In June 1795, Fichte sent his second contribution to Schiller’s journal, The Hours : his article, Concerning the Spirit and the Letter within Philosophy, where he explains his views on the relation between aesthetic experience and virtue. Schiller, who had until then been rather well-disposed toward Fichte, violently and categorically rejected the article, thus putting an end to their friendship. Scholars commonly understand this conflict as a predictable confrontation between two irreconcilable conceptions of the moral ideal : that of the (...) cold philosopher, personified by Fichte, aiming to repress sensibility, and that of the warm-blooded artist, personified by Schiller, advocating for it. I shall argue that this interpretation is untenable, since Fichte and Schiller not only shared the same conception of virtue, but also agreed concerning the function assumed by the artist in mankind’s moral education. Rather, the conflict arose because Schiller could not bear the idealistic conception of nature – as pure representational activity – which Fichte thought was implied by these views. En juin 1795, Fichte fit parvenir à Schiller sa deuxième contribution destinée aux Heures : l’article Sur l’esprit et la lettre dans la philosophie, où il expose ses idées sur le rapport entre l’expérience esthétique et la vertu. Schiller, jusque-là plutôt bien disposé envers Fichte, lui opposa un refus de publication violent et catégorique, mettant ainsi un terme à leur amitié. On interprète habituellement cette rupture comme la conséquence prévisible d’une rencontre opposant deux conceptions irréconciliables de l’idéal moral : celle du froid philosophe, incarné par Fichte, visant à réprimer la sensibilité, et celle de l’artiste brûlant de passion, incarné par Schiller, souhaitant la glorifier. Je conteste pour ma part cette interprétation, Fichte et Schiller s’accordant non seulement sur la manière dont la vertu devait être conçue, mais également sur la fonction assumée par l’artiste dans l’éducation morale de l’être humain. À l’origine du conflit se trouve plutôt l’aversion de Schiller pour la conception idéaliste de la nature (comme activité purement représentative) qui, selon Fichte, était impliquée par ces idées. (shrink)

The Yablo Paradox The Yablo Paradox implies there is no way to coherently assign a truth value to any of the sentences in the countably infinite sequence of sentences, each of the form, “All of the subsequent sentences are false.” Specifically, the Yablo Paradox arises when we consider the following infinite sequence of sentences: The … Continue reading Yablo Paradox →.

Fine and Antonelli introduce two generalizations of permutation invariance — internal invariance and simple/double invariance respectively. After sketching reasons why a solution to the Bad Company problem might require that abstraction principles be invariant in one or both senses, I identify the most fine-grained abstraction principle that is invariant in each sense. Hume’s Principle is the most fine-grained abstraction principle invariant in both senses. I conclude by suggesting that this partially explains the success of Hume’s Principle, and the comparative lack (...) of success in reconstructing areas of mathematics other than arithmetic based on non-invariant abstraction principles. (shrink)

The interpenetration of Plato’s mythos and logos reveals an analogical, serious playfulness of the human soul from the depths of aporia to the heights of the beyond. We humans are caught in-between with all the dynamis to rise and to fall.

Jacques Ellul, by far the most significant author in the serious discussions on the interface between religion and technology, is apparently not known to the science‐and‐religion field. The reason is the imprecise use of the terminology. In scientific formulation the relationship can be summarized as technology /religion:: science/theology. The first pair are robust three‐dimensional templates of most human experience; the second pair are linear, abstract concerns of a minority of citizens. In the parallel community—now well developed throughout academia—of science, technology, (...) and society, where the technology/religion matters have been discussed more than the science/religion pair, John Caiazza's point that “techno‐secularism is the real problem” has been front and center for some decades. Among the theologians most aware of this, Raimundo Panikkar, Langdon Gilkey, and Huston Smith, Smith is the one who has taken the case much further than Caiazza, recognizing the danger of the real theological challenge from the religion of scientism and actively working against it. I write from a unique background among those involved in this debate—that of being deeply embedded simultaneously both in the modern science and technology establishment and in the reform of the religious enterprise for fifty years. I make the case that matters are worse than even Smith posits. He shows that scientism as a fundamentalist modern secularism serves the exact function of the theology behind the practiced religion of America and the West, that is, technology. An unexpected ray of hope has appeared in the sudden emergence of whole‐person healing (also known as complementary and alternative medicine), which is used regularly by well over half the population. This reintroduction of the spiritual dimension into this key technology of health will certainly be a major turning point. (shrink)

The Yogacara school of Buddhist thought claims that all language-use is metaphorical. Exploring the profound implications of this assertion, Roy Tzhoar makes the case for viewing the Yogacara account as a full-fledged theory of meaning, one that is not merely linguistic, but also applicable both in the world and in texts.

In theories which contribute to the understanding of uncertainty in entrepreneurial action, scholars have traditionally attributed a negative connotation to uncertainty. This paper seeks to posit an understanding of uncertainty derived from Greek and Indian philosophy, where action of the human agent is not deterred by uncertainty, and rather, occurs despite uncertainty. This idea may be beneficial in making future entrepreneurs less apprehensive about uncertainty, by helping them locate the lessons from philosophy. I look at existing ideas that explore uncertainty (...) in entrepreneurial motivation, and present a multidisciplinary approach which sees uncertainty as a force that increases intent of action, rather than deterring it by drawing on the understanding of consequence and action in Aristotelean thought and Hindu philosophy, and extend the concepts of tuche and karma to posit a theoretical position which sees uncertainty as a factor that encourages entrepreneurial action and motivation. The understanding of uncertainty in management literature has been approached primarily from two disciplinary positions - economics and organisational theory. In economics, the classical understanding of uncertainty which commenced with Frank Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921), was largely abandoned in later years for a more quantifiable approach of calculating risk. Uncertainty, characteristically nebulous and difficult to grapple with, is unquantifiable. It is defined, in fact, by Knight, as something which cannot be predicted and quantified. Thus, in academics, where almost all disciplines try to make sense of the way the world works, uncertainty has always been a problematic concept. (shrink)

Harris proposes a new theory of communication, beginning with the premise that the mental life of an individual should be conceived of as a continuous attempt to integrate the present with the past and future.

Shadows haunt the world of common sense by being “out there” independently of whether anyone is looking. Yet they are confi ned to a single sense: sight. Like ghosts, shadows evade tactile corroboration. They do not obey the laws governing material things.

Research has shown that context influences how sincere a smile appears to observers. That said, most studies on this topic have focused exclusively on situational cues (e.g. smiling while at a party versus smiling during a job interview) and few have examined other elements of context. One important element concerns any knowledge an observer might have about the smiler as an individual (e.g. their habitual behaviours, traits or attitudes). In this manuscript, we present three experiments that explored the influence of (...) such knowledge on ratings of smile sincerity. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants rated the sincerity of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles after having been exposed to cues about the smiler’s tendency to reciprocate (this person always, never or occasionally returns favours). In Experiment 3 they performed the same task but with cues about the smiler’s love of learning (this person always, never or occasionally enjoys learning new tasks). The results show that cues about the smiler’s reciprocity tendency influenced participants’ ratings of smile sincerity and did so in a stronger manner than cues about the smiler’s love of learning. Overall, these results both strengthen and broaden the literature on the role of context on judgements of smile sincerity. (shrink)

1. Epistemology -- 2. Logic and philosophy of language -- 3. Metaphysics -- 4. Philosophy of religion -- 5. Theory of value.

Only there occur certain lags in scholarship which need to be remedied. One of these is the lack of appreciation of the efforts of the American critical realists to attain a direct, referential realism which would avoid the difficulties confronting an intuitional type of naive realism and the well-recognized dilemma of Lockean representative perceptionism. In the latter case, the puzzle is, of course, that, if we perceive subjective ideas, how can we know that they give us cognitive access to external (...) things. (shrink)

The Indian philosophy of warfare remains terra incognita. Most Western commentators emphasize the underdeveloped nature of military theory in ancient India, while two American political scientists...

This chapter lays out a classification scheme for thought experiments. A good scheme consolidates knowledge in a way that minimizes the demand on your memory and expedites the acquisition of new knowledge by raising helpful leading questions. Thought experiments are all reducible to two highly specific forms of paradox — one targeting statements implying necessities, the other targeting statements implying possibilities. By treating a thought experiment as a stylized paradox, the idea that it reveals inconsistencies is matured. The chapter also (...) exposes the structure of our ensuing ambivalence, as well as the structure of resolutions. (shrink)

Human computer interaction (HCI) has grown into a mature field of research. With artificial intelligence (AI) finding ubiquitous applications, HCI research is now moving ahead towards accommodating and integrating these approaches. A part of the research community is of the opinion that HCI and AI are fundamentally opposed to each other: with AI-powered devices being demonic and humans are to lose in a race against them and HCI-oriented products being human centred being the flag bearers of the human race. In (...) this paper, we look at and analyse this perspective of how HCI relates to AI and the potential HCI–AI integration. We suggest that humans evolve by having dynamic identities. We further discuss its implications on the AI critique and suggest some new perspectives on the possible integration of HCI and AI research which we hope would be useful for the community. (shrink)