Biomedical research is increasingly globalized with ever more research conducted in low and middle-income countries. This trend raises a host of ethical concerns and critiques. While community engagement has been proposed as an ethically important practice for global biomedical research, there is no agreement about what these practices contribute to the ethics of research, or when they are needed.

The concept of ‘neurodiversity’ to speak of conditions such as autism, dyslexia, and others as differences, not disorders or pathologies, relies on a robust account of human flourishing that can incorporate these conditions. Conceptions of illness and well-being are always partially theological, whilst also having to be grounded in the empirical realities of the present time. Therefore, positive developmental psychology is a particularly apt field for developing a theology-informed psychology. This article argues that recent work in theology-engaged psychology of thriving, (...) as opposed to subjective flourishing, is the best approach to securing a vision of well-being for neurodiverse persons. (shrink)

_341_ _Objectives: _In patients with multivessel disease both the detection of the culprit lesion and the exact allocation are important preconditions for sufficient treatment and improved outcome. In a vessel based approach the combination of quantitative coronary angiography and fractional flow reserve measured by a pressure wire should be advantageous compared to myocardial SPECT, as morphological and functional information is delivered simultaneously. Therefore our aim was to evaluate MS in the detection and allocation of hemodynamically significant stenoses obtained by the (...) combined gold standard QCA plus FFR in patients with multivessel disease. _Methods: _FFR and QCA of 95 vessels in 80 patients have been evaluated. Hemodynamically significant target lesions were defined as intermediate stenoses between 50 and 75% with an FFR. (shrink)

Why should we seek and tell the truth? Does anyone know what truth is? Many are skeptical about the relevance of truth. Truth Matters endeavours to show why truth is important in a world where the very idea of truth is contested. Putting philosophers in conversation with educators, literary scholars, physicists, political theorists, and theologians, Truth Matters ranges across both analytic and continental philosophy and draws on the ideas of thinkers such as Aquinas, Balthasar, Brandom, Davidson, Dooyeweerd, Gadamer, Habermas, Kierkegaard, (...) Plantinga, Ricoeur, and Wolterstorff. Some essays attempt to provide a systematic account of truth, while others wrestle with the question of how truth is told and what it means to live truthfully. Contributors address debates between realists and anti-realists, explore issues surrounding relativism and constructivism in education and the social sciences, examine the politics of truth telling and the ethics of authenticity, and consider various religious perspectives on truth. Most scholars agree that truth is propositional, being expressed in statements that are subject to proof or disproof. This book goes a step farther: yes, propositional truth is important, but truth is more than propositional. To recognize how it is more than propositional is crucial for understanding why truth truly matters. Contributors include Doug Blomberg (ICS), Allyson Carr (ICS), Jeffrey Dudiak (King’s University College), Olaf Ellefson (York University), Gerrit Glas (VU University Amsterdam), Gill K. Goulding (Regis College), Jay Gupta (Mills College), Clarence Joldersma (Calvin College), Matthew J. Klaassen (ICS), John Jung Park (Duke University), Pamela J. Reeve (St. Augustine’s Seminary), Amy Richards (World Affairs Council of Western Michigan), Calvin Seerveld (ICS), Ronnie Shuker (ICS), Adam Smith (Brandeis University), John Van Rys (Redeemer University College), Darren Walhof (Grand Valley State University), Matthew Walhout (Calvin College), and Lambert Zuidervaart (ICS). (shrink)

Followers of Wittgenstein allegedly once held that a meaningful claim to know that p could only be made if there was some doubt about the truth of p. The correct response to this thesis involved appealing to the distinction between the semantic content of a sentence and features attaching to its use. It is inappropriate to assert a knowledge-claim unless someone in the audience has doubt about what the speaker claims to know. But this fact has nothing to do with (...) the semantic content of knowledgeascriptions; it is entirely explicable by appeal to pragmatic facts about felicitous assertion. (shrink)

The focus in the literature on scientific explanation has shifted in recent years towards model-based approaches. In recent work, Alisa Bokulich has argued that idealization has a central role to play in explanation. Bokulich claims that certain highly-idealized, structural models can be explanatory, even though they are not considered explanatory by causal, mechanistic, or covering law accounts of explanation. This paper focuses on Bokulich’s account in order to make the more general claim that there are problems with maintaining that a (...) structural criterion can capture the way that highly-idealized models explain. This paper examines Bokulich’s claim that the structural model explanation of quantum wavefunction scarring, featuring semiclassical mechanics, is deeper than the explanation provided by the local quantum model. The challenge for Bokulich is to show that the semiclassical model answers a wider range of w-questions, as this is her method of assessing structural information. I look at two reasonable approaches employing w-questions, and I argue that neither approach is ultimately satisfactory. Because structural similarity has preferences for more fundamental models, I argue that the local quantum model provides explanations that at least as deep as the semiclassical ones. The criterion either wrongly identifies all models as explanatory, or prefers models from fundamental theory. Either way, it cannot capture the way that highly-idealized models explain. (shrink)

Like many, though of course not all, philosophers, I believe in propositions. I take propositions to be structured, sentence-like entities whose structures are identical to the syntactic structures of the sentences that express them; and I have defended a particular version of such a view of propositions elsewhere. In the present work, I shall assume that the structures of propositions are at least very similar to the structures of the sentences that express them. Further, I shall assume that ordinary names (...) are devices of direct reference and contribute only their bearers to propositions, that n-place predicates contribute n-place properties or relations to propositions, and that verbs of propositional attitude contribute to propositions two-place relations between individuals and propositions. The broad outline of a framework that includes these assumptions is one that I think many, though again not all, philosophers of language find congenial. I am concerned here to investigate and explain, from the standpoint of this framework, a puzzling phenomenon. The explanation I give of the phenomenon could be adapted to fit with frameworks somewhat different from the one adopted here. I adopt the present framework in part simply for definiteness. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of the “transcendental” character of Alain Badiou’s and Giorgio Agamben’s ontologies. While neither Badiou nor Agamben are “transcendental” philosophers in the Kantian sense, this article argues that their respective projects of ontology both recover aspects of the “classical” conception of the transcendentals. Not unlike how pre-modern philosophers conceived of oneness, truth and goodness as transcendental properties of all things, both Badiou’s and Agamben’s ontologies present various structures which can be universally predicated of all being. However, (...) as opposed to the essentialist or even theological tendencies of traditional metaphysics, Badiou’s and Agamben’s ontologies are committedly “inessential” and atheistic at their very core. By replacing the divine names of the one, the true and the good in traditional metaphysics with a new yet quasi-classical transcendental notion of “the void” as a universal predicate of all beings, Badiou’s and Agamben’s works may be regarded as projects that go beyond both the pre-Kantian “theological” and the post-Kantian “subjective” conceptions of transcendental philosophy, thereby marking a new development in the history of western metaphysics. (shrink)

It is argued that taken together, two widely held claims ((i) sentences express structured propositions whose structures are functions of the structures of sentences expressing them; and (ii) sentences have underlying structures that are the input to semantic interpretation) suggest a simple, plausible theory of propositional structure. According to this theory, the structures of propositions are the same as the structures of the syntactic inputs to semantics they are expressed by. The theory is defended against a variety of objections.

In this introduction to Nehemiah Grew's seminal 17th-century publication The Anatomy of Plants (1682), we discuss the various influences on and impacts of Grew's innovative approach to studying plant life. We offer a review of the current literature on Grew and argue for the importance of his work in its contribution to fields ranging from microscopy to agriculture and from comparative anatomy to scientific illustration. The articles included in this special issue on “The Making of The Anatomy of Plants” are (...) also introduced. We make a case for Grew as a figure of great interest and relevance in our contemporary moment; as plant studies have taken hold in the humanities, historical narratives in the history of science are expanding to include more of the life sciences—a field that, as we show, Grew actively promoted and participated in throughout his tenure at the Royal Society. (shrink)

Several prominent voices have called for a democratization of science through deliberative processes that include a diverse range of perspectives and values. We bring these scholars into conversation with extant research on democratic deliberation in political theory and the social sciences. In doing so, we identify systematic barriers to the effectiveness of inclusive deliberation in both scientific and political settings. We are particularly interested in what we call misidentified dissent, where deliberations are starkly framed at the outset in terms of (...) dissenting positions without properly distinguishing the kinds of difference and disagreement motivating dissent. (shrink)

Contents: Stephen White: Opuscula and Opera in the Catalogue of Theophrastus' Works Han Baltussen: Theophrastean Echoes? The De Sensibus in the Platonic and Aristotelian Tradition Pamela M. Huby: Arabic Evidence about Theophrastus' De Sensibus Todd Ganson: A Puzzle Concerning the Aristotelian Notion of a Medium of Sense-Perception Istvan M. Bodnar: Theophrastus' De igne: Orthodoxy, Reform and Readjustment in the Doctrine of Elements Georg Wohrle: Ps-Aristoteles De Coloribus -aA Theophrastean Opusculum? David Sider: On On Signs - R.A.H. King: Nutrition (...) and Fatigue Amneris Roselli: Greek Medical Theories of Fatigue Sabine Vogt: Theophrast, De Vertigine Armelle Debru: La sueur des corps: le De sudore de Theophraste face a la tradition medicale John Dillon: Theophrastus' Critique of the Old Academy in the Metaphysics H. Takahashi: Syriac Fragments of Theophrastean Meteorology and Mineralogy Index Contributors and Editors. (Franz Steiner 2002). (shrink)

G. A. Cohen conceptualizes socialism as luck egalitarianism constrained by a community principle. The latter mitigates certain inequalities to achieve a shared common life. This article explores the plausibility of the community constraint on inequality in light of two related problems. First, if it is voluntary, it fails as a response to “the abandonment objection” to luck egalitarianism, as it would not guarantee imprudent people sufficient resources to avoid deprivation and to function as equal citizens in a democratic society. Contra (...) Cohenite socialism, this appears unjust. Second, if it is instead enforced, coercive equalization beyond sufficiency-constrained luck egalitarianism, which is possibly necessary to achieve a shared common life, seems to require unjustified restrictions on liberty. I therefore argue that the constraint is most plausibly specified as requiring enforcement of sufficiency and only voluntary equalization thereafter. I also note, skeptically, why this constraint might be morally preferable to a purely sufficientarian alternative. (shrink)

Assume that the only thing before you is a statue made of some alloy. Call those who think that there is one thing before you in such a case monists. Call those who think there are at least two things before you in such a case pluralists. The most common arguments for pluralism run as follows. The statue is claimed to have some property P that the piece of alloy lacks (or vice versa), and hence it is concluded that they (...) are distinct. Most often, the predicates employed in such arguments to express the crucial property are predicates expressing ‘temporal properties’, such as existing at a certain time; or ‘modal properties’, such as possibly being spherical; or ‘constitution properties’, such as being made of a certain sort of material. In a recent paper, Kit Fine has noted that such predicates suffer from various defects that make it possible for the monist to plausibly resist the relevant versions of the pluralist's arguments. For this reason, Fine considers a number of predicates that do not suffer from these defects, and constructs new versions of the above argument using them. Fine argues that any attempt on the monist's part to resist his versions of the argument force the monist to adopt implausible positions in the philosophy of language. As against this, I argue that the monist has perfectly plausible responses to Fine's arguments that require the monist to adopt only quite reasonable positions in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

result from combining the determiners `this' or `that' with syntactically simple or complex common noun phrases such as `woman' or `woman who is taking her skis off'. Thus, `this woman', and `that woman who is taking her skis off' are complex demonstratives. There are also plural complex demonstratives such as `these skis' and `those snowboarders smoking by the gondola'. My book Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account argues against what I call the direct reference account of complex demonstratives (henceforth DRCD) and (...) defends a quantificational account of complex demonstratives. In two recent papers, Nathan Salmon has criticized one of the book's arguments against DRCD. In this essay I show that Salmon's criticism fails. I also show that the version of DRCD that Salmon ends up endorsing is false. (shrink)

From the publication of The Possibility of Naturalism, Bhaskar’s critical naturalism or realism has argued for a dualistic social ontology of interpreting individuals and objective, ‘real’ social structures. In arguing for a dualistic ontology, Bhaskar commits himself to two antinomies; he insists that society is dependent on individuals but also independent of them, and that social action is always intentional but it also has non-intentional, material features. These antinomies are apparently resolved by appeals to emergence. In fact, the appeal to (...) emergence is merely a disguised regression into reification and the only genuine path out of these antinomies is the adoption of a fully hermeneutic social theory in line with the positions of Winch and Gadamer. (shrink)

Contemporary Western culture is experiencing a heightened awareness of religious diversity. This article surveys a range of possible responses to such diversity, and distinguishes between responses that concern the salvation or moral transformation of persons (soteriological views) and those that concern the alethic or epistemic status of religious beliefs (doctrinal views). After providing a brief taxonomy of these positions and their possible relations to one another, the article focuses primarily on competing views about the truth and rationality of religious beliefs (...) (e.g., pluralism, exclusivism, and skepticism). Here a heavy emphasis is placed on arguments for and against the rationality and moral propriety of retaining one's religious beliefs in the face of disagreement. The article surveys some of the more prominent arguments from the literature on this topic and closes with suggestions for further research. (shrink)

Over the last three decades, social theory has become an increasingly important subdiscipline within sociology. Social theory has attempted to elucidate the philosophical basis of sociology by defining the nature of social reality. According to social theory, society consists of objective institutions, structure, on the one hand, and individuals, agency on the other, it promotes human social relations, insisting that in every instance social reality consists of these relations.

Mediaeval psychological theory was a “faculty psychology”: a confederation of semiautonomous sub-personal agents, the interaction of which constitutes our psychological experience. One such faculty was intellective appetite, that is, the will. On what grounds was the will taken to be a distinct faculty? After a brief survey of Aristotle's criteria for identifying and distinguishing mental faculties, I look in some detail at the mainstream mediaeval view, given clear expression by Thomas Aquinas, and then at the dissenting views of John Duns (...) Scotus and William of Ockham. I conclude with some reflections on why the mainstream mediaeval view was discarded by Descartes. (shrink)

You've decided to upgrade from your old point-and-shoot by purchasing the compact and economical Nikon D60, an SLR model without all the bulk. Now, make the most of your new digital camera by actually learning how to use all those options and settings! Take advantage of external controls and learn how to navigate the camera menus to fully customize internal options so that you can capture, share, and print photographs like a professional. You'll find out how to understand the controls, (...) navigate the menus, choose your settings, access internal options, and become familiar with automatic modes. You'll learn to use the Image Quality and Image Size settings, which are necessary for both automatic and manual picture-taking. Then, you can easily express your creativity by managing aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and editing your photographs on a computer. You will download photos and print them to share with your friends and family! You will find out how to: Master camera controls Use automatic and manual modes Change, focus, and zoom lenses Adjust picture quality and resolution Manipulate exposure and lighting Work with picture files Print and share photos Complete with lists of ten photo-retouching tricks from repairing red eye to cropping photos and ten special-purpose features you can explore on a rainy day, Nikon D60 For Dummies is your one-stop guide to taking and sharing the pictures like a pro. (shrink)

Hunting is a complex phenomenon. l examine it from four different perspectives-animal liberation, the land ethic, primitivism, and ecofeminism-and find no moral justification for sport hunting in any of them. At the same time, however, I argue that there are theoretical flaws in each of these approaches. Animal liberationists focus too much on the individual animal and ignore the difference between domestic and wild animals. Leopold’s land ethic fails to come to terms with the self-domestication of humans. I argue that (...) the holism of the land ethic does not in itself justify hunting as a human act of predation appropriate to the demands of wild biotic communities. Primitivists, such as Paul Shepard and Ortega y Gasset, mistakenly argue that hunting is an essential part of human nature and hence part of a healthy return to a natural way of life. Their argument marginalizes women’s relations to nature. Finally, I take seriously the ecofeminist claim that sport hunting is a symptom ofpatriarchy’s fixation on death and violence, although I criticize the more radical claim that women are closer to nature than men. Hunting should be investigated within the broader context of patriarchal social relations between men and women. As an act of violence it constitutes one element of a cultural matrix which is destructive to hoth women and nature. (shrink)

For a biological anthropologist interested in the prehistory of religion, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen's book is welcome and resonant. Van Huyssteen's central thesis is that humans' capacity for spirituality emerges from a transformation of cognition and emotions that takes place in the symbolic realm, within Homo sapiens and apart from biology. To his thesis I bring to bear three areas of response: the abundant cognitive and emotional capacities of living apes and extinct hominids; the role of symbolic ritual in the (...) evolutionary history of Homo sapiens; and the closely intertwined nature of biology and culture in the workings of evolutionary change. (shrink)

Aristotle's "Parva Naturalia" culminates in definitions of the stages of the life cycle, from the generation of a new living thing up to death. This book provides a detailed reading of the end of the "Parva Naturalia" and shows how it completes the investigation into life begun in the "De Anima".

This article examines some of the recent theological critiques of the movement of technological human enhancement known as ‘transhumanism’. Drawing on the comparisons between grace and technology often found in the theological discourse on transhumanism, this article argues that the Thomistic distinction between healing grace and elevating grace can not only supplement the theological analysis of transhumanism and its ethical implications, but also help Christian theologians and ethicists become more aware of how the phenomenon of technology may have implicitly shaped (...) the contemporary understanding of ‘grace’ as well as the task of theology as a spiritual and indeed ethical practice. (shrink)

This article offers a critical interpretation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a philosophical notion which exemplifies a secular conception of thinking. One way in which AI notably differs from the conventional understanding of “thinking” is that, according to AI, “intelligence” or “thinking” does not necessarily require “life” as a precondition: that it is possible to have “thinking without life.” Building on Charles Taylor’s critical account of secularity as well as Hubert Dreyfus’ influential critique of AI, this article offers a theological (...) analysis of AI’s “lifeless” picture of thinking in relation to the Augustinian conception of God as “Life itself.” Following this critical theological analysis, this article argues that AI’s notion of thinking promotes a societal privilege of certain rationalistic or calculative ways of thought over more existential or spiritual ways of thinking, and thereby fosters a secularization or de-spiritualization of thinking as an ethical human practice. (shrink)

This article contends that Socratic wisdom (sophia) in Plato's Apology should be understood in relation to moderation (sophrosune), not knowledge (episteme). This stance is exemplified in an interpretation of Socrates' disavowal of knowledge. The god calls Socrates wise. Socrates holds both that he is wise in nothing great or small and that the god does not lie. These apparently inconsistent claims are resolved in an interpretation of elenchus. This interpretion says that Socrates is wise insofar as he does not believe (...) himself to know what he does not know. Whether one knows is demonstrated through elenchus, which moderates between knowledge claims. Thus, elenchus is productive of a kind of wisdom even if it does not produce knowledge. This claim, if true, forms a suitable basis for Socrates' defense of himself. That it does so serves as further evidence for the interpretation of sophia as sophrosune. (shrink)

This article re-examines the theoretical basis for environmental and heritage interpretation in tourist settings in the light of hermeneutic philosophy. It notes that the pioneering vision of heritage interpretation formulated by Freeman Tilden envisaged a broadly educational, ethically informed and transformative art. By contrast, current cognitive psychological attempts to reduce interpretation to the monological transmission of information, targeting universal but individuated cognitive structures, are found to be wanting. Despite growing signs of diversity, this information processing approach to interpretation remains dominant. (...) The article then presents the alternative paradigm of hermeneutics through the works of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, to provide a broader interpretation of interpretation. This not only captures the essence of Tilden’s definition but construes heritage interpretation as a more inclusive, culturally situated, critically reflexive and dialogical practice. (shrink)

In his recent review of my book, The Structure of Social Theory , Karsten Stueber rejected my criticisms of contemporary social theory. Against my "hermeneutic" sociology which prioritizes human social relations, he advocates a return to a dualistic ontology of structure and agency. This reply addresses Stueber’s criticisms to re-affirm the ontology of social relations against ontological dualism. Key Words: structure • agency • hermeneutics • social relations.

We propose a two-step guessing game to measure the depth of thinking. We apply this method to the P beauty contest game. Using our method, we find that 81% of subjects do not make choice following best response reasoning while the classical method would suggest only 12%. The result suggests that the classical method has the fundamental problem that it cannot distinguish if a submitted number is due to best response reasoning or not. It also suggests that traditional level k (...) analysis falsely attributes some sophistication to random players, and that the degree of false attribution is large. Our procedure provides an alternative way to identify whether the individual has best response reasoning which is essential for any positive level of depth of thinking and differentiates between the depth of thinking and random choice, and hence provides a very different conclusion, which is suggestive of limitations of the classical method. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology in light of Jean-Luc Marion’s more recent phenomenology. It may seem odd to compare Sartre to Marion, given that Sartre is well-known for his avowed atheism and his account of intentionality while Marion is primarily known for his work on religious phenomena and counter-intentionality. However, this article shows that there are many ways in which Sartre anticipates Marion’s work on phenomenological reduction and excessive phenomenality. By reading Sartre’s phenomenology in light of (...) Marion’s, and particularly Sartre’s analysis of the viscous slime in Being and Nothingness in relation to Marion’s account of ‘saturated phenomena’, this article presents a fresh interpretation of Sartre as a phenomenologist who has invaluable insights not only on the structures of consciousness and phenomenality, but also for the contemporary theoretical interest in the relationship between human and nonhuman entities. (shrink)

Contemporary critical theory and black studies have witnessed a surge in theoretical accounts of “blackness” as “nothingness”. Drawing on the work of the poet and cultural theorist Fred Moten, this article offers a reading of this recent postulation of blackness as “nothingness” in light of some of the similar theoretical endeavors in post-Kantian European philosophy. By comparing Moten’s “paraontological” conception of nothingness to Heidegger’s self-nihilating nothing, Sartre’s relative nothingness, as well as Schelling’s notion of absolute nothingness, this article argues that (...) Moten’s paraontology presents a more robust and systematic conception of nothingness than those of Heidegger, Sartre, and Schelling. By way of this comparison with these “canonical” accounts from European philosophy, this article highlights not only the unique features of Moten’s sophisticated formulation of nothingness, but also some of unacknowledged presumptions and prejudices of traditional metaphysics which Moten’s work calls into question. (shrink)

Recent philosophy has witnessed a renewed interest in the works and ideas of Henri Bergson (1859–1941). But while contemporary scholarship has sought to rehabilitate Bergson’s insights on time, memory, consciousness, and human freedom, comparatively little attention has been paid to Bergson’s relationship to pantheism. By revisiting the ‘pantheism’ controversy surrounding Bergsonian philosophy during Bergson’s lifetime, this article argues that the panentheistic notion of ‘being-in-God’ can serve as an illuminating framework for the interpretation of Bergson’s philosophy. By examining the ‘pantheist’ readings (...) of Bergson and comparing and contrasting Bergson’s philosophy of life with Spinoza’s panentheistic metaphysics, this paper shows that an account of ‘being-in-Life’ is key to Bergson’s metaphysical outlook as well as his account of philosophy as a practice of ‘intuitive’ thinking. In so doing, this paper highlights some of the implicit religious motifs not only in Bergson’s metaphysical outlook but also in his conception of the task of philosophy. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Jacques Derrida’s account of “religion” and “life” in his seminal essay “Faith and Knowledge.” Applying Derrida’s aporetic structure of “X without X” to his remarks on religion and life in “Faith and Knowledge,” this article suggests that underlying Derrida’s endeavor to “think religion abstractly” is a radical re-conception not only of religion as “religion without religion” but moreover a re-imagination of life as “life without life” that breaks away from the traditional metaphysical understandings of (...) life and religion. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, Giorgio Agamben and Charles Taylor have produced important and influential genealogical works on the philosophical and political conceptions of secularity. Yet in their recent work, both of these thinkers have respectively returned to a prominent theme in their earlier works: Human life. This essay offers a parallel reading of Agamben and Taylor as post-Heideggerian critics of the modern conception of human subjectivity. Through examining these their respective characterizations of modern subjectivity — namely Taylor’s account of (...) the “disengaged self” and Agamben’s conception of the “excluded-included” bare life, this essay seeks to highlight not only the Heideggerian currents underlying the philosophical anthropologies of Agamben and Taylor, but also the ontological paradoxicalities they detect in the conception of human existence and subjectivity in politico-philosophical modernity. After reviewing the different aspects of Agamben’s and Taylor’s critiques of modern subjectivity as well as the traditional metaphysical conception of humans as “language animals”, this essay concludes by sketching a robust and affirmative “paradoxical” conception of human beings as “language animals” which simultaneously takes into account the insights from Taylor’s (post)analytic philosophical renewal of Aristotelianism and Agamben’s critical analysis of contemporary biopolitics in the continental philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Plato in light of the recent debates concerning the unique ‘ontology’ of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline. In particular, this article suggests that Plato’s metaphysical account of the integral connection between human individual, the domestic state, and world order can offer IR an alternative outlook to the ‘political scientific’ schema of ‘levels of analysis’. This article argues that Plato’s metaphysical conception of world order can not only provide IR theory with a way (...) to re-imagine the relation between the human, the state, and world order. Moreover, Plato’s outlook can highlight or even call into question the post-metaphysical presuppositions of contemporary IR theory in its ‘borrowed ontology’ from modern social science, which can in turn facilitate IR’s re-interpretation of its own ‘ontology’ as well as its distinct contributions to the understanding of the various aspects of the social world and human life. (shrink)

Light is the most important analogy for the Vijñānavādin in proving self-awareness, namely the cognition that cognizes itself. Recent studies show that two opponents of the doctrine of self-awareness, Kumārila and Bhaṭṭa Jayanta alleged that the Vijñānavādin has also used light as an analogy for the view that cognition must be perceived before the object is perceived. However, this is a modification of the actual view of the Vijñānavāda that cognition must be perceived in order for it to perceive its (...) object. Based on Kumārila’s such modified restatement, Taber argues that “Kumārila’s Buddhist” fails to establish the light as a valid analogy in their theory. Taber’s argument is subsequently referred to by Watson and Kataoka in their works, in which they defend Vijñānavāda’s light-analogy against Taber. However, their defence is also based on a similarly modified restatement by Jayanta and the defence is set out in the view of Naiyāyika philosophy. This paper examines all these arguments and shows that Watson’s and Kataoka’s thought of the light-analogy might still be problematic. It also goes back to the original view of the Vijñānavāda and observes to what extent the light-analogy serves as a strong support for the establishment of the self-awareness. (shrink)

In PV 3.440ab and 473cd–474ab, Dharmakīrti raises the argument of infinite regress twice. The argument originates from the same argument stated by Dignāga in his Pramāṇasamuccaya 1.12ab1, in which the fault of infinite regress is called aniṣṭhā. In Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti 1.12b2, Dignāga presents another type of argument of infinite regress driven by memory, which is elucidated by Dharmakīrtian commentators. The arguments were criticized by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Bhaṭṭa Jayanta and even more intensively so by two modern scholars, Jonardon Ganeri and Birgit (...) Kellner. In this paper, I first examine the source of the arguments—Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti 1.12 and its translation, based on which I provide my interpretation of the two models of arguments of infinite regress. I then offer my response, according to Dharmakīrti and his commentators, to Ganeri’s and Kellner’s critiques. By doing so, I attempt to identify the essence of these arguments is and find out to what extent one can defend the infinite regress argument in Dignāga’s and Dharmakīrti’s theory. (shrink)