Die Autorinnen und Autoren untersuchen in ihren Beiträgen europäische Endzeit- und Untergangsvorstellungen von der Spätantike bis hinein ins 21. Jahrhundert, welche lange Zeit über in Anlehnung an die biblischen Apokalypsen und allen voran an die neutestamentliche Johannes-Offenbarung entstanden. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf den dahinter auszumachenden sozialen Dynamiken und diskursiven und medialen Faktoren, die gerade auch in End-Setzungen grundlegende identitätsstiftende, einheits- und gemeinschaftsbildende Funktionen erkennen lassen. Der kulturwissenschaftlich ausgerichtete und unter diesem Blickwinkel ausführlich eingeleitete Band unterteilt sich in drei die Moderne (...) und drei die Frühe Neuzeit und das Mittelalter behandelnde Abschnitte mit den Schwerpunkten: Allmachtsformen, Medienregulative, Denken der Kontingenz, typologische Schemata, Differenz und Gemeinsinn und Zeithorizonte. (shrink)

This paper addresses some apparent philosophical tensions between realism and enactivism by means of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. Enactivism’s Mind-Life Continuity thesis has been taken to commit it to some form of anti-realist ‘world-construction’ which has been considered controversial. Accordingly, a new realist enactivism is proposed by Zahidi (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13(3), 2014), drawing on Ian Hacking’s ‘entity realism’, which places subjects in worlds comprised of the things that they can successfully manipulate. We review this attempt, and argue that (...) whilst Zahidi rightly urges enactivists towards ‘internal realism’, he cannot sustain a non-negotiable aspect of realism that is crucial for scientific progress – the claim that multiple subjects inhabit the same world. We explore Peirce’s pragmatism as an alternative solution, foregrounding his distinction between existence and reality, and his inquiry-based account of cognition. These theoretical innovations, we argue, fruitfully generalize Zahidi’s manipulation-based enactivist realism to a richer, inquiry-based enactivist realism. We explore how this realism’s pan-species monism about truth encourages and supports the investigation of non-human animal cognition, and conclude by considering some implications of our discussion for long-standing realism debates within pragmatism. (shrink)

Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception is, crucially, (...) not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation-based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological - phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable. (shrink)

Pursuing difficult long-term goals typically involves encountering substantial evidence of possible future failure. If decisions to pursue such goals are serious only if one believes that one will act as one has decided, then some of our lives’ most important decisions seem to require belief against the evidence. This is the puzzle of difficult action, to which I offer a solution. I argue that serious decisions to φ do not have to give rise to a belief that one will φ, (...) but can instead be accompanied by a hope to φ. Hope can motivate and rationalize the various actions that we associate with serious commitment. It can also account for the existence of special pressures to adopt an agential stance toward one’s future. Because hope can be cognitively rational when belief is not, there is no problematic tension between the ideal of epistemic rationality and the phenomenon of difficult action. (shrink)

Pythagoreans dominated the political scene in southern Italy for nearly a century in the late 6th to 5th century BC. What was the secret of their political success and can their political, social and economic policies be assessed in the customary terms with which historians try to analyse ancient societies? I argue that they cannot, and that the Pythagorean approach to politics was sui generis, and successful because it was based on ideas, not force or popular demagogy.

The influential apoha theory of concept formation of the seventh-century Buddhist Dharmakīrti stands as a philosophically powerful articulation of how language could work in the absence of real universals. In brief, Dharmakīrti argues that concepts are constructed through a goaloriented process that delimits the content of an experience by ignoring whatever does not conform to one's conditioned expectations. There are no real similarities that ground this process. Rather, a concept is merely what's left over once one has glossed over enough (...) of the differences between elements of one's awareness that one can judge the remainder to have the same effects as what one... (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe negativity bias is the tendency for individuals to give greater weight, and often exhibit more rapid and extreme responses, to negative than positive information. Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott illusory memory paradigm, the current study sought to examine how the negativity bias might affect both correct recognition for negative and positive words and false recognition for associated critical lures, as well as how trait neuroticism might moderate these effects. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words composed of semantic associates of (...) an unpresented word. Half of the lists were comprised of positive words and half were comprised of negative words. As expected, individuals remembered negative list words better than positive list words, consistent with a negativity bias in correct recognition. When tested immediately, individuals also exhibited greater false memory for negative versus positive critical lures. When tested after a 24-hr delay... (shrink)

We focus on a fascinating observation shared by philosophers in a number of traditions: when we try to directly examine our experience, the experience itself seems to vanish as we focus on its objects. We examine two scaffolds for understanding this observation that have been dominant in the post-Moore analytic tradition: the window scaffold and the mirror scaffold. We note that these scaffolds have different strengths, but fail to fully capture certain salient features of the transparency datum. We introduce a (...) new scaffold for thinking about the transparency datum. This new scaffold, which we have developed through our cross-cultural engagement with Classical South Asian epistemology, suggests that awareness is like purple, transparency is like polarization, and subject and object are like the red and blue into which purple can be polarized. Experience vanishes when we direct our attention to it like purple vanishes when polarized into red and blue. (shrink)

Introduction We search for origins the way some cats chase their tails. After brief bursts of frenetic spinning, we think we have a grasp of our topic, ...

Experimental philosophers advocate expansion of philosophical methods to include empirical investigation into the concepts used by ordinary people in reasoning and action. We propose also including methods of qualitative social science, which we argue serve both moral and epistemic goals. Philosophical analytical tools applied to interdisciplinary research designs can provide ways to extract rich contextual information from subjects. We argue that this approach has important implications for bioethics; it provides both epistemic and moral reasons to use the experiences and perspectives (...) of diverse populations to better identify underlying concepts as well as to develop effective interventions within particular communities. (shrink)

In this paper I explore a famous part of Plato’s Theaetetus where Socrates develops various models of the mind (picturing it first as a wax tablet and then as an aviary full of specimen birds). These are to solve some puzzles about how it is possible to make a mistake. On my interpretation, defended here, the discussion of mistakes is no digression, but is part of the refutation of Theaetetus’s thesis that knowledge is “true doxa”. It reveals that false doxa (...) is possible only if there is a certain stock of abstract knowledge, conceptual knowledge, that is not awareness of the particular individual that is being described. The individual must be identified under some description, or seen as something of a certain kind. Error can only occur if the description applied misdescribes the situation, but then if it is to be applied falsely it must first have been known from somewhere else. So knowledge cannot be reduced to the application of descriptions to particulars, but is to be found in the prior possession of abstract descriptions that can be deployed in identifying particular individuals on the ground. (shrink)

The paper starts with reflections on Plato’s critique of the poets and the preference many express for Aristotle’s view of poetry. The second part of the paper takes a case study of analytic treatments of ancient philosophy, including the ancient philosopher poets, to examine the poetics of analytic philosophy, diagnosing a preference in Analytic philosophy for a clean non-poetic style of presentation, and then develops this in considering how well historians of philosophy in the Analytic tradition can accommodate the contributions (...) of philosophers who wrote in verse. The final part of the paper reviews the current enthusiasm for decoding Empedocles’ vague and poetic descriptions of the cosmic cycle into a precise scientific periodicity on the basis of the recently discovered Byzantine scholia on Aristotle. I argue that this enthusiasm speaks to a desire for definite and clear numerical values in place of poetic motifs of give and take, and that this mathematical and scientific poetic is comparable to the preferred poetic of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Moral properties are widely held to be response‐dependent properties of actions, situations, events and persons. There is controversy as to whether the putative response‐dependence of these properties nullifies any truth‐claims for moral judgements, or rather supports them. The present paper argues that moral judgements are more profitably compared with theoretical judgements in the natural sciences than with the judgements of immediate sense‐perception. The notion of moral truth is dependent on the notion of moral knowledge, which in turn is best understood (...) as a possible endpoint of theory change for the better. (shrink)

What sort of realism is perspectival realism, really? Perspectival realism rejects many central commitments associated with traditional accounts of realism. It eschews the mind-independent claim that is often tethered to many realist accounts. For Massimi, mind-independence is not just resisted but inverted in her approach to perspectivist realism. Mindedness—or rather a fully human and culturally situated mindedness—is required for realism. A world that is real is real because it is part-made by our human points of view rather than one whose (...) existence depends on something independent from us. These historically and culturally situated perspectives provide access to what is possibly real (Massimi, 2022: 161–162). This is an accounting of reality that focuses on the processes and justifications that lead to forming realist commitments to the data points, measurements of phenomena, and culturally situated practices like those I’ve referred to as kinding and ontologizing rooted in inextricably situated life histories, rather than in a world beyond our grasp (Kendig 2016a, 2016b, 2020). Perspectival realism traverses philosophical landscapes also traversed by fellow self-identified realists and anti-realists alike. But rather than seeking justifications for no-miracles arguments, or defences of PMI, Massimi seeks new ways of answering questions about the nature of knowledge assertions such as those we state about the veridicality of scientific representations and how it is that we can justifiably assert belief in the sorts of things we think are in the world from our particularly situated points of view. (shrink)

This paper probes theories of justice underpinning the concept of equity to deconstruct the term and ascertain how best to equitably support refugee and asylum-seeking youth in U.S. schools. Building upon theories posited by John Rawls, Michael Sandel, and Amartya Sen, the paper aims to extend beyond ideal theory into a theoretical framework of equity with operationalizing potential. Recognizing refugee and asylum-seeking youth as part of the U.S. social contract and therefore bound to government support, the paper represents that equitable (...) education for these young people in our globalized world is essential from both a human rights and economic perspective. Such equitable education will only be achieved when universal minimum standards are offered to everyone and made inclusive, so that all are invited to fully participate as culturally respected learners and knowledge producers in academic spaces. (shrink)

Do you need to know the name of the god you're praying to? If you get the name wrong what happens to the prayer? What if the god has more than one name? Who gets to decide whether the name works (you or the god or neither)? What are names anyway? Are the names of the gods any different in how they work from any other names? Is there a way of fixing the reference without using the name so as (...) to avoid the problems of optional names? There is a type of formula used in prayer in ancient Greece which I call (in this paper) a "precautionary formula". The person praying uses expressions like "whether you want to be called [x] or [y]", and "if this is the name by which you would like to be called". I also include here the practice of adding definite descriptions that identify the god by means other than the name (e.g. their place of birth or residence, their deeds etc). In this paper I ask what these formulae were for, why so many occur in philosophical work, particularly Plato, and whether the puzzles about the names of the gods go back to the Presocratics. (shrink)

Dans cet article, il s’agira de questionner les affordances, autrement dit les « signes actanciels », les « valences » ou le « caractère de demande » d’objets numériques iconotextuels tels que l’échelle temporelle numérique dite ticker. Forme d’architexte, le ticker propose un modèle iconique et langagier qui simultanément incite à l’action tout en limitant ce champ d’action. La diversité d’affordances semble dépendre des potentialités intrinsèques à l’objet mais aussi de l’expérience de l’usager. Plus ce coefficient de diversité augmente, plus (...) la possibilité de dépasser le niveau injonctif de l’affordance augmente. En dépit des affordances prévues par les concepteurs et de leurs intentionnalités, les usagers « détournent » les fonctionnalités d’objets numériques en conservant le design initial mais en modifiant les éléments textuels qui l’accompagnent, créant ainsi une nouvelle catégorie, plus invisible, de produsage. (shrink)

The 'no-supervenience' theorem (Reason, 2019; Reason and Shah, 2021) is a proof that no fully self-aware system can entirely supervene on any objectively observable system. I here present a simple, non-technical summary of the proof and demonstrate its implications for four separate theories of consciousness: the 'property dualism' theory of David Chalmers; the 'reflexive monism' of Max Velmans; Galen Strawson's 'realistic monism'; and the 'illusionism' of Keith Frankish. It is shown that all are ruled out in their current form by (...) the no-supervenience theorem, except for Chalmers' theory, which I show requires humans to behave irrationally. (shrink)

Diodorus Siculus was notoriously inconsistent in his statements about the terminal date of his survey of history, the Bibliotheca Historica. In the ‘table of contents’ which he included in the general preface to the whole work, written apparently when he was preparing his manuscript for publication , he specifically names the year 60/59 as the last year of his narrative. Elsewhere, however, he not only gives a figure for the period of history encompassed by his work which would bring it (...) down to 46/5, but he also on several occasions expresses the intention of including within his narrative some account of Julius Caesar's activities in Gaul, which implies a terminal date later than c. 52 B.C. How can this discrepancy be explained? The most economical hypothesis would be that Diodorus set out at first to compose a work that should go down to 46/5, but at some later stage in the composition changed his mind, and set back his terminus to 60/59. His originally intended terminus was most likely the triple triumph of Julius Caesar, whom Diodorus clearly admired beyond all other contemporary leaders. The decision in favour of an earlier terminus will have been due either to simple fatigue or to disillusionment with the course followed by Caesar's heir after 44 b.c. and anxiety about the dangers of dealing with events of a too recent and controversial past. (shrink)

This article explores how Mia Hansen-Løve's cinema thinks about the experience of a life in which God is absent, and yet his ghost continues to haunt us. It suggests links between her films and pos...

I explore some enlightening alternative economic theories in Plato’s Republic which help to cast doubt on standard models of rationality in economics. Starting from Socrates’ suggestion that things work best if everyone says ‘mine’ about the same things, I discuss a kind of ‘belonging’ which merits more attention in political and economic theory. This kind of belonging is not about owning property, but it can (better) explain the desire to do things for others and for the collective good. But did (...) Socrates forget to invoke it when addressing the puzzle about why the philosopher would willingly return to the cave? (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we can better understand Plato’s Phaedo, if we don’t concentrate solely on the hints of Pythagoreanism among the characters and their doctrines, as though that were the principal key to the dialogue’s dialec- tical targets. I suggest that the dialogue is intended to make us think of the meta-physics of at least one other Presocratic predecessor, besides any Pythagorean influence (which may be much less than has been thought). Not least among the thinkers of (...) whom we are reminded is Heraclitus. In the Phaedo, Plato invites us to explore the limitations of these earlier metaphysical views, and to consider how far they can or cannot make space for the capacity of the soul to direct the body, to make decisions, to grasp eternal truths and potentially to survive in perpetuity beyond the decay of the body. (shrink)

Teacher-student discourse is increasingly mediated through, by and with information and communication technologies: in-class discussions have found new, textually-rich venues online; chalk and whiteboard lectures are rapidly giving way to PowerPoint presentations. Yet, what does this mean experientially for teachers? This paper reports on a phenomenological study investigating teachers’ lived experiences of PowerPoint in post-secondary classrooms. As teachers become more informed about the affordances of information and communication technology like PowerPoint and consequently take up and use these tools in their (...) classrooms, their teaching practices, relations with students, and ways of interpreting the world are simultaneously in-formed – conformed, deformed and reformed – by the given technology-in-use. The paper is framed in light of Martin Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking” (1951) and “The Thing” (1949). In these writings, Heidegger shows how a thing opens a new world to us, revealing novel structures of experience and meaning, and inviting us to a different style of being, thinking and doing. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , May 2010, Volume 10, Edition 1. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Personal Narratives: Parenting Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders Through the Transition to AdulthoodCatherine Cornell, Julie Herren, Susan Osborne, and Kelly WeissTransition years: From Learning, Living and Loving to Maintenance and MediocrityCatherine CornellWhat does every parent of an autistic child worry about the most? For those of us with severely affected children, the answer to that question is: “Who will care for my child and keep her safe when I (...) am gone?”I drove my daughter back to her “group home” for a scheduled drop off on Saturday. There was only one car in the driveway and the house van was gone. Lily was not happy about returning “home.” Agitated, she opened the door to the car, almost before it was stopped, ran to the back of the house, and up the fire escape stairs to the door of her third floor bathroom, as if she was avoiding going through the main living rooms of the house. I called up to her that there was no one at home and she came back down and pushed through the unlocked door. Racing ahead of me, she was already shed of her clothes and in the shower: her self–calming method that she used whenever returning to the house. Thirty minutes later, after three attempts to leave the shower and throwing up in the shower, she dressed and ran back out to our car. I played her favorite music, attempting to calm her anxiety. This transition, from home to “group home,” was increasingly difficult due to recent changes in staff and housemates. Having no one there to greet her was ratcheting up the anxiety level for both of us.When the on–call manager came, Lily was so distraught that I asked for her medications and took her back home with me. Two days later she was calm enough and I was reassured enough to return her to the house. Somehow the house manager made the incident my fault. Perhaps I did react strongly, but on reflection, what triggered the strong reaction in me was the insecurity I felt at finding no one home. It seemed like a breach of trust. Like we were left, abandoned, our plans shattered and at the mercy of fate. Strong emotions for a little mix–up in communications (if that is what it was) but, nevertheless, there it is—how I felt and more to the point how my daughter felt.I relate this story because it illustrates what has changed the most about our lives since Lily left her school and entered the world of adult services: missing is the feeling of trust and security that responsible caring people would keep Lily safe when my husband and I cannot.My 25–year–old daughter Lily has severe autism. She was the most beautiful and easy baby imaginable and appeared to develop normally until she began to lose speech and have night terrors at 15 months of age. She was diagnosed initially with atypical autism, then pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, and finally with autism at age four.From age four to twenty–two, she attended a specialized school for autism where she received age level academics, therapies for speech, and training in self–care and independent living. She did not do well in academics nor did she regain her lost speech. She did learn to care for herself with assistance and, as important, she gained social and behavioral skills and learned to live with others in a social way. She [End Page E1] also learned recreational and vocational skills that would be transferrable to the community, such as bicycle riding, rollerblading, swimming and jogging. The philosophy of her school was to build self–esteem and confidence by teaching music, art and physical skills—in small steps, ensuring success, and then building on those skills.In her last year at school, Lily was a happy and well–adjusted member of her small group of five young women living in a town house with support from trained school staff. She participated in job programs, earning money by recycling and working for Meals–On–Wheels. She went out into the community with her group... (shrink)

L’article présente les activités éditoriales du mathématicien Albert Châtelet (1883-1960), dont résulte une bibliographie particulièrement étendue par les types de publics auxquels elle s’adresse. Il montre la part importante prise par le mathématicien dans la vie des éditions Bourrelier et précise les objectifs poursuivis par Châtelet à travers la publication de manuels scolaires en mettant en évidence la manière dont ce travail a consolidé son engagement en faveur de la pédagogie et de l’enseignement scientifique.

In this essay, I argu e that Descartes considered his theory that the body is an inn ervated machine – in which the soul is situated – to be his most original contribution to philosophy. His ambition to prove the immortality of the soul was very poorly realized, a predictable outcome, insofar as his aims were ethical, not theological. His dualism accordingly requires reassessment.

The character Protagoras in Plato's Protagoras holds similar views to the one in the Theaetetus, and faces similar problems. The dialogue considers issues in epistemology and moral epistemology, as a central theme. The Protagorean position is immune from Socrates' attacks, and Socrates needs Protagorean methods to make any impact.

This chapter contains section titled: Suggested Reading.

A universal basic income is an unconditional allowance, sufficient to live on, paid in cash to every citizen regardless of income. It has been a Green Party policy for years. But the idea raises many interesting philosophical questions, about fairness, entitlement, desert, stigma and sanctions, the value of unpaid work, the proper ambitions of a good society, and our preconceptions about whether leisure or jobs are the thing we should prize above all for free citizens. Coming from the perspective of (...) ancient philosophy, I consider the answers offered in the ancient world to some of these questions, and how we might learn from rethinking our notions of how to create a good society in which people can be free and realise their creative and intellectual potential. (shrink)

Calorie labeling on menus is one of the more recent public health responses to calls for increased access to nutrition information. The goal is to encourage consumers to make more healthy food choices. In this commentary on ‘Equity in Public Health Ethics: The Case of Menu Labelling Policy at the Local Level’, I focus first on research supporting health equity-directed goals for menu labeling policies; then I turn to the issue of challenges and opportunities for menu labeling as a part (...) of local food policy and food activism. I argue that, while there is some evidence that changes in menu labeling may help to promote health equity, other moves are needed at all levels of political organization. In particular, effecting shifts in attitudes and consumption will require changing our relationships with the food sources in our neighborhoods, and changing those food sources themselves. Leveraging our knowledge of behavioral economics and social marketing, using social networks and developing programs to transform eating patterns; all of these require participation and coordination among many stakeholders. Menu labeling is one tool, but many others are needed to effect change in communities. (shrink)

Philosophers are generally somewhat wary of the hints of number mysticism in the reports about the beliefs and doctrines of the so-called Pythagoreans. It's not clear how much Pythagoras himself (as opposed to his later followers) indulged in speculation about numbers, or in more serious mathematics. But the Pythagoreans whom Aristotle discusses in the Metaphysics had some elaborate stories to tell about how the universe could be explained in terms of numbers—not just its physics but perhaps morality too. Was this (...) just fanciful speculation? Is it muddled as a theory of causality, as Aristotle suggests? I shall try to rehabilitate the passion for numbers by linking it with the notions of harmony and proportion in other thinkers who have a higher credibility factor in the philosophical stakes, and by showing that the desire to reduce quality to quantity, and to discover an exact science that can explain human life and meaning, is a serious philosophical passion that doesn't easily go away. And, after all, why should it? (shrink)

Cet article souhaite montrer que les modèles spatiaux, physiques ou expérientiels, proposés généralement pour rendre compte du fonctionnement des particules verbales en anglais, posent de nombreux problèmes. En particulier, il s’avère impossible de réduire le signifié de UP (vs DOWN) à l’expression d’un « mouvement vertical vers le haut » et les valeurs non spatiales sont très nombreuses. L’alternative décrite ici, dans le cadre général de la Théorie de la Relation Interlocutive (Douay & Roulland 2014), consiste à rechercher dans le (...) fonctionnement même du système linguistique les causes et les motifs à la fois de la structuration spatiale et non spatiale. Cette recherche s’appuie sur une définition systémique du langage fondée sur l’auto-référence et l’auto-organisation, plutôt que sur des stimuli environnementaux qui seraient plus ou moins « évidents ». (shrink)

In this paper I review four texts in which Aristotle comments on Empedocles ' writing style. I show that Aristotle thought that Empedocles was a fine poet. That is fine, if a poet is what you want.