In 1830, members of the Belgian National Congress asserted that they would not attempt to create an ideal constitution. Rather, they wanted to frame a constitution which would take the existing order into account, which would be adapted to Belgian manners and customs. Their ‘pragmatic conservatism’, as it can be described in distinction to Burke's juridical conservatism, was to an important degree inspired by the writings of Montesquieu. Both the discussion on the monarchy and the debate on the senate were (...) influenced by the Esprit des lois. Indirectly, the debates in the National Congress give evidence of the enormous influence of the Esprit des lois on political thought in the Restoration period. (shrink)

Taking user’s role and features as milestones for an approach on scientific representation has become a growing trend. We shall investigate the implications that pragmatics bring in the relevant debate. Proponents of pragmatic approaches support that questions such as ‘how an object represents another’ or ‘which features of a certain object represent the target of the representation and in what way’ can be answered only within the given context of representation’s use. Thus, attention is drawn to the intentionality of (...) the representation, in contrast to the semantic tradition, according to which the representational function is based on morphic relations between the representation and the represented object. Given that scientific representations surrogate objects and phenomena in our studies, they should reproduce aspects, relations and interactions of them, possessing the appropriate features. Therefore, we support that user’s intention is not enough to build the representational relation on it. We claim that a) a sustainable and successful theory of scientific representations cannot be grounded on pragmatics b) pragmatic approaches undermine the objectivity of the knowledge inferred by representations c) the important role of the cognizing subject in a theory of scientific representation can be rescued without the burden coming with pragmatic approaches. (shrink)

To appear in Jean-Yves Béziau (ed.) Proc. First World Congress on the Square of Opposition.

This is the second of two voumes designed to document a trend in Norwegian philosophy away from the empirical semantics represented by Arne Naess towards a more pragmatic and transcendental perspective. A number of the contributed essays examine the controversy between Wittgenstein and the philosophies of Habermas and Apel.

This paper proposes a re-evaluation of the theism vs. atheism controversy from a Kantian transcendental perspective, connected with Jamesian pragmatism. Insofar as there is a morally vital human need to postulate the reality of God, and insofar as this theistic postulation can be regarded as rational or legitimate from the perspective of “practical reason”, metaphysical and ethical aspects of the theism issue turn out to be deeply entangled with each other. A Kantian-cum-pragmatist philosophy of religion will inevitably approach the question (...) of God’s existence from a standpoint that thoroughly synthesizes ethics and metaphysics – just as Kant’s defense of theism as a postulate of practical reason did. (shrink)

The Indian philosophers lay emphasis on mind-control. Mind-control is not only negative practice. For, we are not only required to check and curb our evil tendencies but also employ them for a better purpose. The lower constituents of human beings can not be annihilated but can only be tamed and reformed. Cessation of bad tendencies is coupled with cultivation of good tendencies and is followed by good actions. According to Jainism & Buddhism, the path of liberation from sufferings starts with (...) mind-control. The Jainas emphasize on right faith, right knowledge and right conduct which are regarded as Triratnas, three Jewels. Right conduct consists in abstinence from injury, falsehood, stealing, self-indulgence and attachment. According to Buddhism, way to Nirvan (cessation from suffering) consists in eight-fold path which is nothing but self-control. It starts from right views, right determination and right speech and proceeds through right conduct to right livelihood to right effort and to right mindfulness. This process of self-control finally culminates in right concentration. The Upanishadic thinkers and the systems based on Upanishadic traditions have also recognised the importance of self-control. In view of the importance of mind-control in familial, social, moral and spiritual lives we should consistently and constantly make endeavour to practice mind-control and should fight despondency with enthusiasm in the event of some initial failures. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that, in everyday life, we compare different people’s preferences with respect to content and strength. We typically make such comparisons with relatively little difficulty. Furthermore, we often do not find inter-personal comparisons of preferences more difficult than intra-personal comparisons, that is,comparisons involving our own preferences. This contrasts with the difficulties that comparing preferences across individuals pose at the theoretical level. Since preferences are typically represented numerically through a utility function, the problem is known as the problem (...) of interpersonal utility comparisons (IUCs for short). In this paper, I examine the most common solution to the problem of IUCs. According to it, we can assume that preferences are interpersonally comparable on pragmatic grounds (i.e. explanatory power, parsimony and simplicity) I argue that, contrary to our intuitions, the assumption of interpersonal comparability is not pragmatically advantageous. I conclude that this strategy to solve the problem of IUCs fails. (shrink)

Tarski’s assessment that natural language is inconsistent on account of the Liar Paradox is shown to be incorrect: what Tarski’s theorem in fact shows is that Truth is not a property of sentences but of propositions. By using propositions rather than sentences as the bearers of Truth, semantic closure within the same language is easily obtained. Tarski’s contrary assessment was partly based on confusions about propositions and their grammatical expression. But more centrally it arose through blindness to pragmatic factors in (...) language — a blindness that was common in his time, and it has continued to the present day, in discussions of ‘Open Pairs’, and Yablo-type paradoxes, for instance. For completeness, it is also shown that the Fixed Point Theorem does not apply to propositions, because of categorical differences between sentences and propositions — also predicates and properties. (shrink)

Religious pluralism (the view that all the great world religions are equally true) is largely motivated by the fear that religious exclusivism ( the view that there is just one correct religion) leads to intolerance and oppression of those holding differing religious views. I claim that this suggests a false dichotomy: either be a tolerant pluralist or an intolerant exclusivist. I argue, first, that the seventeenth-century doctrine of toleration supports the claim that exclusivists of differing sects can peacefully coexist and, (...) second, that religious pluralism has harmful consequences. Exclusivism (tempered by toleration) is the best solution to the challenge of religious diversity. (shrink)

Research on the human embryo is one of the most obstinately controversial issues of international bioethical debate. There has not been enough of a consensus on this issue to allow for more than a formal compromise within Europe. I argue in this paper for a pragmatic approach to the problem which accords priority to "want-regarding" considerations but does not fail, as most utilitarian approaches do, to give due weight to the "morality-dependent harms" caused by the practice of embryo research to (...) those rejecting it from other than want-regarding principles. I suggest that in deeply controversial bioethical issues a consistent want-regarding perspective should be prepared, under certain narrow conditions, to make pragmatic tradeoffs between the inherent merits of the practice in question and the averse emotions of the public. These conditions are that the averse emotions are widespread, felt to be of existential importance, and stable under additional information, and that the costs in terms of reduced freedom and foregone humane progress do not seem excessive. (shrink)

Academic studies of Chinese Buddhist views of language generally focus on issues such as paradox, contradiction, and the limits of expression and thought. However, such studies seldom seem to focus on the fact that many Buddhist texts deliberately use an ambiguous mode of linguistic expression, one that actually constitutes their compositional patterns and is designed to enhance and promote the Mahāyāna Buddhist soteriological goal—namely, liberation from suffering via detachment from falseness. In fact, many of the Chinese masters’ treatises and exegetical (...) commentaries develop a textual pragmatics rooted in the ambiguous and paradoxical rhetoric of early Madhyamaka scriptures translated by Kumārajīva. This paper discusses the philosophical and soteriological significance of such a linguistic pragmatics as we find it in the early Chinese Madhyamaka scriptures. The Buddhist doctrines such as “the two truths of the conventional and ultimate,” “emptiness,” “non-duality,” “differentiation,” as well as “the middle way” are the focus of the present paper. (shrink)

Logic and linguistics have engaged in a many-faceted dialogue since the very beginnings of both disciplines in Antiquity. While participants may have had diverse views over the ages, arguably, the dialogue has always revolved around the relationship between human thought and natural language. While there are those who see these two domains as one and the same, or as a case of one-directional influence , we beg to differ. To us, the long historical tradition of authors such as Arnauld, Boole, (...) Turing, or Jespersen demonstrates the much richer perspectives on language and reasoning that are needed, including connections with intelligence and computability.Another major historical theme in the above dialogue are similarities or convergences between natural and artificial languages. It is clear that natural languages are not only semantically broader, but also much closer to human communication than artificial languages, and so linguistic grammars have long dealt with a larger set of problems than logical formalism. This specal issue of JoLLI consists six selected papers presented in the "Logic and Linguisics" Workshop in UNI-LOG 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, plus two papers by invited authors: Johan van Benthem, and Marcus Kracht and Uno Klein. It contains a number of samples of what is intriguing and promising work at the interfaces of logic and language. (shrink)

At the seventh international congress of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, held at Salzburg in 1983, I was talking with John Searle when I glanced at my watch and exclaimed, I must run. I'm due to solve the problem of induction at 2.15. ‘Yes,’ he replied, I must go too; I'm due to solve the mind-body problem. I don't know how seriously he meant his remark, but I did actually believe that I had cracked this old problem in the (...) Epilogue of my Science and Scepticism,1 the manuscript of which was then with the publisher. In that book I drew a sharp distinction between the problem which faces a theoretical scientist trying to select, out of several competing theories, the one that best fulfils the aim of science, and the pragmatic problem which faces an applied scientist or practical decision-maker trying to select, out of several competing hypotheses, the one that offers the best guidance. I had what I still regard as a viable solution to the theoreticians problem. It aid that theoreticians should prefer that theory, if there is one, that is the best corroborated; for on a certain non-trivial but uncontroversial assumption about what kinds of test have been made, the best corroborated theory will best satisfy what I claimed to be the optimum aim for science: it will be deeper and wider than its rivals and, moreover, possibly true, given all the reported outcomes of tests in its field. For present purposes we can forget the explications I offered for ‘deeper’ and ‘wider’. As to ‘possibly true’: this reflects the abandonment of hopes that science can arrive at theories that are certainly true, or at least have a high probability of being true, or at the very least have had their probability raised by the experimental evidence. (shrink)

In 1927, Walter Lippmann published The Phantom Public, denouncing the ‘mystical fallacy of democracy.’ Decrying romantic democratic models that privilege self-governance, he writes: “I have not happened to meet anybody, from a President of the United States to a professor of political science, who came anywhere near to embodying the accepted ideal of the sovereign and omnicompetent citizen.” Almost 90 years later, Lippmann’s pragmatism is as relevant as ever, and should be applied in new contexts where similar self-governance concerns persist. (...) This paper does just that, repurposing Lippmann’s argument in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of the digital citizen in Big Data management. It is argued that proposals by the Federal Trade Commission, the White House and the US Congress, championing failed notice and choice privacy policy, perpetuate a self-governance fallacy comparable to Lippmann’s, referred to here as the fallacy of data privacy self-management. Even if the digital citizen had the faculties and the system for data privacy self-management, the digital citizen has little time for data governance. We desire the freedom to pursue the ends of digital production, without being inhibited by the means. We want privacy, and safety, but cannot complete all that is required for its protection. If it is true that the fallacy of democracy is similar to the fallacy of data privacy self-management, then perhaps the pragmatic solution is representative data management: a combination of non/for-profit digital dossier management via infomediaries that can ensure the protection of personal data, while freeing individuals from what Lippmann referred to as an ‘unattainable ideal.’. (shrink)

This volume contains selected contributions to the interdisciplinary symposium on 'Models of Meaning' held in Varna, September 25-28, 1988, under the auspices of the Institute of the Bulgarian Language of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The aim of the meeting was to broaden the horizons of meaning research and the modeling of linguistic semantics, with contributions centering on the appropriate modeling of lexical, syntactic, and textual-semantic representations. The papers challenge some basic notions of semantics and reveal two main avenues of (...) development in contemporary investigations. One is toward broadening the scope of investigativeness, the second is toward a greater domain-specificity as expressed in a greater sensitivity to pragmatics and meta-pragmatic concerns. (shrink)

Randomized controlled trials test new drugs using various debiasing devices to prevent participants from manipulating the trials. But participants often dislike controls, arguing that they impose a paternalist constraint on their legitimate preferences. The 21st Century Cures Act, passed by US Congress in 2016, encourages the Food and Drug Administration to use alternative testing methods, incorporating participants’ preferences, for regulatory purposes. We discuss, from a historical perspective, the trade-off between trial impartiality and participants’ freedom. We argue that the only way (...) out is considering which methods improve upon the performance of conventional trials in keeping dangerous or inefficacious compounds out of pharmaceutical markets. (shrink)

A volume of studies in natural language semantics which brings together work by philosophers, logicians and linguists. The main topics treated are: quantification and reference in natural language; the relations between formal logic, programming languages and natural language; pragmatics and discourse meaning; surface syntax and logical meaning. The volume derives from a colloquium organised in 1973 by the Kings College Research Centre, Cambridge and the papers have been edited for publication by Professor Keenan. It is hoped that the collection (...) will make available some of the best work in this fast-moving field and will stimulate further progress by juxtaposing the different approaches and interests represented here. (shrink)

This essay combines information on the recent ISUD Sixth World Congress Humanity at the Turning Point: Rethinking Nature, Culture, and Freedom and some reflections inspired by presentations and discussions at the congress. It is focused on the presentation of one of the keynote speakers, Karl-Otto Apel, entitled “Discourse Ethics, Democracy, and International Law: Toward a Globalization of Practical Reason”. Apel argued that the transcendental-pragmatic foundation of morality serves as the ultimate basis for the universal conception of law, e.g., of human (...) rights. It establishes the transcendental basis of the idea of democracy, and at the same time establishes a regulative principle for a possible critique of the democratic states. Apel discussed the question of a political order of law able to represent the idea of human rights. In his approach to it, he referred to Kant’s idea of “a federation of free states” (as opposite to a “world state”) in the solution of the problem of a cosmopolitan system He noticed the tension between two orientations of international law: one towards “human rights” and hence a cosmopolitan law of single citizens and the other towards the sovereignty of single states. He asserted that the universal conception of law cannot be reduced to the legislative autonomy of any state. Consequently, the universal conception of human rights cannot be adequately realized either by particular democratic states or by a world state as a despotic superpower. Apel concluded that an adequate institution for the current debate regarding the issues of global peace and security can only be a federation of nations like the UN, the meta-institution of global discourse and the political representation of international law. At the heart of the essay is Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal and its relevance for today’s discussions about peace and security. Attention is paid to the attempts to rethink Kant by Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas, Jaques Derrida, Martha Nussbaum, and David Held, among others. Some of the authors indicate the tension between the sovereignty ofstates and the universality of human rights. Other authors criticize cosmopolitanism as overly unifying in contrast to the socio-cultural diversity of societies. The essay draws a contrast between two tendencies concerning international relations. One is the current neoconservative course toward American domination throughout the world. An alternative to this is the philosophers’ call for “the cosmopolitan model of democracy” and strengthening the network of transnational grass-roots movements and international institutions, including the UN. (shrink)

It is expected that industrial heritage actually tells the story of the emerging capitalism highlighting the dynamic social relationship between the “workers” and the owners of the “production means”. In current times of economic crisis, it may even involve a painful past with lost social, civil, gender and/or class struggles, a depressing present with abandoned, fragmented, degraded landscapes and ravaged factories, and a hopeless future for the former workers of the local (not only) society; or just a conquerable ground for (...) controversial investments. This is certainly an emotionally charged subject matter, with multiple readings and interpretations. However, this view is only partial when facing landscape during its historical evolution process. A diachronic study, thus, embraces all resources that probably gave rise to a variety of human activities; all of them embody heritage values -“subjectively” or “objectively” perceived- their evaluation, though, is a matter of an on-going process of the civil society. Greece's landscape accommodates a diversity of diachronic productive practices that may overlap historical periods, technological evolutions and social transformations. Pre-, early and industrial exploitation of resources does not remain firm but vary according to time and the needs of each society. The comparative scale of certain resource exploitation is highlighted as the key for the assessment methodology in close relation to the specific frame of a local landscape and a historical period. Even though archaeological evidence may possibly reveal and document continuity in a range of sustainable productive processes without conflicts, great controversies emerge when new investments are “offered” as an antidote to economic crisis -not harmonized to the local scale, traumatizing thus the “spirit” of the landscape. Suggestions for incompatible productive use and investment planning imply irreversible and irreparable effects on the environment, society and economy of a region and are only faced through social awareness. Case studies of passive and/or active involvement of local communities, in synthesizing and enhance landscape’s “spirit”, its diachronic industrial heritage and the embedded tangible and intangible values, will support a pragmatic -not a suspended- step towards a sustainable future. Quoting Neil Cossons (TICCIH Congress 2012) “Industrial imperialism ensures its position and protects its future not by the conquest of distant lands as by the securing of its sources of raw materials ... The modern world is as much under the control of the major industrial powers as it ever was during the colonial era”; if such a case can the industrial heritage sector remain apolitical? (shrink)

Conference paper presented at the 10th International Congress of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Florence, Italy (19-25 August 1995). Extrapolation here refers to the act of inferring more widely from a limited range of known facts. This notion of extrapolation, especially when applied to past events, has recently been used to formulate a pragmatic definition of truth. This paper shows that this definition has serious problems. The pragmatic definition of truth has been formulated in discussions on internal realism. In (...) this paper, the basic internal realist starting point, as expounded in the works of H. Putnam and N. Jardine, will be taken to be the claim that the distinction between judgements that are true from judgements that are false is explainable from within our judgement-forming faculty — no recourse to the external world is necessary. The paper first shows how the pragmatic definition of truth involves a counterfactual statement. It then describes how the counterfactual definition is apparently justified by an inductive argument. In the final step, this justification is shown to be unsuccessful. (shrink)

This paper discusses the pragmatic world view and philosophy of education. It argues that it is possible to integrate certain elements of pragmatic education which are actually Islam’s pragmatism into Muslim education as a tool for the development of the Muslim community. The Islamic world view would not object topragmatic aims of education for understanding and helping the child to think, for preparation for life in society, and education as a scientific and experimental enterprise. It argues that these pragmatic aims (...) which are urgently needed in Muslim education today, are coherent with the Islamic world view but has beenneglected. Hence, they should be revived and integrated to complement the traditional aims of Islamic education and to enhance the development of the Muslims for the present century. (shrink)

This paper sets out to establish that dialogue defines truth in a world of divergent cultures and worldviews. It argues that culture has enormous influence on truth for which truth through monologue has inherent strong potentials that limit intellectual union and discusses how philosophy in its western tradition has served topromote this trend with its hegemony on different world cultures; the effect of which is the quest for difference by other world cultures through cultural philosophies that attempt to infuse reason (...) and logic on their cultural achievement. The result then is an unending ambition for difference which promotes conflict of values in our world. The paper contends that truths realized in such a world is inherently deficient. It recommends dialogue as the basis for truth. Truth in a multi-cultural world would then not be the correspondence to, coherence with and pragmatic to reality but the ability to defy difference to promote the equality of difference. Bylooking at the several ways a thing could not have been for which it is an item, idea or value can then be considered to be true. (shrink)

The paper examines the current debates regarding human rights and international law. Two contrasting approaches are analyzed: One is represented by the neoconservative and neoliberal concepts, which justify forcibly “spreading democracy” through the unilateral intervention of a superpower, thus challenging the global rule of law. The other approach consists of strengthening international human rights law and cosmopolitan order. It is represented by the theorists of “discourse ethics” and “cosmopolitan democracy.” The paper analyses the internal relations and difference between the legislation (...) of a particular democratic state and the universality of international law. It examines the tension between the plurality of democratic states and the universal principles of internationallaw, e.g. human rights, which direct us toward a cosmopolitan legal order. It further asserts that universally valid international law is above any positive law of any state, including a democratic state, and provides a regulative principle for external normative critique with regard to human rights. The paper examines important insights provided by discourse ethics theory. The transcendental-pragmatic principle of discourse ethics gives a moral foundation for human rights and thus for the law of a liberaldemocratic state as well as for international law. As Karl-Otto Apel notes, the idea of democracy is not identical to that of universally valid law, and the universal concept of law cannot be reduced to the legislative autonomy of any state. Jürgen Habermas argues for an “egalitarian universalism” and emphasizes the paramount role of international law as a medium for the advancement of human rights. The analysis shows that the universal concept of human rights cannot be adequately realized either by individual democratic states or by a “world republic” as a hegemonic superpower. Rather, its realization requires strengthened international law and institutions such as a properly reformed UN. The contemporary period is viewed as a transitional phase from an international to a cosmopolitan order. (shrink)

There is a whole discussion around the genuine/non genuine appurtenance of the Fractal Art to the Art (Ken Keller, Tad Boniecki, Noel Huntley a.o.). Fractal Art is a new way to manipulate shapes, colors and light. It is a subclass of the visual digital art that could describe as that art form produced using a computer (PC, Mac), fractal and graphical software and output devices (monitors, plotters, printers etc.) or using fractal rules and traditional painting techniques (example: Pollock) as essential (...) tools in the creative process. It is crucial to understand that the use of a computer is not a sine qua non condition, even most of the fractal artworks were digitally realized. Fractal Art is an experimental art, engaging in a new way the relations between Creator and Work. Fractal Art has a genuine equilibrium between “pragmatic” and “theoretic”. It is rather about “discovering” than “manufacturing”, rather “evocation” than “mimesis”. The conclusion has to be: Fractal Art is a genuine art form. (shrink)

“Philosophy has been criticized during the 25 centuries of its existence, - Yurgen Habermas has noticed, - but the fact that it is still alive means that it is as usual necessary. How long?” In different historical periods claims to philosophy concerned to the fact, that it couldn’t manage to accomplish its task – to help mankind to find the way to the fair society, to the world without wars and (according to Marx) from “mankind prehistory” to its “true history”. (...) During the XIXth century, and especially during the XXth century, it had become obvious impossibility of idea, “been acceptable for everyone”, and the danger of totalitarian indoctrination of any “truth”. However statement of truth pluralism has resulted in post-modernistic disavowal from the notion of truth. In the modern pragmatic world, where “that is true, what is useful”, anxiety and warning of philosophers annoy, rather than make fall to thinking. But the great danger is represented not because of philistine indifference to philosophy, but because of the fact, that philosophers often surrender, speaking about “death of philosophy”. The novaday’s philosopher shouldbe concerned not about the fate of philosophy in the world of the XXIst century, but by the world fate without philosophy. (shrink)

Visual arts have undergone significant changes in their character, identities, structures, And perceptions of what it means to be an artist. Arts have been ‘dematerialized’, so to say. This, in turn, creates a dilemma’: on the one hand, art turns into philosophy or mere strategy of representation; on the other, art becomes anything, with its pluralistic, pragmatic and multicultural characters. Corollary to this is that now art can hardly be judged, and hence, art criticismdisappears. Today art bears the character of (...) pop-products : traumatic, nostalgic, transgressive, and nomadic. In such a cultural plight, however, art is not without significance. While the exclusive ‘world of Art’ seems to dissolve, its significant relation with broader life is resolved. (shrink)

In this paper I shall be looking at the state of science before and after the 17th century especially with regard to the question of the nature of scientific knowledge, specifically scientific paradigms. I will argue that some of the major differences between modern science and pre-modern science are due to (i) methodological changes, (ii) the rise of paradigmatic monism in modern science as opposed to paradigmatic pluralism in pre-modern science, (iii) the integration of science with technology after the 17th (...) century. These changes, I maintain, also redefine the role of scientific knowledge in society and culture, and bring in its wake certain problems and challenges, which in turn elicit different types of responses. Pre-modern science, I argue, are admirably suited to play a cultural and religious role, partly because of a lack of a pragmatic criterion of knowledge, and the emphasis on rational coherence. This makes enchantment of nature through science, possible. However, with the further evolution of science, especially the introduction of the experimental method and the emphasis on empiricism in the 17th century, scientific knowledge now has to conform to different criteria of knowledge -pragmatic in partleading to 'paradigmatic monism' and the consequent loss of enchantment in our conception of nature. The rise of the new science beginning in the 17th century thus brings in its wake a new set of epistemological and cultural challenges which were met with in different ways. I will then comment on the different types of responses made against the rise of the new science. (shrink)

Although Gadamer's study of Greek paideia has been virtually ignored in the scholarly literature, I argue that it is central to his philosophy of education. Gadamer singles out three kinds of paideia: traditional, sophistic and philosophic. Traditional paideia, grounded in an unaware habit or disposition of the soul, was vulnerable when sophistic paideia brought reasoned argument against it. This 'new' paideia originally supported traditional notions of the just and the good with its conscious art of argumentation and pragmatic enhancement of (...) success. But this paideia also undermined conventional morality by arguing that it is only convention, thereby corrupting the youth of Athens by appealing to the untrammeled desire for power. Philosophical paideia takes its bearings from the sophistic as its deepest opponent and counterimage. It turns out, however, that the two are virtually indistinguishable. Both bring thinking to consciousness; both are rhetorical arts; both create confusion; and both are subject to the 'weakness of the logoi.' In the end, the difference between them rests not on distinctions of reason, but the intent of the reasoner. This conflict of paideias is relevant to the situation of education today. Problems of narrow technical perspective and the broadest ideological manipulation are directly traceable to sophistic paideia. Thus, Gadamer points to hermeneutical praxis as 'the heart of all education that wants to teach how to philosophize.'. (shrink)

Ever since Kant, mainstream moral philosophy has been more or less animated by the mission of discovering inescapable law-like rules that would provide a binding justification for morality. Recently, however, more and more authors have started to question a) whether this is possible, and b) what could this project, after all, achieve? An alternative vision of the task of moral philosophy starts from the pragmatic idea that philosophizing begins and ends in the actual human experience. It leads into a view (...) where morality is seen as a ‘social technology’ that aims to make living together possible, and strengthen people’s capability to live a good life within a society. Moral rules, then, are tools that we use to influence our behavior for the better. The role of moral philosophy is, accordingly, to develop further our moral tools, to propose solutions that enhance people’s capabilities to live good lives. In other words, moral philosophers become ethical engineers that use their expertise in ethical topics to criticize existing ‘moral technology’ and construct new concepts and theories that better answer the current challenges for living a good life. (shrink)

Recently, David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation has been attacked by context-relativists, who point to a number of intuitively absurd consequences of Lewis’ view – e.g. that my birth is a cause of my death – in order to argue that whether or not an event c is a cause of some distinct event e varies relative to certain contextual factors. Not all ; Schaffer ; Maslen ; Northcott ) agree on how contexts should be fixed; but all argue that (...) context-relative analyses better account for our intuitions about causes. In defense of his invariantist account, Lewis argues that the intuitions by which the relativist-accounts purport to be informed are, in fact, intuitions about contrastive explanation rather than causes. That is to say, Lewis accepts that my birth is a cause of my death, and argues that it is odd to say so precisely because the pragmatics of explanation deem saying so inappropriate in most cases. I will examine a definitive objection from Peter Menzies to Lewis’ proposed defence and argue that the former reveals that the true locus of the relativist-invariantist debate lies in the question of how we ought to order possible worlds. (shrink)

Unlike majority of classical and contemporary Indian philosophers, Gandhi was a practical philosopher, an experimentalist and a laboratiorian who developed practical instruments and carried out experiments for the existing life problems without bothering to build a consistent structure of philosophy. For this very reason there seems an ambiguity to call Gandhi as a philosopher. However, it seems to me that Gandhi was a practical philosopher who laid a pragmatic approach and method to his new insights for social and political action (...) of national movement and the reconstruction of modern India without disturbing the social equilibrium.Gandhi exercised such tremendous skill in cooperative participation of our national movement and is rudely regarded as the “Father of pridely Nation”. As he is too skillfully organized his ideals in building a nation he rightfully ascertained as philosopher in the light of Homer’s (the Greek poet) definition to a philosopher. The same practical method is extended to the aspect of religion by Gandhi. (shrink)

Any sort of cognition, perception, and action is necessarily shaped by (re)activation of “schemata.” Any interpretation is schema (re)activation. Schemata are epistemologically speaking “structural” activation patterns which are psychologically and neurologically speaking accommodated, adapted, “learned” by co- and re-activating neuronal assemblies. Six levels of interpretative schema activations (schema interpretations) are outlined from invariable primary “interpretations” through conventional, classificatory, and justificatory, as well as meta-interpretations. Constitutive schema interpretations are unavoidable. Many philosophical problems will have to be reformulated or reinterpreted along these (...) lines, e.g., a sort of moderated pragmatic (interpretational) realism in epistemology. (shrink)

I has been argued, foremost by David Wiggins, that artefact kinds are defined in a way that makes the existence and persistence of their members, say clocks, dependent on human pragmatic considerations. This supposedly sets artefact kinds apart from natural kinds of things, say tigers, for which some inherent principle determines their existence and persistence. Consequently, artefact kinds would not be acceptable as real kinds in the sense that natural kinds of things are real, i.e. included in the ‘furniture of (...) the universe’. I argue against this position that the stated differences between natural kinds and artefact kinds are not as categorical as claimed. Natural kinds are to some extent similarly subject to ‘ontological vagueness’. The argument for the ‘overall’ indeterminateness of artefact kinds depends largely on their conception as functional kinds. I show that if artefact kinds are conceived as historical subkinds of structural kinds, they can be considered as in relevant respects similar to natural kinds of things, and therefore ontologically on a par with them. The combination of historical and structural determination is one, moreover, that we are well acquainted with for some paradigmatically real kinds of natural things: biological organisms. (shrink)

My paper utilizes the insights of F.W.J Schelling’s work on aesthetics to explain the unique appeal and power that aesthetic experience held for people of the Upper Paleolithic. This appeal is revealed most dramatically in the cave paintings of Chauvet and Lascaux. According to Schelling, genuine artistic activity expresses a fusion of the unconscious (der Bewußtlosen) and the symbolic (die Symbolik), which is irreducible to any other experience or product. This fusion creates a unique experience of self-transcendence and reintegration that (...) affirms the continuity between consciousness and the natural world. Consequently, genuine aesthetic products never have any simple pragmatic or utilitarian motive, but result from reconciling the deepest contradictions of the human experience. I argue that it is this experience of continuity and re-integration that is captured in the cave paintings of Chauvet and Lascaux, and which confirms the irreducible power of the aesthetic. (shrink)

The theme of this world conference, “Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of Life,” evokes some of the central ideas in the works of the Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi and the American pragmatic philosopher, John Dewey. As different as these two thinkers are, each regarded a particular mode of philosophical inquiry to be detrimental to the process of living, and in its place, each recommended a more natural and sustainable method of philosophy, one consistent with life-processes and responsive to the demands of (...) changing circumstances and problematic situations. This paper argues that the proposals of Zhuangzi and Dewey, while undeniably different, are similar in important respects. By reading them together, one might better understand and more clearly draw out their lessons for philosophy itself. Using Zhuangzi’s famous story of “Cook Ding” as a point of departure, a new way of thinking about the role of “reflective knowing” will be articulated; and drawing from Dewey and the pragmatic tradition, a new alignment for philosophy and its function will be proposed along lines suggested in the work of Zhuangzi. (shrink)

Cultural pluralism has caused disturbing problems for philosophers in applied ethics. If moral sanctions, theories, and applications are culturally bound, then moral conflicts ensuing from cultural differences would seem to be irresolvable. Even human nature, good or evil, is not free from cultural determination. One way out of this pluralistic impasse is the expansion of the moral mind. It is the outlet taken by religion, the arts, and philosophy from the earliest time in human culture. In philosophy we find an (...) authentic example of this in Socrates. Following the practice of Socrates, we can try to expand the moral mind philosophically, that is, by working on various forms of reasoning, both deductive and non-deductive, including induction, abduction, dialectics, analogy, and pragmatics. (shrink)

My question in this paper started from how the goal of social growth in a democratic society can be a proper aim for the teaching of philosophy. Furthermore, I wondered what “genuine” social growth meant in our quest to build a theoretical foundation for the teaching of philosophy. For this investigation, I reviewed first the pragmatic notion of Dewey’s social inquiry and social growth. I realized that Dewey’s ideal communication for a democratic community has an aesthetic feature and even some (...) characteristics we find in a religious faith. By means of such recognition, I could easily move to the inquiry of the Peircean conception of “progress,” which provides us a certain viewpoint of American philosophy in relation with Emersonian spirit. It is a mode of evolution based on a creative love of agapasm. From the point of Peirce’s “evolutionary love,” I come to conclude that genuine social growth toward which our teaching philosophy should aim is evolutionary creativity itself, rather than any given social goal under the name of national ethics or civic morality. Only “love” as a sympathetic power with purposivespontaneity can make genuine progress in communal life. A community cannot be substantially developed unless the creative love lives in the relationships among the members and their thoughts. This is to manifest again the main features of pragmaticism: interactive relationship, integrating process, and spontaneous continuity. Related to such pivotal characteristics, I think another mode of social inquiry in teaching philosophy creates the possibility of expanding our goal into a certain spiritual domain in reconsidering Peircean pragmatism within an evolving process. This kind of reconstruction of Pragmatism will help us to dig into a broad perspective of Philosophy Education in the 21st century.(*). (shrink)