This qualitative study used descriptive phenomenology to examine experiences of healing and reconciliation, for children of Holocaust survivors, through dialogue with children of the Third Reich. Descriptive phenomenological interviews with 5 participants yielded several common essential elements. The findings indicated that participants experienced a sense of healing of intergenerational trauma, a reduction in prejudice, and increase in motivation for pro-social behaviors. The degree to which these findings may reflect a shift in sense of identity, as well as the implications of (...) the findings for conflict resolution, intergroup conflict reduction and peace psychology are discussed. (shrink)

The Black community has a long, well-documented history of being disproportionately harassed by law enforcement. While psychological research has studied this phenomenon, more in-depth research on Black men’s lived-experience of police harassment is needed. This qualitative study used descriptive phenomenology to investigate Black men’s experience of being harassed by law enforcement officers. An analysis of non-structured interviews with a sample of four participants revealed several essential aspects of this experience, including: anxiety in response to the initial awareness of law enforcement’s (...) presence, fear and confusion in response to abrupt escalation of aggression and hostility by officers, a sense of humiliation in response to degrading police tactics, anger over inability to pursue redress through the justice system, ongoing negative emotion, and a sense of having been psychologically harmed by the harassment. The implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

Philosophers such as Eric Katz and Robert Elliot have argued against ecological restoration on the grounds that restored landscapes are no longer natural. Katz calls them “artifacts,” but the sharp distinction between nature and artifact doesn’t hold up. Why should the products of one particular natural species be seen as somehow escaping nature? Katz’s account identifies an artifact too tightly with the intentions of its creator: artifacts always have more to them than what their creators intended, and furthermore the (...) intention behind some artifacts might explicitly be to allow things to happen unpredictably. Indeed, to build any artifact is to employ forces that go beyond the builder: in this sense all artifacts are natural. Recognizing the naturalness of artifacts can help encourage the key environmental virtues of self-knowledge and humility. (shrink)

The transition to renewable energy, already underway, requires a massive infrastructure overhaul. Without a commitment to justice this transition risks reproducing the problems of the fossil fuel regime. The emerging area of energy democracy aims to avoid this pitfall. It unites two key features of Vogel’s postnatural environmental philosophy: the adoption of democratic governance as a normative methodology and the inclusion of the built environment, such as infrastructure, in the philosophy's scope. After demonstrating how the energy democracy movement is (...) one answer to Vogel’s call for a postnatural ethic, I examine a case study showing how a commitment to democratic discourse could facilitate just energy transitions. Ideals of deliberative discourse should guide practices of building a shared environment including renewable energy infrastructures, doing so democratically and justly. In Vogel's spirit, we can see how these ideals can especially counteract two problems: privatization and manipulation. (shrink)

The overwhelming majority of those who theorize about implicit biases posit that these biases are caused by some sort of association. However, what exactly this claim amounts to is rarely specified. In this paper, I distinguish between different understandings of association, and I argue that the crucial senses of association for elucidating implicit bias are the cognitive structure and mental process senses. A hypothesis is subsequently derived: if associations really underpin implicit biases, then implicit biases should be modulated by counterconditioning (...) or extinction but should not be modulated by rational argumentation or logical interventions. This hypothesis is false; implicit biases are not predicated on any associative structures or associative processes but instead arise because of unconscious propositionally structured beliefs. I conclude by discussing how the case study of implicit bias illuminates problems with popular dual-process models of cognitive architecture. (shrink)

According to Eric Olson, the Thinking Animal Argument (TAA) is the best reason to accept animalism, the view that we are identical to animals. A novel criticism has been advanced against TAA, suggesting that it implicitly employs a dubious epistemological principle. I will argue that other epistemological principles can do the trick of saving the TAA, principles that appeal to recent issues regarding disagreement with peers and experts. I conclude with some remarks about the consequence of accepting these modified (...) principles, drawing out some general morals in defending animalism. (shrink)

Standard animalists are committed to a stringent form of restricted composition, thereby denying the existence of brains, hands, and other proper parts of an organism . One reason for positing this near-nihilistic ontology comes from various challenges to animalism such as the Thinking Parts Argument, the Unity Argument, and the Argument from the Problem of the Many. In this paper, I show that these putatively distinct arguments are all instances of a more general problem, which I call the ‘Too Many (...) Candidates Problem’ . Given my formulation of the problem, it is evident that standard animalists are mistaken in believing that restricting composition is the only solution. I show that there is another option for solving the TMC. The advantage of such a position, which I call ‘unrestricted animalism’, is that it is compatible with unrestricted composition and the existence of brains and other proper parts of an organism. I conclude by sketching several strategies one can take regarding this latter solution to the TMC. (shrink)

An enduring question in the philosophy of science is the question of whether a scientific theory deserves more credit for its successful predictions than it does for accommodating data that was already known when the theory was developed. In The Paradox of Predictivism, Eric Barnes argues that the successful prediction of evidence testifies to the general credibility of the predictor in a way that evidence does not when the evidence is used in the process of endorsing the theory. He (...) illustrates his argument with an important episode from nineteenth-century chemistry, Mendeleev's Periodic Law and its successful predictions of the existence of various elements. The consequences of this account of predictivism for the realist/anti-realist debate are considerable, and strengthen the status of the 'no miracle' argument for scientific realism. Barnes's important and original contribution to the debate will interest a wide range of readers in philosophy of science. (shrink)

In computer simulations of physical systems, the construction of models is guided, but not determined, by theory. At the same time simulations models are often constructed precisely because data are sparse. They are meant to replace experiments and observations as sources of data about the world; hence they cannot be evaluated simply by being compared to the world. So what can be the source of credibility for simulation models? I argue that the credibility of a simulation model comes not only (...) from the credentials supplied to it by the governing theory, but also from the antecedently established credentials of the model building techniques employed by the simulationists. In other words, there are certain sorts of model building techniques which are taken, in and of themselves, to be reliable. Some of these model building techniques, moreover, incorporate what are sometimes called “falsifications.” These are contrary-to-fact principles that are included in a simulation model and whose inclusion is taken to increase the reliability of the results. The example of a falsification that I consider, called artificial viscosity, is in widespread use in computational fluid dynamics. Artificial viscosity, I argue, is a principle that is successfully and reliably used across a wide domain of fluid dynamical applications, but it does not offer even an approximately “realistic” or true account of fluids. Artificial viscosity, therefore, is a counter-example to the principle that success implies truth – a principle at the foundation of scientific realism. It is an example of reliability without truth. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatism is a new strategy in environmental thought. It argues that theoretical debates are hindering the ability of the environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives. This new direction in environmental thought moves beyond theory, advocating a serious inquiry into the merits of moral pluralism. Environmental pragmatism, as a coherent philosophical position, connects the methodology of classical American pragmatic thought to the explanation, solution and discussion of real issues. This concise, well-focused collection is the first comprehensive presentation (...) of environmental pragmatism as a new philosophical approach to environmental thought and policy. (shrink)

A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment. -/- Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the (...) concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the “environment”—that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always a built world, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains. -/- Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as “nature”) can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not “how can we save nature?” but rather “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.1 (2002) 138-146 [Access article in PDF] Understanding Moral Limits in the Duality of Artifacts and NatureA Reply to Critics Eric Katz Ned Hettinger and Wayne Ouderkirk present some cogent criticisms of my ideas in environmental ethics, especially those ideas closely associated with my attacks on the process of ecological restoration. Both trace the source of my alleged problems to a pernicious dualism of (...) nature and humanity that they perceive in my environmental philosophy. In this reply I accept their basic analysis of my work but deny that my overall position leads to the problems they suggest. I explicitly endorse the dualism of human artifacts and natural entities, and I argue that this dualism exists along a spectrum of "more-or-less" natural or artifactual. I claim that this dualism is not pernicious, but on the contrary, it is the first necessary step to understanding the moral limits of human action in the natural world.I begin with a consideration of the formal structure of these critical papers—there is a remarkable formal similarity between these two essays. Each author begins with a brief review of the positive aspects of my position or "theory" in environmental ethics; then there is an analysis of the problems within the position, and the problematic consequences or implications [End Page 138] of my position for environmental policy and environmentalism generally; then there is an attempt to begin a solution to the problems encountered "on my own terms" so to speak—each author points out that within my position there are ideas that could be used to solve the problems uncovered. Thus I am urged to develop specific strands of my own thought—a recommendation that I (logically) cannot avoid.Now on one level this formal structure is commonplace in polite scholarly discourse. Before offering criticisms of an author—especially when he is in the same room—we cite a few positive things about his work, and we end by noting that the position of the author is not completely hopeless. So perhaps the structural similarity between these two papers is not particularly noteworthy. But in this case I think it is. For the structure of the papers points out a distinguishing feature of my work that I recognize: My work is essentially negative and critical. I believe that I am raising problems and provocative questions. My criticisms apply to both traditional ethics (especially as it relates to environmental issues) and to the standard (policy-driven) versions of environmental ethics (especially the anthropocentric and individualistic variations). My criticisms also create questions for mainstream environmental policies—or I so hope, for this is my chief purpose in doing environmental philosophy. Since it is essentially critical, the most one can derive from my work in a positive vein are suggestions or hints for directions in which solutions may be found. I readily admit that I have not followed these paths to work out solutions—at least not yet. Thus in a formal or structural sense I am in substantial agreement with my critics: my essays raise a lot of problems; I do not offer fully worked out solutions; but the seeds of possible solutions may be present in the body of my work.But I have to make one distinction concerning the nature of "problems." Ouderkirk and Hettinger raise two distinct kinds of problems when they interpret my work. First, there are (possibly) internal contradictions in my ideas that make the theory itself incoherent in some mostly formal way. (For example, my argument for the importance of nonanthropocentric value might hide a latent anthropocentrism—Ouderkirk says at one point that I may be letting anthropocentrism in through the back door.) And second, there are (supposedly) problems in my position because my view has serious negative consequences for standard environmental policies. (For example, both Hettinger and Ouderkirk claim that my view of the distinction between artifacts and natural entities makes impossible all restoration [End Page 139] efforts in the natural world.) Does my position lead to unacceptable consequences for standard environmental... (shrink)

Some key political challenges today, e.g. climate change, are future oriented. The intergenerational setting differs in some notable ways from the intragenerational one, creating obstacles to theorizing about intergenerational justice. One concern is that as the circumstances of justice do not pertain intergenerationally, intergenerational justice is not meaningful. In this paper, I scrutinize this worry by analysing the presentations of the doctrine of the circumstances of justice by David Hume and John Rawls. I argue that we should accept the upshot (...) of their idea, that justice is context sensitive, even if this at first sight seems to invalidate intergenerational justice. On the basis of moral constructivism, I subsequently provide a fresh reading of the doctrine according to which it conveys the idea that justice is the solution to a practical problem. However, as the problem background is evolving, we need to properly characterize the relevant practical problem in order to make ethical theorizing relevant. Contrary to what has been claimed, the circumstances of justice do not then clash with intergenerational justice, but are the necessary presuppositions for its advancement. (shrink)

I follow standard mathematical practice and theory to argue that the natural numbers are the finite von Neumann ordinals. I present the reasons standardly given for identifying the natural numbers with the finite von Neumann's (e.g., recursiveness; well-ordering principles; continuity at transfinite limits; minimality; and identification of n with the set of all numbers less than n). I give a detailed mathematical demonstration that 0 is { } and for every natural number n, n is the set of all natural (...) numbers less than n. Natural numbers are sets. They are the finite von Neumann ordinals. (shrink)

A 1% skeptic is someone who has about a 99% credence in non-skeptical realism and about a 1% credence that some radically skeptical scenario obtains. The first half of this essay defends the epistemic rationality of 1% skepticism, endorsing modest versions of dream skepticism, simulation skepticism, cosmological skepticism, and wildcard skepticism. The second half of the essay explores the practical behavioral consequences of 1% skepticism.

In this philosophy classic, which was first published in 1951, E. R. Dodds takes on the traditional view of Greek culture as a triumph of rationalism. Using the analytical tools of modern anthropology and psychology, Dodds asks, "Why should we attribute to the ancient Greeks an immunity from 'primitive' modes of thought which we do not find in any society open to our direct observation?" Praised by reviewers as "an event in modern Greek scholarship" and "a book which it would (...) be difficult to over-praise," _The Greeks and the Irrational _was Volume 25 of the Sather Classical Lectures series. (shrink)

Although corruption has become a hot topic in organizational research, few studies have examined how it is socially constructed. To partially bridge this gap, the present paper takes a critical discursive perspective on the representation of corruption in the media. The empirical focus is on the media coverage of a corruption scandal that revolved around two instances of formal corruption charges and successive acquittals. Based on the analysis, the paper exemplifies how the media makes sense of and gives sense to (...) controversial activities in response to changing and at times contradictory information. In particular, the paper highlights interplay between four dominant discourses—transgression, political, public scapegoating, and individualistic—that that were mobilized throughout the media coverage. These discourses were intimately linked with wider dynamics between problematizing and restorative media framings and thus provided crucial means of reconstructing and reformulating the legitimacy of the reported activities throughout the scandal. While the findings are context specific, this study suggests that similar interplay and dynamics are important aspects of media sensemaking around controversial activities related to corruption. (shrink)

Recently, Stephan Blatti has argued that a deprivationist view (DV) of death’s harm is incomplete, and he presents a view such that the kind of distinctive harm that death brings to an individual involves the restriction of that individual’s autonomy.2 Not only does death deprivation-harm us, but it also restriction-harms us. Let us label such an account—one that includes both deprivation and restriction as comprising death’s harm—as a ‘deprivationist-restrictionist view’ (or ‘DRV’). Blatti favors DRV because it avoids several worries that (...) beset DV. In this paper, I present several objections to DRV; in particular, I raise some problems for the claim that death restriction-harms us and show that even DRV does not avoid the worries of DV—so there is no reason to prefer DRV over DV. (shrink)

Adam Smith is rediscovered every few generations by philosophers surprised by his subtlety, originality, and relevance. Smith’s status as mythical father of economic science and his role as canonical defender of free trade is secure within economics, but few philosophers have been more often misrepresented and underestimated. Because he is well known as an advocate of commercial society, many scholars, public intellectuals, commentators, and journalists are happy to implicate him automatically in its successes and failures, or to enlist him in (...) one side or another of the various ideological battles surrounding the utility and dangers of market economics. This book is an accessible and engaging introduction to Smith’s most important contributions to philosophy. Beginning with an introductory chapter on Smith’s life, writings and readings, Eric Schliesser locates Smith in his immediate social and philosophical context. Later chapters analyse key concepts in his core moral, political and metaphysical theories, before turning to Smith's contribution to areas of ongoing philosophical interest, especially philosophy of science, and the metaphysics of mind and self. Schliesser concludes by summarising Smith's complicated legacy in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and explores how Smith is being 're-discovered' in contemporary moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines a recent attempt at updating Anselm’s ontological argument by employing the notion of mediated and unmediated causal powers. After presenting the updated argument and the underlying metaphysical framework of causal powers that is utilized in the argument, I show that some of the key assumptions can be rejected. Once we closely examine some of the assumptions, it will also be evident that the updated version in some ways collapses back to Anselm’s original version and so is subject (...) to some of the same worries. (shrink)

This collection of essays was devised by the author to study how anthropology brought the study of complex societies and world systems in to its purview.

I reject the traditional picture of philosophical withdrawal in the Hellenistic Age by showing how both Epicureans and Stoics oppose, in different ways, the Platonic and Aristotelian assumption that contemplative activity is the greatest good for a human being. Chrysippus the Stoic agrees with Plato and Aristotle that the greatest good for a human being is virtuous activity, but he denies that contemplation exercises virtue. Epicurus more thoroughly rejects the assumption that the greatest good for a human being is virtuous (...) activity. He maintains that the greatest good for a human being is the tranquility that virtuous activity always and contemplative activity sometimes brings about. (shrink)

While environmental ethicists often critique metaphors of nature, they rarely recognize metaphors of environmental practice, and so fail to submit background models of human agency to similar critique. In consequence, descriptions of nature are often shaped by unassessed metaphors of practice, and then made to bear argument for that preferred model. To relieve arguments over “nature” of this vicarious burden, models of agency can and should become a primary topic within the field. In response to some initial misgivings from (...) class='Hi'>Eric Katz and taking suggestions from Bryan Norton, Steven Vogel, Holmes Rolston, III, and others, some minimal framing criteria can be developed to promote and facilitate a broad debate over the most appropriate metaphors and models of environmental practice. (shrink)

Recently, in this journal, Jeremy Gwiazda has offered a critique of our separationist view of hell. His objection relies on two key assumptions, and we show in our reply that both assumptions can be denied.

The purpose of this work is to elaborate an empirically grounded mathematical model of the magnitude of consequences component of "moral intensity", 366, 1991) that can be used to evaluate different ethical situations. The model is built using the analytical hierarchy process and empirical data from the legal profession. One contribution of our work is that it illustrates how AHP can be applied in the field of ethics. Following a review of the literature, we discuss the development of the model. (...) We then illustrate how the model can be used to rank-order three well-known ethical reasoning cases in terms of the magnitude of consequences. The work concludes with implications for theory, practice, and future research. Specifically we discuss how this work extends the previous work by Collins regarding the nature harm variable. We also discuss the contribution this work makes in the development of ethical scenarios used to test hypotheses in the field of business ethics. Finally, we discuss how the model can be used for after-action review, contribute to organizational learning, train employees in ethical reasoning, and aid in the design and development of decision support systems that support ethical reasoning. (shrink)

Relationships between children and parents pervade the Star Wars saga, especially if people include surrogate parents. Anakin's relationship with his mother, Shmi, in the prequels impacts his trajectory toward the dark side. In The Mandalorian, Mando's role as a surrogate father to Grogu transforms them into a “Clan of Two”. But the most significant parent‐child relationship in the saga may be the one between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Confucius's teachings highlight the importance of benevolence, social order, and ritual propriety (...) among other virtues and values. This chapter shows that understanding Luke's surrender to Vader in terms of Confucian filial piety makes sense of how Luke is able to overcome the allure of the dark side and become a Jedi. Confucius's Analects has a moral framework called “exemplarism”. This is the idea that moral knowledge and practice do not start with principles, rules, duties, consequences, or character traits. (shrink)

This paper addresses the alleged tension between the kind of strong apophaticism endorsed by Maimonides and his view of worshiping God. After considering some extant resolutions to this problem, I offer a proposal that utilizes the role of silence and imitative activity in Maimonides. While this solution may not have been one that Maimonides would have offered, I argue that Maimonides had conceptual resources for offering a promising solution within his theological framework.

We develop a framework for understanding how lack of clarity in business press coverage of corporate social responsibility functions as a mediated and emergent form of strategic ambiguity. Many stakeholders expect CSR to exhibit clarity, consistency, and discursive closure. But stakeholders also expect CSR to conform to varying degrees of both formal and substantive rationality. These diverse expectations conflict with each other and change over time. A content analysis of press coverage in Denmark suggests that the business media reflect and (...) amplify the ambiguity generated by these shifting demands. We propose that this very public lack of discursive closure provides strategic advantages to CSR stakeholders by rendering the concept of CSR adaptable, resilient, and meaningful to diverse interests. From this perspective, strategic ambiguity emerges from a relational and mediated process, not from the direct intentions of individual stakeholders. Our framework suggests that CSR is best understood not as a clear or consistent agenda, but rather as a forum for sensemaking, diversity of opinion, and debate over the conflicting social norms and expectations attached to corporate activity. (shrink)

Critics have charged that Heidegger's account of authenticity is morally nihilistic, that his fundamental ontology is either egocentric or chauvinistic; and many see Heidegger's turn to Nazism in 1933 as following logically from an indifference, and even hostility, to "otherness" in the premises of his early philosophy. In_ The Fragile "We": Ethical Implications of Heidegger's "Being and Time,"_ Lawrence Vogel presents three interpretations of authentic existence--the existentialist, the historicist, and the cosmopolitan--each of which is a plausible version of the (...) personal ideal depicted in _Being and Time._ He then draws parallels between these interpretations and three moments in the contemporary liberal-communitarian debate over the relationship of the "I" and the "We." His book contributes both to a diagnosis of what there is about _Being and Time_ that invites moral nihilism and to a sense of how fundamental ontology might be recast so that "the other" is accorded an appropriate place in an account of human existence. (shrink)

In the first experiment, I exhibit unreliable judgment about the primeness or divisibility of four-digit numbers, in contrast to a seeming Excel program. In the second experiment, I exhibit an imperfect memory for arbitrary-seeming three-digit number and letter combinations, in contrast to my seeming collaborator with seemingly hidden notes. In the third experiment, I seem to suffer repeated defeats at chess. In all three experiments, the most straightforward interpretation of the experiential evidence is that something exists in the universe that (...) is superior in the relevant respects – theoretical reasoning (about primes), memorial retention (for digits and letters), or practical reasoning (at chess) – to my own solipsistically-conceived self. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 6, Page 860-881, July 2022. This article aims to rewrite Emerson’s moral perfectionism – his anti-foundationalist pursuit of an always more perfect state of self and society – onto his moral and intellectual participation in the abolitionist movement. I argue that Cavell artificially separated Emerson’s moral perfectionism from his extensive, decades-long abolitionism. The source of Cavell’s oversight is his participation in the long-standing norm of dichotomizing Emerson’s work into the theoretical ‘essays’ and the (...) ‘anti-slavery writings’ or the philosophical and the polemical. Recent scholars of Emerson have questioned and even dismissed this dichotomy, however, while recentring Emerson’s politics in his oeuvre as a whole. They find much to praise, and also plenty to criticize, in Emerson’s abolitionist writings. I follow and extend that scholarly trend here and introduce what I call Emerson’s abolitionist perfectionism as an expansion of Cavell’s influential work on moral perfectionism. (shrink)

We investigate whether age profiles of ethnobiological knowledge development are consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Life history models predict complementary knowledge profiles developing across the lifespan for women and men as they experience changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring. We evaluate these predictions using an ethnobiological knowledge assessment tool developed for an off-grid pastoralist population known as Choyeros, from Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our results indicate that (...) while individuals acquire knowledge of most dangerous items and edible resources by early adulthood, knowledge of plants and animals relevant to the age and sex divided labor domains and ecologies (e.g., women’s house gardens, men’s herding activities in the wilderness) continues to develop into middle adulthood but to different degrees and at different rates for men and women. As the demands of offspring on parents accumulate with age, reproductive-aged adults continue to develop their knowledge to meet their children’s needs. After controlling for vision, our analysis indicates that many post-reproductive adults show the greatest ethnobiological knowledge. These findings extend our understanding of the evolved human life history by illustrating how changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring predict the development of men’s and women’s ethnobiological knowledge across the lifespan. (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With (...) respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has argued that, because we can imagine a people who take themselves to survive a 'brain-state-transfer' procedure, cerebrum transplant, or the like, we ought to conclude that we could survive such a thing. I claim that the argument faces two objections, and can be defended only by depriving it any real interest.

This dissertation is a contribution to the debate about ‘climate justice’, i.e. a call for a just and feasible distribution of responsibility for addressing climate change. The main argument is a proposal for a cautious, practicable, and necessary step in the right direction: given the set of theoretical and practical obstacles to climate justice, we must begin by making contemporary development practices sustainable. In times of climate change, this is done by recognising and responding to the fact that emissions of (...) greenhouse gases, with climate change as their result, are an immanent threat to any reflectively embraced development project. In the universal pursuit of progress, basic needs of both present and future people are put at risk. Even so, a political stalemate and business-as-usual prevail. The situation is locked up by an uncertainty about the exact impacts of choices made and by the reasonable disagreement of modern societies. The result is passiveness, and the passing on of a slowly and indiscernibly growing problem to future generations. This dissertation brings out a crucial message about the need to make our development sustainable. Instead of delaying action through trying to resolve the intractable epistemic and normative uncertainty fully, the focus should be on vindicating already shared points of practical convergence. On the constructivist method here adopted, the task is to characterise the agent and the situation faced from a practical and first-person point of view. More specifically, to specify the practical problem climate change gives rise to; the moral importance of needs (chapter three); how a principled priority of basic needs can be defended (chapter four), intergenerationally (chapter five) and internationally (chapter six); and what natural and social limits there are to development (chapter seven). These conceptions narrows the practice of development in the present context: it can be concluded that development must not risk the basic needs of anyone implicated. This common ground brackets off disagreement irrelevant to the urgent need to act, and so brings together otherwise deeply divided agents. A sufficientarian basic needs-principle, as the focus of an overlapping consensus, is practicable and anticipatory in the disuniting moral conundrum of climate change. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine the role that intentional descriptions play in our scientific study of the mind. Behavioural scientists often use intentional language in their characterization of cognitive systems, making reference to “beliefs”, “representations”, or “states of information”. What is the scientific value gained from employing such intentional terminology? I begin the dissertation by contrasting intentional descriptions with mechanistic descriptions, as these are the descriptions most commonly used to provide explanations in the behavioural sciences. I then examine the way (...) that intentional descriptions are employed in various scientific contexts. I conclude that while mechanistic descriptions characterize the underlying structure of systems, intentional descriptions allow us to generate predictions of systems while remaining agnostic as to their mechanistic underpinnings. Having established this, I then argue that intentional descriptions share much in common with statistical models in the way they characterize systems. Given these similarities, I theorize that intentional descriptions are employed within scientific practice as a particular type of phenomenological model. Phenomenological models are used to study, characterize, and predict the phenomena produced by mechanistic systems without describing their underlying structure. I demonstrate why such models are integral to our scientific discovery, and understanding, of the mechanisms that make up the brain. With my account on the table, I then look back at previous accounts of intentional language that philosophers have offered in the past. I highlight insights that each brought to our understanding of intentional language, and point out where each ultimately goes astray. I conclude the dissertation by examining the ontological implications of my theory. I demonstrate that my account is compatible with versions of both realism, and anti-realism, regarding the existence of intentional states. (shrink)

a) La doctrine de la connaissance défendue par Hilbert au cours du développement de la théorie de la démonstration est constituée dès la Conférence de Paris de 1900. Elle précède donc la théorie de la démonstration.b) L’application du principe fondamental de l’épistémologie hilbertienne (« Au commencement est le signe ») à la caractérisation de la négation logique est l’un des problèmes principaux de la théorie de la démonstration.c) Pour pouvoir caractériser la négation en termes de manipulation de signes, il faut (...) abandonner la méthode axiomatique et donc sacrifier l’essentiel de la doctrine hilbertienne de la connaissance. (shrink)

This article considers the social implications of the uncertainty surrounding Oedipus’ identity in Oedipus Tyrannus. It argues that questions of legitimacy, citizenship, and social status are raised at critical points in the play, and teases out the implications of details whose significance has not been recognized. It interprets Oedipus’ famous speech at 1076–85, in which he declares himself a “child of Tychē,” as a response to the news that he is a foundling; Oedipus acknowledges the stigma attached to those without (...) a proven pedigree at the same time as he seeks to neutralize its effect on public perception. (shrink)