This paper analyses Bohr’s complementarity framework and applies it to biosemiotic studies by illustrating its application to three existing models of living systems: mechanistic biology, Barbieri’s version of biosemiotics in terms of his code biology and Markoš’s phenomenological version of hermeneutic biosemiotics. The contribution summarizes both Bohr’s philosophy of science crowned by his idea of complementarity and his conception of the phenomenon of the living. Bohr’s approach to the biological questions evolved – among other things – from the consequences of (...) an epistemological lesson of quantum theory and in light of complementarity of observer as a priori living creature and ex post scientific explanation of the living. In a manifestation of the phenomenon of the living, each model of living system and its description makes accessible – from its own presuppositions, contexts and concepts – some features which are not accessible from the others. Nevertheless, for a general understanding of that phenomenon, incompatible sophisticated approaches are equally necessary. Bohr’s epistemology of complementarity turns out to be a heuristic and methodical framework for testing the extent to which biosemiotics can become one of the special sciences or its potential as a cross-disciplinary branch of study. (shrink)

Contextualists and assessment relativists neglect the expressive dimension of assertoric discourse that seems to give rise to faultless disagreement. Discourse that generates the intuition makes public an attitudinal conflict, and the affective -expressive dimension of the contributing utterances accounts for it. The FD-phenomenon is an effect of a public dispute generated by a sequence of expressing opposite attitudes towards a salient object or state of affairs, where the protagonists are making an attempt to persuade the other side into joining the (...) other’s camp. (shrink)

The effect of specificity of autobiographical memory (AM) retrieval on the affective impact of an emotional event was examined. In Study 1 (N = 90) the impact of a negative and positive experience was compared between student participants who habitually retrieve autobiographical memories (AMs) in a specific way and participants who generally retrieve less specific memories. In Study 2 (N = 48) the effect of an experimentally induced (specific vs. overgeneral) retrieval style on the impact of a negative experience was (...) studied in student participants who habitually retrieve less specific memories. Study 1 replicated the finding of Raes, Hermans, de Decker, Eelen, & Williams (Citation2003) that a negative event leads to less subjective distress in low‐specific participants as compared with high‐specific participants. However, both groups did not differ in their affective reaction to a positive event. Important, reduced memory specificity was associated with “repressive coping”, providing further evidence for the idea that reduced memory specificity is used as an avoidant or repressive‐defensive mechanism to regulate negative affect (CitationWilliams, 1996). In Study 2, participants who were induced to retrieve memories in an overgeneral way experienced more distress following a negative event as compared with participants who were induced to retrieve memories in a specific way. Results are discussed in the context of recent findings concerning AM specificity and emotion regulation (CitationPhilippot, Schaefer, & Herbette, 2003). Directions for further research are suggested. (shrink)

Hayek’s social theory of evolution suggests that market liberal morality is adaptive for social groups. He justified the evolutionary superiority of market liberalism by asserting that groups operating under a market liberal morality would have a higher capacity to expand and reproduce than groups with alternative tribal moralities. Thus, market liberal groups would be favoured through cultural and genetic group selection. But in fact, market liberal morality reveals maladaptive tendencies and remains insufficiently powerful to create adaptive social groups. Hayek’s dismissal (...) of moral tribalism in favour of market liberal morality is found to underestimate the importance of tribal goals in the evolutionary system. (shrink)

This paper briefly presents an account, partially based upon Ryle’s approach, of the functions of intentional psychological terms as they are used in ordinary language. According to this account, intentional psychological terms describe known patterns of behavior that are determined by selective mechanisms of causation. That is, these terms describe relations between certain responses, selected on the basis of the consequences they produce in the environment, and contexts of their occurrence, to which they become associated. Intentional psychological terms do not (...) point to inner causes of a given behavior, but can explain it only in the sense of stating that it could be expected to occur, if we can identify its behavior pattern and the context in which it occurs. We proceed then to examine three main objections that have been raised against Ryle’s position, namely: (a) Davidson’s challenge to the non-causal accounts of reason-explanations; (b) Armstrong’s worries about “leaving the counterfactuals hanging in the air”; and (c) the holistic objection to the (wrongly) presumed Ryle’s atomism. We aim at showing that none of these objections pose serious problems to the proposed account. (shrink)

This article makes the case that speed has become significant, indeed central, as a social scientific category and focus of attention today. In particular, it engages with two contemporary theoretical currents that conceptualize the causes, consequences and manifestations of social speed as a fundamental feature of modernity. One key contribution is Hartmut Rosa’s interpretation of ‘social acceleration’, which is offered by him as part of a reinvigorated version of Critical Theory. Another is John Tomlinson’s (complementary but different) orientation, focusing on (...) variant cultural settings and implications of speed. By juxtaposing and assessing these two thematizations of speed/acceleration, with other recent treatments brought in at various points, the article underlines the need to clarify and debate these modal notions as a distinctive issue for social analysis. In addition, I bring out more explicitly the ambiguous nature of speed as a descriptive and normative concern. In this respect, while there can be no denying its negative-oppressive force – both structurally and experientially – it is also necessary to attend to the more positive-enabling aspects of ‘fast’ subjectivity. (shrink)

The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science, and neuroscience. Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes. In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same–different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime stimuli. This was (...) true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted. (shrink)

In this paper I take a closer look at Sextus Empiricus’ arguments in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.25-30 and try to make sense of his account of Skepticism as a goal-directed philosophy. I argue that Sextus fails to mount a convincing case for the view that tranquility, rather than suspension of judgment, is the ultimate goal of his inquiries.

I propose a theory aimed at advancing scholarly research in social entrepreneurship. By highlighting the key trade-off between value creation and value capture and explaining when situations of simultaneous market and government failure may arise, I suggest that social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of sustainable solutions to neglected problems with positive externalities. I further discuss the situations in which problems with externalities are likely to be neglected and derive the central goal and logic of action of social entrepreneurs, in contrast (...) to commercial entrepreneurs. Overall, this article provides a conceptual framework that allows understanding the growing phenomena of social entrepreneurship and its role in the functioning of modern society. (shrink)

This article argues against Catton and Dunlap’s claims that the natural environment has been ignored or downplayed in American sociology before the emergence of environmental sociology in the 1970s. By reviewing a collection of 86 sociology textbooks between 1894 and 1980, the article provides quantitative evidence regarding the scope and types of references to the natural environment in mainstream sociology. The bulk of the article is based on an interpretive-historical analysis of the different representations of the environment in the textbook (...) literature. This analysis is carried out from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, whereby sociological ideas about nature are interpreted in terms of their intellectual milieu and social context. The main finding is that the ‘natural environment’ has been interpreted in different ways and has been put to a variety of epistemological and ideological uses — particularly positivism and functionalism — throughout the history of the discipline. (shrink)

Until a decade ago, a comprehensive contestation of the so-called?transitional? paradigm was largely missing in the post-socialist era. This reality changed in the last ten years, especially in the region of former Yugoslavia. Some social movements in this region have started questioning the very essence of the economic and social misconceptions of the post-socialist condition. This paper first provides an elaboration of the very conceptual edifice of the ruling paradigm, as well as a theoretical and methodological framework. It goes on (...) to map out the epistemic discursive content of the respective social movements in Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo, thereby assessing the conceptual content of their critique of the post-socialist transitional paradigm. Finally, given the similarities between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the paper seeks to explain variations in the critique by how the structural and contextual features impact the perspective from which it is constructed. (shrink)

Este trabalho reúne alguns elementos para o exame crítico e a formulação de uma teoria das relações entre pensamentos e ações; em particular, elementos respeitantes aos próprios conceitos de pensamento e ação. O trabalho está estruturado em três partes, na primeira das quais(i) saliento especificidades das ações e várias características que elas partilham com outras formas de comportamento (tais como os reflexos). Na segunda parte, (ii) ressalto a diversidade de sentidos que o conceito de pensamento possui e algumas de suas (...) respectivas particularidades e interfaces. Na seção final, (iii) aponto, como corolários de (i) e (ii), alguns equívocos conceituais que devem ser evitados na formulação de uma teoria das relações entre pensamentos e ações. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage vise à montrer comment la méthodologie de corpus fait fructifier plusieurs domaines linguistiques. Il importe donc de démontrer les liens entre les outils, les méthodes et les analyses. Comme le titre l’indique clairement, l’approche adoptée se veut inductive (corpus-driven) et écologique. Autrement dit, le corpus y est utilisé comme point de départ pour élaborer une théorie linguistique et les données sont authentiques tant dans leur origine que dans leur traitement. Le volume se...

The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science , and neuroscience . Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes . In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same–different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime (...) stimuli. This was true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted. (shrink)

I suggest here ecologies of the nascent state, posing the following general questions: what is this state and what is it to live, to fabricate modes of life, in its immanence? I believe populating this state is, by right, ‘ecological’, even if what I offer here is only a sketch or glimpse, playful as it is, of the possibility of such modes of life, of dwelling. As I develop it here, the nascent is in flight of being. It is populated (...) by lesser, minoritarian existences. If it is ‘ecological’, it is because these existences, or modes of becoming, are themselves, in their own right, ‘ecologies’, that is, modes of dwelling, of life, on the ‘other side of existence’, as Antonin Artaud put it once, in exile from Being. The power to return eternally to the nascent state is the power to live, to dwell, in the absolute forgetfulness of Being, in the interstice where philosophy supposedly ends, but where it nevertheless begins again, in oblivion itself, where being is never already the verticality of Being, its difference with beings, but always nascent, in the beginning, eternally so. (shrink)

Recent work on evaluative discourse and judgements of personal taste in particular has focused on active interpersonal disagreements. I explore the communicative import of judgements of taste: why we issue them, why we sometimes get involved in disputes about taste, and what acceptance or rejection of such judgements consists of. The view developed here – that the core use of such judgements lies in seeking to align our attitudes in view of a shared project – makes it plausible that the (...) use of a sentence of the form ‘a is F’ (where F is a predicate of taste) semantically expresses the simple, semantically articulated proposition that a is F, is subject to an unrelativized truth predicate and not enriched by personal standards or perspectives. Our model shows that personal standards or perspectives are, contrary to a widely shared assumption in the debate, not the entities or objects that require coordination. What is shared among interlocutors are projects that require the coordination of the participant’s strategic choices. The semantically articulated proposition functions as a focal point, proposed by the speaker, for coordinating their choices. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn the philosophy of sport, an opinion that chess is in fact not sports because it lacks physical skills is a standard position. I call the argument that leads to this conclusion a mind sport syllogism. Its analysis enables me to explicate four possible positions concerning the sport-status of chess. Apart from the standard position, which excludes chess from the sport family, I also present analysis of other possible positions, which – for various reasons – do not deny that chess (...) is a sport. A position that postulates including chess into the family of sport by broadening the definition of sport turns out to be particularly interesting from the philosophical viewpoint. Having confronted this position with the standard, i.e. ‘conservative’, position, I come to the conclusion that the conceptual revision consisting in the broadening of the concept of sport is a rational option and is a probable direction of the evolution of the concept of sport. (shrink)

Among other virtues, Mental Files Theory provides a straightforward explanation of de jure coreference, i.e. identity of referent guaranteed by meaning alone: de jure coreference holds between terms when these are associated with the same mental file from which they inherit their reference. In this paper, I discuss an objection that Angel Pinillos raises against Mental Files Theory and other similar theories: the theory predicts that de jure coreference should be transitive, just like identity. Yet there are cases, involving ‘slash-terms’, (...) in which transitivity fails, or so it seems. In his book Mental Files, Recanati replies that the mental files theorist can accommodate Pinillos’ exceptions by offering a refined model of merging files, the ‘partial merging’ model. While agreeing with Recanati on the need for such a model, I contend that, pace Recanati and Pinillos, de jure coreference is transitive even in the presence of slash-terms. I will first show that paradoxical consequences ensue if slash-terms are said to de jure corefer with several basic terms at once. Then, building on two different accounts Recanati gives of referential confusion, I will show that on both views, de jure coreference cannot hold because of the behaviour of confused slash-terms. I will conclude that, in Mental Files Theory, a slash-term can, at most, de jure corefer with only one basic term per context. (shrink)

A Proposta de uma Cartografia dos Descostumes envolve o mapear de deslocamentos de pensamento atinentes ao itinerário ético da educação em processo de violência e conflito direto com o cis-tema, uma vez que aborda as potências _queer_ atravessadas por forças e devires, processos e movimentos, encontrados nas fendas da realidade. A palavra “diálogo” importa na união do prefixo grego “dia” que significa “através”, num sentido de ponte, travessia. O sufixo grego “logos” é etimologicamente significado como palavra ou relação. O transdialogismo (...) reclama para si uma potência que fricciona o repertório de representações de verdades impostas e as experiências sensíveis que produzem efeitos em nosso corpo ultrapasassando os domínios e configurações do cis-tema e propõe uma nova geopolítica de gênero e sexualidade, sem identidades e padrões. A partir de tal pista, dois movimentos se mostram essenciais: 1) mapear as dissocializações e o controle dos corpos nas construções discursivas e normativas da maquinaria escolar; 2) Desedificar discursos educacionais que transitam no universo da representação (significado, significante e significação) na qual se baseia atualmente a pedagogia. Desdobra-se o acontecimento educação em processos, agenciamentos e dispositivos educacionais sem partirmos de objetivos pré-estabelecidos, mas considerando as pistas e movimentos das fendas sociais e encontrando potencias em realidades e cotidianos invisibilizados, mas, ainda assim, violentados e silenciados, partindo de um desejo do pesquisador de compreender esse _trans-corpus_ através de um olhar diverso, diferente, que redimensione o habitual. Por fim, o artigo cartográfico produziu um mapa cortado por linhas de intensidade que partiram do conceito de biopoder em direção ao de necropolítica como condicionantes da maquinaria escolar em seu entrelace junto ao cis-tema Capitalístico, mas que é afrontada pelo inabitual e pelo estranho que delineia as potências queer. (shrink)

This paper is an analysis of Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics 7.3." Aristotle's discussion in this chapter is motivated by the Socratic doctrine, elaborated in Plato's "Protagoras," according to which it is impossible to know what is good and act against this knowledge. Aristotle wants to rebut this doctrine and show that there is a sense of "know" such that this is possible. I argue that this is all that he wants to do in EN 7.3, and that his discussion is not (...) meant to provide an explanation of akrasia, as is usually supposed by commentators. Since the akratic knows that the action she is performing is not good for her, and actions are particulars, the akratic's knowledge is about a particular. I argue that Aristotle's discussion in EN 7.3 adds strength to the idea that knowledge of a particular is explainable only in terms of knowledge of a universal. More determinately, knowledge of a particular is explainable in terms of the actualization or use of knowledge of a universal, and such an actualization is in turn explainable by means of the syllogistic form. Thus, I argue that syllogisms in 7.3 (esp. at 1146 35-1147 10) are not "practical syllogisms", but that their function is epistemological: they are meant to reveal the structure and content of the akratic's knowledge, not to explain her actions. (shrink)

In 2002, Luciano Floridi published a paper called What is the Philosophy of Information?, where he argues for a new paradigm in philosophical research. To what extent should his proposal be accepted? Is the Philosophy of Information actually a new paradigm, in the Kuhninan sense, in Philosophy? Or is it only a new branch of Epistemology? In our discussion we will argue in defense of Floridi’s proposal. We believe that Philosophy of Information has the types of features had by other (...) areas already acknowledge as authentic in Philosophy. By way of an analogical argument we will argue that since Philosophy of Information has its own topics, method and problems it would be counter-intuitive not to accept it as a new philosophical area. To strengthen our position we present and discuss main topics of Philosophy of Information. (shrink)

In ‘Meaning Revisited’, a reconsideration of his famous views on meaning, H.P. Grice has put forward the thesis that natural meaning (n-meaning) might be a precursor or predecessor of non-natural meaning. In this paper, I will take up Grice’s challenge and sketch a picture of how natural meaning could give rise to nn-meaning. The relevance of Grice’s challenge is obvious for current attempts at naturalizing nn-meaning: a plausible theory of the genesis of meaning must show why nn-meaning is not an (...) unexplicable cosmic event but a product of various ways creatures more or less like us optimize communicative behaviour and learn to reason about mental states that causally explain that behaviour. (shrink)

Na gruncie filozofii moralności dominują trzy sposoby opisywania relacji wdzięczności — jako obowiązku spłaty długu, jako odpowiedniej emocji, jako cnoty. Teoria długu, pomimo swej spójności i jasności, wymaga uzupełnienia o elementy psychologiczne, by moc uznać ją za adekwatny opis relacji darczyńcy i obdarowanego. Ujęcie wdzięczności w kategoriach cnoty natomiast zbyt daleko przesuwa granicę tego, co moralnie istotne. Na warunki powstania moralnego obowiązku okazania wdzięczności składają się zarówno motywy obu stron, jak i okoliczności wyświadczenia dobra. Egoistyczna motywacja, przymus czy też przypadkowość (...) obdarowania uniemożliwiają mówienie o powinności obdarowanego. Ponadto zalecana jest ostrożność w posługiwaniu się pojęciami „roszczenia” czy „prawa do wdzięczności”. (shrink)

Using a prototype approach, we assessed people’s lay conceptions of intuition and analysis. Open-ended descriptions of intuition and analysis were generated by participants (Study 1) and resulting exemplars were sorted into features subsequently rated in centrality by independent participants (Study 2). Feature centrality was validated by showing that participants were quicker and more accurate in classifying central (as compared to peripheral) features (Study 3). Centrality ratings suggested a single-factor structure describing analysis but revealed that participants held lay conceptions of intuition (...) as involving two different types of processes: (1) as an automatic, affective, and non-logical processing, and (2) as a holistic processing that can assist in problem-solving. Additional analyses showed that the centrality ratings of intuition’s facets were predicted by participants’ self-reported intuitive style, suggesting intuition is differently perceived by intuitive and non-intuitive people. We discuss the implications of these results for the study of intuition and analysis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT By turning his focus to individuals – the profile of billionaires as the people they are – Peter Hägel offers in his book Billionaires in World Politics an interesting move towards agency, showing that their power, even if situated in a complex economic structure, also consists in bending, changing, or setting the rules of how the game is played. After having followed the move of the pendulum from structure to agency with Hägel, in this paper I suggest that moving (...) back to structural analyses could again provide new insights. I argue that in order to have a more complete picture of the billionaires-and-politics puzzle, it is required to not only look at agency as a kind of reflexive phenomenon, but also to provide a more historically informed genealogy of the conditions under which billionaires’ passions have been shaped. (shrink)

Background: Mental fatigue can impact physical demands and tactical behavior in sport-related contexts. Small-sided games are often used to develop a specific sport-related context. However, the effects of mental fatigue on physical demands and tactical behaviors during soccer SSGs have not been aggregated for systematical assessment.Objective: This systematic review was conducted to compare the effects of mental fatigue vs. control conditions in terms of the total running distance and tactical behavior of soccer players during SSGs.Methods: The data sources utilized were (...) PubMed, PsycINFO, Scielo, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science. The study eligibility criteria were established based on PICOS: Population: healthy youth and young adult men soccer players with regular training practice and belonging to teams with regular competitions; Intervention: exposed to mental fatigue-induced protocols only before SSGs; Comparator: control conditions before SSGs; Outcomes: physical demands and tactical behavior ; Study design: counterbalanced cross-over design; and only full-text and original articles written in English.Results: The database search initially identified 111 titles. From those, six articles were eligible for the systematic review and meta-analysis. Results showed no significant effect of fatigue on total running distance and tactical behavior.Conclusions: A non-significant effect of mental fatigue on total running distance and tactical behaviors performed by soccer players during SSGs was found in this systematic review. (shrink)

Because philosophical reflections on touch usually start from our ability to perceive properties of objects, they tend to overlook features of touch that are crucial to correct understanding of tactual perception. This paper brings out these features and uses them to develop a general reconception of the sense of touch. I start by taking a fresh look at our ability to feel, in order to reveal its vital role. This sheds a different light on the skin's perceptual potential. While it (...) is commonly observed that tactile experiences have two intentional objects, an external object and one's own body, I will advance a more accurate alternative: in tactile experiences, one becomes aware of what one's body undergoes. This alternative not only fits better with tactility's vital role; it is also key to explaining how active touching provides for a unique contribution to our perceptual relation to material objects. By thus connecting tactility's vital role to the way we rely on touch while manipulating objects, this essay offers a cross-sectional survey of our tactile powers that reveals the interplay between sensing and touching. (shrink)

Contemporary theories of institutions as clusters of stable solutions to recurrent coordination problems can illuminate and explain some unresolved difficulties and problems adhering to institutional definitions of art initiated by George Dickie and Arthur Danto. Their account of what confers upon objects their institutional character does not fit well with current work on institutions and social ontology. The claim that “the artworld” confers the status of “art” onto objects remains utterly mysterious. The “artworld” is a generic notion that designates a (...) sphere of human activity that involves practices that create goals that have led to the emergence of formal and informal institutions. But those institutions, rather than magically “creating” objects subjected to esthetic appreciation, merely solve familiar and ubiquitous coordination problems created by artistic activity in ways other institutions in other areas solve similar and/or analogous coordination problems. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article presents the story of the Polish translation of Bernard Suits’s The Grasshopper. It was prepared by Filip Kobiela, a philosopher and researcher of Suits’s legacy, and published in 2016. Some remarks concerning the difficulties of the translation and its peculiarities particularly related to the Polish ludic terminology have been added as well as an explanation of the translator’s attitude towards the translation as a type of game in Suits’s sense of the term. The article concludes with information (...) concerning the reception of the translation of Suits’s magnumopus in Poland and its possible impact on future research. (shrink)

In Liberating Oedipus?: Psychoanalysis as Critical Theory, Dr. Filip Kovacevic demonstrates how psychoanalytic theory can join political theory in designing alternative political norms and values. Kovacevic proves that political practice without an emancipatory psychology to guide it is potentially dangerous.

If we take into account all chronologically relevant data, the book must have been written in 404, perhaps in 403 or in the winter of 405. A passage of Calv. enc. implies that Synesius was married when composing the essay as, in fact, he had been since 402 or 403. This terminus post quem is corroborated by the identification of Synesius’ Epistle 74 as accompanying letter for the Praise of Baldness which was sent after the author’s return to Cyrene in (...) 401. Also, Calv. enc. shows a connection to Synesius’ Dion from 404. As for the terminus ante quem, it is set clearly by the war that broke out in 405, since Synesius would not have been able to write this hilarious literary piece under the conditions of war and most likely not even later in his lifetime. (shrink)

The point of the contribution consists first and foremost in the genealogical table to Pindar’s Fourth Pythian. It depicts the complex relations that otherwise remain only implied in the ode and makes them easily accessible to the eye of the reader. Thanks to the working out of the net, Pindar’s Apolline theology in Pythian 4 was able to come to the fore substantially more clearly. Eventually, the paper contextualizes the table in the milieu of the specifically Archaic functioning of Greek (...) myths in a dialogue with objections to such genealogies. (shrink)

Henryk Elzenberg (1887–1967)—a Polish philosopher, axiologist and existentialist claimed that creativity concealed the secret of life and death. Creativity connects many extremities and contradictions, it requires sacrifices, asceticism, perfectionism, but also yearning, liberty, sensuality and desire.

My analysis of the mind-body problem suggests that the mind-body problem is a "problem" because: There are discrepancies in use between scientific notions like "physical" and philosophical notions like "phenomenal character". Phenomenological conceptions of the mind are primarily used as contrast-terms in arguments against metaphysical physicalism. "Qualia" and similar terms - properly analysed - reveal that they do not, as often claimed, have a "folk-psychological" origin. Rather these terms should be described as highly sophisticated technical terms and should not be (...) confused with non-philosophical notions expressing experiential content. Dualists are obliged to offer us a positive, thus substantive, account of what they mean by "subjective experience" and similar idioms. This is, as I shall point out, a very hard task, mainly due to the strong contrast-mode in which these terms are used. When disconnected from the paradigmatic contrast-context these terms appear more or less out of place. But when faced with a hard-core reductionism the appeal to "phenomenal qualities" seems very appropriate. In my analysis, terms like "what it is like" and "experiential character" are concept that, as such, make perfect sense, but only in a limited context. The strong contrast mode in which these terms are used, I think, also explains why it is so hard to give a satisfactory semantic account for these terms. (shrink)

Political and sociological research indicates that the use of consociational techniques has been a major means of ensuring peace and stability in a divided society like Belgium. This paper attempts to cast a first look at another component: what are the legal mechanisms of confiictmanagement in Belgium? This question is studied on the basis of the case of the school-confiict, which is one aspect of the ideological dividing line ; this was indeed the first to be institutionalised in Belgium. The (...) drafting of the 1831 Constitution was the first great exercise in consensus-seeking and the same approach prevailed over much of the 19th century. It was interrupted, however, during the first «School War» which was waged from 1879 to 1884. After the First World War a number of issues in the educational dispute were settled by way of package-deals, which were an attempt to replace zero-sum games by more-or-less choices. However a second School War erupted from 1950 to 1958. After the 1958 elections the balance of power was such that compromise showed necessary again : this situation led to the «School Pact» which tried to institutionalise consociational solution-seeking in this field. The Pact system was later applied in numerous other fields where mere majoritarian decision-making was discarded.White in the School issue these solutions were not as yet legalised, in later agreements they were.The paper argues that the main aim of these approaches is to avoid adjudication on these issues by third confiict-solvers, such as courts and tribunals. Instead allocation is arranged between the participants to the deal ; these partners are the political parties who claim to represent the whole range of public opinion. In this way «soft law» is created : this development represents a creeping undermining of the Rule of Law. (shrink)