As our interactions with nature occur increasingly within urban landscapes, there is a need to consider how ‘mundane nature’ can be valued as a route for people to connect to nature. The content of a three good things in nature intervention, written by 65 participants each day for five days is analysed. Content analysis produced themes related to sensations, temporal change, active wildlife, beauty, weather, colour, good feelings and specific aspects of nature. The (...) themes describe the everyday good things in nature, providing direction for those seeking to frame engaging conservation messages, plan urban spaces and connect people with nearby nature. (shrink)

Ockham’s theory of natural rights was based on a careful definition of the basic juridical terms dominium and ius utendi, as well as on the idea of human agency and morality. By defining a right as a licit power of action in accordance with right reason (recta ratio), Ockham placed rights firmly in the agent. A right was a subjective power of action. Ockham’s theory of natural rights was influential for later natural rights theories. Its advocates included leading thinkers of (...) the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose views on the right to life, its relation to the right to property, and the state of nature resembled those ideas already developed by Ockham approximately three hundred years earlier. (shrink)

Secular moral philosophy has devoted little attention to the nature and significance of faith. Perhaps this is unsurprising. The significance of faith is typically thought to depend on the truth of theism, and so it may seem that a careful study of faith has little to offer non-religious philosophy. But I argue that, whether or not theism holds, certain kinds of faith are centrally important virtues, that is, character traits that are morally admirable or admirable from some broader perspective (...) of human flourishing. I discuss three varieties of faith that a virtuous person has in people: faith in herself, faith in people to whom she bears certain personal relationships, and faith in humanity. Coming to understand the nature of these forms of faith and the roles they play in human life promises to deepen our understanding of aspects of moral life and aspects of human flourishing that are poorly grasped. Beyond this, it makes valuable contributions to the literature on self-trust and the literature on epistemic partiality in friendship, and it helps us better understand the relation between our epistemic and practical ideals. (shrink)

The Mechanisation of Natural Philosophy is devoted to various aspects of the transformation of natural philosophy during the 16th and 17th centuries that is usually described as mechanical philosophy. Drawing the border between the old Aristotelianism and the « new » mechanical philosophy faces historians with a delicate task, if not an impossible mission. There were many natural philosophers who actually crossed the border between the two worlds, and, inside each of these worlds, there was a vast spectrum of (...) doctrines, arguments and intellectual practices. The expression mechanical philosophy is burdened with ambiguities. It may refer to at least three different enterprises: a description of nature in mathematical terms; the comparison of natural phenomena to existing or imaginary machines; the use in natural philosophy of mechanical analogies, i.e. analogies conceived in terms of matter and motion alone.However mechanical philosophy is defined, its ambition was greater than its real successes. There were few mathematisations of phenomena. The machines of mechanical philosophers were not only imaginary, but had little to do with the machines of mecanicians. In most of the natural sciences, analogies in terms of matter and motion alone failed to provide satisfactory accounts of phenomena.By the same authors: Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 254). (shrink)

Knowledge of the entanglement properties of the wave functions commonly used to describe quantum many-particle systems can enhance our understanding of their correlation structure and provide new insights into quantum phase transitions that are observed experimentally or predicted theoretically. To illustrate this theme, we first examine the bipartite entanglement contained in the wave functions generated by microscopic many-body theory for the transverse Ising model, a system of Pauli spins on a lattice that exhibits an order-disorder magnetic quantum phase transition under (...) variation of the coupling parameter. Results for the single-site entanglement and measures of two-site bipartite entanglement are obtained for optimal wave functions of Jastrow-Hartree type. Second, we address the nature of bipartite and tripartite entanglement of spins in the ground state of the noninteracting Fermi gas, through analysis of its two- and three-fermion reduced density matrices. The presence of genuine tripartite entanglement is established and characterized by implementation of suitable entanglement witnesses and stabilizer operators. We close with a broader discussion of the relationships between the entanglement properties of strongly interacting systems of identical quantum particles and the dynamical and statistical correlations entering their wave functions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper examines the relevance of the nomological view of nature to three discussions of tide in the thirteenth century. A nomological conception of nature assumes that the basic explanatory units of natural phenomena are universally binding rules stated in quantitative terms. Robert Grosseteste introduced an account of the tide based on the mechanism of rarefaction and condensation, stimulated by the Moon's rays and their angle of incidence. He considered the Moon's action over the sea an example (...) of the general efficient causality exerted through the universal activity of light or species. Albert the Great posited a plurality of causes which cannot be reduced to a single cause. The connaturality of the Moon and the water is the only principle of explanation which he considered universal. Connaturality, however, renders neither formulation nor quantification possible. While Albert stressed the variety of causes of the tide, Roger Bacon emphasized regularity and reduced the various causes producing tides into forces. He replaced the terminology of ‘natures’ by one of ‘forces’. Force, which in principle can be accurately described and measured, thus becomes a commensurable aspect of a diverse cosmos. When they reasoned why waters return to their place after the tide, Grosseteste argued that waters return in order to prevent a vacuum, Albert claimed that waters ‘follow their own nature’, while Bacon held that the ‘proper force’ of the water prevails over the distant force of the first heaven. I exhibit, for the thirteenth century, moments of the move away from the Aristotelian concerns. The basic elements of these concerns were essences and natures which reflect specific phenomena and did not allow for an image of nature as a unified system. In the new perspective of the thirteenth century the key was a causal link between the position of the Moon and the tide cycle, a link which is universal and still qualitative, yet expressed as susceptible to quantification. (shrink)

The First International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modelling and Using Context, Rio de Janeiro, January 1997, gave rise to the present book, which contains a selection of the papers presented there, thoroughly refereed and revised. The treatment of contexts as bona fide objects of logical formalisation has gained wide acceptance, following the seminal impetus given by McCarthy in his Turing Award address. The field of natural language offers a particularly rich variety of examples and challenges to researchers concerned with the (...) formal modelling of context, and several chapters in the volume deal with contextualisation in the setting of natural language. Others adopt a purely formal-logical viewpoint, seeking to develop general models of even wider applicability. The 12 chapters are organised in three groups: formalisation of contextual information in natural language understanding and generation, the application of context in mechanised reasoning domains, and novel non-classical logics for contextual application. (shrink)

This paper offers a systematic analysis of Hobbes’s practical political thought. Hobbes’s abstract philosophy is rightly celebrated, but he also gave much practical advice on how to avoid disorder. Yet he is typically interpreted too narrowly in this respect, especially by those who only read him economistically. Other scholars supplement this economistic focus with sociological or political interpretations, but to my knowledge, no one stresses all three aspects of his thought. This paper thus examines each of Hobbes’s practical (...) proposals for avoiding corruption and a state of nature. Hobbes clearly uses economistic, sociological and political approaches, which involve shaping incentives, desires/preferences, and opportunities, respectively. This intentionally anachronistic framework helps us see further, highlighting Hobbes’s rich and wide-ranging practical proposals for avoiding disorder – a crucial part of his theory. (shrink)

Artificial life uses computer models to study the essential nature of the characteristic processes of complex adaptive systems proceses such as self-organization, adaptation, and evolution. Work in the field is guided by the working hypothesis that simple computer models can capture the essential nature of these processes. This hypothesis is illustrated by recent results with a simple population of computational agents whose sensorimotor functionality undergo open-ended adaptive evolution. These might illuminate three aspects of complex adaptive systems (...) in general: punctuated equilibrium dynamics of diversity, a transition separating genetic order and disorder, and a law of adaptive evolutionary activity. (shrink)

Of the three views of theoretical knowledge which form the focus of this article, the first has its source in the work of Russell, the second in Ramsey, and the third in Carnap. Although very different, all three views subscribe to a principle I formulate as ‘the structuralist thesis’; they are also naturally expressed using the concept of a Ramsey sentence. I distinguish the framework of assumptions which give rise to the structuralist thesis from an unproblematic emphasis on (...) the importance of ‘structural’ differences for the analysis and interpretation of theories belonging to the exact sciences, and I review a number of logical properties of Ramsey sentences using very simple arithmetical theories and their models. I then develop a reconstruction of the views of Russell, Ramsey, and Carnap that clarifies the interrelationships among them by appealing to aspects of the arithmetical examples that inform my discussion of Ramsey sentences. I conclude with an account of the philosophical basis of the structuralist thesis and the fundamental difficulty to which it leads. (shrink)

Following the revival in the last decades of the concept of “organism”, scholarly literature in philosophy of science has shown growing historical interest in the theory of Immanuel Kant, one of the “fathers” of the concept of self-organisation. Yet some recent theoretical developments suggest that self-organisation alone cannot fully account for the all-important dimension of autonomy of the living. Autonomy appears to also have a genuine “interactive” dimension, which concerns the organism’s functional interactions with the environment and does not simply (...) derive from its internal organisation. Against this background, we focus on a family of natural philosophical approaches that historically have already strongly taken in account this aspect of autonomy, notably going beyond Kant’s perspective on self-organisation. We thus review Hegel, Plessner, and Jonas’ different perspectives on living beings, focussing in particular on four points: the distinction between organic and inorganic, the theory of biological organisation, the processuality of the living, and the “boundary” between inside and outside, through which the organism establishes its relationship to the environment. We, then, compare the three perspectives on these four points, and finally address the question of what advantages their contribution present—especially compared to Kant’s theory—with respect to the topic of organism’s autonomy. This could help—we hope—to better understand what is at the stake still today. (shrink)

Who am I? What is my true identity? What is the nature of self? Deepest self? What is the nature of the world? How are self and world related? What is the highest goal of life? These are the questions that Indian philosophy has wrestled with for millennia. Many of the answers it has produced are intimately involved with spirituality, both mystical and theistic. This work, called Self and World: Major Aspects of Indian Philosophy, by Ramesh N. (...) Patel, explores these time-tested answers that are deeply interesting, engrossing and enlightening. Yoga and Vedanta are two of the well-known philosophies of India that have attempted answers to the above questions about self and world. The classical Indian philosophy’s answers to questions about self and world span no less than three distinct religions and their spiritualities: Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Besides yoga and vedanta, Hinduism has four other answers that have conversed with yoga and vedanta for centuries. Buddhism has four distinct answers that too have conversed with these philosophical and spiritual answers. These conversations have led to very productive exchanges by enriching the resulting development and evolution of each system’s answers. The exchange has made the philosophies stronger and diverse. The present work explores and describes these systems in their mature form which preserves their accumulated wisdom.Another feature of this work is its treatment of the philosophy of the ancient texts called the Vedas. Pandit Madhusudan Ojha has unearthed the lost philosophy contained in the Vedas. This Vedic philosophy sports a highly comprehensive yet coherent and relevant system of thought that is also important for its tremendous influence on all later Indian systems including yoga, vedanta and Buddhist systems. This book articulates Vedic philosophy and its historic influence on the thought on self and world in Indian philosophy. The deeply spiritual embedding of Indian philosophy’s thought about self and world is particularly relevant to today’s strife-torn and polarized world. We need themes of unity in diversity for healing current maladies. The spiritual thought systems of Indian philosophy narrated in the present work provide an array of choices which have great potential for this healing. For example, Buddhism is celebrated for its universal compassion, Jainism for its legendary non-violence and Hinduism for its tolerance of differences and respect for other faiths. This book shows how these positions are intellectually strengthened and secured by the Buddhist, Jain and Hindu thinkers. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the nature of imaginatio in the works of Spinoza. The first three chapters are devoted to explicating the ways imaginatio figures in Spinoza's accounts of the attributes, extensio and cogitatio. I show how both attributes are aspects of the same force in which substance perseveres through its essence, and how imaginatio is the key to understanding the movement from corpus to mente. In chapters 4 and 5, my work explores the place of imaginatio in (...) the nature of each of these attributes, examining first the dynamics of extensio before turning to the distinctions essential to cogitatio. These two chapters also trace in great detail the ways in which Spinoza's account of imaginatio derives, on the one hand, from his critique of the principles of Descartes' physics and, on the other, from his critique of Maimonides' account of prophecy. Concluding chapters focus on the 'intensive-extensive' aspects of imaginatio insofar as Spinoza shows these to possess ethical/political implications for the constitution of the state and for human relations as the expression of historical, and a-historical, force. (shrink)

When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect—an aspect that remains stable across changes in perspective—and a perspectival aspect—an aspect that changes depending (...) on one's perspective on the object. How should we account for the perspectival aspect of spatial perception? We present a framework within which to discuss the perspectival aspect of perception and put forward three desiderata that any account of the perspectival aspect of perception should satisfy. We discuss views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of constitutively mind-dependent appearance properties as well as views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of representations of mind-independent perspectival properties. (shrink)

This rather compendious volume contains twelve articles, eleven of which have been published in the last twenty years; the last, from which the book takes its title, appears in print for the first time. There are four chapters: "Confirmation, Induction, and Rational Belief" contains the paper "Inductive Inconsistencies" as well as "Studies in the Logic of Confirmation"; "Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance" appears in the section "Conceptions of Cognitive Significance"; the very well-known "The Theoretician's Dilemma" appears in the third chapter—"Structure (...) and Function of Scientific Concepts and Theories"—along with "Typological Methods in the Natural and Social Sciences"; "Scientific Explanation," the fourth chapter, contains "Studies in the Logic of Explanation" and "The Logic of Functional Analysis," as well as the title article. "Aspects" runs to nearly book length and is concerned to survey and contribute to the range of scientific explanation—from physics to history. Hempel discusses the Deductive-Nomological approach and compares it to certain forms of Statistical Explanation; the Covering-law Model of Explanation is introduced and defended against proponents of Explanation-by-Concept, Dispositional Explanation, and Genetic Explanation: Hempel asserts that these three can be subsumed under the Covering-law model. The relation of rationality and decision to Explanation, and the related pragmatic aspects of Explanation are also considered. These are postscripts to certain articles which bring their discussions up to date. There are several rather confusing misprints, but overall the presentation is workmanlike. Hempel's contributions in the philosophy of science have been influential and important, and it is gratifying to have the most important of these collected together.—P. J. M. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Imitation of Nature: Source of Principles of Moral Action by Wojciech GolubiewskiAnthony T. FloodGOLUBIEWSKI, Wojciech. Aquinas on Imitation of Nature: Source of Principles of Moral Action. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. xx + 309 pp. Cloth, $75.00Does Aquinas's ethical account necessarily rely upon his metaphysics of goodness and natural forms, or can we fairly interpret his ethics as merely cursorily (...) connected to these other aspects of his thought? Golubiewski offers a thorough and compelling case that Aquinas indeed bases his ethics on these various broader principles, such that proper practical principles inextricably and fundamentally are an imitation of nature.Golubiewski details the full range of scholarship on Aquinas's natural law theory in order to set up his meticulous and comprehensive analysis. He motivates his interpretation by examining two opposed positions in current discussion. On one side is the view championed by Stephen Brock and others that focuses on Aquinas's metaphysics of the good, along with "the imitation of nature as the 'imitation of the divine mind'" as crucial to an accurate understanding of the natural law. On the other side is Martin Rhonheimer, who maintains, "natural law is not the 'imitative reflex' of the 'natural order'." Rhonheimer wishes to avoid a moral physicalism that succumbs to charges of the naturalistic fallacy. Golubiewski sides with Brock and proceeds to show the extent to which the notion of imitation performs throughout Aquinas's ethical thought.Early in his analysis, Golubiewski notes that we should avoid an overly strict distinction between the two virtues of practical reason, namely, art and prudence. While art does have the specific sense of right reason regarding the making of things, Aquinas also uses it more broadly and analogically as conveying any kind of right reason. Thus, when Aquinas speaks of art, particularly in terms of right reason as an imitation of nature, this includes prudence and all of the moral virtues it directs. Moreover, the notion of art also pertains to God's creative act. Insofar as created natures are the effect of divine art, the parameters of their goodness are already determined. In the case of rational natures, they are not free to determine their own goodness. By imitating nature, a person imitates the mind behind nature.Golubiewski devotes considerable attention to the sources of moral knowledge. For human beings, the imitation of nature pertinent to right moral reasoning begins with the knowledge of sensible things, whereby we grasp the patterns, modes of operations, and inclinations of them. All [End Page 139] beings have a movement toward—a desire for—actuality, which in turn orients them to divine goodness. "In this way things 'desire' the divine goodness, according to their own 'immanent likeness' to it. They desire it insofar as they imitate it." Each kind of thing imitates God's goodness in its own, admittedly very limited way. Human nature has this same relation to God; thereby, proper human action is based on the same sort of imitation.This leads to a relevant analysis of the part/whole notion in Aquinas. Golubiewski remarks that we have an inclination not merely toward our own individual good but also to the good of the whole human community and ultimately God as the ultimate good. "Not only political virtue but all kinds of properly human virtues are intrinsically ordered to the common good. In this way all of them are part of general justice as ordered to reason in its imitation of nature." In light of the recent resurgence of interest in the precise connection between personal rights and the common good, Golubiewski's elaboration on these points might prove especially helpful to anyone desiring to bring Thomistic principles into the debate.Golubiewski proceeds to delve into the precise character of the inclinations of human nature as rational inclinations. The common intelligible structure of goodness entails three elements. One, the mode of each kind of thing's congruent action. Two, the virtuous dispositions as rooted in that nature. Three, the virtuous agency by which the proper good of that nature is obtained. In the case of human beings, the mode of obtaining goodness is... (shrink)

Speight has recently raised the question, which he himself leaves unanswered, how naturalism relates to spirit in Hegel’s philosophy of art. ‘Naturalism’ denotes an explanation that invokes aspects of nature that are (allegedly) irreducible or resistant to thought. I call nature ‘stubborn’ insofar as it evinces resistance to its being formed by thought and hence to its being united with it. This paper argues that §§556, 558 and 560 of Hegel’s Encyclopedia answer Speight’s question by specifying (...) class='Hi'>three elements of nature that, first, are present in art and, second, are resistant to thought. These are materiality, natural form, and genius. They exhibit nature’s stubbornness in art. This stubbornness, I argue, is what justifies Hegel’s claim that art is absolute spirt only implicitly (§556), which leads to the claim that art needs to be superseded by religion and philosophy. In this way, Speight’s question receives a precise answer. (shrink)

This volume constitutes the Proceedings of a workshop on formal seman tics of natural languages which was held in Tiibingen from the 1st to the 3rd of December 1977. Its main body consists of revised versions of most of the papers presented on that occasion. Three supplementary papers are included because they seem to be of particular interest in their respective fields. The area covered by the work of scholars engaged in philosophical logic and the formal analysis of natural (...) languages testifies to the live liness in those disciplines. It would have been impossible to aim at a complete documentation of relevant research within the limits imposed by a short conference whereas concentration on a single topic would have conveyed the false impression of uniformity foreign to a young and active field. It is hoped that the essays collected in this volume strike a reasonable balance between the two extremes. The topics discussed here certainly belong to the most important ones enjoying the attention of linguists and philosophers alike: the analysis of tense in formal and natural languages, the quickly expanding domain of generalized quantifiers, the problem of vagueness, the connected areas of pronominal reference and presupposition and, last but not least, modal logic as a sort of all-embracing theoretical framework. The workshop which led to this collection formed part of the activities celebrating the 500th anniversary of Tiibingen University. (shrink)

The term dual use technologies refers to research and technology with the potential both to yield valuable scientific knowledge and to be used for nefarious purposes with serious consequences for public health or the environment. There are two main approaches to assessing dual use technologies: pragmatic and metaphysical. A pragmatic approach relies on ethical principles and norms to generate specific guidance and policy for dual use technologies. A metaphysical approach exhorts us to the deeper study of human nature, our (...) intentions, goals, values ideals and social relations when considering dual use technology. Use of science and technology (S and T) is determined by two components of human nature: human intentions and choices. We have drawn a distinction between specific measures, goals and intentions with respect to technologies in order to show that moral judgment about technologies must precede their use. Understanding of our intentionality and values, and our moral ideals, as a measurable, tangible part of the real world is important for the prevention of any possible harm from S and T. In the context of dual use technologies, we stress the importance of three main understandings of human nature: vulnerability, responsibility and narrative identity. These can become a strong ontological “antidote” to technology’s poisoning of modern man. Each new technology can be measured and compared with man’s values, traditions and societal norms. This can be done bearing in mind the concept that human nature is not dualistic, but pluralistic. A system of ethical principles that includes the principles of good intentions, the correspondence of goals and means, the balancing of risks and benefits, simplicity, and contextuality, will help ensure that technologies are more humanistic and friendly to human beings. (shrink)

Nominal concepts represent things as tokens of types. Recent research suggests that we represent principled connections between the type of thing something is (e.g., DOG) and some of its properties (k‐properties; e.g., having four legs for dogs) but not other properties (t‐properties; e.g., being brown for dogs). Principled connections differ from logical, statistical, and causal connections. Principled connections license (i) the expectation that tokens of the type will generally possess their k‐properties, (ii) formal explanations (i.e., explanation of the presence of (...) k‐properties in tokens of a type by reference to the type of thing it is), and (iii) normative expectations concerning the presence of k‐properties in tokens of the type. The present paper investigates the hypothesis that representing principled connections requires representing properties as aspects of being the relevant kind of thing (Aspect Hypothesis). Experiment 1 provides a direct test of the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiments 2 and 3 provide indirect tests of the Aspect Hypothesis. All three experiments provide support for the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiment 4 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the manner in which formal explanations are licensed by principled connections. Finally, Experiment 5 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the nature of the normative expectations licensed by principled connections. Together these results provide strong evidence for the idea that representing principled connections involves representing a property as being an aspect of being a given kind of thing. The results also help clarify the manner in which formal explanation differs from other modes of explanation. Finally, the results of the experiments are used to motivate a proposal concerning the formal structure of the conceptual representations implicated by principled connections. This structure provides a domain‐general way of structuring our concepts and embodies the perspective we take when we think and talk of things as being instances of a kind. (shrink)

The thesis aims at analyzing the concepts of risk and safety as well as the class of concepts to which they belong, thick concepts, focusing in particular on the normative aspects involved. Essay I analyzes thick concepts, i.e. concepts such as cruelty and kindness that seem to combine descriptive and evaluative features. The traditional account, in which thick concepts are analyzed as the conjunction of a factual description and an evaluation, is criticized. Instead, it is argued that the descriptive (...) and evaluative aspects must be understood as a whole. Furthermore, it is argued that the two main worries evoked against non-naturalism – that non-naturalism cannot account for disagreement and that it is not genuinely explanatory – can be met. Essay II investigates the utilization of the Kripke/Putnam causal theory of reference in relation to the Open Question Argument. It is argued that the Open Question Argument suitably interpreted provides prima facie evidence against the claim that moral kinds are natural kinds, and that the causal theory, as interpreted by leading naturalist defenders, actually underscores this conclusion. Essay III utilizes the interpretation of the Open Question Argument argued for in the previous essay in order to argue against naturalistic reduction of risk, i.e. reduction of risk into natural concepts such as probability and harm. Three different normative aspects of risk and safety are put forward – epistemic uncertainty, distributive normativity and border normativity – and it is argued that these normative aspects cannot be reduced to a natural measure. Essay IV provides a conceptual analysis of safety in the context of societal decision-making, and argues for a notion that explicitly includes epistemic uncertainty, the degree to which we are uncertain of our knowledge of the situation at hand. Some formal versions of a comparative safety concept are also proposed. Essay V puts forward a normative critique against a common argument, viz. the claim that the public should follow the experts’ advice in recommending an activity whenever the experts have the best knowledge of the risk involved. The importance of safety in risk acceptance together with considerations from epistemic uncertainty makes the claim incorrect even after including plausible limitations to exclude ‘external’ considerations. Furthermore, it is shown that the scope of the objection covers risk assessment as well as risk management. Essay VI provides a systematized account of safety engineering practices that clarifies their relation to the goal of safety engineering, namely to increase safety. A list of 24 principles referred to in the literature of safety engineering is provided, divided into four major categories. It is argued that important aspects of these methods can be better understood with the help of the distinction between risk and uncertainty, in addition to the common distinction between risk and probability. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that there is an essential difference between social intelligence and creative intelligence, and that they have their foundation in human sexuality. For sex differences, we refer to the vast psychological, neurological, and cognitive science research where problem-solving, verbal skills, logical reasoning, and other topics are dealt with. Intelligence tests suggest that, on average, neither sex has more general intelligence than the other. Though people are equals in general intelligence, they are different in special forms of (...) intelligence such as social intelligence and creative intelligence, the former dominant in women, the latter dominant in men. The dominance of creative intelligence in men needs to be explained. The focus of our research is on the strictly anthropological aspects, and consequently our explanation for this fact is based on the male-female polarity in the mating systems. Sexual dimorphism does not only regard bodily differences but implies different forms of sex life. Sex researchers distinguish between two levels of sexual intercourse: procreative sex and recreational sex, and to these we would add “creative sex.” On all three levels, there is a behavioral difference between men and women, including the subjective experience. These differences are as well attributed to culture as genetically founded in nature. Sexual reproduction is only possible if females cooperate. Their biological inheritance makes females play a decisive role in mate choice. Recreational sex for the purpose of pleasure rather than reproduction results from female extended sexual activity. Creative sex, on the contrary, is a specifically male performance of sexuality. We identify creative sex with eroticism. Eroticism evolved through the transformation of the sexual drive into a mental state of expectation and fantasizing. Hence, sex differences (that nowadays are covered up by cultural egalitarianism) continue to be the evolutionary origin of the difference between social and creative intelligence. (shrink)

The issue of intentionality was posed anew in philosophy by Franz Brentano. However, it was Brentano himself who indicated that the source of intentionality-related problems dates back to Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The search for the original traces of this issue in the history of philosophy has led me to conclude that intentionality as an inalienable characteristic of consciousness is characterized by three-dimensionality, which is expressed in theoria, praxis and poiesis. Contemporary research focuses primarily on cognitive intentionality, (...) examining in particular either the very subject-object relation or the immanent object, in-existing in psychical experience. And yet, intentionality is a basic feature of the whole consciousness-anchored life of a human being. It determines the whole consciousness-based activity of the subject in abstract theorizing, practice and production. Therefore, it manifests itself as a mode of being of a conscious entity, i.e. an entity partially constituted by intentional content, relationality, reference, directionality, openness and conscious awareness, as well as determining the meaning and the creation of purely intentional beings. Intentionality is revealed as a primary factor in the awakening of consciousness, through the building of conscious experiences that are poietic, practical and theoretical. Each of these three ways of categorizing the nature of experience, however, indicates only the predominant aspect of a given experience, for strictly speaking experiences are determined by all three aspects. Intentionality and – consequently – all conscious experience, are thus characterized by three-dimensions: cognitive, activistic and productive. Any act of consciousness is always a form of activity that is informed by its cognitive aspect and produces something transcendent with regard to itself. The recognition of the three-dimensional nature of intentionality allows us to understand the human being and the dilemmas concerning his actions, knowledge and creativity. (shrink)

One of the main arguments against interventionist views of special divine action is that God would not violate his own laws. But if intervention entails the breaking of natural law, what precisely is being broken? While the nature of the laws of nature has been widely explored by philosophers of science, important distinctions are often ignored in the science and religion literature. In this paper, I consider the three main approaches to laws: Humean anti-realism, supervenience on more (...) fundamental aspects of metaphysics, and nomological realism. The first denies that there is any metaphysical reality behind laws or causation. The second holds that laws supervene on capacities, dispositions, or counterfactuals. The third takes laws to be irreducible aspects of reality. The mechanics of special divine action and worries about intervention vary depending on which view of law one holds. In the end, I argue that early modern natural philosophers, who first introduced law-language for nature, largely had it right. Laws are not created entities or powers that act as intermediaries between God and nature; they are best understood as expressions of God’s will for nature. The outstanding question is whether such a view inevitably lands in occasionalism. (shrink)

Examines the common sense attractiveness of contextualism over invariantism, and ultimately takes such a common sense attractiveness to be a function of our intellectual habits as opposed to a reflection of objective fact. The claim that there do not exist semantic approaches that are more favorable than either contextualism or invariantism is made and argued for via an appeal to sortalism, superinvariantism, and supercontextualism, which are also rejected as brutally implausible. The possibility that any of these three semantic approaches (...) might be as good as either contextualism or invariantism merely serves to support semantic relativity. A foundation for semantic relativity is located within the vagueness of natural language terms. (shrink)

Religious naturalism and three scientific revolutions: Introduction -- The cosmological revolution -- The evolutionary revolution -- The ecological revolution -- Inwardness and awareness in nature: Introduction -- Inwardness of life and inwardness of mind -- Mind and consciousness in nature -- The range of conscious awareness on earth -- Presumptive rights and conflicts of rights: Introduction -- Rs of the thou of nature -- A scheme of presumptive natural rights -- A fourth R of the thou (...) of nature -- Conflicts of rights -- Hunting and fishing : Introduction -- Hunting -- Fishing -- Responses to the charge of impractical idealism -- Eating and wearing: Introduction -- Using animals for food -- The vegetarian response -- Using animals for apparel and other purposes -- Other areas of responsibility and concern: Introduction -- Experimenting on animals -- Rodeos, circuses, zoos, and aquariums -- Endangered species and despoliations of natural environments -- The human population explosion -- The threat of global climate change -- A new moral and religious consciousness: Introduction -- Empowerment in religion of nature -- Objections and replies -- Principles and prescriptions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Theological Empiricism: Aspects ofJohann Georg Hamann's Reception of Hume Hans Graubner The philosophical Enlightenment in Germany executed in none of its phases as clean a break with the theological tradition as the English and especially the French. To its very end it pleaded for a theology of Creation, however thin this plea had become, that is, for an adherence to the first article of the Creed. On the (...) other hand, a philosophical adherence to the second article, that is, to christology, had no chance left owing to the rationalist Bible criticism of the 17th and 18th centuries and was not considered a serious philosophical position in the controversy between natural religion and revealed religion. Its mere link-up with historic facts that were considered epistemologically inferior made it unthinkable in the eyes of the dominating rationalists. In 18th century Königsberg this controversy determined the life-long argument between Hamann and Kant. Hamann attacks Kant and the German philosophy ofthe Enlightenmentfrom the position ofrevealed religion. In doing so, he refers to David Hume from the very beginning. In Hume's thoughts Hamann saw a chance of regaining a serious position for the Christian religion, that is, of its christology, in philosophical discussion. Thisveryaim ofHamann's shows thathe proceeds fromcompletely different philosophical interests than does Hume. But there are certain basic attitudes that make it understandable why Hamann refers to Hume, even declares him to be his philosopher. These attitudes, which they have in common, maybe called criticism ofreason, epistemological empiricism, and subjectivism. In spite of these attitudes, which they share, the difference between their ways ofthinkingleads to Hamann's practise of not adopting any of Hume's ideas unchanged. Instead of speaking ofreception it would be better to speak ofa transformation of Hume's thoughts into the totally different world of Hamann's ideas. The latter is determined by at least three basic motives: Firstly, by the sharp criticism of an over-estimation of reason in philosophy. This criticism is directed both against the rationalism of the recognized German philosophy as well as against Hume's scepticism and Kant's transcendental philosophy. Secondly,- by his personally being affected by Christianity, which renders itimpossible for him to separate the personal from the theoretiVolume XV Number 2 377 HANS GRAUBNER cal, and philosophy from the way a philosopher sees himself and from his own historical background. Thirdly, by a concentration of all philosophical energy on language as the fundamental empirical and historical fact, which, for Hamann, becomes the centre of his theological, ontological and anthropological reflection. It is my intention to show how Hamann unfolds his basic motives by following certain ideas of Hume's, for example, the idea of geometry, that of belief and that of image. In the end I shall summarize Hamann's criticism of scepticism and point out the significance ofanthropomorphism in Hume's and Hamann's understanding ofreligion. Referring to the understanding of Hamann's Hume-reception so far, I want to emphasize three results: 1.Hamann's Hume-reception is due, above all, to his repeated study ofthe Treatise, which musthave begun earlier than was assumed before. 2.Hamann's reference to Hume is not restricted to the discussion of the concept of belief, but is far more extensive. 3.Neither is Hamann's Hume-reception a total "misunderstanding "1 of Hume nor is his passing-on of Hume's ideas to the German romanticism "a strange paradox"; rather it is a conscious transformation ofempiricism into a theology oflanguage, which has had an effect even on romantic and idealistic secularization. Now I shall come to my first point. I. Geometry After having finished his studies in Königsberg and before his conversion experience at London in 1758 that was to determine his whole life, Hamann, from 1752 to 1756, became a private tutor for two aristocratic families in Courland. During this time he definitely read the German translations ofHume's "Political Essays" and ofhis Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. That Hamann, who had a good command of the English language, knew even the Treatise at this time, can, according to my hypothesis, be gathered from his use of Hume's conception ofgeometry in an unpublished philosophic... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kings and Gods as Ecological Agents:From Reciprocity to Unilateralism in the Management of Natural ResourcesSimon Simonse (bio)1. IntroductionThe questions this article addresses are as follows: do non-Western societies have a qualitatively better, more balanced relationship with nature than modern Western societies? Can the difference between the two be described in terms of an opposition between a reciprocal and an exploitative relationship? What difference does the Judeo-Christian tradition make (...) in shaping the modern relationship with nature?To answer these questions I will give brief descriptions of the way in which three cultural traditions have structured the relationship between man and nature: societies that are ruled by sacred kings, societies where power over nature is attributed to divinities, and the Old Testament tradition. As cases of sacred kinship, I present ethnographic material taken from my anthropological fieldwork among the Lulubo, Lokoya, and Lotuho peoples from the East Bank of the Nile in Southern Sudan. I will use the term "Eastern Nilotic" as shorthand for this complex of peoples. For the societies where divinities play the central role, I take the Western Nilotic Dinka, Nuer, and Atuot living in the flood plains of the Nile north of the kingship societies.In comparing these three traditions my point of departure is René Girard's analysis of culture as a mechanism to resolve conflict by directing the aggression of the members of society onto a victim and so achieving a new consensus. We shall see that in the kingship societies what we call natural phenomena play an integral part in culturally staging the scapegoat mechanism. They are the stage of human rivalries and their resolution. Among the polytheistic Western Nilotes they are the instrument through which the gods make their power felt and demand attention from humans. In the Old Testament, natural phenomena remain the domain of God's power. Humans should not try to interfere. Their mission is to combat human evil as defined in Mosaic law. [End Page 31]2. Kings as Ecological AgentsThe survival of the communities of the Lokoya and Lulubo on the East Bank of the Nile who traditionally live in well-fortified village-polities, counting in the precolonial period between 1500 and 2500 inhabitants, is dependent on forces that are unpredictable (Simonse 1992). As agriculturists they are dependent on regular rains. However, the rains in their area are erratic and localized. As a result there is always a risk that the harvest may fail. The soil is of varying quality, giving varying yields in different places. The birth rate is another major concern. It determines the security of the community in its relationship to neighboring, frequently hostile, communities. There is the concern for epidemics, crop-eating insects and birds, and root-eating worms. Violent winds may destroy the crop, and lions and leopards may kill humans and cattle. A concern of a different order is the extent of the effectiveness of weapons, spears, and bows and arrows, in assuring security.When adversity affects the community, the first question asked by those affected is that regarding its cause. Frequently the cause is a breach of the social rules: an act of violence and a failure to perform or properly perform a ritual of purification necessitated by the violence. It may also be unconscious resentment on the part of a person or group that feels excluded from benefits enjoyed by others. It may be the cry of a neglected relative. It may be incest. It may be an attack by outsiders.Among the Lulubo and Lokoya, responsibility for the various aspects of the natural environment that can be critical for community survival is allocated to the different clans. In the case of a crisis (drought, infertility) the clan associated with the problem is the target of investigations. The main investigation strategy is to check, one by one, the quarrels in which members of that clan have been involved. When a conflict has been identified, a solution is suggested by way of reconciliation or restitution. Of particular interest are attempts to provoke the responsible clan official. If a settlement of the dispute fails to bring the required result, there will be more rounds of investigation... (shrink)

This paper argues that in modern biotechnology, naturalness as an argument contributed to a stalemate in public debate about innovative technologies. Naturalness in this is often placed opposite to human disruption. It also often serves as a label that shapes moral acceptance or rejection of agricultural innovative technologies. The cause of this lies in the use of nature as a closed, static reference to naturalness, while in fact ‘‘nature’’ is an open and dynamic concept with many different meanings. (...) We propose an approach for a dynamic framework that permits an integrative use of naturalness in debate, by connecting three sorts of meaning that return regularly in the arguments brought forward in debate; cultural, technological, and ecological. We present these as aspects of nature that are always present in the argument of naturalness. The approach proposes a dynamic relation between these aspects, formed by gradients of naturalness, which in turn are related to ethical concerns. In this way we come to an overview that makes it possible to give individual arguments a relative place and that does justice to the temporality of the concept of nature and the underlying ethical concerns stakeholders have in respect to innovation in agriculture. (shrink)

This article reviews the effects of malnutrition on early brain development using data generated from animal experiments and human clinical studies. Three related processes, each with their own functional consequences, are implicated in the alteration of brain development. (1) Maternal undernutrition at the start of pregnancy results in reduced transfer of nutrients across the placenta, allowing the conservation of effort for future reproductive episodes. (2) Differential allocation to growing organs by the fetus in response to nutritional stress spares the (...) brain to a large though still limited degree, reflecting the organ’s relative contribution to survival and reproductive success. (3) Prenatal malnutrition disrupts developing neurotransmitter systems, which results in the expression of specific cognitive and affective traits. It is argued that the increasing size and therefore cost of the brain, in conjunction with increasing ecological instability and marginality, reinforced selection for maternally controlled growth suppression of offspring, reallocation of organ growth rates by offspring, and behavioral changes related to development of neurotransmitter systems. (shrink)

The human history has evidenced a great number of systems of hierarchy and power, various manifestations of power and hierarchy relations in different spheres of social life from politics to information networks, from culture to sexual life. A careful study of each particular case of such relations is very im-portant, especially within the context of contemporary multipolar and multicultural world. In the meantime it is very important to see both the general features, typical for all or most of the hierarchy (...) and power forms, and their variation. This set of issues has been treated by a series of international conferences titled ‘Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations’ held in 2000–2006. Most articles of this volume were originally presented at the 4th conference of this series (Moscow, 2006). Needless to mention that all those presentations have been substantially re-worked for the publication in this volume. Notwithstanding the fact that the relations of hierarchy and power are rele-vant for all the spheres as they penetrate the whole of social life, establishing a sort of framework for the human agency, they are naturally most visible in the political sphere. They existed long before the formation of the earliest states – ethologists maintain that complex systems of hierarchy and power can be found among many highly organized animals. Yet, this was with the formation of the state and civilization when the power and hierarchy relations acquired their mature forms. Although ancient and medieval systems of government and domination always attract special attention, contemporary systems are much closer for every scholar. At the same time relations of power and hierarchy in the modern political world system demonstrate a great number of variants, levels and dimensions. In the present edited volume we only focus on three aspects of this important subject. These are revolutionary transformations (in the broad sense of this notion), violence, and globalization. Each volume section is devoted to one of those themes. (shrink)

The twin ideas at the heart of the social contract tradition are that persons are naturally free and equal, and that genuine political obligations must in some way be based on the consent of those obligated. The Lockean tradition has held that consent must be in the form of explicit choice; Kantian contractualism has insisted on consent as rational endorsement. In this paper I seek to bring the Kantian and Lockean contract traditions together. Kantian rational justification and actual choice are (...) complementary devices through which our freedom and equality can be reconciled with moral and political authority. We should not think that there is simply one way by which relations of moral and political authority can be reconciled with our status as free and equal. I defend three distinct devices through which freedom and authority may be reconciled: justification to others, social choice and promise. All three are aspects of the ?consent tradition? broadly construed. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gray, Knickman, and Wegner present three experiments which they take to show that people judge patients in a persistent vegetative state to have less mental capacity than the dead. They explain this result by claiming that people have implicit dualist or afterlife beliefs. This essay critically evaluates their experimental findings and their proposed explanation. We argue first that the experiments do not support the conclusion that people intuitively think PVS patients have less mentality than the (...) dead. And second, we provide an alternative explanation of our ascriptions of mentality to the dead and PVS patients, one which turns on Epicurean considerations about the nature of death. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between a scientifically updated Aristotelian philosophy of nature and a scientifically engaged theology of nature that cuts across interdisciplinary boundaries. It features original contributions by some of the best scholars engaging with Aristotelianism in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophical theology. Despite the growing interest in Aristotelian approaches to contemporary philosophy of science, few metaphysicians have engaged directly with the question of how a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of nature might change the landscape (...) for theological discussion concerning theology and naturalism, the place of human beings within nature, or the problem of divine causality. The chapters in this volume are collected into three thematic sections: Naturalism and Nature, Mind and Nature, and God and Nature. By pushing the current boundaries of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics to recover the traditional notion of substantial forms in physics, reframe the principle of proportionality in biology, and restore the hierarchy of being familiar to ancient philosophy, this book advances a metaphysically unified framework that accommodates both scientific and theological knowledge, enriching the interaction between science, philosophy and theology. Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, natural theology, philosophical theology, and analytic theology. (shrink)

The Anthropocene debates are rooted in epistemological differences. Geologists seek temporal markers of spatially even anthropogenic impact. Thus, they favor geologic data that fit this category. Humanists and social scientists, on the other hand, tend to focus on the negative effects of spatial unevenness. Without linking the Anthropocene’s temporal and spatial components, the official designation, ultimately determined by geologists, will be a futile exercise that will not make good on the Anthropocene Working Group’s intention for it to be useful for (...) wider segments of society. However, if the Anthropocene is divided into an Early, Middle, and Late Anthropocene, each defined by geologic evidence, the uneven spatial distributions of anthropogenic damage can be traced to specific events in human history, thus actualizing the predictive value of geology. Further, this diachronic scheme, unlike the synchronic ones thus far proposed, makes more legible two fundamental dynamics between human and natural trajectories: the intensification of global inequity coterminous with the intensification of natural damage; and humanity’s ever more audacious attempts to control the environment. This ethos, wielded as the prime justification for taking over that which belonged to cultures not espousing it, has resulted in anthropogenic damage disproportionately affecting the most economically and historically vulnerable peoples. However, their alternative modes of coping with the damages—an ineluctable responsiveness to, rather than control over, environment—enables them to survive. As such, they could lead the way through the Anthropocene, modeling adaptation and mitigation strategies, and obviating the global North’s unsound hope for a technological solution. Three metropolitan architects, Rem Koolhaas, David Adjaye, and V. Mitch McEwen, look to global Southern urbanisms––improvisational, creative, minimalist praxes grounded in indigenous lifeways––for alternate modes of inhabiting anthropocenic modernity. Likewise, New Zealand’s government has materially and ethically mitigated its legacy of settler colonialism by combining Western scientific data with indigenous knowledge to formulate more adaptive, responsive, integrative approaches to environment. By expanding the data beyond the stratigraphic, coordinated interdisciplinary research can measure variegated effects of––and responses to––the Anthropocene, thus better equipping humanity to adapt to and/or mitigate climate change and to eschew unsustainable practices. (shrink)

Interpretation pervades human thinking. Whether perception or experience, spoken word or written theory, whatever enters our consciousness must be interpreted in order to be understood. Every area of inquiry—art and literature, philosophy and religion, history and the social sciences, even many aspects of the natural sciences—involves countless opportunities to interpret the object of inquiry according to very different paradigms. These paradigms may derive from the language we speak, the nature of our education, or personal preferences. The abundance and (...) diversity of paradigms make interpretation both fascinating in its complexity and often frustrating for the conflicts it generates. In _Dialectical Readings_, Dunning distinguishes three types of interpretation, each defined in terms of a distinctive dialectical way of thinking: theoretical interpretation, which assumes binary oppositions; transactional interpretation, which seeks reciprocal relations; and transformational interpretation, which discerns paradoxical meanings. Dunning offers new and insightful readings of familiar texts by B. F. Skinner, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Lee Benson, Roland Barthes, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Michel Foucault and sheds new light on works by Thomas Kuhn, Joseph Campbell, Reinhold Niebuhr, Søren Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, and Paul Ricoeur. _Dialectical Readings _enables readers to recognize diverse dialectical approaches to understanding—their own as well as those of others—in a way that provides new and helpful insights into a wide variety of subjects in which conflicting interpretations abound. (shrink)

Preface--The double aspect of goodness.--Misconceptions of goodness.--Self-consciousness.--Self-direction.--Self-development.--Self-sacrifice.--Nature and spirit.--The three stages of goodness.

Dostoyevsky explained how human being could be the builder who has the power to destroy everything-that-is. Thomas Mann unveiled the deep influence of the unconscious as well as the subconscious: both components of human psyche must be taken into account, when exploring the mystery of human being. Robert Musil’s literary works focused on commonalities between animals and human beings, that is, their similar instincts. Musil was promoting a new morals, as it is grounded on instinctive life. Dostoyevsky, Mann and Musil (...) agreed that human being is prone to consider himself/herself as an infinite being. Firstly, human being destroys Nature and justifies himself/herself through technocratic, anthropometric, and anthropocentric worldviews. Secondly, human beings forget the situation of nonhuman beings and put the emphasis on their privileged position in the Cosmos. Thirdly, human being looks at language as the supreme quality of living beings and makes human language the ultimate parameter for any other form of language. The way those three aspects of human being and existence are idolized strengthens a mindset focusing on the infinite character of humankind, when compared with the situation of nonhuman beings. (shrink)

Cartesian epistemology comprises three main divisions: an a priori theory, discussed in Chs. 1–3, a psychological theory of error explanations in judgment induced by features of our sense experience discussed in Chs. 4, 5 and 7, and a theory of natural reasons, discussed here. The theory of natural reasons, based on Descartes's notion of natural inclinations, is expressed here in terms of a series of warrant principles of which there are two main kinds: those that warrant action and those (...) that warrant claims for what is true. This chapter traces Descartes's epistemically ambivalent attitude to cognitive dispositions from the early treatment in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind through to the final treatment in The Passions of the Soul. The chapter focuses special attention on the appearance of one kind of natural reason, reasons of truth, in the proof of the external world in Meditation VI and the striking absence of same in the proof of the external world in the Principles of Philosophy II. The chapter also considers whether natural reasons apply to particular aspects of corporeal things, concluding with a discussion of the Cartesian Circle. (shrink)

Despite the growing interest in Aristotelian approaches to contemporary philosophy of science, few metaphysicians have engaged directly with the question of how a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of nature might change the landscape for theological discussion concerning theology and naturalism, the place of human beings within nature, or the problem of divine causality. The chapters in this volume are collected into three thematic sections: Naturalism and Nature, Mind and Nature, and God and Nature. By pushing the (...) current boundaries of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics to recover the traditional notion of substantial forms in physics, reframe the principle of proportionality in biology, and restore the hierarchy of being familiar to ancient philosophy, this book advances a metaphysically unified framework that accommodates both scientific and theological knowledge, enriching the interaction between science, philosophy and theology. Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, natural theology, philosophical theology, and analytic theology. (shrink)

Abstract This paper argues that in modern (agro)biotechnology, (un)naturalness as an argument contributed to a stalemate in public debate about innovative technologies. Naturalness in this is often placed opposite to human disruption. It also often serves as a label that shapes moral acceptance or rejection of agricultural innovative technologies. The cause of this lies in the use of nature as a closed, static reference to naturalness, while in fact “nature” is an open and dynamic concept with many different (...) meanings. We propose an approach for a dynamic framework that permits an integrative use of naturalness in debate, by connecting three sorts of meaning that return regularly in the arguments brought forward in debate; cultural, technological, and ecological. We present these as aspects of nature that are always present in the argument of naturalness. The approach proposes a dynamic relation between these aspects, formed by gradients of naturalness, which in turn are related to ethical concerns. In this way we come to an overview that makes it possible to give individual arguments a relative place and that does justice to the temporality of the concept of nature and the underlying ethical concerns stakeholders have in respect to innovation in agriculture. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9359-6 Authors P. F. Van Haperen, Wageningen University and Research Centre, META, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands B. Gremmen, Wageningen University and Research Centre, META, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands J. Jacobs, Wageningen University and Research Centre, META, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the semantics of distributivity, grammatical number, and cardinality predicates. I argue that constructions involving so-called ‘dependent plurals’, i.e. plurals lacking cardinality predicates occurring in the scope of certain quantificational items such as all and most, pose a challenge to familiar semantic frameworks that distinguish between two sources of multiplicity: mereological plurality and distributive quantification. I argue that dependent plural readings should be analysed as distinct both from cumulative readings and distributive readings, in the classical sense. I (...) demonstrate how this can be accomplished in a semantic framework where expressions are evaluated relative to sets of assignments, or plural info states Proceedings of the 7th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1990, in Dekker and Stokhof Proceedings of the 9th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1994, Some aspects of the Internal Structure of Discourse. The Dynamics of Nominal Anaphora. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1996). The specific formal implementation is based on a modified version of Brasoveanu’s :129–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-008-9035-0, 2008) Plural Compositional DRT. In this framework we are able to distinguish between two types of distributivity: weak distributivity across the assignments in a single plural info state and strong distributivity across multiple info states. I argue that both of these types of distributivity play a role in the semantics of natural language, accounting for the contrasting properties of ‘singular quantifiers’, such as each and every, and ‘plural quantifiers’, such as all and most. The contrasting properties of bare plurals and plurals involving cardinality modifiers are analysed in terms of the distinction between state-level and assignment-level plurality. (shrink)

Philosophy, in the ancient Graeco-Roman world, and in various other cultures too, was typically thought of as, among other things, bearing on how to live. Questions of how to live may now be considered by some as merely one optional specialism among others, but Derek Parfit for one, we shall see, rightly treats implications for how to live as flowing naturally from metaphysical theories. In the hope of showing something about the ancient Graeco-Roman tradition as a whole, I shall speak (...) of things that I and others have said before,1 but I will highlight certain aspects of how the various groups or individuals related their philosophy to their lives. I shall start with the ancient Stoics as providing a clear case, then move on more briefly to their rivals, the Epicureans, and finally, more briefly again, to consider their predecessors and successors in other ancient schools and periods. This will not be a survey of the main central doctrines, although that is also something useful to attempt. But it will involve a selection of important ideas to illustrate their application to how to live. (shrink)

The term ‘human nature’ can refer to different things in the world and fulfil different epistemic roles. Human nature can refer to a classificatory nature (classificatory criteria that determine the boundaries of, and membership in, a biological or social group called ‘human’), a descriptive nature (a bundle of properties describing the respective group’s life form), or an explanatory nature (a set of factors explaining that life form). This chapter will first introduce these three kinds (...) of ‘human nature’, together with seven reasons why we disagree about human nature. In the main, this chapter focuses on the explanatory concept of human nature, which is related to one of the seven reasons for disagreement, namely, the scientific authority inherent in the term ‘nature’. I will examine why, in a number of historical contexts, it was attractive to refer to ‘nature’ as an explanatory category, and why this usage has led to the continual contestation of the term within the sciences. The claim is that even if the contents of talk about ‘nature’ varied historically, the term’s pragmatic function of demarcation stayed the same. The term ‘nature’ conveys scientific authority over a territory; ‘human nature’ is a concept used to divide causes, as well as experts, and thereby conquer others who threaten to invade one’s epistemic territory. Analysing this demarcation, which has social as well as epistemic aspects, will help us to understand why the explanatory role has been important and why it is unlikely that people will ever agree on either the meaning or the importance of ‘human nature’ as an explanatory category. (shrink)

The practice of psychotherapy, or any form of counseling, inevitably requires an anthropological foundation from which to work. Defining the nature of personhood is a task which necessitates an explanation of the various aspects of the self, and the relationships between those aspects. In particular, it is crucial to delineate how the person is both an individual being and a relational being, for we intuitively experience life in both dimensions. These are two characteristics which have often been (...) presented in opposition to each other, however. What is needed is a theory which balances the individual character of personhood with the social character of personhood. The task at hand is to develop such a balance which can serve as a foundation for a Christian psychology. ;C. Stephen Evans, a philosopher and post-empirical critic of modern psychology, has emphasized the individual aspects of personhood. Soren Kierkegaard has influenced Evans' view of the self. Thus, Evans conceives of the person as fundamentally an agent, who chooses freely, acts purposefully and reasonably, and is responsible for the consequences of those choices and actions. ;Ray S. Anderson has developed a theological anthropology and on that basis has articulated a theoretical view of Christian counseling. His theory of the nature of personhood, influenced by the theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is a thoroughly social perspective. The person is essentially relational, such that one is social before one is psychological. ;The present work constructs an integrative theory which balances the individual and social insights from Evans' and Anderson's views, respectively. It is accomplished through an analysis of the self across two ontological statuses and three orientations . A biblical paradigm is developed to illustrate the grounding of that theory in a Christian framework. Implications for therapeutic interventions are provided. (shrink)

The topic of this contribution is the tension between the everyday dichotomy of nature and technology and the nanotechnological understanding of the world. It is essential to nanotechnology that nature and technology not be categorically opposed as the manmade and the non-manmade, but rather regarded as parts of a structurally identical whole. After the introduction, I will address three points: In a brief first section I will formulate a few questions and a thesis about the nanotechnological developments (...) that can be expected to come. In the main section I will assess four aspects of everyday understanding of nature and technology that are used to legitimate nanotechnology. Finally I will discuss whether an everyday understanding of nature can be conceived as a critical authority with respect to the nanotechnology program. (shrink)

A theistic science would have to represent the integration of all kinds of knowledge intent on explaining the whole of reality. These would include, at least, history, metaphysics, theology, formal logic, mathematics, and experimental sciences. However, what is the whole of reality that one wants to explain? :.

Slavoj Žižek's philosophy spans over more than three decades, which is confirmed by the numerous books he published since the late 1980s. Since his thinking about the idea of logos is no exception, this article focuses on what can be termed Žižek's early philosophy, and especially that depicted in his The sublime object of ideology (1989) and The metastases of enjoyment (1994). Whilst the former underlines the psychological aspects of the logos, the latter focuses more on theories about (...) being, as well as on theological considerations. This is why, three uses of the logos were identified in Žižek's thought: psychological, ontological and theological, all three with a clear focus on the human being as conceived in modern thought, which for Žižek seems to be utterly opposed to traditional thinking about man and his relationship with God. It is clear from Žižek that whilst the notion of God does appear in this thought, it only refers to the human being which encapsulates the essence of Žižek's philosophy to the point that the logos itself is a fundamental feature of the human being's material existence in the natural world. Regardless of whether the logos points to psychology, ontology or divinity (theology), it always emerges as an idea which centres on the human being, with a special interest in how it exists as well as how it works in the world. (shrink)

This paper argues that in modern (agro)biotechnology, (un)naturalness as an argument contributed to a stalemate in public debate about innovative technologies. Naturalness in this is often placed opposite to human disruption. It also often serves as a label that shapes moral acceptance or rejection of agricultural innovative technologies. The cause of this lies in the use of nature as a closed, static reference to naturalness, while in fact “nature” is an open and dynamic concept with many different meanings. (...) We propose an approach for a dynamic framework that permits an integrative use of naturalness in debate, by connecting three sorts of meaning that return regularly in the arguments brought forward in debate; cultural, technological, and ecological. We present these as aspects of nature that are always present in the argument of naturalness. The approach proposes a dynamic relation between these aspects, formed by gradients of naturalness, which in turn are related to ethical concerns. In this way we come to an overview that makes it possible to give individual arguments a relative place and that does justice to the temporality of the concept of nature and the underlying ethical concerns stakeholders have in respect to innovation in agriculture. (shrink)