Aims and hypothesesIn an environment of absolute silence, researchers have found many of their participants to perceive phantom sounds. With this between-subject experiment, we aimed to elaborate on these research findings, and specifically investigated whether–in line with the fear-avoidance model of tinnitus perception and reactivity–fear or level of perceived threat influences the incidence and perceptual qualities of phantom sound percepts in an anechoic room. We investigated the potential role of individual differences in anxiety, negative affect, noise sensitivity and subclinical hearing (...) loss. We hypothesized that participants who experience a higher level of threat would direct their attention more to the auditory system, leading to the perception of tinnitus-like sounds, which would otherwise be subaudible, and that under conditions of increased threat, narrowing of attention would lead to perceptual distortions.MethodsIn total, N = 78 normal-hearing volunteers participated in this study. In general, the study sample consisted of young, mostly female, university students. Their hearing was evaluated using gold-standard pure tone audiometry and a speech-in-noise self-test, which is a sensitive screening test to identify subclinical hearing loss. Prior to a four-minute stay in an anechoic room, we randomized participants block design-wise in a threat and no-threat condition. Participants in the threat condition were deceived about their hearing and were led to believe that staying in the room would potentially harm their hearing temporarily. Participants were asked whether they perceived sounds during their stay in the room and rated the perceptual qualities of sound percepts. They were also asked to fill-out standardized questionnaires measuring anxiety, affect and noise sensitivity. The internal consistency of the questionnaires used was verified in our study sample and ranged between α = 0.61 and α = 0.90.ResultsIn line with incidence rates reported in the literature, 74% of our participants reported having heard tinnitus-like sounds in the anechoic room. Speech-in-noise identification ability was comparable for both groups of participants. The experimental manipulation of threat was proven to be effective, as indicated by significantly higher scores on a Threat Manipulation Checklist among participants in the threat condition as compared to those in the no-threat condition. Nevertheless, participants in the threat condition were as likely to report tinnitus percepts as participants in the no-threat condition, and tinnitus percepts were not rated as being louder or more unpleasant as a function of level of threat. For participants who did experience tinnitus percepts, a higher level of threat was associated with a higher degree of experienced unpleasantness. These associations were absent in those who did not experience tinnitus. Higher negative affect was only slightly associated with higher ratings of tinnitus unpleasantness.ConclusionWhereas our threat manipulation was successful in elevating the level of fear, it did not contribute to a higher percentage of participants perceiving tinnitus-like sounds in the threat condition. However, higher levels of perceived threat were related to a higher degree of perceived tinnitus unpleasantness. The findings of our study are drawn from a rather homogenous participant pool in terms of age, gender, and educational background, challenging conclusions that are applicable for the general population. Participants generally obtained normophoric scores on independent variables of interest: they were low anxious, low noise-sensitive, and there was little evidence for the presence of subclinical hearing loss. Possibly, there was insufficient variation in scores to find effects. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band vereinigt die Akten des internationalen Schleiermacher-Kongresses 2021 und nimmt den Philosophen, Theologen, Pädagogen und Übersetzer Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) als Kommunikationstheoretiker in den Blick. Ob als Universitätslehrer, Kanzelredner, als politischer Reformer, Publizist, Salongänger oder Briefeschreiber – Schleiermacher war selbst ein begnadeter Kommunikator und im Begriff der Kommunikation bündeln sich wie in einem Brennglas viele zentrale Aspekte seines Denkens. Seine Philosophie, Theologie und philologische Praxis zeichnen sich durch ihre emphatische Prozesshaftigkeit jenseits starrer Systeme aus. Sich in Sprache manifestierendes Wissen, (...) moralisches Handeln, religiöses Erleben und der Entwurf gemeinschaftlicher Institutionen sind im beständigen Werden und nur im Austausch der miteinander streitenden, sich liebenden und hassenden, Ideen und Sinn entwerfenden und um Gemeinschaft und Individualität ringenden Menschen wirklich. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes gehen Schleiermachers Werk ebenso wie seiner gesellschaftlichen, kirchlichen und philologischen Praxis vor dem Hintergrund ihrer ideengeschichtlichen Verflechtung nach und aktualisieren sein Denken in Auseinandersetzung mit unterschiedlichen Positionen der Gegenwart. (shrink)

This book is devoted to the problems of the growth of science. These prob lems, neglected for a long time by the philosophers of science, have become in the 60's and 70's a subject of vivid discussion. There are philosophers who stress only the dependence of science upon various sociological, psycho logical and other factors and deny any internal laws of the development of knowledge, like approaching the truth. The majority rejects such nihilism and searches for the laws of the (...) growth of science. However, they often overlook the role of the Correspondence Principle which connects the suc cessive scientific theories. On the other hand, some authors, while stressing the role of this principle, overlook logical difficulties connected with it, e. g. the problem of the incompatibility of successive theories, of the falsity of some of their assumptions, etc. I believe the Correspondence Principle to be a basic principle of the pro gress of contemporary physics and, probably, of every advanced science. How ever, this principle must be properly interpreted and the above-mentioned logical difficulties must be solved. Their solution requires, as it seems, revealing the idealizational nature of the basic laws of science, in any case of the quantitative laws of advanced sciences. This point has been recently emphasized by some Polish philosophers, especially in Poznan. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Astrology, Computers, and the VolksgeistDenis DuttonCarroll Righter is not a name you will recognize, unless, perhaps, you’re old enough and you grew up reading the Los Angeles Times. Righter was the Times’s astrologer, and encountering his name recently brought back a couple of memories from the early 1950s. I remember finding it strange that a man (he was pictured alongside his column) was called Carroll, though he didn’t spell (...) it like the girl who lived across the street. But especially I recall the fun we had when my father would read the horoscopes out loud and we’d compare them with the day’s events. Ours was a tough family for an astrologer to please, with rather different things happening to too many Aquarians, and a robust skepticism about anything of the sort later to be called “New Age.”How could I know that while we laughed and debated, somewhere else out there in the urban sprawl, Righter’s prognostications were being subjected to subtle and portentous analysis by that kingpin of the Frankfurt School, Theodor W. Adorno? Mirabile dictu, Adorno was living in L.A. at the time, and we now have his examination of Righter in The Stars Down to Earth, and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture, edited with an excellent introduction by Stephen Crook (Routledge, $16.95). The result seems, now in the fullness of time, of mixed value and relevance. Adorno has produced an admirably accessible rhetoric of astrology, what he terms “content analysis.” In this, he is finding out for himself about the so-called cold-reading techniques of psychic consultation, practices long known to magicians and astrologers and only really understood by psychologists since Bertram Forer’s work in the 1940s. But beyond that, Adorno uses astrology to support and exemplify his theory of authoritarian irrationalism. As you might expect, this is more questionable. [End Page 424]To be sure, there are many intriguing observations throughout this mostly readable essay. In a passage perhaps even more true today than when it was written, Adorno says that a “climate of semi-erudition is the fertile breeding ground for astrology.” He refers to people who have gone just beyond the naive acceptance of the authority of science, but who don’t know enough, or who have not sufficiently developed “the power of thinking,” that they can replace such acceptance with anything better: “The semi-erudite vaguely wants to understand and is also driven by the narcissistic wish to prove superior to the plain people but he is not in a position to carry through complicated and detached intellectual operations.” In other words, quantum mechanics is pretty tough, but astrology offers sophisticated understanding of all reality in a few easy steps. Besides, astronomy is about those remote stars and planets out there—rather cold and impersonal. In Adorno’s apt title phrase, astrology brings it all down to earth, because it’s about the single most important thing in the universe: me. In an analogy that isn’t too far-fetched, he says that to the semi-erudite individual “astrology, just as other irrational creeds like racism, provides a short-cut by bringing the complex to a handy formula and offering at the same time the pleasant gratification that he who feels excluded from educational privileges nevertheless belongs to the minority of those who are ‘in the know.’” Someone once remarked that Scientology boosts self-esteem largely by giving semi-educated, degreeless persons impressive certificates to hang on their walls, and Adorno is right that there’s a similar syndrome at work with most New Age esoterica, including astrology. (In literary theory, there are no certificates, of course—you just have to learn the jargon.)Much to his credit, Adorno independently identifies many of the features of cold reading described by Forer and later writers, such as the persistent tendency of the client to personalize the general message. Of Righter’s “Follow up that intuition of yours,” or “Display that keen mind of yours,” Adorno says, “People who have any affinity at all to occultism are usually prepared to react to the information they are craving in such a way... (shrink)

Je prends ici comme prétexte la parution aux éditions Nijhoff des Leçons professées par E. Husserl durant le semestre d'été 1908 à Göttingen sur sa doctrine de la signification, Vorlesungen ueber Bedeutungslehre Sommersemester 1908 (1987), afin de faire le point sur les changements qui interviennent durant cette période concernant sa conception de la signification. L'importance du contenu de ces Leçons a déjà été signalée par quelques phénoménologues dont G. Küng (1973), R. Bernet (1979). D. W. Smith et R. McIntyre (1982) (...) et par Husserl (1968) lui-même dans une lettre à R. Ingarden. Il semble que ces Leçons marquent ce qu'on pourrait appeler un «tournant frégéen» dans la conception husserlienne de la signification et qu'elles préparent le sol sur lequel s'édifie la théorie de l'intentionalité des Idées directrices. (shrink)

Why do some physicians continue to treat patients who are clearly dying or persistently unconscious, while others consider medical intervention to be futile past a certain point? No doubt, medical decisions vary in part because clinical information is often ambiguous in individual cases and because it may support more than one reasonable interpretation of a patient's chances for survival or improvement if a particular treatment is administered. Also, cases vary considerably to the extent that a patient's or a family member's (...) preferences for treatment are communicated, understood, and implemented. But, beyond these contingencies, patients at the end of life may receive more, less, or different treatment because physicians themselves are social actors, individuals who bring to bear on their clinical decisions a variety of personal attitudes, values, concerns, and interests. Legal defensiveness, religious vitalism, authoritarianism, intolerance of ambiguity, and other traits may influence physicians’ behavior, but each may be concealed under the rubric of what is “medically indicated” or “medically appropriate.”. (shrink)

In Agent-Centered Morality, George W. Harris constructs a broadly Aristotelian conception of morality and argues for its superiority over Kantian conceptions. Harris approaches morality through human practical reason. He is committed to articulating a plausible account of how human beings think, value, and choose based on their conceptions of their own good. Harris’s ethics is “agent-centered” in that it takes moral obligations to be grounded in what makes life meaningful from the agent’s point of view. The ethical system that emerges (...) from Harris’s approach rejects the impartiality, universality, and overriding rationality that Enlightenment philosophers attributed to morality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christianity and Secular Reason: Classical Themes and Modern Developments ed. by Jeffrey BloechlJoseph W. Koterski, S.J.Christianity and Secular Reason: Classical Themes and Modern Developments. Edited by Jeffrey Bloechl. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Pp. vii + 288. $40.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-268-02228-0.It does not bode well for a collection of essays when the introduction needs to make a concession like the one found here: “This (...) volume brings together a plurality of approaches to a loosely related set of questions, themes, and phenomena” (6). Yet, surely, truth in advertising is an uncommon virtue. The frank honesty of Jeffrey Bloechl, the editor of this volume, is much to be commended.What unifies the essays in this volume is not a common topic or a common approach but a common concern with the problem of understanding the relation between Christianity and secular reason. The issue in play is how much respect a religion that claims to be the recipient of divine revelation owes to autonomous reasoning in any particular age. The problem is exacerbated in those periods of history that are marked by strong claims for the powers of human reasoning.Bloechl’s introduction is particularly helpful due to its distinction between secular reason and secularized reason. Unless a believer takes the fideist position of holding that only claims grounded in faith are valid knowledge-claims, there is no reason to deny or cast skeptical aspersions on secular reason. The term simply names the use of reason according to its proper governing principles on any topic where the justifications for various truth-claims are drawn only from this-worldly experience and, for disciplinary reasons, make no use of divine revelation. It is the type of reasoning that is done within a saeculum, that is, within a given period of time, according to the canons of sound reasoning operative in that epoch. The term “secularized reason,” by contrast, names the view of reason that is hostile to the legitimacy of any knowledge-claim that involves the testimony of divine self-disclosure as its warrant. The proponents of secularized reason often conveniently overlook the likelihood that such hostility risks begging the question by disallowing any form of divinely backed testimony in principle, while allowing human testimony in such spheres as history or courts or law. If one is prepared in general to accept testimony as a justification for a truth-claim, then the proper criterion is the credibility of the source. But then there is no principled way to preclude in advance the possibility that testimony that originates with God might provide the strongest possible type of warrant for certain knowledge-claims. It is mere prejudice to decide in advance that this alternative is simply beyond the pale of consideration.Threaded through the essays in this volume is the perennial problem of the relationship of faith and reason. Earlier ages posed the problem on their own terms, sometimes quite different from modern assumptions. Readers unfamiliar with the thought of Thomas Aquinas, for instance, might well be [End Page 141] surprised to learn that the very first question of the Summa theologiae asks whether any sort of sacra doctrina is necessary beyond the philosophical sciences. Such a stance does not raise a question about whether faith can be a genuine source of knowledge, but merely asks if there is need for the sort of knowledge that is grounded in faith. Aquinas answers the question not only by reflecting on the difficulties that arise from expecting that everyone will have the necessary time, interest, and intellectual resources to figure out for themselves the things that they need to know for the sake of salvation; he also notes certain areas that are entirely beyond the scope of unaided reason, such as knowledge about the triune nature of God.By contrast, the proponents of secularized reason tend to cast doubt on the very possibility that any truth-claim based on religious faith could even be counted as knowledge. Brad Gregory’s recent book, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Harvard University Press, 2012) does a masterful job in tracing the unforeseen... (shrink)

In debates about genetic testing of children, as well as about disclosing unsolicited findings (UFs) of pediatric exome sequencing, respect for future autonomy should be regarded as a prima facie consideration for not taking steps that would entail denying the future adult the opportunity to decide for herself about what to know about her own genome. While the argument can be overridden when other, morally more weighty considerations are at stake, whether this is the case can only be determined in (...) concrete cases. Importantly, when children grow into adolescents, respect for future autonomy will have to give way to respecting their emerging autonomy. When pediatric exome sequencing is done for complex conditions not involving developmental delay, respect for the child’s future or emerging autonomy should be a primary consideration for those charged with deciding on behalf of the child. Building on what Emanuel and Emanuel have termed the ‘deliberative model’ of shared decision making, we argue that if parents fail to give these considerations their due, professionals should actively invite them to do so. Taking a directive stance may be needed in order to make sure that the future or emerging autonomy of the child are duly considered in the decision-making process, but also to help the parents and themselves to shape their respective roles as responsible care-givers. (shrink)

“Nay, I will go farther, and assert, that he could not so much as prove by any probable arguments, that the future must be conformable to the past. All probable arguments are built on the supposition, that there is this conformity betwixt the future and the past, and therefore can never prove it. This conformity is a matter of fact, and if it must be proved, will admit of no proof but from experience. But our experience in the past can (...) be a proof of nothing for the future, but upon a supposition, that there is a resemblance betwixt them. This therefore is a point, which can admit of no proof at all, and which we take for granted without any proof.”David Hume, Anof a Treatise of Human Nature p. 15In Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits Bertrand Russell recognizes and attempts to deal with what is one of the central questions of philosophy since Descartes, “The relation between individual experience and the general body of scientific knowledge.” He states that his purpose is “to discover the minimum principles required to justify scientific inferences.” The search for such principles arises from his belief that “data are private and individual.” He has only scorn for those who, “finding these problems distasteful” have “tried to deny that these problems exist.”. (shrink)

In their response to my article, Fracchia and Lewontin have not refuted any of my three principal objections to theirs; they have ignored altogether my suggestion that evolutionary game theory illustrates particularly clearly the benefits that neo-Darwinian concepts and methods can bring to the human behavioral sciences; and they have attributed to me a version of “methodological individualism” to which I do not subscribe. It is, as is usual at this stage of a Kuhnian paradigm shift, too soon to say (...) how much selectionist theory can contribute to the human behavioral sciences in general and comparative sociology in particular. But selectionism’s critics achieve nothing by alleging that its proponents are committed to propositions to which they do not in fact assent and deny propositions with which they in fact agree. (shrink)

Why do some physicians continue to treat patients who are clearly dying or persistently unconscious, while others consider medical intervention to be futile past a certain point? No doubt, medical decisions vary in part because clinical information is often ambiguous in individual cases and because it may support more than one reasonable interpretation of a patient's chances for survival or improvement if a particular treatment is administered. Also, cases vary considerably to the extent that a patient's or a family member's (...) preferences for treatment are communicated, understood, and implemented. But, beyond these contingencies, patients at the end of life may receive more, less, or different treatment because physicians themselves are social actors, individuals who bring to bear on their clinical decisions a variety of personal attitudes, values, concerns, and interests. Legal defensiveness, religious vitalism, authoritarianism, intolerance of ambiguity, and other traits may influence physicians’ behavior, but each may be concealed under the rubric of what is “medically indicated” or “medically appropriate.”. (shrink)

In their recent paper, Brandon Rickabaugh and Derek McAllister object to Paul Moser’s rejection of natural theology on the grounds that Moser is committed to a principle, Seek, which commits Moser to another principle, Access. Access in turn can be rationally motivated for at least some nonbelievers only by the arguments of natural theology. So Moser is in fact committed to the epistemic usefulness of natural theology. In this paper, we show that Seek by itself does not commit one to (...) Access, and that even if Moser is committed to Access, he is not thereby committed to the epistemic usefulness of natural theology for all nonbelievers. While we find this argument offered by Rickabaugh and McAllister lacking, we do not deny their conclusion that natural theology is epistemically useful to all nonbelievers. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus can be seen as an attempt at a characterization of a formal language, in which all meaningful scientific and philosophical discourse can be expressed. This characterization is fairly definite in some respects-e.g., he eliminates quantifiers in favour of propositional connectives; however, it is deliberately underdetermined in others-e.g., his choice of non-logical primitives. So much is clear, however: the class of languages so characterized is not fit for expressing non-logical necessity. So it is only consistent that Wittgenstein should (...) deny its existence.At this point two questions arise. Where in the resulting dichotomy between the contingent and the logically true, does Wittgenstein intent to place the actual laws of science? Where can he place them? Our reading of the text yields no conclusive answer to the first question; the second we can answer in the spirit of logicism: certain choices of primitives will make all scientific laws logical. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

This is the second of five chapters on good, and starts by making the point that it is around the question of the intrinsically good that the chief controversies about the nature of goodness or value revolve, for most theories of value may be divided into those that treat it as a quality and those that treat it as a relation between that which has value and something else ; Ross says that it seems clear that any view that treats (...) goodness as a relation between that which is good and something else denies that anything is intrinsically good. The chapter first discusses R. B. Perry's relational view of value—in the sense of good, and other theories that also identify goodness with some relation, either as a relation between that which is good and some or all of its elements, or as a relation between some or all of its elements, or as a relation between it or some or all of its elements and something else. Next, the psychological theories of good are discussed; these, as a rule, hold that a thing being good means either that some person or persons have some feelings towards it, or some person or persons think it to be good; this is an objective view of good. The rest of the chapter looks at both R. B. Perry's and G. E. Moore's arguments on these theories, at Ross's own views, at badness as incompatible with goodness or as an element of a good thing, at W. M. Urban's work on the question of values, and at B. Croce's arguments on value judgements. Ross concludes that the arguments in favour of thinking of value as an objective are no more successful than those in favour of treating it as a relation, and presents a lengthy validation of his conclusion, based largely on discussion of beauty and goodness. (shrink)

This presentation aims to clarify the historical and theoretical background of the studies included in this issue of Philosophiques, which focus on the work of Husserl during the period of Halle . After a brief description of Husserl’s early years of apprenticeship in philosophy between 1876 and his studies with Brentano in Vienna, I identify several steps that marked the development of his philosophy from his arrival in Halle to the publication of the Logical Investigations : his studies under the (...) direction of C. Stumpf, the publication of the first volume of Philosophy of Arithmetic, the researches belonging to the project of the second volume of this work, the abandonment of this project and the development of the phenomenology of the Logical Investigations. The last part of this paper is an examination of the philosophical issues underlying the disputatio on D. W. Smith’s recent book on Husserl’s philosophy. (shrink)

The simplest response to the problem of evil is to deny that there exists any evil, but that answer is usually dismissed as obviously unacceptable. This paper takes issue with that assessment and argues that it is an answer deserving of serious consideration. After rejecting four manifestly unacceptable formulations, two further conceptions are identified—the ‘higher standard’ and ‘wider perspective’ answers—which merit closer attention. The remainder of the paper considers and responds to four main objections to the theory: that it runs (...) contrary to our experience, that it is self-defeating, that it makes a nonsense of worship and that it would undermine moral action. (shrink)

In two shocking articles that appeared in 1968 and 1974, Garrett Hardin argued that the population explosion was producing a “tragedy of the commons.” Since we lack an effective method of sharing common resources, the strong incentive for individuals to appropriate them selfishly would soon lead to their collapse. To mitigate this danger, Hardin proposed a “lifeboat ethic”: less populated and -polluted Western countries should deny food aid to developing nations, where it would save lives only to increase population pressure, (...) and they should close their borders to immigration to prevent their lifeboats from becoming overcrowded and going down with the rest. This paper challenges and complicates Hardin’s account of the tragedy. While there is something right about his view, its vulnerability to a series of empirical challenges reflects its conceptual limitations. I argue that we need to develop a broadly ethical and arguably religious solution to the twin challenges of population growth and pollution. If the liberal commitment to negative freedom is, ironically, largely responsible for our current ecological bind, our only hope of escape is to build bridges between traditions in search of a thicker sense of ethicopolitical obligation. (shrink)

Wittgenstein, selon R. Rorty, accepte dans ses Recherches philosophiques une variété d' « antireprésentationnalisme » en ce sens qu 'il refuse la distinction entre certaines représentations envers lesquelles on devrait adopter une attitude réaliste et d'autres envers lesquelles il faudrait adopter une attitude non réaliste . Je soutiens dans cet article que le contraire est vrai. Wittgenstein adhère en particulier à une forme de non-réalisme quant au concept de signification et certains concepts d'états et de processus mentaux. L'expression « la (...) signification de M » n 'a pas selon lui une fonction reférentielle . Une expression du vocabulaire mental telle que « savoir réciter l'alphabet» ne désigne pas un état interne de l'individu sachant réciter l'alphabet. « Savoir réciter l'alphabet » et « la signification de M » ne sont pas des expressions employées pour « parler de » quelque chose ou s'y référer.R. Rorty daims that Wittgenstein agrees in the Philosophical Investigations with "antirepresentationalism " in that he rejects the distinction between representations toward which we should have a realist attitude and those toward which we should have the opposite, nonrealist, attitude. The aim of this paper is to show that this reading is incorrect. Wittgenstein accepts antirealist views in particular with respect to meaning and some mentalconcepts. The expression "the meaning of W", he holds, is not a referential expression . Expressions from our mental vocabulary such as "knowing the ABC" do not refer to internal states . "The meaning of W" and "knowing the ABC" are not expressions used to refer to or "talk about" anything. (shrink)

Although the notion of spatiality has always lurked in the background of discussions of literary form, the self-conscious use of the term as a critical concept is generally traced to Joseph Frank's seminal essay of 1945, "Spatial Form in Modern Literature."1 Frank's basic argument is that modernist literary works are "spatial" insofar as they replace history and narrative sequence with a sense of mythic simultaneity and disrupt the normal continuities of English prose with disjunctive syntactic arrangements. This argument has been (...) attacked on several fronts. An almost universal objection is that spatial form is a "mere metaphor" which has been given misplaced concreteness and that it denies the essentially temporal nature of literature. Some critics will concede that the metaphor contains a half-truth, but one which is likely to distract attention from more important features of the reading experience. The most polemical attacks have come from those who regard spatial form as an actual, but highly regrettable, characteristic of modern literature and who have linked it with antihistorical and even fascist ideologies.2 Advocates of Frank's position, on the other hand, have generally been content to extrapolate his premises rather than criticize them, and have compiled an ever-mounting list of modernist texts which can be seen, in some sense, as "antitemporal." The whole debate can best be advanced, in my view, not by some patchwork compromise among the conflicting claims but by a radical, even outrageous statement of the basic hypothesis in its most general form. I propose, therefore, that far from being a unique phenomenon of some modern literature, and far from being restricted to the features which Frank identifies in those works , spatial form is a crucial aspect of the experience and interpretation of literature in all ages and cultures. The burden of proof, in other words, is not on Frank to show that some works have spatial form but on his critics to provide an example of any work that does not. · 1. Frank's essay first appeared in Sewanee Review 53 and was revised in his The Widening Gyre . Frank's basic argument has not changed essentially even in his most avante-garde statements; he still regards spatial form "as a particular phenomenon of modern avante-garde writing." See "Spatial Form: An Answer to Critics," Critical Inquiry 4 : 231-52. A useful bibliography, "Space and Spatial Form in Narrative," is being complied by Jeffrey Smitten .· 2. This charge generally links the notion of spatial form with Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, the imagist movement, the "irrationality" and pessimistic antihistoricism of modernism, and the conservative Romantic tradition. Frank discusses the complex motives behind these associations in the work of Robert Weimann and Frank Kermode in his "Answer to Critics," pp. 238-48. W. J. T. Mitchell, editor of Critical Inquiry, is the author of Blake's Composite Art, and The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon. The present essay is part of Iconology: The Image in Literature and the Visual Arts. "Diagrammatology" appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. Leon Surette responds to the current essay in "‘Rational Form in Literature’". (shrink)

Goldstein attempts to establish a middle position between the idealist and the realist arguments concerning truth and fact in history. Though fact serves as the touchstone of truth, we cannot verify propositions, especially historical propositions, in terms of fact. Nowell-Smith argues that Goldstein cannot acknowledge the importance of reality for everyday affairs, while denying its importance in history. Goldstein could have avoided such problems by realizing that if he is an opponent of historical realism, he must be a supporter of (...) historical idealism. He could resolve Nowell-Smith's objections by adopting the Kantian argument which contrasts two types of judgment; judgment proper and particular attempts at judgment. Statements of objective fact, including historical facts, would be considered judgment proper. This would still allow for some judgments which did not fulfill objective criteria, but could count as knowledge. (shrink)

Unlike old soldiers, the rhetoric of the great neither dies nor fades away. And so Hume's celebrated ‘is-ought’ passage still provokes debate.Hume was worried about the relation between ought statements and those supporting them: between ‘tolerence brings peace’ or ‘is God's will’, and ‘so one ought to be tolerant’. He denies the deducibility of the latter from the former, as the ‘ought’ expresses ‘a new relation or affirmation’, ‘entirely different from the others’. And this is commonly taken as saying that (...) the ought statement is ‘different’ and non-deducible, because it is no longer a ‘purely factual statement’, to wit one that makes another ordinarily testable truth claim.However, recent criticism, by W. D. Hudson and others, points out that Hume says other things seemingly inconsistent with this. In the passage, he mentions ‘ought’ and ‘virtue’ interchangeably, and ‘tolerance is virtuous’ as in the same boat as ‘one ought to be tolerant’. But, also, he treats the virtue of an action as sensibly discernible by the approbation which it evokes, and takes us to mean by a virtuous action that we will approve of it on contemplation. (shrink)

It is widely accepted by philosophers of well‐being that the shape or narrative structure of a life is a significant determinant of its overall welfare value. Most arguments for this thesis posit agent‐independent value in certain life shapes. The desire theory of well‐being, I argue, has all of the resources needed to account for the value that many philosophers have identified in lives with certain shapes. The theory denies that there is any agent‐independent value in shapes and, indeed, allows that (...) there can be both agent‐dependent value and agent‐dependent disvalue in the shapes commonly claimed to hold agent‐independent value. (shrink)

The ancient evidence about the Culex is collected by Miss Jackson in her article in the Classical Quarterly . There seems no reason to doubt that Lucan said ‘et quantum mihi restat ad Culicem!’; and, whatever Lucan meant by it, Statius turned it into a compliment for the poet by making Calliope predict the various works he would produce ‘ante annos Culicis Maroniani’ . In the Neronian age, we may take it, it was not an obscure or conjectural matter, but (...) one of common knowledge or belief, that a certain known poem, the Culex, was the work of Virgil. About the other opuscula there is no evidence as early as that. The Aetna and Moretum are ascribed to him dubiously; the Ciris, Dirae, Epigrammata, Priapea, Catalepton are attributed to him with more confidence, but not so confidently as the Culex. It almost looks as if the belief in the Virgilian authorship spread from the Culex to certain other poems which were in some way or other connected with it. Here there is admittedly a great difficulty for those who are inclined to deny or to doubt that it is Virgil's. Are not the facts most easily explained by supposing that it was Virgil's ? At all events it is in various ways improbable that it was written, and produced as Virgil's, at some time between Virgil's death and the youth of Lucan. It is difficult to imagine who would have a motive for doing such a thing, or who could do it successfully. So it is incumbent upon the sceptic to produce some plausible view of what may have happened. (shrink)

The fact of evil has worried theists for a long time. The earliest clear statement of this worry is perhaps to be found in the book of Habbakuk: (i, 13). More precisely formulated, it comes to this: if God is good and omnipotent, why evil ? From his goodness it would follow necessarily that he does not will evil and from his omnipotence that he could prevent it; why then should it occur? Theists have attempted to escape from this dilemma (...) by means of an argument which turns on the claim that human beings are, to some degree at any rate, free to choose and act as they will. They are free to do good or evil; frequently they choose the latter and that is why evils, or at least many of them, occur. This human freedom, however, is a necessary condition of personality and, as such, a great good; so it is perfectly consistent with the goodness of God that he should will it. But what of his omnipotence? The point of the argument is that God has to allow those evils which result from men making evil choices, and this certainlylooks, at first blush, like a limitation of his power. But, we are assured,it is not really a limitation because all it amounts to is that God cannot do the logically impossible, viz., make beings who, at one and the same time, are both free to do what they will and pre-determined to do good.To deny that God can do the logically impossible, of course, is not to den his omnipotence; it is merely to point out that there are some things which it would not make sense to say that he had done. (shrink)

La seule alternative au dualisme est-elle la thèse de l'identité entre états mentaux et états cérébraux? Non, si on en croit Alva Noë (Out of our Heads, 2009) et W. Teed Rockwell (Neither Brain nor Ghost, 2005). Privilégiant les interactions entre cerveau, corps et environnement, ils entendent proposer une critique des fondements des neurosciences cognitives. Cependant, ni la conception énactiviste de Noë, ni la conception néopragmatiste de Rockwell n'ont les implications bouleversantes qu'elles prétendent avoir. Le conflit apparent des théories semble (...) en outre se ramener à des différences de perspective sur la cognition, l'esprit et la conscience. Is the claim that mental states and brain states are identical the only alternative to Cartesian dualism? Alva Noë and W. Teed Rockwell both challenge this view and elaborate a critique of the principles of cognitive neuroscience that draws on an analysis of the interactions between brain, body and the external environment. However, neither Noë's enactivist view, nor Rockwell's pragmatic conception do have the groundbreaking implications they are supposed to have. Moreover, the alleged conflict between these rival conceptions seems to be reducible to differences of perspective on cognition, mind and consciousness. (shrink)

On a traditional account, God causes sinful acts and their properties, insofar as they are real, but God does not cause sin, since only the sinner causes the privations in virtue of which such acts are sinful. After explicating this privation solution, I defend it against two objections: (1) that God would cause the sinful act’s privation simply by causing the act and its positive features; and (2) that there is no principled way to deny that God causes the privation (...) yet still affirm that the sinner causes it. I close by considering a limitation of the privation solution. (shrink)

Determinism, the claim free will is inconsistent with science, is incoherent when advanced by a conscious being, unless consciousness itself is denied . Section I examines how a provincial social valuation of artificial systems which we have built to deterministic specifications biases our view of the natural. Section II unpacks the conflated meanings of ‘determine’, exposing a fatal logical contradiction at the heart of the determinist claim. Section III raises Hecate's torch to illuminate promising paths forward from this clearing, tracing (...) a suggestive coherence of sensibility in the schemas beneath our core terms and concepts for freedom and mind. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Concept of Morals In morals finally we have the doctrine of ethical rela tivity.' It IS the same story over again. Morality ls doubtless human. It has not descended upon us out of the sky. It has grown out of human nature, and is relative to that nature. Nor could it have, apart from that nature, any meaning whatever. This we must, accept. But if this is interpreted to mean that whatever any social group thinks good is (...) good (for that group), that there is no common standard, and that consequently any one moral code is as good as any other, then this relativism in effect denies the difference between good and evil altogether, and makes meaningless the idea of progress in moral con ceptions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay considers definitions of racism which emphasise its behavioural, motivational, and cognitive features. The behavioural definition (‘the failure to give equal consideration, based on the fact of race alone’) is rejected, primarily due to its inability to distinguish between ‘true’and ‘ordinary’racism. It is the former which is morally most objectionable — and which identifies the essence of the racist attitude and belief. The central part of the essay argues in favour of the motivational approach to the definition (‘the (...) infliction of unequal consideration, motivated by the desire to dominate, based on race alone’) and clarifies the way in which racism, thus understood, conflicts with the principle of human equality. Finally, the cognitivist definition (‘unequal consideration, out of a belief in the inferiority of another race’) is also rejected, despite its intuitive appeal. The overall discussion has important implications for moral philosophy. It is shown both that the principle of human equality does not strictly imply equal consideration, and that one may violate the principle of equal perception, yet not deny the principle which, from the perspective of this argument, is the more fundamental element in the principle of human equality, the principle of equal human worth. (shrink)

Material acquisition—buying, inheriting, being given—and nonmaterial—learning a word, assimilating a form—have been likened, and in both, meaningful acquisition cannot take place without a taxonomy, a scheme of categories into which the acquired element can be fitted. Then with these elements—both material and nonmaterial—we create a world or build and project a self, the painter and the interior decorator equally manipulating the elements in a vocabulary. The coarseness of such an outlook seems to bludgeon away long-established fine distinctions. We need not (...) deny, however, that there may be a kind of "indifference" in regard to "the real existence of the thing" which allows us "to play the part of judge in matters of taste," as Kant would have it,1 we need not deny the existence of an "aesthetic attitude: it is just that such indifference and such an attitude probably don't have much to do with our day-to-day experience of artifacts and perhaps needn't. The "aesthetic attitude" was not long ago defined by Jerome Stolnitz as "disinterested and sympathetic attention to and contemplation of any object of awareness whatever, for its own sake alone."2 Stolnitz is at pains to distinguish the aesthetic attitude from "interests" with which it may be preferable to confuse it. "One of them," he writes, "is the interest in owning a work of art for the sake of pride or prestige". And again, "Another nonaesthetic interest is the 'cognitive,' i.e., the interest in gaining knowledge about an object". Both these interests sound rather acquisitive, and let us consider the "aesthetic attitude" as somehow tied in everyday practice to the bundle of "acquiring" activities. · 1. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. James Creed Meredith, p. 43.· 2. Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art Criticism, excerpted in Introductory Readings in Aesthetics, ed. John Hospers, p. 19; all further citations in text. Hiram W. Woodward, Jr. is a lecturer in the department of the history of art at the University of Michigan. He is editor of Eighty Works in the University of Michigan Museum of Art: A Handbook and coeditor of Barabudur: History and Significance of a Buddhist Monument. (shrink)

Everyone knows the statement of Servius that Virgil was compelled by Augustus to alter the second half of the Fourth Georgic after the fall of Gallus, and that he substituted the story of Aristaeus for the laudes Galli. This statement, often doubted by older generations, has had such a remarkable success in recent years that anyone who ventures to impugn it must feel that he is pleading with a halter round his neck before a one-sided jury. It is notable, however, (...) that these jurors, though one-sided, are by no means united, save in their determination to uphold the credit of Servius. One group will assure us that the episode of Aristaeus shows obvious signs not only of haste but of immaturity, and they draw a pathetic picture of the grief-stricken Virgil, ordered to bring out a second edition minus the praises of his friend Gallus, and half-heartedly throwing together some bits of juvenile stuff which he happened to have handy. Others assure us that the tale of Aristaeus shows us a more mature Virgil, nearer to the Virgil of the Aeneid. But the Servians really cannot have it both ways. They must make up their minds in the one direction or in the other if they are to be taken seriously. They make it doubly difficult for us to take them seriously when they try to tell us what Servius meant—but of that more anon. The present paper is an attempt by a converted Servian to examine frankly the arguments which have been advanced in support of Servius. Most of these may be found in Skutsch, Aus Vergils Frühzeit, pp. 140–147. One is very reluctant to use disparaging words about an eminent scholar who has served the cause of learning in so many ways; but it can scarcely be denied that the work just mentioned, in spite of its ingenuity and enthusiasm, shows a lamentable lack of three great essentials—a judicial temper, accurate statement of facts, and cogent reasoning. There is also at times a regrettable vagueness of expression, suggesting that the author is concealing inward doubts or shrinking from thought. All these deficiencies are to some extent present in the section with which this paper is concerned. (shrink)

It is widely thought that, to be morally responsible for some action or omission, an agent must have had, at the very least, the general ability to do otherwise. As we argue, however, there are counterexamples to the claim that moral responsibility requires the general ability to do otherwise. We present several cases in which agents lack the general ability to do otherwise and yet are intuitively morally responsible for what they do, and we argue that such cases raise problems (...) for various kinds of accounts of moral responsibility. We suggest two alternative approaches to thinking about the connection between moral responsibility and abilities to do otherwise, one of which denies that there is any ability-to-do-otherwise requirement on moral responsibility and the other of which requires only an opportunity to do otherwise. We also argue that a general-ability-to-do-otherwise requirement not only faces counterexamples but also lacks positive motivation. (shrink)

Although amply footnoted this book is informal to the point of being chatty and preachy. Overall its virtue is to announce that Roman Catholics and Marxists are not such strange bed-fellows after all, but that with intellectual openness they can truly talk to one another. The greatest defect of the book is its function as a primer for unenlightened Catholics on the massive changes taking place in Rome. The volume, then, denies Martin D'Arcy's contention "that the Ark of Peter is (...) not sinking, it is only being buffeted." The author gives no indication of how a rapprochement between Roman Catholicism and Marxism can be worked out. Instead the reader can only see that Marxism provides disenchanted catholics with one more unsophisticated flirtation with the world.--W. A. J. (shrink)