Human coalitions frequently persist through multiple, overlapping membership generations, requiring new members to cooperate and coordinate with veteran members. Does the mind contain psychological adaptations for interacting within these intergenerational coalitions? In this paper, we examine whether the mind spontaneously treats newcomers as a motivationally privileged category. Newcomers—though capable of benefiting coalitions—may also impose considerable costs (e.g., they may free ride on other members, they may be poor at completing group tasks). In three experiments we show (1) that the mind (...) categorizes coalition members by tenure, including newcomers; (2) that tenure categorization persists in the presence of orthogonal and salient social dimensions; and (3) that newcomers elicit a pattern of impressions consistent with their probable ancestral costs. These results provide preliminary evidence for a specialized component of human coalitional psychology: an evolved concept of newcomer. (shrink)

Gathers the pre-Sand Country Almanac writings of Aldo Leopold, showing that he was not born an ecologist, but evolved over time through experimentation and thought.

The present study seeks to accomplish three goals: to shed light on the problem of reason in Husserl’s co-inherited philosophical project, to elucidate his transcendental critique of reason, and to present Husserl's idea of reason in its distinctive features. A historical excursus first provides a frame to understand the necessity of a critique of reason, its proper subject-matter, and its function for the project of genuine philosophy. In particular, this historical reflection identifies the form that a critique must assume in (...) order to fulfil its philosophical-scientific task. The focus is then directed at Husserl's methodological recalibration of the problem of reason. Husserl's ‘prinzipielle Kritik’ is elucidated in his transcendental reassessment of the headings ‘reason’ and ‘unreason,’ and is thought in connection to the concept of Selbstbesinnung. Lastly, Husserl’s idea of reason is reconstructed in relation to, and in disambiguation from, the concepts of self-evidence, logos, synthesis, fulfilment, positing, etc. Reason, as teleological rule and structural form of transcendental subjectivity, is clarified in its dependence on, and irreducibility to, the problems of constitution and in light of the question of its objective/subjective character. (shrink)

This article offers the first phenomenological clarification of the objective conditions for sensory illusions focusing on the noematic ‘idea’ and a priori ontological structure that regulate the appearances of illusory things in perception. First, I will show the necessity of eidetic and noematically oriented investigations, arguing that it is an analysis of how the essence ‘Thinghood’ functions transcendentally that leads to an a priori clarification of both illusory things and their corresponding multiplicities of appearances. Accordingly, I will consider the correlate (...) of material perception according to both its formal and material ontological structures and focus on the a priori principle of coordination and the laws of mutability and reversibility that set the framework for an analysis a parte obiecti. I will then examine the process of typification, the psycho-physical conditionality of the lived-body, and the constitution of different levels of normality and abnormality. Within this expanded analysis, I will provide a clarification of ‘false’ sensory appearances showing how both deceptive and resilient illusory cases can be scientifically accounted for on a phenomenological basis and in accordance with natural-empirical laws. (shrink)

The paper clarifies some prominent aspects of Rudolf Eucken’s Philosophy of Life that, despite its vast influence in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, is nowadays mostly forgotten. More specifically, I will reconstruct Eucken’s philosophical diagnosis of the spiritual crisis affecting European and Western civilization in relation to the concepts of culture, history, and worldview. First, I will offer an analysis of the spiritual crisis in its two core aspects: as a crisis of culture and as a crisis (...) of the historical present stemming from the unprecedented polarization of vying worldviews. Second, I will identify the defining traits of Eucken’s original and systematic concept of Weltanschauung through a detailed comparison with Ernst Haeckel’s naturalistic worldview, an early version of scientific reductionism. Third, I will show how the problem of clashing worldviews both configures and responds to the present crisis and how such a problem hinges on a latent process of falsification of life. In doing so, I will shed light on Eucken’s belonging to Lebensphilosophie by elucidating the relation between philosophy and life as well as the task of philosophy vis-à-vis the present crisis. (shrink)

Various attempts have been made recently to bring Husserl into the contemporary analytic discussion on sensory illusion and hallucination. On the one hand, this has resulted in a renewed interest in what one might call a ‘phenomenology of sense-deception.’ On the other hand, it has generated contrasting—if not utterly incompatible—readings of Husserl’s own account of sense perception. The present study critically evaluates the contemporary discourse on illusion and hallucination, reassesses its proximity to Husserl’s reflection on sensory perception, and highlights the (...) philosophical limits and structural deficiencies of the current debate in light of some of Husserl’s insights. The analysis first provides a synopsis of the argumentative structures, aims, and assumptions informing the conjunctivism-disjunctivism debate. This assessment is then critically elaborated through the lens of Husserlian phenomenology in its historical and theoretical distance from the recent debate. Contrary to certain readings of Husserl, the reconstruction of some cardinal phenomenological themes provides all the elements necessary to dislocate his own account from the conjunctivism-disjunctivism dispute, by means of both a ‘global’ and a ‘local’ analysis, and both exegetically and theoretically. Most importantly, a ‘return’ to Husserl shows the philosophical untenability of the whole controversy as not only leaving untouched the core problem of perception but also altering some of its essential traits. This critique of the image of experience portrayed in the contemporary discussion is conducted through a phenomenological clarification of perception as a distinct ‘structure of rules’ of consciousness and, more specifically, by means of a descriptive analysis centered on the core notion of horizonal-intentionality. (shrink)

In this short introduction, the guest editors present the main themes of the special issue.

Using the Chinese Ring Puzzle (Kotovsky & Simon, Citation1990; P. J. Reber & Kotovsky, Citation1997), we studied the effect on rule discovery of having to plan actions or not in order to reach a goal state. This was done by asking participants to predict legal moves as in implicit learning tasks (Experiment 1) and by asking participants to make legal moves as in problem-solving tasks (Experiment 2). Our hypothesis was that having a specific goal state to reach has a dual (...) effect on rule discovery. The first effect is positive and related to feedback from moves done in order to attain the goal: generalising the results of action and associating them to the conditions in which they were obtained allows discovery of the rule and learning it. The second effect is negative. In attempting to reach a specific goal, participants first tend to reduce the distance that separates the current state from the goal state (hill climbing) and so neglect the kind of exploration that facilitates rule and procedure discovery because this would seem to be a detour from the goal. Results show that having to plan actions improved performance in implicit learning tasks (Experiment 1), yet it impaired performance in problem-solving tasks (Experiment 2). Although implicit learning and problem solving are based on rule discovery, and entail noticing regularities in the material, in both cases, rule discovery processes appear to be task-dependent. (shrink)

There is currently no consensus about a general account of hallucination and its object. The problem of hallucination has de facto generated contrasting accounts of perception, led to opposing epistemic and metaphysical positions, and, most significantly, exposed a manifold of diverging views concerning the intentionality of experience, in general, and perceptual intentionality, in particular. In this article, I aim to clarify the controversial status, experiential possibility, and intentional structure of hallucination qua distinctive phenomenon. The analysis will first detect a phenomenological, (...) Husserlian-informed concept of hallucination in its irreducibility to other kinds and modes of sensory experience. This will set the theoretical basis to develop an account of hallucination by means of a morphological description of those diversified structures of intentional consciousness that lend themselves to generate hallucinatory appearances. I will then describe both the turning of certain kinds of intentional experience into hallucinatory perceptions and the status of hallucinatory objects. This will support the possibility of hallucination in a strict and rigorous sense, elucidate the enigmatic claim that ‘in hallucination we are conscious of something while nothing truly appears,’ and offer a seminal perspective concerning the alleged problem that hallucinations pose on perceptual intentionality. With the aid of some crucial distinctions, I will then argue that hallucinations do not affect perceptual intentionality as a dyadic, relational structure. (shrink)

This article reconstructs and defends Husserl's argument for the indubitability of the existence of the world as grounded in ultimate principles. Responding to criticisms about the feasibility of a Husserlian‐informed metaphysical cosmology, it offers a systematic account that explores the question of the world's existence at three distinct levels (factual‐empirical, eidetic, and transcendental), leading to a threefold characterization of the world. First, the obviousness of the world's existence serves as our point of departure. The analysis then moves from a conception (...) of the world as (i) an ontic factum and pregiven ground of all theoretical and practical endeavors in the natural attitude, to a priori ontological considerations of (ii) the essence of “world in general.” However, the insufficiency of both factual‐empirical and a priori investigations necessitates a further displacement of the analysis into the transcendental field of pure phenomena. In accordance with the fundamental principle of synthesis, the world is thus reconceived of as (iii) a phenomenological factum. In this context, the clarification of the existence of the world as both an irrational and a “rational” fact provides all the elements necessary to demonstrate the relative apodicticity and empirical indubitability of the world. This justifies our doxic certainty of the world's existence. (shrink)

Certain results, most famously in classical statistical mechanics and complex systems, but also in quantum mechanics and high-energy physics, yield a coarse-grained stable statistical pattern in the long run. The explanation of these results shares a common structure: the results hold for a 'typical' dynamics, that is, for most of the underlying dynamics. In this paper I argue that the structure of the explanation of these results might shed some light --a different light-- on philosophical debates on the laws of (...) nature. In the explanation of such patterns, the specific form of the underlying dynamics is almost irrelevant. The conditions required, given a free state-space evolution, suffice to account for the coarse-grained lawful behaviour. An analysis of such conditions might thus provide a different account of how regular behaviour can occur. This paper focuses on drawing attention to this type of explanation, outlining it in the diverse areas of physics in which it appears, and discussing its limitations and significance in the tractable setting of classical statistical mechanics. (shrink)

Leopold first discusses the conservation of natural resources in the southwestern United States in economic tenns, stressing, in particular, erosion and aridity. He then concludes his analysis with a discussion of the moral issues involved, developing his general position within the context of P. D. Ouspenky’s early philosophy of organism.

In _Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Sight,_ the contributors investigate the multifarious ways in which phenomenology adopts and progressively dissents from the metaphysical paradigm of sight, from Husserl up until today.

Antisthène (444-365 av. J.-C.) est le fondateur de l'école cynique. Cet ouvrage restitue la vraie figure d'Antisthène, altérée par la tradition qui le présente abusivement comme un sophiste, un éristique ou un théoricien de la légitimité exclusive des jugements d'identité. L'auteur le replace dans la lignée socratique et décrit sa réflexion sur la philosophie du langage et la sophistique.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Leopold first discusses the conservation of natural resources in the southwestern United States in economic tenns, stressing, in particular, erosion and aridity. He then concludes his analysis with a discussion of the moral issues involved, developing his general position within the context of P. D. Ouspenky’s early philosophy of organism.

Gupta's book [9] contains a theory of modal logic that is closely related to my modal language ML v [2], and his theory is used to treat some interesting philosophical problems. Hence, it is natural for me to review this valuable book and to concentrate on its logics, the more so as its use has already been spoken of and appreciated by Kapitan [10], although I cannot but share his appreciation.

Surveys over the last twenty years have seen an ever-growing number of Americans disclaim religious affiliations and instead check the "none" box. In the first sociological exploration of organized secularism in America, Richard Cimino and Christopher Smith show how one segment of these "nones" have created a new, cohesive atheist identity through activism and the creation of communities. According to Cimino and Smith, the new upsurge of atheists is a reaction to the revival of religious fervor in American (...) politics since 1980. Feeling overlooked and underrepresented in the public sphere, atheists have employed a wide variety of strategies-some evangelical, some based on identity politics-to defend and assert themselves against their ideological opponents. These strategies include building and maintaining communities, despite the absence of the kinds of shared rituals, texts, and laws that help to sustain organized religions.Drawing on in-depth interviews with self-identified atheist, secularist, and humanist leaders and activists, as well as extensive observations and analysis of secular gatherings and media, Cimino and Smith illustrate how atheists organize and align themselves toward common goals, and how media-particularly web-based media-have proven invaluable in connecting atheists to one another and in creating a powerful virtual community. Cimino and Smith suggest that secularists rely not only on the Internet for community-building, but on their own new forms of ritual.This groundbreaking study will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the growing atheist movement in America. (shrink)

If the laws of nature are as the Humean believes, it is an unexplained cosmic coincidence that the actual Humean mosaic is as extremely regular as it is. This is a strong and well-known objection to the Humean account of laws. Yet, as reasonable as this objection may seem, it is nowadays sometimes dismissed. The reason: its unjustified implicit assignment of equiprobability to each possible Humean mosaic; that is, its assumption of the principle of indifference, which has been attacked on (...) many grounds ever since it was first proposed. In place of equiprobability, recent formal models represent the doxastic state of total ignorance as suspension of judgment. In this paper I revisit the cosmic coincidence objection to Humean laws by assessing which doxastic state we should endorse. By focusing on specific features of our scenario I conclude that suspending judgment results in an unnecessarily weak doxastic state. First, I point out that recent literature in epistemology has provided independent justifications of the principle of indifference. Second, given that the argument is framed within a Humean metaphysics, it turns out that we are warranted to appeal to these justifications and assign a uniform and additive credence distribution among Humean mosaics. This leads us to conclude that, contrary to widespread opinion, we should not dismiss the cosmic coincidence objection to the Humean account of laws. (shrink)