This paper explores the ways in which music educators have allowed others outside of music education to name who and how they are in the world. Often comfortable with voicing advocacy and purpose from the status of second class citizen, music educators are complicit in the very processes of reproduction they wish to challenge. Seeking to address what could be a privileged positioning of marginalized status, this paper also speaks to the spaces that are created that could afford possibilities (...) of transformation. Thus, rather than to allow the perceived netherworld of marginalized status to name who we are and can be, we can name our own reality as we challenge the ways in which our own thoughts, beliefs, and actions are acquired and reproduced. (shrink)

This contribution investigates the unbearable tension between the homiletical act of naming reality on the one hand, and neglecting this same reality on the other hand, thereby causing it to return to an ignored, unchallenged and degenerated state. The author focuses on tension fields that are generated when preachers embark on the activity of naming realities in their proximate contexts and how they position, withdraw or distance themselves in a certain way when problematic elements are opened up by (...) the act of naming. By means of a theological reflection on the renewal of the heart by God's act of grace in Christ, the author attempts to identify key markers for a homiletic theory that will be able to link the act of naming reality with the act of nurturing this named reality. (shrink)

이 글은 중국 고대의 명실론을 개괄하고 동서양 사유구조의 단면을 고찰한 것이다. 동서철학은 공통적으로 인간에 대한 연구를 중시하지만 상호 차별성을 갖고 있다. 첫째 서양철학에서는 개인 혹은 자아 연구를 중시하고, 개인의 권익과 자유를 강조한다. 그런데 중국의 전통철학 가운데 특히 유가는 개인과 타인의 관계에 치중하고 있다. 우리는 이 점을 유가와 법가의 논의를 통해서 확인할 수 있다. 둘째 동서철학은 모두 사람과 자연의 관계를 중시한다. 그러나 여기에도 각각의 차별성을 갖고 있다. 서양철학에서는 사람의 자연에 대한 이용과 정복을 강조하고, 자연의 사람에 대한 제약 혹은 반작용을 소홀히 여긴다. (...) 더욱이 서양의 경험주의와 과학주의에서는 사람과 자연의 대립을 중시하고, 나아가 자연의 개조를 강조한다. 그런데 중국철학 가운데 특히 도가는 그렇지 않다. 그들이 강조하는 것은 사람과 자연의 대립이 아니라 인간과 자연의 통일이며, 인간의 자연에 대한 의존성을 강조하고, 양자의 和諧를 도모한다. 우리는 이것을 도가의 논의에서 확인할 수 있다. 그렇다면 동서양의 사유구조에 근본적 차이가 있게 된 것은 무엇 때문인가? 흔히 이것을 역사적으로 경제제도 및 지리환경의 차이에서 비롯한 것으로 설명한다. 그런데 여기에 더욱 근본적인 원인으로서 양자의 언어적 특징과 언어에 대한 관점의 차이를 덧붙이는 경우가 있다. 이에 따른다면 서양인의 안목에서 언어는 하느님과 마찬가지로 전지전능하여 세상에서 언어와 수학으로 표현될 수 없는 것은 없다고 본다는 것이다. 사실 이것은 사유방식의 차이뿐만 아니라 나아가 논리적 형식체계의 차이가 나는 원인으로 볼 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

The examination of names and words constitutes an important aspect of the philosophy of Zhuangzi. With the debate over the relationship between name and reality as its background, this examination not only involves the connection between form and meaning, but also targets at the connection between concepts and objects. The debate over the relationship between name and reality correlates with the discussion of the connection between words and meanings or ideas. For Zhuangzi, the function of names (...) and words is first and foremost embodied as the classification and distinction of being, while the Dao, as the universal principle of being, is characterized by equality and throughness. This leads to an inherent disparity and tension between names, words and the Dao. Zhuangzi's thinking and argument concern the connections between name and reality, words and ideas, and the Dao and words. This displays multiple theoretical perspectives and the complexity of its thought. /// 对名与言的考察，构成了《庄子》哲学的重要方面。以名实之辩为背景，名与 育的考察既捞及语言形式与涵义的关系，也指向概念与对象的关系。与名实之辩相 关的是言意之辩，后者所指向的是言与意的关系。同时，对《庄子》而言，名言的 作用首先表现为对存在的 "分" 和 "别", 而 "道" 作为存在的普遍原理，则以 "齐" 与 "通" 为内在品格，后者使道与名言呈现内在的距离和张力。对名与实、言与意、 道与言等关系的辨析，既展示了《庄子》的多重理论视域，又表现了其思想的复杂性。. (shrink)

The English Synopsis is after the text of the book. The book presents an original and generalizing substantive vision of the philosophy of science through the prism of a detailed analysis of the polysystem structure of scientific theories. Theories are considered, firstly, as complex specialized forms of developed scientific thinking about the realities studied by natural science, secondly, as constantly improving tools for producing new knowledge in interaction with experimental research, and thirdly, as carriers of ordered and verified knowledge. Emphasis (...) is placed on their nominal and ontic subsystems. The book develops personal and joint research of the authors (theoretical physicist and philosopher), the experience of teaching philosophy of physics at NaUKMA, philosophy of science at the Higher School of Philosophy at the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and theoretical physics at the National Technical University "Ihor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute". The research is based on a significant source base covering works of modern Western researchers in natural science and philosophy of science. For students, teachers, and scientists who are interested in the problems of modern philosophy of science and have a certain amount of scientific knowledge. It will also be useful for high school students who are eager to become scientists. (shrink)

This book offers an innovative, unified theoretical model for better understanding of the processes underpinning naming and framing and the power of words in shaping our perceived reality.

The examination of names and words constitutes an important aspect of the philosophy of Zhuangzi. With the debate over the relationship between name and reality as its background, this examination not only involves the connection between form and meaning, but also targets at the connection between concepts and objects. The debate over the relationship between name and reality correlates with the discussion of the connection between words and meanings or ideas. For Zhuangzi, the function of names (...) and words is first and foremost embodied as the classification and distinction of being, while the Dao, as the universal principle of being, is characterized by equality and throughness. This leads to an inherent disparity and tension between names, words and the Dao. Zhuangzi℉s thinking and argument concern the connections between name and reality, words and ideas, and the Dao and words. This displays multiple theoretical perspectives and the complexity of its thought. (shrink)

SummaryThe common ground out of which the problem of “Language versus Reality” was to arise in ancient Greek philosophy may be characterized by the fact that words in general were thought of as names and thus considered to get their meaning accordingly. However, while Parmenides was actually committing himself to the position that language was altogether meaningless, Heraclitus seems to have believed that name and meaning are unrelated or even opposite to each other. Plato's Forms are clearly meant (...) to serve as objects of linguistic meaning and reference. Aristotle retained the fundamentally realist theory of meaning which he inheritated from Plato and thus became liable to the criticism advanced by the Stoics, who insisted that there is no isomorphic correlation between thought on the one hand and things‐that‐are on the other. (shrink)

Charles W. Morris' doctoral thesis Symbolism and Reality, written in 1925 at Chicago under George H. Mead, has never before been published. It sets out to prove that thought and mind are not entities, nor even processes involving a psychical substance distinguishable from the rest of reality, but are explicable as the functioning of parts of the experience as symbols to an organism of other parts of experience. Being then the symbolic portion of experience, the psychical or mental (...) can neither be sharply opposed to the rest of experience nor identical with the whole of experience. This edition includes a preface by Achim Eschbach, an extensive bibliography of Morris' works, and indices of names and subjects. (shrink)

This essay is part of a doctoral dissertation presented to the Department of Philosophy, University of São Paulo, in 1993, named 'Genealogy of the Real' . Its core idea is a Nietzschean approach to a masterpiece among philosophical inspired movies, namely, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, which surely touches deep groundings of the concept of truth and reality.

This is a major work by one of the best-known philosophical writers, representing the culmination of some twenty-five years’ work on the possibility of giving a rational defence of the claims of the religious man, and specifically the theist, in the face of modern criticisms. Dr Ewing’s object has been to fulfil what seem to him the two most important tasks for the philosopher in at least the present age, namely, to see if it is still possible to give a (...) rational defence of a genuinely religious point of view, and to do the same thing for an objective ethics, a task he has attempted in other works, and continues here. The conclusions are that while there can be no question of strict, logical proof, an ethical theism can be defended rationally as an explanatory, metaphysical hypothesis and there are no grounds to reject as illusory the most fundamental intuitive convictions of religion. The book, originally published in 1973, included a new theory of the ultimate criterion of truth for hypotheses, a restatement of the case for a substantial self and for indeterminism, a fresh treatment of the moral and certain other arguments for God, some points in the discussion of the problem of evil and some speculations on time. (shrink)

In this essay, Anscombe describes the Aristotelian account of how the intellect makes actually intelligible the forms of material particulars, and thereby is able to fashion concepts and think of those things. She identifies difficulties in it having to do with the differing “content” of concepts and of forms, and the generality of the former. She then contrasts that account with the Lockean theory of ideas as representations and with Hume’s development of the ideational view which holds that all we (...) can ever conceive of are ideas and impressions. She next compares the Aristotelian isomorphist account with that of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, showing that while both avoid the sceptical implication of the theory of ideas, a question arises regarding the relation of names to their bearers and how to understand ostensible names. Finally, Anscombe outlines Anselm’s treatment of “nothing” but notes its limits as a general treatment. (Ed. J.H.). (shrink)

Alexej Remizov is usually regarded by literary critics as a Symbolist rather than a Futurist writer. However, I would posit that Remizov similarly to the Futurists viewed language as “logos,” bozhestvennii glagol. According to the mystical interpretation of the famous words “At the beginning there was Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”, when God was creating the world he named the objects, and these abstract names became a force for the appearance of an object (...) in physical reality. In the light of these words, The Medieval mystical and magical philosophers claimed that one could restore the divine language of Creation, possess the ability to create objects anew, and thereby become Creator himself. One can argue that a major goal of Remizov was similar to that of hisMedieval predecessors: to reveal the mystical power of language in order to create, not to describe reality. The paper analyzes three chapters from Alexej Remizov’s Rossiya v pis’menah, a book which can be read as a manifesto of Remizov’s attitude toward language and reality, and discuss possible sourcesthat might have influenced Remizov in his attitude towards language. (shrink)

What should philosophical theology look like after the critique of Onto-theology, after Phenomenology, and in the age of Speculative Realism? What does Kabbalah have to say to Philosophy? Since Kant and especially since Husserl, philosophy has only permitted itself to speak about how one relates to God in terms of the intentionality of consciousness and not of how God is in himself. This meant that one could only ever speak to God as an addressed and yearned-for holy Thou, but not (...) to God as infinite creator of all. In this book-length essay, the author argues that reality itself is made up of the Holy Name of God. Drawing upon the set-theoretical ontology of Alain Badiou, the computational theory of Stephen Wolfram, the physics of Frank Tipler, the psychoanalytical theory of Jacques Lacan, and the genius of Georg Cantor, the author works to demonstrate that the universe is a computer processing the divine Name and that all existence is made of information (the bit). As a result of this ontic pan-computationalism, it is shown that the future resurrection of the dead can take place and how it may in fact occur. Along the way, the book also offers compelling critiques of several significant theories of reality, including the phenomenological theologies of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion, Process Theology, and Object-Oriented Ontology. Reality in the Name of God explores how the concepts of Jewish mysticism can be articulated and deployed as philosophical theses within current metaphysical debates. It provides a new and dynamic Structural Realist ontology of information. Ultimately, the book aims to deal a death blow to the restriction of philosophy and theology in relation to elaborations of a how a believer relates to a God outside the mind and to return thought to a direct encounter with the divine nature of reality itself and its creator"--Website of the publisher, October 19, 2020. (shrink)

Our objectives in this article are to bring some theoretical order into developmental sequences and simultaneities in children’s ability to appreciate multiple labels for single objects, to reason with identity statements, to reason hypothetically, counterfactually, and with beliefs and desires, and to explain why an ‘implicit’ understanding of belief occurs before an ‘explicit’ understanding. The central idea behind our explanation is the emerging grasp of how objects of thought and desire relate to real objects and to each other. To capture (...) this idea we make use of the notion of discourse referents, as did Perner and Brandl (2005), to explain the developmental link between understanding beliefs and alternative naming. We present confirming evidence of the prediction from this analysis that children should have comparable problems with understanding identity statements. We explain the precociously correct answers in ‘implicit’ false belief tests based on indirect measures in the following way: From infancy children are able to keep track of other people’s experiences, to reason about counterfactual circumstances, and to reason about goal-directed (rational) action depending on given circumstances. Indirect tasks reduce the bias to use actual circumstances for reasoning about goal directed action compared to the traditional task, which leads to more correct answers. An emerging metarepresentational understanding helps overcome these biases and enables not only correct action prediction but also the explanation of erroneous actions. The common metarepresentational element explains why false belief tasks and the alternative naming task are mastered at the same time as children understand identity statements. (shrink)

AN ADEQUATE account of the nature of truth, reality, and the relation between them, is not to be expected if attention is not paid to the different views that have been defended and criticized by leading thinkers over the course of history. Unfortunately, the positions initially taken ask for more and more distinctions, with the consequence that one is forced to provide more and more complex formulations. Nothing less than a rather large, complex treatise would be needed to do (...) justice to what they affirmed and implied. Some issues, though, underlie the rest, and help clarify them. By focusing on those underlying issues, it is possible, within a fairly short compass, to deal with what everyone should consider and must sooner or later acknowledge. Six stand out: 1) All men are in contact with the real. 2) "Truth" is the proper name of the real, and there can be as many truths as there are realities. 3) Each truth provides an articulation of the real. 4) Each truth becomes more determinate the more closely it is joined to the reality it names. 5) A reality is receptive to and sustains what is claimed of it. 6) The final truths dealt with in a comprehensive philosophic system refer only indirectly to their appropriate realities. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide an analysis about the relationship between expert and pragmatic categories used to name and categorize social space, from the point of view of the social hierarchies that structure it. Taking the case of Chile, and applying an experimental simulation methodology, we seek to contribute to the epistemological debate about the representations that individuals elaborate about social space, from a cognitive and interactionist perspective of everyday life. We analyse in particular the scope of the concept (...) of social class as an element of expert description of social reality, but also as a categorization used by ordinary subjects. We argue that although classifications used by ordinary people to describe members of society are not consistent with the most common academic class schemes, they nevertheless share the same logic and ranking system, adding evaluative and normative elements to the cognitive distinction, in the social construction of reality. En este artículo, presentamos un análisis acerca de la relación entre categorías expertas y categorías pragmáticas usadas para nombrar y categorizar el espacio social, desde el punto de vista de las jerarquías sociales que lo estructuran. Tomando el caso de Chile y aplicando una metodología experimental de simulación, aportamos al debate epistemológico acerca de las representaciones que los sujetos sociales elaboran acerca del espacio social, desde una perspectiva cognitiva e interaccionista situada en la vida cotidiana de las personas. Analizamos en especial el alcance del concepto de clase social en cuanto elemento de descripción experta de la realidad social, contrastándolo con la categorización de la misma de parte de sujetos comunes y corrientes. Postulamos que si bien las clasificaciones que ocupan las personas comunes y corrientes para describir a los integrantes de la sociedad no se condicen con las clasificaciones académicas más comunes, comparten sin embargo las mismas lógicas clasificatorias de jerarquización y ordenamiento, agregándose a la distinción cognitiva elementos normativos que aportan a la construcción social de la realidad. (shrink)

There is considerable confusion surrounding the notion of consciousness. This confusion can be partially resolved by clarifying the referents of the word 'consciousness'. Doing so, however, reveals a more insidious problem, namely, the role played by personal beliefs in understanding consciousness. In particular, as revealed by a comprehensive survey, such beliefs range along a material- transcendent dimension, with the choice of notions of consciousness corresponding to materialist, conservatively transcendent, or extraordinarily transcendent positions. Further empirical research has revealed that those with (...) more transcendent beliefs tend to have a more rational and curious approach to the world than those with more materialist beliefs. And, indeed, transcendent beliefs are also associated with greater intelligence. Although the possibility of a developmental sequence from materialist to transcendent beliefs is suggested, given the nature of fundamental beliefs, it does not appear that reconciliation between them is possible. Thus, although the confusion surrounding the study of consciousness can be clarified, the situation giving rise to the confusion cannot be eliminated. (shrink)

A well-established tradition has argued that it is not legitimate to attribute to Parmenides a Fregean semantics, i.e. the distinction between ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’. Nonetheless, Parmenides claims more than once (B 8.53, B 9.1) that mortalsdo namereality, although incorrectly. As many scholars have emphasised, because it is fair neither to conclude that mortals’ names are ‘empty names’ nor dismiss Opinion's account (i.e., broadly speaking, the mortals’ account of reality) itself as meaningless, it seems that Parmenides is suggesting that some (...) kind of distinction between what names refer to and what names mean must be drawn. In view of this, what is Parmenides’ account of names?My suggestion is that in order to explain the Eleatic philosophy of language (and the Eleatic account of names) a step back is required. More specifically, Parmenides’ epistemology has to be taken into account. Indeed, if we assume that Parmenides is arguing for an ‘epistemological disjunctivism’ – such that the veridical and truthful state and the erroneous and deceptive state are essentially different – it will be clear that he is further arguing for what could be defined as a ‘semantic disjunctivism’, so that true speech and false speech are essentially different as well. (shrink)

According to Zeilinger’s information interpretation of quantum mechanics ‘the distinction between reality and our knowledge of reality, between reality and information, cannot be made. They are in a deep sense indistinguishable’. This is what we call Zeilinger’s thesis. This thesis has been criticized as a lapse into ‘informational immaterialism’ and amounting to nothing more than a tautology. However, we will argue that this criticism is based on a pre-Kantian view of reality, namely metaphysical realism which could (...) be questioned on the basis of Putnam’s arguments. Furthermore, it will be argued that to understand Zeilinger’s thesis one should abandon the pre-Kantian perspective of metaphysical realism and adopt a post-Kantian perspective on the relationship between the mind and the world. (shrink)

Parts and wholes come in an infinite variety, but in each instance something, namely relations, joins the parts together to make them into a whole rather than an Aristotelian "heap." The ontological status of relations is the subject of this dissertation. ;The question of whether relations are real presupposes some method of determining what is real. A modified version of Whitehead's ontological principle, or the idea that only real things can have effects on other things, serves as the test of (...) the reality. If any effects result from a whole but not from a collection of parts, then a whole differs from its parts and relations are real. Such effects can manifest themselves in two ways: parts themselves may somehow be affected by being joined into a whole or some new property may emerge with a whole that cannot be attributed to the parts taken separately. If one discovers either type of effect, then relations are real. ;The first section of the dissertation is an historical examination on the question of the reality of the relations. In the first chapter, the positions of Hume, Parmenides and Whitehead are considered but ultimately rejected. The second chapter examines the positions of Aristotle and Wittgenstein, thinkers for whom relations are in some cases real, while the third examines Plato's idea on relations. ;In the fourth chapter, a distinction between two types of relations is drawn. The difference between these relations is found in whether or not the parts joined are affected by being in a whole. Static relations are those which join parts into a whole without affecting those parts, while parts joined by dynamic relations are affected by being in a whole. Both static and dynamic wholes possess emergent properties which come into being only when parts are joined into wholes. ;The second section focuses on the consequences of the reality of relations in philosophy, specifically in ethics, logic and the philosophy of space and time. (shrink)

The problem of freedom is researched in various ways by the religions of the world, by the scientific theories and by the mythological consciousness of people. The article pays great attention to the myth and its influence on the realm of freedom and on our interpretation of reality. The author understands a myth as a certain free fiction of a man in order to interpret reality in his own way and sometimes to create his own artistic image of (...) the world. Often the myth stimulates the ability of the imagination and thus it participates in the creation and existence of personality. It is argued that the traces of the myth can be found in most ways of orientation in the material and ideal worlds as well as in the systems of human interests and relationships, in the original human desire of freedom. The problem of freedom is central to all human history. Freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, political freedoms - one can name a large number of different freedoms, but the freedom of creativity should be considered as principal freedom. It should be noted also the freedom of thought, which can lead a cognizing person beyond the worlds of substances and energies, to the place where the Eternal Creator should abide. As the world religions believe, we inherit the capacity for creativity and self-knowledge from God. The very same creative freedom exists historically. Freedom of thought is accompanied by spontaneity and mystery. Spontaneity of consciousness and freedom of creativity create a system of meanings that determine the course of human history, while history is perceived by an observer as a completely unique, cognizable phenomenon. (shrink)

This article is a report on ongoing field research and the exponential growth of the environment in which sex workers, prostitutes, call girls, and escorts operate. We look at the complexity of the conditions of such work and consider the socio-psychological and media vectors that make up the context from which its actors and stereotypes emerge. With the explosion of websites offering virtual or real sex, there is also a continuation of oppressive and violent male practices in this sector, restricting (...) the freedom of choice for women who work professionally in this field. These practices reproduce the power relations and the exclusion that has always been present in society, and are also now more diffuse as virtual reality has come to play an important role in social practice. (shrink)

Kripke’s examples of allegedly contingent a priori sentences include ‘Stick S is exactly one meter long’, where the reference of ‘meter’ is fixed by the description ‘the length of stick S’. In response to skepticism concerning apriority Kripke replaced the meter sentence with a more sophisticated variant, arguing that the modified example is more immune to such skepticism. The case for apriority is examined. A distinction is drawn between apriority and a broader notion, “qua-priority,” of a truth whose epistemic justification (...) is dependent on no experience other than that required to justify belief of the deliverances of pure semantics. It is argued that Kripke’s examples are neither a priori nor qua-priori. (shrink)

A host of factors, technical and cultural, have combined in our day to establish the journal article as the genre of philosophical writing. The next step is to collect them in the more available format of a book. Whatever be one’s judgment of the practice, it seems established; and, we think, in the case of Sellars’ offerings, is a fortunate one. One may more readily take the measure of a meticulous and probing philosophical mind by surveying its work over a (...) ten-year span. But a collation of essays is not a book, and one may take issue with the ordering of the chapters. We would suggest, for those beginning to read Sellars, the trilogy of lectures: ‘Being and Being Known’, ‘Empiricism and Philosophy of Mind’, and ‘Grammar and Existence’—in that order. These will give a comprehensive and sufficiently detailed view of his over-all strategy. After them one may either pursue the basic analogy of thought to speech in the systematic and particulate fashion of ‘Truth and “Correspondence”’ and ‘Naming and Saying’, or gain a feel for Sellars’ manner through the applications of the analogy to the questions of ‘Particulars’ and the ‘Synthetic A Priori’. (shrink)

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

The progress in computer programming leads to the shift in traditional correlation between intuitive and formal components of mathematical knowledge. From epistemological point of view the role of intuition decreases in compare with formal representation of mathematical structures. The relevant explanation is to be found in D. Hilbert’s formalism and corresponding Kantian’s motives in it. The notion of sign belongs to both areas under consideration: on the one hand it is object of intuition in Kantian de re sense, on the (...) other hand, it is part of formal structure. Intuitive mathematical knowledge is expressed by primitive recursive reasoning. The W. Tait’s thesis, namely, that finitism as methodology of mathematics is equivalent to primitive recursive reasoning is discussed in connection with some explications of Kantian notion of intuition. The requirements of finitism are compared with normative role of logic. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 59 Heft: 3 Seiten: 410-426.

This book is not about the theory of Forms as such, but about Plato’s epistemological realism, his view, in opposition to Protagorean relativism, that there is a realm of fact that counts as the common object of our true beliefs, judgments, and knowledge. This book fills a longstanding need for a lucid, condensed, readable account of aspects of Plato’s thought that emerge in certain of Plato’s middle and later dialogues and pose issues of contemporary philosophical merit. It is White’s contention (...) that Plato’s discontent with the "method of hypothesis" tentatively tried in Meno, Phaedo, and Republic, and his theory of naming in the Cratylus, lead to the breakdown of his theory of knowledge and, eventually, of the possibility of meaningful inquiry, with the objects of inquiry framed in advance by a specification of the object. The key thesis in White’s contention appears to be a view that he attributes to the Cratylus, that "the genuine use of a name is thought to require the apprehension of its nominatum, in a way excluding any confusion of it with other things" ; for, if the only thing that can be named is a Form, and if believing, judging, and knowing are a kind of being confronted in one’s mental "visual" field with an object, and we cannot accept the beliefs of others for purposes of inquiry, then how is it possible to inquire about, or to define what one already apprehends and recognizes? (shrink)

Kant's various teachings concerning (world) peace are characterized by a philosophically unique realism. Thereby, they are fundamentally distinguished from all preceding doctrines about peace. This thesis of realism refers to various aspects, respectively levels, of the doctrine, namely: 1) in general to the assumptions of the doctrine of Right3 altogether (ch. II); 2) in particular to the assumptions of the doctrine of eternal peace (chs. III-V); 3) to the recommendations with regard to the realization of eternal peace (chs. VI-XI); 4) (...) to the reasons by which Kant justifies the hope with regard to eternal peace (ch. XII, XIV-XVII); 5) to Kant's strict denial of a specifically political "morals" (ch. XIII-XVII). (shrink)

Value, Reality, and Desire is an extended argument for a robust realism about value. The robust realist affirms the following distinctive theses. There are genuine claims about value which are true or false--there are facts about value. These value-facts are mind-independent - they are not reducible to desires or other mental states, or indeed to any non-mental facts of a non-evaluative kind. And these genuine, mind-independent, irreducible value-facts are causally efficacious. Values, quite literally, affect us. These are not particularly (...) fashionable theses, and taken as a whole they go somewhat against the grain of quite a lot of recent work in the metaphysics of value. Further, against the received view, Oddie argues that we can have knowledge of values by experiential acquaintance, that there are experiences of value which can be both veridical and appropriately responsive to the values themselves. Finally, these value-experiences are not the products of some exotic and implausible faculty of "intuition." Rather, they are perfectly mundane and familiar mental states - namely, desires. This view explains how values can be "intrinsically motivating," without falling foul of the widely accepted "queerness" objection. There are, of course, other objections to each of the realist's claims. In showing how and why these objections fail, Oddie introduces a wealth of interesting and original insights about issues of wider interest--including the nature of properties, reduction, supervenience, and causation. The result is a novel and interesting account which illuminates what would otherwise be deeply puzzling features of value and desire and the connections between them. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to argue that neither mathematics nor logic can be applied ‘directly’ to reality, but to our rational representations (or reconstructions) of it, and this is extended to scientific theories in general. The difference to other approaches (e.g., Nancy Cartwright’s, Bueno & Colyvan’s or Hughes’) is that I call attention to something more than what is involved in such a process, namely, metamathematics. A general schema of ‘elaboration’ of theories, which I suppose cope with (...) most of them, is presented and discussed. A case study is outlined, the quantum case, whose anchored description, in my opinion, demands a different metamathematics and a different logic. (shrink)

In this paper, particular key aspects of the philosophies of Plotinus and Wang Yangming have been analysed comparatively on the basis of important passages of their works. The method used for this investigation can be defined as that of transversal comparative induction, in which the focus is more on working out the details of affinities and similarities. As this means a first step in an encompassing systematic context, differences will be introduced more briefly. The present investigation aims to provide a (...) foundation for a more differentiating and therefore complementing second part, which will consider other contents and topics in both philosophies. The present analysis is performed in three systematic steps and with regard to three basic philosophical ideas: (1) the idea that human consciousness is a central medium in the universal process and interrelatedness of (biological) life as a whole; (2) the idea that the self-unfoldment of reality represents a meta-cognitive process beyond the limits of subjectivity and finite consciousness; and (3) the idea that it is our major task to perfect and know ourselves by means of a “return” to the highest underlying foundation of this universal process. In their own ways, Plotinus and Wang Yangming both show that by enfolding human reflexivity toward the ineffable source of all reality in thought, feeling, human activity, and natural processes, namely by actively pursuing the path of moral and intellective perfection, we become fulfilled mediators of a universal process and of that which all of it represents. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 371-396.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MORE THAN METAPHORS: MASCULINEGENDERED NAMES AND THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD LYNNE C. BOUGHTON Chicago, Illinois W:HAT WAS ONCE a phenomenon confined to advocacy groups has appeared in ordinary Catholic parishes. Priests celebrating liturgies offer blessings "In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Holy Love." Such invocations of Persons of the Trinity by names indicative of divine action, as well as the " naming " of (...) God with either gender-combined (Mother-Father) or gender-neutral (Friend) designations of personal relationships, suggest that the way in which God is addressed need not be different from the way in which one describes divine actions. Many argue that since one may refer to God's specific act as " Creator," characterize God's eternal and temporal activity as " Love," or note that in certain ways people experience God's care as that of a "Friend" or "Mother," these terms are suitable for addressing a divine Person. In early 1992 the Catholic Church's International Commission on English in the Liturgy endorsed non-gendered invocations by proposing that English language liturgical texts delete all masculine pronouns referring to God and replace "Father" in several prayers with gender-neutral names. Willingness to depart from the Father/Son/Holy Spirit terminology found in scripture and the Church's creedal statements is often grounded in the belief that God does not merely excel beyond human comprehension the fatherhood and sonship traditionally attributed to divine Persons, but rather that God, as transcendent being, is essentially unlike any quality that can be named. Those who define transcendence in this " epistemologi283 284 LYNNE C. BOUGHTON cal" way maintain that God is free of definition or distinction and that Persons of the Trinity negate and contradict, in their acts of existence, any permanent identity that the human mind may have " attributed " in scripture or Church doctrine to divine Personhood. Theologians such as Karl Rahner and David Tracy see no departure from the Church's authoritative theological teachings in their definition of transcendence as God's existential freedom from the limitations of eternally existing attributes of Persons. According to Rahner the names most indicative of who God is as God are " ineffable one," " nameless one," " silent one." For Tracy, the central " metaphor " and " doctrine" of Christianity is a " triune understanding" of the words " God is Love." 1 For theologians who define transcendence as God's being unconfined by categories, names by which divine Persons are addressed in Scripture are merely ways in which inspired communities or individuals likened God's dealings with them to lifeaffirming actions or admired personal qualities. If traditional names for God were " revealed" in this way, modern worshippers could reasonably address God in terms of likenesses to other, more 1 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, tr. William Dych (NY: Crossroad, 1982), pp. 46-71; David Tracy, "The Hermeneutics of Naming God," The Irish Theological Quarterly, 57 (1991) : 253-264. For an analysis and defense of the concept of transcendence as absence of metaphysical reality see Mark I. Wallace, "Can God Be Named Without Being Known?: The Problem of Revelation in Thiemann, Ogden, and Ricoeur," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59/2 (1991): 281-308. Although the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) listed "ineffable " among the attributes of God, God was not named in this way and, moreover, the context of other listed attributes (omnipotence, eternity) suggests that " ineffable " does not mean God is without anything that can be described but that descriptions of God are not comprehensible to humans [H. J. D. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 30th ed., trans. Roy Deferrari (London: Herder & Herder, 1955), # 428]. This point is illustrated by the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) which refers to God as "ineffably most high above all things " and then proceeds to list a series of attributes (Denzinger, # 1782). In the Council of Toledo, "ineffable" was used as a modifier ("ineffable Trinity," "ineffable substance," "ineffably begot") for terms that were defined in the Council's creed (Denzinger # 275-276). Further discussion of " ineffable" is in note 6, below. MORE THAN METAPHORS 285 inclusive, human qualities. Invoking, rather than merely describing or praising, God with names derived from creative/redemptive... (shrink)

Previously published as a special issue of _Third World Quarterly_, this volume assesses the nature, power, role and function of names in global politics and the international media. Names are not objective, they accrue subjective associations, for example 'Terrorist' has a very different connotation to 'Freedom-fighter'. The contributors seek the truth beneath the names assigned in an effort to remove the obscurity created by the power of 'the politics of naming' to the reality of the situation, taking examples from (...) Al Qaeda, Russia's demonization of the Chechens and naming in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, among other important contemporary debates. _Terrorism and the Politics of Naming_ makes a substantial contribution towards elucidating the power of naming in the discourse of conflict and will be of great interest to students and scholars of political philosophy, political theory, and politics and the media. (shrink)

Sadreddin Konevi is one of the most important statesmen of the unity of existence. Konevi was not content with just commenting on the works of her sheikh Ibn al-Arabi, he also produced many works and offered different perspectives on many Sufi issues with his own original interpretations. His esoteric comments regarding the name of Allah and the spiritual secrets it indicates are particularly striking. Konevi, which explains in depth the manifestations of the level of divinity and the name (...) of Allah in the ontology that emerged in the idea of unity of existence, states that all the divine tricks of this name, which is dominant in the level of unity, are completed after the level of ahadiyyah, that is, the level of oneness where there is no manifestation. He explained that it is a level of existence in which God is manifested. Konevi, like his sheikh Ibn al-Arabi, named the reality of muhame-diyye, which is the manifestation of Allah, as the 'real Adam' and 'human reality', which collects all the existing truths in itself. Konevi, who concluded in detail the stages of suluk and ascension that must be performed in order for the perfect human being to reach the manifestation of God, that is, the level of divinity, interpreted the inner secrets of this name. He also emphasized why it is the most encompassing and important name among the divine names of Allah, and also explained the symbolic meanings of the five letters that make up this name. Konevi, who examines the letter "Elif" in terms of its utterance in the verses, the unification of the manifestation from the unseen to the manifestation, its being a symbol of the divine breath, and its writing in terms of three movements, intermittent, expanding and cyclical, examines the symbolic meanings of these movements in depth. Konevi presented a symbolic interpretation of the letters that form the name of Allah on what the two letters "lam" and "he", like the letter elif, signify inwardly at the levels of beings. In this study, we tried to explain Konevi's ontological explanations of the name of Allah, how and which beings are marked in the terminology of unity of existence, and the daily interpretations of the symbolic works of the letters that make up this name. (shrink)

This essay is meant to shed light on a discourse that spans centuries and includes different voices. To be aware of such trans-textual resonances can add a level of historical understanding to the reading of philosophical texts. Specifically, we intend to demonstrate how the notion of the ineffable Dao 道, prominently expressed in the Daodejing 道德經, informs a long discourse on incongruent names in distinction to a mainstream paradigm that demands congruity between names and what they designate. Thereby, we trace (...) the development of the idea of the ineffable Dao quite differently from modern mystical interpretations. We show how, in an early Chinese context, it first gives rise to a sociopolitical critique of the incongruity underlying socially constructed names in the Zhuangzi 莊子, then to a discourse on the incongruity between moral virtues and names in Xuanxue 玄學 philosophy, and eventually to Sengzhao’s 僧肇 claim that a perceived congruence of names with things does not entail actual congruence between names and reality. (shrink)

In the tradition stemming from Aristotle through Aquinas, rational decision making is seen as a complex structure of distinct phases in which reasoning and will are interconnected. Intention, deliberation, and decision are regarded as the fundamental steps of the decision-making process, in which an end is chosen, the means are specified, and a decision to act is made. Based on this Aristotelian theoretical background, we show how the decision-making process can be modeled as a net of several patterns of reasoning, (...) involving the classification of an action or state of affairs, its evaluation, the deliberation about the means to carry it out, and the decision. It is shown how argumentation theory can contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms involved by formalizing the steps of reasoning using argumentation schemes, and setting out the value-based criteria underlying the evaluation of an action. Representing each phase of the decision-making process as a separate scheme allows one to identify implicit premises and bring the roots of ethical dilemma to light along with the means to resolve them. In particular, we will show the role of framing and classification in triggering value-based reasoning, and how argumentation theory can be used to represent and uproot the grounds of possible manipulations. (shrink)

Does physics describe anything that can meaningfully be called “independent reality,” or is it merely operational? Most physicists implicitly favor an intermediate standpoint, which takes quantum physics into account, but which nevertheless strongly holds fast to quite strictly realistic ideas about apparently “obvious facts” concerning the macro-objects. Part 1 of this article, which is a survey of recent measurement theories, shows that, when made explicit, the standpoint in question cannot be upheld. Part 2 brings forward a proposal for making (...) minimal changes to this standpoint in such a way as to remove such objections. The “empirical reality” thus constructed is a notion that, to some extent,does ultimately refer to the human means of apprehension and of data processing. It nevertheless cannot be said that it reduces to a mere name just labelling a “set of recipes that never fail.” It is shown that our usual notion of macroscopic causality must be endowed with similar features. (shrink)

Hugh Everett III died of a heart attack in July 1982 at the age of 51. Almost 26 years later, a New York Times obituary for his PhD advisor, John Wheeler, mentioned him and Richard Feynman as Wheeler’s most prominent students. Everett’s PhD thesis on the relative state formulation of quantum mechanics, later known as the “Many Worlds Interpretation”, was published (in its edited form) in 1957, and later (in its original, unedited form) in 1973, and since then has given (...) rise to one of the most radical schools of thought in the foundations of quantum theory. Several years ago two conferences held in Oxford and in the Perimeter Institute celebrated the occasion of 50 years to the first publication of Everett’s thesis. The book Many worlds? grew out from contributions to these conferences, but, as its editors emphasize, it is more than mere conference proceedings. Instead, an attempt was made to assemble an impressive collection of papers which together illustrate the promise of the many worlds interpretation and the obstacles it faces. 23 papers divided into six sections follow an introduction by Simon Saunders, one of Oxford’s fiercest Everettians. The first four sections cover two thorny issues that have been flagged by contemporary opponents to the many worlds interpretation, namely, the problem of ontology and the problem of probability, while the fifth discusses alternatives to Everett such as Bohmian mechanics and information–theoretic approaches to quantum theory. The sixth section seems to be a wild card, hosting several papers unrelated to each other, including one of the most interesting contributions to this volume on the history of Everett’s thesis and his (some may say all too) short academic career. Each section concludes with transcripts of the discussion session that took place after the talks, thus giving an additional emphasis to the points of contention. Apart from general comments on the volume, in what follows I would like to concentrate on few papers I found especially illuminating. Start with ontology.. (shrink)

There are two main camps in 20th-century philosophy of time: A-theorists who believe in the dynamic model of reality, and B-theorists who maintain a static model of reality. After the publication of Putnam’s influential article, “time and physical geometry”, the implications of the Special Theory of Relativity became serious in metaphysical discussions about temporal reality. Some philosophers argued that this theory contradicts the dynamic model and implies the ontology of the static model, namely, the objective reality (...) of the present, past and future events. In response, some advocates of the dynamic model argued that there can be dynamic models in relativistic setting, though they are different, radically, from old theories of dynamic reality. In this paper, first, I shall discuss how special relativity contradicts the traditional dynamic model and, then, how new dynamic models imply a relative concept of reality, in contrast to its old absolute concept and, so, why these strategies are very unintuitive. Finally, I shall argue that this radical conceptual shift about reality is, not only unintuitive, but unwarranted and, in some sense, inconsistent as well. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Names Alive Are Like the Names in GravesBlack Life and Black Social Death in Terrance Hayes's American Sonnets for My Past and Future AssassinLee Spinks"After blackness was invented / people began seeing ghosts."1One of the most powerful and provoking responses to the political rise of Donald Trump appeared with the 2018 publication of Terrance Hayes's American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. Hayes began writing these poems (...) straight after Trump's remarkable triumph in the 2016 presidential election, and they race to keep pace with the rapidly metastasizing effects of the Trump phenomenon, from his relentless radicalization of the modes and mores of political speech ("Newshounds ponder the tweets of a bullhorn"), his continuous assault on American democratic institutions, and his singular success in marshalling a newly cohesive political constituency seduced by the reactionary allure of resurgent white nationalism or what Hayes caustically calls "a mandate for whiteness, virility, sovereignty / stupidity" (AS: 38).2 As the phrase "mandate for whiteness" suggests, integral to the story of Trump's ascendancy in American Sonnets is another story, a story about race and social authority in the time of Black Lives Matter when blackness remains "the color of this country's current threat / advisory" (AS: 10). At home and abroad the appalling incandescence of Hayes's contemporary American political moment is reflected by the names of its black victims, names like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and, perhaps most explosively of all, George Floyd, whose May 2020 police killing on a Minneapolis street reprised such a familiar configuration of racial power that Hayes had already glimpsed its spectral outline two years earlier: "A [End Page 60] brother has to know how to time travel & doctor / himself when a knee or shoe stalls against his neck" (AS: 77).3Without compromising the intensity of Hayes's focus on this contemporary social emergency, I want in what follows to expand our sense of the historical and metaphysical scene of his writing by reading it as an imaginative response to a larger and more fundamental question: What does it mean to live a black life in an antiblack world? I'm moved to do so by the double register of his writing vividly exemplified by the penultimate sonnet in the sequence which memorializes "All the black people I'm tired of losing / All the dead from parts of Florida, Ferguson / Brooklyn, Charleston, Cleveland, Chicago / Baltimore, where the names alive are / Like the names in graves" (AS: 81). What's remarkable, to my mind at least, about the phrase "the names alive are / like the names in graves" is its fusion of a directly contemporary perception of the precariousness of black existence within a culture of white supremacy (the perception that every black life could share the social fate of Tamir Rice at any particular moment) with an encompassing metaphysical vision of blackness as the embodiment of social death and the continuing afterlife of slavery. Paying close attention to several of Hayes's poems, I will trace this double register to explore a number of ideas central to his thinking in American Sonnets including the foundational role of antiblackness in organizing American reality for both black and white identities, the dialectical relationship between antiblackness and the libidinal economy of white supremacy, and the hope of imagining new possibilities of life capable of contesting the antiblack conditions of contemporary social existence.4 In doing so I will place particular emphasis on Hayes's development of a distinctively dialectical and dialogical style of poetic address that reimagines lyric subjectivity as a drama of racial becoming focused on the relationship between black social death and the culture of white supremacy.5Black Social Death and the Libidinal Economy of WhitenessBefore continuing let me briefly develop three ideas above which help shape my reading of American Sonnets: the social life of social death, the continuing afterlife of slavery, and what Hayes calls in my epigraph "the [End Page 61] invention of blackness." The first draws on the Afropessimist radicalization of Orlando Patterson's famous redescription of slavery as social death that sees the slave as a "social nonperson" whose relation to... (shrink)

The linguistic theory of the Kabbala, as it is explained in the writings of the Kabbalists of the 13th century—or at least basically implied in them—comes to rest upon a combination of the above-mentioned interpretations of the Book of Yetsira with the doctrine of the Name of God as a basis of that language. What is essentially new in this is the way in which the scope and range of a divine language—as understood by the Kabbalists—is brought into unique (...) prominence over and beyond the realm of created man. In the Book of Yetsira there could still be some doubt as to whether the ten Sefiroth and the 22 letters were themselves thought of as created; and as we have seen, there is even considerable evidence in favor of this conception. In the doctrines and teachings of the Kabbalists, however, this is no longer the case. The ten original numbers have become ten emanations of the divine fullness of being. Where these are concerned one can only now talk in terms of creation in a meta-phorical sense. In the Sefiroth of the Kabbalists, God manifests himself in ten spheres or aspects of his activity. The 22 letters are themselves part and parcel of this area; they are configurations of the divine energies, which are themselves grounded in the world of the Sefiroth, and whose appearance in the world either beyond, outside or beneath this realm of the divine emanations is simply a gradual process of de-refinement and an intensified crystallization of those innermost signs of all things, as they correspond to the progressively evolving and increasingly condensed media of the creation. All creation, from the world of the highest angel to the lower realms of physical nature, refers symbolically to the law which operates within it—the law which governs in the world of the Sefiroth. In everything something is reflected—one might just as well say—from the realms which lie in the center of it. Everything is transparent, and in this state of transparency everything takes on a symbolic character. This means that every thing, beyond its own meaning, has something more, something which is part of that which shines into it or, as if in some devious way, that which has left its mark behind in it, forever. The Book of Yetsira was still far removed from this type of interpretation. For the Kabbalists, however, the Sefiroth and the letters, in which the word of God is explained, or which constitute the word of God, were simply two different methods in which the same reality might be represented in a symbolic manner. In other words: whether the process of the manifestation of God, his stepping outside under the symbol of the light, and his diffusion of knowledge and reflection is what is represented, or whether it is to be understood to be the activeness of the divine language, of the self-differentiating word of the creation or even of the self-explanatory name of God. In the last analysis, this, for the Kabbalists, is no more than a question of the choice between symbolic structures which are in themselves equally arranged—the symbolism of light and the symbolism of language. (shrink)

Economists usually assume that rational actions are the ones motivated by a self-interested agent. However in our daily life we often see people doing altruistic actions which we praise and which we do not call irrational. How can we account for this paradox? This question and the tension underlying it, is at the heart of Philip Pettit’s classic essay, “The Virtual Reality of Homo Economicus” (1995). This dissertation constitutes a detailed analysis and evaluation of the claims that Pettit makes (...) there, in particular his original proposal of reconciliation between economic science and common sense, and the role that self-interest occupies in his model. Despite its importance, there are still few written commentaries or critiques of Pettit’s essay (1995). Among the few, most concentrate on the thesis of resilience explanation that Pettit presents at the end of the essay. What is lacking in the literature is a thorough examination of the central claim that Pettit makes there, and which gives the title to his essay: namely, the thesis of the "virtual self-interested control". In my view, this constitutes one of the most sophisticated defences of the assumption of self-interest in rational choice theory and economics. Therefore, it is surprising that it has not been subjected to more discussion, and published research. In section 1, present some of the central concepts of rational choice theory and economics, namely the homo economicus. In section 2, I introduce Pettit’s model, and then evaluate in which sense it is a plausible model to explain the behaviour in non-market contexts. Section 3 presents my criticism of the shortcomings of the model. (shrink)

Developments in technology and communications haveenhanced the status and role of imaging. They haveresulted not just in the excellent quality of images but alsoin the speed and ease of distributing or communicatingthem. But with the welcome advances have also comeundesirable and even threatening consequences for bothindividuals and society. These have presented challengesand issues which need to be addressed urgently. Focusingfirst on the tension between image and reality, it providesa philosophical background to the debate. It thendiscusses the question of truth (...) and the related issues ofthe right to know, freedom of speech and privacy. Itprovides the foundation for these fundamental rights butalso examines the tensions or conflicts in their exercise. Italso discusses some guidelines to deal with thesechallenges and issues; namely, the criteria ofappropriateness and acceptability and the importance ofaccountability. It suggests that in addition, given thefrailty of human nature and the lessons of history, societyalso needs the support of laws and policies. (shrink)

This paper develops an approach to the scientific realism debate that has three main features. First, our approach admits multiple criteria of reality, i.e., criteria that, if satisfied, warrant belief in the reality of hypothetical entities. Second, our approach is experiment-based in the sense that it focuses on criteria that are satisfied by experiments as opposed to theories. Third, our approach is local in the sense that it focuses on the reality of particular kinds of entities. We (...) apply this approach to a case that many philosophers have debated, namely, Jean Perrin’s work on atoms and molecules. We provide a novel account by arguing that Perrin’s work warranted a minimal belief in the reality of atoms and molecules as unobservable, discrete particles by satisfying a criterion of reality that we call experimental determination of number per unit. By doing so, he confirmed Avogadro’s hypothesis, but he did not confirm other key constituents of the atomic theories involved. We argue that our account of Perrin’s work is preferable to several other accounts, and we use this as a reason in support of our approach to the realism debate more generally. (shrink)

This article argues that reality and virtuality are still very much phenomenologically distinguishable, although this might not be the case forever. I argue for two main types of virtuality – one inherently involved in the dynamic horizons of perceptual experiences, while the other is all of our experiences of digital images – in order to show that a particular possible instantiation of the latter type, namely “pure” mixed reality (MR), might come to blur and collapse various experiential categories (...) in the future, not least real and irreal, like never before. To show this, there are three main sections. First, I outline my understanding of the two basic types of virtuality, as understood from a classical phenomenological analysis. Second, I give an account of the most important family of “virtual technologies” relevant to the question at hand, namely virtual, augmented and mixed reality (VR, AR and MR respectively) technologies. After homing in on MR, I explain what “pure” MR is and how, through tactile holograms, this might change even basic experiential distinctions going forward, and not necessarily for the better. (shrink)