John Searle’s theory of social ontology posits that there are indispensable normative components in the linguistic apparatuses termed status functions, collective intentionality, and collective recognition, all of which, he argues, make the social world. In this paper, I argue that these building blocks of Searle’s theory are caught in a petitio of constitutive circularity. Moreover, I note how Searle fails to observe language in reciprocal relation to the institutions which not only are shaped by it but also shape language’s practical (...) applications. According to Searle, social theorists that tried to show a connection between society, culture, and language all failed to see the constitutive role of language in the making of social reality. Consequently, I believe that Searle is himself guilty of a certain kind of blind presumption, and argue that Hegel’s philosophy of culture, which Searle dismisses as implausible, offers a more cohesive account of the normative transactions between human beings and their social world. (shrink)

Under the background that the development of low-carbon circular economy is the objective requirement for the in-depth implementation of scientific development and the inevitable choice for promoting the sustainable development of economy and society, it is not only the requirement of corporate social responsibility but also the path to realize corporate social responsibility. Enterprises should become the representative and model of social responsibility practice in the development of low-carbon circular economy, in order to promote the fulfilment and development (...) of corporate social responsibility in the whole society. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the realization of corporate social responsibility in the context of low-carbon circular economy. This paper introduces the connotation of low-carbon circular economy and corporate social responsibility, analyses the reality and theoretical basis of realizing corporate social responsibility in low-carbon circular economy, analyses the interactive relationship between the development of low-carbon circular economy and the realization of corporate social responsibility, and puts forward the construction of enterprise low-carbon operation mechanism. This paper uses the research of corporate social responsibility based on radial basis function neural network to build a low-carbon circular economy. The evaluation model of environment economy coupling development is verified by an example, which provides useful guidance for the evaluation and development of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

The work's central thesis is that meaningful discourse would be impossible unless the discoursers had distributive access to realities structured independently of language, such an access in fact as can service a metaphysically significant correspondence theory of truth. The thesis is deployed against the view, advanced by Hilary Putnam and by Richard Rorty, that we cannot exit the circle of words so as to secure any version of external realism. ;To establish the thesis, an intentionalist hermeneutics is developed: Due to (...) the plasticity of lexical meanings, the meaning of a text cannot be compositionally derived from linguistic conventions alone; the author's intentions, constituted in part by the extra-linguistic narrative matrices framing his life, must be consulted. The finding that a text's ontological commitments are determined by authorial intentions blocks Putnam's attempt to derive the ontological indeterminacy of human discourse from the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem. And his charge that this appeal to intentions is circular is faulted for its reliance on an inadequate, psycholinguistic model of intentions. ;It is then argued that meaningful discourse must be anchored, through narratively coherent transactions conducted without words, to realities structured beyond words: Our pre-linguistic ancestors could never have developed a meaningful description scheme unless its terms elicited among its original users sub-linguistic reality-negotiating strategies appropriate to encountered realities, strategies like those displayed by alexic brutes. The internal realist's claim that our grasp of reality is everywhere structured by language is consequently afforded a corrective supplement: That our grasp of language is everywhere structured by a sub-linguistic grasp of reality. The strategies our pre-linguistic ancestors used to locate and manage encountered realities indispensably underlie our present use of language and provide us with an extra-linguistic access to those realities, an access that is sufficient, it is argued, to support a substantive correspondence theory of truth: An assertion corresponds to reality as long as the reality-negotiating strategies it conjugates can be successfully implemented. And this truth-conferring conception of correspondence, constituted by an appropriateness to reality, can arguably sustain a robust version of realism. (shrink)

The phenomenological point of view of the body is usually appreciated for having introduced the notion of the ‘lived’ body. We cannot merely analyze and explain the body as one of the elements of the world of objects. We must also describe it, for example, as the center of our perspective on the world, the place where our sensing is ‘localized’, the agens which directly executes our intentions. However, in Husserl, the idea of the body as lived primarily complements his (...) objectivism: the body (Leib) is an objective and mental reality, a ‘double unity’, as he writes. In contrast, Merleau-Ponty’s later considerations of the body in Phenomenology of Perception tend to the idea of a circular relationship between the objective and subjective dimensions of the body – between the objective and the lived. One of the means to overcome the idea of the body as a site of the correlation between two opposite and complementary realms is, for Merleau-Ponty, the philosophical interpretation of an early neurological notion of ‘body schema’. Body schema is neither an idea nor a physiological-physical fact, it is rather a practical diagram of our relationships with the world, an action-based norm in reference to which things make sense. In the recently published preparatory notes for his 1953 courses, Merleau-Ponty dedicates much effort to further developing the notion of body schema, and interprets fresh sources that he did not use in Phenomenology of Perception. Notably, he studies various possibilities of how this practical ‘diagram’ can be de-differentiated (pathology) or further refined (cognitive and cultural superstructures, symbolic systems), which shows the fundamentally dynamic unity of the body. This paper summarizes the basic elements of Merleau-Ponty’s 1953 renewed philosophical interpretation of the notion of body schema, while contrasting it to the more traditional understanding of the body in phenomenology and in recent philosophical texts dealing with body schema. (shrink)

Jean Perrin’s argument for the existence of molecules from his 1908 experimental determination of Avogadro’s number raises two questions considered in this article. One is historical: Why as late as 1908 should Perrin have thought it necessary to argue that molecules exist? The other, which takes up the bulk of this article, is philosophical: In view of the fact that his argument appears to assume the existence of molecules as a premise, how, if at all, can a charge of circularity (...) be avoided? I criticize attempted reconstructions of his argument by Salmon, Glymour, and hypothetico-deductivists. And I propose a probabilistic solution that avoids circularity. Finally, I consider whether Perrin’s reasoning, so construed, is an empirical argument for scientific realism. (shrink)

This paper defines what is and what is not science. These novel science definitions demonstrate that illustrations, like mathematics, can be scaler, real, not real, valid, and invalid. These definitions identify non-inertial reference frame logic inconsistencies, emphasizing the continued search for relative movement definitions. This search leads to Aristotle’s primary circular and secondary rectilinear movement concepts defining the at-rest reference frame, motion, and relative movement. These three novel movement definitions are confirmed using Ptolemy’s dropped ball observation, Michelson-Morley’s null result, (...) a dropped ball on a rotating platform Coriolis effect, and light’s Doppler shift. The novel relative movement definitions demonstrate Ptolemy’s dropped ball and Michel-son-Morley’s reflected light represent motion in an at-rest reference frame. The novel relative movement definition reveals the Coriolis effect and light’s Doppler shift describe the same physical process. Two future experiments are suggested to confirm the novel movement definitions. Developing the novel relative movement concepts will require applying mathematics to circular movement velocity concepts, such as rotational inertia and angular velocity. (shrink)

I aim to show how the enigmatic phrase 'Unánime noche' in the famous first sentence of “The Circular Ruins” is inextricably linked to the story’s last words. Toward this purpose, I argue—against plausible foundational interpretations of the story—for a nonfoundational reading of the text and, moreover, that Borges’s use of ‘unánime’ (one soul) can be understood as one character or one form; namely, as an archetype of “Dreamanity” that leads to a vertiginous Third Man regress.

Upshot: The differentiation between society being emergent or sui generis seems to correspond to the question of whether the development of interaction, in particular communication, should better be considered bottom-up, top-down or as a sort of circular concurrency of bottom-up and top-down causes. This is reminiscent of the philosophical debate about the implications of the terms emergence and downward causation.

The thesis revolves around the following questions. What is time? Is time tensed or tenseless? Do things endure or perdure, i.e. do things persist by being wholly present at many times, or do they persist by having temporal parts? Do causes bring their effects into existence, or are they only correlated with each other? Within a realist approach to metaphysics, the author claims that the tensed view of time, the endurance view of persistence, and the production view of causality naturally (...) combine into what is called the dynamic view of temporal reality, and that the tenseless view of time, the perdurance view of persistence, and the correlation view of causality naturally combine into what is called the static view of temporal reality. The author argues in favour of a dynamic view. During the discussion a number of metaphysical problems are addressed. First, it is argued that the charges that the dynamic view is contradictory, made by J.M.E. McTaggart and David Lewis, are viciously circular. Secondly, it is argued that the static view cannot account for change, and deprives metaphysics of essential means to provide natural explanations to empirical phenomena. Thirdly, the author presents a novel account of the nature of necessary causal production. He suggests that the traditional conception of causes as essentially being external to the effects should be abandoned, and that causal production instead should be explicated in terms of reciprocal interactions between coexistent substances. (shrink)

The publication was carried out on the initiative and assistance of the Project “Green Decisions of Business - Unity for Sustainable Development”, which is implemented by the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Organization of Employers, in partnership with the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council, the Dnipropetrovsk Investment Agency with the support of the Program for the Promotion of Green Modernization of the Ukrainian Economy, implemented by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH. The monograph is devoted to the study of various aspects of the (...) development of the "green" economy both globally and locally. The theoretical foundations of the development of the "green" economy, the features of the functioning of the markets for "green" goods and services, the world experience in the development of the "green" economy, the prospects for the development of the "green" economy at the local and regional level are substantiated. The collective monograph will be interesting for the general public: students, teachers, scientists, businessmen, officials, government officials. (shrink)

In the past three decades, the work of Varela has had an enormous impact on current developments in contemporary science. Problem: Varela’s thought was extremely complex and multifaceted, and while some aspects - notably his contributions to the autopoietic theory of living and enactivist approach to cognition - have gained widespread acclaim, others have been ignored or watered down. Method: We identify three dimensions of Varela’s thought: anti-realism of the “middle way”; anti-foundationalism of the circular/recursive onto-epistemology; and ethical/social implications (...) of the circularity/recursivity. The discussion of these dimensions is followed by a concise overview of the individual target articles in this issue and the topics they cover. Finally, we discuss in what ways the articles extend and relate to Varela’s work. We do this by means of a concrete example: the relation between “enaction” and “enactivism. Results: We show that the ignoring-cum-watering-down process of Varela’s contributions to science is at least partly linked to the three dimensions of Varela’s thought. Based on our examination we also find that the more narrow research topics are always interrelated with broader philosophical reflection. Researching into ignored and watered-down aspects of Varela’s work enables us to not only gain fresh insights into Varela’s overall philosophy and rekindle interest in the topics and themes that have been brushed aside, but also cast a fresh light on those that are currently in full bloom. Implications: Reviving interest in Varela’s work in toto could lead to fruitful research and discussion in numerous scientific fields. To illustrate this idea, we delineate, tentatively, three domains - theoretical, empirical, and existential - where Varela’s contribution to philosophy and science could instigate prolific exchange of views. Constructivist content: All three dimensions of Varela’s philosophy have strong affinities with radical constructivist critique of realism and some of its epistemological and ethical implications. (shrink)

Galileo's Philosophy of Science - or: Contra Feyerabend. In analyzing Galileo's methodology, philosophers of science were using, misusing, and abusing his ideas rather unashamedly to suit their own purposes. Like so many others before him, Paul Feyerabend had come to the conclusion that his methodological ideas might gain momentum by demonstrating their compatibility with those of Galileo. The reinterpretation of Galileo as a true, though disguised, anarchist, was considered by Feyerabend as the most forceful, and indeed conclusive, case against rationalism (...) in methodology which might be conceived in view of the privileged position ascribed to Galileo by both philosophers which might be conceived in view of the privileged position ascribed to Galileo by both philosophers and historians of science. The paper argues - against Feyerabend - that Galileo was not a methodological anarchist, neither in theory nor in practice. He had firm methodological convictions that remained basically the same throughout his entire career. In his view, essential and accidental causes of phenomena were not given by experience. Although mathematical and geometrical analysis was needed to discriminate between them, experience and experiment was considered by Galileo from his middle periode on as a means to identify among the set of explanations, demonstrable "ex suppositione" as being mathematically correct, those which could in addition be applied to reality. Thus, Galileo was neither an inductivist nor a naive falsificationist, nor a Copernican zealot adapting his methodology to the needs of his presumed fight for heliocentrism, come what be. Only after the reconstruction of mechanics was in a fairly advanced stage, and after his own telescopic observations had provided independent evidence in favor of the new astronomy, Galileo was in a position to appreciate the Copernican system as a most forceful ally in his fight for the recognition of his physical achievements. Through the end of his life, his view of the heliocentric system remained rather traditional in adhering firmly to the principles of epicyclic and circular motion, as far as the heavens were concerned. (shrink)

We live in a circular universe, of which each item must be defined in terms of other items, ultimately of its complement-opposite, by their mutual limitation. The employment of abstract, formally consistent, thought in this work is quite inadequate.thought is not metaphysically valid, because its formal consistency forces it to ignore—which in the realm of pure reason is tantamount to denying—some pertinent elements of reality—experience, and then implicitly at once and perhaps explicitly later to recognize the ignored elements, (...) and thus be unconsciously inconsistent with itself. Therefore mankind is forced to undertake the monumental task of constructing a philosophical method of thought which does not strive after formal consistency and so which is able as constantly as may be consciously to express both the recognized and the ignored elements of reality—experience, that is, in ontological terms, being and non-being, and the consistent and the inconsistent elements in thought. This the needed method can do only by relating items by their mutual restraint or measurement of various kinds and degrees, as will be explained below. To put the essential matter bluntly: philosophers must seek to learn discursively what scientists have always known intuitively—that the ultimate method of discovering truth is measurement, not abstract consistency. The proposed method must not, however, interfere with the rhetorical ordering of material, which must contain a conscious element of pure consistency, as will also be explained below. (shrink)

Is there a circular relationship between trust and ethics? Is it possible to alter their relationship, changing the perception that social actors have of them? How has trust changed in the transition from modernity to post-modernity and how does it change in times of crisis? Starting from the epistemological assumption that progress in the social sciences is determined by the change in the theoretical horizon produced by “a reformulation of metaphysical assumptions” [1] and combining this path with the relational (...) perspective, according to which “not the facts, but the relationship between the facts is what requires analysis” [2], we will examine definitions, meanings, functions and relationships between trust and ethics. Following the theoretical logical method, we will understand that trust and ethical behaviour are particular forms of gift [3] that co-own each other. As such, they are ambivalent in nature and their circle can also produce dysfunctional outcomes that depend on the ability of social systems to modify collective perceptions through forms of communication, in the awareness that distrust constitutes an ineliminable and, paradoxically, preparatory element for the restoration of the trust circle. The relational circle between gift, trust, collective ethics and personal morality does not end with distrust, but changes in a contingent way, determining perverse effects: correct behaviour could produce, unintentionally, a disaster; incorrect actions could generate unforeseen positive effects.The perverse effects cannot be defined as exceptional - as is believed in the theory of rational choice - but recurrent because daily practices are marked by an intuitive, emotional and moralistic trust circle that prevails over logical reasoning, as ascertained by both relational theory and behavioural economics. Functionalist paradigms cannot engineer and optimise the performance of trust. [1] See J. Alexander's strong programme in S. Segre, Le teorie sociologiche contemporanee, Carocci, Rome, 2019, p. 12. It is not enough to observe reality, it is necessary to interpret it, taking into account theories and traditions whose foundations have a metaphysical character. [2] F. Ferrarotti, La sociologia come analisi critica della società, in R. Cipriani, Nuovo Manuale di Sociologia, Maggioli, Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna, 2018 p. 24. [3] The classical meaning in M. Mauss, Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaïques, 1ª ed. 1925, revisited by G. Satta, L’ambiguità del dono. Note su dono, violenza e potere nell’ Essai di Mauss, in V. Rasini, Aggressività. Un’indagine polifonica, Mimesis, Milano 2011. (shrink)

Borges’ The Circular Ruins tells the story of a magician who turns out to be a character in a dream. Leibowitz (2021) argues that this scenario undermines the rational indubitability of Descartes’ Cogito. The magician, he argues, is an unreal appearance and therefore does not exist. I argue that Borges drew a distinction between reality and existence and that he was right to do so. There are various senses of reality and the sense in which a dreamt (...) character is unreal poses no threat to their existence or to the indubitability of the Cogito. The magician is unreal because he is a mind-dependent, illusory and fake. Nonetheless, he can be certain that he thinks, therefore he is. (shrink)

Hume famously warned us that the ‘[The] ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry’. Or, again, Newton: ‘Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of these properties of gravity … and I frame no hypotheses.’ Aristotelian science was concerned with just such questions, the specification of occult qualities, the real essences that answer the question What is matter, etc?, the preoccupation with circular definitions such as dormative virtues, and so on. (...) The rise of modern science is usually seen as a break with the sterility of Aristotelianism, so what exactly is it that modern science does discover, if it is not the essential nature of matter, of force, of energy, of space and time? A famous answer was provided by Poincaré: ‘The true relations between these real objects are the only reality we can attain.’ This is often regarded as the manifesto of so-called structural realism, as espoused in recent years by John Worrall, for example ). In response to the arguments of Larry Laudan against convergent realism, Worrall points to the continuity in the formal relations between elements of reality expressed by mathematical equations, while the intrinsic nature of these elements of reality gets constantly revised. (shrink)

The ambivalent reputation of theology as an academic discipline is attributed to the often circular character of its procedures based on presumed authoritative sources. Recently, science too has come under the shadow of “postmodernist” critiques but, it is argued, has been able to withstand them successfully and make epistemologically warrantedclaims to be depicting reality—thereby vindicating human rationality. Evolutionary epistemological considerations also reinforce confidence in the more general deliverances of the human exploration of reasonableness through inference to the best (...) explanation (IBE). The consequences of applying IBE, with its associated criteria, in theological investigation are considered in relation to theology as it is and as it might be. A number of issues critical for thedevelopment of a credible theology are identified. In spite of the challenging and somewhat negative view of contemporary theology to which this leads, hope is expressed that a genuinely credible “evangelical,”“catholic,” and liberal theology may yet emerge for the new millennium. (shrink)

Some Christian materialists have argued for the possibility of resurrection given that persons are constituted by bodies, and constitution is not identity. Baker's constitutionist view claims superiority over animalist alternatives but offers only circular accounts of both personal identity over time and personhood. Corcoran's alternative approaches these questions differently but makes use of Zimmerman's ‘Falling Elevator Model’ of resurrection, which is rendered incoherent by its reliance on contingent identity. A recent constitutionist revision of this model succeeds only in exchanging (...) incoherence for absurdity. Despite difficulties for such resurrection accounts, the idea of constitution as a sui generis relation remains attractive among philosophers and Christian materialists in particular. However, Wasserman's deflationary view combines with problems such as extensionality, indiscernibility and the explosion of reality to provide reason to worry that constitution might be just identity after all. If so, then the metaphysics of constitution cannot provide a convenient route between animalism and immaterialism when explaining the possibility of resurrection. (shrink)

Best of both worlds: objective truth exists -- Beyond circular reasoning: time is linear -- I am who I am: an entity can have contradictory natures -- Seeing in the dark: significant parts of reality are hidden from us -- Not of this world: light is unearthly -- An egg-straordinary event: the universe was created Ex Nihilo -- The certainty of uncertainty: truth is bigger than proof -- La vida loca: cause and effect can be disproportional -- The (...) cosmic grapevine: instantaneous communication is possible -- Beyond fleas and grapes: humans are unique. (shrink)

People -- Who was Huet? -- The censura : why and when? -- The birth of skepticism -- Malebranche's surprising silence -- The downfall of cartesianism -- Kinds -- Huet a cartesian? -- Descartes and skepticism : the standard interpretation -- Descartes and skepticism : the texts -- Thoughts -- The cogito : an inference? -- The transparency of mind -- The cogito as pragmatic tautology -- Doubts -- The reality of doubt -- The generation of doubt -- The (...) response to doubt -- Rules -- The criterion of truth -- The trump argument -- Circles -- The simple circularity of the meditations -- The inner circle(s) -- Gods -- Gassendist influences -- The objections of objections -- The rejection of intentionality -- Virtues -- Descartes's voice -- Betting the family farm -- The propagation of light -- The heart-beat -- The moving earth -- Faith and reason -- Descartes as methodological academic skeptic. (shrink)

Philosophy is the making of theories, badly or occasionally better, with sets of concepts.It resembles fiction, poetry and literature and theology in certain ways in so far as the author uses his imagination and intuition to produce a set of ideas that may or may not attempt to refer to and/or represent or reflect and create a certain reality or life-world.It differs from fiction and is relatively unique in so far as it employs reasoning, argumentation and other philosophical tools.It (...) seems as if philosophy is self-incestuous, conceptual games with and about concepts using propositions, reasoning and argumentation to make assertions about other concepts, and thereby produce insular, enclosed, self-referential, circular systems of ideas. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is strict about the limits of self-knowledge: our inner sense gives us only appearances, never the reality, of ourselves. Kant may seem to begin his inquiries with an uncritical conception of cognitive limits, but in Kant and the Subject of Critique, Avery Goldman argues that, even for Kant, a reflective act must take place before any judgment occurs. Building on Kant’s metaphysics, which uses the soul, the world, and God as regulative principles, Goldman demonstrates how Kant can (...) open doors to reflection, analysis, language, sensibility, and understanding. By establishing a regulative self, Goldman offers a way to bring unity to the subject through Kant’s seemingly circular reasoning, allowing for critique and, ultimately, knowledge. (shrink)

Many viewers presented with a round plate tilted to their line of sight will report that they see a round plate that looks elliptical from their perspective. Alva Noë thinks that we should take reports of this kind as adequate descriptions of the phenomenology of spatial experiences. He argues that his so‐called enactive or sensorimotor account of spatial perceptual content explains why both the plate's circularity and its elliptical appearance are phenomenal aspects of experience. In this paper, I critique the (...) phenomenal adequacy of Noë's sensorimotor account of spatial perceptual content. I begin by showing that some of its central claims are in conflict with the phenomenology of perceptual experience. I then argue that shape appearances have no phenomenal reality, thus undermining this central motivation for his account. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.3 (2003) 261-264 [Access article in PDF] Contingency, Arbitrariness, and Failure Michael Loughlin PICKERING AIMS TO affect the form of the debate about the reality of mental illness. He notices that many influential arguments both for and against the existence of mental illnesses are in an important sense circular. It is observed that a given condition is relevantly similar to conditions we all (...) agree are genuine illnesses and on the basis of this observation it is concluded that it too can be classified as a type of illness—from which it can be inferred that mental illnesses do indeed exist. But Pickering contends that the initial observation can only be made if we already construe the condition in question as a type of illness. Otherwise we may interpret the data differently.So unless we help ourselves to the categorization whose legitimacy it is supposed to establish, the likeness argument cannot get going. He illustrates his point effectively. Most of his examples are taken from authors defending the existence of mental illness and it would have been interesting to see a more detailed account of the argument working in the other direction. Even so, his references to Szasz (Pickering 2003) are sufficient to convince readers familiar with Szasz's work that a version of the likeness argument (the paradigm approach) is as much at work in his refutation of the existence of mental illnesses as is it in Boorse's proof of their reality.This is an incisive analysis, which should be taken very seriously indeed by contributors to the debate. Its most immediate implication is a negative one. We should not rely upon any version of the likeness argument to establish the existence (or nonexistence) of mental illnesses: "the likeness argument must fail" (Pickering 2003, p. 253). One important question left unanswered by the paper concerns what form the debate should take, if its criticisms are accepted. Assuming we agree that the likeness argument is methodologically flawed, what should the methodology be for debating the substantive issues at stake? Put another way, how can we break the circle? How is it possible to construct arguments that do not presuppose their main conclusions, and so to make real intellectual progress in addressing this issue? Is this in fact possible? What would a valid argument in this area look like, and what sort of observational premises (if any) would be acceptable as evidence?On the most skeptical reading of his thesis, Pickering's arguments render the ideal of intellectual progress toward a resolution of this debate strictly unattainable. The circle cannot be broken, because the theory dependence of our categorizations makes the truth about the reality of mental illness either unknowable or irredeemably relative to one's intellectual starting point. Having argued that the likeness argument fails in the case of alcoholism, Pickering states one possible response to this failure on the part of psychiatry as the concession that the classification [End Page 261] of alcoholism as an illness is "very much a matter of opinion (2003, p. 250). Because he then argues that the argument fails for logically analogous reasons in the case of schizophrenia, we may feel invited to draw the same conclusion about that condition. He later admits there is "some truth in the charge" that "the rejection of the likeness argument seems to introduce an unacceptable element of contingency into the way important questions about the categorization of schizophrenia and alcoholism are answered" (p. 253). His response to this is that it is not his arguments that lead to this element of contingency, and he reiterates that the likeness argument cannot get beyond such contingencies (p. 253).Certainly he seems committed to the view that no observational premises can "decide, or help decide, the issue" because the "detectable and observable features" of a purported mental illness "do not determine what description should be given of them" (p. 250). Even the fact that a particular description seems intuitively irresistible or "natural" cannot decide this. His argument on this point concerns the fact that what appears natural or intuitively obvious to us is... (shrink)

Scholastic and analytic definitions of semantic paradoxes, in terms of groundlessness, circularity, and semantic pathology, are introduced and compared with each other. The fundamental intuitions used in these definitions are the concepts of being true about extralinguistic reality, of making statements about one’s self, and of compatibility with an underlying semantic theory. The three approaches—the groundlessness view, the circularity view, and the semantic pathology view—are shown to differ not only conceptually, but also in their applications. As both a means (...) for showing these differences and as an adequacytest, the so-called two-line puzzles are used, which allows one to address the possibility of making non-paradoxical statements about paradoxical sentences within the same language. (shrink)

In this paper we give a full account of the work of William Thomson on absolute temperature, which to this day provides the theoretical underpinnings for the most rigorous measurements of temperature. When Thomson fashioned his concepts of ‘absolute’ temperature, his main concern was to make the definition of temperature independent of the properties of particular thermometric substances . He tried out a succession of definitions based on the thermodynamics of ideal heat engines; most notably, in 1854 he gave the (...) ratio of two temperatures as the ratio of quantities of heat taken in and given out at those temperatures in a Carnot cycle. But there were difficulties with using such definitions for experimental work, since it was not possible even to approximate an ideal Carnot engine in reality. More generally, it is not trivial to connect an abstract concept with concrete operations in order to make physical measurements possible. In the end, Thomson argued that an ideal gas thermometer would indicate his absolute temperature, and that the deviation of actual gas thermometers from the ideal could be estimated by means of the Joule‐Thomson effect. However, the measurement of the Joule‐Thomson effect itself required measurements of temperature, so there was a problem of circularity. (shrink)

Several theoretical publications on the Dirac equation published during the last decades have shown that, an interpretation is possible, which ascribes the origin of electron spin and magnetic moment to an autonomous circular motion of the point-like charged particle around a fixed centre. In more recent publications an extension of the original so called “Zitterbewegung Interpretation” of quantum mechanics was suggested, in which the spin results from an average of instantaneous spin vectors over a Zitterbewegung period. We argue that, (...) the corresponding autonomous motion of the electron should, if it is real, determine non-relativistic spin measurements. Such a direct connection with the established formal quantum mechanical description of spin measurements, into which spin is introduced as a “non-classical” quantity has, to our knowledge, not been reported. In the present work we show that, under certain “model assumptions” concerning the proposed autonomous motion, results of spin measurements, including measurements of angular correlations in singlet systems, can indeed be correctly described using classical probabilities. The success of the model is evidence for the “reality” of the assumed autonomous motion. The resulting model violates the Bell—inequalities to the same extent as quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This article seeks to contribute to a critical understanding of the multifaceted nature of power, emphasizing its capacity to shape the development of society by permeating constitutive aspects of human reality. To this end, the article proposes an outline of a multidimensional approach to power. It does so by identifying and examining several - arguably universal - features and functions of power. On the basis of 15 theses, it is argued that, within the social world, the power of power (...) derives from the fact that it is ubiquitous, productive, relational, intangible, habitual, discursive, corporeal, polycentric, performative, normative, spatial, temporal, disciplinary, circular, and transcendental. By way of conclusion, the article provides a comprehensive summary of the main insights gained and challenges arising from such a multidimensional approach to power. nema. (shrink)

Ockham's view of time agrees with that of Aristotle (Phys. 218b 21- 219b 5) and Averroes (com. 98, 132 and 133), for whom time and movement always correspond and define one another. But the difference between Ockham and the above-mentioned philosophers was one of conception. Ockham considers time as nother facet of individual existence. Firstly, this work focuses on the determination of time reality and its definition. Secondly, It analyses the problem of the measurement of time: the circularity of (...) time and the measurement of motion had been already noticed by Augustinus; the details of Ockham's argument show dependence on Confessions XI, 21, 24; and especially 26. (shrink)

The lessons of "logical empiricism" still need learning by scientific philosophers who continue to give ultimate descriptions of ultimate things. Even attempts to assign some basic transformative role to language must fail, as this role can always be reversed on some higher language level. Final philosophical characterizations of the universe collapse when we see their arbitrary linguistic nature. Similarly, the effort to force scientific philosophy into an ontology, as shown by a recent example, turns out to be only a conventional (...) way of talking, rather than a legitimate appeal to something in the universe. More vulnerable recent examples of scientific metaphysical descriptions of "reality" reveal a deceptive linguistic superfluity in no way necessary for science or scientific philosophy. Within the inevitable circularity of language, semantic analysis can still fasten to the goal of predictability; and predictability can do without uneconomical symbolism. (shrink)

The article examines two digital phenomena linked to money and finance, which are the bitcoin and high-frequency trading, through the lens of Vilém Flusser’s concept of technical image. Flusser’s theory highlights three aspects of technical images: they are engendered by the act of organizing particles, are produced by people who operate devices through keys, and are mediated by code, which is linear and pertains to the era of written text, which Flusser conflates with the notion of history. In this article, (...) the argument focuses on the aspects of high-frequency trading and the blockchain that relate to the idea of images. The sections investigate how money has historically operated in the logic of Flusser’s description of symbol manipulation in relation to consciousness and temporality: from the circular time of magical consciousness to the linear time of historical consciousness, and more recently, to the non-dimensional time of post-historical consciousness. The article argues that there are two levels, or layers, in the images involved in cryptocurrencies or algorithmic trading, but only one of them is visible to the human operator or viewer, in the form of a price. The other, which indeed represents the operations in the system, is only accessible to the machines themselves. The questions raised concern the role of these recent digital financial and monetary forms in the development of a reality dominated by apparatuses and technical images. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics by Mark SideritsRick Repetti (bio)How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics. By Mark Siderits. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. vi + 204. Paperback $29.95, ISBN 978-0-19-760691-9.How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics, by Mark Siderits, presents ten chapters on Buddhist metaphysics that will appeal to readers from any number of backgrounds, e.g. Western philosophers concerned with (...) analytic metaphysics, but also philosophers of mind, epistemologists, phenomenologists, philosophers of meditation, comparative philosophers, non-Buddhist Indian philosophers, and Buddhist philosophers. The book includes an introductory chapter and chapters on the self, the person, fundamental ontology, causation, Buddhist nominalism, time, the external world, the internal world, and anti-realism. This book is a must-read for anyone who wishes to have a robust understanding of Buddhist metaphysics. If nothing else, the reader will appreciate the richness, complexity, and analytic rigor of Buddhist metaphysics that parallels its Western counterparts.This book is an "introduction" to "Buddhist" metaphysics, but much more, as each chapter comprehensively assesses the dialectical progression of arguments, theories, objections, rebuttals, and refinements throughout the history within and between the various schools and traditions of Buddhist metaphysics and their non-Buddhist interlocutors in Indian philosophy, and their analogues in Western philosophy. That comprehensiveness is an obvious feature, but possibly also a bug, as "Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics" is an understatement. For readers to fully follow any "introduction," they must be able to do so on the basis of the information provided. This is largely but not entirely the case here, for, as someone fairly well-versed in Western and Indian philosophy, I think readers of How Things Are would only be able to fully follow its many abstract, complex, eloquent arguments and assertions if they were already quite well-versed in the history of both. I found it occasionally difficult to follow Siderits' reasoning, despite knowing what he means by certain unexplained terms he relies on, such as "qualia-philes," "cognitively impenetrable," and "the refrigerator illusion."The introductory chapter begins by noting that, contextually, older philosophical systems, e.g. Sāṃkhya and Nyāya, were extant when Buddhism [End Page 1] arose in India, systems which agree that liberation is about disidentifying consciousness with matter, while Buddhism is about disidentifying with anything. Siderits here sketches the eightfold path and its meditative core, noting that "the careful observation of mental states cultivated in some types of meditational practice is said to provide empirical evidence in support of key philosophical theses" (p. 11). As keen as Siderits is elsewhere to uncover problems, however, this description glosses over the fact that Buddhist meditative instructions are formulated precisely to "confirm" the "key philosophical theses" of momentariness, impersonality, and causal interdependence, in which case practitioners are looking for these things in ways that generate their perception; thus the claim that meditative experiences count as "empirical evidence of key Buddhist ideological theses" is circular (Struhl 2022).Siderits then sketches the three main stages in Buddhist development, namely, the early sūtras (the Indian Nikāyas and the Chinese Āgamas), the subsequent philosophical analyses of these (the Abhidharma), and the later developments (the Mahāyāna: both Yogācāra and Mādhyamaka), and what they all agree on: the unreality of the self, momentariness, mereological nihilism, and non-substantialism. Siderits brilliantly explains arguments for and against each, and maps out four general stances: two dualist realisms (Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika), one external world anti-realism (Yogācāra), and one global anti-realism (Mādhyamaka). He then explains Vaibhāṣika's direct realism (we perceive external, mind-independent objects directly, akin to naïve realism) and eternalism (each moment exists in all three times: past, present, future). He goes on to explain Sautrāntika's representationalism (we are aware only of mental representations of perceptual objects, akin to sense data) and presentism (only the present moment exists). Siderits here notes that representationalism leads to idealism (as it did in the modern West), and that Yogācāra espouses non-duality between representation and reality--a non-duality that entails local anti-realism about the physical... (shrink)

Polanyi’s philosophy requires a synthesis of ontology and epistemology through the resonances that structure personal knowing. Its convivial elements make it political; self-conscious circularity distances it from metaphysical realism; the paradox of self-set standards accomodates dissent. The roles of reality, knowledge and truth in metaphysical realism are better understood in terms of resonance, trust and worthwhileness if we follow Polanyi’s lead. This more humane vocabulary saves us from the tyrannies of the truths and realities others would impose upon us. (...) Polanyi points the way towards a position that avoids the worst of both absolutism and relativism. (shrink)

Robert S. Corrington has misgivings about the use of the word "naturalism" to describe his view of reality; in fact, more recently he has been using "deep pantheism" and variants.1 Nevertheless, "naturalism" remains an apt word, conjuring the creative depths of the world around us, and we should continue to use it to describe Corrington's philosophical-theological system—without unduly apologizing for its inevitably circular semantic content, and despite the risk that his view might be known by its name instead (...) of its content. The variant of naturalism for which Corrington is so well known is called (by him) ecstatic naturalism, and he has shown it to be an important version of religiously and axiologically .. (shrink)

I. The Paradox of “Judgment” and Pre-reflective Self-AwarenessIn “Fichte’s Original Insight” (1982), Dieter Henrich, the founder of the Heidelberg School, delivered a diagnosis of why three hundred years of Western explication of the internal structure of subjectivity proved to be fruitless. As Manfred Frank noted, “Seldom has so much food for thought been put in a nutshell.”1 Fichte had the “insight” that his predecessors, in their totality (and “nearly all his successors”2), including Kant, misconceived the reality of our self-consciousness (...) as reflection, and thus fell prey to circular reasoning. A subject’s reflection on its own identity is impossible, since it can gain awareness of this identity only if it previously possessed some immediate knowledge of itself. Therefore, (self-)consciousness should not be conceived within the framework of the “reflection model,” which possesses an inherent contradiction, but rather as pre-reflective in nature, and as such it must be postulated by our thought. This is not to say that reflective consciousness—“egological” consciousness, the “reflection model of consciousness,” the “higher-order” theory of consciousness—i.e., the cogito, is impossible, but merely to highlight that its logical foundation cannot be justified by itself and that it essentially depends on the pre-reflective sphere of our psychic lives.3. (shrink)

George and I have been discussing Dividing Reality. It was my Canadian friend whose native language is supposed to have so many different words for snow and ice who suggested I was wasting my time with him and should try George. After all, he pointed out, George’s environment is so different from even the Arctic that we'd be getting a truly alien perspective. He at least understands ‘gricular', in fact he'd be happy to see more gricular things about, they (...) might well be edible. George does not see what the fuss is about. As far as he is concerned, ‘gricular' is just as unnatural as ‘green' or ‘circular': it's way off his conceptual map. (shrink)

Discussions about real knowledge contained in grand theories and models seem to remain an active quest in the academic sphere. The most fervent of these defendants is Rosemarie Parse with her Humanbecoming School of Thought (1981, 1998). This article first highlights the similarities between Parse's theory and Blumer's symbolic interactionism (1969). This comparison will act as a counterargument to Parse's assertions that her theory is original ‘nursing’ material. Standing on the contemporary philosophy of science, the very possibility for discovering specific (...) nursing knowledge will be questioned. Second, Parse's scientific assumptions will be thoroughly addressed and contrasted with Blumer's more moderate view of knowledge. It will lead to recognize that the valorization of the social nature of existence and reality does not necessarily induce requirements and methods such as those proposed by Parse. According to Blumer's point of view, her perspective may not even be desirable. Recommendations will be raised about the necessity for a distanced relationship to knowledge, being the key to the pursuit of its improvement, not its circular contemplation. (shrink)

The prevailing economic paradigm, in which a closed circular flow of production and consumption can be described in terms of 'natural laws ' of the equilibrium of market forces, is being challenged by our growing knowledge of complex systems, particularly ecosystems. It is increasingly apparent that neo-classical economics does not reflect social, economic and environmental realities in a world of limited resources. The best way to understand the problems implicit in the concept of 'sustainable development ' is provided by (...) Ecological Economics – a new synthesis in which the traditional virtue of thrift is justified using modern ideas from systems theory and thermodynamics. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s appropriation of Gestalt theory in The Structure of Behavior is central to his entire corpus. Yet commentators exhibit little agreement about what lesson is to be learned from his critique, and provide little exegesis of how his argument proceeds. I fill this exegetical gap. I show that the Gestaltist’s fundamental error is to reify forms as transcendent realities, rather than treating them as phenomena of perceptual consciousness. From this, reductivist errors follow. The essay serves not only as a helpful (...) guide through parts of The Structure of Behavior for newcomers, but also offers a corrective to recent trends in philosophy of mind. Such influential commentators as Hubert Dreyfus, Taylor Carmen, and Evan Thompson have, I argue, risked serious misunderstanding of Merleau-Ponty’s view, by mistakenly treating “circular causality” as central to Merleau-Ponty’s own acausal view of forms. -/- [The version archived at Philpapers is closer to the author's preferred format. Formatting requirements in the published version make the section/subsection hierarchy needlessly difficult to follow. There are some changes to content in the published version. Please cite only the published version.]. (shrink)

This paper advocates the main ideas of the interactive model of representation of Mark Bickhard and the assimilation/accommodation framework of Jean Piaget, through a rhythm recognition demonstration program. Although completely unsupervised, the program progressively learns to recognize more and more complex rhythms struck on the user's keyboard. It does so without any recording of the input flow, and without any pattern matching in the usual sense. On the contrary, internal processes are dynamically constructed to follow and anticipate the user's actions. (...) We show that these processes are representations of the rhythms in the interactivist sense, and that they emerge from non representational grounds, avoiding the symbol‐grounding problem. They are not copies or transductions of reality, but ideal internal constructions of the agent, avoiding the circularity pointed out by Piaget. In practice, the active nature of this recognition process allows it to work even with noisy and complex input flows. (shrink)

In the preceding pages, Husserl's objections to the content of Descartes'Meditations on First Philosophy have been reconstructed over the line ofargument in that work. The tone of his interpretation moved from ambivalence to outfight rejection. Husserl's ambivalence manifested itself intwo of the three meditations to which he pays significant attention. We sawthe much heralded methodological strategy of the First Meditation, uponclose examination, is not endorsed by Husserl, that he finds reason toprotest against the content of each individual skeptical argument and (...) seesthere in general a subjectivistic doctrine of consciousness already at work.Nevertheless, Husserl clearly wanted to preserve the essential intent of theCartesian method of doubt if not its letter, namely, the move toward callinginto question naive presuppositions about the world, raising the possibilityof its non-existence, thereby resuscitating sheer wonder about the world,and rendering it problematic in its relation to subjectivity. Historically, thisstrategy has precedent in the ancient Greek sophists, who, however unintentionally, Husserl claims were the first to manifest a transcendental im-pulse. Moving into the Second Meditation and the so-called discovery ofthe ego cogito, we found a stronger ambivalence on Husserl's part. Whileapplauding Descartes for uncovering the truth that lay hidden at the basis ofskepticism, the subsequent interpretation of the ego as soul and substantialentity clouds this inchoative insight into pure transcendental subjectivity.By the Third Meditation Husserl's ambivalence moved to out right rejection. There are a number of reasons why: the circularity of Descartes'theological theory of evidence ; the epistemologicalcommitment to a subjectivistic theory of consciousness; hisScheinprobleme along with the assumption of an objectivein-itself forever remote from intuition; the ontological commitment to twofinite substances; and the attempt to deductively redress the cognitiveschism created by these commitments through appeal to the principle ofcausality and the goodness of God. All these gave Husserl decisive occa-sion to take leave of the Cartesian path of meditation.A further reason why Husserl's meditations consistently break off in theThird Meditation is suggested by noticing the textual moment whereHusserl's silence begins. It is that moment where Descartes dips into theScholastic tradition for the concepts of objective and formal reality in orderto prove the existence of God. The problem, I suggest, is that here Des-cartes insufferably compromises his radicalness. More specifically, with theconcepts of objective and formal reality Descartes installs on the metaphysi-cal level the distinction between image and original already operative allalong in the earlier Meditations. Now, through the concepts of objective andformal reality, the image /original distinction is given ex-planatory power and raised to a truth so evident as to be beyond the reach ofmethodic doubt. The fact that this distinction is employed to deduce theexistence of God is not so much the phenomenological offense as themetaphysical naivete of positing a formal reality, an in itself, to account forthe very matters in question. (shrink)

Green Mass is a meditation on—and with—twelfth-century Christian mystic and polymath Saint Hildegard of Bingen. Attending to Hildegard's vegetal vision, which greens theological tradition and imbues plant life with spirit, philosopher Michael Marder uncovers a verdant mode of thinking. The book stages a fresh encounter between present-day and premodern concerns, ecology and theology, philosophy and mysticism, the material and the spiritual, in word and sound. Hildegard's lush notion of viriditas, the vegetal power of creation, is emblematic of her deeply entwined (...) understanding of physical reality and spiritual elevation. From blossoming flora to burning desert, Marder plays with the symphonic multiplicity of meanings in her thought, listening to the resonances between the ardency of holy fire and the aridity of a world aflame. Across Hildegard's cosmos, we hear the anarchic proliferation of her ecological theology, in which both God and greening are circular, without beginning or end. Introduced with a foreword by philosopher Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback and accompanied by cellist Peter Schuback's musical movements, which echo both Hildegard's own compositions and key themes in each chapter of the book, this multifaceted work creates a resonance chamber, in which to discover the living world anew. The original compositions accompanying each chapter are available free for streaming and for download at www.sup.org/greenmass. (shrink)

The notion of «the common good», which is crucial for understanding humankind and society, is not immediately obvious. It is, moreover, widely understood and used according to meanings that are irreconcilable and internally contradictory. The essay, after distinguishing between a notional exposition and the possibility of analysing the common good as the constitutive profile of human reality, deepens the structure and sense of order of life in association. This order, inasmuch as it takes shape and consistency through the free (...) and generous cooperation among individuals, may be described as the integrating moment of the common good, the nucleus of society inasmuch as expression of the original social reality of humanity. The common good is constituted through the participation of individuals and - together, circularly and progressively - opens itself up as the place of their possible realization. In this way the common good is the inescapable key to understanding the mystery of our social and historical condition. (shrink)

Emotions can be the subject of moral judgments; they can also constitute the basis for moral judgments. The apparent circularity which arises if we accept both of these claims is the central topic of this paper: how can emotions be both judge and party in the moral court? The answer I offer regards all emotions as potentially relevant to ethics, rather than singling out a privileged set of moral emotions. It relies on taking a moderate position both on the question (...) of the naturalness of emotions and on that of their objectivity as revealers of value: emotions are neither simply natural nor socially constructed, and they apprehend objective values, but those values are multidimensional and relative to human realities. The axiological position I defend jettisons the usual foundations for ethical judgments, and grounds these judgments instead on a rationally informed reflective equilibrium of comprehensive emotional attitudes, tempered with a dose of irony. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Báñezian Grounding for Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom:A Response to James Dominic Rooney, O.P.Taylor Patrick O'NeillIntroductionIn a recently published article, James Rooney, O.P., critiques a fundamental aspect of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange's articulation of the relation between divine causality and creaturely freedom, which I also defended in my recent book.1 Specifically, Rooney argues that at least some of what Garrigou-Lagrange holds is rooted in a Molinist rather than Báñezian understanding of (...) human freedom and divine causality. The aim of this paper is to articulate the basic objections raised by Rooney and to show why the objections fail. We shall not provide an exegetical or textual analysis of Báñez himself, but rather will establish a speculative grounding and agreement between basic principles of Báñezianism and Garrigou-Lagrange's articulation, ultimately affirming the necessity of positing creaturely counterfactuals for Báñezianism.Rooney makes two distinct (but related) objections to Garrigou-Lagrange's treatment. First, he claims that Báñezianism as a system rejects the notion of "alternative possibilities" when considering the creaturely will and its relation to divine causality, especially in regard to physical premotion. I shall argue that this is incorrect, and indeed misses one of the constitutive elements of Báñezianism—in fact the very grounding for its claim that infallibly moved actions remain free. Second, Rooney claims that Garrigou-Lagrange posits [End Page 651] a circular argument regarding the reality of sin. Garrigou-Lagrange's argument would be circular if it corresponded to a single order of causality or if counterfactuals of creaturely freedom were incompatible with Báñezianism. But we shall argue that they are not. As such, the argument is not only not circular, but rather elucidates a constitutive element of the Báñezian system, thereby refuting the objection. In short, Garrigou-Lagrange's articulation of Báñezian premotion admits of counterfactuals without relying upon divine passivity, and it remains internally coherent.Rooney's Critique of the So-called "Garrigou Manoeuvre"Rooney begins the essay by outlining a few of the major differences between a Molinist and Báñezian view of human freedom. Rooney's argument is that there is a potential "grounding problem" for Báñezianism, or at least for Báñezianism as articulated by Garrigou-Lagrange. As Rooney notes, Báñezianism posits that God's efficacious grace is ontologically antecedent to our good actions (and his permission of sin is ontologically antecedent to our sin). But how does this position retain free choice, if divine causation or permission is infallibly determinative and antecedent to creaturely choice? Rooney says:The Banezians need to account for how it is possible that a creature can do otherwise in the special case when God moves the creature to act through grace. Specifically, what grounds the truth of the claim that, even when God determines human free choices from eternity such that a human being has only one course of action open to them, those human beings are morally responsible for their actions? If the Banezian view entails that human beings, acting under grace, strictly lack any ability to do otherwise, then the view is incoherent.2As such, we can see that "the ability to do otherwise" is an essential, grounding element for defending Báñezianism against radically compatibilist or double-predestinarian views of human freedom, which have been condemned by the Church at Trent and in subsequent condemnations of Jansenism.3 Of course, the phrase "ability to do otherwise" is metaphysically [End Page 652] ambiguous, which Rooney admits. Various articulations of a more metaphysically precise grounding for the preservation of free choice under the influence of efficacious grace (or while efficacious grace is withheld) have been put forth, and Rooney focuses on a particular "strategy" which he associates with Garrigou-Lagrange and myself.4 He terms this strategy the "Garrigou Manoeuvre."Rooney notes that "Garrigou-Lagrange claims that there is something in virtue of which God denies someone efficacious grace, and that this is in the control of the sinner."5 He quotes Garrigou-Lagrange as saying that a person "is deprived of efficacious grace because by sinning he resists sufficient grace.... [Therefore,] God... (shrink)

The existence of a Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) is not a given, as arguments contra are in balance with arguments pro. An intellectual tradition consists of a style of thought and of a worldview, as its formal and material modes. The former defines the way knowledge is appropriated, processed, and passed on whereas the latter amounts to its applications to various regions of reality – God, man, morality, society, the Church, etc. A model of the CIT is proposed that (...) consists of principles differentiated by the degree of centrality they have in a topological structure. The paper asserts the existence of a CIT because a non-stipulative, non-trivial, and non-circular case can be made for it. (shrink)

This article takes up the challenge posed by ANT's principle of radical symmetry in a different way, by developing a counterargument to the Latourian (ethnomethodological) presumption that social and symbolic constructions are in themselves too fragile and weak to effectively knit together the social order which needs ballasting by a myriad of technological objects. It is argued that social orders are also maintained by self-fulfilling prophecies which are stabilized by the reality effect of what is called `everyday essentialism'. Social (...) facts are routinely enacted by circular bootstrapping operations which are often misrecognized as such in order to produce an illusion of ontological transcendence. It is this practical everyday reification of social facts which also creates fixities, nodes, and sites for the symbolic `packaging' of material objects. Over against ANT's agnostic appreciation of this reifying practice as `something we all do', Pels, like Vandenberghe, therefore retains an interest in a critical theory of reification. This critique signals the normative significance of `acting-as-if' over against all forms of ontological essentialism: if social situations are more clearly defined `as if' they are real, we are less likely to be caught out by the stark reality of their consequences. (shrink)

IntroductionThe aim of this paper is to outline the program of a hermeneutic theory of the way in which reality becomes disclosed and meaningfully articulated in practices of scientific inquiry.Text and MethodsI describe the profile of hermeneutic realism by addressing the issue of how objectified factuality is produced within the facticity of inquiry. Hermeneutic realism is characterized as a position that discards foundational epistemology and cognitive essentialism. I argue that the meaningful articulation of domains disclosed in scientific inquiry is (...) an ontologically self-sufficient process. This claim is the kernel of interpretive internalism. At stake in my analysis is the interplay of interrelated scientific practices and the possibilities for doing research, granted that the practices’ interrelatedness is projected upon the horizon of possibilities. Three kinds of hermeneutic circularity in this interplay are distinguished. They refer accordingly to the selection of data, the construction of data-models, and the saving of phenomena whereby theoretical objects become contextually envisioned. The main emphasis is placed on the reading of theoretical objects in the articulation of scientific domains.ConclusionThus, the kind of philosophy of science pertinent to hermeneutic realism and interpretive internalism aims at revealing reality within the facticity of inquiry. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Husserl’s concept of Leib in light of Merleau‐Ponty’s interpretation of the human body as an ontologically significant phenomenon. I first analyze Husserl’s account of the body as a “two‐fold unity” and demonstrate the problematic nature of its four implications, namely, the ambiguous ontological status of the body as subject‐object, the view of “my body” as “my object,” the preconstitutive character of the unity of the body, and the restriction of the constitution of the body to touch alone. (...) Building on this analysis, I explain how Merleau‐Ponty resolves the difficulties raised by Husserl’s account by reversing it. According to Merleau‐Ponty, “flesh” is not a two‐fold reality comprising subjective and objective aspects, but an ontological dimension from which these aspects can be abstracted through specific cognitive operations. Consequently, all subjective and objective aspects, even beyond the boundaries of one’s body, must be understood as founded in the indivisible unity of flesh. I argue that a thorough phenomenological description of the human body requires abandoning Husserl’s concept of Leib because it contributes to perpetuating subject‐object dualism. In contrast, Merleau‐Ponty’s notion of flesh reveals the circularity between subject and object and its general ontological significance. (shrink)

In a recent issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics, Svoboda and Van Howe commented on the 2012 change in the American Academy of Pediatrics policy on newborn male circumcision, in which the AAP stated that benefits of the procedure outweigh the risks. Svoboda and Van Howe disagree with the AAP conclusions. We show here that their arguments against male circumcision are based on a poor understanding of epidemiology, erroneous interpretation of the evidence, selective citation of the literature, statistical manipulation (...) of data, and circular reasoning. In reality, the scientific evidence indicates that male circumcision, especially when performed in the newborn period, is an ethically and medically sound low-risk preventive health procedure conferring a lifetime of benefits to health and well-being. Policies in support of parent-approved elective newborn circumcision should be embraced by the medical, scientific and wider communities. (shrink)