In most areas of our lives, legal protections are in place to ensure that we have autonomous control over what happens in and to our bodies. However, there are fewer protections in place for autonomous choice when it comes to the food we purchase and consume. In fact, the current trend in US legislation is pushing us away from autonomous food choice. In this paper, I discuss two examples of this trend: corporate resistance to GM labeling laws and farm protection (...) laws. These examples are quite different from a legislative point of view. In one case, laws that would promote autonomous choice are actively resisted, whereas in the other case, laws that undermine autonomy are enacted. The common core of the two examples is the effect: in both cases, we are unable to determine whether the food we purchase and consume is consistent with our values. In both cases, then, autonomous choice about the food we purchase and put into our bodies is undermined. (shrink)

We offer obeisances to Lord Śiva, guru of knowledge, lord of the dance, who purifies by the very utterance of his name, who transcends all dualities. May he grant us permission to argue with his devotees. May he also give us his blessings to convince them.Properly speaking, comparative philosophy does not lead toward the creation of a synthesis of philosophical traditions. What is being created is not a new theory but a different sort of philosopher. The goal of comparative philosophy (...) is learning a new language, a new way of talking. The comparative philosopher does not so much inhabit both of the standpoints represented by the traditions from which he draws as he comes to inhabit an.. (shrink)

Jacques Ellul’s work on propaganda provides the basis for this analysis of life in technology. Advertising and the mass media rely on temptation and seduction and create a constant flow of propaganda, all of which serve the technological system. Propaganda aims to condition and regulate us so that we participate in and adapt ourselves to a desired pattern, specifically an existence adjusted to and in accord with the technological milieu. Technology tempts and seduces us with its promise and provision of (...) comfort, convenience, and efficiency. Above all, technology tempts and seduces us with power: power over nature and over human beings. Naively and paradoxically, we believe we have power over technology, even though it actually has power over us. Our immersion in a sea of temptation and seduction, of constant and total propaganda, may seem inescapable; however, to criticize and challenge the primacy of technology is to reassert our freedom. (shrink)

El presente trabajo resume y comenta algunas de las aportaciones que nos han parecido más relevantes realizadas en los últimos años en torno a la obra filosófica de J. Ortega y Gasset. Desde la aparición del libro de P. Cerezo Galán La voluntad de aventura en 1983, el interés por el problema de Ortega ha experimentado un auge muy significativo y creciente en España, del que son muestra los estudios de Javier San Martín, Mª Carmen Paredes, Fco J. Martín, Máximo (...) Martín Serrano y Jaime de Salas. Nuestro trabajo, tras una exposición resumida de estas interpretaciones, intenta una síntesis conciliadora que creemos sugerida por los propios textos del filósofo. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 133-134 [Access article in PDF] Fictional Beings J. M. Coetzee What Does It Mean, "To Understand"? A tennis coach is teaching a young player a forehand topspin drive. He does so with a mixture of demonstrations (nonverbal) and explanations (verbal), such as, "At the moment of impact you roll the wrist over like this" (demonstrates). The player tries the stroke again and again, (...) and each time the coach shakes his head and says, "You haven't got it yet." Then the player gets the stroke right. The coach says "Now you've got it! Now you understand! Now let's do it again!"Is this a legitimate use of the word understand? I think it is. The coach intends the following: At first you may have understood my words but from your actions—the practice strokes you played—I could not see that you had understood my meaning. Then, when you got the stroke right, and could repeat it, I saw that you had finally understood the meaning behind my words.Understanding is in this case the effective translation of words, or words plus demonstrations, into actions, where effectiveness can be easily measured. The translation is from a verbal, or mixed verbal, system into an entirely nonverbal system of electrochemical impulses.Conversely, one can picture an exhaustive analysis of forehand topspin drives by André Agassi, conducted by microphotography, implanted sensors, and so on, to issue in a mixed verbal and diagrammatic account of how Agassi plays the stroke. In this case the physiologic system of the stroke has been successfully translated into a (partially) verbal system. Again, it would be meaningful to say that the sports physiologist who does the analysis has come to understand how the stroke is played.Although in both these cases understanding is conceived of as a translation process, I concentrate from here onward on the translation process from the verbal to the nonverbal, exemplified by understanding how to play a particular stroke.The coach says X and the player tries to "do" X, but fails and fails, until finally he succeeds. When the player has at last "done" X, he has understood. Thereafter, by steps, the player ceases to depend on the coach and the coach's X: the player can do X by himself; he understands X in the sense that whenever he says X to himself he can do X. He has made X his own.I read The Sound and the Fury, the part devoted to Benjy. Benjy says X and I don't understand. I understand the words on the page one by one, many of the sentences I understand one by one in the sense that I can translate them into other English sentences, but I don't understand the logic that gets Benjy from one sentence to the next, I don't understand the references of many words that are usually referential, and sometimes I am baffled by the syntax.For whatever reason, I go on reading Benjy. In a few respects I begin to understand better. For instance, there are sentences that stop in midstride, and I begin to suspect that such sentences stop because Benjy does not want to think what [End Page 133] comes next—that is to say, that the Faulkner behind Benjy means me to understand that Benjy lacks the wherewithal to face what would naturally come next. Mainly, however, I remain in the dark.Then I begin to experience something interesting. I find that I am, in my mind, going through some of the movements of Benjy's language. I am, as it were, practicing the characteristic strokes of his game. Although I remain, for the most part, unable to translate his pages into connected discourse—that is, into a discourse in which the logical connection between one sentence and the next is, however faulty, at least clear—I am better and better able to "do" Benjy."Doing" Benjy in this case means more than parrot-like repetition of Benjy's words. I can now speak of "entering Benjy" in a way that makes sense. I... (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Sensorimotor Direct Realism: How We Enact Our World” by Michael Beaton. Upshot: Sensorimotor direct realism is too promiscuous in its account of sensation.

Joshua Anderson argues that Amartya Sen’s reading of the Bhagavadgītā is not accurate and so it cannot serve as an example of Sen’s comprehensive consequentialism. This article presents Sen’s reading of the Bhagavadgītā and Anderson’s criticisms of Sen’s readings. It discusses three types of readers: history readers, activist readers, and interventionist readers. It gives an interventionist reading of the Bhagavadgītā, supplementing Arjuna’s reasons and contesting those of Kṛṣṇa. It shows that Arjuna’s reasons are cogent and it respectfully argues that Kṛṣṇa’s (...) arguments are incomplete and unconvincing. Even if Arjuna’s reasons are not ultimately decisive, they legitimately feature in his deliberations. It responds to Anderson, urging that Sen correctly advocates comprehensive consequentialism and agent-relativity, rather than cumulative outcomes and agent-neutrality, and that Sen correctly sees these contrasts exemplified in the Bhagavadgītā. It concludes with a discussion of the impartial spectator, kin,.. (shrink)

-/- Attempts to reduce irreversible processes to the scope of Newton’s mechanics are particularly challenging topics for both physical and philosophical research. Hollinger and Zenzen,1 for instance, claim that macroscopic irreversibility has a mechanical origin, and they explain this within the Newtonian framework. Newton’s Scientific and Philosophical Legacy Newton’s Scientific and Philosophical Legacy Look -/- .