A comprehensive collection of essays by the philosopher Lewis White Beck.

Can a machine think? More pointedly, if I am a machine, can I think? Beck answers these questions by analyzing two clusters of metaphors -- one of which dramatizes human beings as spontaneous agents (actors), and the other sees them as observers attempting to explain causally their own behavior and that of the actor (spectators). Using a hypothetical scene with two spectators, each explaining an action, and each representing a different way of viewing the world, Beck points up (...) the central philosophical problems raised by the varieties of ways in which we explain our own actions and those of others. (shrink)

This comprehensive history of German philosophy from its medieval beginnings to near the end of the eighteenth century explores the spirit of German intellectual life and its distinctiveness from that of other countries. Beck devotes whole chapters to four great philosophers -- Nicholas of Cusa, Leibniz, Lessing, and Kant -- and extensively examines many others, including Albertus Magnus, Meister Eckhart, Paracelsus, Kepler, Mendelssohn, Wolff, and Herder. Questioning explanations of philosophy by the racial or ethnic character of its exponents, (...) class='Hi'>Beck's conclusion is that German philosophy developed as a series of diverse responses to the historical experiences of the German people. The peculiarities of German philosophy must be viewed in the light of German political problems and educational structures. In particular he stresses the importance of the connections between philosophy and Germany's intellectual, literary, religious, and political history. (shrink)

Relationalism maintains that mind-independent objects are essential constituents of veridical perceptual experiences. According to the argument from hallucination, relationalism is undermined by perfect hallucinations, experiences that are introspectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptual experiences but lack an object. Recently, a new wave of relationalists have responded by questioning whether perfect hallucinations are possible: what seem to be perfect hallucinations may really be something else, such as illusions, veridical experiences of non-obvious objects, or experiences that are not genuinely possible. This paper argues (...) that however well new wave relationalism may handle brains in vats, drug users “seeing” pink elephants, and other extraordinary hallucinations, it struggles to accommodate mundane hallucinations, such as “hearing” your child cry out from the room down the hall when she is actually sound asleep or “feeling” vibrations on your thigh even when your phone isn't in your pocket. Mundane hallucinations are best explained as byproducts of noise in the perceptual system, and noise-induced hallucinations are resistant to the strategies that new wave relationalists deploy to explain away other hallucinations. Mundane hallucinations can thus underpin an especially powerful version of the argument from hallucination. (shrink)

John Morrison has argued that confidences are assigned in perceptual experience. For example, when you perceive a figure in the distance, your experience might assign a 55-percent confidence to the figure’s being Isaac. Morrison’s argument leans on the phenomenon of ‘completely trusting your experience’. I argue that Morrison presupposes a problematic ‘importation model’ of this familiar phenomenon, and propose a very different way of thinking about it. While the article’s official topic is whether confidences are assigned in perceptual experience, it (...) is also about two more general issues: how we can determine which properties are assigned in perceptual experience; and how we transition from perception to belief. (shrink)

ArgumentFriedrich August von Hayek is mainly known for his defense of free-market economics and liberalism. His views on science – more specifically on the methodological differences between the physical sciences on the one hand, and evolutionary biology and the social sciences on the other – are less well known. Yet in order to understand, and properly evaluate Hayek's political position, we must look at the theory of scientific method that underpins it. Hayek believed that a basic misunderstanding of the discipline (...) of economics and the complex phenomena with which it deals produced misconceptions concerning its method and goals, which led in turn to the adoption of dangerous policies. The objective of this article is to trace the development of Hayek's views on the nature of economics as a scientific discipline and to examine his conclusions concerning the scope of economic prediction. In doing so, I will first show that Hayek's interest in the natural sciences, as well as his interest in epistemology, were central to his thought, dating back to his formative years. I will then emphasize the important place of historical analysis in Hayek's reflections on methodology and examine the reasons for his strong criticism of positivism and socialism. Finally, in the third and fourth sections that constitute the bulk of this article, I will show how Hayek's understanding of the data and goal of the social sciences, culminated in an analogy that sought to establish economics and evolutionary biology as exemplary complex sciences. I will challenge Hayek's interpretation of this analogy through a comparison with Darwin's views inThe Origin of Species, and thus open a door to re-evaluating the theoretical foundations of Hayek's political claims. (shrink)

Recently, the debate on human enhancement has shifted from familiar topics like cognitive enhancement and mood enhancement to a new and – to no one's surprise – controversial subject, namely moral enhancement. Some proponents from the transhumanist camp allude to the ‘urgent need’ of improving the moral conduct of humankind in the face of ever growing technological progress and the substantial dangers entailed in this enterprise. Other thinkers express more sceptical views about this proposal. As the debate has revealed so (...) far, there is no shared opinion among philosophers about the meaning, prospects, and ethical evaluation of moral enhancement. In this article I will address several conceptual and practical problems of this issue, in order to encourage discussion about the prospects of moral enhancement in the future. My assumption is that for the short term, there is little chance of arriving at an agreement on the proper understanding of morality and the appropriateness of one single ethical theory; apart from this, there are further philosophical puzzles loosely referred to in the debate which add to theoretical confusion; and even if these conceptual problems could be solved, there are still practical problems to be smoothed out if moral enhancement is ever to gain relevance apart from merely theoretical interest. My tentative conclusion, therefore, will be that moral enhancement is not very likely to be made sense of – let alone realized – in the medium-term future. (shrink)

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological ...

Over the past 50 years, philosophers and psychologists have perennially argued for the existence of analog mental representations of one type or another. This study critically reviews a number of these arguments as they pertain to three different types of mental representation: perceptual representations, imagery representations, and numerosity representations. Along the way, careful consideration is given to the meaning of “analog” presupposed by these arguments for analog mental representation, and to open avenues for future research.

ABSTRACT Activists and writers on injustice have highlighted as a structural problem that injustice is experienced differentially. What injustices of privilege lie hidden in my daily academic life? Three deeply discomforting moments relating to Class, climate, and Whiteness privilege, form the core of an account of gradually admitting to my passive acceptance of injustice in the form of privileges from which I benefit. My ignorance has perpetuated privilege despite this not being my conscious will. From this crisis, the paper explores (...) the inner work for healing injustice individually, and the outer work of changing collective habits of dominance within the Academy. A starting point is befriending my will to injustice and facing up to my privileges. Effort needed from White, Middle Class academics ‘like me’ includes uncovering ways in which we benefit from privilege whether or not we want to. Proposals are made for inner growth through building community among academics. (shrink)

We discuss whether the two systems approach can advance understanding of children's developing counterfactual thinking. We argue that types of counterfactual thinking that are acquired early in development could be handled by the temporal updating system, whereas those that emerge in middle childhood require thinking about specific events in time.

In the 1980s, a number of philosophers argued that perception is analog. In the ensuing years, these arguments were forcefully criticized, leaving the thesis in doubt. This paper draws on Weber’s Law, a well-entrenched finding from psychophysics, to advance a new argument that perception is analog. This new argument is an adaptation of an argument that cognitive scientists have leveraged in support of the contention that primitive numerical representations are analog. But the argument here is extended to the representation of (...) non-numerical magnitudes, such as luminance and distance, and shown to apply to perception and not just cognition. The relevant sense of ‘analog’ is also clarified, and two powerful objections are addressed. Finally, the question whether perception’s analog vehicles are located in conscious experience is explored and related to a well-known controversy within psychophysics. (shrink)

Perceptions are externally-directed—they present us with a mind-independent reality, and thus contribute to our abilities to think about this reality, and to know what is objectively the case. But perceptions are also internally-dependent—their phenomenologies depend on the neuro-computational properties of the subject. A good theory of perception must account for both these facts. But naive realism has been criticized for failing to accommodate internal-dependence. This paper evaluates and responds to this criticism. It first argues that a certain version of naive (...) realism, often called “selectionism”, does indeed struggle with internal-dependence. It then develops an alternate version of naive realism which does not. This alternate version, inspired by an idea of Martin’s, accommodates the internal-dependence of perceptions by recognizing the role that the subject’s neuro-computational properties play in shaping perceptual phenomenology. At the same time, it retains the distinctive naive realist account of the external-directedness of perceptions. (shrink)

Research questions and backgroundThis study explores a highly controversial issue of medical care in Germany: the decision to withhold or withdraw mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients. It analyzes difficulties in making these decisions and the physicians’ uncertainty in understanding the German terminology of Sterbehilfe, which is used in the context of treatment limitation. Used in everyday language, the word Sterbehilfe carries connotations such as helping the patient in the dying process or helping the patient to enter the dying process. (...) Yet, in the legal and ethical discourse Sterbehilfe indicates several concepts: (1) treatment limitation, i.e., withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (passive Sterbehilfe), (2) the use of medication for symptom control while taking into account the risk of hastening the patient’s death (indirekte Sterbehilfe), and (3) measures to deliberately terminate the patient’s life (aktive Sterbehilfe). The terminology of Sterbehilfe has been criticized for being too complex and misleading, particularly for practical purposes. Materials and methods An exploratory study based on qualitative interviews was conducted with 28 physicians from nine medical intensive care units in tertiary care hospitals in the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The method of data collection was a problem-centered, semi-structured interview using two authentic clinical case examples. In order to shed light on the relation between the physicians’ concepts and the ethical and legal frames of reference, we analyzed their way of using the terms passive and aktive Sterbehilfe. Results Generally, the physicians were more hesitant in making decisions to withdraw rather than withhold mechanical ventilation. Almost half of them assumed a categorical prohibition to withdraw any mechanical ventilation and more than one third felt that treatment ought not to be withdrawn at all. Physicians showed specific uncertainty about classifying the withdrawal of mechanical ventilation as passive Sterbehilfe, and had difficulties understanding that terminating ventilation is not basically illegal, but the permissibility of withdrawal depends on the situation. Conclusions The physicians’ knowledge and skills in interpreting clinical ethical dilemmas require specific improvement on the one hand; on the other hand, the terms passive and aktive Sterbehilfe are less clear than desirable and not as easy to use in clinical practice. Fear of making unjustified or illegal decisions may motivate physicians to continue (even futile) treatment. Physicians strongly opt for more open discussion about end-of-life care to allow for discontinuation of futile treatment and to reduce conflict. (shrink)

This article analyses what it means for the attribution of responsibility to adopt a structural perspective on macro-social phenomena. To this end, a specific form of responsibility, namely ‘structural responsibility’, is distinguished from and placed in relation to personal and interpersonal moral responsibility. It is argued that only with the attribution of structural responsibility can we appropriately take account of macro-social problems including those that are predominant in international relations. Using the example of climate responsibility, the article explains in a (...) final step what happens when structural responsibility is overlooked, trivialised or even negated. (shrink)

This paper explores one organisation’s journey into non-financial reporting, initially motivated by a crisis in public confidence that threatened the organisation’s legitimacy to the present with the organisation embracing integrated reporting. The organisation’s journey is framed through a legitimation lens and is illustrated by aligning internal reflections with external outputs guided by predominant paradigms of good practice, such as the GRI guidelines and more recently integrated reporting 〈IR〉. We find that the organisation’s relationship with external guidelines has evolved from pragmatic (...) adoption as a means of seeking external legitimation to the present position where those that prepare external reports are informed by the organisation’s strategic positioning and not constrained by the promulgation of voluntary guidelines. From the case study, we suggest that the International Integrated Reporting Council may face two hurdles: First, organisations may define social norms based on a broader definition of stakeholders than the definition currently published by the IIRC. The second hurdle is to convince report preparers that adopting integrated reporting 〈IR〉 will positively impact on capital flows. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore an under-investigated question concerning the class of formal models that aim at providing normative guidance. We call such models normative models. In particular, we examine the question of how normative models can successfully exert normative guidance. First, we highlight the absence of a discussion of this question – which is surprising given the extensive debate about the success conditions of descriptive models – and motivate its importance. Second, we introduce and discuss two potential accounts of (...) the success conditions of normative models. Our tentative conclusion is that the second account is more promising. (shrink)

This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values critically explores a new stage in which the life sciences and biomedical practices have entered. This new stage is marked by postgenomic developments and an increased interest of life sciences in the everyday lives of people outside laboratories and clinical settings. Furthermore, particular attention is given to many chronic and degenerative disorders such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or developmental disorders. These developments coincide—or have become entangled—with a new set of interests (...) that an anthropologically inclined science and technology studies is bringing to the analyses of biomedical practices. An increased interest is observed in the anthropologically inclined STS in studying phenomena on different scales and in exploring fields that are not readily dominated by technoscientific rationality in practice. The introduction to the special issue examines briefly these developments and situates them in a broader genealogy of different movements that have taken place in the anthropologically inclined subfield of STS since the late 1970s and early 1980s. (shrink)

In this article, I critically reassess Iris Marion Young's late works, which centre on the distinction between liability and social connection responsibility. I concur with Young's diagnosis that structural injustices call for a new conception of responsibility, but I reject several core assumptions that underpin her distinction between two models and argue for a different way of conceptualising responsibility to address structural injustices. I show that Young's categorical separation of guilt and responsibility is not supported by the writings of Hannah (...) Arendt, which Young draws on, and that it is also untenable on independent systematic grounds. Furthermore, I argue that several of Young's other criteria fail to clearly demarcate two distinct phenomena. I therefore propose to transcend Young's distinction between two models in favour of a related, but conceptually different distinction between two forms of responsibility: interactional and structural. Embracing this terminology facilitates the conceptualisation of the general features of responsibility that are shared by both forms, including their retrospective and prospective time-direction and their applicability to individual, joint and group agency. The distinction between interactional and structural responsibility also yields a more compelling general account of the role of background structures, and of blame within ascriptions of political responsibility. (shrink)

1. Terminological Considerations. Since Russell enunciated the principle, “Wherever possible logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities,” or “Wherever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities,” the terminological situation has become confused. Russell defined neither “construction” nor “inferred entity.” “Construct” soon came to be used for “construction,” perhaps to avoid the ambiguity whereby the latter term was used to refer to both a process and a result. But many writers now use “construction” or (...) “construct” to refer to what Russell called the “inferred entity.” This seems to be the usage of Margenau, Ramsperger, Benjamin, Bures, and many others. Again, some of the same writers in other places remain closer to Russell's usage. And I find it difficult to determine exactly the relation of the usage of some writers to that of Russell because of the differences between their contexts and Russell's. I experience this difficulty in reading, for instance, both Miss Stebbing and Werkmeister. The terminological difficulties have been evaded by some other writers who have formulated new terms to refer to Russell's inferred entities. Thus Northrop speaks of the “theoretic component” and Miller has coined the word, “interphenomena.” The terms reflecting Russell's rule in psychology have become so confused that a set of explicit definitions has recently been proposed. (shrink)

Beck discusses the works on religion of the six philosophers he considers most germane to contemporary issues: Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, James, and Santayana. "I have tried to choose men whose independence of mind was such that they often appeared to their contemporaries to be enemies of religion". He first addresses the question, What is secular philosophy? And then explains the differences between the "families" of secular philosophers, before examining both their life and works.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Echoing Hosea, Jesus defends his embrace of the "unclean" in the Gospel of Matthew, seeming to privilege the prophetic call to justice over the Levitical pursuit of purity. And yet, as missional faith communities are well aware, the tensions and conflicts between holiness and mercy are not so easily resolved. At every turn, it seems that the psychological pull of purity and holiness tempts the church into practices of social exclusion and a Gnostic "flight" from (...) the world into a "too spiritual" spirituality. In an unprecedented fusion of psychological science and theological scholarship, Richard Beck describes the pernicious (and largely unnoticed) effects of the psychology of purity upon the life and mission of the church. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Kommentar wirft, nach einer knappen Zusammenfassung der Argumentation des Beitrags von Tatjana Tarkian, einige grundsätzliche Fragen auf, welche die Geltungsreichweite und Anwendbarkeit der Prinzipien der reproduktiven Autonomie und der wohltätigen Fortpflanzung betreffen. Welche prospektiven Eltern sind Adressat*innen der Prinzipien der reproduktiven Freiheit und der wohltätigen Fortpflanzung? Stellen diese Prinzipien universell und überzeitlich gültige allgemeine Prinzipien dar, die generell in jeder Situation reproduktiver Entscheidung Berücksichtigung finden sollten? Lassen sie sich nur unter der Voraussetzung bestimmter Bedingungen bzw. im Rahmen bestimmter (...) Kontexte anwenden? Sind die beiden Prinzipien kompatibel oder widersprechen sie sich? Kommt prospektiven Eltern eine moralische Verantwortung für die Umsetzbarkeit ihrer reproduktiven Freiheit zu? (shrink)

In this study, three individual descriptions of anxiety as experienced in social situations were analyzed so that a general structure representing social anxiety could potentially be obtained. The descriptions analyzed produced results that not only overlapped with already existing literature from various perspectives on the topic, but also highlighted certain key factors that have largely been unaccounted for by prior studies. By utilizing the Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology , these factors were brought to light in more depth and clarity (...) than if the same phenomenon were studied using a third person approach. Specifically, six constituents of social anxiety were revealed; including factors related to inter-subjectivity, the relationship between fear and anxiety, and the relationship between desire and self-lack. (shrink)

A collection of Lewis White Beck's most important essays on Immanuel Kant's philosophy.

Empirical discussions of mental representation appeal to a wide variety of representational kinds. Some of these kinds, such as the sentential representations underlying language use and the pictorial representations of visual imagery, are thoroughly familiar to philosophers. Others have received almost no philosophical attention at all. Included in this latter category are analogue magnitude representations, which enable a wide range of organisms to primitively represent spatial, temporal, numerical, and related magnitudes. This article aims to introduce analogue magnitude representations to a (...) philosophical audience by rehearsing empirical evidence for their existence and analysing their format, their content, and the computations they support. 1 Background1.1 Evidence of analogue magnitude representations1.2 Weber’s law1.3 Scepticism about analogue magnitude representations2 Format2.1 Carey’s analogy2.2 Neural realization2.3 Analogue representation2.4 Analogue magnitude representation components3 Content3.1 Do analogue magnitude representations have representational content?3.2 What do analogue magnitude representations represent?3.3 What content types do analogue magnitude representations have?4 Computations4.1 Arithmetic computation4.2 Practical deliberation5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Can a machine think? More pointedly, if I am a machine, can I think? Beck answers these questions by analyzing two clusters of metaphors -- one of which dramatizes human beings as spontaneous agents (actors), and the other sees them as observers attempting to explain causally their own behavior and that of the actor (spectators). Using a hypothetical scene with two spectators, each explaining an action, and each representing a different way of viewing the world, Beck points up (...) the central philosophical problems raised by the varieties of ways in which we explain our own actions and those of others. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

The phenomenal particularity thesis says that if a mind-independent particular is consciously perceived in a given perception, that particular is among the constituents of the perception’s phenomenology. Martin, Campbell, Gomes and French and others defend this thesis. Against them are Mehta, Montague, Schellenberg and others, who have produced strong arguments that the phenomenal particularity thesis is false. Unfortunately, neither side has persuaded the other, and it seems that the debate between them is now at an impasse. This paper aims to (...) break through this impasse. It argues that we have reached the impasse because two distinct conceptions of phenomenology—a “narrow” conception and a “broad” conception—are compatible with our what-it-is-like characterizations of phenomenology. It also suggests that each of these two conceptions has its own theoretical value and use. Therefore, the paper recommends a pluralistic position, on which we acknowledge that there are two kinds of phenomenology: narrow phenomenology and broad phenomenology. The phenomenal particularity thesis is true only with respect to the latter. (shrink)

The psychological continuity theory of personal identity has recently been accused of not meeting what is claimed to be a fundamental requirement on theories of identity - to explain personal moral responsibility. Although they often have much to say about responsibility, the charge is that they cannot say enough. I set out the background to the charge with a short discussion of Locke and the requirement to explain responsibility, then illustrate the accusation facing the theory with details from Marya Schechtman. (...) I aim some questions at the challengers’ reading of Locke, leading to an argument that the psychological continuity theory can say all that it needs to say about responsibility, and so is not in any grave predicament, at least not with regard to this particular charge. (shrink)

When this work was first published in 1960, it immediately filled a void in Kantian scholarship.