Abstrak: Artikel ini membahas relevansi teknologi dalam diskursus filsafat ilmu. Saya merujuk pada fenomenologi instrumentasi Don Ihde yang berfokus pada pemikiran tentang intensionalitas instrumental. Instrumen bersifat non-netral yang menentukan bagaimana kita menggapai pengetahuan. Menurut Ihde, ilmu menubuh dengan teknologi. Ia berargumen filsafat ilmu mesti mempertimbangkan pentingnya praksis dan instrumentasi alih-alih teoritisasi. Selain itu akan dibahas problem persepsi dalam ilmu dengan berpijak pada pemikiran Ihde tentang hermeneutika material. Dengan hermeneutika ini, kita menyadari bahwa materialitas ilmu bersifat reduktif terhadap kompleksitas dunia inderawi (...) dan bahwa pengetahuan meluas melampaui daya persepsi. Dari problem persepsi dalam ilmu, saya akan menjelaskan hermeneutika instrumen keilmuan sebagai moda pembacaan materialitas ilmu yang meliputi konstruksi teknologis instrumen. Instrumen dijelaskan sebagai bagian integral dari fakta dalam ilmu. Pada bagian akhir akan dibahas realisme fenomenologis ruangsiber dimana instrumen terintegrasi ke dalam ruangsiber. Kata-kata Kunci: Pascafenomenologi, intensionalitas, teknologi, mediasi instrumental, hermeneutika, ruangsiber. Abstract: This article elucidates the relevance of technology in the discourse of philosophy of science. I refer to Don Ihde’s phenomenology of instrumentation that focuses on the idea of instrumental intentionalities. Instrument is defined as non-neutral that determines how we obtain knowledge. According to Ihde, philosophy of science must consider the importance of praxis and instrumentation instead of theoritization. In addition, I will also address the problem of perception in science, realizing that reality tends to be reduced in the materiality of scientific knowledge and that our knowledge always expands beyond sense-perception. From this problem of perception, I elaborate a hermeneutics of scientific instrument based on Ihde’s material hermeneutics. In this hermeneutics, the materiality of scientific knowledge is read through technological construction instrument. Here instrument is categorized as an integral part of scientific fact. I will conclude by describing a phenomenological realism of cyberspace where instrument is integrated into cyberspace. Keywords: Postphenomenology, intentionality, technology, instrumental mediation, hermeneutics, cyberspace. (shrink)

Tesis doctoral presentada en el departament de Lògica Història i Filosofia de la Ciencia de la Universitat de Barcelona per optar al títol de Doctor en Filosofia.

Some medical services have long generated deep moral controversy within the medical profession as well as in broader society and have led to conscientious refusals by some physicians to provide those services to their patients. More recently, pharmacists in a number of states have refused on grounds of conscience to fill legal prescriptions for their customers. This paper assesses these controversies. First, I offer a brief account of the basis and limits of the claim to be free to act on (...) one’s conscience. Second, I sketch an account of the basis of the medical and pharmacy professions’ responsibilities and the process by which they are specified and change over time. Third, I then set out and defend what I call the “conventional compromise” as a reasonable accommodation to conflicts between these professions’ responsibilities and the moral integrity of their individual members. Finally, I take up and reject the complicity objection to the conventional compromise. Put together, this provides my answer to the question posed in the title of my paper: “Conscientious refusal by physicians and pharmacists: who is obligated to do what, and why?”. (shrink)

Phenomenology: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to one of the dominant philosophical movements of the 20th century. This lively and lucid book provides an introduction to the essential phenomenological concepts that are crucial for understanding great thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Written by a leading expert in the field, Dan Zahavi examines and explains key questions such as: - What is a phenomenological analysis? - What are the methodological foundations of phenomenology? - What does phenomenology (...) have to say about embodiment and intersubjectivity? - How is phenomenology distinguished from, and related to, other fields in philosophy? - How do ideas from classic phenomenology relate to ongoing debates in psychology and qualitative research? With a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, the book considers key philosophical arguments around phenomenology, making this an ideal starting point for anyone seeking a concise and accessible introduction to the rich and complex study of phenomenology. (shrink)

Metacognition – the ability to represent, monitor and control ongoing cognitive processes – helps us perform many tasks, both when acting alone and when working with others. While metacognition is adaptive, and found in other animals, we should not assume that all human forms of metacognition are gene-based adaptations. Instead, some forms may have a social origin, including the discrimination, interpretation, and broadcasting of metacognitive representations. There is evidence that each of these abilities depends on cultural learning and therefore that (...) cultural selectionmight shape humanmetacognition. The cultural origins hypothesis is a plausible and testable alternative that directs us towards a substantial new programme of research. (shrink)

As the Mohist doctrine of inclusive care (jian ai 兼愛) is usually understood, it is an affront to both human nature and commonsense morality.1 We are told that the Mohists rejected all particularist ties, especially to family, in the interests of a radically universalist ethic.2 But love for those close to us is deeply rooted in our natures, and few would deny that this love has moral significance. If the Mohists did deny this, it would be easy to dismiss them, (...) regardless of the abstract weight of their arguments. But the Mohists did not deny this. They consistently took it for granted that we have special attitudes and obligations toward those close to us. Filial piety was one of their core values, and .. (shrink)

I present an account of mental representation based upon the ‘SINBAD’ theory of the cerebral cortex. If the SINBAD theory is correct, then networks of pyramidal cells in the cerebral cortex are appropriately described as representing, or more specifically, as modelling the world. I propose that SINBAD representation reveals the nature of the kind of mental representation found in human and animal minds, since the cortex is heavily implicated in these kinds of minds. Finally, I show how SINBAD neurosemantics can (...) provide accounts of misrepresentation, equivocal representation, twin cases, and Frege cases. (shrink)

This article develops, illustrates, and defends a conception of immanent critique. Immanent critique is construed as a form of hermeneutical practice and second-order political and normative criticism. The common charge that immanent critique is a form of philosophical conventionalism necessarily committed to value relativism and to the rejection of transcultural and cosmopolitan norms is denied. But immanent critique insists that meaningful and potentially efficacious criticism must be connected to relevant criteria and understandings internal to the culture or social order at (...) which the criticism is directed. The complaint that this demand will likely limit political and moral criticism is also denied, and the ability of immanent critique to develop from convention unconventional thinking is defended and demonstrated. (shrink)

The concept of performance has gradually become established in health policies. Presented as necessary and positive, it is often reduced to efficiency, which results in policies and management styles aimed at optimisation. While they are supposed to guarantee the sustainability of our healthcare systems, these practices have made them fragile. Insights from the life sciences help us understand why. Indeed, biologists observe that living beings do not prioritise optimisation but robustness. To cope with fluctuations, a robust organisation operates with redundancies, (...) apparent waste, heterogeneity, organised fluctuations, slowness, and hesitation. It functions sub‐optimally. This article offers a theoretical reflection and management directions for more robust healthcare systems. (shrink)

The Later Moists grounded our linguistic abilities in our ability to distinguish between kinds on the basis of manifest similarities and differences among things. Proper names, however, require a different treatment. According to the Moists, when we use a proper name, we borrow a word for one kind of thing and use it to refer to something else, as when we name dogs “crane.” This view probably responds in part to arguments that the possibility of using any word to refer (...) to any thing threatens the stability of language. Proper names may borrow from terms with existing uses, but arguably they do not thereby undermine those uses. (shrink)

This study focuses on the effects of socially responsible human resource management practices on female employees’ turnover intentions and the moderating effect of supervisor gender on this relationship. With a sample of 212 female employees from eight different industries in Finland, the results indicate that SR-HRM practices promoting equal career opportunities and work–family integration play a significant role in reducing women's turnover intentions. The study adds to the academic discourse of corporate social responsibility by highlighting the impact of the organizational-level (...) HRM determinants on the individual-level outcome. In addition, supervisor gender makes a difference in the studied relationship: female supervisors have a stronger and more significant impact on the relationship than male supervisors. Our findings suggest that organizational measures which support work–family integration should be taken seriously to decrease female employees’ turnover intentions. Male supervisors could adopt some gender-incongruent leadership behaviors, such as individualized emotional concern and caring when dealing with female employees. In the future, other gender combinations in the supervisor–employee relationship would merit research. (shrink)

Despite the importance of ethical leadership, the impacts of its different facets on firm-level performance are unclear. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm and the group engagement model, we propose that ethical leadership consisting of leader humane orientation, leader responsibility and sustainability orientation and leader moderation orientation are beneficial to firm performance, and leader justice orientation plays moderating roles. We empirically tested this theoretical framework employing multi-source survey data collected from 264 Chinese firms. The findings reveal that both (...) leader humane orientation and leader responsibility and sustainability orientation have positive influences on both firm financial and social performance, while leader moderation orientation only has positive influence on firm financial performance. In addition, leader justice orientation positively moderates the relationship between leader humane orientation and leader responsibility and sustainability orientation and financial performance as well as the relationship between leader moderation orientation and social performance. These findings provide theoretical and practical implications for understanding how different facets of ethical leadership jointly function to influence firm performance. (shrink)

The idea that cultural evolution exhibits variation, competition, and inheritance and therefore can be studied by adjusting the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection is an attractive one. It has been argued by a number of authors (e.g., Campbell 1960; Monod 1970; Dawkins 1976; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Boyd and Richerson 1985; Durham 1991; Aunger 2002; Mesoudi et al. 2004) and pursued in a variety of ways, some (Dawkins and memeticists) staying close to the Darwinian model, others (e.g., Boyd, (...) Richerson, and their collaborators) being more innovative. We agree that there are relevant analogies between biological and cultural evolution and, in particular, that cultural items do exhibit variation, competition, and cumulative modification. On the other hand, we believe that a proper understanding of the mechanisms of cultural propagation drawing on the work of cognitive and social scientists (see Sperber and Hirschfeld 1999 for a review) contradicts the idea that culture exhibits inheritance in the strict sense needed for the theory of evolution by natural selection to apply straightforwardly to it. If so, it will take more than adjusting the Darwinian model to be faithful to the Darwinian inspiration. (shrink)

According to the simple proposal about rigidity for predicates, a predicate is rigid (roughly) if it signifies the same property across the relevant worlds. Recent critics claim that this suffers from a trivialization problem: any predicate whatsoever would turn out to be trivially rigid, according to the proposal. In this paper a corresponding "problem" for ordinary singular terms is considered. A natural solution is provided by intuitions concerning the actual truth-value of identity statements involving them. The simple proposal for predicates (...) is then defended, by exploiting corresponding intuitions concerning statements involving their nominalizations, in an analogous manner. (shrink)

Despite the effort on DSM-5 and ICD-11, few appear satisfied with these classification systems. We suggest that the core reason for dissatisfaction is expecting too much from them; they do not provide discrete categories that map to specific causes of disease, they describe clinical syndromes intended to guide treatment choices. Here we review work on anxiety and anxiety disorders to argue that while clinicians draw a pragmatic distinction between normal and abnormal emotions based on considerations such as severity and duration, (...) understanding the evolutionary origins and utility of the emotions, including the adaptive value of adverse emotions, is key for formulating comprehensive assessments of an individual patient’s symptoms and for providing a conceptual foundation for pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and public health. (shrink)

Some recent work in philosophy of religion addresses what can be called the “axiological question,” i.e., regardless of whether God exists, would it be good or bad if God exists? Would the existence of God make the world a better or a worse place? Call the view that the existence of God would make the world a better place “Pro-Theism.” We argue that Pro-Theism is not implausible, and moreover, many Theists, at least, (often implicitly) think that it is true. That (...) is, many Theists think that various good outcomes would arise if Theism is true. We then discuss work in cognitive science concerning human cognitive bias, before discussing two noteworthy attempts to show that at least some religious beliefs arise because of cognitive bias: Hume’s, and Draper’s and Nichols’s. We then argue that, as a result of certain cognitive biases that result when good outcomes might be at stake, Pro-Theism causes many Theists to inflate the epistemic probability that God exists, and as a result, Theists should lower the probability they assign to God’s existence. Finally, based our arguments, we develop a novel objection to Pascal’s wager. (shrink)

Reductive, naturalistic psychosemantic theories do not have a good track record when it comes to accommodating the representation of kinds. In this paper, I will suggest a particular teleosemantic strategy to solve this problem, grounded in the neurocomputational details of the cerebral cortex. It is a strategy with some parallels to one that Ruth Millikan has suggested, but to which insufficient attention has been paid. This lack of attention is perhaps due to a lack of appreciation for the severity of (...) the problem, so I begin by explaining why the situation is indeed a dire one. One of the main tasks for a naturalistic psychosemantic theory is to describe how the extensions of mental representations are determined. (Such a theory may also attempt to account for other aspects of the “meaning” of mental representations, if there are any.) Some mental representations, e.g. the concept of water, denote kinds (I shall be assuming this is non-negotiable). How is this possible? Unfortunately, I haven’t the space to canvass all the theories out there and show that each one fails to accommodate the representation of kinds, but I will point out the major types of problems that arise for the kinds of theories that, judging by the literature, are considered viable contenders.1 In general, the theories either attempt and fail to account for the representation of kinds, or they fall back on something like an intention to refer to a kind – not exactly the most auspicious move for a reductive theory. There are a number of problems that prevent non-teleosemantic theories from explaining how it is possible to represent kinds. A concept of a kind K must.. (shrink)

In this article I shall analyse and evaluate analytic theists’ views of what it takes to be a person of faith. I suggest that the subject can be approached by posing requirements a person must allegedly fulfil in order to count as a person of faith. These requirements can be referred to as aspects of faith. According to my analysis, four different aspects of faith can be distinguished: the cognitive, the evaluative-affective, the practical, and the interpersonal. There have been divergent (...) assessments about which aspects are indispensable for faith and how they should be understood. (shrink)

We can distinguish the evil person in two ways. One is to pick out some trait, or narrow cluster of traits, and argue that individuals are evil if they possess those traits to a sufficiently extreme degree. Call theories that characterize evil in this manner extremity views. The second method takes evil to consist in being vicious, not just in one respect, but thoroughly or consistently. Call this the consistency approach. Thus understood, evil persons lack any significant moral virtues, having (...) no “good side.” According to stronger versions of the consistency theory, evil persons lack morally redeeming qualities of even the most modest sort. They are moved and motivated little or not at all, or even perversely, by morality and the good. In this chapter I will defend such a view of evil character. Naturally, even consistency theories grant that evil involves a kind of extreme viciousness. But this is not the sort of extremity that requires having particular traits to an extraordinary degree, beyond those needed to lack virtues or redeeming qualities. Consistency theorists could require extreme vices in addition to those implied by the consistency requirement, but I will not do so. What about extremity views? Extremity of vice in the present sense concerns the degree to which someone possesses a given vice. If a person’s viciousness consists in cruelty, then that individual earns the title of evil by having cruel propensities to the highest degree: tending to perform many cruel acts, and tending to perform the cruelest acts. The extremity method appears to be the standard approach among commentators in this area. For example, Laurence Thomas claims that to have an evil character is to be “often enough prone to do evil acts” (1993, p. 82). Someone commits an evil act if the individual “delights in performing a harmful act that has a certain moral gravity to it . . . and if the person is not animated by understandable considerations” (p. 77). Similarly, John Kekes has argued that evil persons are those who are.... (shrink)

McDowell, responding to Mackie’s argument from queerness, defended realism about values by analogy to secondary qualities. A certain tension between two inter- pretations of McDowell’s response is highlighted. According to one, realism about val- ues would indeed be vindicated, but at the cost of failing to provide an appropriate response to Mackie’s argument; whereas according to the other, McDowell does pro- vide an adequate response, but evaluative realism is jeopardized.

Summary Kant's critique of corpuscular theory created a tabula rasa situation in natural philosophy and opened up a vast new field of research, particularly related to the study of heat, light, electricity and magnetism. ?rsted introduced Kantian epistemology in Scandinavia and made friends with J. W. Ritter, an outstanding experimenter who was the first to make dynamical philosophy productive. The ?rsted?Ritter partnership aimed at the construction of a cosmology based on dynamical philosophy as well as galvanic interpretations of the Lichtenberg (...) and Chladni patterns. It is suggested that Kantian critique and dynamical cosmology provided the framework within which ?rsted and Ritter made their epochal discoveries as well as their bold speculations. Finally, it is argued that the Romantics widened the scope of natural philosophy itself. (shrink)

This paper links two domains of recent interest in science and technology studies, complexity and ignorance, in the context of knowledge practices observed among synthetic biologists. Synthetic biologists are recruiting concepts and methods from computer science and electrical engineering in order to design and construct novel organisms in the lab. Their field has taken shape amidst revised assessments of life’s complexity in the aftermath of the Human Genome Project. While this complexity is commonly taken to be an immanent property of (...) biological systems, this article presents an epistemological view of complexity according to which complexity relates to a specific scientific theory or model and refers to that which exceeds the theory or model’s explanatory power. This epistemological view allows us to narrate a particular story about the changing relationship between biology and synthetic biology in the last decade and accounts for early knowledge practices in synthetic biology that “ignored” biology. This article further argues that while the failure of ignorance to produce clear-cut results for synthetic biologists has led practitioners back to biology, the entanglements between different pragmatic orientations and ways of knowing trouble the implications of this return for assessments of the complexity of biological systems. (shrink)

This article will study a class of deduction systems that allow for a limited use of the modus ponens method of deduction. We will show that it is possible to devise axiom systems α that can recognize their consistency under a deduction system D provided that: (1) α treats multiplication as a 3-way relation (rather than as a total function), and that (2) D does not allow for the use of a modus ponens methodology above essentially the levels of Π1 (...) and Σ1 formulae. Part of what will make this boundary-case exception to the Second Incompleteness Theorem interesting is that we will also characterize generalizations of the Second Incompleteness Theorem that take force when we only slightly weaken the assumptions of our boundary-case exceptions in any of several further directions. (shrink)

After a unilateral focus on medical professional obligations to patients in most of the 20th century, there is a growing, if modest, interest in patient responsibility. This article critiques some public assertions, explores the ethics literature, and attempts to find some consensus and moral grounds for positions taken on the question, "Does a patient have moral obligations in the process of interactions with medical and other professional caregivers?" There is widespread agreement on a few responsibilities, such as "truth telling" and (...) "avoiding harm to others," but no apparent consensus either on the list of duties or on the appropriate justification for such duties. The context and clinical realities of patient interactions are noted to suggest that feasibility is important in making judgments of patient obligations. (shrink)

According to Jackson, Pettit & Smith, “restricted particularism” is not affected by their supervenience-based consideration against particularism but, they claim, suffer from a different difficulty, roughly that it would violate the platitude about moral argument that, in debating controversial moral issues, a central role is played by various similarity claims. I present a defense of “restricted particularism” from this objection, which accommodates the platitudinous character of the claim that ordinary participants in conversations concerning the evaluative are committed to descriptive similarities (...) and differences being relevant in the way described by Jackson, Pettit and Smith, to moral similarities and differences. My defense exploits a presuppositional component congenial to response-dependent proposals such as Lewis’s. (shrink)

Revisiting the author’s characteristic line of interpretation of the Madhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti, this essay responds to critiques thereof by arguing for the sense Madhyamaka makes, on the author’s interpretation, as a Buddhist position. For purposes of the argument, it is allowed that especially on the author’s characteristic interpretation, Madhyamaka appears to have affinities with the “personalist” doctrine long regarded by Indian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions as unorthodox. In particular, it is accepted that on this interpretation, Mādhyamika arguments (...) to the effect that conventional truth cannot be explained away by any “ultimate” truth are tantamount to the view that a personal level of description cannot coherently be thought superseded by the kind of impersonal analysis typical of Abhidharma literature. The main burden of the essay is to explain the sense it makes to think this supposedly unorthodox embrace of the category person counts, in fact, as elaborating the tradition’s orienting no-self doctrine. (shrink)

Mark Siderits’s contributions to the study of Indian philosophy have long included rational reconstruction of arguments and positions typical of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist thought. A widely-known expression of this tradition’s core contention – “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” – is widely attributed to Siderits, and my own studies of Madhyamaka have from the outset been influenced by his philosophically sophisticated work. Nonetheless, I have always resisted Siderits’s predilection for characterizing Madhyamaka as exemplifying anti-realism, (...) as well as the notion that this tradition’s concerns are best characterized as semantic. On my reading, the insight aptly expressed by Siderits’s signature formulation is better characterized as transcendental – as identifying, that is, something presupposed by the very fact that pursuit of the Buddhist path is in the first place intelligible. Siderits, then, would dispel his formulation’s air of paradox by taking it to mean, “it is ultimately true that no statement corresponds to the ultimate nature of reality.” I have taken the same statement as aptly expressing the contention, rather, that “it is ultimately true” – that is, practically incontrovertible once it has been clarified, by Madhyamaka critique, what it would mean for anything to be ‘ultimately real’ – “that there are no ultimately real existents.” While these make sense as philosophically distinct emphases, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is any practically significant difference between these ideas. By way of honoring Mark Siderits’s influence on my own understanding, this essay explores the extent and significance of our divergent emphases. (shrink)

Inspiring life wisdom from people of all ages—based on the This I Believe radio program The popular This I Believe series, which has aired on NPR and on Bob Edwards' shows on Sirius XM Satellite and public radio, explores the personal beliefs and guiding principles by which Americans live today. This book brings together treasured life lessons of people from all walks of life. Whether it's learning the power of saying hello or how courage comes with practice, their intimate reflections (...) will inspire, move, and encourage you. Filled with the valuable insights distilled from a wide range of personal experiences, This I Believe: Life Lessons is a perfect gift—for others or for yourself. Includes extraordinary essays written by "ordinary" people who share the story of an important lesson they have learned about life Shares a wide range of beliefs and experiences from a diverse group of contributors, including a physician, a roller derby queen, a corporate executive, and a homeless person Based on the popular This I Believe radio series and thisibelieve.org website No matter what your age or circumstances, this book will give you valuable food for thought and important new insights on how others have learned from life's challenges. (shrink)