A serious difficulty for theories of consciousness is to go beyond mere correlation between physical processes and experience. Currently, neural workspace and sensorimotor contingency theories are two of the most promising approaches to make any headway here. This paper explores the relation between these two sets of theories. Workspace theories build on large-scale activity within the brain. Sensorimotor theories include external processes in their explanations, stressing the sensorimotor contingencies that arise from our interaction with the environment. Despite the basic differences, (...) we argue that workspace- and sensorimotor theories are complementary rather than competitive. By combining these theories, a number of problems that hamper them individually may be overcome and their strengths combined: Workspace theories have more to offer for explaining how there can be consciousness in the first place, while sensorimotor theories are strong in making sense of the specific phenomenal character of experiences. (shrink)

Rassemblant douze textes rédigés entre 1934 et 1976, ce recueil remet les Essais hérétiques en perspective en permettant de saisir quelques-unes des principales lignes de force qui font l'unité intime de l'œuvre de Patocka et communiquent à sa pensée la tonalité et la tension éthiques qui lui donnent son éclat particulier à l'intérieur du mouvement phénoménologique. Ligne de force de la liberté en tant qu'expérience fondamentale de l'être historique qu'est l'homme, transcendance qui, dans sa négativité, rejoint le " pas en (...) arrière " des analyses phénoménologiques. Ligne, négative là encore, de la problématisation socratique. Ligne du destin qui s'ensuit et qui, incarnation exemplaire du conflit de la philosophie avec le monde comme il va, renvoie en direction du " sacrifice radical " à travers lequel la liberté, reniée à force de trop se revendiquer, refait signe à l'époque moderne, poussant Patocka, dans un regard qui embrasse toute l'étendue de l'histoire spirituelle de l'Europe, à considérer le Gestell heideggérien à travers le prisme du polemos dont parlait Héraclite. Écrits " polémiques " donc et " pathétiques ", autant que " politiques ", qui nous parlent de l'humanisme, de la modernité et de ce qui ne prétend pas " sauver ", mais qui résiste dans l'expérience philosophique vécue en tant que " soin de l'âme " - à la fois ébranlement radical et mode fondamental de la responsabilité vis-à-vis d'un sens à jamais problématique. (shrink)

With a reassuring and clear writing style, Willer offers practical suggestions and clinical examples to address the professional development and emotional concerns of the beginning psychotherapist. She guides readers through structuring the first session, making clinical observations, and establishing a therapeutic alliance. Through the use of culturally diverse clinical vignettes, Willer discusses the foundations of ethical practice, including informed consent, confidentiality, documentation, and setting boundaries. The reader is guided on how and when to refer clients for medication and other health (...) care. Crisis management principles are detailed, including suicide and violence risk assessment, child abuse, elder abuse, intimate partner violence, and rape. Willer also provides professional advice on contemporary concerns such as social networking, online searches of clients, the psychotherapist's internet presence, and other important emerging challenges. Comprehensive, practical, and thoroughly updated, The Beginning Psychotherapist's Companion, Second Edition is the ideal resource for students and early career psychotherapists. (shrink)

In this paper, I mainly pursue the following two goals: on the one hand, I want to show how a central Fregean insight is tried to be captured within a two-dimensional strategy. On the other hand, I want to show that, in the light of Saul Kripke’s arguments against descriptivism, this strategy is faced with a fundamental problem. I proceed in four steps: in a first step, I bring together the passages that contain a central Fregean insight as a source (...) of inspiration for a two-dimensional reconstruction and that suggest a descriptivist reading of Frege’s view. In a second step, I shortly present Kripke’s threefold argumentation against two versions of descriptivism, which is also the basis for Kripke’s view that proper names are rigid designators. In a third step, I explain the basic idea of a Frege-inspired two-dimensional strategy which is used to reconcile theories of definite descriptions with theories of rigid designation and which is sometimes characterized as ‘neo-descriptivism’. Since the two-dimensional strategy is dependent on rigidified definite descriptions, I argue, in a fourth step, that, in the light of Kripke’s epistemological and semantic arguments, the two-dimensional strategy is problematic and untenable – though it is, nevertheless, motivated by Kripke’s modal argument. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I want to show how hermeneutics can help philosophy of science to focus not only on explanation but also on understanding of meaning as an important part of science. Second, I want to argue that philosophy of science can improve the hermeneutic vision of understanding: a great part of what we call interpretations is in fact explanations of a pre-established meaning. Hence interpretation in the sense of explanation is ‘objective’ as long as (...) the interpretation reflects such a pre-established meaning. At the end I illustrate this point by presenting an interpretation of Botticelli's painting "The Mystical Nativity.". (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of anthropological arguments in contemporary ethics as exemplified in the current debate about biotechnological human enhancement interventions. Anthropological arguments refer to a normative conception of what it means to be a human being and are highly contested in contemporary moral philosophy. Most often they are promoted to constrain the ethically acceptable use of enhancement technologies. I argue that anthropological arguments can play a fundamental and important role in assessing the moral qualities of enhancement interventions, but (...) only if their normative justification and their specific content are properly determined. I offer an account how to do so, based on the contractualist and pragmatist ideal that all those who are affected by a decision of normative relevance should be included in what I call a “quasi-democratic deliberative process”. However, given that they stand in need of wide agreement, anthropological arguments resulting from such a process will be be rather minimal in content. In the exemplary debate about human enhancements they hence turn out to be widely – though not fully – permissive and unable to justify a restrictive stance towards enhancement interventions. (shrink)

Existing accounts of hypothetico-deductive confirmation are able to circumvent the classical objections, but the confirmation of conjunctions of hypotheses brings them into trouble. Therefore this paper develops a new, falsificationist account of qualitative confirmation by means of Ken Gemes ' theory of content parts. The new approach combines the hypothetico-deductive view with falsificationist and instance confirmation principles. It is considerably simpler than the previous suggestions and gives a better treatment of conjunctive hypotheses while solving the tacking problems equally well.

This is a defence of some kind of reality of relativistic effects, against the thesis that they are mere kinematic appearances or deceptions.

Bundel filosofische essays over kunst en esthetica.

Wprowadzenie -- Roman ingarden -- Antoni kępiński -- Karol wojtyła -- Władysław stróżewski -- Józef tischner.

The present book examines the development of the concept of subjectivity in the period of Chinese modernization, between the reform period in the late Qing Dynasty and the early period of the People's Republic of China.

The Access principle places an epistemic restriction on our obligations. This principle falls prey to the ‘Shirker Problem’, namely that shirkers could evade their obligations by evading certain epistemic circumstances. To block this problem, it has been suggested that shirkers have the obligation to learn their obligations. This solution yields a regress, yet it is controversial what the moral of the regress actually is. The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, I spell out this intricate dispute. Second, on the (...) basis of my analyses I propose solutions to the Shirker Problem. (shrink)