This essay examines Jean-Luc Nancy's re-posing of the question of freedom in The Experience of Freedom in relation to three issues—what he calls the “thought of freedom,” the reality of evil, and the closure of metaphysics. All three elements that he discusses point directly to Heidegger's engagement with Friedrich Schelling's attempt to establish a system of freedom. My intervention into the discussion between these three thinkers will address several issues. The first part draws out the implications of Nancy's argument that (...) the thought of freedom, not the question of being as Heidegger would have it, is the ultimate matter for thinking that arises at the end of metaphysics. This in turn has important implications for Nancy's understanding of evil. The next part confronts and criticizes Nancy's contention that there is an “ontodicy” in Heidegger's thought that lends a certain justification to evil. The final part aims to show how Heidegger's engagement with Schelling and the reality of evil has to be understood within the context of the question concerning technology. This leads to a second confrontation with Nancy, who proposes a quite different interpretation of technology according to his own ontology, which he calls “being singular plural,” which amounts in effect to a liberation of technology from the being-question. (shrink)

Recent experimental studies in cognitive science report the influence of “disgust” and “cleanliness” manipulations on moral judgment, yet little attention has been given to interpreting these studies together or developing models of the causal influence of cleanliness and disgust manipulations on moral judgment. I propose considerations for the causal modeling of these effects. The conclusions are not decisive in favor of one theory of disgust and cleanliness, but suggest several distinct causal roles of disgust- and cleanliness-type manipulations. The incorrect views, (...) I argue, are those that posit causal effects from a single common cognitive mechanism for both disgust and cleanliness. (shrink)

Wonder’s significance is a recurrent theme in the history of philosophy. In the Theaetetus, Plato’s Socrates claims that philosophy begins in wonder (thaumazein). Aristotle echoes these sentiments in his Metaphysics; it is wonder and astonishment that first led us to philosophize. Philosophers from the Ancients through Wittgenstein discuss wonder, yet scant recent attention has been given to developing a general systematic account of emotional wonder. I develop an account of emotional wonder and defend its connection with apparent or seeming value. (...) Recently, several philosophers invoke wonder to back non-eudaimonistic value judgments. I introduce methods to incorporate these judgments into a eudaimonistic moral framework. On the analysis presented, wonder requires its object to seem valuable, but whether the object is in fact valuable remains an open question. Wonder enraptures us with objects that might be of true or merely illusory value, grounded either in our own well-being or in non-eudaimonistic value. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of the sense of the world in relation to the phenomenological investigation of the life-world in Husserl and the worldhood of the world in Heidegger. My aim is to address the reasons why Nancy stresses the need for a different thinking that goes beyond the phenomenological gesture in order to approach the sense of the world. What is at stake in this other gesture is the overcoming of the way in which phenomenology (...) privileges seeing as the mode of access to the phenomenon, which is but one sense among many and which, as one sense among many, fails to bring thought into relation with the pluralisation of sense. The second part of the essay interprets the pluralisation of both sense and world in terms of Nancy’s turn to art, which by touching upon the limit of philosophy, turns the latter into the praxis of the exposition of sense. Pluralisation betokens Nancy’s attempt to think the finitude of the world as that which spaces itself out into multiple, singular and shared. (shrink)

Paul Hirst’s reconceptualization of his epistemology provides a basis for this exploration of the various aspects of the rationale for teaching literature. The article reflects the close analysis of knowledge and the curriculum in his early work and develops insights in his later work. This leads to the identification of five strands that form the rationale for the role of literature within the curriculum. The first strand refers to the knowledge of context, cultural background, or information necessary to engage with (...) many works of literature. The second strand concerns the role of literature in providing pleasure. The third strand considers the role of literature in offering multiple forms of understanding and insight. Strands four and five address the place of literature in the educational context. The fourth strand refers to the possibilities offered for education in language by the close study of literary texts. The fifth strand concerns the honing of the ability to propose and defend arguments in the interpretation of texts as a conduit to the development of one aspect of practical reason. (shrink)

The personal identity relation is of great interest to philosophers, who often consider fictional scenarios to test what features seem to make persons persist through time. But often real examples of neuroscientific interest also provide important tests of personal identity. One such example is the case of Phineas Gage – or at least the story often told about Phineas Gage. Many cite Gage’s story as example of severed personal identity; Phineas underwent such a tremendous change that Gage “survived as a (...) different man.” I discuss a recent empirical finding about judgments about this hypothetical. It is not just the magnitude of the change that affects identity judgment; it is also the negative direction of the change. I present an experiment suggesting that direction of change also affects neuroethical judgments. I conclude we should consider carefully the way in which improvements and deteriorations affect attributions of personal identity. This is particularly important since a number of the most crucial neuroethical decisions involve varieties of cognitive enhancements or deteriorations. (shrink)

The handicap principle has come under significant challenge both from empirical studies and from theoretical work. As a result, a number of alternative explanations for honest signaling have been proposed. This paper compares the evolutionary plausibility of one such alternative, the "hybrid equilibrium," to the handicap principle. We utilize computer simulations to compare these two theories as they are instantiated in Maynard Smith's Sir Philip Sidney game. We conclude that, when both types of communication are possible, evolution is unlikely to (...) lead to handicap signaling and is far more likely to result in the partially honest signaling predicted by hybrid equilibrium theory. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim to employ intuitions in their philosophical arguments. Others contest that no such intuitions are used frequently or at all in philosophy. This article suggests and defends a conception of intuitions as part of the philosophical method: intuitions are special types of philosophical assumptions to which we are invited to assent, often as premises in argument, that may serve an independent function in philosophical argument and that are not formed through a purely inferential process. A series of philosophical (...) case studies shows that intuitions in these arguments contain the relevant features. The view has implications for philosophical method, offering a compromise between opponents on the divisive debate of the merits of experimental philosophy: experimental philosophy provides an especially useful role in philosophical assumption analysis. (shrink)

Scalar Utilitarianism eschews foundational notions of rightness and wrongness in favor of evaluative comparisons of outcomes. I defend Scalar Utilitarianism from two critiques, the first against an argument for the thesis that Utilitarianism's commitments are fundamentally evaluative, and the second that Scalar Utilitarianism does not issue demands or sufficiently guide action. These defenses suggest a variety of more plausible Scalar Utilitarian interpretations, and I argue for a version that best represents a moral theory founded on evaluative notions, and offers better (...) answers to demandingness concerns than does the ordinary Scalar Utilitarian response. If Utilitarians seek reasonable development and explanation of their basic commitments, they may wish to reconsider Scalar Utilitarianism. (shrink)

Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap between Us and Them. . ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2013.871618.

Robert Coover’s Novel, The Public Buming, merges fantasy, history, and popular myth to respond to the American Cold War culture surrounding the trial of Ethal and Julius Rosenberg. While serving as a postmodern response to, and rewrite of, the Cold War ideological narratives, Coover’s novel also raises theoretical and practical questions concerning the author’s agency in the twentieth century. This article makes use of the language theories of Bruce Andrews, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Charles Peirce to consider how Coover’s fiction addresses (...) the conflict between the public and private self, authorial discourse and collective ideological discourse. Coover’s novel reflects on these tensions, foregrounding the erosion of an autonomous concept of self and a Romantic notion of autotelic creation. At the same time, it employs a range of strategies (recovery of alternative voices, dismantling of polarities, rewriting) as a form of resistance against the monologic narratives of the Cold War.Le roman de Robert Coover, The Public Buming, combine I’imaginaire, I’histoire, et le mythe populaire pour repondre ala culture de la guerre froide américaine dans laquelle baigne le procès d’Ethal et de Julius Rosenberg. Bien qu’il serve de reponse aux narrations ideologiques de la guerre froide et de réécriture de celles-ci, le roman de Coover soulève aussi des questions théoriques et pratiques relativement à I’action de I’auteur au vingtième siècle. Le présent article utilise les théories du langage de Bruce Andrews, Mikhail Bakhtin, et Charles Peirce afin d’analyser la façon dont le roman-fiction de Coover aborde le conflit entre le soi public et privé et entre le discours de I’auteur et le discours idéologique collectif. Le roman de Coover médite sur ces tensions en mettant I’accent sur I’erosion du concept autonome de soi et de la notion romantique de création autotélique. À la même occasion, il emploie un éventail de stratégies (recouvrement de contre-voix, démantèlement des polarités, réécriture) en tant que résistances aux narrations monoloqigues de la guerre froide. (shrink)

This essay attempts to interrogate the distinct character of Peter Sloterdijk’s declaration of the absolute imperative that concludes his work, You Must Change Your Life, by contextualizing it within the development of his notion of anthropotechnics. In particular, the essays examine the claim that his is a new and unprecedented form of the absolute imperative that is alone able to address, in an effective way, the contemporary global crises that are confronting us now. The first sections trace out the ways (...) in which this new imperative differs from previous forms of the imperative, including the categorical, the aesthetic, and the existential-ontological. The latter sections then discuss how the new form of the imperative is connected to Sloterdijk’s radical attempt at a rethinking of the essence of the human as always already technological, which is the very project of anthropotechnics. This leads finally to a discussion of Sloterdijk’s polemical engagement with Heidegger’s question concerning technology, in which I trace out his attempt at a sweeping translation of Heidegger’s notion of enframing [Gestell] into enhousing [Gehäuse] and the consequences thereof. (shrink)

We consider three accepted truths about iris biometrics, involving pupil dilation, contact lenses and template aging. We also consider a relatively ignored issue that may arise in system interoperability. Experimental results from our laboratory demonstrate that the three accepted truths are not entirely true, and also that interoperability can involve subtle performance degradation. All four of these problems affect primarily the stability of the match, or authentic, distribution of template comparison scores rather than the non-match, or imposter, distribution of scores. (...) In this sense, these results confirm the security of iris biometrics in an identity verification scenario. We consider how these problems affect the usability and security of iris biometrics in large-scale applications, and suggest possible remedies. (shrink)

_Steal This University_ explores the paradox of academic labor. Universities do not exist to generate a profit from capital investment, yet contemporary universities are increasingly using corporations as their model for internal organization. While the media, politicians, business leaders and the general public all seem to share a remarkable consensus that higher education is indispensable to the future of nations and individuals alike, within academia bitter conflicts brew over the shape of tomorrow's universities. Contributors to the volume range from the (...) star academic to the disgruntled adjunct and each bring a unique perspective to the discussion on the academy's over-reliance on adjuncts and teaching assistants, the debate over tenure and to the valiant efforts to organize unions and win rights. (shrink)

One finds a surprising number of defenses of the legitimacy of some kinds of question-begging arguments or beliefs in the literature. Without wanting to deny the importance of dialectical analyses of begging the question, what I do here is explore the epistemic side of the issue. In particular, I want to explore the legitimacy of “epistemically circular” arguments and beliefs. My tentative conclusion is that epistemically circular arguments and beliefs are never legitimate. *Note: this is an unpublished manuscript presented at (...) the 2011 conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. A copy of the manuscript is hosted at the OSSA conference archive, linked above. Some of the central ideas in this paper appear in my "Epistemic Circularity, Reliabilism, and Transmission Failure," Episteme (2014). (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Die exponentiell wachsende Verfügbarkeit von Gesundheitsdaten bietet Forschenden ungeahnte Potenziale für Innovationen. Gleichzeitig gehen mit der Verwertung von Big Data auch große ethische Herausforderungen einher, die es zu bewältigen gilt, um den Anforderungen an verantwortungsvolle Forschung und Innovation gerecht zu werden (Gerke et al. 2020; Howe III und Elenberg 2020). Datensouveränität und die damit verbundenen Grundsätze der Selbstbestimmung und der informierten Zustimmung sind dabei zentrale Ziele. Allerdings hat deren konsistente Umsetzung enorme Konsequenzen für die Datenerhebung und -verarbeitung in (...) der Praxis. Dies trifft insbesondere angesichts einer Zunahme an Quantität und Komplexität von Daten im Gesundheitswesen zu. Denn aufgrund des Potenzials, relevante aber bisher verborgene Informationen aus der Datenmenge zu erschließen, ist eine zunehmende Anwendung von künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) in diesem Bereich zu erwarten (Jiang et al. 2017). Folglich besteht ein Bedarf an ethisch fundierten Handlungsanweisungen, die helfen, Datensouveränität und informierte Zustimmung in der klinischen Forschung umzusetzen. Material und Methoden Durch Anwendung einer narrativen Literaturrecherche in Kombination mit einem Design-Thinking-Ansatz soll das vorliegende Papier einen Beitrag zur Literatur leisten, indem die folgende Forschungsfrage beantwortet wird: Welche praktischen Anforderungen gibt es für eine konsequente Umsetzung von Datensouveränität und informierter Einwilligung im Gesundheitswesen? Ergebnisse Es wird gezeigt, dass Privatsphäre wahrende Technologien, menschenzentriert entwickelte Nutzungs- und Interaktionslösungen, erklärbare und vertrauenswürdige KI, Nutzerakzeptanz und -vertrauen, Patientenbeteiligung und eine wirksame Gesetzgebung zentrale Voraussetzungen für Datensouveränität und Selbstbestimmung in der klinischen Forschung sind. Die Bedeutung für die Entwicklung von IT-Lösungen im deutschen Gesundheitssystem wird dargelegt. (shrink)

Background The rapidly growing quantity of health data presents researchers with ample opportunity for innovation. At the same time, exploitation of the value of Big Data poses various ethical challenges that must be addressed in order to fulfil the requirements of responsible research and innovation (Gerke et al. 2020 ; Howe III and Elenberg 2020 ). Data sovereignty and its principles of self-determination and informed consent are central goals in this endeavor. However, their consistent implementation has enormous consequences for the (...) collection and processing of data in practice, especially given the complexity and growth of data in healthcare, which implies that artificial intelligence (AI) will increasingly be applied in the field due to its potential to unlock relevant, but previously hidden, information from the growing number of data (Jiang et al. 2017 ). Consequently, there is a need for ethically sound guidelines to help determine how data sovereignty and informed consent can be implemented in clinical research. Methods Using the method of a narrative literature review combined with a design thinking approach, this paper aims to contribute to the literature by answering the following research question: What are the practical requirements for the thorough implementation of data sovereignty and informed consent in healthcare? Results We show that privacy-preserving technologies, human-centered usability and interaction design, explainable and trustworthy AI, user acceptance and trust, patient involvement, and effective legislation are key requirements for data sovereignty and self-determination in clinical research. We outline the implications for the development of IT solutions in the German healthcare system. (shrink)

In Replacing Truth, Scharp takes the concept of truth to be fundamentally incoherent. As such, Scharp reckons it to be unsuited for systematic philosophical theorising and in need of replacement – at least for regions of thought and talk which permit liar sentences and their ilk to be formulated. This replacement methodology is radical because it not only recommends that the concept of truth be replaced, but that the word ‘true’ be replaced too. Only Tarski has attempted anything like it (...) before. I dub such a view Conceptual Marxism. In assessing this view, my goals are fourfold: to summarise the many components of Scharp’s theory of truth; to highlight what I take to be some of the excess baggage carried by the view; to assess whether, and to what extent, the extreme methodology on offer is at all called for; finally, to briefly propose a less radical replacement strategy for resolving the liar paradox. (shrink)

What do human beings use conditional reasoning for? A psychological consequence of counterfactual conditional reasoning is emotional experience, in particular, regret and relief. Adults’ thoughts about what might have been influence their evaluations of reality. We discuss recent psychological experiments that chart the relationship between children’s ability to engage in conditional reasoning and their experience of counterfactual emotions. Relative to conditional reasoning, counterfactual emotions are late developing. This suggests that children need not only competence in conditional reasoning, but also to (...) engage in this thinking spontaneously. Developments in domain general cognitive processing (the executive functions) allow children to develop from conditional reasoning to reasoning with counterfactual content and, eventually, to experiencing counterfactual emotions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAndrew Bacon, Matti Eklund, and Patrick Greenough have individually proposed objections to the project in my book, Replacing Truth. Briefly, the book outlines a conceptual engineering project – our defective concept of truth is replaced for certain purposes with a team of concepts that can do some of the jobs we thought truth could do. Here, I respond to their objections and develop the views expressed in Replacing Truth in various ways.

In contemporary philosophy of science many theories of explanation are rooted in positivist or post-positivists accounts of explanation. This paper attempts to ground a phenomenological account of scientific explanation by using the works of Werner Heisenberg and Patrick Heelan. To explain something for Heisenberg is to describe what can be intersubjectively observed and conceptualized in an adequate language. However, this needs to be qualified, as not any adequate account will do. While Heisenberg thinks that Kant is right to think (...) that a priori concepts are the conditions which make science, and thus explanation, possible, he also believes pure a priori concepts have a limited range of applicability. Neils Bohr shared this belief with Heisenberg, but thinks human thought can go no further. However, Heisenberg never gave up on the idea that we could create new concepts that act as a priori grounds for quantum entities. To go beyond Heisenberg, I believe that we should look to Husserl’s account of Evidenz and the material a priori to help us think about a phenomenological account of explanation. (shrink)

In the sonnet Epic by Patrick Kavanagh, the poet wonders if it is justifiable to write about a quarrel in rural Ireland instead of about the Second World War. H.

This book asks whether evolution can help us to understand human behaviour and explores diverse evolutionary methods and arguments. It provides a short, readable introduction to the science behind the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker. It is widely used in undergraduate courses around the world.

What is it to see the world, other people, and imagined situations as making personal moral demands of us? What is it to experience stories as speaking to us personally and directly? Kierkegaard's Mirrors explores Kierkegaard's answers to these questions, with a new phenomenological interpretation of Kierkegaardian 'interest'.

An important and engaging book on a key argument in contemporary debates about free will and moral responsibility.

Theoretical Computer Science, 383: 270-289, 2007.

A new solution to the liar paradox is developed using the insight that it is illegitimate to even suppose (let alone assert) that a liar sentence has a truth-status (true or not) on the grounds that supposing this sentence to be true/not-true essentially defeats the telos of supposition in a readily identifiable way. On that basis, the paradox is blocked by restricting the Rule of Assumptions in Gentzen-style presentations of the sequent-calculus. The lesson of the liar is that not all (...) assumptions are for free. One merit of this proposal is that it is free from the revenge problem. (shrink)

Patrick Frierson - Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 313-338 Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes Patrick R. Frierson The whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics, (...) and morals. Descartes is well known for his metaphysics and physics, the roots and trunk of his philosophical project. But Descartes's morals are generally neglected, partly because they are so difficult to find. He does not dedicate a major published work to morality. His most direct comments on it are in letters to Princess Elizabeth and Pierre Chanut. The published work that most touches on moral issues is The Passions of the Soul, which is primarily a treatise on the relationship between mind and body. As a result of this lack of primary sources , there have been only a few significant studies of Descartes's moral philosophy in French, and only two major works devoted to it in English. This neglect of Descartes's ethics is unfortunate, not least since ethical concerns sometimes influence his work in other areas. This.. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts is the first student-friendly introduction to the uses of cognitive science in the study of literature, written specifically for the non-scientist. Patrick Colm Hogan guides the reader through all of the major theories of cognitive science, focusing on those areas that are most important to fostering a new understanding of the production and reception of literature. This accessible volume provides a strong foundation of the basic principles of cognitive science, and allows us to (...) begin to understand how the brain works and makes us feel as we read. (shrink)

The Law of Non-Contradiction holds that both sides of a contradiction cannot be true. Dialetheism is the view that there are contradictions both sides of which are true. Crucial to the dispute, then, is the central notion of contradiction. My first step here is to work toward clarification of that simple and central notion: Just what is a contradiction?

Patrick Gardiner; XII—Error, Faith and Self-Deception, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 June 1970, Pages 221–244, https://doi.org/.

Although there is a massive amount of work on truth, there is very little work on falsity. Most philosophers probably think this is appropriate; after all, once we have a solid understanding of truth, falsity should not prove to be much of a challenge. However, there are several interesting and difficult issues associated with understanding falsity. After considering two prominent definitions of falsity and presenting objections to each one, I propose a definition that avoids their problems.