El presente artículo busca mostrar un recorrido sobre los modos en que el concepto de “filosofía primera” ha sido apropiado en la historia de la filosofía occidental, primero como metafísica y luego como filosofía trascendental. Esta transformación, se sostiene, viene acompañado de un cambio de paradigma en la comprensión del tiempo: como un elemento cuya explicación exige su superación en la eternidad, y como dimensión originaria auto-fundante. Asimismo, se argumenta por qué esta transformación mantiene un mismo hilo conductor en los (...) motivos filosóficos que se encuentran dentro del concepto mismo de “filosofía primera”. (shrink)

What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with foundational topics in the philosophy of mind, the theory of action, psychology, and the neurosciences this book provides a unified and comprehensive answer to both questions. Sebastian Watzl shows that attention is a central structural feature of the mind. The first half of the book provides an account of the nature of attention. Attention is prioritizing, it consists in regulating priority structures. Attention is not another element (...) of the mind, but constituted by structures that organize, integrate, and coordinate the parts of our mind. Attention thus integrates the perceptual and intellectual, the cognitive and motivational, and the epistemic and practical. The second half of the book concerns the relationship between attention and consciousness. Watzl argues that attentional structure shapes consciousness into what is central and what is peripheral. The center-periphery structure of consciousness cannot be reduced to the structure of how the world appears to the subject. What it is like for us thus goes beyond the way the world appears to us. On this basis, a new view of consciousness is offered. In each conscious experience we actively take a stance on the world we appear to encounter. It is in this sense that our conscious experience is our subjective perspective. (shrink)

Meta-ethical expressivism was traditionally seen as the view that normative judgements are not beliefs. Recently, quasi-realists have argued, via a minimalist conception of “belief”, that expressivism is fully compatible with normative judgements being beliefs. This maneuver is successful, however, only if quasi-realists have really offered an expressivist-friendly account of belief that captures all platitudes characterizing belief. But, quasi-realists’ account has a crucial gap, namely how to account for the propositional contents of normative beliefs in an expressivist-friendly manner. In particular, quasi-realists (...) haven’t yet developed their preferred option, a “minimalist” or “deflationist” account of such contents. This paper aims to close that gap. I argue that expressivists who accepts conceptual role semantics and use an account of that-clauses in their use in belief-attributions based on Wilfrid Sellars’ work can give a deflationary account of the contents of beliefs that is compatible with normative judgements being beliefs, even if expressivism is true. (shrink)

In his book The Formation of Reason (2011), David Bakhurst asserts that the end of education is autonomy, which he explains is the power to determine what to do.

Carnap suggests that philosophy can be construed as being engaged solely in conceptual engineering. I argue that since many results of the sciences can be construed as stemming from conceptual engineering as well, Carnap’s account of philosophy can be methodologically naturalistic. This is also how he conceived of his account. That the sciences can be construed as relying heavily on conceptual engineering is supported by empirical investigations into scientific methodology, but also by a number of conceptual considerations. I present a (...) new conceptual consideration that generalizes Carnap’s conditions of adequacy for analytic–synthetic distinctions and thus widens the realm in which conceptual engineering can be used to choose analytic sentences. I apply these generalized conditions of adequacy to a recent analysis of scientific theories and defend the relevance of the analytic–synthetic distinction against criticisms by Quine, Demopoulos, and Papineau. (shrink)

Geoffrey Hellman has argued that non-truth-functionality entails a change of meaning between classical and quantum logical connectives. This paper criticizes and significantly improves the argument.

What does the truth of a judgment consist of, according to F. H. Bradley? What is its ultimate nature? In particular, how does such a property relate to reality? At least three interpretive theses have been offered: (i) that Bradley defended a theory of truth as coherence; (ii) that, rather, Bradley defended a robust variant of the identity theory of truth; and (iii) that, in any case, Bradley rejected the correspondence theory of truth. In this article I question these three (...) theses and argue that the position defended by Bradley is perfectly compatible with a weak variant of the correspondence theory of truth. This, by the way, makes his position vulnerable to certain objections. Bradley’s merit consists not so much in having answered them satisfactorily as in having anticipated them and assumed them as eventual consequences of his position. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories of consciousness attempt to explain what it takes for a mental state to be conscious, rather than unconscious, by means of a HOT that represents oneself as being in the state in question. Rosenthal Consciousness and the self: new essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011) stresses that the way we are aware of our own conscious states requires essentially indexical self-reference. The challenge for defenders of HOT theories is to show that there is a way to explain (...) the required reference-fixing mechanisms that is compatible with the theory. According to Rosenthal, the reference to oneself as such is grounded in the disposition to identify the individual the HOT refers to as the individual who has that HOT. I argue that this leads to a vicious infinite regress on the more than plausible assumption that our cognitive capacities are limited. This leaves such theories without a foundation, since self-reference is thought essential to consciousness. (shrink)

I argue first that attention is a (maybe the) paradigmatic case of an object-directed, non-propositional intentional mental episode. In addition attention cannot be reduced to any other (propositional or non-propositional) mental episodes. Yet, second, attention is not a non-propositional mental attitude. It might appear puzzling how one could hold both of these claims. I show how to combine them, and how that combination shows how propositionality and non-propositionality can co-exist in a mental life. The crucial move is one away from (...) an atomistic, building block picture to a more holistic, structural picture. (shrink)

Although the proportion of women in leadership positions has grown over the past decades, women are still underrepresented in leadership roles, which poses an ethical challenge to society at large but business in particular. Accordingly, a growing body of research has attempted to unravel the reasons for this inequality. Besides theoretical progress, a central goal of these studies is to inform measures targeted at increasing the share of women in leadership positions. Striving to contribute to these efforts and drawing on (...) several theoretical approaches, the present study provides a contemporary examination of whether women and men differ in their levels of power motivation and whether potential gender differences in this motivation contribute to the unequal distribution of women and men in leadership positions. Results from four studies provide converging support for these assumptions. Specifically, we found that women consistently reported lower power motivation than men. This in turn mediated the link between gender and leadership role occupancy. These results were robust to several methodological variations including samples from different populations, diverse operationalizations of power motivation and leadership role occupancy, and study design. Implications for theory and practice, including ways to contribute to a more equal gender distribution in leadership positions, are discussed. (shrink)

Kant asserts that the formula of the schools “nihil appetimus, nisi sub ratione boni” is undoubtedly certain when clearly expressed. Conversely, doubt reflects a failure clearly to express it. Once we comprehend the concepts of the formula, of the good and of desire, there is no doubting it. In recent times, the formula has fallen into doubt. If Kant is right, then this shows a lack of clarity with respect to the concepts the formula conjoins. I want to suggest that (...) Kant is right: the formula of the schools is undoubtedly certain. I first explain in Kant’s own terms why there is no such thing as doubting the formula. Then I approach it from a different angle, provided by what I take to be the unclarity that affects current thought on the topic. (shrink)

In this review, we present a rigorous construction of an algebraic method for quantum unstable states, also called Gamow states. A traditional picture associates these states to vectors states called Gamow vectors. However, this has some difficulties. In particular, there is no consistent definition of mean values of observables on Gamow vectors. In this work, we present Gamow states as functionals on algebras in a consistent way. We show that Gamow states are not pure states, in spite of their representation (...) as Gamow vectors. We propose a possible way out to the construction of averages of observables on Gamow states. The formalism is intended to be presented with sufficient mathematical rigor. (shrink)

Recent psychological research shows that attention affects appearances. An “attended item looks bigger, faster, earlier, more saturated, stripier.” (Block 2010, p. 41). What is the significance of these findings? Ned Block has argued that they undermine representationism, roughly the view that the phenomenal character of perception is determined by its representational content. My first goal in this paper is to show that Block’s argument has the structure of a Problem of Arbitrary Phenomenal Variation and that it improves on other instances (...) of arguments of the same form along several dimensions (most prominently, these are arguments based on the possibility of spectral inversion). My second goal is to consider responses to Block’s version of the arbitrariness problem. I will show that most of them have serious drawbacks. Overall, the best view is to accept that attention may distort perception, sacrificing veridicality for usability. I end my discussion by showing how to develop that view. (shrink)

In this essay we discuss recent attempts to analyse the notion of representation, as it is employed in cognitive science, in purely informational terms. In particular, we argue that recent informational theories cannot accommodate the existence of metarepresentations. Since metarepresentations play a central role in the explanation of many cognitive abilities, this is a serious shortcoming of these proposals.

Adrian Moore argues that Kant’s transcendental idealism is incoherent, and that its incoherence gives us an invaluable insight into the fundamental nature of metaphysics, motivating the reconception of metaphysical inquiry with which Moore concludes his story of the development of modern philosophy. My discussion has three parts. First, I focus on the treatment of Kant’s transcendental idealism in Moore’s earlier book, Points of View, and highlight ways in which Moore is, I argue, open to challenge. Second, I suggest that the (...) historical record does not bear out Moore’s criticism of Kant’s transcendental idealism. Third, I compare Moore’s response to the alleged incoherence of transcendental idealism with that of the German Romantics. (shrink)

»Somatische Narration« bezeichnet eine Arbeitsweise, die Strukturen des Körperselbst, die durch Traumatisierung desorganisiert sind und den Kontakt zum symbolischen Netzwerk verloren haben, ins Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit des analytischen Paars stellt. Diese nicht-repräsentierten Zustände werden als »verkapselte Körperengramme« aufgefasst. Sie weisen eine leiblich organisierte Abwehrstruktur auf, zu der neben Desorganisation und Versteinerung auch Wahrnehmungsabwehr, d.h. die systematische Abwendung der Aufmerksamkeit vom eigenen Körper, gehört. Die »somatische Narration« kehrt die Wahrnehmungsabwehr um. Zentral hierfür ist eine spezifische therapeutische Haltung: Die sinnliche Präsenz und (...) das leibliche »Containment« werden ins Zentrum der analytischen Haltung gestellt. Vorschnelle Symbolisierungen werden auf Seiten des Analytikers (Deutung) wie des Analysanden als Abwehr der Wahrnehmung des beschädigten Körperselbst und als Widerstand gegen das Durcharbeiten »verkapselter Körperengramme« aufgefasst. Ein klinisches Beispiel erläutert die Arbeitsweise und zeigt die Veränderung der desorganisierten Körperlandschaft im Verlauf einer vierjährigen Analyse. (shrink)

The non-transitivity of the relation looks the same as has been used to argue that the relation has the same phenomenal character as is non-transitive—a result that jeopardizes certain theories of consciousness. In this paper, I argue against this conclusion while granting the premise by dissociating lookings and phenomenology; an idea that some might find counter-intuitive. However, such an intuition is left unsupported once phenomenology and cognitive access are distinguished from each other; a distinction that is conceptually and empirically grounded.

El argumento cosmológico en su variante racionalista está compuesto por al menos dos premisas fundamentales: la premisa según la cual hay seres explicados por otros seres y el principio de razón suficiente. Ambas premisas son plausibles si se las toma individualmente. El problema es que tomadas conjuntamente conducen a un resultado irracional. Aquí propongo sacrificar uno de los aspectos del principio de razón suficiente, precisamente aquel aspecto que nos conduce a tal resultado irracional. Sin embargo, este sacrificio implica aceptar que (...) el argumento cosmológico fracasa en su propósito fundamental. (shrink)

Food standards, which are used to signal adherence to sustainability goals or a specific origin, have deep political implications. Standards crafted by retailers, processors, or third-party actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often disempower farmers. Moreover, due to the liberalization and globalization of many food value chains, producer organizations (POs) lost some of their legal privileges and market protections. This paper analyzes how POs in the Global North sought to regain their control over food markets by establishing their own standards. (...) These strategies and their consequences are considered across three dimensions: the internal life of the PO, the relevant market institutions, and the relationship between the PO and the state. Our case studies (N = 5) performed in France and in Québec, a French-speaking province of Canada, span across a variety of food sectors. Drawing on qualitative material, we designed our explanatory framework through an abductive, iterative method. Although standards crafted by POs have, in some cases, reshaped market institutions to their advantage and have repositioned them in the governance of food markets, they come at a cost. They may create tensions within POs and clash with the agrarian values of solidarity, democracy, and autonomy. Overall, this article challenges the assumption that food standards are mainly governed by private actors and sheds light on the new alliances and new identities of POs. (shrink)

En los últimos años, el comportamiento bosónico que un sistema de fermiones puede exhibir ha despertado el interés de los físicos. En este trabajo, se adopta un enfoque basado en estructuras producto tensorial y se asume una ontología de propiedades para argumentar en favor de la relatividad de la noción de identidad estadística y en favor de una interpretación realista del comportamiento trans-estadístico.

Was macht den Comic als Medium aus? Wer oder was macht ihn zu einem Medium? Für die Erforschung von Comics gibt es bislang keinen allgemein verbindlichen Medienbegriff: Zu divers scheinen sie, wenn sie aus Texten und Bildern arrangiert, in Zeitungen gedruckt, als Hefte gesammelt, als graphic novels besprochen oder auf Smartphones gelesen werden. Die Medien des Comics entwickelt ein Medialitätsmodell, mit dem sich der medialen Bestimmung von Comics gerade in ihrer Veränderbarkeit nachgehen lässt. Medialität wird dazu als ein Verbindungsprinzip verstanden, (...) nach dem die Einrichtung eines bestimmbaren Mediums Comic aus Materialien, Zeichen und Institutionen stetig neu vollzogen wird. Analysen zeigen auf, wie heterogene Akteure diese modernen Medienbestimmungen verändern - und wie dabei Kontroversen hinsichtlich der Mediengeschichte, Nostalgie, Selbstreflexivität und Materialität von Comics aufkommen. Dabei führen die Fallbeispiele von der Vergangenheit der comic strips und comic books zu aktuellen Entwicklungen im Zusammenhang mit Smartphones, Webcomics und Blogs. Der Band richtet sich an Comicforschende unterschiedlicher Disziplinen sowie an Medienwissenschaftler: innen, die sich mit Transformationsprozessen auseinandersetzen. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomism in John Owen by Christopher ClevelandSebastian RehnmanThomism in John Owen. By Christopher Cleveland. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Pp. 173. $90.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-1-4094-5579-0.Renaissance Scholasticism generally falls out of the contemporary philosophical and theological canon, and thus this form of argumentation is, and has for a long time, been a severely neglected area of study. However, a renewed interest in this field is increasingly exposing the philosophical (...) and theological stereotypes of the few earlier studies. Although institutional [End Page 160] philosophy and theology throughout Europe between the Reformation and the Enlightenment continued to identify itself as Scholastic, it is now clear that it was far from homogeneous. One of the diverse currents was the Scholasticism in Evangelical Protestantism. Within the reformed Church, academies aimed explicitly at continuing and contributing to the theological and philosophical tradition of the entire Church. Several studies have in particular suggested continuity between Thomas Aquinas and philosophers and theologians of good standing in the reformed Church. The most recent study is Christopher Cleveland’s Thomism in John Owen.The subject of this study is well chosen. John Owen (1616-83) was an influential pastor, scholar, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, and chaplain of Oliver Cromwell. He received a first-rate education at Oxford and maintained a wide-ranging scholarship throughout his life. His complete works comprise twenty-four volumes in the critical edition, and these are often thorough and systematic. From his tutor and friend Thomas Barlow, Owen seems to have gained a deep and lifelong appreciation of Aquinas, Alvarez, Bañez, and other Scholastics.Cleveland rightly aims at a focused investigation. His purpose is to “expand the inquiry into Reformed Thomism” (17) and “examine the role of Thomism in the theology of John Owen” (2). By “Thomism” he means “Aquinas” and sometimes “Diego Alvarez and Domingo Bañez.” In the first chapter Cleveland outlines the book and surveys some of the secondary literature. In the second chapter he contends that Owen was influenced by Aquinas’s concept of actus purus in arguing divine simplicity, divine immutability, and divine concurrence. In the third and fourth chapters he asserts that Aquinas’s understanding of infused “habits” strengthened Owen’s explanation of justification and sanctification. In the fifth chapter Cleveland proposes that Owen’s account of the hypostatic union is greatly indebted to Aquinas. Strangely the author concludes that Owen’s thought represents “a Western Trinitarian Theology” although he does not treat Owen’s doctrine of the Trinity.This book is a laudable and well-needed attempt to determine the particular influence of Aquinas on Owen. However, Cleveland’s work would benefit from a greater methodological rigor. Let us first consider Cleveland’s criteria for tracing Aquinas’s influence. He suggests that there are “four categories into which Thomistic influence falls.” These are: (1) quotations or paraphrases of “Thomas or a Thomist author,” (2) the development of a subject by means of similar theological concepts, (3) the “use of similar but not identical principles,” and (4) a coincidence of thought because of a common source. The second criterion is said to identify the most common type of influence, and the fourth the rarest (3). Now, that Owen was influenced by Aquinas is not in contest; the question is: how was Owen influenced? And there are limitations to what can be drawn from the application of these categories. The first category is not decisive, since any [End Page 161] author may be quoted or paraphrased for widely various reasons, and some influential authors may not be quoted or paraphrased. The fourth criterion is somewhat irrelevant, since the coincidental rarely reveals steady influence.Cleveland identifies “three major areas of Thomistic influence upon Owen’s theology” (4; similarly 154). These are God as actus purus, infused dispositions of grace, and the hypostatic union. Yet, the book contains no argument for that conclusion. Having formulated four criteria for the assessment of influence in the first chapter, Cleveland surprisingly does not return to them in the remainder of the book. The reader is thus left to wonder whether these three major areas of influence were determined by applying... (shrink)

Entrepreneurship has been highlighted as one of the major forces in addressing significant economic, social, and environmental challenges. These challenges have raised new ethical questions, leading to an explosive growth of research at the intersection of ethics and entrepreneurship. This study provides an overview of the evolution of the scientific literature on the interplay between ethics and entrepreneurship to propose a research proposition with standardized protocols and a broad time limit. Specifically, in a hybrid literature review, 516 articles from peer-reviewed (...) journals indexed in Scopus were analyzed. The review revealed that the field mainly comprises six themes. Through the analysis of each theme, gaps are identified and structured and used to build theoretical proposals for future research agendas applied to current societal challenges. Understanding the link between entrepreneurship and ethics guides practices improves decisions, addresses challenges, promotes sustainability, enhances academia, and builds trust, fostering a responsible, beneficial entrepreneurial environment for society and the economy. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to examine whether the “step back and watch” attitude of mindfulness manifests in less emotional behavior. We hypothesized that the “acceptance” facet of mindfulness, but not the “presence” facet, is negatively associated with the magnitude of emotional behavior in four tests, i.e., rating of words, rating of aversive and neutral pictures, and evaluative conditioning . Additionally, we hypothesized that the acceptance facet is associated with increased reaction time in an emotional Stroop test, and that (...) the presence facet is associated with decreased RT and lower error rate. The sample consisted of N = 247 non-clinical adults and was tested in a cross-sectional study. The results provide partial evidence that the acceptance facet of mindfulness may be associated with less aversive reactions towards aversive stimuli. Future studies should substantiate these findings but also determine their clinical relevance. (shrink)

The present essay aims to respond to one of the most recent empirical challenges posed to an Aristotelian based virtue ethics. In the course of the debate concerning the existence of character traits a second and more recent challenge has emerged, which Jesse Prinz has called The Normativity Challenge. The argument in this case is that the empirical study of happiness undertaken by psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists, reveals that the end which virtues are supposed to support, namely happiness, is so (...) thoroughly culturally specific that an Aristotelian virtue ethics cannot hope to stand as an alternative to other forms of ethics. In response I argue that Prinz’s critique is committed to two presuppositions about Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia that are not supported by a careful reading of the Nicomachean Ethics, one of which is a careful understanding of natural goodness, so that the sociological evidence he produces does not support the conclusion he supposes that it does. (shrink)

This essay aims to extend Paul Ricœur’s account of recognition to address some of the concerns of globalization, especially those voiced by Enrique Dussel. The extension is accomplished in two parts. First, Dussel’s account of spatial existence as dwelling is reviewed as it is pertinent to the concerns of globalization. Next, it is demonstrated that each of the aspects of Ricœur’s account of recognition may be given a spatial re-articulation. The results thus establish an outline of how recognition theory might (...) address some of the concerns of globalization. The essay concludes with several consequences for the modification of recognition politics as one finds it in the late work of Ricœur and in Axel Honneth’s ongoing inquiries. . (shrink)

The paper develops the claim that in The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard conceptualizes a demoralized understanding of sin. Rather than interpreting sin as moral guilt, he proposes a concept of sin that takes the form of alienation. The claim is unfolded in a three-step argumentation: First, we identify crucial hermeneutical issues and stress the role of the pseudonyms within Kierkegaard’s writings. Second, we offer a detailed analysis of the theory of self-consciousness developed by Anti-Climacus. Finally, using the romantic interpretation of (...) Kierkegaard as a foundation, we demonstrate how Anti-Climacus conceptualizes sin as alienation. (shrink)

En 1735 Baumgarten publica su obra Reflexiones filosóficas acerca de la poesía, en ella, por primera vez, desarrolla la idea de una ciencia de lo sensible capaz de aprehender la idea de lo bello en el arte, a la cual designará como estética. Esta búsqueda por determinar qué es la belleza y cuál es el estatuto que tiene la experiencia estética dentro del edificio del conocimiento parece estar más relacionado con los planteamientos leibnicianos en torno a la sensibilidad, que con (...) el marco gnoseológico wolffiano, no solo por el manejo que se da de los conceptos de perfección, belleza y verdad, sino porque en el desarrollo de sus investigaciones sobre la sensibilidad parece ejecutarse mecanismos de subjetivación similares, marcados por un fuerte trasfondo perspectivista. En vista de esto, el presente ensayo se pregunta por la influencia leibniciana en la filosofía baumgartiana, específicamente por la cuestión acerca de cómo influye el concepto de pequeñas percepciones, en tanto que elemento central de la concepción perspectivista de Leibniz, en la concepción de la estética por Baumgarten. (shrink)

Assisted dying and human dignity are two extremely contested topics in Bioethics. This volume offers the first book-length attempt to bring both together. Its authors develop detailed philosophical analyses of dignity, and how it relates to assisted suicide and euthanasia.

As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop insecure feelings regarding their social standing among their peers. These adolescents sometimes use aggression to defend or promote their status. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social status insecurity, callous-unemotional traits, and popularity-motivated aggression and prosocial behaviors among adolescents, while controlling for gender. Another purpose was to examine the potential moderating role of CU traits in these relationships. Participants were 1,047 in the 7th (...) or 8th grades from a large Midwestern city. They completed questionnaires on social status insecurity, CU traits, and popularity-motivated relational aggression, physical aggression, cyberaggression, and prosocial behaviors. A structural regression model was conducted, with gender as a covariate. The model had adequate fit. Social status insecurity was associated positively with callousness, unemotional, and popularity-motivated aggression and related negatively to popularity-motivated prosocial behaviors. High social status insecurity was related to greater popularity-motivated aggression when adolescents had high callousness traits. The findings have implications for understanding the individual characteristics associated with social status insecurity. (shrink)

This essay challenges Allegra de Laurentiis’s characterization of Hegel’s philosophy of nature as involving a polar, oppositional force-metaphysics. I begin by showing the centrality of such a force-metaphysics to de Laurentiis’s interpretation, and I go on to argue that Hegel thoroughly rejects force-metaphysics. I then consider some possible difficulties for my argument, including Hegel’s elaboration of attraction and repulsion, before turning to his distinction between “force [Kraft]” and “power [Macht].” I argue that the concept of power captures what Hegel endorses (...) in force-metaphysics, and that power is central to Hegel’s view of both spirit and nature. I conclude by suggesting that we best understand the Anthropology not as resolving a tension between natural polarity and ensouled unity, but as continuing a process of elaborating and extending a form of unity shared by both nature and spirit. (shrink)

Before an aggregation of persons can be said to constitute a community there must exist a sharing of a body of norms or values, or asystem of beliefs or morals. In sociology this conception frequentlyappears in the term “consensus,” and in political science a similar conception goes by the phrase “social contract.” The two conceptions are not identical and an important point of difference will be touched on later, but according to this position knowledge of and adherence to the fundamental (...) rules is necessary to group unity or cohesion. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 2 Seiten: 267-282.