A fascinating recent turn in epistemology focuses on inquiring attitudes like wondering and being curious. Many have argued that these attitudes are governed by norms similar to those that govern our doxastic attitudes. Yet, to date, this work has only considered norms that might *prohibit* having certain inquiring attitudes (``norms of restriction''), while ignoring those that might *require* having them (``norms of expansion''). We aim to address that omission by offering a framework that generates norms of expansion for inquiring attitudes. (...) The framework draws on inferential erotetic logic, which we explain and augment with some theorems. We explore several of the norms that it yields - some sympathetically, others unsympathetically. (shrink)

"This volume in Religion and Public Life, a series on religion and public affairs, provides a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The contributions address the decline of social capital-those patterns of behavior which are conducive to self-governance and the spirit of self-reliance-and its relation to the demise of the civic-humanist tradition in American education. The unifying theme, is that classical studies do not merely result in individual mastery over a particular technique or body of knowledge, (...) but also link the individual to the polity and even to the whole of the cosmic order. At the same time, American republicanism, in its exaltation of the common man from the Jeffersonian agrarian soldier to the apotheosis of Lincoln tempers the classical ideal into something less exalted, if more democratic. The effects on the contemporary state of the liberal arts curriculum are demonstrated in articles critical of the market-model university. Two essays explore the historical and philosophical significance of the discipline of rhetoric, that has suffered under the hegemony of rationalistic philosophy. A concluding contribution, invokes Giambattista Vico as an eloquent defender of the humanities. Humanities and Civic Life includes: "Rome, Florence, and Philadelphia: Using the History of the Humanities to Renew Our Civic Life" by Robert E. Proctor; "The Dark Fields of the Republic: The Persistence of Republican Thought in American History" by David Brown; "Unleashing the Humanities" by Robert Weisbuch; "Liberal Arts: Listening to Faculty" by Dennis O'Brien; "Historical Consciousness in Antiquity" by Paul Gottfried; "Taking the Measure of Relativism and the Civic Virtue of Rhetoric" by Gabriel R. Ricci; "The River: A Vichian Dialogue on Humanistic Education" by Randall E. Auxier."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Saunders has recently claimed that “identical quantum particles” with an anti-symmetric state (fermions) are weakly discernible objects, just like irreflexively related ordinary objects in situations with perfect symmetry (Black’s spheres, for example). Weakly discernible objects have all their qualitative properties in common but nevertheless differ from each other by virtue of (a generalized version of) Leibniz’s principle, since they stand in relations an entity cannot have to itself. This notion of weak discernibility has been criticized as question begging, but we (...) defend and accept it for classical cases likes Black’s spheres. We argue, however, that the quantum mechanical case is different. Here the application of the notion of weak discernibility indeed is question begging and in conflict with standard interpretational ideas. We conclude that the introduction of the conceptual resource of weak discernibility does not change the interpretational status quo in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This paper argues that questions can be bullshit. First it explores some shallowly interrogative ways in which that can happen. Then it shows how questions can also be bullshit in a way that’s more deeply interrogative.

The theories of pre-quantum physics are standardly seen as representing physical systems and their properties. Quantum mechanics in its standard form is a more problematic case: here, interpretational problems have led to doubts about the tenability of realist views. Thus, QBists and Quantum Pragmatists maintain that quantum mechanics should not be thought of as representing physical systems, but rather as an agent-centered tool for updating beliefs about such systems. It is part and parcel of such views that different agents may (...) have different beliefs and may assign different quantum states. What results is a collection of agent-centered perspectives rather than a unique representation of the physical world. In this paper we argue that the problems identified by QBism and Quantum Pragmatism do not necessitate abandoning the ideal of representing the physical world. We can avail ourselves of the same puzzle-solving strategies as employed by QBists and pragmatists by adopting a perspectival quantum realism. According to this perspectivalism objects may possess different, but equally objective properties with respect to different physically defined perspectives. We discuss two options for such a perspectivalism, a local and a nonlocal one, and apply them to Wigner’s friend and EPR scenarios. Finally, we connect quantum perspectivalism to the recently proposed philosophical position of fragmentalism. (shrink)

Moral egalitarianism will depend on one of two basic ideas. The first is the idea of equality itself. We might believe that it is a good thing if different people have equal shares of resources, or if their lives score equally well in terms of whatever makes lives valuable, at least if there is no reason based on some other moral value for one person to do better than the other. Equality is a relationship between the lives of different people. (...) This version of egalitarianism claims that the existence of the relationship makes an outcome better. It attributes value to relations between lives rather than to the content of lives. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Practical wisdom has received scant attention in business ethics. Defined as a disposition toward cleverness in crafting morally excellent responses to, or in anticipation of, challenging particularities, practical wisdom has four psychological components: knowledge, emotion, thinking, and motivation. People's experience, reflection, and inspiration are theorized to determine their capacity for practical wisdom-related performance. Enhanced by their abilities to engage in moral imagination, systems thinking, and ethical reframing, this capacity is realized in the form of wisdom-related performance. This can be manifested (...) either in wise business decisions or through their performance as mentors, advice givers, or dispute handlers. (shrink)

Michael Tomasello ( 2016 ) prominently defends the view that there are uniquely human capacities required for shared intentions, therefore great apes do not share intentions. I show that these uniquely human capacities for abstraction are not necessary for shared intentionality. Excluding great apes from shared intentions because they lack certain capacities for abstraction assumes a specific interpretation of shared intentionality, which I call the Roleplaying Model. I undermine the necessity of abstraction for shared intentionality by presenting an alternative model (...) of shared intentionality, which I call the Normative Model. It is a modification of Margaret Gilbert’s ( 2013 ) Plural Subject theory, which I modify such that it is, in principle, compatible with nonhuman shared intentionality. To do this, I substitute Gilbert’s account of obligation for Kristin Andrews’ ( 2020 ) account of animal social norms. In this Normative Model, uniquely human capacities for abstraction are not required for shared intentionality. By undermining the necessity of uniquely human abstraction, I make cases of prima-facie cooperation in chimpanzees plausible instances of shared intentionality. The Roleplaying Model’s denial of nonhuman shared intentionality creates a problem insofar as apparent shared intentional activity cannot be fully analyzed. The Normative Model resolves this problem. (shrink)

Reductionism, in the sense of the doctrine that theories on different levels of reality should exhibit strict and general relations of deducibility, faces well-known difficulties. Nevertheless, the idea that deeper layers of reality are responsible for what happens at higher levels is well-entrenched in scientific practice. We argue that the intuition behind this idea is adequately captured by the notion of supervenience: the physical state of the fundamental physical layers fixes the states of the higher levels. Supervenience is weaker than (...) traditional reductionism, but it is not a metaphysical doctrine: one can empirically support the existence of a supervenience relation by exhibiting concrete relations between the levels. Much actual scientific research is directed towards finding such inter-level relations. It seems to be quite generally held that the importance of such relations between different levels is that they are explanatory and give understanding: deeper levels provide deeper understanding, and this justifies the search for ever deeper levels. We shall argue, however, that although achieving understanding is an important aim of science, its correct analysis is not in terms of relations between higher and lower levels. Connections with deeper layers of reality do not generally provide for deeper understanding. Accordingly, the motivation for seeking deeper levels of reality does not come from the desire to find deeper understanding of phenomena, but should be seen as a consequence of the goal to formulate ever better, in the sense of more accurate and more-encompassing, empirical theories. (shrink)

This book discusses that imagination is as important to thinking and reasoning as it is to making and acting. By reexamining our philosophical and psychological heritage, it traces a framework, a conceptual topology, that underlies the most disparate theories: a framework that presents imagination as founded in the placement of appearances. It shows how this framework was progressively developed by thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant, and how it is reflected in more recent developments in theorists as different as (...) Peirce, Saussure, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, and Bachelard. The conceptual topology of imagination incorporates logic, mathematics, and science as well as production, play, and art. Recognizing this topology can move us past the confusions to a unifying view of imagination for the future. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the eco-religious “God’s Gardeners” group as they appear in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood as a possible model of capitalist “non-existence,” exploring the alternative potentials at which they arrive in relation to waste throughout the text. The Gardeners present an affective mode of consumer non-participation as a possible first step toward a reflexive awareness of the role trash plays in our subjective experiences of the world. Through a process of symbolic embodiment, (...) the Gardeners exist in marginalized space and so re-situate waste for themselves as objects and spaces with new potential boundaries. This leads to a confrontation with social reality itself, piercing the reality-building project of capitalist logic in order to uncover the fabricated “antagonism between the Excluded—the ‘animals’ according to global capital—and the Included—the ‘political animals’ proper, those participating in capitalism” that structures characters’ experiences. The focus here is not only on re-situating waste but re-inscribing it in the domain of social discourse in a way that subverts consumer expectations and challenges the limits of desire. In these texts, enjoyment is displaced onto waste objects as a point of psychological investment transmitted from subject to subject. In building reality through these kinds of direct relations, Atwood implies, one may challenge the imposition of ideology and expand its apparent limits in order to re-symbolize the spaces and objects marginalized as waste, proceeding in the end to a renewed interconnection between subject, object, and excess. (shrink)

In this chapter, I show that there is at least one crucial, non-short, argument, which does not involve arguments about spatiotemporality, why Kant’s subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge, argued in the Transcendental Deduction, must lead to idealism. This has to do with the fact that given the implications of the discursivity thesis, namely, that the domain of possible determination of objects is characterised by limitation, judgements of experience can never reach the completely determined individual, i.e. the thing in itself (...) or the unlimited real, but only objects as objects of possible experience. As such, it can be shown by reference to a key argument from Kant, that Hegel’s famous criticism that Kant is not licensed, on the basis of his core arguments concerning the original-synthetic unity of apperception, to restrict our knowledge to appearances, is mistaken on purely systematic grounds. More specifically, I argue that idealism follows already from the constraints that the use of the categories, in particular the categories of quality, places on the very conceivability of things in themselves. My claim is that, although it is not only possible but also necessary to think things in themselves, it does not follow that by merely thinking them we have a full grasp of the nature of things in themselves, as some important commentators claim we have. We must therefore distinguish between two kinds of conceiving of things in themselves: conceiving in the standard sense of ‘forming the notion of’, and conceiving in the narrow sense of ‘having a determinate intellectual grasp’. So although we must be able notionally to think things in themselves, as the grounds of their appearances, we cannot even conceive, through pure concepts, of how they are in themselves in any determinate, even if merely intellectual, sense. To put it differently, we cannot have a positive conception of things in themselves (this is in line with Kant’s distinction between noumena in the negative and positive senses; cf. B307–9). For support, I resort to a much overlooked chapter in the Critique, concerning the transcendental Ideal, where Kant discusses what it is for a thing to be a thing in itself proper, namely, something that is thoroughly determined. This concerns the real ontological conditions of things, which are not satisfied by the modal categories alone, namely, their existence conditions. I claim that the chief reason why, given Kant’s view of determinative judgement, we cannot determine a thing in itself is because of two connected reasons: (1) a thing in itself is already fully determined and therefore not further determinable and (2) we cannot possibly determine all of the thing’s possible determinations. In this context, I also discuss the notion of material (not: empirical) synthesis—of which Kant speaks in the chapter on the transcendental Ideal—which must be presupposed as the ground of the formal a priori synthesis that grounds possible experience. This material synthesis, which is an idea of reason that defines a thing as thoroughly determined with regard to all of its possible predicates and has mere regulative status, can by implication not be determined by the forms of the understanding, which synthesise only a limited set of predicates. As a result, given this definition of ‘thing in itself’, any object (appearance) as at best44 a limited set of determinations of the thing can never be numerically identical to the thing in itself as thoroughly determined individual. This undercuts a standard assumption about the identity relation between appearances and things in themselves in many contemporary interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Talk at University of Turin, 'Kant, oltre Kant, May 5th 2023. --- -/- It is useful, while keeping in mind a holistic approach, to concentrate on a common theme in Kant’s text, which it will turn out is the quintessential element of his novel ‘way of thinking’, as he himself put it in preface of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. This common theme is the idea of synthesis, which is what holds together, and is the entryway (...) to, all the other familiar aspects of Kant’s thought: his concept of self-consciousness or how mind is involved in cognition, his ideas about the role of the imagination, his theory of knowledge and his metaphysics of experience, and not unimportantly, its relation to what is probably the most Kantian element here: the categories of the understanding as the first principles of knowledge. But the meaning of synthesis and its role in its various facets, though frequently the subject of discussion in papers and monographs alike, is hardly understood in contemporary Kant scholarship. Most readings of the text of the Deduction, the part in which Kant elucidates his concept of synthesis, exhibit a shallow, mechanical understanding of it. -/- A compounding factor is that synthesis can’t really be understood independently of the other aforementioned elements of Kant’s thought. Grasping the meaning of synthesis implies coming to grips with his concept of self-consciousness and the way both self-consciousness and the categories are intricately and intimately involved. Most interpretations consider these aspects too much as if they were indeed separable faculties or entities that serve separable functions, undercutting an important feature of Kant’s metaphysics: the possibility of a priori unified cognition, for which an indivisible self-legislating subject is responsible. Rather, they are expressions of various aspects of a singular function of the mind as the ground of possible unified knowledge. -/- One striking example of such a superficial reading of the text is the way the relation between figurative synthesis and intellectual synthesis—or in the case of the A-Deduction the threefold synthesis—is standardly interpreted, as if the two are independent or quasi-independent functions of different faculties of the mind, the imagination and the understanding. In this paper, I focus on the relation between figurative and intellectual synthesis, while arguing that failing to understand this properly, indeed the relation between the imagination and the understanding, leads to a vicious regress in the explanation of the ground of knowledge, for which a priori synthesis is specifically designed. In other words, failing to see the intimate relation between the imagination and the understanding, the very identity that lies at their root, risks losing sight of the primary aim of Kant’s thought: the possibility of a priori unified knowledge. (shrink)

The significance of A. N. Whitehead’s contribution to 20th century metaphysics has become widely recognized. The focus on the novelty of his process ontology, however, has led to a view that isolates him from the mainstream of the tradition of Western philosophy. Hence, it is often overlooked that on the methodological level Whitehead is a pragmatist, whose much quoted indebtedness to William James is reflected in the project of his speculative metaphysics. A detailed analysis of the respective theories of truth (...) and knowledge in James and Whitehead illustrates their common methodological approach and allows us to assess the role of Whiteheadian thinking within the pragmatist tradition. James advances a form of epistemic conservatism that supplements the pragmatic idea of a concept’s cash-value with the demand for internal consistency. New beliefs have to fit in the totality of all previously accepted convictions in order to become accepted as true. James argues his case on three levels – a psychological, an epistemological and a pragmatic one – and develops a theory of truth that comprises an empirical and a rational dimension. Whitehead takes up this two-sided approach, but modifies the idea of genetic consistency into that of systematic coherence. The fundamental concepts of an ontological theory must not be isolated from each other to allow for a cosmology which is both rational and satisfies the pragmatic test of applicability. With the close relation of James and Whitehead in mind, the latter can be identified as the ‘missing link’ that bridges the gap between the so-called classical pragmatism and its more analytic versions as advanced by Quine, Lewis and Rescher. (shrink)

The ArugmentThis essay answers a single question: what was Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's curator of experiments, doing in his well-known 1665 work,Micrographia?Hooke was articulating a “universal cure of the mind” capable of bringing about a “reformation in Philosophy,” a change in philosophy's interpretive practices and organization. The work explicated the interpretive and political foundations for a community of optical instrument users coextensive with the struggling Royal Society. Standard observational practices would overcome the problem of using nonstandard instruments, while inherent (...) inrepresentation– the interpretive practice championed in the text – were important theological and political meanings. Hooke's kind of experimental philosophy undermined the claims made by “atheists” and “enthusiasts” – the enemies of the restored church and state – while also producing useful knowledge. Equally important, Hooke modeled the community described inMicrographiaupon the classicalres publica, but his community made important concessions to Restoration political realities, especially the growing role of commercial or transactional relationships. (shrink)

Given the inexperience, misconceptions and misgivings students often bring to a first course in philosophy, we present an activity that acquaints students with the main areas of philosophical inquiry and the tools philosophers use. Students engage in philosophical thinking by reflecting on and answering questions, defending and discussing their answers, and modifying or rejecting views in light of this discussion. The activity introduces students to conceptual analysis, argument, thought-experiment, and the use of counterexampleswhile simultaneously emphasizing and illuminating students’ natural tendency (...) to think philosophically. (shrink)

The first genuine and comprehensive English-language handbook to the study of Kant's philosophy, containing sections on Kant's key works, the philosophical and historical contexts of his philosophy, essays on the reception and influence of the Kantian philosophy, a lexical A-Z list of lemmata addressing central themes and concepts of Kant's thought and an extensive English-language bibliography of secondary literature.

_What is psychotherapy about?_ _What are the similarities and differences of its many forms?_ _What are the most recent developments in the field?_ _Introduction to Psychotherapy_ has been an essential reference book since its publication in 1979, and is regularly included in reading lists for trainee psychotherapists, psychiatrists and other professionals. It is often recommended to interested lay people and prospective patients. This third edition takes into account recent changes in psychotherapy theory, practice and research. The authors are all psychoanalysts. (...) The first edition arose from the experiences of Dennis Brown and Jonathan Pedder working and teaching together as Consultant Psychotherapists at St Mary's Hospital and Medical School, London. (shrink)

What are the assumptions and tasks hidden in contemporary calls to "overcome" the metaphysical tradition? Reflecting upon the internal contradictions of the notions of "tradition" and "finiteness," Dennis J. Schmidt offers novel insights into how philosophy must relate to its traditions if it is to retain a vital sense of the plurality of "edges" that constitute its finiteness. He does this through a close examination of issues found in the work of Hegel and Heidegger, two philosophers who made the (...) ideas of both tradition and finiteness the center of their concern.Schmidt begins by asking how Heidegger can claim to have destroyed metaphysics despite Hegel's claim to have perfected its possibilities. Systematically following the development of Heidegger's critique of Hegel, Schmidt generates a dialogue between them. The topic of that dialogue is the nature of finiteness as it is articulated in time, nothing, the dialectical and hermeneutical circles, and in the notions of experience, work, technology, history, and preSocratic thought.Beginning with Heidegger's critique of Hegel in Being and Time, Schmidt's strategy is to disclose the complexities of philosophical discourse about the finite by drawing out the proximities between Hegel and Heidegger. The dialogue that results presents novel portraits of both philosophers. It also reveals that Heidegger's early, unacknowledged failure to separate himself from the Hegelian dialectic is the motive behind many of the turns and decisions of his later career.In concluding, Schmidt offers an interpretation of the wider significance of the results of that dialogue, and connects his study to other contemporary discussions of postmodernism. He expands upon the idea of the plurality of edges opened by finiteness, arguing that philosophy only understands its own past and future once it recognizes the meaning of its own finiteness.Dennis J. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Binghamton. The Ubiquity of the Finite is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

In his short and often quoted essay ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control’, Gilles Deleuze famously describes the structures of power in the dawning twenty-first century as driven by ‘machines of a third type, computers’, as novel and predominantly digital infrastructures. In fact, from a Deleuzian perspective the entire ecosystem of the digital transformation can be described as a larger shift in modes of production and the political economy. This essay proposes to read this ‘technological evolution’ as the power of (...) algorithms and their material substance – digital infrastructures that entail a different mode of interaction between humans and technology. In looking at these infrastructures from a materialist position, my essay reconceptualises the digital as the unfolding logic of assemblages that have been shaping a ‘long now’ of technological modernity. In bringing a Deleuzian reading of infrastructures to the study of technology and society, this essay seeks to shed a new light on the political function – and the increasing abstraction – of infrastructures in the realm of the digital. (shrink)

the essay examines why Kant was conflicted about vaccination, on why vaccination can still be seen as a moral duty and on why a vaccination mandate is not (necessarily) consistent with our rightful, external freedom. It is an essay, not a scholarly paper.

In a most interesting recent essay on Derrida and French philosophy, written by Peter Salmon, a well-known contemporary critique of Enlightenment conceptions of subjectivity was rehearsed, namely as being biased towards a Eurocentric male perspective, which presumes to present a ‘neutral’ view of subjective identity, valid for everyone, always, and universally, without regard for particular personalities, histories, cultural backgrounds, sex or privilege. I criticize this view, in particular with respect to Kant.

i would hazard to guess that nearly everyone would agree that In situations of peril, it is permissible to use another’s property without her permission if that is the only way to save oneself from serious harm.1But that If one damages or consumes that property, one ought to compensate its owner.It turns out, however, that the conjunction of N1 and N2 is surprisingly difficult to justify. That is because if you accept N1, you are also likely to accept A property (...) owner would wrong an imperiled trespasser if the owner prevented her from using his property if that were the only way she could save herself from serious harm.N3 implies that the permission granted in N1 issues from a right. This generates a... (shrink)

After three years of political turmoil, the USCCB decided to reissue its 2015 statement Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. The document lacks theological clarity and reduces all considerations to a narrow set of moral issues. This essay argues that the bishops have an understated framework for robust participation. By analyzing the papal sources cited in Faithful Citizenship and considering the recent insights from contemporary scholars, the author urges the bishops to remain engaged, include the faithful, maintain social teaching, and, at (...) the very least, describe their theological rationale. Above all, the risks remain too great to continue repeating the current iteration of Faithful Citizenship, as they have done for the past three election cycles. The nation’s divisions, injustices, and crises make the bishops’ future work an urgent responsibility. (shrink)

Educating for Civic Dialogue in an Age of Uncivil Discourse addresses an urgent challenge-to help students learn the skills of civic engagement-by offering a framework for authentic cosmopolitan education. As an invitation to ongoing civil dialogue with diverse voices in the classroom, the book aims to foster the skills of democratic and global citizenship that allow students to find their voice as local, national, and global citizens outside of the classroom. It suggests practical ways that teachers can promote the skills (...) of attentive listening, intelligent questioning, reasonable positioning, and responsible dialogue in order to encourage authentic civic discourse. It also outlines specific pedagogical strategies designed to foster students' cosmopolitan competencies as democratic and global citizens. (shrink)

Every generation re-writes history in its own way'. Re-writing History applies Collingwood's dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology for the past century or more, while some have been triggered by more recent changes in technology or social attitudes. Some issues are highly controversial, like the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths, like the deconstruction of the Celts and by extension the Picts. (...) Yet some traditional tenets of scholarship have gone unchallenged for too long, like the classical definition of civilization itself. But why should it matter? Surely it is in the order of things that each generation rejects received wisdom and adopts ideas that are radical or might offend previous generations? Is this not simply symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Or are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry and expression that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Re-writing History addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation, including issues of misinformation and airbrushing of politically-incorrect history. Its subject matter is the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the changes witnessed over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political and social as well as intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics in ivory towers, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate. (shrink)