acting (...) in and at odds with those controlling political regimes that organise and classify matter(s), while experimenting with their own writing methodology aimed at staying connected. Informed by new materialist feminist practices and ideas, the authors discuss the political stakes of multiple ideas of connectivity within three empirical scenarios: academic labour practices, social media and a digitally established mutual aid community. We trace entangled forces of separation and control shaped by global imperialism, processes of individuation and technological apparatuses and how they perform within these scenarios. This approach is mirrored in our practice of writing together. In an alternative to traditionalised ways of writing, we expand upon an embodied praxis, elaborating on multiple engagements while offering our own connections with these differing situated knowledges. In light of this, the authors write in a diffractive, collective fashion that lies somewhere between a conversation and the strict linearity of typical narratives. (shrink)

The big bang idea is not only a dominant idea in cosmology but also a very successfully idea out of cosmology. Although sometimes just in metaphorical sense, the big bang idea is present, since some decades, in a variety of domains such as natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, arts, and it also has a great acceptance by the general public. Furthermore, the term Big Bang has become increasingly popular and currently it is often used with very different purposes, including commercial (...) purposes, in contexts that have nothing to do with science, such as music, television, cinema, circus, house decoration, food, and other unexpected domains. Proposed by Gerald Holton, thematic analysis is a useful tool for studying cases like this, because it identifies and describes elements that cross and connect all areas of knowledge and culture in general and thus can help to understand the reception, appropriation and use of certain ideas in different but contemporary disciplinary and cultural contexts, which may be involved in intellectual fashions and in styles of thought of one particular time. (shrink)

After briefly summarizing Blythe Clinchy’s account of connected knowing as a knowing procedure distinguishable from separate knowing and subjectivism, I draw comparisons between it and certainfeaturesof Polanyi’s epistemology. Connected knowing and Polanyi’s indwelling have much in common. Polanyian destructive analysis comparesfavorably with separate knowing, and they concur in the detrimental restriction of knowledge to that procedure. Neither indwelling nor connected knowing should be gender-specific, though their de facto gender-specificity may be challenged along with all the other false dichotomies which are (...) the fall-out of an overweening objectivist ideal.My own experience ofdrawing on Polanyi’s insights to shape my own teaching practices confirm and help to elucidate the implications of revised epistemology for the classroom. Also, my own work developing covenant epistemology underscores and develops the idea of connected knowing. I give practical examples of personal classroom practices. Finally, I offer further comments in response to Clinchy’s collection of quotations regarding the college classroom. (shrink)

The logical connection argument claims that since the relation between a want and the supposedly resultant action is " logical " in nature, Whereas the relation between any cause and its effect must be contingent in nature, A want therefore cannot be the cause of an action. I consider four classical formulations of the lca, And review various objections that have been brought against them. Then I present my own formulation of the lca, Which is immune to such objections. (...) I conclude that we must abandon the idea that a person's wants cause his actions. (shrink)

This thoughtful, learned, well-written, extensively illustrated, and heavily documented study deserves to be regarded as a landmark in art history. Traditional art history has dealt for the most part with the “fine arts” (chiefly painting, drawing, sculpture, and architecture), whereas other human creations that take physical form (such as furniture, ceramics, textiles, and metal and glass items), whether utilitarian or decorative (or both at once), are considered “craft” or “applied art” and are studied by folklorists, anthropologists, and archaeologists and often (...) displayed in different museums. Cooke wishes to break down this “hierarchical taxonomy,” this “fragmented, hierarchical field,” that emerged from Western Europe's “misunderstanding of art,” which valued “the cerebral over the manual.” His goal, in other words, is to outline “a more inclusive human history of art”— “a connected art history.” This phrase from his subtitle refers not simply to connecting “fine art” with “applied art” but also to crossing temporal and regional boundaries. Still another act of connecting is to examine all parts of an object's life history, and thus the three main divisions of the book deal with the making of objects, their circulation from one person and place to another (and “their ability to transmit ideas” in the process), and their meaning for the persons who possessed or encountered them.Over the years I have repeatedly said that all objects made by human beings are worthy of preservation and study because they bring us into direct contact with the past and, as part of our surroundings, affect our thoughts in the present. Every object, I have argued, including copies of a single printed edition of a book (so-called duplicates), is an independent witness to the past. I am particularly pleased, therefore, to welcome a major book that explores in detail, with a wealth of examples from many centuries and cultures, the place of objects in human history. Cooke's pursuit is “object-driven,” beginning with the nature of the materials and finally coming to “the inherent power of the object itself to influence human thought and action.” (Compare the subtitle of Sherry Turkle's 2007 anthology Evocative Objects: Things We Think With.) Cooke's refusal to separate “materials” from “people,” or “technologies” from “values,” reminds me of John Szarkowski's approach to photographs. In Photography until Now (1989), Szarkowski points out that histories of photography generally treat technical matters separately from artistic ones—a split between the “empirical” and the “intuitive” that he finds indefensible, for “these two ways of knowing meet in the process of making things.” He adds, “The meeting can be cordially symbiotic or aggressively competitive, but its resolution defines the character and meaning of the thing that is made.” This statement has been a favorite of mine as an elegant characterization of the nature of art, and it is one that Cooke would clearly agree with.Cooke does not discuss photography, but he makes clear that he is not attempting a “comprehensive history that charts the complete ebb and flow of objects over time.” Rather, his book is meant to be a “suggestive guide” to the “principles of material literacy,” a “kit of tools for future complex constructions of history.” Even so, I find some of the omissions puzzling. Why, for example, are glass objects not taken up, when he so thoroughly deals with other common materials? More serious, in my opinion, is the exclusion of the fine arts. (Of the 215 illustrations, five are of oil paintings and one is of a Japanese print, but they are present only as the sources for information drawn from their pictorial content; one Hogarth engraving is shown because its image was often reproduced on punch bowls; and there is a very brief passage on the “uneasy relationship” between sculpture and material culture, but no sculptures are illustrated or used as examples for discussion.) Presumably Cooke felt it was unnecessary for his book to encompass the fine arts after demonstrating that functional objects are just as sophisticated artistically and culturally as products of the fine arts are. Yet those products also belong to the universe of “entangled objects” (How could they not?), and it would have been illuminating to see them adduced among the examples Cooke cites. One could argue that by excluding them—and by referring to the makers of the objects he does discuss as “artisans” and “craftspeople”—he comes close to reinforcing the division he wishes to eliminate.Less easy to explain is Cooke's omission of books, for they have been one of the largest and most widely circulated classes of utilitarian objects. Most people never think about books as objects, treating them only as disposable receptacles for transmitting verbal texts in tangible form (which is why so many books are destroyed when their texts supposedly become available in another form). Such people do not realize that texts have connections with their physical embodiments. (For example, books, whether manuscript or printed, often contain clues revealing how their texts were affected by the production process; and readers’ attitudes toward texts can be influenced by their presentation.) Cooke, however, with his deep understanding of the way objects function and his impressive knowledge of the scholarship, cannot be one of these uninformed people. He would obviously be aware of the vast literature devoted to leather and cloth bookbindings and their decoration, as well as to the myriad styles of letters and the varieties of paper and parchment; he would also know how letterforms and binding designs reflect a complex interplay of social, political, and artistic forces. Bibliographers have long studied books as Cooke advocates studying other objects: “working from the inside out,” beginning with the evidence in books themselves for reconstructing the routines that were followed in their creation. And book historians are recognizing the necessity for an international approach like Cooke's, since many of the books circulating in one country originated in other countries. Books would have been a prolific additional source for illustrating Cooke's analyses.My admiration for Cooke's book is not altered by these few disappointments. Even without discussions of paintings, sculptures, and books, it is still exhilarating in its scope and depth. One hopes that art and material-culture historians will pay attention to it. But it ought to have a wider audience, for the daily lives of all of us would be enriched by a greater appreciation of the objects that make up a significant part of our environment. (shrink)

For men of the 19th century, the world was ordered by a whole system of concrete universals: ideals and the empirical world were simply two aspects of the same reality; ideals described an empirical reality which included them as its actual cohesive power. This character is reflected in the fact that the most influential thinkers of the last century combined, despite the rise of the specialized disciplines, sociological, historical and philosophical approaches to a reality which in social, temporal, and cosmic (...) aspects they conceived to be homogeneous. This unity has been dissolved in 20th century thought. The results of sociological and historical investigations of social reality have undermined the absolute validity of ideals. Epistemology has tended to undermine the meaningfulness of the objective world. Even so, attempts to revivify the old ideals by re-synthesizing ideas and existence are still being made. Historicism has been continuously concerned with its own Ueberwindung by the establishment of an absolute value; sociology has continued to search for general meanings, whether in the form of a sociology of knowledge or the culture-dynamics of a Sorokin; philosophy has concentrated its attention upon existence or experience or process: and the prominence of the philosophy of history and of philosophy as history which these developments imply are testimony of the tendency to replace nature by man so that man is the arena in which the re-integration of the different levels of reality is to be sought. Values which took a hard and fast form in the connection between general idea and particular existence in the 19th century have been disengaged through dissociation. The examination of historical and social experience and ideas in their own terms has made possible a new assessment of what is essential and what contingent in the general concepts of western man. At the same time even the subsequent integrative procedure, i.e. the historizing of ideas and the philosophizing of experience, has contributed further to such an assessment by including as the necessary basis for thought all of man's history and experience within its purview. (shrink)

In the modern world of total technologization, scientific knowledge devoid of worldview correction (humanitarian expertise) carries a threatening tendency of self-denial: without a constant, philosophically correct transformation of objective knowledge about certain fragments (branches) of the surrounding reality into human knowledge (questions) about itself, the practical effectiveness of such knowledge inevitably accumulates in itself the threat of practical helplessness. Aim and the tasks of the research. Based on an in-depth analysis of the category of existence, as well as on modern (...) philosophical reflections on the methodological and cognitive insolvency of the idea of the world, to find out the real meaning of those changes that this idea meaningfully undergoes in the conditions of the modern total technologization of human life. The research methodology. From a methodological point of view, the author prefers a dialectical approach, considering the analyzed phenomena, regardless of the mode of their reality, in their development and internally contradictory essence. H. Plesner’s theory of eccentric positionality serves as a certain base point for the analysis of human nature and, accordingly, the world of human existence. Research results: The problematic existence of the world and the epistemological «failure» of the corresponding category, declared in some modern philosophical reflections, are connected exclusively with its anthropological and worldview function, which is based on the fundamental uncertainty of a man’s place in the world. The «worthlessness» («futility») of worldview thematization is derived from the allencompassing inability of the human figure in the world, from that «emptiness» and «invisibility» (specific own transparency) of the spiritual dimension of human existence, on which, however, this existence is based. Discussion. The human «option» of fulfilling the unity of living being can be characterized as extremely intense. In this variant, the phylogenetic line of development turns into an ontogenetic point of worldliness devoid of predetermined content, a fundamentally new type of integration. The horizons of such integration far exceed primarily because of its understanding. And the subject of such a meaningful life is forced to integrate everything that happens to him every time into a certain system (synthesis) of the world. That subjectivity the world has distinguishes the subject from the thing. Subjectivity and the world mutually belong to each other - they are correlative. A thing exists because it is what it is. The subject (and with it his world) does not exist like that. A subject is how and to what it relates. But the relation «how» and «to what» is not carried out completely anew and isolated every time, but exists in its multiplicity in a certain relationship. Each individual case, each individual action (method of action) acquires its meaning from a wider, structured context – in whole or in part. This context is the «world», the «life world» of the real subject, or the «world» as an anthropological idea. Conclusions. The task of modern humanitarianism is not only to find opportunities for rational use of the fact of the fundamental openness of the human being, but also to cultivate the ability to reconcile a man with himself, to accept himself. This gives us certain reasons to hope for the enduring significance of worldview thematization. Criticism regarding the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that to become a man, one must already be one, could be considered fair, but only if one does not take into account the principled nature of such an aphoristic position, because this is exactly how the human world exists - as the art of tolerance uncertainty. (shrink)

This article shows that longstanding connections established through inclusion in the British Empire were maintained in significant ways after individual countries became independent, but remained within the Commonwealth. Although Britain declined as an international power, and largely lost its empire, it reveals ongoing British soft-power in academic cultures. The article provides a new scholarly analysis, moving away from presumptions about the anglicised university ideal in the Global South. How did British ideas transfer themselves to former colonial universities? Who was (...) involved in the process? To answer to these questions, this research focuses on the transnational activities of the Inter-University Council, the University of London and African and Caribbean universities during the late and post-colonial eras. Liberal, elite and residential education, a balance of teaching and research schemes were combined; institutional autonomy was a further added important elements in the classic British university cultures. However, the notion of Britain’s institutional autonomy differed in colonial universities, but functioned well for protecting their academic freedom. The circulation of British ideas for universities was a means of anglicising overseas universities at the end of empire. Britain succeeded in keeping alive the bonds of the Commonwealth universities across the wider world. (shrink)

Many empiricists, among them Locke and Hume, make a distinction between simple and complex ideas. Berkeley refuses to do so, because he finds connections—objective connections incompatible with simplicity—even among the ‘simplest’ of ideas. Simple ideas, in his view, are illegitimately abstract.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the connection between two notions of growing interest in contemporary metaphysics – truthmaking and grounding. The former has provoked a great deal of controversy since the 1980s, whereas the latter has attracted serious attention only since the beginning of this century. Although the two notions are closely connected, only a few attempts have been made so far at clarifying that connection. The present paper is intended as an investigation of the (...) connection on the basis of the appreciation of the core ideas of truthmaker theory. To begin with, two conceptions of the connection are distinguished, and the conception that truthmaking can be defined in terms of grounding is endorsed. Next, two ideas that form the core of truthmaker theory are delineated, and it is argued that the definition of truthmaking should be based on the idea that truthmakers are metaphysically fundamental entities. Finally, it is shown that a particular problem with grounding can be resolved by restricting a relevant logical principle for grounding, justified by the idea that truth is a derivative aspect of reality. The discussion reveals the significance of appreciating the core of truthmaker theory in developing a theory of grounding. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:138 In 2010 the city of Colorado Springs was strapped for cash. Government officials announced that they would either have to raise revenue through increased taxation or cut public services—­ in some cases rather severely—­ including, perhaps, police and fire protection, and even more basic bits of municipal infrastructure. The city shut down one-­ third of residential streetlights and closed public restrooms. Citi­ zens were outraged, but a majority (...) of voters had recently defeated a proposed tax increase. It’s tempting to suppose that the city was trying to teach its citizens a lesson: if you want public services, you have to be willing to pay for them. Colorado Springs is, and has been for some time now, a died-­in-­the-­wool small-­government, anti-­tax-­increase, fiscally conservative town. As Colorado Springs resident Bo Sharifi put it, “As soon as I hear government [say] ‘Oh, we need more money’... I guess I kind of automatically assume there’s probably some other things you could probably cut before firemen, policemen, city lights and that sort of thing.”1 On the surface, that seems reasonable. So... what comes to mind? How about food stamps? What about WIC? Of course these are federal services, not funded by Coloradans alone. There’s government, and then there’s government. Well, how about... well... what? Doesn’t the government spend money on all sorts of things we could very easily do without? Perhaps. Isn’t it part of our job to know or to decide which things these are? If we don’t trust government, even more obviously we don’t trust it with our money, though we pretty clearly have no idea how public funds are actually allocated or spent. When asked whether he remembered the proposed tax increase that the city had voted against, Sharifi replied, “maybe.” Bo and his wife were charged $125 to have Connected: How Trains, Genes, Pineapples, Piano Keys, and a Few Disasters Transformed Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century By Steven Cassedy Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014 JOHN MARIANA Book Reviews 139 their streetlight turned back on. Bo’s wife Sara viewed this as extortion. “By shoveling out a hundred dollars to turn on a streetlight that we kind of felt was supposed to be on anyway, that it was giving them what they wanted,” she said. They who? One resident wrote the city of Colorado Springs a check for $300 to turn the lights on for his entire neighborhood. City Councilwoman Jan Martin pointed out to him that the total cost to the individual Colorado Springs taxpayer to keep the streetlights on—­and to fund the maintenance of public parks and medians, as well as community centers and pre-­recession-­level police and fire services—­by approving the tax increase would have been: $200. He replied that he would never vote for a tax increase. In other words, as the reporter who covered the story (Robert Smith) observed, he would rather pay more to keep the streetlights on in his own neighborhood than to pay for all city services combined. Smith remarked that “Colorado Springs was stepping away from one of the things that we take for granted in most American cities: that we’re all in it together—­ at least when it comes to basic services.”2 As near as I can tell, this is the moral of Steven Cassedy’s exceptionally timely Connected: that we’re all in it together. For much of the book Cassedy merely traces the history of the emergence in the consciousness of ordinary Americans of the concept of the social network, but he is not so much talking about the notion of a network society as such, as I understand him. Or, at any rate, the network society as such is not really his main concern. He is talking about the idea of social, political, national, and ultimately global and universal human interconnectedness that was a distinct product of the complex networked structures (both concrete and abstract) that came to constitute modern American life in the twentieth century (and of course life pretty much everywhere ), and about our understanding of ourselves as so networked.3 On this... (shrink)

We point out the need to clarify some of the ideas related to the connection between development and sustainability in the Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development. In particular, the meaning of ‘sustainable’ is not clear when applied to specific areas of human activity. A more detailed explanation of the kind of equality sought for in the proposal is also needed. Because of potential conflicts between goals, we miss some considerations on (...) the impact of population increase both on development and on sustainability. A distinction is made here between two kinds of goals included in the Report. Some of the proposed 17 goals can then be seen as ends in themselves, whereas others seem to be means for the first set. The two sets thereby established should be seen in theory and dealt with in practice in a differentiated manner. (shrink)

In the newly discovered letter Hume answers Reid's charge that he held a theory of ideas derived from his predecessors and criticizes Reid's own theory of innate ideas. He defends his own theory that ideas are derived from impressions. I discuss Reid's own puzzlement that in the first _Enquiry_ Hume ascribes a natural belief in necessary connections to the vulgar without an idea--and its influence on subsequent readings of Hume as a 'regularity theorist.' I argue that it (...) was the 'Common Sense' school of philosophers following Reid, rather than Hume, who insisted that beliefs must be based on legitimate ideas. (shrink)

Networks pervade social and economic life, and they play a prominent role in explaining a huge variety of social and economic phenomena. Standard economic theory did not give much credit to the role of networks until the early 1990s, but since then the study of the theory of networks has blossomed. At the heart of this research is the idea that the pattern of connections between individual rational agents shapes their actions and determines their rewards. The importance of connections has (...) in turn motivated the study of the very processes by which networks are formed. In Connections, Sanjeev Goyal puts contemporary thinking about networks and economic activity into context. He develops a general framework within which this body of research can be located. In the first part of the book he demonstrates that location in a network has significant effects on individual rewards and that, given this, it is natural that individuals will seek to form connections to move the network in their favor. This idea motivates the second part of the book, which develops a general theory of network formation founded on individual incentives. Goyal assesses the robustness of current research findings and identifies the substantive open questions. Written in a style that combines simple examples with formal models and complete mathematical proofs, Connections is a concise and self-contained treatment of the economic theory of networks, one that should become the natural source of reference for graduate students in economics and related disciplines. (shrink)

A detailed analysis of joint-contribution of premises and conclusions in classically valid sequents is presented in terms of hypergraphs. In (Saint-Germier, P., Verdée, P., & Villalonga, P. T. (2024). _Relevant entailment and logical ground. Philosophical Studies_ (pp. 1–43). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02101-1 ), this idea of joint-contribution is introduced and motivated as a method for characterizing four kinds of relevant validity, in the sense of selecting the relevantly valid sequents among the classically valid sequents. The account in (Saint-Germier, P., Verdée, P., & Villalonga, (...) P. T. (2024). _Relevant entailment and logical ground. Philosophical Studies_ (pp. 1–43). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02101-1 ) is built on a calculus, called \(\textsf{GLK}^{\hbox {a}}\), which proves grounding claims for (enthymematically) valid sequents. In the present paper an adequate representation of \(\textsf{GLK}^{\hbox {a}}\) is given in terms of hypergraphs. The hypergraphs are a kind of diagrammatic proofs for Classical Propositional Logic, entirely based on the grounds of premises and conclusions. The hypergraphs and their visualization provide insights into the relations between premises and conclusions and into the way validity is produced by the binding of premises and conclusions via their partial grounds. They visualize the network of elements of the sequent that contribute to its logical validity. Non-contributing (i.e. irrelevant) premises and conclusions are then specified to be those that are disconnected from the network, however one constructs the graphs. (shrink)

This paper combines the ancient idea that causes necessitate their effects with Angelika Kratzer’s semantics of modality. On the resulting view, causal claims quantify over restricted domains of possible worlds determined by two contextually determined parameters. I argue that this view can explain a number of otherwise puzzling features of the way we use and evaluate causal language, including the difference between causing an effect and being a cause of it, the sensitivity of causal judgements to normative facts, and the (...) semantics of causal disagreements. (shrink)

Nominal concepts represent things as tokens of types. Recent research suggests that we represent principled connections between the type of thing something is (e.g., DOG) and some of its properties (k‐properties; e.g., having four legs for dogs) but not other properties (t‐properties; e.g., being brown for dogs). Principled connections differ from logical, statistical, and causal connections. Principled connections license (i) the expectation that tokens of the type will generally possess their k‐properties, (ii) formal explanations (i.e., explanation of the presence of (...) k‐properties in tokens of a type by reference to the type of thing it is), and (iii) normative expectations concerning the presence of k‐properties in tokens of the type. The present paper investigates the hypothesis that representing principled connections requires representing properties as aspects of being the relevant kind of thing (Aspect Hypothesis). Experiment 1 provides a direct test of the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiments 2 and 3 provide indirect tests of the Aspect Hypothesis. All three experiments provide support for the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiment 4 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the manner in which formal explanations are licensed by principled connections. Finally, Experiment 5 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the nature of the normative expectations licensed by principled connections. Together these results provide strong evidence for the idea that representing principled connections involves representing a property as being an aspect of being a given kind of thing. The results also help clarify the manner in which formal explanation differs from other modes of explanation. Finally, the results of the experiments are used to motivate a proposal concerning the formal structure of the conceptual representations implicated by principled connections. This structure provides a domain‐general way of structuring our concepts and embodies the perspective we take when we think and talk of things as being instances of a kind. (shrink)

Boldly describing the mind as the idea of the body – and the body as the most immediate object of our thinking – opens the way to a solution of the mind-body problem that Descartes bequeathed to philosophers discontented with substantial forms: Thought and extension, being of different natures, cannot explain one another. But if the mind intends the body, the congruence of mental and physical events makes sense. The order and connection of ideas parallels the order and (...) connection of their objects. So thoughts can address the world; ideas, in fact, can initiate actions. The lively subjectivity and reflectiveness of ideas helps further, in overcoming skepticism, dissolving the barrier between our thinking and its intellectual objects. The causal interconnectedness of natural objects can thus motivate a level of coherence and system among ideas that speaks up for the correspondence of adequate ideas to what they represent. (shrink)

Purpose: This paper intends to connect ideas from the radical constructivist approach to cognition and learning to ideas from the constraint-theoretic approach to social policy formulation. It then extends these ideas to a dialogic approach to social transformation and design. Method: After demonstrating a correspondence between von Glasersfeld's fit/match distinction and my constraint-oriented/goal-oriented distinction with respect to policy formulation, the paper evaluates the basic assumptions of radical constructivism and builds from them a framework for thinking and talking (...) about a desirable society and ways to participate in its realization. Findings: The ideas of von Glasersfeld's radical constructivism contribute significantly to the development of a conceptual base for applied research on social activism by raising new questions and stimulating new thinking. Practical implications: Social activism in everyday affairs can be a way of living in the "world." Conclusion: The work and thought of Ernst von Glasersfeld opens a path toward a rich array of concepts and ideas with the potential to inform efforts in a wide variety of human endeavors. (shrink)

The present article analyzes and outlines significant changes in ideas about the object of scientific knowledge in modern science. Special attention is paid to the transition to the paradigm of complexity, within which the object of scientific knowledge acquires a complex systemic character and remains in the same complex connections with systems of different levels. It is marked that such changes entail a number of methodological requirements, which are especially clearly manifested in modern theories of bioethics and its real (...) practices. A special role in this case is assigned to issues of transdisciplinary approach, complementary methodology, and values of the subject of bioethical cognition. The prospects for further research are related to the possibilities of deepening the methodology of the paradigm of complexity based on the application of a transdisciplinary approach. (shrink)