China was the first country beyond Europe with an important civilization to receive scientific theory from the West in the modern era. Neither in India nor in Japan (where the first Western works arrived from China and were quickly banned) nor a fortiori in other missionary countries was there an early acquaintance with European sciences. In China the first handbook of Western geometry was printed in 1607, the first treatise of astronomy in 1614. After 1584 a map of the (...) class='Hi'>world, inspired no doubt by that of Ortelius of 1570, was engraved in stone. Printed versions spread quickly in China and continued into Korea and Japan. The algebraic notation of Viète, plane and solid trigonometry, logarithms (called then the rules of Neper), the cosmology of Aristotle and the methods of astronomical calculation of Tycho Brahe were all introduced into China during the course of the 17th century. (shrink)

Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity in that world? Additively separable axiologies (like total utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and critical level views) say 'yes', but non-additive axiologies (like average utilitarianism, rank-discounted utilitarianism, and variable value views) say 'no'. This distinction appears to be practically important: among other things, additive axiologies generally assign great importance to large changes in population size, and therefore tend to strongly prioritize the long-term survival of (...) humanity over the interests of the present generation. Non-additive axiologies, on the other hand, need not assign great importance to large changes in population size. We show, however, that when there is a large enough `background population' unaffected by our choices, a wide range of non-additive axiologies converge in their implications with additive axiologies—for instance, average utilitarianism converges with critical-level utilitarianism and various egalitarian theories converge with prioritarianism. We further argue that real-world background populations may be large enough to make these limit results practically significant. This means that arguments from the scale of potential future populations for the astronomical importance of avoiding existential catastrophe, and other arguments in practical ethics that seem to presuppose additive separability, may succeed in practice whether or not we accept additive separability as a basic axiological principle. (shrink)

In this work, I argue for the overall explanatory superiority of philosophical naturalism to a theistic worldview. Pursuant to that, this piece develops and defends a functionalist theory of explanation, which is then used in addressing several particular topics in the philosophy of religion: the law-governed nature of the world, the intelligibility of the world, alleged "fine-tuning", reports of religious experiences and the occurrence of evils. In each case, I argue that a naturalistic explanation is as good or (...) superior to a theistic worldview in helping us to understand such phenomena. Some original parts of the work include developing out a naturalistic explanation of religious experiences grounded in normal human perceptual and cognitive fallacies, an explanatory critique of several traditional theodicies, and a rebuttal of contemporary fine-tuning arguments on the basis of their reliance on unestablished assumptions that add no explanatory improvement. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) and Otto Neurath (1882-1945) decisively determined the development of the scientific world view of logical empiricism. The contributions to this volume illuminate from different perspectives the intricate relations between these two key thinkers.

The case for longtermism depends on the vast potential scale of the future. But that same vastness also threatens to undermine the case for longtermism: If the universe as a whole, or the future in particular, contain infinite quantities of value and/or disvalue, then many of the theories of value that support longtermism (e.g., risk-neutral total utilitarianism) seem to imply that none of our available options are better than any other. If so, then even apparently vast effects on the far (...) future cannot in fact make the world morally better. On top of this, some strategies for avoiding this problem of “infinitarian paralysis” (e.g., exponential pure time discounting) yield views that are much less supportive of longtermism. In this chapter, we explore how the potential infinitude of the future affects the case for longtermism. We argue that (i) there are reasonable prospects for extending risk-neutral totalism and similar views to infinite contexts and (ii) many such extension strategies will still support the case for longtermism, since they imply that when we can only effect (or only predictably affect) a finite, bounded part of an infinite universe, we can ignore the unaffectable rest of the universe and reason as if the finite, affectable part were all there is. (shrink)

. Based on a reconstruction of the development of Rudolf Carnap’s views from the Aufbau until the 1960s, this paper provides an account of the philosopher’s understanding of non-cognitivism, which is here seen as in line with the so-called scientific world-conception of left-wing logical empiricism. The starting point of Carnap’s conception is the claim that every human decision depends on certain attitudes that cannot be justified at a cognitive level, that are neither based on empirical facts nor logical reasoning. (...) The key features of Carnap’s non-cognitivism, however, go beyond this general basis and involve several fundamentally moral commitments, such as a commitment toward science, and the embracing of moral attitudes as the result of a long-term process of rational discourse. I argue that these commitments contained in Carnap’s non-cognitivism/scientific world-conception establish a genuinely political worldview that is characteristic of left-wing logical empiricism and converges with socialism and democracy. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap and Martin Heidegger shared with Max Weber the decisionist understanding of values as something that cannot be justified by scientists or philosophers. Although both accepted the challenge of modernity in this respect, they reacted in opposite ways. Carnap, along with the Vienna Circle, defended a scientific conception of the world in which science and instrumental rationality were to permeate all of life; Heidegger embarked on an understanding of metaphysics in which rationality and science were to be eliminated. (...) Both strategies were deeply political, and both resulted from the split in the German youth and life reform movement that took place during and immediately after World War I. I discuss this image here in the context of dialectical theology, the Vienna Circle, and the Davos Disputation, with a sideways glance at Ernst Cassirer, and with a view to earlier interpretations by Michael Friedman and Gottfried Gabriel. (shrink)

Philosophers have been known to sometimes conjure up world-views which seem dazzlingly at odds with our everyday take on the world. Among the more, if not most drastic ???-isms??? to be found in the history of philosophy, then, is the standpoint of solipsism, derived from the Latin words ???solus??? and ???ipse??? . What is that supposed to mean? It adopts a position that only acknowledges the existence of one's very own mind and opposes that there is anything beyond (...) the realm of my mind that could be known. What a drastic contradiction to the way we normally view the world, indeed. Allow me to emphasize some implications that would arise were one really to take the solipsist view for granted. The aim is to briefly adumbrate how a solipsist view would cut us off from the social world and from the existential dimension of our own death. (shrink)

The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights (...) and a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical. (shrink)

The study attempts to survey the way in which the rationalist spirit (especially Aristotle’s philosophy) was assimilated by Christian thinking in the patristic and scholastic periods. This shows that the great schism is the outcome not only of dogmatic controversies, but also of accepting and promoting distinctive-argumentative methodologies to justify these dogmas. If in the West theory was viewed as contemplation and as method for conceptual construction, in the East the emphasis was laid exclusively on contemplation and revelation. Furthermore, (...) the West accepted the autonomy of sciences by creating the “seven liberal arts” - an unacceptable concept for the Orthodox world, where logic was considered a mere organon, and philosophy, an ancilla theologiae. Among the main consequences detectable to this day are the varied cultural moulds that exist in the Christian world, as well as the scientific and civilizational lagging behind of the Orthodox East. (shrink)

"As Editor-in-Chief of World, Marvin Olasky has offered his views on current events and culture for more than twenty-five years. In this collection of columns, he shows readers how Christians can speak biblical truths while also living out the biblical values of grace and mercy in today's world."--From back of book.

Rudolf Carnap and Martin Heidegger shared with Max Weber the decisionist understanding of values as something that cannot be justified by scientists or philosophers. Although both accepted the challenge of modernity in this respect, they reacted in opposite ways. Carnap, along with the Vienna Circle, defended a scientific conception of the world in which science and instrumental rationality were to permeate all of life; Heidegger embarked on an understanding of metaphysics in which rationality and science were to be eliminated. (...) Both strategies were deeply political, and both resulted from the split in the German youth and life-reform movement that took place during and immediately after World War I. I discuss this image here in the context of dialectical theology, the Vienna Circle, and the Davos Disputation, with a sideways glance at Ernst Cassirer, and with a view to earlier interpretations by Michael Friedman and Gottfried Gabriel. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s description of the Apollinian world of dream exhibits a striking similarity to the view of the world in Husserl’s transcendental reduction. Starting with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, the article deals with the particular transformation the world is subjected to in this change of perspective or attitude. In a detached observation certain dimensions of experience that depend on active participation undergo a fundamental change. After all, our entanglement with the world cannot be completely undone. Phenomenology, too, (...) needs to assume a stance and produce presentations, but Husserl’s radical claims tend to under - mine any consolidation of concepts and constructions. Breaking with the habitual and familiar is the methodical degree zero phenomenology keeps returning to. (shrink)

Communities of Deaf people consider themselves a minority with its own language, Sign Language, and culture. Two basic characteristics of Deaf Culture, its orientation on community and the awareness of an own Deaf worldview different from hearing people's worldview, are often not recognized by Christian Churches. This article tries to find a theological answer on this dramatic situation, formulating a theological foundation of the legitimacy of Deaf people's experience of God's presence in the Deaf community, and the thesis that (...) God's presence can take place even in a very secular environment. The legitimacy of the experience of God's presence in the community is supported by statements of exegetes, Fathers of the Church, spiritual theologians, and Church historians about Jesus' presence amongst two or three. This presence needs of a new Pneumatic religious culture, which is based on the quality of relationship. (shrink)

We are living in a time of social and cultural changes. As in other disciplines, the foundations of music education are being increasingly challenged. Thus, it is no longer possible to specify reliably the aims and contents of music education and their implementation in school by simply basing them on lasting musical traditions and changeless forms of life. It has been said that such an assessment leads us to a pluralistic—if not relativistic—view of music education. But it does not (...) help us when we have to make a decision on "What is to be done?" How can we orientate ourselves in our actions and whereupon should we base our judgements when negotiating decisions and trying to convince others? If we are not ready to accept that the decision-making process in the field of music education is just a matter of power, we have to be content with the arguments we can offer. We need to have the courage of independent critical thinking in terms of Didaktik involving all concerned. The situation is similar to that of aesthetic arguing: there is no sure footing; our criteria for evaluation are always up for discussion. (shrink)

This paper investigates a manner for taking a stand against the current naturalistic tendencies within the current form of globalized capitalism that see it merely as the logical expression of triumphant market forces working upon productive assets. Taking a cue from the French concept of alter-mondalisme, as opposed to the English syntagma anti-globalism, this paper argues that our current form of globalised capitalism is simply a form having no specific ontological necessity – i.e., globalism as it now is, is not (...) the inevitable result of natural forces, but is rather a complex emergent entity. Cosmopolitical citizenship, characterized by critical global citizens, means principled refusal to accept this entity as determining the possible and the impossible. Instead of being the creature of simply naturalistic, neo-liberal economics, capital is a cultural system, a social relationship based on a particular political power structure. Thinking otherwise makes issues of social justice meaningless within capitalism. The current concentration of economic power tends to spread certain behavioral norms that sustain it, which is a systemic phenomenon that can be called the cultural system of capitalism, a shared ideology.Viewing it such, we can move from an ethical study of the rational foundations of moral norms to a political reflection on the democratic construction of social norms. Hence, democratic experimentalism can arise, in which various possibilities and norms of one subset or region of capitalist interaction are played off against each other subset or region in a subversive attempt at forming new possibilities for organizing economic and political processes. This will also protect the plurality of ways of life from overweening global capitalism: another world is possible. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that though symbolism performs many roles in different cultures, it has a uniquely moral one in Igbo land. That unique role which symbolism performs in the pristine communalistic Igbo society concerns the regulation of human freedoms and actions in order to maintain social order. But is this something that can be sustained in a modern Igbo society that is more individualistic than communalistic? This paper is of the view that through the proper maintenance of (...) such symbolism: social control between individuals and groups shall be more coordinated in the contemporary Igbo world; regulate and checkmate the Igbo moral consciousness of oneness; control some cultural maladjustment and bring more about social unity in Igbo land. Keywords: Symbol, Symbolism, Social Order, Igbo, Oji. (shrink)

The anti-metaphysical attitude of the neo-positivist movement is notorious. It is an essential mark of what its members regarded as the scientific world view. The paper focuses on a metaphysical variation of the scientific world view as proposed by Heinrich Scholz and his Münster group, who can be regarded as a peripheral part of the movement. They used formal ontology for legitimizing the use of logical calculi. Scholz's relation to the neo-positivist movement and his contributions to (...) logic and foundations are discussed. His heuristic background can be drawn from a set of six methodological ‘articles of faith’, formulated in 1942 and published here for the first time. I would like to thank Gudrun Mikus (Paderborn) for her assistance in collecting the material, Neil Tennant (Ohio State University, Columbus) for his efforts to improve the paper not only in lingual aspects, and Christian Thiel (Erlangen) and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The starting point of the following article are statements by various prominent musical performers of the 20th century who have testified to the life-experience of musical identification, i.e. the experience of unity and oneness with music. The purpose of the article is to explore the phenomenological implications of this experience on the basis of Martin Heidegger’s early phenomenological work. The article compares Heidegger’s early view of phenomenal givenness with that of Edmund Husserl. While Husserl sees phenomenal givenness as constituted (...) by (transcendental) consciousness, Heidegger finds primary givenness in the resonance (Mitschwingen) between the I and its lifeworld. I argue that in Heidegger’s early phenomenology it is not the subject, but rather the relatio between I and world, which “constitutes” givenness. This viewpoint allows for the exploration of musical identification as a life-experience. Musical identification suspends the difference between subject and object. In musical identification, it is the relation between “I” and music, which is constitutive of both. Thus, music cannot be adequately grasped in phenomenological terms if it is regarded simply as an object, which is the premise of more traditional phenomenological approaches to music such as Roman Ingarden’s and Mikel Dufrenne’s. Ingarden and Dufrenne both position music at a distance from the subject, as something to be explored in its objective characteristics, without presupposing the constitutive relation between them. Contrary to them, Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht, Günther Anders and Ilya Yonchev all recognize that the subject-object divide is insufficient for the exploration of musical experience. However, while Eggebrecht ultimately remains within the subject-object-dichotomy, Anders and Yonchev both develop the idea of musical Mitsein, or Being-with-music, which dispenses with the subject-object premise altogether and interprets musical life-experience as a mode of Being within which the sense of the I and musical sense coincide. (shrink)

This paper analyses the conception of the speaker figures in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Graecae and Quaestiones Romanae and their relationship to each other and to the historical author. The analysis is based on the questions as to what extent it is actually possible to identify a conceived speaker figure in these seemingly note-like writings and if such speaker figure can be assumed to be a completely freely conceived character or is at least in some way related to the person of the (...) historical author. The analysis of the Quaestiones Graecae reveals that the speaker in this treatise is conceived as a competent explainer of the Greek world. He is imbued with Greek culture, but shows no particular proximity to the author’s special interests and competencies. Only a reader who is deeply familiar with the author can discern his presence in some passages, which gives them access to a second level of understanding. The speaker of the Quaestiones Romanae, in contrast, is conceived as a conscientious researcher, who is interwoven with Greek culture and exercises restraint in addressing Roman issues. However, where Greek subjects are concerned, he can take a more pronounced position, thus exhibiting some proximity to the speaker of the Quaestiones Graecae. The analysis of such a passage makes evident that the speaker figures of the two treatises are identical and that their approach is essentially dependent on the subject contemplated. They can be considered as conceptions based on the historical author, whose presence, however, shines through in only some passages. This multi-layered speaker conception shows that both treatises are more thoroughly elaborated from a literary point of view and are more closely interconnected than often assumed by researchers. (shrink)

The philosophical parting of the ways between Heidegger’s Fundamental ontology and the Philosophical anthropology of Plessner is well known. Today, however, after the publication of the »Schwarze Hefte«, new aspects of their differences come to light. Accordingly, this article focusses on the purpose of death discussed in »Die Stufen des Organischen« as a genuine thought Plessner inscribed into 20th century philosophy. It argues that the most peculiar difference is to be found in Plessner’s view on death not as a (...) simple element of life but as an external phe- nomenon. In contrast to Plessner, Heidegger’s »Schwarze Hefte« seem to present more of an eschatology than a systematical approach to human self and world. (shrink)

What is the task of educational theory or philosophy if it is not merely conceived as specification of philosophical doctrines in the realm of education? In my view it is the particular task of educational-philosophical theory to work critically on the historically developed cultural constructs that shape our (educational) experience. Thus, the activity that educational theorists are to perform is the critical reflection of the “limits of our world” by drawing on philosophical references and theories. In this text (...) I describe this activity drawing from my own research practice with a particular focus on its relation to what is called thinking. (shrink)

Plotinus’ Enneads display a strategy of persuasion that can be called a philosophical rhetoric in more than just a general sense. It takes its lead from Plato’s definition of rhetoric as psychagogy and is, at least to some extent, theorized in Ennead V 3.6. Plotinus starts from the fact that logical necessity does not always entail inner assent, which he explains with the fallen state of the embodied soul – the addressee of all philosophical speech – and the influence of (...) the senses. To heal the discrepancy of necessity and persuasion, which on the level of pure Intellect does not exist, philosophy must persuade the soul to ascend to the Intelligible, where it has its true roots. To achieve this goal, Plotinus combines two modes of philosophical speech: the ‘necessity mode’, which considers intelligible Being in itself and from its proper principles, and the ‘persuasive mode’, which teaches soul to view itself as a part and offspring of the intelligible world. Some examples, mainly from Ennead V.3, show how this combination works in practice and how it can be transferred to the Neoplatonic One, which, being ineffable, is strictly speaking unaccessible to speech and rhetoric. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste trabalho pretendo, em primeiro lugar, indicar o sentido geral da crítica ao correlacionismo de Meillassoux, isto é, a crítica à ideia dominante desde a filosofia transcendental de Kant, segundo a qual não temos acesso senão à correlação entre pensamento e ser. Em seguida, destacar a aporia indicada por essa crítica através do argumento da ancestralidade, e que expressa um limite da postura antirrealista própria à ideia correlacionista. Então, finalmente, analisar a primeira parte do §43 de Ser e tempo (...) e discutir o alcance da aporia apresentada por Meillassoux em face da posição heideggeriana acerca da realidade do mundo exterior. Palavras chave: Correlação; Realidade; Mundo The reality of the exterior world in Being and time from Quentin Meillassoux's critique of correlationism Abstract: In this paper I intend, firstly, to indicate the general meaning of Meillassoux's criticism of correlationism, i.e., the criticism of the dominant idea since Kant's transcendental philosophy, according to which we have access only to the correlation between thought and being. Next, I shall highlight the aporia indicated by this criticism through the argument of ancestry, which expresses a limit of the anti-realist stance associated with the correlationist idea. Then, finally, I analyze the first part of §43 of Being and time and discuss the scope of the aporia presented by Meillassoux in view of the Heideggerian position regarding the reality of the external world. Keywords: Correlation; Reality; World La realidad del mundo exterior en Ser y tiempo desde la crítica al correlacionismo de Quentin Meillassoux Resumen: En este trabajo pretendo, en primer lugar, señalar el sentido de la crítica al correlacionismo de Meillassoux: la crítica a la idea dominante desde la filosofía trascendental de Kant, según la cual sólo se accede a la correlación entre pensamiento y ser. Luego, resaltar la aporía señalada por esta crítica, a través del argumento ancestral, que expresa un límite de la postura antirrealista propia de la idea correlacionista. Finalmente analizar la primera parte del §43 de Ser y tiempo y discutir el alcance de la aporía presentada por Meillassoux frente a la posición heideggeriana sobre la realidad del mundo externo. Palabras clave: Correlación; Realidad; Mundo Data de registro: 03/11/2022 Data de aceite: 23/08/2023. (shrink)

This introduction concerns the place that Indian philosophical literature should occupy in the history of philosophy, and the challenge of championing pre-modern modes of inquiry in an era when philosophy, at least in the anglophone world and its satellites, has in large measure become a highly specialized and technical discipline conceived on the model of the sciences. This challenge is particularly acute when philosophical figures and texts that are historically and culturally distant from us are engaged not only exegetically (...) but also with a view to recruiting their topics and arguments for contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

Economics is often believed to be a `value-free' discipline, and even an `a-moral' one. My aim is to demonstrate that homo œconomicus can recover his ethical nature if the philosophical roots of contemporary economics are laid bare. This, however, requires us to look for an alternative foundation for the idea of `social order,' a foundation which economics is ill-equipped to provide because of its exclusive focus on calculative rationality. But a new ethical perspective on homo œconomicus and on the manner (...) in which he chooses his actions is possible. My aim here is to make this new perspective explicit.Two claims lie at the heart of this paper. The first claim is that economics as practised nowadays — that is, as a discipline concerned with the analysis of the interactions between individual decisions and the collective effects of these interactions — is a particular form of metaphysics, based on a particular articulation between self-centredness and other-centredness. The second claim is that, unbeknownst to the vast majority of economists, the basic principle of individual optimization contains the seed of a radical reformulation of what the emergence of `social order' is all about. More specifically, economics will be claimed to be a specific metaphysical discipline based on the monadological worldview inherited from Leibniz and re-arranged to fit the empiricist bias of 18th-century thinkers, and the principle of individual optimization will be claimed to be compatible with a very different metaphysical view of the human subject, a view which `turns subjectivity inside out', so to speak, and treats optimizing calculation as a response rather than as an initiative.The first claim is rather general, and not completely new — it has been hinted at, for example, by Jon Elster in an early book written in French, but it has received precious little attention among economists so far, with the result that economics has become increasingly blind to the philosophical roots of its most fundamental views on individual decision and on social order. The second claim applies to economics and homo œconomicus a general suggestion coming from Alain Renaut, that we ought to make good use of the accusations of incoherence voiced against the monadological scheme in order to re-think the way in which human subjectivity works. Renaut, however, remains at the level of the history of the philosophical concept of subjectivity. Although he does, in passing, make some mention of possible implications for the social sciences, he never goes into the full analysis of what the critique of monadological metaphysics implies for modern theories of society, and for economics in particular. One of my main goals here is to fill this gap.Let me now be more specific about the steps of my analysis. Defending my two claims will require, first of all, a rigorous understanding of the basic methodological stance adopted by economics, namely the idea that social order `emanates' from a bunch of self-centred subjectivities making separate optimizing decisions. Accordingly, in Section 2, I will trace out the analogy that exists between Leibnizian monadology and modern-day economics. The aim there will be to show that economics, unwittingly but for nevertheless deep ethical reasons, has remained `stuck' in a very specific metaphysical position which virtually no contemporary philosophy of subjectivity any longer acknowledges. Section 3, then, will show how the combination of monadology and empiricism which still prevails in contemporary economics can be overcome by entering an altogether distinct philosophical domain characterized by the primacy of Other over Self.While this alternative philosophical stance has experienced a surge of interest in recent decades, it has left the social sciences, and particularly economics, completely untouched. The reason is, I will claim, that this strand of philosophy adopts a form of methodological altruism which stands in contrast both to the methodological individualism of economics and to the methodological holism of various strands of post-Durkheimian sociology. In Section 4, then, I analyze some of the far-reaching consequences for economics which would flow from taking into account `non-I' motives which are not `We' motives, i.e., motives for action which are neither mere holist pastings onto individualism nor mere individualist mitigations of holism.The principle of choice of action through individual optimization will appear as the `hinge' between two worlds: although initially anchored within a worldview where social coexistence is a by-product of individual calculations, the idea of optimization will be seen to be compatible with a very different, and indeed almost reversed worldview, one where individual calculations emerge as by-products of social coexistence — the term `social' being itself radically re-thought in a non-holistic direction.The aim of my analysis, ultimately, is to formulate a challenge for contemporary economics and its implicit view of the interaction between individual and society: Can the combination of monadological and empiricist thinking so strongly ingrained in economics be overcome in the direction of a radically `other-oriented' view of the human subject? Many economists will doubtless believe it cannot; however, they will now, at least, have to explain why they hold to the older view and hence they will have to uncover their often hidden ethical and metaphysical presuppositions. I view this not as an undue disturbance or as mere conceptual hair-splitting, but as a timely opportunity to clarify some deep philosophical issues which haunt economics. (shrink)

PurposeThis paper aims to present results of a study that focused on the question of how computer and data experts think about Internet and social media surveillance after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the existence of mass-surveillance systems of the Internet such as Prism, XKeyscore and Tempora. Computer and data experts’ views are of particular relevance because they are confronted day by day with questions about the processing of personal data, privacy and data protection.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted two focus groups with a (...) total of ten experts based in London. As London is considered by some as the surveillance capital of the world, and has a thriving Internet industry, it provided a well-suited context.FindingsThe focus group discussions featured three topics that are of crucial importance for understanding Internet and social media surveillance: the political economy surveillance in general; surveillance in the context of the Snowden revelations; and the question what the best political reactions are to the existence of a surveillance-industrial complex that results in political and economic control of the Internet and social media. The focus groups provided indications that computer and data experts are pre-eminently informed on how Internet surveillance works, are capable of critically assessing its implications for society and have ideas about on what should be done politically.Originality/valueStudies of privacy and surveillance after Edward Snowden’s revelations have taken on a new dimension: Large-scale covert surveillance is conducted in a collaborative endeavour of secret services, private communications corporations and security companies. It has become evident that a surveillance-industrial Internet surveillance complex exists, in which capitalist communications and security corporations and state institutions collaborate. (shrink)

This popular introductory text provides a unique set of teaching tools for instructors who prefer a synoptic approach. The text is visually appealing and reader friendly. The author accents his accessible writing with cartoons, quotations, and related findings from the social and physical sciences, reinforcing his conception of philosophy as the individual's attempt to unify disparate world views. The style of writing makes central philosophical concepts readily engaging to students. Interspersed biographies give the student a feeling for the lives (...) of the great thinkers who have fashioned the Western philosophical tradition and have determined largely how we think today. Above all, this text nurtures the analytical skills students will need to critically engage the "big picture" of Western philosophy for themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3 (2005) 199-203 [Access article in PDF] Lived Time and to Live Time Christian Kupke Keywords time, dimensional time, temporality, dialectics, subjectivity In this paper, I argue that a phenomenological description of temporality is a description of what it is to "live" time, that is, to live time in its three-dimensional aspects: past, future, and present. And it is suggested that this dimensional time (...) can be analyzed on two different levels: on a microstructural level that is part of the subject–object relationship (cognitive–intentional time), and on a macrostructural level that is part of the subject–subject relationship (intersubjective time). In a close reading of Martin Wyllie's paper "Lived Time and Psychopathology" (2005) some implications and consequences of these suggestions are discussed. Conceptual Problems: Personal and Intersubjective Time One of Martin Wyllie's main theses is that to accurately describe suffering one may have to use a conceptual framework of a bipartite structure that includes the embodied temporal subject on the one hand and the temporal world on the other. It is this what the author calls a "dialectical relationship" between the time of the individual person called "personal time" and the time of the world called "world time" or "intersubjective time" (Wyllie 2005, 173).But then Martin Wyllie also deals with another model, another conceptual framework that follows a different logic and that—in contrast to the dualistic model—is usually associated with dialectics: the tripartite structure of past, future, and present. "Now in lived time", Wyllie claims, "is a unity of the past, present, and future, and is more than simply a succession because the immediate 'no-more', 'present', and 'yet-to-come' are ordinarily never sharply separated" (Wyllie 2005, 174).I want first to discuss the conceptual problems that come along with Martin Wyllie's use of these models. It seems to me that the author is dealing with the complexity of the relationship between these models by means of a double strategy: to conceptualize world time as intersubjective time (a), and to focus the analysis on the external, dualistic model of personal and intersubjective time (b).(a) "World time" may be differentiated at least into three categories: physical and cosmological time; natural and biological time; and social or sociocultural time. But the question is: how are these (quasi-) objective time matrices realized (and perhaps even "constituted") by the individual subject? To answer this question it is, also in my view, a good strategy for a psychopathology of time to concentrate on intersubjective [End Page 199] time, for, as Martin Wyllie states, there is indeed no doubt that "the embodied human subject is always already in an intersubjective world" (Wyllie 2005, 177).But what I think might be a severe problem with this focal point of the analysis is the tendency to identify the world exclusively with an intersubjective world. That the embodied human subject is always already in an intersubjective world does not mean that the subject's whole world is nothing more than an intersubjective world. Those temporal processes that are, for instance, necessary to "read"—in an intersubjective world—Martin Wyllie's text and to "write" a comment on it (as I do now) are part of at least a double temporal structure.First, reading and writing are formal processes of an integration of cognitive and intentional activities that are the transcendental basis of any intelligible discussion of semantic questions, namely, to recognize signs, retentionally and protentionally, as integral parts of higher temporal units to enable the subject to understand what is read or written. Without such retentional and protentional acts, as they were generally described by Husserl, any text would be a mere accumulation of signs without any formal or logical order.But, second, reading and writing are also informal processes of an integration of those intersubjective activities that result in an intelligible discussion of semantic questions. Here it is necessary to remember what was read or written, by Martin Wyllie, myself, and others (an intersubjective remembrance that is essential for the... (shrink)

Political theory, sometimes also called “normative political theory”, is a subfield of the disciplines of philosophy and political science that addresses conceptual, normative, and evaluative questions concerning politics and society, broadly construed. Examples are: When is a society just? What does it mean for its members to be free? When is one distribution of goods socially preferable to another? What makes a political authority legitimate? How should we trade off different values, such as liberty, prosperity, and security, against one another? (...) What do we owe, not just to our fellow citizens, but to people in the world at large? In this article, we review the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory: the one commonly described as “analytic” political theory. In Section 1, we briefly demarcate the scope of political theory. In Section 2, we comment on the analysis of political concepts. In Section 3, we introduce the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts. In Section 4, we discuss the methods of assessing such principles and theories, for the purpose of justifying or criticizing them. In Section 5, we review a recent debate on how abstract and idealized political theory should be. In Section 6, finally, we discuss the significance of disagreement in political theory. Although we cover established ground, we do so from an angle that will be somewhat unfamiliar to at least some political theorists – namely an angle inspired by the philosophy of science. We have chosen this angle with a view to systematizing the activity of analytic political theorizing so as to make its connections with other fields of philosophy and positive science more transparent. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain represents an ambitious foray into cross-cultural neurophilosophy, making a compelling, though not entirely unproblematic, case for naturalizing Buddhist philosophy. While the naturalist account of mental causation challenges certain Buddhist views about the mind, the Buddhist analysis of mind and mental phenomena is far more complex than the book suggests. Flanagan is right to criticize the Buddhist claim that there could be mental states that are not reducible to their neural correlates; however, when the mental states (...) in question reflect the embodied patterns of moral conduct that characterize the Buddhist way of being-in-the-world, an account of their intentional and normative status becomes indispensable. It is precisely this synthesis of normativity and causal explanation that makes Buddhism special, and opens new avenues for enhancing, refining, and expanding the range of arguments and possibilities that comparative neurophilosophy can entertain. (shrink)

Kripke and Putnam have convinced most philosophers that we cannot do metaphysics of nature by analysing the senses of natural kind terms -- simply because natural kind terms do not have senses. Neo-descriptivists, especially Frank Jackson and David Chalmers, believe that this view is mistaken. Merging classical descriptivism with a Kaplan-inspired two-dimensional framework, neo-descriptivists devise a semantics for natural kind terms that assigns natural kind terms so-called 'primary intensions'. Since primary intensions are senses by other names, Jackson and Chalmers (...) conclude that we can and should do metaphysics of nature by analysing the natural kind concepts competent speakers possess. I argue that neo-descriptivism does not provide a suitable basis for doing this kind of metaphysics. I first of all give a detailed account of the neo-descriptivist semantics and deflate the intuitive support neo-descriptivists try to draw from their case of the XYZ-world. I then present three arguments -- the Argument from Ignorance, the Argument from Conceptual Analysis, and the Argument from Laziness. Taken together, these arguments undermine the neo-descriptivist analysis of natural kind terms. I conclude that natural kind terms do not have senses, that we cannot do metaphysics of nature by analysing the senses of our kind terms, and that the Kripke-Putnam account still provides the best semantics for natural kind terms we have. (shrink)

One point that definitions of art experience disagree about is whether this kind of experience is qualitatively different from experiences related to ordinary objects and everyday contexts. Here, we follow an ecological approach assuming that art experience has its own specific quality that is, not least, determined by typical contexts of art presentation. Practically, we systematically observe typical phenomena of experiencing art in ecologically valid or real-world settings such as museum contexts. Based on evidences gained in this manner, we (...) emulate and implement essential properties of ecological contexts (e.g., free choice of viewing distance and time, large scale of artworks and exhibition-like context) in controlled laboratory experiments. We found, for instance, that for large scale paintings by Pollock and Rothko preferred viewing distances as well as distances inducing most intense art experiences including Aesthetic Aha insights were much larger than typical viewing distances realized in lab studies. Following Carbon’s (2019) terminology of measurement strategies of art experience, the combined use of “Path #1” (real-world context) and “Path #2” (mildly controlled, still ecologically valid settings and contexts), enables us to understand and investigate much closer what is really happening when people experience art. (shrink)

Much of the literature in contemporary analytic metaethics has grown rather stale – the range of possible positions seems to have been exhaustively delineated, and most of the important arguments on all sides have been clearly articulated and evaluated. In order to advance discussion in this area, I examine more fundamental issues about the nature of agency. In my view, the heart of what it is to exhibit intentional agency in the world is to identify with the relevant (...) components of practical reasoning from the first person perspective. Chapter one attempts to arrive at sufficient conditions for desire identification by examining the structure of instrumental practical reasoning. But it turns out that this story about identification cannot be told until we first have available a separate account of norm identification. The best way of developing this latter account is by understanding the phenomenon of first person volitional impossibility. With the resources in hand from the first two chapters, we can articulate sufficient conditions in chapter three for desire, norm, and action identification, as well as critically evaluate rival hierarchical views. Finally, chapter four is devoted to a preliminary consideration of our sense of our own wills as free. (shrink)

This Open Access volume is based on the 'Early Carnap in Context’ workshop that took place in Konstanz in 2017 and looks at Rudolf Carnap’s philosophy, documented in his recently released diaries, from a combination of historical, cultural and philosophical perspectives. It enables further evaluation of the diaries and traces newly found interrelationships and their systematic definition. From a cultural and historical point of view, Logical Empiricism and Carnap’s pivotal opus, The Logical Structure of the World, did not (...) evolve in a vacuum. This applies equally in a history of philosophy context as well as under consideration of contemporary historical and cultural influences such as the socio-cultural setting in Vienna and Prague, the correlation between Logical Empiricism and Bauhaus modernism, the connection to the Life Reform Movement or the Youth Movement with its own life philosophy. Pursuing Carnap’s progression on a micro level of history and referring the results back to Carnap’s philosophy is now facilitated by recent access to his Diaries from 1908–1935. These shorthand records, reading lists, travel reports and notes constitute a valuable source for the research of networks and social movements which left their mark on him. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 146-149 [Access article in PDF] Gianluca Mori. Bayle philosophe. Paris: Champion, 1999. Pp. 416. Paper, N.P. Stefano Brogi. Teologia senza verità: Bayle contro i "rationaux." Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1998. Pp. 306. Paper, N.P. Why do professional philosophers spend so much time on Descartes and so little time on Pierre Bayle, when Bayle was clearly the better philosopher? I hope that the real (...) answer is not that Bayle wrote too much that is too hard to survey and synthesize, whereas Descartes wrote short works that are easy to teach to undergraduates. Of course, part of any answer will turn on what is meant by "the better philosopher," and [End Page 146] we will return to this issue. If the two books reviewed here get the attention they deserve, Bayle may begin to get more of the attention he deserves.Bayle is well-known for his attacks on Pierre Jurieu, but less well-known are his fights with the 'rationalist' theologian-philosophers Jean LeClerc, Jacques Bernard, and Isaac Jaquelot. They reveal that Bayle was not the automatic supporter of "Enlightenment" of later legend. Stefano Brogi explores these attacks in three of Bayle's last works, the Continuation of the Diverse Thoughts on the Comet (1705; very different from the Diverse Thoughts on the Comet of 1683), Response to Questions of a Provincial (1704-1707), and Conversations between Maxime and Thémiste (1707). Regrettably, none of these—nor any of the works of LeClerc, Bernard, and Jaquelot—have been translated. Greater attention to Descartes may derive from the excellent translations of his work, contrasted with the absence of translations of much of Bayle.Brogi begins with Bayle's reconstruction of "Pyrrho's theology." Faith, in Bayle's hands, is almost completely non-cognitive, accepting the Scripture without understanding it. Rationality, to Bayle, is a second Penelope, unraveling all that it makes. Then Brogi explores what Bayle could have meant by praising Simonides, the ancient Greek who, asked to define God, always asked for more time. He also reviews Bayle's views on euhemerism and the theory of impostorship, and cannot believe Bayle's pretended unawareness of some of the implications of his arguments.The third section, "Ethics against religion," tackles the paradox that Bayle fiercely attacked reason and the argument from consensus for the existence of God, but then invoked reason and consensus as proof of moral claims. In ethics, Bayle's skepticism evaporates. That leads to the further paradox that his rigorous moral evaluation of religion leads to atheism. The ostensible argument is that pagan religions have such immoral gods that it is better not to believe in them; the implication is that the same goes for Judeo-Christianity.It all comes together in Brogi's discussion of "Theology without morality." In his controversies with LeClerc about Origenism (universal salvation) and evil, Bayle brings out the dubious moral consequences of both Origenism and Augustinianism. There is no rational way of saving God's goodness. Then Bayle simply declares his faith in revelation. LeClerc thinks this is bad faith, but he ends up relying on blind faith. Jaquelot argues that God's glory requires the world as it is, but when Bayle asks what glory could come from human suffering, Jaquelot also takes refuge in the inscrutability of God. If anyone thinks these were insignificant controversies, remember that they provoked Leibniz's Theodicy (1710). Austin Farrar once pronounced, exignorantia, that Bayle was "hopelessly confused" ("Introduction," Routledge edition of Leibniz's Theodicy, 1951; now Open Court edition, 35), but Leibniz knew better.Gianluca Mori's book ranges far more widely than Brogi's. It is the best all-around book on Bayle's philosophy in twenty years. Mori begins with a chapter on interpretation, pointing out that everything that Leo Strauss said about encoded language can be found in Bayle. Using Bayle's own claims about such artifices to interpret his work, he explores the writer's ironies, dissimulation, self-censorship, and implied meanings. The interior thoughts of Bayle are unreachable... (shrink)

Nagarjuna and Quantum physics. Eastern and Western Modes of Thought. Summary. The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Emptiness’. The Indian philosopher Nagarjuna is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? That nothing (...) can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? Was Nagarjuna denying the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. Reality is without foundation. Or: Reality has the wide open space as foundation. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realised that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna, we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalisation. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalisation might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. -/-. (shrink)

Most atheists are error theorists about theists; they claim that theists have genuine beliefs about the existence and nature of a divine being, but as a matter of fact no such divine being exists. Thus on their view the relevant theistic beliefs are mistaken. As error theorists, then, atheists need to arrive at some answer to the question of what practical course of action the atheist should adopt towards the theistic beliefs held by committed theists. The most natural answer (...) and the one that we see being implemented by many prominent atheists today, can be stated roughly as follows: -/- (1) Theistic Eliminativism: Atheists should marshal the best arguments at their disposal and present them to theists in the hopes that theists will come to appreciate that their religious beliefs are systemically erroneous. Furthermore, on coming to this realization, a theist should abandon not just his specific religious beliefs, but also more generally his religious practices and theistic framework for viewing the world, and adopt a secular point of view instead. -/- One of the main goals of this paper is to show that, despite its popularity, eliminativism is not the only option for the atheist to adopt. In order to do so, I draw on recent work in meta-ethics on moral error theories, work which has helped to outline a number of alterative courses of action that someone might take towards a group which is said to have widespread erroneous beliefs. (shrink)

In his important new book National responsibility and global justice, David Miller presents a systematic challenge to existing theories of global justice. In particular, he argues that cosmopolitan egalitarianism must be rejected. Such views, Miller maintains, would place unacceptable burdens on the most productive political communities, undermine national self-determination, and disincentivize political communities from taking responsibility for their fate. They are also impracticable and quite unrealistic, at least under present conditions. Miller offers an alternative account that conceives global justice in (...) terms of a minimum set of basic rights that belong to human beings everywhere. Primary responsibility for securing such rights for an individual lies with his or her state, but in so far as these rights go unprotected, responsibilities for fulfilling them may fall on outsiders. While less ambitious that cosmopolitan egalitarian justice, Miller argues that his own view would nevertheless enable us to articulate what is most morally objectionable about our current world. In this article it is argued that none of Miller's critiques of cosmopolitan egalitarianism is effective, and that while certainly preferable to the status quo, a world governed by Miller's principles is not an attractive ideal. (shrink)

GE Moore vehemently defended the view that what actually happens and not what we, even reasonably, expect to happen, determines what we ought to do. ‘The only possible reason that can justify any action’, Moore writes, ‘is that by it the greatest possible amount of what is good absolutely should be realized’. Moore is an objectivist about reasons and duties: The world and not our view of it gives us reasons to act; the way the world (...) is, and not the way we think it is, determines what we ought to do. In his new book Jonathan Dancy agrees: the world itself has normative significance, reality, as Dancy puts it, is practical. On this, most general level Dancy and Moore agree. But unlike Moore’s, Dancy’s objectivism is not embedded in any particular normative theory. And whereas Moore strikes me as hard-nosed, and his position as sharp-edged, Dancy’s position looks, in comparison, softer and subtler. Contrasting the two positions will help to bring out these features of Dancy’s view. But it will also help to explain the worry that Dancy’s view might have departed too far from its origin. (shrink)

In his famous essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin compares the daily experience of buildings with the perception of films. His comparison relies on the peculiar concept of “tactile reception“, he opposes to the optically oriented traditional attitude towards art. The concept encompasses two essential traits: on the one hand, it designates the fact that films do not require a contemplative, focused attention, but a habitual, distracted approach, similar to that by which we (...) perceive buildings in our everyday life-world. On the other hand, Benjamin’s concept points to a particular “chock-effect” produced by cinematic experience, through its constant change of perspectives and points of view. By this, it challenges precisely the same form of ambient perception required in numerous situations of our daily life in the modern city. The two determinations sketch out a unitary concept that shows obvious similarities to the phenomenological idea of a “life-worldly circumspection” , a specific manner of sight guiding everyday practical life. (shrink)

The life and work of the German chemist and philosopher Wilhelm Ostwald is studied from the angle of scientism. In Ostwald's case scientism amounted to: the construction of a unified science of nature ; its use as the ‘scientific’ basis for an all-embracing philosophy or world-view ; the programme to realize this philosophy in practice, as a secular religion to replace Christianity. Energetics, a generalized thermodynamics, was proposed by Ostwald and others to replace mechanics as the fundamental theory (...) in physical science. Its contents and fortunes are briefly discussed. Ostwald's energeticist philosophy is illustrated by his classification of the pure sciences, his theory of happiness and his science-based ethics. Ostwald cherished a metaphysics in which energy and energy transformations were fundamental to all phenomena and processes. As a result, he transferred his optimism about science and technology to energeticism: philosophical, psychological and ethical questions were regarded as capable of solution by his scientistic philosophy. The practice of Ostwald's energeticism is illustrated by two of his ‘Sunday sermons’ , as well as by a public lecture on science. He considered science the modern and legitimate substitute for God and claimed that science was, or would soon be, omnipresent, eternal, almighty, omniscient and perfectly good. Ostwald's substitute religion of science suggests the question, discussed in the last section of this paper, to what extent and in what sense historians might fruitfully interpret scientism as a secular religion. (shrink)