Are ecosystems morally considerable-that is, do we owe it to them to protect their “interests”? Many environmental ethicists, impressed by the way that individual nonsentient organisms such as plants tenaciously pursue their own biological goals, have concluded that we should extend moral considerability far enough to include such organisms. There is a pitfall in the ecosystem-to-organism analogy, however. We must distinguish a system’s genuine goals from the incidental effects, or byproducts, of the behavior of that system’s parts. Goals seem capable (...) of giving rise to interests; byproducts do not. It is hard to see how whole ecosystems can be genuinely goal-directed unless group selection occurs at the community level. Currently, mainstream ecological and evolutionary theory is individualistic. From such a theory it follows that the apparent goals of ecosystems are mere byproducts and, as such, cannot ground moral considerability. (shrink)

Ewing, Harley; Ewing, Selena Review of: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Back Bay Books, 1995.

Les Cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg 52 contains an Introduction and 9 new research articles in French & English on Friedrich Schiller's philosophy in relation to German Idealism. All fully available online on Open-Edition and as free e-book. -/- Edited and introduced by Henny Blomme, Laure Cahen-Maurel, & David W. Wood. With contributions by Frederick C. Beiser, María del Rosario Acosta López, Cody Staton, Jeremy D. Hovda, Laure Cahen-Maurel, Quentin Landenne, Katia Hay, Louis Carré, and Charlotte Morel. -/- SOMMAIRE (...) / CONTENTS -/- Introduction: Friedrich Schiller, a German Idealist? (Henny Blomme, Laure Cahen-Maurel & David W. Wood) -/- 1. Frederick C. Beiser. Schiller’s Humanism -/- 2. María del Rosario Acosta López. Une dimension esthétique de la critique : la temporalité du beau dans les lettres de Schiller Sur l’éducation esthétique -/- 3. Cody Staton. In Search of Play: Schiller’s Drive Theory as a Turn Away from Kant -/- 4. Jeremy D. Hovda. Bildung between Kant and Schiller -/- 5. Laure Cahen-Maurel. Fichte avec Schiller : La querelle des Heures à la lumière de Grâce et Dignité -/- 6. Quentin Landenne. La Bildung chez Schiller et Fichte, entre esthétique et politique -/- 7. Katia Hay. On the Tragic-Sublime and Tragic Freedom: Thinking with Schiller and Schelling -/- 8. Louis Carré. Vicissitudes de l’État organique : Kant, Hegel, Schiller -/- 9. Charlotte Morel. Conjoindre idéalisme et réalisme après Hegel : Les lectures de Schiller par Lotze et Lange -/- Résumés / Abstracts. (shrink)

Saímos da leitura ortodoxa da obra de Merleau-Ponty para lhe sermos mais sinceros e fiéis. Neste sentido, apresentamos as consequências para a filosofia que, de modo heroico e dramático, recupera a natureza trágica do transcendental como revelação e engajamento na contingência eterna. Mostramos que o tema privilegiado para esta filosofia, seu verdadeiro solo, é a ausência de limites precisos da fenomenologia e da ontologia. Nesses termos, analisamos de que maneira a fenomenologia estende e fortalece as fronteiras ordinárias do Logos, que (...) jamais foi humano, mas, desde sempre uma Natureza que manifesta o Ser. (shrink)

Através desse diálogo tivemos o objetivo de propor uma compreensão do homem através da explicitação do sentido ético de edificação. Apresentamos a cidadania do mundo como uma finalidade moral do homem, que estava presente e oculta na fundamentação metafísica do humanismo. Agora, se o antropológico se fortalece por meio da realização ética do mundo, defendemos que o dever do melhor não é uma finalidade moral que se realiza em um infinito separado da finitude humana. O antropológico só é cidadão se (...) ele se compreende como uma finitude sem infinito separado, ou seja, como um fim em si, como um lugar de chegada. (shrink)

I argue that the debate about the reason-giving character of perception, and, derivatively, the contemporary debate about the nature of the conceptual content of perception, is best viewed as a confrontation with refined versions of the following three independently plausible, yet mutually inconsistent, propositions: Perceptual apprehension Some perceptions provide reasons directly Exclusivity Only beliefs provide reasons directly Bifurcation No perception is a belief I begin with an evaluation and refinement of each proposition so as to crystallize the source of the (...) difficulties that dominate our thinking about the reason-giving character of perception. I argue that the contemporary literature is broadly split between those denying Bifurcation and those denying Perceptual apprehension. Though Exclusivity, too, has been target to criticism, its grip on our thinking has all too often been underestimated. As a result, a proper denial or modification of Exclusivity is yet wanting. Overcoming Exclusivity involves a considerable challenge that has not been adequately acknowledged or met—to develop a substantive account of nonconceptual apprehension. Getting a clearer understanding of the nature, the source, and possible resolution of this challenge is the primary aim of this paper. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we clarify the notion of immunity to error through misidentification with respect to the first-person pronoun. In particular, we set out to dispel the view that for a judgment to be IEM it must contain a token of a certain class of predicates. Rather, the importance of the IEM status of certain judgments is that it teaches us about privileged ways of coming to know about ourselves. We then turn to examine how (...) perception, as a state with nonconceptual content, can give rise to judgments that are IEM. On one view, the ‘inheritance model’ of immunity, perception gives rise to such judgments because perception itself is IEM. We argue that this model is misguided, and, instead, suggest and elucidate an alternative view: perception gives rise to judgments that are IEM by virtue of containing implicitly self-related or self-concerning information. (shrink)

This article presents a new reading of Fichte’s aesthetics that differs from a primarily functionalist interpretation of the imagination and art. It demonstrates that the “hovering” (Schweben) of the creative imagination should be viewed as the first principle of Fichte’s aesthetics, in which the latter consists of a triad of the pleasant, the beautiful and the sublime. Moreover, it argues that in the text Ueber Geist und Buchstab in der Philosophie (1795/1800) Fichte created a real and original monogram of the (...) hovering creative imagination, a monogram whose theoretical basis stems from Kant’s concept of the monogram in the 1st Critique as a “wavering sketch”. It contends that this overlooked but key artistic and practical example of a monogram opens up new perspectives for Fichtean aesthetics, further confirming that its first principle should be explicitly identified with the theory of the hovering imagination in the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre of 1794/95. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article traite des rapports entre les processus naturels et l’intervention humaine à partir d’une réflexion sur la sélection en matière d’’insémination artificielle animale et humaine. Il étudie comment les discours de promotion et de justification de l’insémination se traduisent dans les pratiques des professionnels, dans la France du XXe siècle. De l’entre-deux-guerres jusqu’à l’institutionnalisation des banques de sperme dans les années 1970 et 1980, la sélection est au cœur de négociations sociales constantes. Initialement promue à des fins de (...) sélection drastique, l’insémination artificielle humaine relève principalement d’une « production du normal ». La sélection se heurte, en médecine, à des contraintes à la fois normatives, structurelles et matérielles qui en restreignent le périmètre, l’intensité et la portée, y compris avec les techniques de la génétique humaine. Il s’agit alors de comprendre dans quelles conditions une sélection de facto voire un eugénisme systémique peuvent exister en dépit de la forte vigilance éthique revendiquée par les acteurs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:'0". J.~·VleWS GETTING ONE'S HANDS DIRTY; OR, PRACTISING WHAT YOU TEACH DAVID HARLEY Finlayson House, 40 Dumfries Street Paris, Ont., Canada N3L 2c8 Brian Patrick Hendley.. Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as Educators. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois U. P., 1986. Pp. xxi, 177· US$19.95; paper $9·95· B rian Hendley's book is more than a well-written account of three eminent philosophers who wrote about and participated in educational theory (...) and reform. The author has in fact selected Dewey, Russell and Whitehead as three stallions to draw a chariot. The precise nature of this "chariot" is indicated in the chapter entitled "The Philosopher as Educator Today" appearing at the end of the book: My intention throughout has been to suggest a way out of the current impasse in the philosophy ofeducation by reopening a conversation regarding a more productive role for philosophers to play, rather than merely analyzing concepts and policing arguments. My claim has been that philosophers of education can learn from their past, that we can see in Dewey, Russell and Whitehead instances of a productive approach to educational problems through thought and action. (P. 105) Having said this, the structure and contents of Hendley's book fall squarely into place. Chapter One, entitled "The Reconstruction of the Philosophy of Education", argues that there is a crisis in the current state of educational philosophy. The ensuing three chapters are devoted individually to Dewey, Russell and Whitehead. The concluding chapter, resting upon the strength of the examples given of three constructive contributors to the field, suggests new directions for the philosophy of education. It is clear that Hendley's book is more than an interesting account of the practical and theoretical educational activities of three of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Dewey, Russell and Whitehead are not gathered together between the. same covers in order to explore or present a detailed analysis of their theoretical similarities or who may have influenced Reviews 219 whom. Instead, one gathers that the author has selected them on the basis of his own admiration and preference rather than for any shared theories which connect them. The point is made, however, that the strongest common element, and the most significant one, is that each man had ideas about education, each was a philosopher, and each attempted to exert some practical influence upon the educational institutions and practices of the day. In short, Dewey, Russell and Whitehead were theorists who were prepared to get their hands dirty. Hendley argues that after the death of John Dewey in 1952 educational philosophy was neglected and· philosophers tended to pay less attention to education. The author goes on to suggest some renewed interest in the field on the grounds of contributions made to the fifty-fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education in 1955 under the theme "Modern Philosophies and Education", a special issue of the Harvard Education Review published in 1956; the publication of Israel Scheffler's edited collection of readings entitled Philosophy and Education in 1958; and R. S. Peters' Inaugural Address given at London in 1963, and his publication of Ethics and Education in 1966. According to this argument, we witness a general lapse after the death of Dewey, a rekindling in the mid-1950S and a broader resurgence in the 1960s. On the basis of the author's own account, I think that it is very difficult to argue that Dewey's death initiated any period of calm or disinterestedness. Furthermore, it is very problematic to point to various yearbooks or publications as indicators. The point is that with the death of Dewey there were numerous contenders to fill his position as the pre-eminent American philosopher of education. The extent to which anyone has been able to do so is a different matter. What I believe Hendley is really trying to say here is implicit in his argument, namely, that after the death of Dewey, no philosopher of equal stature took his place. The reason why no candidate equal to the task emerged is also suggested by the author. Dewey, Russell and Whitehead are to be admired because they had the... (shrink)

Constraints on the types of speech errors observed can be accounted for by a frame/content distinction, but connectionist modeling shows that they do not require this distinction. The constraints may arise instead from the statistical properties of our language, in particular, the sequential biases observed in the vocabulary. Nevertheless, there might still be a role for the frame/content distinction in syntactic planning.

Bloom masterfully captures the state-of-the-art in the study of lexical acquisition. He also exposes the extent of our ignorance about the learning of names for non-observables. HCLMW adopts an innatist position without adopting modularity of mind; however, it seems likely that modularity is needed to bridge the gap between object names and the rest of the lexicon.

Résumé Les auteurs distinguent classiquement topologie et ontologie temporelles et entreprennent de montrer que le choix d’une ontologie temporelle, mais aussi d’une ontologie générale, a des conséquences sur les propriétés de la topologie temporelle. Ils choisissent comme point de départ de cette démonstration l’application du principe d’indépendance d’Armstrong à l’ontologie temporelle et plus spécialement à la transitivité. Leur conclusion est que le choix de ce principe pose des problèmes très difficiles pour l’ontologie temporelle, autant que pour la topologie temporelle.