The dual stream model of the human and non-human primate visual systems remains Leslie Ungerleider's (1946-2020) most indelible contribution to visual neuroscience. In this model, a dorsal "where" stream specialized for visuospatial representation extends through occipitoparietal cortex, whereas a ventral "what" stream specialized for representing object qualities extends through occipitotemporal cortex. Over time, this model underwent a number of revisions and expansions. In one of her last scientific contributions, Leslie proposed a third visual stream specialized for representing dynamic signals related (...) to social perception. This alteration invites the question: What is a visual stream, and how are different visual streams individuated? In this article, we first consider and reject a simple answer to this question based on a common idealizing visualization of the model, which conflicts with the complexities of the visual system that the model was intended to capture. Next, we propose a taxonomic answer that takes inspiration from the philosophy of science and Leslie's body of work, which distinguishes between neural mechanisms, pathways, and streams. In this taxonomy, visual streams are superordinate to pathways and mechanisms and provide individuation conditions for determining whether collections of cortical connections delineate different visual streams. Given this characterization, we suggest that the proposed third visual stream does not yet meet these conditions, although the tripartite model still suggests important revisions to how we think about the organization of the human and non-human primate visual systems. (shrink)

Should artificial agents (such as robots) be granted moral status? This seems like an important question to resolve, given that we will encounter a growing number of increasingly sophisticated artificial agents in the not too distant future. However, many will think that before we can even start to tackle questions about the moral status of artificial agents, we first need to solve tricky issues in the philosophy of mind. After all, most orthodox views about moral status imply that only entities (...) with a mental life are eligible for moral status. But, whether an unfamiliar entity like an artificial agent has a mental life raises controversial questions in the philosophy of mind. Given this, one might hope that we can resolve questions about the moral status of robots via “minimalist” views that give sufficient conditions for granting moral status to an entity that we can know to be satisfied without knowing whether the entity in question has a mind. This paper argues that we should be pessimistic about the prospects of minimalist views avoiding controversial questions in the philosophy of mind, by arguing that minimalist sufficient conditions are only plausible if combined with assumptions in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This paper defends and develops the structuring account of conscious attention: attention is the conscious mental process of structuring one’s stream of consciousness so that some parts of it are more central than others. In the first part of the paper, I motivate the structuring account. Drawing on a variety of resources I argue that the phenomenology of attention cannot be fully captured in terms of how the world appears to the subject, as well as against an atomistic conception of (...) attention. In the second part of the paper, I show how the structuring account can be made precise: attention causes and causally sustains phenomenal relations to hold between the parts of the stream of consciousness; most importantly the relation of one part being peripheral to another. I end by pointing out consequences for both the scientific study of attention as well as for several areas of central philosophical interest. (shrink)

The publication of Frege’s Begriffsschrift in 1879 forever altered the landscape for many Western philosophers. Here, Sebastian Rödl traces how the Fregean influence, written all over the development and present state of analytic philosophy, led into an unholy alliance of an empiricist conception of sensibility with an inferentialist conception of thought. -/- According to Rödl, Wittgenstein responded to the implosion of Frege’s principle that the nature of thought consists in its inferential order, but his Philosophical Investigations shied away from (...) offering an alternative. Rödl takes up the challenge by turning to Kant and Aristotle as ancestors of this tradition, and in doing so identifies its unacknowledged question: the relation of judgment and truth to time. Rödl finds in the thought of these two men the answer he urges us to consider: the temporal and the sensible, and the atemporal and the intelligible, are aspects of one reality and cannot be understood independently of one another. In demonstrating that an investigation into the categories of the temporal can be undertaken as a contribution to logic, Rödl seeks to transform simultaneously our philosophical understanding of both logic and time. (shrink)

The essay represents teaching as the coming to be of the human individual. In order to do so, it reflects on the character of human life by which it is knowledge of itself. Being knowledge of itself, human life is self-determining or free. Therefore generality and particularity come together in the human being in a distinctive way: a human being is not an exemplar, instance or specimen of a species, nature or life-form. Rather, she is her own principle. This is (...) captured in the idea of the human being as an individual. The essay reveals teaching to be the form of coming to be which is proper to what is an individual in this sense. In this way, the essay shows teaching to be internal to human freedom. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the nature, the phenomenal character and the philosophical significance of attention. According to its central thesis, attention is the ongoing mental activity of structuring the stream of consciousness or phenomenal field. The dissertation connects the scientific study of attention in psychology and the neurosciences with central discussions in the philosophy of mind. Once we get clear on the nature and the phenomenal character of attention, we can make progress toward understanding foundational issues concerning the nature and the (...) structure of conscious mentality itself. We understand better how consciousness is connected to self-awareness and to agency, and we get a better grip on the nature of perceptual experience, the unity of consciousness, and its subjective character. The dissertation also aims at showing that the current empirical investigation of attention should be complemented with work at the level of generality that a philosophical analysis can provide; it shows how such an analysis is relevant for the scientific study of attention by providing a new conceptual framework and suggesting several new areas of research. (shrink)

Despite the efforts of meta-ethical expressivists to rebut such worries, one objection raised over and over again against expressivism is that, if the theory is true, matters of morality must be mind-dependent in some objectionable way. This paper develops an argument which not only shows that this is and cannot be the case, but also – and perhaps more importantly – offers a diagnosis why philosophers are nevertheless so often led to think otherwise.

The modal-Hamiltonian interpretation belongs to the modal family of interpretations of quantum mechanics. By endowing the Hamiltonian with the role of selecting the subset of the definite-valued observables of the system, it accounts for ideal and non-ideal measurements, and also supplies a criterion to distinguish between reliable and non-reliable measurements in the non-ideal case. It can be reformulated in an explicitly invariant form, in terms of the Casimir operators of the Galilean group, and the compatibility of the MHI with the (...) theory of decoherence has been proved. Nevertheless, perhaps its main advantage in the eyes of a scientist is given by its several applications to well-known physical situations, leading to results compatible with experimental evidence. The purpose of this paper is to add a new application to the list: the case of optical isomerism, which is a central issue for the philosophy of physics and of chemistry since it points to the core of the problem of the relationship between physics and chemistry. Here it will be shown that the MHI supplies a direct and physically natural solution to the problem, a solution that does not require putting classical assumptions in “by hand.”. (shrink)

Due to the frequent occurrence of ethical transgressions and unethical employee behaviors, there has lately been an increasing interest in the ethical foundations of contemporary organizations. However, large-scale comprehensive analyses of organizational ethics are still comparatively limited. Our study contributes to both management control and business ethics literature by empirically examining potential antecedents as well as resulting effects of ethical work climates on organizational-level outcomes. Based on a cross-sectional survey among 295 large- and medium-sized companies, we find that more informal (...) means of control constitute important elements of a broader organizational control context that are strongly related to the emergence of coherent ethical work climates with an increased awareness of ethical issues. Moreover, our results show that the relationship between ethical work climates and organizational performance can be considered as rather indirect as it is fully mediated by increased mutual trust among employees. Overall, our study thus supports the particular importance of ethical work climates and identifies appropriate means to encourage ethical conduct. (shrink)

Laudan’s argument against the possibility of a demarcation criterion for scientific theories rests on establishing that any criterion must be a necessary and sufficient condition. But Laudan’s argument at most establishes that any criterion must provide a necessary condition and a possibly different sufficient condition. His own claims suggest that such a criterion is possible.

Vitalism is understood as impacting the history of the life sciences, medicine and philosophy, representing an epistemological challenge to the dominance of mechanism over the last 200 years, and partly revived with organicism in early theoretical biology. The contributions in this volume portray the history of vitalism from the end of the Enlightenment to the modern day, suggesting some reassessment of what it means both historically and conceptually. As such it includes a wide range of material, employing both historical and (...) philosophical methodologies, and it is divided fairly evenly between 19th and 20th century historical treatments and more contemporary analysis. This volume presents a significant contribution to the current literature in the history and philosophy of science and the history of medicine. (shrink)

Political practices often aim to reach valuable outcomes through democratic processes. However, philosophical considerations and democratic deliberations sometimes support different conclusions about what a valuable outcome would be. This paper contributes to a research agenda that aims to reconcile recommendations that follow from these different bases. The setting for this research agenda is capabilitarian. It affirms the idea that what we should distribute are substantive freedoms to be and do things that people have reason to value. Disagreements about these valuable (...) outcomes become particularly problematic in urgent situations such as pandemics, floods, and wildfires. These situations are urgent since they are time-sensitive and involve an impending loss of well-being. A method of compromise would help mitigate losses of well-being while respecting the aim of reaching valuable outcomes through democratic processes. I thus offer an equitable and decisive method of compromise that helps integrate philosophical considerations with democratic deliberations. (shrink)

In a series of essays, Bratman defines a concept, which we may call the concept of Bratmanian action by many. Our discussion of this concept, in section 1, reveals that it is not the one called to mind by the usual examples of joint action. Section 2 lays alongside it a different concept of doing something together. According to it, many are doing A together if and only if the principle of the actions in which they are doing A is (...) a joint intention to do A, an act of intending that is theirs. It seems fitting to call this joint intentional action. In distinction to Bratmanian action by many, joint intentional action is ubiquitous in human life. This raises the question what may be the interest of Bratman's concept. Its interest can reside only in a relation it bears to the concept of joint intentional action. Section 3 discusses the suggestion that Bratmanian action by many is a precursor of joint action in human phylogenesis. This is wrong because subjects are capable of Bratmanian action only in virtue of being subjects of joint action. (shrink)

This paper offers a further look at Husserl’s late thought on the transcendental subject and the Husserl–Heidegger relationship. It attempts a reconstruction of how Husserl hoped to assert his own thoughts on subjectivity vis-à-vis Heidegger, while also pointing out where Husserl did not reach the new level that Heidegger attained. In his late manuscripts, Husserl employs the term ‘transcendental person’ to describe the transcendental ego in its fullest ‘concretion’. I maintain that although this concept is a consistent development of Husserl’s (...) earlier analyses of constitution, Husserl was also defending himself against Heidegger, who criticized him for framing the subject in terms of transcendental ego rather than as Dasein. Husserl was convinced that he could successfully respond to Heidegger’s critique, but he did not grasp that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology was an immanent development, rather than a scathing criticism, of his own phenomenology. (shrink)

One way to seek to reduce the risk of potential offenders engaging in certain types of crime in a public or semi-public area is to make it much more difficult, or even impossible, for them to gain access to the area in question and subject them to a sanction if they do enter the area. This paper considers whether preventive exclusion of this kind should be considered a pro tanto morally impermissible means of crime prevention because it violates the agency (...) of those excluded. Several variants of this agency objection to preventive exclusion are identified and critically assessed. It is argued that none persuasively show preventive exclusion to be pro tanto morally wrong. (shrink)

All forms of cognition, whether natural or artificial, are subject to constraints of their computing architecture. This assumption forms the tenet of virtually all general theories of cognition, including those deriving from bounded optimality and bounded rationality. In this letter, we highlight an unresolved puzzle related to this premise: what are these constraints, and why are cognitive architectures subject to cognitive constraints in the first place? First, we lay out some pieces along the puzzle edge, such as computational tradeoffs inherent (...) to neural architectures that give rise to rational bounds of cognition. We then outline critical next steps for characterizing cognitive bounds, proposing that some of these bounds can be subject to modification by cognition and, as such, are part of what is being optimized when cognitive agents decide how to allocate cognitive resources. We conclude that these emerging views may contribute to a more holistic perspective on the nature of cognitive bounds, as well as their alteration subject to cognition. (shrink)

Proponents of linguistic philosophy hold that all non-empirical philosophical problems can be solved by either analyzing ordinary language or developing an ideal one. I review the debates on linguistic philosophy and between ordinary and ideal language philosophy. Using arguments from these debates, I argue that the results of experimental philosophy on intuitions support linguistic philosophy. Within linguistic philosophy, these experimental results support and complement ideal language philosophy. I argue further that some of the critiques of experimental philosophy are in fact (...) defenses of ideal language philosophy. Finally, I show how much of the current debate about experimental philosophy is anticipated in the debates about and within linguistic philosophy. Specifically, arguments by ideal language philosophers support experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Two recent papers appeared in FOOP disagree regarding the role played by decoherence in quantum physics. On the one hand, Elise Crull considers that decoherence, by itself, solves many conceptual problems in quantum physics, with no need of interpretative considerations. On the other hand, Antonio Vassallo and Michael Esfeld reply by correctly claiming that, although decoherence is a powerful tool to deal with conceptual problems, it does not dispense us from interpreting the formalism. In this brief note we want to (...) contribute to the debate with further considerations from another viewpoint. In this work we show that the discussions "decoherence versus interpretation" revolve around whether the theory of decoherence requires interpretive considerations to solve the measurement problem. In general, those discussions take the theory of decoherence for granted, as if it would not involve any difficulty. Therefore, they commonly focus on the "interpretation" wing: even in the case that the open system decoheres in a given basis, the whole closed system is still in a superposition and, thus, without an adequate interpretation, it cannot be said that the observables defined by that basis behave classically. Here we have focused on the "decoherence" wing: given the conceptual challenges that the theory must face and the alternative approaches to the orthodox view, the understanding of the very phenomenon of decoherence still requires a great deal of interpretive work. (shrink)

Diese Aufsatzsammlung ist der erste ausführliche Versuch, eine Verbindung zwischen dem Denken der klassischen deutschen Philosophie und Husserls Phänomenologie herzustellen. Vorliegender Band versammelt eine Reihe neuer kritischer Artikel sowohl von etablierten Forschern wie jüngeren Philosophen aus beiden Traditionen, um diese Forschungslücke, als welche sie von beiderlei Forschungsrichtungen anerkannt ist, zu schließen. Dieser Band wirft neues Licht auf beide Traditionen und hebt ihre Bedeutung für die Philosophie der Gegenwart hervor, sowohl in historischer wie systematischer Hinsicht. Die in diesem Band behandelten Hauptthemen (...) sind Erkenntnistheorie, Moralphilosophie und die Geschichte der Philosophie, wobei diese Themen auf der Basis von mehreren Subthemen (Objekt, Idealismus/Realismus, Subjektivität/Intersubjektivität, Ethik, Geschichte, Kultur) diskutiert werden. Hierdurch wird das grundsätzliche Koordinatensystem für einen spekulativen Vergleich zwischen Husserl und der klassischen deutschen Philosophie präsentiert, indem die wichtigsten Deutungslinien verfolgt werden, um sowohl die Kontinuität wie auch die Diskontinuität beider Traditionen wertschätzen zu können. Eine Sektion des Bandes ist insbesondere der Rezeption der Husserl’schen Phänomenologie und der klassischen deutschen Philosophie gewidmet. Die Aufsätze dieses Bandes sind für eine generelle philosophische Leserschaft intendiert mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Forschern in den Gebieten der klassischen deutschen Philosophie (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), des Neukantianismus und der phänomenologischen Tradition (insbesondere Husserl, aber ebenso andere wichtige Vertreter derselben).​. (shrink)

The important question of the legality of the state obliging trial incompetent defendants to receive competency-restoring treatment against their wishes, is one that has received much attention by legal scholars. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been paid to the, in many ways more fundamental, moral question of whether the state ought to administer such treatments. The aim of this paper is to start filling this gap in the literature. I begin by offering some reasons for thinking it morally acceptable to, (...) at least sometimes, oblige trial-incompetent defendants to receive competency-restoring treatments. The paper then discusses whether three prominent arguments (and their variations) offered by legal scholars against using non-consensual treatment to restore trial competence provide grounds for thinking there to be a general moral prohibition against these treatments. I argue that they do not. (shrink)

Con el objetivo de cuestionar aquellas interpretaciones que identifican la comprensión liberal del Estado con una estructura organizativa reducida a su mínima expresión cuyo desempeño debe quedar supeditado a las dinámicas económico-productivas, el presente artículo se propone revisar críticamente las propuestas de dos figuras destacadas dentro de la tradición del liberalismo: Adam Smith y Friedrich Hayek. Para ello se compara el modo en el que estos autores articulan el concepto de Estado sobre un plano operativo, en particular, en lo referido (...) al principio de “gobierno limitado”. Se identifican las funciones adjudicadas a las instituciones públicas y se caracteriza el modo en el que se presentan las relaciones entre la órbita estatal y la órbita social. Por último, se destacan continuidades y diferencias entre ambas posturas. Sobre esa base, se proponen algunas reflexiones en torno a la eventual distinción entre un liberalismo ético-político y un liberalismo económico. (shrink)

This essay attempts to spell out what might be left of Husserlian phenomenology when one leaves behind Husserl's own grounding ambitions. Husserl construes transcendental phenomenology as first philosophy. In a pragmatist vein of leaving it behind in the interest of something other, I discuss what would happen if one were to 'pragmatize' phenomenology. After first laying out Husserl's vision, in a second part I reconstruct the motives that led to it in reaction to a 'Cartesian anxiety' of not securing an (...) indubitable ground of knowledge. After that, the article spells out some pragmatic reflections on what phenomenology would be, without the need to secure foundations of knowledge. Such a liberation would in effect enable phenomenology to more fully make true on the ideals of the Enlightenment (which Rorty, too, underwrites) of emancipating oneself of one of the last vestiges of a dogmatic slumber. (shrink)

En este trabajo nos proponemos, en primer lugar, reconstruir brevemente el análisis de Michel Foucault acerca de la episteme moderna, para luego analizar algunos rastros que identificamos en ciertos textos del pensador francés sobre la episteme contemporánea. A los fines de lograr este cometido, en tercer lugar, analizamos algunos textos de algunos pensadores del posestructuralismo francés y de la Mass Communication Research. Finalmente, concluimos que el acontecimiento que da lugar a la reconfiguración del saber occidental y a la conformación de (...) la episteme contemporánea está relacionado con las cuestiones del sentido y de la información, que contribuyen a delinear los contornos de las características del hombre y el lenguaje en la nueva episteme. (shrink)

En el presente artículo proponemos abordar el problema de la pobreza desde dos perspectivas ético-filosóficas: En primer lugar, la pobreza como problema que debe solucionarse desde la caridad; En segundo lugar, la pobreza como problema de justicia. En definitiva queremos hacer una apología de los pobres, marginados y excluidos en el mundo y, en particular, en las democracias occidentales que se abrogan y llevan a gala el título de democracias incluyentes, que ayude a estas personas a tener una nueva oportunidad (...) que les saque de la pobreza. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Beitrag beginnt mit dem Bericht eines männlichen Analysanden über heterosexuellen Geschlechtsverkehr, den er als zutiefst lustvoll und gleichzeitig verstörend erlebt. Bei der Analyse der berichteten Erfahrung entsteht ein zunächst verwirrendes Bild von Geschlechtlichkeit jenseits der Binaritäten des penetrierenden Mannes und der penetrierten Frau. Beim Versuch einer theoretischen Einordnung wird die habituelle männliche Verleugnung der passiven Position im Geschlechtsverkehr und die Betonung der aktiv penetrierenden Phallizität als Abwehrformation gegen übermäßige sexuelle Erregung verstanden. Unter Rückgriff auf Laplanches Theorie der Konstitution (...) der infantilen Sexualität als Übersetzung rätselhafter elterlicher Botschaften wird Sex als zentraler Schauplatz der Aufsprengung rigider Geschlechterstereotype und gleichzeitiger Reproduktion selbiger verstanden. Die Untersuchung will unter Einbeziehung psychoanalytischer, aber auch queertheoretischer Überlegungen einen Beitrag zum Verständnis männlicher Heterosexualität leisten, indem rigide Phallizität als eine mögliche Abwehrformation gegen eine »fluidere« und gleichzeitig verstörendere Sexualität verstanden wird. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 18 Heft: 1 Seiten: 261-278.

Elliott Sober has suggested his criterion of contrastive testability as an improvement over previous criteria of empirical significance like falsifiability. I argue that his criterion renders almost any theory empirically significant because its restrictions on auxiliary assumptions are to weak. Even when the criterion is modified to avoid this trivialization, it fails to meet other conditions of adequacy for a criterion of empirical significance that follow from Sober's position. I suggest to define empirical significance as empirical non-equivalence to a tautology, (...) because this definition does meet the conditions of adequacy. Specifically, it is equivalent to the standard Bayesian criterion of empirical significance whenever all probabilities are defined and contains falsifiability as a special case. This latter feature is important because those conditions of adequacy that apply to criteria of deductive empirical significance single out falsifiability. (shrink)

Die neuzeitliche Philosophie beginnt mit der Einsicht Descartes', daß sich die Aussagen, in denen man sich selbst Gedanken, Absichten, Meinungen zuschreibt, fundamental von denen unterscheiden, in denen man die Welt der körperlichen Dinge beschreibt. Descartes, und mit ihm eine bis heute mächtige Tradition, schließt daraus, daß sich diese Ich-Aussagen auf eine eigene Welt geistiger Dinge beziehen. Der von den Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften inspirierte philosophische Naturalismus hat dagegen in jüngster Zeit eine Reihe von Arbeiten hervorgebracht, die dem Selbstbezug unseres geistigen Lebens (...) einen Ort in der einheitlichen Welt natürlicher Phänomene zuweisen. Das vorliegende Buch zeigt, warum die cartesische wie die naturalistische Deutung des bewußten Selbstbezugs gleichermaßen verfehlt sind. (shrink)

Two theses are defended: First, that realism is a semantic thesis; second, that religious language ought to be interpreted realistically. The first part from chapter 1 to 4 is concerned with the first thesis, the second part from chapter 5 to 6 with the second. I first give an overview on the subject of realism and antirealism explaining the core problem of the debate that any satisfying interpretation of realism should be able to solve. Then I develop a solution based (...) on Dummetts theory of semantic realism, so that metaphysical problems can be translated into semantic ones. Subsequently I discuss several arguments against this theory and develop my own, improved theory of semantic realism, which is able to resist the critique. Finally, I present and refute two arguments by Dummett intended to show that the semantic interpretation of realism already shows realism to be inconsistent. Having developed these semantic tools, I show how debates in philosophy of religion may be described and classified and how semantic criteria may be used to determine which theory is antirealist and which is not. Finally, I analyse and discuss the arguments in the current debate on religious antirealism and present a few new arguments based on the semantic interpretation of realism, to show the inconsistency of religious antirealism. (shrink)