If metaphysics is centrally concerned with charting the domain of the possible, the only coherent account of the ground of metaphysical possibility and of our capacity for modal knowledge is to be found in a version of essentialism: a version that I call serious essentialism, to distinguish it from certain other views which may superficially appear very similar to it but which, in fact, differ from it fundamentally in certain crucial respects. This version of essentialism eschews any appeal whatever to (...) the notion of possible worlds in its account of the nature and ground of metaphysical possibility, for reasons that which I shall endeavour to explain and justify in this paper. (shrink)

Cet article est un nouvel examen des objections soulevées par Leibniz dans la controverse avec Clarke contre la théorie absolutiste de l'espace et du temps. Or la plupart de ces objections sont fondées sur le principe de raison suffisante; mais Leibniz utilise aussi le principe de l'identité des indiscernables, qu'il prétend déduire du principe de raison suffisante . Ce qui m'intéresse c'est que Leibniz présente parfois deux versions de la même objection: l'une reposant uniquement sur le principe de raison suffisante, (...) l'autre uniquement sur le principe de l'identité des indiscernables. Se pose alors la question suivante: Leibniz aurait-il pu soulever toutes les objections qu'il voulait contre la théorie absolutiste, en utilisant seulement le principe de l'identité des indiscernables? Il me semble qu'il aurait certainement pu le faire. Et de plus, je crois que si Leibniz avait suivi cette voie, son raisonnement contre la théorie absolutiste aurait été beaucoup plus convaincant. Ainsi donc, je me propose de mener l'attaque de Leibniz contre la théorie absolutiste, en isolant, reformulant, et exposant systématiquement sept arguments dont il se servait ou dont il aurait pu se servir, qui sont tous fondés sur le principe de l'identité des indiscernables. (shrink)

Selected articles of Ēṭukūru Balarāmamūrti on Marxist philosophy; includes contributed on his life and work.

It is a working assumption in much of the literature on the meta-problem that problem intuitions are (fairly) universal, and they are (fairly) universally treated as being psychological or rationally significant. I argue that variation in the universality and psychological or rational significance of problem intuitions is worth taking seriously, and that doing so places significant and challenging constraints on what an answer to the meta-problem might look like. In particular, it raises a potential challenge for (full-blown) realists on how (...) solutions to the meta-problem link to the hard problem. (shrink)

L'art, loin des habitudes qui figent tout réel élan créateur, est la jeunesse du monde. Il a tout à créer. Tout à construire, tout à proposer. Les temps de l'art mimétique comme ceux de l'art visionnaire sont révolus, pour laisser place à ceux de l'intuition. Cet ouvrage revendique ainsi la liberté de s'imposer des règles, de nouvelles règles et préconise un art de l'intuition, un art de la sensibilité, qui puisse s'exprimer avec spontanéité, une spontanéité qu'il n'est possible d'obtenir qu'après (...) un long travail. L'art ne doit plus être pensé comme une intention. Suivant ce principe, le scénario dans le récit doit être abandonné. Du point de vue de la forme, la poésie doit pouvoir mélanger dans le même poème vers libres. vers en prose, versets et alexandrins, selon le souhait du poète. De même, il faut oser une autre forme de peinture, qui ne soit ni figurative, ni abstraite, mais intuitive, née du flou ou de l'éblouissement, de la fulgurance intuitive! Franchir les frontières, à commencer par celles de l'intolérance, en faisant dialoguer et se croiser différentes disciplines artistiques, pour aller vers un espace pluriartistique, ouvre ainsi de nouvelles perspectives de création."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Modern societies depend on a growing production of scientific knowledge, which is based on the functional differentiation of science into still more specialised scientific disciplines and subdisciplines. This is the basis for the paradox of scientific expertise: The growth of science leads to a fragmentation of scientific expertise. To resolve this paradox, the present paper investigates three hypotheses: 1) All scientific knowledge is perspectival. 2) The perspectival structure of science leads to specific forms of knowledge asymmetries. 3) Such perspectival knowledge (...) asymmetries must be handled through second order perspectives. We substantiate these hypotheses on the basis of a perspectivist philosophy of science grounded in Peircean semiotics and autopoietic systems theory. Perspectival knowledge asymmetries are an unavoidable and necessary part of the growth of scientific knowledge, and more awareness of this fact can help avoid blind and futile struggles between scientific perspectives, and direct efforts toward more appropriate ways of handling these fundamental knowledge asymmetries. Concretely, we show how different kinds of scientific knowledge, expertise, disagreement and learning can be correlated to the perspectival structure of science, and propose how polyocular communication based on observations of the observations made by specialised perspectives can be used to handle such perspectival knowledge asymmetries. This can help overcome the observed problems in carrying out cross-disciplinary research and in the collective use of different kinds of scientific expertise, and thereby make society better able to solve complex, real-world problems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Real-life BioethicsGregory E. KaebnickMy academic training is in philosophy, and I tend to see the problems in bioethics as philosophical problems. And so they often are. What are moral values? What is the nature of rationality? These are certainly philosophical problems. But at the same time, they are not strictly philosophical problems, insofar as they are not the special purview of the field of philosophy. They require a broader (...) treatment, and that broader treatment might even lead us to believe that the standard philosophical treatment is unsatisfactory.In one way or another, several items in this issue of the Hastings Center Report raise questions about the standard philosophical answers to issues in bioethics. The challenge is most explicit in Barry Hoffmaster’s article, “The Rationality and Morality of Dying Children.” Hoffmaster launches a frontal assault on the typical philosophical understanding of ethics, applied ethics, and bioethics. “There is more rationality in our lives than there is in our philosophy,” he begins. The usual take in philosophy on rationality “hides the real nature and extent of the rationality and the morality in our lives because it denigrates, if not ignores, our experience and our creativity.” Closer attention to our experience is therefore needed, and Hoffmaster tries to take a step in that direction by considering anthropological research on how children dying of leukemia learned about their condition and then dealt with that knowledge.The lead article, by Tony Hope and three coauthors, questions standard philosophical approaches to decision-making in a different way. Hope and his colleagues consider whether the concept of authenticity is useful for exploring how patients with anorexia nervosa understand their condition and deal with that knowledge. Further, they ask, if the concept is important for people with anorexia, should it be important for clinicians, who sometimes need to make decisions on behalf of those women? Arguably, they explain, “in respecting autonomy, it is the authentic wishes that should be respected. This would be to give the idea of authenticity a role analogous to that of capacity (competence).”Hope and colleagues are skeptical that “authenticity” can help others make decisions on behalf of women with anorexia nervosa. There is no good way of deciding which decisions would count as “authentic.” But thinking about how to make decisions is not the full extent of bioethics. As the essay by Rebecca Dresser emphasizes, attempting to understand the patient’s experience of illness is another and important part of bioethics, even though bioethicists themselves do not always see it that way. “At times,” writes Dresser, “work in our field conveys the impression that seriously ill patients and their families would be in good shape if clinicians would only do things like give patients the proper information, respect patients’ choices, and follow advance directives.” Just as Hope and colleagues argued for attending more closely to the concept of authenticity, Dresser argues for attending to concepts like dignity, mortality, and grief. These concepts “may be difficult to incorporate into bioethical analysis, but they are the sorts of concerns that matter to people dealing with serious illness.”A bioethics that dealt better with them would still be a philosophical bioethics, but certainly not just a bioethics of philosophy. It would be what Dresser calls a “real-life bioethics.” —GEK [End Page 2]Copyright © 2011 The Hastings Center... (shrink)

J'examine plusieurs sources selon lesquelles Swyneshed (malgré les prétentions d'Angel D'Ors dans ses articles récents) donne une nova responsio en partie sous forme de la règle « On peut nier une proposition conjonctive après avoir concédé ses deux parties. » Je montre que cette nova responsio est liée à un rejet de la règle « Chaque proposition qui suit de l'ensemble de propositions déjà concédées doit être concédée », et j'attribue ce rejet à une théorie selon laquelle une inférence se (...) base sur le rapport logique entre seulement deux propositions. I examine a number of sources according to which Swyneshed (despite the claims made by Angel D'Ors in his recent articles) does give a nova responsio partly in the form of the rule « One can deny a conjunction whose conjuncts have already been granted. » I show that this nova responsio is linked to a rejection of the rule « Every proposition following from a set of propositions which have already been granted must be granted », and I attribute this rejection to a theory whereby an inference is based on the logical relations between just two propositions. (shrink)

This article is an examination of Hannah Arendt's 1929 dissertation.