This article addresses the question how philosophy should be evaluated in a research-grant funding environment. It offers a new conception of philosophy that is inclusive and builds on familiar elements of professional, philosophical practice. Philosophy systematically questions the questions we ask, the concepts we use, and the values we hold. Its product is therefore rarely conclusive but can be embodied in everything we do. This is typical of explorative research and differentiates it from exploitative research, which constitutes (...) the bulk of funded research activity. This article argues that exploratory research is crucial for long-term progress and requires a distinct evaluative regime. (shrink)

Philosophies and phobosophies -- The philosophical matrix of scientific progress -- Systemics and materialism -- Technoscience? -- Climate and logic -- Informatics : one or multiple? -- Wealth and well-being, economic growth and integral development -- Can standard economic theory account for crises? -- Marxist philosophy : promise and reality -- Rules of law : just and unjust -- Subjective probabilities : admissible in science? -- Does inductive logic work? -- Bridging theories to data -- Matter and energy : (...) physical or metaphysical concepts? -- Does quantum physics refute realism, materialism and determinism? -- Parallel universes? Digital physics? -- Can functionalist psychology explain anything? -- Knowledge pyramids or rosettes? -- Existence : single or double? -- Conclusion : valuation criterion. (shrink)

This paper argues that Deonna and Teroni's attitudinal theory of emotions faces two serious problems. The first is that their master argument fails to establish the central tenet of the theory, namely, that the formal objects of emotions do not feature in the content of emotions. The second is that the attitudinal theory itself is vulnerable to a dilemma. By pointing out these problems, our paper provides indirect support to the main competitor of the attitudinal theory, namely, the perceptual theory (...) of emotions. (shrink)

Description: The Upanisads which contain lofty philosophical teachings of the great seers constitute the most authoritative sourcebook for the Vedanta system of philosophy. However, there is no unanimity among the ancient exponents of Vedanta regarding the nature of the philosophy adumbrated in the Upanisads. Dr. Chari's scholarly work attempts to make a dispassionate study of the philosophical passages of the fourteen Principal Upanisads by giving due consideration to not only the comments of Samkara, Ramanuja and Madhva, but more (...) importantly, the authoritative views of Badarayana as enshrined in his classic Vedantasutras. In the first part of the book, he presents the important passages of the Upanisads along with English rendering indicating the variations in the interpretation by the three commentators and also discusses their philosophical implications with reference to the Vedanta doctrines developed in the post Upanisadic period. In the second part he has attempted to consolidate the variety of philosophical thoughts scattered all over the Upanisads into coherent doctrines under five broad subjects: Brahman, jivatman, jagat, sadhana, and parama-purusartha. In the final chapter he conclusively establishes on the basis of an objective evaluation of the views of the commentators that the Upanisads do not support the main tenets of Advaita such as the concept of Nirvisesa Brahman, the identity of jivatman and Brahman, the phenomenal character of the jagat and the doctrine of maya. The author maintains with sufficient textual support that the nature of the philosophy advocated by the Upanisads is Theistic Monism (savisesadvaita). This book, which is the first of its kind, presents an authentic and comprehensive exposition of the philosophy of the Upanisads. (shrink)

Proceedings of the first trans-disciplinary symposium on philosophy and medicin held at Galveston, Texas, May 9-11,1974.

The dominant route to nondescriptivist views of normative and evaluative language is through the expressivist idea that normative terms have distinctive expressive roles in conveying our attitudes. This paper explores an alternative route based on two ideas. First, a core normative term ‘ought’ is a modal operator; and second, modal operators play a distinctive nonrepresentational role in generating meanings for the statements in which they figure. I argue that this provides for an attractive alternative to expressivist forms of nondescriptivism (...) about normative language. In the final section of the paper, I explore ways it might be extended to evaluative language. (shrink)

In contemporary psychology and philosophy, influential theories approach the emotions via their relations to values and evaluations. My aim is to contribute to our understanding of how these evaluative theories in psychology and philosophy relate to one another. I first explain why this presupposes that we make up our minds about the relations between “molecular” and “molar” properties. The rest of my discussion explores some ways of understanding the relation between the molar and the molecular: as a (...) relation of epistemological support, of identity or of the determinable-determinates type. (shrink)

Papers presented at a conference held in Brussels, September 30th-October 2nd, 1987.

A workshop in Philosophy for Children was offered this summer at Viterbo College with generous support from the Wisconsin Humanities Committee. Dr. Ronald Reed and the author conducted the week long workshop. The workshop was promoted primarily by distribution of brochures to regional schools. Four questions were addressed in the brochure: What is Philosophy for Children?, How will Philosophy for Children work in your classroom?, Why teach Philosophy for Children?, and Who should attend?. This approach was (...) taken as part of an effort at making teachers, principals and parents informed about the basic nature fo a Philosophy for Children program. (shrink)

Psychiatric diagnosis serves many functions in the struggle for recognition, such as access to public mental health systems and legal compensation, but it is not necessarily well-equipped for the task of self-understanding and reconfiguration of personal values in the recovery process – and the likelihood of optimal outcome that is geared to the individual person's quality of life. Call this the transformative dimension of recognition in the complex journey from diagnosis to therapeutic empathy in the doctor–patient relationship.Patients who are diagnosed (...) with a serious and enduring mental health condition often find it difficult to make sense of themselves in relation to their... (shrink)

Hobbes’s interpreters have struggled to find a plausible semantics for evaluative language in his writings. I argue that this search is misguided. Hobbes offers neither an account of the reference of evaluative terms nor a theory of the truth-conditions for evaluative statements. Rather, he sees evaluative language simply as having the non-representational function of prescribing actions and practical attitudes, its superficially representational appearance notwithstanding. I marshal the evidence for this prescriptivist reading of Hobbes on evaluative (...) language and show how it sidesteps various textual and philosophical problems that bedevil the traditional interpretations. (shrink)

Critical Reasoning & Philosophy is an innovative and clearly written handbook that teaches studnets how to read critically, think critically while they read, and write thoughtful, sound arguments in response.

Commented article: ZHENG, X. D. Theoretical Evaluation of Art Education from the Perspective of Traditional Chinese Philosophy. Trans/Form/Ação: revista de filosofia da Unesp, v. 47, n. 4, “Eastern thought”, e02400123, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/15024.

The integration of ethical analysis in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) has proven difficult to implement even though it is explicitly recognized as an important component of such assessments in HTA literature. When compared to the standardized scientific method for systematic reviews in HTA, the diversity of ethical analysis has been characterized as a fundamental barrier to the integration of ethics. The present paper aims to identify the theoretical and practical differences between the approaches underpinning ethical analysis in HTA and clarify (...) the reasons for such diversity. Our systematic review of HTA literature pertaining to the barriers to the integration of ethics in HTA identified nine ethical approaches: Principlism, Casuistry, Coherence Analysis, Wide Reflective Equilibrium, Axiology, the Socratic approach, the Triangular model, Constructive Technology Assessment and Social Shaping of Technology. Citations pertaining to each approach were extracted and categorized according to three constitutive components of ethical argumentation established in a previous research evaluating nanotechnologies: i) the disciplinary foundation that grounds the validity of the ethical evaluation, ii) the characteristics of such evaluation, iii) the operational process involved in applying it to a particular case (i.e., its practical reasoning). This comparison shows that, 1) the difference between these approaches rests primarily on their disciplinary foundation (rooted in philosophy, philosophy/theology, or sociology), 2) their complexity can be observed in the distinct characteristics of ethical evaluation deriving from their differing disciplinary foundation, and 3) although four different types of operationalization procedure were identified, little information was available in regards to the practical reasoning associated with these approaches. (shrink)

Over the course of the past twenty-five years, feminist theory has had a forceful impact upon the history of Western philosophy. The present collection of essays has as its primary aim to evaluate past women’s published philosophical work, and to introduce readers to newly recovered female figures; the collection will also make contributions to the history of the philosophy of gender, and to the history of feminist social and political philosophy, insofar as the collection will discuss women’s (...) views on these issues. The volume contains contributions by an international group of leading historians of philosophy and political thought, whose scholarship represents some of the very best work being done in North and Central America, Canada, Europe and Australia. (shrink)

What is the aim of philosophy? There may be too many philosophical branches, traditions, practices, and programs to admit of a single overarching aim. Here I focus on a fairly traditional philosophical project that has recently received increasingly sophisticated articulation, especially by Frank Jackson (1998) and David Chalmers (2012). In §1, I present the project and suggest that it is usefully thought of as ‘total axiomatics’: the project of attempting to axiomatize the total theory of the world. In §2, (...) I raise a problem for the project that I call the ‘problem of multiple axiomatizations.’ I consider some initially alluring but ultimately unpromising approaches to this problem in §3. In §4, I defend a surprising approach to the problem, according to which competing axiomatizations of the total theory of the world are effectively evaluated for their aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

This critical notice argues for the existence of a new trend in bioethics, a complex and dynamic field of philosophical enquiry that goes beyond applied ethics and professional deontological codes. This trend supplements their traditionally “minimalist” ethics—and its concern with harm, rights or justice—with “inflationary” positions open to an integration of medicine with the humanities. By comparing and contrasting the views of two quite different philosophers, Diego Gracia and Alfred Tauber, and placing them within the theoretical background delineated by George (...) Khushf, I argue that the main contribution of this “inflationary bioethics” is an understanding of health and disease as intrinsically normative concepts, which in turn brings about a blurring of the distinction between facts and values. By refusing to construe the distinction as a dichotomy, a post-positivist philosophy of medicine must become more epistemological in order to help us clarify concepts in which the evaluative and the factual are impossible to separate. As a result, the “language of principles” in standard bioethics is being substituted by a more encompassing “language of values”; health and disease are increasingly understood as biopsychosocial phenomena; and the field is open to a process of moralization that challenges traditional models of patient autonomy and physician responsibility. (shrink)

The question about the nature of art is at the centre of the philosophy of art. The thesis seeks to replace the two dominant approaches to this question in contemporary English-speaking philosophy--essentialism and descriptivism--with an historicist approach. The historicist approach I develop and defend holds that answers to the question "What is Art?" must take the form of localized cultural-historical narratives. ;This alternative approach is applied to write the history of the development of what I call "the modern (...) conception of art" in the early eighteenth century. A changing notion of art that emerges in Britain in this period is decisive for all later philosophy of art. Its genesis must be understood in a context of social, political and cultural changes. These changes deeply affected many people's conception of themselves and of their place in society. Social status becomes uncertain, and new criteria for the presentation of the self and evaluation of others emerge. Knowledge about art and the display of taste become indicators of social distinctions and thus criteria for social evaluation, replacing older notions of birth and rank. The modern conception of art emerges as part of new ideas of the presentation of the self, as part of a new ideal of edification. ;In contemporary philosophy of art, the evaluative contents of the conception of art--its historical and contemporary connection to notions of the moral and social order--are seldom discussed. Yet, as I show, these connections exist and have existed for a long time. At the centre of contemporary philosophy of art, therefore, there is a conception of art which is ideological in the sense that it treats the normative as factual and the historically contingent as the natural. Only a historical analysis of the kind I carry out is able to bring to light this aspect of the conception of art presupposed in contemporary philosophy of art. (shrink)

The general purpose of this book differs from those of most of the works found traditionally in the field of political philosophy. Firstly, the present approach is in no way prescriptive or normative, as the interest centres on explication rather than an evaluative assess ment of this, that or another type of arrangement, or act. 1 It will be clear that I am in complete disagreement with Gewirth when he claims that "The central concern of political philosophy (...) is the moral evaluation of political power. " It seems obvious that the under standing of political and social forms of life, and a fortiori of political power, must come before its evaluation. This cannot be provided by moral assessment alone. Thus an analytical or explicative approach which promotes such understanding must come first, and must be the "central concern" of the appropriate philosophical discipline. This is not to say that moral assessment is illegitimate, nor even that it cannot be one of the concerns of political philosophy, but it is to deny that it can be central, even though it might be somebody's central interest. To the extent to which this book is successful it will provide an argu mentin my favour - if the job can be done, obviously it is of primary importance. But we should not assume that it cannot be done unless we can show that there is no separate sphere of political and/or social phenomena. (shrink)

In this study, we tried to reveal what philosophy is and its function based on the concepts. Man, who is a reasonable being, needs philosophy. The philosophy that man needs is the one compatible with reality. Philosophy, which critically examines the concepts put forward about human, universe and existence, is a mental effort. The functions of philosophy towards concepts and beliefs are analysis, synthesis and criticism. Philosophy explains concepts, and critically evaluates beliefs. It tries (...) to justify the conclusions based on explanation and criticism. Philosophy examines the main characteristics of the relationships among existence, human and human-being. At this stage, philosophy abides by concepts whose one side scrutinize the beings. Philosophy, which is also accepted as the process of analysing the structure of thought, turns to language and therefore to the analysis of concepts as the appropriate ground for realizing this function. Sciences also use concepts, but only philosophy does the analysis of the concepts. Individually, Philosophy performs this function based on the human reason. Because philosophy is an activity based on reason and it is individual. Despite the objective nature of science, philosophy is subjective. As an individual activity, philosophy is based on the individual's ability to produce and create based on his/her reasoning. What philosophy produces and creates on the occasion of individual contemplation are concepts. Concepts are what the philosopher thinks about by discovering. The philosopher, who has the power to produce and create concepts, is concept-friendly. Therefore, philosophy can be described as a discipline that includes creating concepts or as knowledge acquired through pure concepts. (shrink)

Many of the things we do in social and political philosophy, whether normative or critical, presuppose some understanding and evaluation of agency. To have a clear idea of our normative or critical enterprise, the underlying account of agency needs spelling out. This article begins with a descriptive account: human agency consists in power (or causal efficacy) organized as subjectivity (or selfhood), and such organization takes place through attributions of power informed by values. Some such descriptive account is useful for (...) understanding and comparing forms of agency. But as we move beyond it to construct an evaluative account of agency, we face problems that are symptomatic of our social and political condition. While quantitative assessment of agency does not work, qualitative assessment seems out of place in our modern world of pluralism and yet is unavoidable for those who, like Habermas, take issue with such phenomena as colonization of the lifeworld. (shrink)

Gesellschaftskritik, or social philosophy that aims to provide firm criticism of pathological social practices, requires normatively grounded evaluative principles. In this article, we assess different possibilities for such principles with focus on a model that takes specific patterns of intersubjective interaction as its point of reference. We argue that in order to understand the full significance of this ‘intersubjective turn’ for social philosophy, and to strengthen the normative foundation of social philosophy, we need to distinguish several (...) levels of intersubjectivity and, in particular, focus on the somewhat neglected level of primary intersubjectivity. The article will discuss the account of primary intersubjectivity in Honneth’s work. We show that Honneth’s account runs into difficulties, and drawing on recent findings in developmental psychology, we suggest a rethinking of elementary recognition in terms of ‘affective proximity’. This both renders the account less susceptible to criticism and provides a normative perspective that can effortlessly enter into interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

Providing a glimpse of a philosophy style that is as rare as it is valuable, this book is an anthology with twelve essays concerning the thought of Philosophy Professor, Panayot Butchvarov, with his comments on each. His work reveals great depth, running the gamut of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.

In this analysis of the ethical dimensions of doctors’ participation in macroallocation we set out to understand the skills they use, how they are acquired, and how they influence performance of the role. Using the principles of grounded moral analysis, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with Australian doctors engaged in macroallocation. We found that they performed expertise as argument, bringing together phronetic and rhetorical skills founded on communication, strategic thinking, finance, and health data. They had made significant, purposeful efforts (...) to gain skills for the role. Our findings challenge common assumptions about doctors’ preferences in argumentation, and reveal an unexpected commitment to practical reason. Using the ethics of Paul Ricoeur in our analysis enabled us to identify the moral meaning of doctors’ skills and learning. We concluded that Ricoeur’s ethics offers an empirically grounded matrix for ethical analysis of the doctor’s role in macroallocation that may help to establish norms for procedure. (shrink)

This book offers a re-evaluation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the prominent Italian Renaissance philosopher and prince of Concord. It argues that Pico is part of a history of attempted concordance between philosophy and theology, reason and faith. His contribution is a syncretist theological philosophy based on Christianity, Platonism, Aristotelianism and Jewish Kabbalism. After an introduction, Chapter 2 discusses Pico’s career, his power-relations and his work, Chapters 3 and 4 place his three pillars of Platonism, Aristotelianism and Kabbalism (...) in their historical context, examines shared histories, and introduces the scholars around Pico who contributed so much in each of these traditions (introducing, for example, Christian Kabbalism), including exploring Pico's complex relationship with Marsilio Ficino. Chapter 5 examines the problems of concordance within Pico’s cosmology and metaphysics, including the question of God and the role of the Intellect. Chapter 6 describes Pico’s ‘exceptionalist’ version of the mystical ascent as an individualized ascetic experience. Pico eschews the contemporary desire to use a renewed christian thinking or christian-classical metaphysics to change the world (towards a Golden Age or a 'second coming') to present a personal path to God, with no return to the world. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy involves subjecting philosophical methods and judgments to empirical scrutiny. I begin by exploring conceptual, confirmational, and empirical factors that limit the significance of experiment-based and survey-based approaches to the evaluation of philosophical epistemic activities. I then consider specific criticisms of experimental philosophy: its experimental conditions lack ecological validity; it wrongly assumes that philosophers rely on psychologized data; it overlooks the reflective and social elements of philosophical case analysis; it misconstrues the importance of both procedural and (...) class='Hi'>evaluative forms of philosophical expertise; it incorrectly views psychological bias as incompatible with reliability; and it generalizes to a global, self-defeating skepticism about case judgment. I explain why these criticisms should be understood as converging and interdependent. I also set out a three-level model of philosophical case judgment that frames the criticisms. (shrink)

This study was conducted to examine how the concepts of existential philosophy are addressed in the movie. Employing phenomenology, one of the qualitative research methods, the study was carried out with 15 university students. The study data were collected by interviewing the participating students. Within this context, the movie was evaluated through the eyes of existential philosophy using the concepts of existence. The study revealed that the way the characters in the movie handled existence problems was related to (...) their own characters and that life is a place to be questioned and the depth of meaning of life, the anxiety of life, existence and nothingness were all together. (shrink)

The notion of social welfare was created by the paradigm shift from duty‐based to right‐based morality, in which the satisfaction of human needs is a right in line with preserving human dignity. This paper investigates Kant’s view on social welfare in light of redistribution policy. Kant bases his political philosophy on external freedom. Notwithstanding the ethical principles of his philosophy, he is the first prominent thinker to clearly emphasize the necessity of a redistribution policy by the government toward (...) providing for the needs of the poor and the needy. The important question remaining is whether or not the Kantian ideas of external freedom and redistribution for the sake of satisfying the right to social welfare can reach a compromise. It seems that Kant believes the redistribution policy to be not the right of the poor to be provided welfare by the state, but the right of the state, and as such, the states' right to task the people with providing for the welfare of the poor. Such a policy challenges the freedom of the wealthier class and apparently leads to an inconsistency between the two pillars of Kant’s sociopolitical philosophy. The current paper aims to find Kant’s response to this challenge by referring to his scattered arguments. (shrink)

Resumo: A filosofia ecológica agrícola tradicional da China, enraizada em alguns princípios, como a plantação intensiva e a gestão diversificada, minimizou historicamente o impacto ecológico da agricultura. Este estudo explora a sua aplicação no desenvolvimento rural sustentável, fornecendo conhecimentos teóricos e recomendações políticas para equilibrar o crescimento econômico e a conservação ambiental. A tradição ecológica de plantação intensiva, a combinação de utilização e cultivo, e a gestão diversificada transmitida durante milhares de anos têm desempenhado um papel muito bom na redução (...) dos danos da agricultura ao ambiente ecológico. A aplicação desses conceitos ao desenvolvimento sustentável das zonas rurais pode equilibrar o desenvolvimento econômico rural e a proteção ambiental. Ademais, pode regular o uso da terra, manter o equilíbrio ecológico e, finalmente, alcançar uma coexistência harmoniosa. Ao analisar a filosofia ecológica agrícola tradicional da China, este estudo identifica recursos ideológicos valiosos e fornece orientação metodológica para a promoção do desenvolvimento rural sustentável. Propõe estratégias para equilibrar o crescimento econômico com a proteção ambiental, garantindo, assim, o equilíbrio ecológico em longo prazo e a coexistência harmoniosa, nas zonas rurais. (shrink)

Hobbes repeatedly expressed concerns about moral and political language, e.g., about the bad consequences of various uses and misuses of language. He did not simply focus on the consequences though. He also attempted to understand the problems, using the central semantic notion in his philosophy of language, signification. Hobbes, in both the Elements of Law and Leviathan, argues that a wide variety of terms – including ‘good’, ‘bad’, and the names of virtues and vices – have a double and (...) inconstant signification. This paper explores and explains that theory of Hobbes's. (In the course of the discussion, two other interpretations of Hobbes's claims are discussed: Pettit’s discussion in terms of indexicals, and Alexandra’s in terms of sense and reference.) This phenomenon is, Hobbes thinks, pervasive in our use of moral and political language. Indeed he says his analysis applies to all “names of such things as affect us, that is, which please, and displease us” (Leviathan 4.24), which seems a very broad category indeed. This inconstancy of signification has considerable potential to cause confusion and conflict. Given those practical consequences, it is of some importance for Hobbes to find a solution to this problem. The paper examines several possible Hobbesian solutions to the problem. There is, however, reason to think that these suggested solutions cannot completely solve the problem. The paper concludes, then, by arguing that double and inconstant signification would always be a danger, even in a properly constituted Hobbesian commonwealth. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the relevance that emotions can play in our epistemic life considering the state of the art of the philosophical debate on emotions. The strategy is the one of focusing on the three main models on emotions as evaluative judgements, bodily feelings, and perceptions, following the fil rouge of emotion intentionality for rising questions about their epistemic functions. From this examination, a major challenge to mainstream epistemology arises, the one that asks to (...) provide prominence to the epistemic agent and to her affects. This chapter discusses these implications, also providing an overview of the many alternatives available nowadays in epistemology, arguing for an open, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary approach to emotions in knowledge. (shrink)