In an empirical study, we compared how lay people judge motivation enhancement as opposed to cognitive enhancement. We found alienation is not seen as a danger associated with either form of enhancement. Cognitive enhancement is seen as more morally wrong than motivation enhancement, and users of cognitive enhancement tend to be judged as less deserving of praise and success than users of motivation enhancement. These more negative judgments of cognitive enhancement may be driven by differences in perceived fairness rather than (...) differences in effort exerted by the user, although lay people generally see effort as necessary to deservingness of praise and success. (shrink)

This paper addresses a question that has sparked heated debate while mostly flying under the philosophical radar: Should people stop wearing merch of bands they don’t listen to? I respond affirmatively. People should stop wearing merch of bands they don’t listen to because (i) doing so can silence people who wear band merch to communicate their taste in music and (ii) this silencing threatens the valuable role that wearing band merch plays in the aesthetic lives of people who share a (...) taste in music: promoting aesthetic community between them. As will emerge throughout the paper, this argument is relevant to the debate on silencing as well as the debate on the value of aesthetic community. (shrink)

Niels de Haan (2023) defends the possibility of holding collectives morally responsible against a challenge posed by the problem of self-induced moral incapacity. Self-induced moral incapacity seems to introduce a responsibility gap that corporate agents might exploit to avoid responsibility. De Haan argues that the problem does not introduce responsibility gaps because collective moral agents become responsible for actions they committed while they were incapacitated once they reacquire moral capacity. I argue that de Haan’s argument is incomplete. Simply because a (...) group reacquires moral capacity does not also necessarily mean that the group retains attributability for the wrongs in question. This means we must supplement de Haan’s argument with an Attributability Proviso: To overcome the problem of self-induced moral incapacity it must be the case that the group reacquires moral capacity and that we can still attribute the earlier actions to the group despite the changes that it has gone through. (shrink)

This contribution examines the relevance of the concept “limit situation” in relation to aging and old age in a geriatric psychotherapy setting. The idea is to bring together concepts from phenomenology and the philosophy of age with methods from the field of qualitative social research. Experiences of groundlessness are viewed through the lens of Karl Jaspers’ terminology, leading to conceptualizing a dynamic of stabilizing beliefs yielding in the context of aging and old age. The results promise to contribute to psychotherapy (...) research and explore new ways for employing phenomenological ideas in clinical practice and research. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that we ought to have fewer children in order to reduce our contribution to climate change. Proponents of this view generally hold a moderate version of the view, according to which it is still permissible to have one or two children per couple. One recent exception is Chad Vance’s paper “Procreation is Immoral on Environmental Grounds” in this journal, in which he argues that procreation is always, or almost always, morally impermissible. I argue, first, that Vance (...) is mistaken in conceding that his radical position holds only if individual acts of procreation can make a difference, rather than being only a causally insignificantly contribution to collective harm. Instead, given his assumptions, he should hold on to the radical view that we ought to have no children at all. Second, I argue against Vance’s strongest argument for his radical view. Vance argues that procreation harms others, and that obligations to avoid harming rule out the demandingness considerations that are used to support a permission to have one or two children. However, contrary to paradigmatic cases of harming, any procreation-related harms result not only from procreators’ actions, but also from our collective failures to rapidly reduce emissions. This complex causal structure undermines Vance’s rejection of demandingness considerations. I conclude that the moderate view that we may have one or two children per couple survives Vance’s criticism. (shrink)

In the Roman time, Azania and its capital Rhapta had cultural and economic connections with diverse civilizations of the world, including those in the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, India, the Far East, and the deep interior of Africa. Information about Azania was first provided by the Romans – Pliny the Elder, Claudius Ptolemy, and sources such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Apart from the Romans, other people of the Middle East, including the Homerites or Himyarites, were found (...) to have lived and traded in Azania. Pliny the Elder reported that Azanian received spices from the Far East and sent them to the Great Lakes’ region where they were ferried via the Nile to the Mediterranean basin. The Periplus also reported other exported and imported trade goods. Indian and Chinese records provided evidence of connections with Azania. The most recent evidence of these connections is archeological. Materials recovered include beads and ceramics from Rome, the Middle East, and India. Archeology of submerged Rhapta also uncovered architectural remains of Roman technology. Material remains from the deep interior of Africa have been found on the coast of Azania. Roman connections with the deep interior of Africa are believed to have created caravan routes that facilitated cultural and technological exchanges. (shrink)

While most contemporary proposals of ethics for machines draw upon principle-based ethics, a number of recent studies attempt to build machines capable of acting virtuously. This paper discusses the promises and limitations of building virtue-ethical machines. Taking inspiration from various philosophical traditions—including Greek philosophy (Aristotle), Chinese philosophy (Zhuangzi), phenomenology (Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus) and contemporary virtue theory (Julia Annas)—we argue for a novel model of machine ethics we call the “skillful-expert model.” This model sharply distinguishes human virtues and their machine (...) analogues and rejects the direct transposition of human virtues to machines, as suggested by most proposals for machine virtues. Instead, we propose that human skills are better candidates for machine virtues. (shrink)

This article addresses the theme of diagnostic reduction in psychiatry, a process by which necessarily complex and multifactorial situations are reduced to medical conditions. This process presents obvious pitfalls, but also certain functions, in particular that of circumscribing what the psychiatric judgment can legitimately or not focus upon. In parallel, I will discuss the distinctions between narrative and pathological suffering, as well as the moral and medical judgments that may be associated with them. This will lead me to argue in (...) favour of a pragmatic attitude with regard to psychiatric diagnostic classification, i.e., with regard to the standardized term used to categorize and identify so-called mental health disorders. I will then highlight the implications for clinical practice, notably that a transparent discussion of these aspects with certain patients can benefit the therapeutic relationship and allow people with mental disorders to envisage a narrative that does not have to be limited to a psychiatric condition or be constituted by the rejection of the latter, but which can leave it a legitimate place. Ultimately, I hope that raising clinicians’ awareness of the ethical issues inherent in psychiatric diagnosis will limit the potentially pejorative and dehumanizing nature of diagnostic reduction, by allowing them to adopt reflexive and transparent attitudes on these issues. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the inversion of essential cultural values, such as physical perfection and the sports spirit, in 20th-century Europe. Periods emerged when physical perfection, once celebrated, morphed into tools for eugenics, racial theories, and ideological segregation. Similarly, the sports spirit became entangled in political and ideological conflicts. I approach this through the Marxist lens of ‘base—superstructure’ relations, focusing on the biological ‘base’, often misinterpreted through social Darwinism. This base is not subject to dialectical changes, does not develop (...) spirally but remains a constant fundament of human existence. It anchors pre-human and human interactions centered on physical fitness and interpersonal competition rooted in sexual selection. From this premise, I propose a philosophical model progressing from the general to the specific, built on four levels. At its foundation lies the unchanging physicality-agonistic ‘base’. From this base emerge three enduring cultural ‘structures’: physical culture, agonistic culture, and the uniting of these two sports cultures. These structures produce two cardinal values—physical perfection and sports spirit—while also giving rise to inversive superstructures that veer toward cultural distortions. I connect these inversions to the influence of elite groups shaping public opinion, aligning this analysis with Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. In this last stage, this perspective finds synergy with traditional Marxism, highlighting the role of elites in steering societal values and cultural frameworks. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudia un peculiar recurso discursivo de un cronista barroco del virreinato del Perú: un elogio de las mujeres criollas de la ciudad de Arequipa, que se transforma en una vindicación general de los indígenas como una forma de exaltar a la ciudad criolla a través de una serie de analogías históricas con experiencias e ideales de la tradición hispánica asumibles para una audiencia metropolitana.

La familia Murcia de la Llana desarrolló a lo largo de casi un siglo una de las tareas más significativas y a su vez más desconocidas dentro del complicado proceso por el que un manuscrito debía transcurrir hasta abandonar la imprenta: la corrección de libros. Por sus manos pasaron la mayor parte de los escritos del siglo XVII, muchos de los cuales alcanzarían posteriormente un éxito sin precedentes, caso del Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes. Este estudio se articula en base (...) a una serie de noticias documentales, muchas inéditas, que intentan esclarecer la compleja relación de parentescos, así como interesantes datos sobre el oficio de corrector general de libros. (shrink)

A partir du double constat d’une carence de statut et d’une crise de sens de la topologie lacanienne du nœud borroméen, nous tenterons d’expliciter le sens phénoménologique de ce nœud. Réduit à son essence, le nœud borroméen est composé de points et de trous. Or ces trous sont le résultat de mouvements expérimentables sur un mode affectif et charnel. La pul- sion, le désir, l’amour, constituent en effet la matière phénoménale du nœud borroméen. Avec Husserl, Merleau-Ponty et Patočka, nous montrerons (...) que la Terre originaire et immobile cons- titue l’ancrage de tous ces mouvements. Les mouvements-nœuds de la vie affective reçoivent alors une signification ontologique. Ils sont autant de variantes du mouvement primordial vers l’être. (shrink)

The overall concern of this issue is not really to question whether there is such a thing as “African philosophy.” Any question concerning “African philosophy,” i.e. a specifically pan-African discipline with its own methods and forms, is partly different from that of “African thought” in general, for the latter includes not only processes of consciousness that reflect on the natural and human fields, but also practices whose very nature is to create or express specific cultural textures. The choice of “African (...) Thought” – rather than “African Philosophy” – in this series of essays is a way of leaving the door open to thought-practices that would be considered as foreign or simply borderline to what is usually considered as philosophy by the Western establishment, that is, by those who have come to believe and persuade the rest of the world that the love of wisdom is the love of logos. (shrink)

Social science research, whether observational or interventional, is confronted with situations where the dignity of participants and respect for cultural practices can be seriously affected. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, we will reflect on the ethical challenges facing social science research with special consideration of research in contexts of vulnerability. Secondly, we will propose the Kantian sense of respect as a normative framework to guide social science research.

Hermeneutics originates in the mediation of meaningful utterances understood as arising from a suprahuman, divine domain. The religious origin of hermeneutics is centrally connected with the history of Christianity both in the Patristic period, ending with St. Augustine, and in the modern era of Reformation and Counter‐Reformation. Schleiermacher outlines a general theory of interpretation, while resisting any claims to special status of biblical hermeneutics. This chapter charts both facets of hermeneutics before ending with the relation of hermeneutics to the phenomenology (...) of the sacred. The masters of suspicion, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, understood religion as a cultural phenomenon, and one which masks a deeper reality. The hermeneutics of religion continues to be a fundamental philosophical and theological concern. Hermeneutics and religious phenomena inform each other in the development of a hermeneutics of religion and an exploration of the religious origins of hermeneutics. (shrink)

Heise discusses the pedagogical effects of philosophical enquiry on young people, their cognitive and behavioral abilities (both strengths and weaknesses), and gaining intelligence through an open mind and tests.

Heise delves into the ethical issues behind Cheating for High School students from a conference for ethicists, in addition to a discussion with students and moderators towards the subject.

The Cambridge Journal of Economics witnessed an important debate between Mark Pernecky and Paul Wojick on the one side and Rod Thomas on the other about the usefulness of Thomas Kuhn's sociology and philosophy of science in explaining why Keynes's revolutionary ideas exposed in the General Theory have been 'lost in translation'. This brief note is an attempt to reconcile Pernecky and Wojick's claim that Keynes's new economics of the General Theory and Walrasian General Equilibrium are incommensurable paradigms in a (...) Kuhnian understanding and Thomas's critique that – if they were incommensurable – Pernecki and Wojick's appraisal of Keynes's paradigm as a better approximation to the 'real world' than Walsrasian General Equilibrium is inconsistent within that very Kuhnian framework. (shrink)

Affect Control Theory was developed to address some issues in role theory. However, a mathematical formulation allowed the theory to expand rapidly to a variety of substantive issues, such as labeling, attributions, emotions, and the impact of settings on social interaction. Formalization raised theoretical issues that might have been neglected otherwise, and helped in defining the boundaries of the theory. A reasonable lesson to draw from development of affect control theory is that even modest mathematical analyses can expand theoretical productivity.

Both the sound and the sea are characterized by a constant fluidity and transformation, which has been considered as a creative foundation for expanded sonic practices that identify, capture and experiment with natural elements. The text aims to explore how the idea of sonification as a process of translating qualities and data into sound constitutes the departure point towards contemporary sound practices that encourage deeper listening and immersive experiences. Taking the sea-responsive sound installations of French artist Félix Blume, Rumors from (...) the Sea and Suspiros as a foundation, the article presents a reflective conversation between Félix Blume and Bill Psarras on aspects of such artworks that highlight ideas of sea and limens, listening experience, sound ecology and sonic instruments through performative, inventive and participatory lenses. (shrink)

La psicología y los psicólogos han dedicado bastante esfuerzo para conseguir una comprensión mejor y más profundea de las emociones y los sentimientos. Roberto Colom con sus respuestas nos ofrece una visión de primera mano de todas esas aportaciones así como el punto de vista de un psicólogo sobre el valos y la importancia de las emociones, los sntimientos y la vida afectiva en general para la personalidad humana.

Sebastian Grève interviews Felix Mühlhölzer on his work on the philosophy of mathematics.