Annotation. This edited collection is the first to explore the implications of "Quantum Aesthetics" for social life. Contributors, who represent various disciplines, apply this philosophy to their respective fields of study.

The rift which has long divided the philosophical world into opposed schools-the "Continental" school owing its origins to the phenomenology of Husserl and the "analytic" school derived from Frege-is finally closing.

This paper distinguishes between two senses of the term “ phenomenology ”: a narrow sense and a broader sense. It claims, with particular reference to the moral sphere, that the narrow meaning of moral phenomenology cannot stand alone, that is, that moral phenomenology in the narrow sense entails moral intentionality. The paper proceeds by examining different examples of the axiological and volitional experiences of both virtuous and dutiful agents, and it notes the correlation between the phenomenal and intentional differences belonging (...) to these experiences. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the focus on the broader sense of “ phenomenology ” serves to provide a more precise sense of what we might mean by “ moral phenomenology.”. (shrink)

This paper explores two perspectives in Husserl's recently published writings on ethics and axiology in order to sketch anew a phenomenological account of practical reason. The paper aims a) to show that a phenomenological account of moral intentionality i) transcends the disputes between intellectualist-emotivist and intellectualist-voluntarist disputes and ii) points toward a position in which practical reason has an emotive content or, conversely, the emotions have a cognitive content, and the paper aims b) to show that a phenomenological ethics identifies (...) universal human goods that are, nevertheless, specified differently in varying cultural contexts. (shrink)

In reworking his Logical Investigations Husserl adopts two positions that were not actually incorporated into later editions of the Investigations but do appear in other writings: a new distinction between signitive and significative intentions, and the claim that even naming and perceiving acts are categorially formed. This paper investigates Husserl's notion of noematic sense and the pure grammatical ' categories ' intimated therein in order to shed light on these new positions. The paper argues that the development of the theories (...) of the noema and of pure grammar allows us to recognize how even merely perceived or named things have a certain categoriality belonging to them, but that this development also requires us to distinguish between an anticipatory categoriality and an articulated categoriality. (shrink)

Dennett’s contrast between auto- and hetero-phenomenology is badly drawn, primarily because Dennett identifies phenomenologists as introspective psychologists. The contrast I draw between phenomenology and hetero-phenomenology is not in terms of the difference between a first-person, introspective perspective and a third-person perspective but rather in terms of the difference between two third-person accounts – a descriptive phenomenology and an explanatory psychology – both of which take the first-person perspective into account.

When a young boy playing in a wooded area, I tripped over exposed roots extending from the trunk of a tree. I threw my arms out in front of me to break my fall and disturbed a nest of bees. As I lay on the ground, I was repeatedly stung by bees until I could regain my feet and run away. Frightened and in a great deal of pain - that is what I remember most vividly - I walked home. (...) My mother took me to the doctor, who undoubtedly gave me some sort of treatment and medication, but this has been lost to memory. The part of the visit to the doctor's office that I remember is his removing any stingers remaining in me; this too I remember for its pain. The doctor counted more than seventy stings. Although the exact number escapes memory, I believe it was seventy-one. In brief, the descriptive details of the day's experiences elude memory, but the affective dimension - the pain and fear - does not. (shrink)

The interpretation of transcendental arguments remains a contentious issue for contemporary epistemology. It is usually agreed that they originated in Kant's theoretical philosophy and were intended to have some kind of anti-sceptical efficacy. I argue that the sceptic with whom Kant was concerned has been consistently misidentified. The actual sceptic was Hume, questioning whether the faculty of reason can justify any of our judgements whatsoever. His challenge is a sceptical argument regarding rule-following which engenders a vicious regress. Once this sceptical (...) threat is properly identified, the prospects of transcendental arguments must be re-evaluated. (shrink)

This paper argues that frege did not significantly influence husserl's departure from psychologism by (1) examining husserl's early logical reflections, Especially those concerning the meaning of the term ""vorstellung"," and (2) determining which parts of husserl's "philosophy of arithmetic", Criticized for its psychologism by frege, Were psychologistic and when husserl rejected them. It concludes that the logical writings show an independent movement toward a non-Psychologistic position and that the psychologism of "philosophy of arithmetic" was abandoned by 1891 apart from any (...) fregean influence. (shrink)

To the memory of Ian McFetridge 1948?1988 The general concern of the essay is with the question of whether cognitive states can be accounted for in naturalistic (i.e. physicalist) terms. An argument is presented to the effect that they cannot. This turns on the idea that cognitive states involve modes of presentation the identity and individuation conditions of which are ineliminably both intentional and intensional and consequently they cannot be accounted for in terms of physico?causal powers. In connection with this (...) the recent attempt by Robert Stalnaker to provide a naturalistic theory of intentionality is examined and rejected. In conclusion it is suggested that a more radical solution to the problem of how to relate cognitive and material phenomena may be available in the pluralistic naturalism of Aquinas (and, perhaps, Wittgenstein). (shrink)

According to agent relativism, each person's moral requirements are relative to her desires or interests. That is, whether a person morally ought to ø depends on what interests or desires she has. Some philosophers charge that the main argument for agent relativism trades on an ambiguity in the term "reason," "reason for action,'' or the like. This paper shows that although the argument for agent relativism may indeed harbor an ambiguity, the ambiguity is no Achilles’ heel. To remove it is (...) not to discredit the argument, but to uncover the strongest form of it, the form that makes agent relativism tenacious. (shrink)

To date, the study of business ethics has been largely the study of the ethics of large companies. This paper is concerned with owner/managers of small firms and the link between the personal ethics of the owner/manager and his or her attitude to ethical problems in business. By using active membership of an organisation with an overt ethical dimension as a surrogate for personal ethics the research provides some, though not unequivocal, support for the models of Trevino and others that (...) suggest a link between personal ethics and business ethics. (shrink)

A few years ago philosophy of mind in the main English-language tradition was characterized by marked optimism about progress and by broad agreement that a correct theory would be a version of physicalism that admitted the sui generis nature of psychological descriptions and explanations. Now consensus seems to have given way to chaos supervenient physicalism has become so weak as to be virtually contentless and reductionism has become no more plausible than when it was generally rejected. The essay presses these (...) points and suggests the need of more radical alternatives. (shrink)

This article, with those published here by Robert Innis and Richard Shusterman, is part of a symposium devoted to exploring critically new directions in, and for, pragmatism. Each symposiast takes up this task in the context of new books by the other two. Accordingly, I examine the ways in which _Pragmatism and the Forms of Sense by Innis and _Surface and Depth by Shusterman may advance commitments to pluralism (such that the books that speak to one person may not address (...) or be alive or be instrumental for another person); time and finitude (such that change, precariousness, and difference are ineliminable, and that theorizing is always situated and provincial); and, practice (such that beliefs are habits of meaning-full, meaning-giving, embodied action). I argue, following the lines of thought set forth in my _Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Philosophy, that these commitments as well as the practice of philosophy are thoroughly political in two specified senses -- a point that signals the deflation of theory and marks the limit of philosophy -- the enabling limit of philosophy that is honest and self-critically political and politically critical. (shrink)

The possibility of a sub-quantum mechanical realm has been investigated in recent years by DeBroglie, Bohm, Vigier, and others. It is felt that what is needed in this investigation is some simple and direct resolution of the problem as to whether sub-quantum entities exist or not. By restricting attention to quanta of light energy there is presented a theoretical expression for a sub-quantum or micro-photon which has proven to be testable. It is possible by this development to bridge the particle-wave (...) duality wherein these two conceptions become arithmetically commensurate with one another. The theoretical expression derived for the micro-photon also leads to a different interpretative approach to Planck's constant as well as the appearance of a new unit or element of mass. (shrink)

When there is a conflict between parents and the physician over appropriate care due to an infant whose decision prevails? What standard, if any, should guide such decisions?This article traces the varying standards articulated over the past three decades from the proposal in Duff and Campbell’s 1973 essay that these decisions are best left to the parents to the Baby Doe Regs of the 1980s which required every life that could be salvaged be continued. We conclude with support for the (...) policy articulated in the 2007 guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics on non-intervention or withdrawal of intensive care for high-risk newborns. (shrink)

Professional autonomy interferes at a structural level with the various aspects of the health care system. The health care systems that can be distinguished all feature a specific design of professional autonomy, but experience their own governance problems. Empirical health care systems in the West are a nationally coloured blend of ideal type healthcare systems. From a normative perspective, the optimal health care system should consist of elements of all the ideal types. A workable optimum taking national values into account (...) could be attained by governance structures that also introduce elements from other ideal type systems. Thus a normative approach to medical practice guaranteeing an essential degree of professional autonomy for a relationship of trust between the patient and the physician, could be combined with an efficient and equitable allocation of health care resources. (shrink)

In this paper the author discusses the complex question of whether Proclus regards theology as a demonstrative science along the lines of Euclidean geometry, or as a different kind of science that follows the dialectical model of Plato's Parmenides. This question is focused by considering the applicability to the Elements of Theology of the Euclidean model of science, while examining the limitations of this hermeneutical approach.