Volumes I and II provided a completely new translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. Volume III contains 207 of Descartes' letters, over half of which have previously not been translated into English. It incorporates, in its entirety, Anthony Kenny's celebrated translation of selected philosophical letters, first published in 1970. In conjunction with Volumes I and II it is designed to meet the widespread demand for a comprehensive, authoritative and accurate edition (...) of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

German description: Descartes' Meditationen von 1641 haben bis heute die philosophische Reflexion immer wieder herausgefordert. In diesem Werk geht er von einer Haltung radikalen Zweifels aus, macht dann aber geltend, dass selbst ein ausserster Skeptizismus nicht die fundamentale Wahrheit, dass ich existiere, in Frage stellen kann: ego sum, ego existo. Ausgehend von dieser Gewissheit versucht Descartes, die Grundlagen einer neuen Wissenschaft zu legen. Ursprunglich auf Lateinisch verfasst, wurden die Meditationes 1647 ins Franzosische ubersetzt. Diese Ubersetzung wurde von Descartes selbst durchgesehen (...) und bearbeitet und unterscheidet sich in vielen Nuancen vom lateinischen Original. Diese Ausgabe ist die einzige, die neben der neuen Ubersetzung ins Deutsche den lateinischen Text wie auch die franzosische Version bietet. Erganzt wird sie durch einen umfangreichen Kommentar. Sie eignet sich damit besonders als Arbeitsbuch fur Studenten. (shrink)

Is knowledge possible? If so, what can we know and how do we come to know it? What degree of certainty does our knowledge enjoy? In these two powerful works, Descartes, the seventeenth-century philosopher considered to be the father of modern philosophy, outlines his philosophical method and then counters the skeptics of his time by insisting that certain knowledge can be had. He goes on to address the nature and extent of human knowledge, the distinction between mind and body, the (...) existence of God, and the existence of external objects. (shrink)

A situation, in which a finite set of players can obtain certain payoffs by cooperation can be described by a cooperative game with transferable utility, or simply a TU-game. A (point-valued) solution for TU-games assigns a payoff distribution to every TU-game. In this article we discuss a class of equal surplus sharing solutions consisting of all convex combinations of the CIS-value, the ENSC-value and the equal division solution. We provide several characterizations of this class of solutions on variable and fixed (...) player set. Specifications of several properties characterize specific solutions in this class. (shrink)

The coming of bioethics -- The coming of bioethicists -- "Choices on our conscience": the inauguration of the Kennedy Institute of Education -- "Hello, Dolly": bioethics in the media -- Celebrating bioethics and bioethicists -- Thinking socially and culturally in bioethics -- Reminiscences of observing participants -- Bioethics circles the globe -- Bioethics in France -- The development of bioethics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan -- The coming of the culture wars to American bioethics.

Based on the new and much acclaimed two volume Cambridge edition of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes by Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, this anthology of essential texts contains the most important and widely studied of those writings, including the Discourse and Meditations and substantial extracts from the Regulae, Optics, Principles, Objections and Replies, Comments on a Broadsheet, and Passions of the Soul.

The biological and social problems of human adaptation, including nutrition, the co-evolution of diseases, indigenous microbiota, environmental pollution, and population growth.

Paintings can exert a strong effect on their viewers by creating atmospheres. But how is it possible for a painting to create an atmosphere? My goal in this paper is to provide a partial answer to this question by focusing on the depiction of light. I argue that paintings can elicit experiences of atmospheres in part because they can depict pictorial space as filled with ambient light that has a distinctive phenomenal character. It is in virtue of this distinctive phenomenal (...) character that the depicted ambient light can make a significant contribution to the overall phenomenal character of the experienced atmosphere. (shrink)

Recently, an increasing number of scholars have been showing interest in old-fashioned racism again. While recent studies on old-fashioned racism apparently increase our knowledge of this psychological theory of racism, the studies actually shed light on a different type of racism, namely offensive racism. The aim of this text is to argue that psychological theories of racism, like old-fashioned racism and modern racism, depend on societies’ social norms. I will show that questionnaires are highly sensitive to social norms, and if (...) there is change in social norms, the original measurement object alters. The theory of old-fashioned racism implicitly assumes agents that follow (or conform to) the social norm to behave prejudiced. Today, however, this social norm does not exist in Western societies. If agents express the same prejudices today, they indicate their willingness to breach the social norm to behave unprejudiced. Thereby, classic old-fashioned racism measures reflect a new kind of racism today. (shrink)

Exploring Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of interpretation as a method of analysing research texts Increasingly, researchers use hermeneutic philosophy to inform the conduct of interpretive research. Congruence between the philosophical foundations of a study, and the methodological processes through which study findings are actualised, obliges hermeneutic researchers to use (or develop) hermeneutic approaches to research interviewing and textual analysis. Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation provides one approach through which researchers using hermeneutics can achieve congruence between philosophy, methodology and method.Ricoeur’s theory of (...) interpretation acknowledges the interrelationship between epistemology (interpretation) and ontology (interpreter). Also, Ricoeur notes the way interpretation moves forward from naive understanding, where the interpreter has a superficial grasp of the whole of the text, to deeper understanding, where the interpreter understands the parts of the text in relation to the whole and the whole of the text in relation to its parts (the hermeneutic circle). In this way, Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation provides researchers with a method of developing intersubjective knowledge.Through exposition of the concepts of Ricoeur’s theory, which include distanciation, appropriation, explanation and understanding, guess, and validation, a hermeneutic approach to textual analysis is presented, discussed and critiqued. Examples from nursing research are also used to demonstrate points under discussion. It is suggested that, in conjunction with Gadamer’s hermeneutic of understanding, Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation warrants consideration as a method of textual analysis. (shrink)

Increasingly, nurses use the philosophy of hermeneutics, especially Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutics, to inform interpretive research. However, application of the work of these philosophers to interpretive nursing research has proved problematic as it fails to recognise, or act upon, obligations inherent in their work. Through a review of hermeneutically informed nursing research, methodological implications regarding the use of hermeneutic philosophy are examined in relation to: (i) the need to address forestructures and pre‐understandings; (ii) checking interpretations with research participants; (iii) seeking (...) objectivity, consensus and accuracy in textual interpretation; (iv) evaluating interpretations; and (v) gaining entry into the hermeneutic circle. This review suggests that despite obligations inherent in Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutic philosophy, nurses fail to actualise these obligations in their research. In following Heidegger, nurses need to make the scientific theme secure by working out their forestructures in terms of the phenomenon under investigation. Those following Gadamer need to accept that interpretation seeks to manifest textual meanings rather than individual ones. And, whether following Heidegger or Gadamer, the way to make manifest textual meanings is to engage with the text within the hermeneutic circle by continuing to address forestructures and pre‐understandings and by considering their influences upon the research. (shrink)

Presents a scientific method based on hypothesis and deduction which replaced techniques derived from Aristotle, and includes extracts from Descartes' ...

It is a common assumption among philosophers of perception that phenomenal colors are exhaustively characterized by the three phenomenal dimensions of the color solid: hue, saturation and lightness. The hue of a color is its redness, blueness or yellowness, etc. The saturation of a color refers to the strength of its hue in relation to gray. The lightness of a color determines its relation to black and white. In this paper, I argue that the phenomenology of shadows forces us to (...) consider illumination as an additional dimension of phenomenal colors. For this purpose, I will first introduce two different interpretations of shadow-experiences, which Chalmers has called the simple and the complex interpretations, and show that they both fail to account for important phenomenal facts about shadow-experiences. I will then introduce my own alternative interpretation based on the idea that illumination is a dimension of phenomenal colors and explain how it can account for these facts. (shrink)

In this article, we distinguish between a ‘game code of conduct’, an ‘ethical and/or legal code of the military profession’, ‘codes of social intercourse’, and a ‘code of respect’, and we assess to what extent these codes are reflected in the chivalrous behaviour we see today. Chivalry has developed from archaic medieval game codes of conduct into a codification regarding the laws of war and humanitarian law, but also in behavioural standards that are formalized in books of etiquette. However, these (...) forms of moral codes of conduct do not overcome the problem of benevolent sexism, due to the fact that ‘chivalry’ is in essence a masculine ideology that excludes women from the military profession. Eventually, chivalric codes of social intercourse might develop into a code of respect, which may solve this issue. (shrink)

Can we hold agents responsible for their implicitly biased behavior? The aim of this text is to show that, from the nurturing stance, holding subjects responsible for their implicitly biased behavior is justified, even though they are not blameworthy. First, I will introduce the nurturing stance as Daphne Brandenburg originally developed it. Second, I will specify what holding somebody responsible from the nurturing stance amounts to. Third, I show how and why holding responsible can help a subject develop an impaired (...) capacity. Fourth, I analyze empirical data about holding prejudiced subjects responsible and highlight that the internal motivation to control prejudiced reactions decreases implicit attitudes’ influences. Furthermore, the data show that in order to be appropriate moral demands have to acknowledge the target's autonomy and competence. In sum, from the nurturing stance, holding implicitly biased subjects responsible is appropriate if they can adequately respond to the moral demands. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a representationalist account of the phenomenal character of color experiences. Representationalism, the thesis that phenomenal character supervenes on a certain kind of representational content, so-called phenomenal content, has been developed primarily in two different ways, as Russellian and Fregean representationalism. While the proponents of Russellian and Fregean representationalism differ with respect to what they take the contents of color experiences to be, they typically agree that colors are exhaustively characterized by the three dimensions of the (...) color solid: hue, saturation, and lightness. I argue that a viable version of representationalism needs to renounce this restriction to three dimensions and consider illumination to be a genuine phenomenal dimension of color. My argument for this thesis falls into two parts. I first consider the phenomenon of color constancy in order to show that neither Russellian nor Fregean representationalism can do justice to the phenomenal significance of local illumination. I subsequently formulate a version of representationalism that accounts for illumination by taking it as a phenomenal dimension of color. (shrink)

Hermeneutic philosophy. Part II: a nursing research example of the hermeneutic imperative to address forestructures/pre‐understandingsHermeneutic research requires that pre‐understandings are brought to consciousness in order to provide the phenomenon under investigation with the greatest opportunity to reveal itself. This hermeneutic imperative is dealt with in the present study. My research involved explicating the practice knowledge of nursing on residential adolescent mental health units, and as I had worked on such units I held pre‐understandings that would influence the research. I addressed (...) pre‐understandings in three ways: (i) by developing understandings of practice knowledge through a hermeneutic conceptualisation of it; (ii) by working out forestructures of the phenomenon under investigation. Using Heidegger’s writing on forestructures, 20 statements were generated, interpreted and reconceptualised as my forestructures of residential adolescent mental health nursing. I used this work to review participant interviews in an effort to prevent myself from only finding what I already assumed I would find in relation to practice knowledge; and (iii) by formulating pre‐understandings of the phenomenon of interest. Using Gadamer’s writing on reflection, seven stories were written and interpreted as my pre‐understandings of adolescent mental health nursing practice. I used this work to consider the presence of pre‐understandings during textual interpretation in an attempt to prevent premature interpretive closure. In these ways, I brought my forestructures/pre‐understandings to consciousness, reflected on them, questioned their origins, adequacy and legitimacy and thereby took account of their influence on myself and the research. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of Hume's maxim Nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. First I explain this maxim and distinguish it from the principle Whatever cannot be imagined (conceived), is impossible. Next I argue that Thomas Reid's criticism of the maxim fails and that the arguments by Tamar Szábo Gendler and John Hawthorne for the claim that “it is uncontroversial that there are cases where we are misled” by the maxim are unconvincing. Finally I state the limited but real (...) value of the maxim: it does help us, in certain cases, reliably to make up our minds. Along the way I show that Reid, his criticism of the maxim notwithstanding, actually employs it, and I furthermore argue that the principle What is inconceivable, is impossible is spurious. (shrink)

In social psychology, the concept of implicit attitudes has given rise to ongoing discussions that are rather philosophical. The aim of this paper is to discuss the status of implicit prejudices from a philosophical point of view. Since implicit prejudices are a special case of implicit attitudes, the discussion will be framed by a short discussion of the most central aspects concerning implicit attitudes and indirect measures. In particular, the ontological conclusions that are implied by different conceptions of implicit attitudes (...) will be scrutinized. The main question to be discussed involves whether implicit prejudices are mental states at all, or whether they are rather dispositions to behave in a certain way. This question will be discussed against the background of principles for belief ascription, which requires ascribed mental states to fulfill some specific explanatory role. We defend a conception of implicit prejudices that... (shrink)

It is often assumed that trolling is an intentional action. The aim of the paper is to argue for a form of unintentional trolling. Firstly, we outline minimal conditions for intentional actions. Secondly, an unintentional trolling example is introduced. Thirdly, we will show that in some cases, an utterance can be expressive, while it is perceived as descriptive. On the basis of the justification-suppression model, we argue that the introduced trolling example is such a case. In order to bypass social (...) sanctions for expressing prejudices, agents unintentionally express their prejudices through stories that appear to be descriptive. Thereby, the characterized behavior does not fulfill the minimal conditions for intentional action. Fourthly, we give criteria that can be used to identify unintentional trolls. Finally, after unintentional trolling is analyzed, the trolls’ behavioral goals are considered. In conclusion, an analysis of unintentional trolling is given, which has explanatory benefits in contrast to the classic intentional trolling concepts. (shrink)

Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth in the field of science -- The meditations concerning first philosophy -- Rules for the direction of the mind.

The theologian Hugo Rahner argued that the homo ludens is a man of ‘Ernstheiterkeit’, a person who can smile under tears but also recognizes the gravity in all earthly cheerfulness. The primary aim of this study was to test the validity of this notion: Do homines ludentes exist? Two hundred sixty-three adult subjects were measured for seriousness and cheerfulness and playfulness. Results provided unequivocal support for Rahner's thesis. Numerous subjects scored high in both seriousness and cheerfulness thus confirming the existence (...) of homines ludentes. It was further found that these subjects were among those scoring highest in playfulness. Subjects scoring high in cheerfulness but low in seriousness were, however, even more closely associated with playfulness. The scores for homines ludentes did not differ from the rest of the subjects in the creative and dynamic facets of playfulness. The importance of developing empirical research to investigate hypotheses derived from non-scientific concepts is discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents some modern and interdisciplinary concepts about creativity and creative processes specially related to problem solving. Central publications related to the theme are briefly reviewed. Creative tools and approaches suitable to support problem solving are also presented. Finally, the paper outlines the author’s experiences using creative tools and approaches to: Facilitation of problem solving processes, strategy development in organisations, design of optimisation systems for large scale and complex logistic systems, and creative design of software optimisation for complex non-linear (...) systems. (shrink)