鄭玄의 세계관은 五行天道觀의 입장에서 접근될 수 있다. 오행천도관은 오행의 관계망에 따라 천체운행의 질서를 도식화한 자연철학적 관점이다. 여기에는 易簡의 시선이 투사되어 있다. 易簡의 시선은 그가 『주역』에서 발굴해낸 용어로서, 세계에 대한 인간의 인식론적 프리즘이다. 그것은 방법론상 取象運數의 방식에 해당한다. 이러한 방식은 太易氣化의 세계를 쉽고 간략하게 설명하는 데에 활용된다. 이러한 象數易學적 사유방식을 통해 그는 음양의 개념과 오행의 범주에 입각하여 우주의 元氣와 그 氣化의 원리를 도식화한다. 특히 卦氣論에 있는 卦象과 氣象의 방위적 관계를 매개로 하여 卦象과 氣數의 연역적 관계를 찾아낸다. 따라서 五行天道觀에서 易簡의 시선을 따라가면 (...) 卦象→氣象→氣數의 인식론적 과정이 담겨 있다. 이는 우주론의 신비주의적 색채를 옅게 하고 자연철학적 지평을 열어놓았다. 그의 세계관이 한대의 經學으로부터 魏晉의 玄學으로 나아가는 자연철학적 관문이 되었다면 그의 易學은 王弼의 義理易學의 관문을 여는 방법론적 문고리가 되었다. (shrink)

본고의 목적은 마왕퇴백서오행편에 나타나는 심성론의 구조분석을 통해서 ‘천도’와 ‘인도’의 의미를 재고찰하는데 있었다. 백서 『오행』편의 ‘오행’과 ‘사행’은 3단계를 거쳐 최종적으로 천도와 인도를 완성한다. 먼저 ‘내면에서 드러남[形於內]’과, ‘내면에서 드러나지 않음[不形於內]’은 천도라는 동일한 근원을 둔 일원론으로서, 곧 내적 연속성을 갖춘 것이다. 이에 따라 ‘덕지행’은 도덕자아를 완성[德]해가는 내면적 흐름[行]이자 사행의 도덕실천행위인 행(行)이 다시 내재화되는 수렴의 과정도 포함되므로 수심(修心)의 측면을 논한 것이다. 사행의 ‘행’은 덕을 완성해나가는 과정에서의 도덕실천행위로서, 수신(修身)의 측면에 가깝다. 덕이 도덕자아로서 정신적 차원의 도덕적 주체성의 의미를 내포한다면, 선은 도덕자아의 정신적 차원에 부합되어야 하는 객체성의 (...) 의미를 가지며 궁극적으로는 덕으로 복귀한다. 결국 천도와 인도는 상부구조와 하부구조로 구성된 일원론에 해당한다. 상부구조인 천도는 ‘인간내면에 선천적으로 부여된 도덕감정이자 도덕법칙으로, 자율적이고 주체적으로 도덕자아의 완성을 이룩할 수 있는 근거이자 완성태로서의 정신세계’이다. 하부구조인 인도는 ‘인간내면에 선천적으로 부여된 도덕감정이자 도덕법칙을 후천적 노력을 통해 외면으로 발출하는 도덕실천행위이며, 감각기관의 욕망이 도덕성에 부합되어야 하는 객체로서의 신체적 측면’이라고 할 수 있겠다. 이러한 양자는 서로 내적 연속성 하에서 인도가 천도로 귀결되는 천인합일사상일 뿐만 아니라, 수심과 수신의 확충과정 속에서 상호 보완적 관계를 가진다. (shrink)

본 논문은 노자와 장자의 철학에 있어서 사생관의 동이(同異) 여부 및 이들 사생관의 철학적 토대를 이루는 도(道)와 덕(德)의 차이를 밝힌다. 그리고 이에 근거하여 이 양자를 하나의 학파[道家]로 묶는 것이 과연 타당한가에 대하여 검토한다. 사생관에 있어 노자와 장자는 상반되는 모습을 갖는다. 대체로 노자는 죽음을 섭리로서 받아들이는 가운데서도 장생(長生)을 추구하고 ‘이른 죽음’[早已]을 부정적으로 보는 반면, 장자는 삶과 죽음을 같은 것으로 보아 장생의 추구 및 죽음 앞에서의 자타(自他)의 슬픔을 부정적으로 본다. 죽음과 관련하여 노자는 장생구시(長生久視)를 추구하고 장자는 현해(縣解)⋅소요(逍遙)를 추구하는 것이다. 또한 이러한 사생관을 뒷받침하는 도(道)와 (...) 덕(德)에 있어서도 양자는 강조점이 상당히 다르다. 노자는 도와 덕의 무위(無爲)성을, 장자는 도의 무경계성과 덕의 안명(安命)성을 강조한다. 이러한 차이는 근본적으로 운명에 대한 전제의 차이에서 비롯되는데, 보다 근본적으로는 양자가 상정하는 이야기 대상이 다르다는 데에 기인한다. 노자는 통치자에게, 장자는 사(士) 계층에 이야기를 하는 것이다. 이렇듯 노자와 장자는 서로 다른 대상에게 상반된 내용을 이야기를 하는데 이들을 과연 하나의 학파, 즉 도가로 묶는 것이 타당한가? 이들을 하나의 학파로 묶은 것은 사마담⋅사마천⋅반고에서 기원한다. 이들은 도(道)에 근거한 ‘통치술 및 양생술’을 도가의 핵심으로 규정하였는데 노자 철학은 이에 부합한다. 반면 장자 철학은 도를 근거로 삼긴 하지만 주 핵심[逍遙⋅縣解]이 도가의 요체인 ‘통치술 및 양생술’과 상당한 거리감이 있다는 점에서 도가로의 분류가 타당하지 않아 보인다. 이상에서 살펴본 것처럼 장자 철학은 형이상자로 도를 공유하고 있다는 것 외에는 노자 철학과 같이 볼 근거도 없고 또한 도가의 범주에도 해당되지 않는다. 이러한 점에서 단순히 도(道) 하나를 공유하였다 하여 노자와 장자를 같은 학파로 묶는 것은 재론의 여지가 있다 하겠다. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to break down the dimensions of consciousness, attempt to reverse engineer their evolutionary function, and make sense of the origins of consciousness by breaking off those dimensions that are more likely to have arisen later. A Darwinian approach will allow us to revise the philosopher’s concept of consciousness away from a single “thing,” an all-or-nothing quality, and towards a concept of phenomenological complexity that arose out of simple valenced states. Finally, I will offer support (...) for an evaluation-first view of consciousness by drawing on recent work in experimental philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Follows up on Rumelhart's (1979) proposal that words don’t have meaning, but are cues to meaning (functioning as operators on our mental states, rather than operands or objects of analysis). Some of these ideas are embarrassingly old, but they seem not to have taken hold. Perhaps repetition will help." (Email from Elman to LBS 10/6/04).

The paper aims to clarify the role of the meaning of life in Anselm Müller’s philosophy. Müller says that the ethically good life is the life of acting well, and acting well requires at least a rough conception of the meaning of life, or a conception of what makes a life go well. But why is such a conception required and what does it mean to have such a conception? I argue that such a conception cannot provide us with ultimate (...) ends in our practical deliberations. Nor can its role be merely to provide a standard against which practical reasoning can be assessed. Rather, our conception of the meaning of life is, in the first instance, that which allows us, in our practical reasoning, to see certain considerations as good reasons for certain actions and to weigh reasons for and against different options. One upshot of my interpretation is that Müller should be more optimistic about philosophy’s ability to answer the question of the meaning of life than he allows himself to be. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Sociality offers new ideas and conceptual tools for philosophers and social scientists in their analysis of the social world.

“Wuqiong,” namely the concept of infinite regress has been identified with the hallmark of the Huayan scholasticism, which is dubbed as “chongchong wujin” (repetitive containment ad infinitum). Such an inconceivable perspective is drawn from the Huayan thinkers’ presupposition that a part contains the whole, which is again composed of such parts. But many philosophical traditions, in general, try to avoid the infinite regress as one of the logical fallacies. This paper examines the Buddhist literature that alludes to “wuqiong” as infinite (...) regress, and highlights that the Huayan thinkers also had a critical attitude toward this issue when they discussed the ontological status of the dissociated factors. But they also used the term in a positive sense of inexhaustiveness. This twofold usage of the term seems to show that the Huayan thinkers critically incorporated the elements of previous scholarship even when they created their own unique metaphysical theories. ‘무궁’, 곧 무한소급은 ‘중중무진’으로 표현되는 화엄교학과 동일시되어 왔다. 그것은 부분이 전체를 포함한다는 화엄사상가들의 이론적 전제로부터 각각의 부분들에 전체가 끊임없이 내포된다는 불가사의한 세계관이 도출되기 때문이다. 그러나 불교철학은 물론, 서양철학에서도 무한소급은 논리적 오류로서 회피해야 하는 것으로 간주되어 왔다. 이와 관련하여 본 논문에서는 화엄사상 성립 이전의 몇몇 불교 문헌들에서 특히 유위 4상(相), 득(得)과 같은 불상응행법을 설정할 경우 ‘무궁과’라는 논리적 오류가 발생함을 지적한 사례들을 살펴보았는데, 그러한 비판이 화엄의 문헌들에도 거의 그대로 수용되고 있음을 확인할 수 있다. 그러나 화엄의 문헌에는 ‘무궁’이라는 용어가 ‘무궁진’, ‘무진’, ‘무변’과 동의어로서 긍정적인 맥락에서 사용하고 있는 경우도 자주 발견된다. 이처럼 화엄의 문헌에 이중적인 의미로 사용된 ‘무궁’이라는 개념은 화엄사상가들이 자신들의 독특한 형이상학을 제시하면서도 그들 이전의 여러 교학체계들을 비판적으로 수용했음을 보여주는 증거라고 할 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

In a recent no-go theorem [Bong et al., Nature Physics (2020)], we proved that the predictions of unitary quantum mechanics for an extended Wigner’s friend scenario are incompatible with any theory satisfying three metaphysical assumptions, the conjunction of which we call “Local Friendliness”: Absoluteness of Observed Events, Locality and No-Superdeterminism. In this paper (based on an invited talk for the QBism jubilee at the 2019 Växjö conference) I discuss the implications of this theorem for QBism, as seen from the point (...) of view of experimental metaphysics. I argue that the key distinction between QBism and realist interpretations of quantum mechanics is best understood in terms of their adherence to different theories of truth: the pragmatist versus the correspondence theories. I argue that a productive pathway to resolve the measurement problem within a pragmatist view involves taking seriously the perspective of quantum betting agents, even those in what I call a “Wigner bubble”. The notion of reality afforded by QBism, I propose, will correspond to the invariant elements of any theory that has pragmatic value to all rational agents—that is, the elements that are invariant upon changes of agent perspectives. The classical notion of ‘event’ is not among those invariants, even when those events are observed by some agent. Neither are quantum states. Nevertheless, I argue that far from solipsism, a personalist view of quantum states is an expression of its precise opposite: Copernicanism. (shrink)

What is it to know more? By what metric should the quantity of one's knowledge be measured? I start by examining and arguing against a very natural approach to the measure of knowledge, one on which how much is a matter of how many. I then turn to the quasi-spatial notion of counterfactual distance and show how a model that appeals to distance avoids the problems that plague appeals to cardinality. But such a model faces fatal problems of its own. (...) Reflection on what the distance model gets right and where it goes wrong motivates a third approach, which appeals not to cardinality, nor to counterfactual distance, but to similarity. I close the paper by advocating this model and briefly discussing some of its significance for epistemic normativity. In particular, I argue that the 'trivial truths' objection to the view that truth is the goal of inquiry rests on an unstated, but false, assumption about the measure of knowledge, and suggest that a similarity model preserves truth as the aim of belief in an intuitively satisfying way. (shrink)

The author outlines a conceptually oriented rational reconstruction of crisis tendencies in modern law. The connection between problems of legitimacy and the notion of rationality is emphasized and topics involving both the theory of communicative rationality and the theory of practical reasoning (especially in law) are discussed. The author concludes that a theory transcending the traditional approaches is needed. Otherwise, we shall not be able to face the questions of jurisprudence in the future, especially as regards an assessment of the (...) relations between law and morality, between law and society and finally between law, legitimacy and democracy. (shrink)

In this article I take on the “Transcendentalist Challenge” to naturalized phenomenology, highlighting how the ontological and methodological commitments of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy point in the direction of an integration of the transcendental and the scientific, thus making room for a productive exchange between philosophy and psychological science when it comes to understanding consciousness and its place in nature. Discussing various conceptions of naturalized phenomenology, I argue that what I call an “Integrationist View” is required if we are to make (...) sense of the possibility of productive exchange between phenomenology and the sciences. My main argument is that if we conceive of consciousness as a structure of behavior ontologically prior to the distinctions between objectivity and subjectivity and third- and first-person perspectives, we arrive at a view of the transcendental as not essentially separate from the domain of science, but rather as contingent organizational norms of empirical nature that are best illuminated through a dialectical exchange between phenomenological and scientific approaches. I end by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the “Schneider case” in an example of such an integration. (shrink)

Do citizens have an obligation to obey the law? This book differs from standard approaches by shifting from the language of obedience to that of deference. The popular view that law claims authority but does not have it is here reversed on both counts: law does not claim authority but has it. Though the focus is on political obligation, the author approaches that issue indirectly by first developing a more general account of when deference is due to the (...) class='Hi'>view of others. Two standard practices that political theorists often consider in exploring the question of political obligation - fair-play and promise-keeping - can themselves be seen as examples of a duty of deference. In this respect the book defends a more general theory of ethics whose scope extends beyond the question of political obligation to questions of duty in the case of law, promises, fair play and friendship. (shrink)

We perceive a world of mind-independent macroscopic material objects such as stones, tables, trees, and animals. Our experience is the joint upshot of the way these things are and our route through them, along with the various relevant circumstances of perception; and it depends on the normal operation of our perceptual systems. How should we characterise our perceptual experience so as to respect its basis and explain its role in grounding empirical thought and knowledge? I offered an answer to this (...) question in Perception and its objects. Here I aim to clarify some of my central arguments and to develop and defend the position further in the light of subsequent critical discussion. (shrink)

This book reveals how the medieval papacy grew from modest beginnings into an impressive institution in the Middle Ages and deals with a wide field. It charts the history of the papacy and its relations to East and West from the 4 th to the 12 th centuries, embraces such varied subjects as law, finance, diplomacy, liturgy, and theology. The development of medieval symbolism is also discussed as are the view of eminent political scientists of the period. This re-issues (...) reprints the revised, 3rd edition of 1970. (shrink)

The Tree of Nature represents an IT-based approach to understanding Nature in the light of present-day scientific knowledge. The universe, in this view, consists of discrete entities; these are not material particles, however, but information processing events that produce observable changes in the world. The surprising result of this analysis is that the workings of Nature are based on a decision tree consisting of two dozen parameters. The tree is similar to the evolutionary phylogenetic system of the various forms (...) of life, but it is far more fundamental; constituting, as it does, the very base of everything that exists. The overall conclusion is that the universe is steadily producing new information. Metaphorically speaking, it constitutes a self-unfolding story in which events do not pass away into non-existence but instead remain forever as an indelible part of the whole. This also holds true for integrated sets of events, such as the lifetime experiences of an individual. The Tree of Nature leads to the following testable prediction: A successful quantum-gravity theory will involve the notion of a strong complementarity between gravity and the strong nuclear force. (shrink)

The Perfection of the Universe gives an account of the idea of the universe and its perfection in Aquinas's philosophy, but at the same time it provides an example of how a cosmology can be developed in a teleological framework. Although this is the cosmology of one who was first and foremost a theologian, the book tries to show how it was articulated philosophically and in relation to a particular model of the universe. As a contribution to the history of (...) philosophy, and Thomistic studies in particular, it seeks to draw more attention to Aquinas's view of the world, which has been relatively neglected in favor of emphasis on his theory of knowledge and theory of being, and at the same time to show how it is integral to his very understanding of being. The book thereby brings out a dimension of rationality in Aquinas's philosophy that is often ignored, especially as it concerns creation as a whole and what Aquinas refers to as convenientia in this whole. The systematic nature of Aquinas's conception of the universe is highlighted by the author's attempt to reconstruct the movement of his thought. Thus Oliva Blanchette focuses not just on the universe or on perfection but on the perfection of the universe as a unified idea that recurs frequently in both the philosophy and the theology of Aquinas and that has its own philosophical dynamic both as a logic and as an actuality. In doing so, he endeavors to correct misconceptions about Aquinas's idea of the universe, such as that found in Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being, and to show how the idea stands up philosophically even while being connected with a scientific model of the universe now viewed as obsolete. (shrink)

La vista rappresenta il nostro legame più importante con il mondo. C’è un chiaro nesso tra questo fatto e l’importanza che nella terminologia filosofica tradizionale hanno da sempre le metafore incentrate sul senso della vista rispetto alla conoscenza. Nel XIX secolo alla grande varietà di concetti ottici come ‘teoria’, ‘evidenza’, ‘intuizione’, ‘illuminismo’ si è aggiunta la nozione di ‘Weltanshauung’ che sta ad indicare una concezione complessiva del mondo, radicata in un determinato punto di vista, individuale o collettivo che sia. Queste (...) ‘Weltanschauungen’, in quanto sistemi metafisici privati, attestano la decadenza della metafisica che ebbe inizio dopo l’idealismo, la cui conseguenza sono il prospettivismo e il relativismo. Nel frattempo anche le ‘Weltanschauungen’ sono andate in rovina; ne è chiaro sintomo il fatto che il termine stesso è diventato obsoleto. Non sembra più possibile per noi tratteggiare una ‘immagine’ del mondo come tutto.Vision is our most important connection to the world. There is an accordance between this fact and the importance of the metaphors about the sense of sight for the traditional philosophical terminology with respect to cognition. During the 19th century the large variety of optical concepts such as ‘theory’, ‘evidence’ ‘intuition’, ‘enlightenment’ etc. was completed by the notion of ‘Weltanschauung’ which means a conception of the world as a whole from a certain point of view in relation to individuals as well as to a collectivity. These ‘Weltanschauungen’ as private metaphysical systems demonstrate the decay of Metaphysics which took place in general after Idealism, followed by the problems of Perspectivism and Relativism. In the meantime even the ‘Weltanschauungen’ fell into ruin; this is indicated by the term itself which came to be obsolete. It seems no longer possible for us to delineate a ‘picture’ of the world as a whole. (shrink)

The acquisition of genetic information (GI) confronts both the affected individuals and healthcare providers with difficult, ambivalent decisions. Genetic responsibility (GR) has become a key concept in both ethical and socioempirical literature addressing how and by whom decision-making with respect to the morality of GI is approached. However, despite its prominence, the precise meaning of the concept of GR remains vague. Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review on the usage of the concept of GR in qualitative, socioempirical studies, to (...) identify the main interpretations and to provide conceptual clarification. The review identified 75 studies with primarily an Anglo-American setting. The studies focused on several agents: the individual, the family, the parent, the healthcare professional, and the institution and refer to the concept of GR on the basis of either a rational/principle-oriented approach or an affective/relational approach. A subtype of the rational/principle-oriented approach is the reactive approach. The review shows how the concept of GR is useful for analyzing and theorizing about socioempirical findings within qualitative socioempirical studies and also reveals conceptual deficits in terms of insufficient theoretical accuracy and heterogeneity, and in the rarity of reflection on cultural variance. The vagueness and multiplicity of meanings for GR in socioempirical studies can be avoided by more normative-theoretical explication of the underlying premises. This would provide a higher degree of differentiation of empirical findings. Thereby, the complex findings associated with the individual and social implications of genetic testing in empirical studies can be better addressed from a theoretical point of view and can subsequently have a stronger impact on normative and policy debates. (shrink)

The distinct-attitude view of fictional narratives is a standard position in contemporary aesthetics. This is the view that cognitive attitudes formed in response to fictions are a distinct kind of mental state from beliefs formed in response to non-fictional scenarios, such as pretend or imaginary states. In this paper we argue that the balance of functional, behavioral, and neuroscientific evidence best supports the genuine-attitude view of belief. According to the genuine-attitude view, cognitive responses to fictions are (...) genuine beliefs that are not a distinct kind of mental state from the beliefs that we form in response to non-fictional scenarios. We consider the implications of the genuine-attitude view for debates at the intersection of epistemology, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to show Augustine’s originality in ascribing a key role to will in the cognitive activity. For him, knowledge is influenced by both will and love, and cannot be grasped without will. Grounded primarily on De trinitate, the article focuses on three kinds of knowledge that shed light on his peculiar view on will: self-knowledge, knowledge of God, and the knowledge of bodies.L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que l’originalité d’Augustin est d’attribuer un (...) rôle clé à la volonté dans l’activité cognitive. Pour lui, la connaissance est influencée tant par la volonté que par l’amour et ne peut être appréhenéee sans volonté. Se basant principalement sur De trinitate, cet article se concentre sur trois genres de connaissance qui mettent en lumière sa conception particulière de la volonté : la connaissance de soi, la connaissance de Dieu et la connaissance des corps. (shrink)

Theism is the view that God exists; naturalism is the view that there are no supernatural beings, processes, mechanisms, or forces. This Element explores whether things are better, worse, or neither on theism relative to naturalism. It introduces readers to the central philosophical issues that bear on this question, and it distinguishes a wide range of ways it can be answered. It critically examines four views, three of which hold that things are better on theism than on naturalism, (...) and one of which holds just the opposite. (shrink)

The terms of a mathematical problem become precise and concise if they are expressed in an appropriate notation, therefore notations are useful to mathematics. But are notations only useful, or also essential? According to prevailing view, they are not essential. Contrary to this view, this paper argues that notations are essential to mathematics, because they may play a crucial role in mathematical discovery. Specifically, since notations may consist of symbolic notations, diagrammatic notations, or a mix of symbolic and (...) diagrammatic notations, notations may play a crucial role in mathematical discovery in different ways. Some examples are given to illustrate these ways. (shrink)

This chapter defends a pluralistic view of science: the various projects of enquiry that fall under the general rubric of science share neither a methodology nor a subject matter. Ontologically, it is argued that sciences need have nothing in common beyond an antipathy to the supernatural. Epistemically one central virtue is defended, empiricism, meaning just that scientific knowledge must ultimately be answerable to experience. Prima facie science is as diverse as the world it studies; and rejection of this prima (...) facie diversity in favour of a spurious aspiration to unity is grounded in a priori assumption not experience. Disunity, however, does not mean disconnectedness, and the connections between different areas of knowledge are an important theme in the book. (shrink)