I IT is often declared or evidently assumed that causality is some kind of necessary connexion, or alternatively, that being caused is — non-trivially ...

The intentionality of sensation -- The first person -- Substance -- The subjectivity of sensation -- Events in the mind -- Comments on Professor R.L. Gregory's paper on perception -- On sensations of position -- Intention -- Pretending -- On the grammar of "Enjoy" -- The reality of the past -- Memory, "experience," and causation -- Causality and determination -- Times, beginnings, and causes -- Soft determinism -- Causality and extensionality -- Before and after -- Subjunctive conditionals -- "Under a (...) description" -- Analysis competition--tenth problem -- A reply to Mr. C.S. Lewis's argument that "naturalism" is self-refuting. (shrink)

“Punishment,” writes J. E. McTaggart, “ is pain and to inflict pain on any person obviously [requires] justification.” But if the need to justify punishment is obvious, the manner of doing so is not. Philosophers have developed an array of diverse, often conflicting arguments to justify punitive institutions. Gertrude Ezorsky introduces this source book of significant historical and contemporary philosophical writings on problems of punishment with her own article, “The Ethics of Punishment.” She brings together systematically the important papers (...) and relevant studies from psychology, law, and literature, and organizes them under five subtopics: concepts of punishment, the justification of punishment, strict liability, the death penalty, and alternatives to punishment. Under these general headings forty-two papers are presented to give philosophical perspectives on punishment. Included are many not generally available. This book brings together in a single volume the views of such diverse writers as Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Samuel Butler, Karl Marx, and Lady Barbara Wooten. Others are J. Andenaes, K. G. Armstrong, John Austin, Kurt Baier, Jeremy Bentham, F. H. Bradley, Richard Brandt, Clarence Darrow, A. C. Ewing, Joel Feinberg, “The Hon. Mr. Gilpin,” H. L. A. Hart, G. W. F. Hegel, Thomas Hobbs, Immanuel Kant, J. D. Mabbott, H. J. McCloskey, J. E. McTaggart, R. Martinson, G. E. Moore, Herbert Morris, Anthony Quinton, D. Daiches Raphael, H. Rashdall, John Rawls, W. D. Ross, Royal Commission on Capital Punishment Report 1949–53, George Bernard Shaw, T. L. S. Sprigge, and R. Wasserstrom. (shrink)

One of America's foremost historians discusses the intellectual arrogance and spiritual impoverishment at the heart of structuralism and shows how they have led to a trivializing of the Holocaust. Reprint.

Based on a framework that distinguishes several types, roles and functions of values in science, we discuss legitimate applications of values in the validation of computer simulations. We argue that, first, epistemic values, such as empirical accuracy and coherence with background knowledge, have the role to assess the credibility of simulation results, whereas, second, cognitive values, such as comprehensiveness of a conceptual model or easy handling of a numerical model, have the role to assess the usefulness of a model for (...) investigating a hypothesis. In both roles, values perform what we call first-order functions. In addition, cogni¬tive values may also serve an auxiliary function by facilitating the assessment of credibility. As for a third type of values, i.e. social values, their legitimate role consists in specifying and weighing epistemic and cognitive values with respect to practical uses of a simulation, which is considered a second-order function. Rational intersubjective agreement on how to specify and weigh the different values is supposed to ensure objectivity in simulation validation. (shrink)

This little book provides basic 7-minute yoga exercises for each day of the week. The exercises are organized by the mythological and planetary significances of each particular day.

Cognitive values like simplicity, broad scope, and easy handling are properties of a scientific representation that result from the idealization which is involved in the construction of a representation. These properties may facilitate the application of epistemic values to credibility assessments, which provides a rationale for assigning an auxiliary function to cognitive values. In this paper, I defend a further rationale for cognitive values which consists in the assessment of the usefulness of a representation. Usefulness includes the relevance of a (...) representation regarding the investigation of a given problem and its practicability for the users. This rationale builds on the claim that any evaluation of scientific representations should pursue two aims: providing information about their credibility and providing information about their usefulness. Cognitive values relating to the usefulness of a representation and epistemic values relating to its credibility both perform a first-order function. Cognitive values are abstract, and several values with first-order functions may conflict in their application. Thus, in order for cognitive values to account for the sort of problem that is to be investigated by means of a representation, they need to be appropriately specified and weighed. Comprehensiveness, complexity, high resolution, and easy handling, for instance, may be required in a first-order function for model-based prediction of regional climate impacts but not for explaining how the global climate system works. Specifying and weighing cognitive and epistemic values relative to a given problem is a legitimate second-order function of social values. (shrink)

​This book describes argumentative tools and strategies that can be used to guide policy decisions under conditions of great uncertainty. Contributing authors explore methods from philosophical analysis and in particular argumentation analysis, showing how it can be used to systematize discussions about policy issues involving great uncertainty. The first part of the work explores how to deal in a systematic way with decision-making when there may be plural perspectives on the decision problem, along with unknown consequences of what we do. (...) Readers will see how argumentation tools can be used for prioritizing among uncertain dangers, for determining how decisions should be framed, for choosing a suitable time frame for a decision, and for systematically choosing among different decision options. Case studies are presented in the second part of the book, showing argumentation in practice in the areas of climate geoengineering, water governance, synthetic biology, nuclear waste, and financial markets. In one example, argumentation analysis is applied to proposals to solve the climate problem with various technological manipulations of the natural climate system, such as massive dispersion of reflective aerosols into the stratosphere. Even after a thorough investigation of such a proposal, doubt remains as to whether all the potential risks have been identified. In such discussions, conventional risk analysis does not have much to contribute since it presupposes that the risks have been identified, whereas the argumentative approach to uncertainty management can be used to systematize discussions. (shrink)

How to read the canonical texts of the male philosophical tradition has been an ongoing question for feminist philosophers. This paper wants to investigate Luce Irigaray’s notion of mimesis so as to offer an alternative reading practice for traditional philosophical texts. The paper will consist of two parts: in a firstsection, Irigaray’s concept of mimesis will be discussed in its affirmative as well as its transformative version; the second part attempts to apply the concept of mimesis to contemporary feminist readings (...) of the philosophical canon. It will be shown that most existing feminist scholarship in philosophy follows the pattern of an affirmative mimetic approach while Irigaray’s own readings of male philosophers offers a stylistic example for the use of a transformative version of mimesis. It will be claimed that both approaches are necessary since they complement each other in significant ways, one interpreting traditional texts, the other re-writing them. (shrink)

Songs and hymns shape faith and play a part in shaping political landscapes. They can be used to build or maintain power as well as to critique and challenge it. This has been true for South Africa, and some brief examples will be given. But this article focuses on hymns and patriotic songs from the time of the British Empire and explores how they portray power, entrench superiority or build a common, global Christian identity.

One of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about the human condition in the realms of politics, society, and religion–from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America. Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Gertrude Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy of the British and the (...) wisdom and foresight of thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Paine, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Edward Gibbon, and Edmund Burke, who established its unique character and historic importance. It is this Enlightenment, she argues, that created a moral and social philosophy–humane, compassionate, and realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more so than in Europe. This is an illuminating contribution to the history of ideas. (shrink)

Parmenides, mystery and contradiction -- The early theory of forms -- The new theory of forms -- Understanding proofs : Meno, 85d₉-86c₂, continued -- Aristotle and the sea battle -- The principle of individuation -- Thought and action in Aristotle -- Necessity and truth -- Hume and Julius Caesar -- "Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause" : Hume's argument exposed -- Will and emotion -- Retraction -- The question of linguistic idealism.

Wie kann es sein, dass im Dunkel bleibt, wer Cyberangriffe lanciert und wessen Kampfdrohnen ganze Länder verwüsten? Band 2 der »Ethik im Drohnenzeitalter« erörtert die Konturen einer Weltgesellschaft, die sich auf die neue Realität des ubiquitären Rechners eingestellt hat. Dies erfordert neue Leitunterscheidungen, z.B. die zwischen News und Fake-News oder ob Codes und Programme für Grenzen sensibilisieren oder desensibilisieren. Angesichts der Entwicklung, dass der soziale Wandel in eine Spirale kommunikationstechnischer Selbstbeschleunigung gerät, gilt es, eine globalisierungstaugliche Ethik zu entwickeln, die dafür (...) sorgt, dass der Einzelne nicht übergangen, sondern gewürdigt wird. (shrink)

_Historical and contemporary philosophical writings on punishment._.

Im Zentrum steht der Begriff des Experiments, der mit Kants Begriff der Lebendigkeit als zentralem Topos der ästhetischen Erfahrung auf die 〉Animation〈 im Film bezogen wird, insoweit beide einen lebenswissenschaftlichen Kern haben. Insbesondere in einer Auseinandersetzung mit Eisensteins Poetik des 〉Plasmatischen〈 wird die experimentelle Übertragung einer lebenswissenschaftlichen Metapher in eine Ästhetik des Films diskutiert, die von der Animation ausgeht. The paper discusses the notion of »experiment« and relates it – via Kant's concept of liveliness, which is a central topos of (...) aesthetic experience – to »animation« in film, insofar as both essentially refer to »life sciences.« Drawing upon the example of Eisenstein's poetics of the »plasmic,« the paper discusses the transferal of a metaphor from life sciences to an aesthetics of cinema based on animation. (shrink)

Im Zentrum steht die Rehabilitierung des Begriffs der Illusion als ästhetischer, der sich nicht von der ästhetischen Erscheinung zur Gänze trennen lässt. Die ästhetische Illusion unterscheidet sich von anderen Arten der Illusion dadurch, dass sie sich nicht auf Täuschung oder falsches Bewusstsein reduzieren lässt. Die Erzeugung ästhetischer Illusion hat mehrere Ebenen, denn sie hat sowohl eine rezeptionsästhetische Komponente, die Erzeugung immersiver Imaginationen im Betrachter, wie auch produktionsästhetische Komponenten, die die Möglichkeit zur ersteren im ästhetischen Objekt anlegen. Film ist das Paradigma (...) für diese Operationen, insofern Film sowohl auf optischen Täuschungen qua technologischen Verfahren basiert wie aber auch zur Fiktionserzeugung die Illusion von Welt er­ zeugen muss, um die Fiktion wirkmächtig zu machen. Film wird so zum Platzhalter einer Ästhetik der Illusion, von der aus er in die anderen Künste ausstrahlt. (shrink)

Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Lebens in all ihrer Lückenhaftigkeit läßt doch schon ersehen, wie sich der Intellekt kraft ununterbrochenen Fortschritts in aufsteigender Linie, über die Reihe der Wirbeltiere hin bis zum Menschen, herausgebildet hat. Sie zeigt uns in der Fähigkeit des Verstehens einen Ausläufer der Fähigkeit des Handelns, eine immer schärfere, immer mehrgliedrigere, immer geschmeidigere Anpassung des Lebewesens an die gegebenen Existenzbedingungen. Woraus zu folgern wäre, daß unser Intellekt im engeren Sinn des Worts dazu bestimmt sei, die vollkommene Verwebung unseres Körpers (...) in seine Umgebung zu sichern, die Beziehungen der äußeren Dinge aufeinander vorzustellen, kurz: dazu, die Materie zu denken. Und tatsächlich wird dies einer der Schlüsse unserer Arbeit sein. (shrink)

Among the fragments published in Zettel, one finds one of Wittgenstein's most enigmatic comments. In entry 455, he states that "the philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas. That is what makes him into a philosopher". The apparent incongruity between this entry and the thrust of Wittgenstein's later works initially draws one's attention, but the passage sustains interest because it is situated at the nexus of issues addressed in current philosophical debate regarding cultural pluralism. This paper attempts (...) to make sense of the Zettel fragment in the contexts of both Wittgenstein's own analysis and such debate. It argues that the post-Enlightenment philosopher's role entails a cosmopolitan point of view with promotes both the recognition of citizens' embeddedness in a cultural tradition and the need for a critical distancing from that tradition, occasioned by an awareness of cultural pluralism. (shrink)

This book brings to the modern age wisdom on the topic of anger by four ancient authors: Seneca, Evagrius Ponticus, Cassian, and Augustine. These authors broadly represent the classic views on anger and focus on how anger inhibits spiritual growth of the soul and its relationship with God.

Weber's Ideal Type as a Method of Forming the Content of Theoretical Concepts in Social Sciences}. Max Weber introduced the ideal type as the specific method of concept formation in social sciences. But the ideal type is not established in social research. Instead, authors in philosophy of science until today try to reconstruct and interpret what Weber said about ideal types as well as what might be their importance in Weber's social theory. The thesis of the following paper is that (...) the difficulties in understanding Weber's ideal types are linked with Weber's intensional logic of concept formation. The thesis is defended in three steps. The first step deals with Weber's understanding of what is a scientific question in cultural sciences. Secondly Weber's critical arguments against positivism, hegelianism and historism are worked out. Thirdly, Weber's method of concept formation is reconstructed. (shrink)

Rationalisme et scepticisme, attitude critique et profondeur de la vision psychologique, tout cela dans un monde de pensée pénétré d’idées chrétiennes, voilà les points de contact entre Vivès et Descartes. Vivès, participant à l’esprit de la Renaissance, sent le besoin d’une rénovation de la méthode des sciences. Sa théorie de la connaissance : connaissance sensible et connaissance spirituelle ; la mens et la ratio ; les divers degrés de la raison. L’unité de la science.