Drewermann himself typifies his whole literary theological activity as a therapy. Therefore, we may consider his therapeutic concern as the structural principle of this synthetic survey of his fundamental ideas. Therapy means deliverance from an evil situation. Throughout Drewermann’s oeuvre this evil situation is being approached from a double standpoint. Now it is described as anxiety , then again as psychic imperfection of man who suppresses essential elements of his inner life in the unconscious. This two perspectives are at the (...) origin of two distinctive trains of thought which run like a seam trough Drewermann’s oeuvre. Either develops its own logic which leads to divergent standpoint with regard to religious fundamental convictions which do not lend themselves to one synthesis. The vision on God as deliverer from anxiety maintains the fundamental ideas of traditional Christian theology like the belief in a transcendent personal God and in the unique role of Christ in the mystery of salvation. Typical of this vision is also the pessimistic outlook on man’s natural existence as they are made explicit in the myths of the Jahwistic primitive history. Mythology is to be surpassed by theology. In contrast, archetypal hermeneutics are in the service of man’s perfection, and have totally different, even opposite, theological implication with regard to the essence of man and his relationship with God. Obviously, hermeneutics are based on an optimistic view of man’s natural existence as it is made explicit in the archetypes. At the same time this perspective calls God’s transcendence into question. We find many statements that point to a coincidence of ‘Gottfindung’ and 'Selbstfindung’, Christ’s unique role in the mystery of salvation according to traditional theology runs the risk to get lost. Christ is reduced to one of the many possible phenomena of a generally human retigion which comes to light in the archetypes. Confronted with these fundamental problems, Drewermann claims that Bible reading in the line of depth psychology must be surpassed by theological explanation. The concomitant emphasis on shortcomings, even aberrations which the interpretation of depth psychology exposes leads Drewermann’s line of thought into insoluble aporia. In the healing process as a coming to perfection of fragmented man, the archetypes are considered as components of a human psyche , good as such, which have to be integrated with conscious life. In man’s striving for deliverance from existential anxiety , the myths and archetypes are seen as a description of an inherently disastrous human existence labouring under anxiety. Thus, the interpretation of Drewermann’s theology is faced with an apparently insoluble contradiction: on the one hand, the archetypal dream of mankind is the ‘language of God’; on the other, Drewermann takes the ‘overcoming of the myths’ the starting point of his theology. What comes to light about the relationship between God and man in both the interpretations in depth psychology and in theology runs not not only directly parallel, but the theological interpretation gives a verdict on the ‘archetypal hermeneutics’ which Drewermann’s new contribution to theology wants to be and to which the bulk of his oeuvre is devoted. (shrink)

I will demonstrate that conductive arguments are found in the inference to the best explana-tion as it is used in science. Conductive arguments, I argue, operate on two levels: the first is in the con-struction of hypotheses; the second is through the competition of hypotheses. By constructing arguments based on observations of facts, all possible factors are taken into account and a judgment is made based on our weighing of considerations: conductive argumentation.

In the first phase of the research project Nanotechnologies for Tomorrow's Society (www.nanosoc.be), the research consortium explored a variety of futuristic visions or technoscientific imaginaries. This exploration took the form of a Policy Delphi, adapted to the particular objective of jointly constructing nano-imaginaries, taking participants' personal visions of possible future applications and societal issues as a starting point. The participants were nanoresearchers, as well as societal experts and primary involved citizens. In this article, the authors describe the theoretical frame that (...) inspired their methodological approach, present the analytical results obtained, and bring some reflections to the fore that arose as a result of the performance and analysis of this Delphi-exercise. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin states in his preface to “Law's Empire” that he is doing a phenomenology of law. In regards to a phenomenology of law, I wish to investigate Dworkin's theory of law, and subsequently, what is left out in order for it to be considered a phenomenological account. In doing so, I will compare Dworkin's phenomenology of law to Schütz's phenomenology of the social world. The comparison between the two will illuminate what I believe is necessary for law, and that (...) is a Phenomenology of the Pre‐Legal. (shrink)

The main objective of the Flemish research project ‘Nanotechnologies for tomorrow’s society’ (NanoSoc) is to develop and try out an interactive process as a suitable methodology for rendering nanoresearchers aware of underlying assumptions that guide nanotech research and integrating social considerations into the research choices they face. In particular, the NanoSoc process should sustain scientists’ capacities to address growing uncertainties on the strategic, scientific and public acceptance level. The article elaborates on these uncertainties and involved dilemmas scientists are facing and (...) proposes a process approach which addresses strategic uncertainty by alternating between ‘visioning’ and ‘technology assessment’; a process design which manages complexity by promoting reflexivity among scientists by exposing them to deliberations in civil society (social experts, stakeholders, citizens) on plausible futures with nanotechnologies; and as an answer to societal ambivalence, certain process quality requirements such as an attitude of perplexity or openness towards ‘plurality’ and an attitude of ‘temporary closure’, both in support of understanding and learning from differences. (shrink)

Over the last 30 years, representationalist and dynamicist positions in the philosophy of cognitive science have argued over whether neurocognitive processes should be viewed as representational or not. Major scientific and technological developments over the years have furnished both parties with ever more sophisticated conceptual weaponry. In recent years, an enactive generalization of predictive processing – known as active inference – has been proposed as a unifying theory of brain functions. Since then, active inference has fueled both representationalist and dynamicist (...) campaigns. However, we believe that when diving into the formal details of active inference, one should be able to find a solution to the war; if not a peace treaty, surely an armistice of a sort. Based on an analysis of these formal details, this paper shows how both representationalist and dynamicist sensibilities can peacefully coexist within the new territory of active inference. (shrink)

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. I discuss cases involving emotional reactions, ways of clothing, speaking, or (...) behaving that are not intended for communication but whose effects on the audience are controllable to some extent. I show why prevailing code and Gricean models cannot explain them and how my Extended Gricean Model does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer. (shrink)

Drawing on affective sciences, I argue that normally elicited emotions involve a component—the appraisal process—that represents evaluative properties unconsciously. More specifically, I argue that, given a substantial agreement in affective sciences about what emotions are, given broadly shared definitions of representation, evaluative properties, and unconsciousness, given how appraisals are conceptualized by most (neuro)psychological theories of emotion, and given empirical evidence about affective states elicited by stimuli perceived unconsciously, we are led to conclude that normally elicited emotions involve a component that (...) represents evaluative properties unconsciously. In the last section, I assess which philosophical theories of emotions are in contradiction with my conclusion, ask whether it implies that emotions represent evaluative properties consciously as well, and discuss how it relates to the debate on unconscious emotions. (shrink)

La polémica Constant-Kant tuvo lugar cuando Inmanuel Kant replico directamente a una observación crítica formulada por Constant en su panfleto Des Réactions Politiques. El tema sobre el que se debatía era la existencia de un deber incondicionado de decir siempre y en cualquier situación la verdad. Frente a las tesis del imperativo universal moral de la verdad del filósofo de Koënisberg, Constant opone los ejemplos concretos de situaciones en las que decir la verdad puede equivaler a hacer (...) el mal. Gabriel Albiac no explica en el Estudio introductorio que precede a la edición de los textos completos de la querella, cuanto anticipan las tesis que aquí se debaten, los problemas que generará el totalitarismo y el terror en el mundo de las ideologías holistas. Pero más allá de las consecuencias que pueden deparar las reflexiones en este libro relativas al derecho a decir y exigir la verdad - que es un de los postulados de la sacralización de la teología operada a partir del Renacimiento y de la Ilustración-, la polémica Constant/ Kant oculta otro segundo debate sobre el valor de los principios, la forma de construirlos y su eficacia para regir y explicar la realidad que se demuestra de excepcional interés en un siglo como el XXI, desbordado por su incapacidad de comprender los hechos que todos los días ofrece un mundo empírico en continua efervescencia, debido a la carencia de un sistema de categorías de principio generalmente aceptados que pueda servir de referente para unificar la multiplicidad de lo singular. En esta polémica que surge entre, un gran filósofo consagrado, que no tuvo reparo en salir al quite de un argumento que consideraba digno de réplica, y un joven aventurero dotado de extraordinaria inteligencia que iba a demostrarse capaz de comprender el mundo en que iniciaba su singladura, están contenidos en ciernes los supuestos básicos de alguno de lo problemas centrales de nuestra difícil postmodernidad. (shrink)

Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as (...) a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. (shrink)

Bayesian approaches to legal reasoning propose causal models of the relation between evidence, the credibility of evidence, and ultimate hypotheses, or verdicts. They assume that legal reasoning is the process whereby one infers the posterior probability of a verdict based on observed evidence, or facts. In practice, legal reasoning does not operate quite that way. Legal reasoning is also an attempt at inferring applicable rules derived from legal precedents or statutes based on the facts at hand. To make such an (...) inference, legal reasoning follows syllogistic logic and first order transitivity. This paper proposes a Bayesian model of legal syllogistic reasoning that complements existing Bayesian models of legal reasoning using a Bayesian network whose variables correspond to legal precedents, statutes, and facts. We suggest that legal reasoning should be modelled as a process of finding the posterior probability of precedents and statutes based on available facts. (shrink)

We argue that political propaganda is a negative phenomenon, against a recent strain of philosophical theorizing that argues that political propaganda can sometimes be neutral or even positive. After an exploration of the sense and connotation of the word ‘propaganda’ in ordinary use and in the scholarly literature, we discuss Ross’s (2002) account of propaganda as an epistemically defective form of political communication. We claim that, with some refinements, it is an explanatorily useful analysis. We then assess two prominent attempts (...) that aim at classifying legitimate cases of public communication as cases of propaganda, namely Ross’s (2013) revision of her previous model, and Stanley’s (2015) influential account. We show that some of the cases in contention are problematic and that the arguments the authors offer for classifying other non-problematic cases as propaganda are inconclusive. We also argue that the idea of considering legitimate public communication as propaganda is unmotivated. (shrink)

Usury is a concept often associated more with religiously based financial ethics, whether Christian or Islamic, than with the secular world of contemporary finance. The problem is compounded by a tendency to interpret riba, prohibited within Islam, as both usury and interest, without adequately distinguishing these concepts. This paper argues that in Christian tradition usury has always evoked the notion of money demanded in excess of what is owed on a loan, disrupting a relationship of equality between people, whereas interest (...) was seen as referring to just compensation to the lender. Although it is often claimed that hostility towards ‘usury’ has been in retreat in the West since the protestant Reformation, we would argue that the crucial break came not with Calvin, but with Jeremy Bentham, whose critique of the arguments of Adam Smith, upholding the reasonableness of the laws against usury, led to the abolition of the usury laws in England in 1854. There has to be a role for law, whether Islamic or secular, in regulating financial relationships. We argue that by retrieving the necessary distinction between demanding usury as illegitimate predatory lending and interest as legitimate compensation, we can discover common ground behind the driving principles of financial ethics within both Islamic and Christian tradition that may still be of relevance today. By re-examining past ethical discussions of the distinction between usury and just compensation, we argue that the world’s religious traditions can make significant contributions to contemporary debate. (shrink)

Il volume contiene la traduzione della Prefazione e del Libro I dell'opera di Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) - teorico della democrazia liberale, storico e filosofo nel dominio delle religioni, romanziere, politico che debutta nella Rivoluzione francese, matura sotto il regime napoleonico, invecchia durante la monarchia della Restaurazione - De la Religion, pubblicata in cinque tomi tra il 1824 e il 1831. Corredato di un ampio saggio introduttivo del curatore, il libro colma una lacuna della cultura filosofica italiana, ossia l'assenza di (...) una traduzione dell'opera religiosa di Constant, di cui viene proposta la parte iniziale contenente l'introduzione generale alla vasta storia comparata delle religioni antiche - dal feticismo al politeismo - che compone il lavoro constantiano. "Opera capitale per intendere compiutamente il Constant" - scrive Fulvio Tessitore nella Presentazione - e, ancor più, l'età nevralgica in cui essa apparve e della quale è uno dei vertici letterari e teoretici--OCLC. (shrink)

Philosophical writings on the free energy principle in the life sciences often give the impression that minimising free energy is sufficient for life. But minimising free energy is not a sufficient condition for life. In fact, one can perfectly well conceive of a system that actively minimises its free energy, and for this very reason moves inexorably towards death. So, where does the assumption of this entailment relation come from? There is indeed an entailment relation, but it goes the other (...) way around: life entails minimising free energy. Put another way, if you exist, now, under the right conditions, it is because you’ve done something like minimising your free energy. However, the question of whether you will exist tomorrow cannot be settled purely by resorting to the fact that you will minimise your free energy to get there. The simple point I make in this paper is that the free energy principle is not concerned with the sufficient conditions of existence, but rather with what must have been the case, given that you exist. It’s not about figuring out what it takes to be alive; it’s about figuring out what took you there. (shrink)

For María Zambrano all forms of knowledge are articulated from tradition, because what is essential is located in the past, as if it were a question of a substratum per se which is always known and transmitted. Wisdom increases by accumulation: knowledges add up, they become part of a ..

Heloise and Discussion about Love. This chapter examines the significance of the early love affair of Abelard and Heloise. It argues that this relationship was not simply a matter of fornication portrayed by Abelard in the Historia calamitatum. Drawing on the Epistolae duorum amantium, which I argue is a record of an early exchange between Abelard and Heloise, I explain that Heloise wanted to apply Ciceronian ideals of friendship to love between a man and a woman. At her request, Abelard (...) did endeavor to define friendship in terms based on Cicero, but he never developed her interest in true friendship as not seeking any personal reward. His love letters are more strongly influenced by a passionate ideal of love, inspired by the poetry of Ovid. (shrink)

In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of (...) living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. (shrink)

Sin duda, una de las más grandes obras del maestro de Heidegger es la dedicada a Nietzsche. Se trata de dos volúmenes que recogen las lecciones de 1936 a 1940 en Friburgo y otras disertaciones de 1940 a 1946. Heidegger, explica en el prólogo que esta obra representa su trayectoria menta..

L'éloge funèbre chez les Romains.--Le philosophe Carnéade à Rome.--Les consolations dans l'antiquité.--L'examine de conscience chez les anciens.--Un chrétien devenu paĭen.--Un paĭen devenu chrétien.

The first English translation of the major political works of Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), one of the most important of the French political figures in the aftermath of the revolution of 1789, and a leading member of the liberal opposition to Napoleon and later to the restored Bourbon monarchy. The texts included in this volume are widely regarded as one of the classic formulations of modern liberal doctrine.

A Christian Theologia. This chapter considers Abelard’s Theologia Christiana, his revision and development of the treatise condemned at Soissons. In this work, Abelard deepens his understanding of the Holy Spirit, and starts to consider ethical insights, as communicated by pagan philosophy. Written while Abelard was teaching at the oratory he founded in honor of the Paraclete, the work reflects new ideas in the theory of language, and contains in embryo many of the theological ideas he would develop in the 1130s. (...) The chapter also considers other writings, such as the Sic et Non, that Abelard composed during the 1120s, while teaching both philosophy and theology. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to cast doubt on an idea that is shared, explicitly or implicitly, by most contemporary pragmatic theories: that the inferential interpretation procedure described by Grice, neo-Griceans, or post-Griceans applies only to the interpretation of ostensive stimuli. For this special issue, I will concentrate on the relevance theory (RT) version of this idea. I will proceed by putting forward a dilemma for RT and argue that the best way out of it is to accept that (...) the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure ap- plies to certain non-ostensive stimuli, contrary to what is generally claimed within RT. In particular, I will argue that relevance theorists should accept that (ceteris paribus) non- ostensive emotional expressions in interactions guarantee a presumption of relevance such that they are interpreted through the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure. This leads me to propose what I call 'the expressive principle of relevance'. (shrink)

Accusations of heresy. This chapter considers accusations of heresy made against Abelard by William of St Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux in 1140/41. It considers how Abelard sought to respond to accusations that he was imprecise in his arguments by refining the text of the Theologia ‘Scholarium’. He felt that these accusations were based on an inaccurate understanding of his arguments. It examines the opinions of Abelard’s contemporaries and the polarized political circumstances that led up to the confrontation between Bernard (...) and Abelard at the Council of Sens in 1141. (shrink)

Faith, Sacraments and Charity. This chapter considers Abelard’s lectures or sententie on faith, sacraments and charity in which he formulated a synthetic vision of theology, recorded by students. It also reviews Abelard’s theology through the perspective of one of his foremost critics, Hugh of St. Victor, in the De sacramentis. While Abelard was always known as a logician, he emerged in the 1130s as one of the most original theologians and theorist of ethics of his generation. The chapter considers the (...) evolution of the Theologia ‘Scholarium’ in the context of his teaching in the schools. It concludes by looking at the evolution of his thinking about the distinction between vice and sin in his Ethics or Scito teipsum, arguing that here he is responding to a longstanding concern of Heloise. (shrink)