Dada’s Subject and Structure argues that Dadaist praxis was far more theoretically incisive than previous scholarship has indicated. The book combines theoretical frameworks surrounding ideological subject formation with critical media and genre histories in order to more closely read Dadaist techniques (e.g. montage, irony, nonsense, etc.) across multiple works. These readings reveal both Dada’s preternatural focus on the discursive aspects of subject formation—linguistic sign, literary manifesto, photographic image, commodity form/aesthetics, which comprise the project’s chapters—and on Dada’s performative sabotage and subversion (...) of them. In addition to highlighting commonalities between Dadaist works, artists, and chapters previously imagined disparate, the book shows how Dada simultaneously prefigured structuralist theories of subject formation and pre-performed post-structuralist critiques of those theories. (shrink)

Sober (1992) has recently evaluated Brandon's (1982, 1990; see also 1985, 1988) use of Salmon's (1971) concept of screening-off in the philosophy of biology. He critiques three particular issues, each of which will be considered in this discussion.

In this paper the common association between ontological reductionism and a methodological position called 'Mechanism' is discussed. Three major points are argued for: (1) Mechanism is not to be identified with reductionism in any of its forms; in fact, mechanism leads to a non-reductionist ontology. (2) Biological methodology is thoroughly mechanistic. (3) Mechanism is compatible with at least one form of teleology. Along the way the nature and value of scientific explanations, some recent controversies in biology and why reductionism has (...) proven to be such an attractive position are discussed. (shrink)

Zimmerman, Brandon I teach philosophy at Good Shepherd Seminary in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. My specialty is ancient philosophy and the reception of pagan philosophy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This paper is my attempt to use ideas from ancient philosophy to respond to a serious problem that the Catholic Church faces today in Papua New Guinea. All my students are young PNG nationals discerning a call to the priesthood within (...) the Catholic Church. Unlike the other Christian denominations, the Catholic Church requires its priests to be celibate, that is, to remain unmarried and to abstain from sexual relationships. I myself am a married layman with three young children, and I steadfastly support my students in their development of a celibate lifestyle. (shrink)

According to the perceptual theory of emotion, emotions are evaluative perceptions. However, emotions involve us in a way that regular perception does not and this has led to two influential objections to the perceptual theory have emerged. According to the first objection, the perceptual theory is false because the phenomenology of emotion is the phenomenology of response. According to the second objection, the perceptual theory is false because emotions are susceptible to evaluations of rationality and reason-responsiveness. In this essay, I (...) defend the perceptual theory by disarming these two objections. In response to the first objection, I suggest that emotional phenomenology bears a striking resemblance to the phenomenology of touch. Both are non-transparent forms of experience whereby it is through our experience of being affected in a certain way that reveals to us some property of the world. I disarm the second objection by providing a developmental account as to how adult emotion acquires the features of rational and reason-responsive evaluability. In the process of childhood, we gain the ability to construe the world in certain ways and regulate our emotions in concert with the moral community, thus transforming emotions and bringing them into the space of normative evaluability. (shrink)

Brandon Absher demonstrates that the neoliberalization of higher education has led to a paradigm shift in contemporary philosophy in the United States. Neoliberal philosophy aims to produce human capital and profitable knowledge.

Is the hypostatic union – the union of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus – indissoluble? Or did it undergo a temporary suspension during Jesus’ entombment? Although most theologians and philosophers considering the question have opted for the former, this article explores the latter possibility as a way to maintain (i.) Thomas Aquinas’s “subsistence” theory of the incarnation, (ii.) the widespread judgment that the entombed Christ is not a human, and (iii.) the traditional definition of the hypostatic union. (...) Such a position, this article argues, neither runs afoul of Chalcedon’s teaching that Christ’s two natures were united “without separation” nor imperils human salvation. (shrink)

Robert Brandon is one of the most important and influential of contemporary philosophers of biology. This collection of his recent essays covers all the traditional topics in the philosophy of evolutionary biology and as such could serve as an introduction to the field. There are essays on the nature of fitness, teleology, the structure of the theory of natural selection, and the levels of selection. The book also deals with newer topics that are less frequently discussed but are of (...) growing interest, for example the evolution of human language and the role of experimentation in evolutionary biology. A special feature of the collection is that it avoids jargon and is written in a style that will appeal to working evolutionary biologists as well as philosophers. (shrink)

This essay examines arguments offered in support of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) by Leibniz and his followers as well as Hume's critique of the PSR. It is shown that Leibniz has a defensible argument for the PSR, whereas the arguments of his self-proclaimed followers are weak. Thus, Hume's challenge is met by Leibniz, by Wolff and Baumgarten not so much.

I argue for the primacy of the mental from recent physicalists’ endorsements of phenomenal transparency and the non-transparency of the physical. I argue that the conjunction of these views shows that (1) arguments for dualism from introspection are difficult to resist; and (2) a kind of Hempel’s dilemma that removes constraints that block substance dualism. This shows that (1) raises the probability of the primacy of the mental, while (2) lowers the probability of the primacy of the physical. Lastly, I (...) argue that the conjunction of (1) and (2) raise the probability of substance dualism. (shrink)

Introduction -- Quiz -- Perception & mindset -- Creative thinking -- Decision making -- Analyzing arguments -- Mastering logic -- Appendix I: Summary of reasoning tips 1 to 50 -- Appendix II: Fallacious reasoning -- Appendix III: Avoiding improper inferences -- Appendix IV: Analogies -- Appendix V: The ten classic trade-offs -- Appendix VI: Critical reading and comprehension -- Appendix VII: Tips for taking reading tests -- Answers and explanations -- Quiz : answers.

Artworks frequently are the objects of multiple and apparently conflicting aesthetic judgements. This commonplace of the artworld poses a challenge for realist metaphysics, because to assert conflicting judgements of an artwork seems to amount to asserting p & p. Critical pluralism is an ever-more frequently invoked solution to this impasse. What its varieties share in common is the claim that the disagreement between judgements is only an apparent one. I argue, however, that critical pluralism masquerades either as relativism or anti-realism. (...) I examine a number of pluralist proposals, including one that attempts to reconcile pluralism with critical monism, and argue that they are inadequate to their advertised task. Finally, I sketch a solution employing dialetheic logic that captures both intuitions about these cases: that sometimes, judgements about artworks can truly conflict and jointly be true. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we can best make sense of the practice of experimental evolutionary biology if we see it as investigating contingent, rather than lawlike, regularities. This understanding is contrasted with the experimental practice of certain areas of physics. However, this presents a problem for those who accept the Logical Positivist conception of law and its essential role in scientific explanation. I address this problem by arguing that the contingent regularities of evolutionary biology have a limited range (...) of nomic necessity and a limited range of explanatory power even though they lack the unlimited projectibility that has been seen by some as a hallmark of scientific laws. (shrink)

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provided the first, and only, causal-mechanistic account of the existence of adaptations in nature. As such, it provided the first, and only, scientific alternative to the “argument from design”. That alone would account for its philosophical significance. But the theory also raises other philosophical questions not encountered in the study of the theories of physics. Unfortunately the concept of natural selection is intimately intertwined with the other basic concepts of evolutionary theory—such as the (...) concepts of fitness and adaptation —that are themselves philosophically controversial. Fortunately we can make considerable headway in getting clear on natural selection without solving all of those outstanding problems. (shrink)

I argue that physicalists have been too conciliatory in granting that certain classic thought experiments about consciousness like Mary the colour scientist, colour spectrum inversion, and zombies provide strong prima facie support for epiphenomenal anti-physicalism. While these thought experiments may suggest that we are intuitive epiphenomenal anti-physicalists when taken individually, when they are appropriately combined, they suggest that epiphenomenal anti-physicalism leads to a version of phenomenal scepticism according to which (i) we cannot know how our states of phenomenal consciousness compare (...) and contrast and (ii) we cannot know how our first-order beliefs about our states of consciousness compare and contrast. Insofar as comparative phenomenal scepticism is a deeply counter-intuitive view, our intuitions about consciousness are far more equivocal than they are widely thought to be. There simply may be no one metaphysical view that should qualify as their obvious champion. (shrink)

Moral foundations research suggests that liberals care about moral values related to individual rights such as harm and fairness, while conservatives care about those foundations in addition to caring more about group rights such as loyalty, authority, and purity. However, the question remains about how conservatives and liberals differ in relation to group-level moral principles. We used two versions of the moral foundations questionnaire with the target group being either abstract or specific ingroups or outgroups. Across three studies, we observed (...) that liberals showed more endorsement of Individualizing foundations with an outgroup target, while conservatives showed more endorsement of Binding foundations with an ingroup target. This general pattern was found when the framed, target-group was abstract and when target groups were specified about a general British-ingroup and an immigrant-outgroup. In Studies 2 and 3, both Individualizing-Ingroup Preference and Binding-Ingroup Preference scores predicted more Attitude Bias and more Negative Attitude Bias toward immigrants, more Implicit Bias, and more Perceived Threat from immigrants. We also demonstrated that increasing liberalism was associated with less Attitude Bias and less Negative Bias toward immigrants, less Implicit Bias, and less Perceived Threat from immigrants. Outgroup-individualizing foundations and Ingroup-Binding foundations showed different patterns of mediation of these effects. (shrink)

Population-level theories of evolution—the stock and trade of population genetics—are statistical theories par excellence. But what accounts for the statistical character of population-level phenomena? One view is that the population-level statistics are a product of, are generated by, probabilities that attach to the individuals in the population. On this conception, population-level phenomena are explained by individual-level probabilities and their population-level combinations. Another view, which arguably goes back to Fisher but has been defended recently, is that the population-level statistics are sui (...) generis, that they somehow emerge from the underlying deterministic behavior of the individuals composing the population. Walsh et al. label this the statistical interpretation. We are not willing to give them that term, since everyone will admit that the population-level theories of evolution are statistical, so we will call this the emergentist statistical interpretation. Our goals are to show that: This interpretation is based on gross factual errors concerning the practice of evolutionary biology, concerning both what is done and what can be done; its adoption would entail giving up on most of the explanatory and predictive projects of evolutionary biology; and finally a rival interpretation, which we will label the propensity statistical interpretation succeeds exactly where the emergentist interpretation fails. (shrink)

This article distances the classic Patristic teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy on theosis from the pseudo-religious ideology of transhumanism. By appealing to the Silver Age of Russian theologians a century ago, today’s transhumanist vision is dubbed Mangodhood, an idolatrous construction of a technological Tower of Babel. In contrast, the classical Orthodox teaching of deification or theosis relies on the spiritual grace of the true God, rendering the true goal of religion to be Godmanhood.

Zimmerman, Brandon Review of: The philosophy of early christianity, by George Karamanolis,, pp. xvi + 317, $24.95; Christianisme et philosophie: Les premieres confrontations, by Sebastien Morlet, pp. 260, 7.10 euros.

In this dissertation I address three philosophical problems in the philosophy of biology united by the underlying, and interlocking, issues of the explanatory role of teleological, normative, and representational concepts in biology. In the first chapter, I argue that extant accounts of functions have foundered on a problem I dub the Dysfunction Dilemma, and I offer a way to move forward. Functions are of philosophical interest because the concept plays an important explanatory role in biology, and other sciences, but is (...) apparently teleological and normative –an item’s function is its end, purpose, or goal, and a dysfunctional item is one that fails to realize a particular norm, performance of its proper function. Extant accounts of function do not successfully capture both its explanatory import and its normative and teleological character, either painting dysfunction as conceptually incoherent or painting functions as epiphenomenal. I diagnose the source of the dilemma and offer an account of functional explanation which avoids it. In the second chapter, I defend the idea that genes, like words or concepts, have intentionality or representational/semantic content. First, I argue that while the standard motivation for this idea is mechanistic analogies between molecular mechanisms and digital computation, Ernst Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis in biology, has provided an alternative and more defensible justification for taking the idea seriously. Parallel to the standard case for representational and computational theories of cognition, Mayr’s justification rests on the need to invoke representations to explain end-directed processes. I then put Mayr’s argument to work answering three kinds of objection to the idea that genes are representational: 1) Genetic representations are causally or explanatorily inert, 2) Genetic processes are too complex and context sensitive to be captured by representational concepts, and 3) Details of molecular biology undermine representational conceptions of genes. In the final chapter, I develop a historical and philosophical interpretation of Ernst Mayr’s distinction between proximate and ultimate causes and its relation to Niko Tinbergen’s "four questions." Both frameworks have been influential in the biological study of behavior and are typically presented as a single framework, with Mayr’s proximate-ultimate distinction corresponding to one of two axes dividing Tinbergen’s four questions. I argue that this interpretation misrepresents Mayr’s and Tinbergen’s philosophical positions. I offer a positive account of both frameworks and their relation to one another, and I argue that contrary to many critics, Mayr’s proximate-ultimate distinction, when properly interpreted, does not present a barrier to the project of integrating biological work on Tinbergen’s four questions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTP.F. Strawson claimed that forgiveness is such an essential part of our moral practices that we could not extricate it from our form of life even if we so desired. But what is it about forgiveness that would make it such a central feature of our moral experience? In this paper, I suggest that the answer has to do with what I will call the normative significance of forgiveness. Forgiveness is normatively significant in the sense that, in its paradigmatic instances, (...) forgiving alters the operative norms bearing on the interaction between the victim and the wrongdoer in certain characteristic ways. My project here is, first, to clarify the ways that paradigmatic cases of forgiveness alter the norms of interaction between victim and wrongdoer and to argue that it is in this respect that forgiveness is a normatively significant feature of our moral responsibility practices. Second, I show that most extant theories of forgiveness fail to explain the characteristic ways in which forgiving alters norms. Th... (shrink)

This anthology collects some of the most important papers on what is believed to be the major force in evolution, natural selection. An issue of great consequence in the philosophy of biology concerns the levels at which, and the units upon which selection acts. In recent years, biologists and philosophers have published a large number of papers bearing on this subject. The papers selected for inclusion in this book are divided into three main sections covering the history of the subject, (...) explaining its conceptual foundations, and focusing on kin and group selection and higher levels of selection.One of the book's interesting features is that it draws together material from the biological and philosophical literatures. The philosophical literature, having thoroughly absorbed the biological material, now offers conceptual tools suitable for the reworking of the biological arguments. Although a full symbiosis has yet to develop, this anthology offers a unique resource for students in both biology and philosophy.Robert N. Brandon is Professor in the Philosophy Department, Duke University. Richard M. Burian is Professor of Philosophy and Department Chairman, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.A Bradford Book. (shrink)

In the past three decades a number of narrative self-concepts have appeared in the philosophical literature. A central question posed in recent literature concerns the embodiment of the narrative self. Though one of the best-known narrative self-concepts is a non-embodied one, namely Dennett’s self as ‘a center of narrative gravity’, others argue that the narrative self should include a role for embodiment. Several arguments have been made in support of the latter claim, but these can be summarized in two main (...) points. Firstly, a logical one: without taking the body into account Dennett’s theory becomes self-refuting. Secondly, a more practical/phenomenological point: a disembodied self-concept overlooks how personal the body is, and as such should be considered part of the self. In this paper I endorse these criticisms of non-embodied narrative self-concepts, but I argue that the relationship between the narrative self and the body is far from sufficiently fleshed out. I claim that the narrative self and the body are much more interwoven than the above criticisms suggest. What I aim to show in this paper is that the relationship between the body and the narrative self is interactive rather than unidirectional: not only does our body shape our narrative self, but our narrative self also shapes our body. The upshot of this is a better conception of the self is as a dynamic interaction between its various aspects. (shrink)

Epistemic Modality Epistemic modality is the kind of necessity and possibility that is determined by epistemic constraints. A modal claim is a claim about how things could be or must be given some constraints, such as the rules of logic, moral obligations, or the laws of nature. A modal … Continue reading Epistemic Modality →.

"On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, assassination, his political thought remains underappreciated. Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry, along with a cast of distinguished contributors, engage critically with King's understudied writings on a wide range of compelling, challenging topics and rethink the legacy of this towering figure."--Provided by publisher.

ABSTRACT16p11.2 deletion syndrome is a severe genetic disorder associated with the deletion of 27 genes from a Copy Number Variant region on human chromosome 16. Symptoms associated include cognitive impairment, language and motor delay, epilepsy or seizures, psychiatric disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), changes in head size and body weight, and dysmorphic features, with a crucial need to define genes and mechanisms responsible for symptomatology. In this review, we analyze the clinical associations and biological pathways of 16p11.2 locus genes and (...) identify that a majority of 16p11.2 genes relate to metabolic processes. We present a hypothesis in which changes in the dosage of 16p11.2 metabolic genes contribute to pathology through direct or indirect alterations in pathways that include amino acids or proteins, DNA, RNA, catabolism, lipid, energy (carbohydrate). This hypothesis suggests that research into the specific roles of each metabolic gene will help identify useful therapeutic targets. (shrink)

According to the perceptual theory of emotions, emotions are perceptions of evaluative properties. The account has recently faced a barrage of criticism recently by critics who point out varies disanalogies between emotion and paradigmatic perceptual experiences. What many theorists fail to note however, is that many of the disanalogies that have been raised to exclude emotions from being perceptual states that represent evaluative properties have also been used to exclude high-level properties from appearing in the content of perception. This suggests (...) that emotions are perceptions of high level properties and perceptual theorists can marshal the arguments used by proponents of high-level perception to defend the perceptual theory. This paper therefore defends an account of emotion as high-level perception. (shrink)

It’s strange that sleep doesn’t come up more when we think of virtue. In this paper, I argue that there is a virtue concerned with sleep, which I call “somnience,” and I develop an account of this virtue. My account of somnience builds on the virtue tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas and recent research about the nature of sleep. In the first section I argue that there is a need for such a virtue. Next, I argue that somnience is a (...) form of temperance. Third, I show how somnience connects to a number of other virtues, which helps us fill out the nature of the virtue. Finally, I argue that sleep also relates to virtue by aiding virtue formation. (shrink)