In everyday language, we readily attribute experiences to groups. For example, 1 might say, “Spain celebrated winning the European Cup” or “The uncovering of corruption caused the union to think long and hard about its internal structure.” In each case, the attribution makes sense. However, it is quite difficult to give a nonreductive account of precisely what these statements mean because in each case a mental state is ascribed to a group, and it is not obvious that groups can have (...) mental states. In this article, I do not offer an explicit theory of collective experience. Instead, I draw on phenomenological analyses and empirical data in order to provide general conditions that a more specific theory of collective experience must meet in order to be coherent. (shrink)

_Brill's Companion to Leo Strauss’ Writings on Classical Political Thought_ offers clear, accessible essays to assist a new generation of readers in their introduction to Strauss’ writings on the ancients, and to deepen the understanding of those familiar with his work.

It is commonplace to speak of social groups as if they were capable of the same sorts of activities as individuals. We say, “Germany won the World Cup”; “The United States invaded Iraq”; and “The world mourned the passing of Nelson Mandela”. In so doing, we attribute agency, belief, and emotional states to groups themselves. In recent years, much literature devoted to analyzing such statements and their implications has emerged. Within this literature, the issue of “intentionalism,” whether individuals must have (...) a certain self-conception in order to constitute a collectivity, has received surprisingly little attention. While Paul Sheehy has criticized this view, claiming that individuals may be related in such a way as to constitute a collective without their realizing it :377–394, 2002), little other scholarship on the topic exists. The purpose of this article is to contribute to this debate. I will argue, drawing on Edith Stein’s phenomenology of social groups, that intentionalism, as Margaret Gilbert defines it, is false. I begin by establishing Gilbert’s account, Sheehy’s criticism of intentionalism, and what I take to be its shortcomings. I then explicate Stein’s phenomenology of collectives and argue that plural subjects who do not meet intentionalist requirements can exist. Given this, intentionalism must be rejected. Because the intentionalism debate presupposes that there are irreducibly social agents, I do not argue for this claim. (shrink)

The first comprehensive examination of the debate between Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève on the subject of philosophy and tyranny. On Tyranny remains a perennial favorite, possessing a timelessness that few philosophical or scholarly debates have ever achieved. On one hand, On Tyranny is the first book-length work in Leo Strauss’s extended study of Xenophon, and his “Restatement” retains a vivacity and directness that is sometimes absent in his later works. On the other, “Tyranny and Wisdom” is perhaps the most (...) succinct yet fullest articulation of Alexandre Kojève’s overall political thought, and it presents what may be the most uncompromising alternative to Strauss’s position as a whole. This volume contains for the first time a comprehensive and critical examination of the debate from scholars well versed in the thought of Strauss, Kojève, Hegel, Heidegger, and the end of history thesis. Of particular interest will be the appendix, which offers for the first time Kojève’s unabridged response to Strauss, a response previously available only from the Fonds Kojève at Le Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Accessible to students and scholars alike, this volume works equally well in the classroom and as a resource for more advanced research. (shrink)

Volume XVII Part 1: Phenomenology, Idealism, and Intersubjectivity: A Festschrift in Celebration of Dermot Moran's Sixty-Fifth Birthday Part 2: The Imagination: Kant's Phenomenological Legacy Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl's groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Andreea Smaranda Aldea, Lilian Alweiss, Timothy Burns, Steven Crowell, Maxime Doyon, (...) Augustin Dumont, Richard Kearney, Mette Lebech, Samantha Matherne, Timothy Mooney, Thomas Nenon, Matthew Ratcliffe, Alessandro Salice, Daniele De Santis, Andrea Staiti, Anthony J. Steinbock, Michela Summa, Thomas Szanto, Emiliano Trizio, and Nicolas de Warren. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors ([email protected] and [email protected]) electronically via e-mail attachments. (shrink)

In recent years, some simulation theorists have claimed that the discovery of mirror neurons provides empirical support for the position that mind reading is, at some basic level, simulation. The purpose of this essay is to question that claim. I begin by providing brief context for the current mind reading debate and then developing an influential simulationist account of mind reading. I then draw on the works of Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein to develop an alternative, phenomenological account. In conclusion, (...) I offer multiple objections against simulation theory and argue that the empirical evidence mirror neurons offer us does not necessarily support the view that empathy is simulation. (shrink)

I examine Bernard Lonergan's approach to the problem of evil. I look to determine whether his solution, which is based on the conjugate forms of faith, hope, and charity, and culminates in a heuristic where forgiveness plays an essential role in moving beyond the problem of evil is adequate. I examine the distinction between basic sin, moral evil, and physical evil as well as his claim that from the viewpoint of the unrestricted act of understanding the non-systematic vanishes.

In this article, I explicate Husserl’s phenomenology of the person as found in Ideen II by examining the most important aspects of persons in this work. In the first section, I explicate the concept of the surrounding world (Umwelt) with special attention to the difference between the different attitudes (Einstellungen) that help determine the sense of constituted objects of experience. In the second section, I investigate Husserl’s description of the person as a founded, higher order, spiritual (geistig) objectivity. I consider (...) this description of the person by examining the symmetry between the organization of Ideen II as a whole and the order of the constitution of the person. In the final section, I look at the relationship between the constitution of the person and the spiritual (geistig) world. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

Liberal democracy is today under unprecedented attack from both the left and the right. Offering a fresh and penetrating examination of how Leo Strauss understood the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it, Leo Strauss on Modern Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education explores Strauss' view of the intimate (and troubling) relation between the philosophic promotion of liberal democracy and the turn to the modern scientific-technological project of the 'conquest of nature'. Timothy W. (...) class='Hi'>Burns explicates the political reasoning behind Strauss' recommendation of reminders of genuine political greatness within democracy over and against the failure of nihilistic youth to recognize it. Elucidating what Strauss envisaged by a liberally-educated sub-political or cultural-level aristocracy--one that could elevate and sustain liberal democracy--and the roles that both philosophy and divine-law traditions should have in that education, Burns also lays out Strauss' frequent (though often tacit) engagement with the thought of Heidegger on these issues." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.

Thucydides and Aristophanes, austere historian and ribald comic playwright, lived in an Athens that had, since Themistocles, been moving from a regime of ancestral piety towards a secular empire. Thucydides suggests an agreement between his understanding and that of the pious Nicias — over and against this move. Aristophanes too is a vigorous proponent of peace, and the conclusions of many of his plays appear to suggest or encourage a conservative disposition towards ancestral piety or the rule of ancestral, divine (...) law.While these first impressions are not entirely misleading, a careful examination of the two thinkers’works, with attention to Nicias and the question of the gods, suggests a more complicated and revealing picture. Neither thinker is in agreement with Nicias, who proves to be representative of a fundamental human delusion. Each, however, sees that delusion as inescapable for political life, and so makes his appeal to more serious readers inconspicuously. (shrink)

Thucydides and Aristophanes, austere historian and ribald comic playwright, lived in an Athens that had, since Themistocles, been moving from a regime of ancestral piety towards a secular empire. Thucydides suggests an agreement between his understanding and that of the pious Nicias — over and against this move. Aristophanes too is a vigorous proponent of peace, and the conclusions of many of his plays appear to suggest or encourage a conservative disposition towards ancestral piety or the rule of ancestral, divine (...) law.While these first impressions are not entirely misleading, a careful examination of the two thinkers’works, with attention to Nicias and the question of the gods, suggests a more complicated and revealing picture. Neither thinker is in agreement with Nicias, who proves to be representative of a fundamental human delusion. Each, however, sees that delusion as inescapable for political life, and so makes his appeal to more serious readers inconspicuously. (shrink)

Volume 27, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 103-106.

This article introduces the first English translation of one of Tanabe’s early essays on metaphysics. It questions the relation of the universal to the particular in context of logic, phenomenology, Neo-Kantian epistemology, and classical metaphysics. Tanabe provides his reflections on the nature of the concept of universality and its constitutive relation to phenomenal particulars through critical analyses of the issue as it is discussed across various schools of philosophy including: British Empiricism, the Marburg School, the Austrian School, the Kyoto School, (...) and Platonism. In this essay, Tanabe reveals his ability to think metaphysically the ground for the possibility of reasoning and dares to voice his own thought beyond references to the most prominent thinkers of his time from distinct intellectual traditions in both the east and the west. This essay, therefore, demonstrates that his strong tendency to move beyond the received epistemology and phenomenology of the European intellectual tradition to metaphysics was already present in the early days of his academic life and thereby marks a more general contribution of the Kyoto School of Philosophy to distinct European schools of thought in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

This book introduces readers to analytical interpretation of seminal writings and thinkers in the history of political thought, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Marx, and Nietzsche. Chronologically arranged, each chapter in the book is devoted to the work of a single thinker. The selected texts together engage with 2000 years of debate on fundamental questions including: what is the purpose of political life? What is justice? What is a right? Do (...) human beings have rights? What kinds of human virtues are there and which regimes best promote them? The difficulty of accessing the texts included in this volume is the result not only of their subtlety but also of the dramatic change in everyday life. The authors shed light on the texts' vocabulary and complexities of thought and help students understand and weigh the various interpretations of each philosopher's thought. (shrink)

Purpose With the increasing sophistication of neuroimaging technologies in medicine, new language is being sought to make sense of the findings. The aim of this paper is to explore whether the brain-reading metaphor used to convey current medical or neurobiological findings imports unintended significations that do not necessarily reflect the genuine findings made by physicians and neuroscientists. Methods First, the paper surveys the ambiguities of the readability metaphor, drawing from the history of science and medicine, paying special attention to the (...) sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Next, the paper addresses more closely the issue of how metaphors may be confusing when used in medicine in general, and neuroscience in particular. The paper then explores the possible misleading effects associated with the contemporary use of the brain-reading metaphor in neuroimaging research. Results Rather than breaking new ground, what we see in current scientific language is a persistence of both a constraining and expansive set of language practices forming a relatively continuous tradition linking current neuroimaging to past scientific investigations into the brain. Conclusions The use of the readability metaphor thus carries with it both positive and negative effects. Physicians and neuroscientists must resort to the use of terms already laden with abstracted meanings, and often burdened by tradition, at the risk of importing through these words connotations that do not tally with the sought-after objectivity of empirical science. (shrink)

For half a century, Ernest Fortin's scholarship has charmed and educated theologians and philosophers with its intellectual search for the best way to live. Written by friends, colleagues, and students of Fortin, this book pays tribute to a remarkable thinker in a series of essays that bear eloquent testimony to Fortin's influence and his legacy. A formidable commentator on Catholic philosophical and political thought, Ernest Fortin inspired others with his restless inquiries beyond the boundaries of conventional scholarship. With essays on (...) subjects ranging across philosophy, political science, literature, and theology Gladly to Learn and Gladly to Teach reflects the astonishing depth and breadth of Fortin's contribution to contemporary thought. (shrink)

For half a century, Ernest Fortin's scholarship has charmed and educated theologians and philosophers with its intellectual search for the best way to live. Written by friends, colleagues, and students of Fortin, this book pays tribute to a remarkable thinker in a series of essays that bear eloquent testimony to Fortin's influence and his legacy. A formidable commentator on Catholic philosophical and political thought, Ernest Fortin inspired others with his restless inquiries beyond the boundaries of conventional scholarship. With essays on (...) subjects ranging across philosophy, political science, literature, and theology Gladly to Learn and Gladly to Teach reflects the astonishing depth and breadth of Fortin's contribution to contemporary thought. (shrink)

Cancer and its treatment pose challenges that affect not only patients but also their significant others, including intimate partners. Accumulating evidence suggests that couples’ ability to communicate effectively plays a major role in the psychological adjustment of both individuals and the quality of their relationship. Two key conceptual models have been proposed to account for how couple communication impacts psychological and relationship adjustment: the social-cognitive processing (SCP) model and the relationship intimacy (RI) model. These models posit different mechanisms and outcomes, (...) and thus have different implications for intervention. The purpose of this project is to test and compare the utility of these models using comprehensive and methodologically rigorous methods. Aims are: (1) to examine the overall fit of the SCP and RI models in explaining patient and partner psychological and relationship adjustment as they occur on a day-to-day basis and over the course of 1 year; (2) to examine the fit of the models for different subgroups (males vs. females, and patients vs. partners); and (3) to examine the utility of various methods of assessing communication by examining the degree to which baseline indices from different measurement strategies predict self-reported adjustment at 1-year follow up. The study employs a longitudinal, multi-method approach to examining communication processes including: standard self-report questionnaires assessing process and outcome variables collected quarterly over the course of 1 year; smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments to sample participant reports in real time; and laboratory-based couple conversations from which we derive observational measures of communicative behavior and affective expression, as well as vocal indices of emotional arousal. Participants are patients with stage II-IV breast, colon, rectal, or lung cancer and their spouses/partners, recruited from two NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. Results will be published in scientific journals, presented at scientific conferences, and conveyed to a larger audience through infographics and social media outlets. Findings will inform theory, measurement, and the design and implementation of efficacious interventions aimed at optimizing both patient and partner well-being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Evgeny Zamiatin's "The Cave"Timothy LangenEvgeny Zamiatin's short story "The Cave," like Fyodor Dosto- evsky's novel Crime and Punishment, has at its dramatic center a single criminal act, and as its philosophical preoccupation the reasons for and the results of that act. The act in "The Cave" is not murder but theft, the theft of scarce firewood from a downstairs neighbor. The result, unlike Dostoevsky's, is rapid detection, confrontation, (...) and then suicide. The reasons, however, are somewhat more complex, and as with Dostoevsky they reach beyond merely topical sensation to touch a paradox that lies close to the heart of human civilization.The immediate reasons are topical and simple enough. Martin Martinych and Masha live together on the brink of hypothermic death during the predictable cruelty of a Petrograd winter and the exceptional horror of the Russian Civil War. Nearly everyone in the city is freezing and starving, and the precariousness of existence has led people to trade the luxuries of civilized life for the barest essentials of physical survival. Books and sheet music shift imperceptibly from repositories of memory and culture into combustible objects good for a few more minutes of life-saving warmth. Favorite rooms are abandoned as not worth the cost of heating, and Martin Martinych sacrifices his conscience for a few scraps of wood. Indeed, Zamiatin prepares the crime at least as sympathetically as does Dostoevsky: the victim, Obertyshev, is every bit as dislikable as Dostoevsky's pawnbroker; he hoards his considerable supply of wood in total indifference to the suffering of his neighbors. Moreover, Mart's crime, unlike Raskolnikov's [End Page 209] in Crime and Punishment, hardly injures the victim, who seems to suffer a purely mental affront when some of his stash has been stolen. We would like to think that in Raskolnikov's place we would not commit his crime; in Mart's place, however, we might well be excused for following his example and filching a few sticks of wood from a man who doesn't need them.However, it is not an easy decision for Mart, and Zamiatin describes it as a battle between two Marts, bifurcated by the extreme deprivation of his circumstances into a purely animal Mart, a "caveman" who says only "I must," and another Mart clinging tenaciously in memory, a Mart who used to love the music of Scriabin and who now, standing before Obertyshev's ample woodpile, says "I may not." The caveman prevails, Mart brings the wood upstairs, and he and Masha enjoy a day of warmth. At the end of the day, the chairman of the housing committee confronts Mart, assuring him that he too detests Obertyshev, but advising Mart to return the wood or else face legal consequences. Alas, there is none to return. In despair Mart reaches for a vial of poison that he has apparently reserved for that moment when the suffering of life outweighs the hope—but Masha, who is further gone than he, insists on taking the single portion herself. She instructs Mart to go outside for a little walk while she does the deed. He does so, and here the story ends.Zamiatin was trained as an engineer and early in his career he worked both as a technical writer and as a writer of fiction, and so it is tempting see behind this story a mechanical vision of human existence that is something like a physical structure. The structure of human civilization, according to this view, is built on an essential framework without which the entire thing would collapse, and to which every other part of the structure must be sacrificed if need be. Physical existence is part of this framework: it is the precondition of any human civilization, and the ornaments of that civilization must when necessary be devoured to ensure the continued survival of human beings. The burning thirst of physical necessity must be slaked before we can irrigate the lush fields of beauty, kindness, and imagination. Books are for reading, but in some circumstances they are more valuable as kindling.In the writing of some psychologists—most notably Abraham Maslow—there appears a "hierarchy of human needs" that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Evgeny Zamiatin's "The Cave"Timothy LangenEvgeny Zamiatin's short story "The Cave," like Fyodor Dosto- evsky's novel Crime and Punishment, has at its dramatic center a single criminal act, and as its philosophical preoccupation the reasons for and the results of that act. The act in "The Cave" is not murder but theft, the theft of scarce firewood from a downstairs neighbor. The result, unlike Dostoevsky's, is rapid detection, confrontation, (...) and then suicide. The reasons, however, are somewhat more complex, and as with Dostoevsky they reach beyond merely topical sensation to touch a paradox that lies close to the heart of human civilization.The immediate reasons are topical and simple enough. Martin Martinych and Masha live together on the brink of hypothermic death during the predictable cruelty of a Petrograd winter and the exceptional horror of the Russian Civil War. Nearly everyone in the city is freezing and starving, and the precariousness of existence has led people to trade the luxuries of civilized life for the barest essentials of physical survival. Books and sheet music shift imperceptibly from repositories of memory and culture into combustible objects good for a few more minutes of life-saving warmth. Favorite rooms are abandoned as not worth the cost of heating, and Martin Martinych sacrifices his conscience for a few scraps of wood. Indeed, Zamiatin prepares the crime at least as sympathetically as does Dostoevsky: the victim, Obertyshev, is every bit as dislikable as Dostoevsky's pawnbroker; he hoards his considerable supply of wood in total indifference to the suffering of his neighbors. Moreover, Mart's crime, unlike Raskolnikov's [End Page 209] in Crime and Punishment, hardly injures the victim, who seems to suffer a purely mental affront when some of his stash has been stolen. We would like to think that in Raskolnikov's place we would not commit his crime; in Mart's place, however, we might well be excused for following his example and filching a few sticks of wood from a man who doesn't need them.However, it is not an easy decision for Mart, and Zamiatin describes it as a battle between two Marts, bifurcated by the extreme deprivation of his circumstances into a purely animal Mart, a "caveman" who says only "I must," and another Mart clinging tenaciously in memory, a Mart who used to love the music of Scriabin and who now, standing before Obertyshev's ample woodpile, says "I may not." The caveman prevails, Mart brings the wood upstairs, and he and Masha enjoy a day of warmth. At the end of the day, the chairman of the housing committee confronts Mart, assuring him that he too detests Obertyshev, but advising Mart to return the wood or else face legal consequences. Alas, there is none to return. In despair Mart reaches for a vial of poison that he has apparently reserved for that moment when the suffering of life outweighs the hope—but Masha, who is further gone than he, insists on taking the single portion herself. She instructs Mart to go outside for a little walk while she does the deed. He does so, and here the story ends.Zamiatin was trained as an engineer and early in his career he worked both as a technical writer and as a writer of fiction, and so it is tempting see behind this story a mechanical vision of human existence that is something like a physical structure. The structure of human civilization, according to this view, is built on an essential framework without which the entire thing would collapse, and to which every other part of the structure must be sacrificed if need be. Physical existence is part of this framework: it is the precondition of any human civilization, and the ornaments of that civilization must when necessary be devoured to ensure the continued survival of human beings. The burning thirst of physical necessity must be slaked before we can irrigate the lush fields of beauty, kindness, and imagination. Books are for reading, but in some circumstances they are more valuable as kindling.In the writing of some psychologists—most notably Abraham Maslow—there appears a "hierarchy of human needs" that... (shrink)

Vagueness provides the first comprehensive examination of a topic of increasing importance in metaphysics and the philosophy of logic and language. Timothy Williamson traces the history of this philosophical problem from discussions of the heap paradox in classical Greece to modern formal approaches such as fuzzy logic. He illustrates the problems with views which have taken the position that standard logic and formal semantics do not apply to vague language, and defends the controversial realistic view that vagueness is a (...) kind of ignorance--that there really is a grain of sand whose removal turns a heap into a non-heap, but we cannot know which one it is. (shrink)

This important book charts the development of philosophical thinking about history over the past 250 years, combining extracts from key texts with new explanatory and critical discussion. The book is designed to make the work of thinkers such as Hume, Herder, Hegel, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault accessible to students with no prior knowledge of Western philosophy. An introductory section is followed by nine further chapters exploring contrasting schools of thought. The volume reveals the origins of contemporary trends in the (...) discipline and relates wider philosophical reflections to the study of history itself. It also points to connections between philosophy of history and literary and cultural theory which have developed in recent decades. (shrink)

Epistemic Value Monism is the view that there is only one kind of thing of basic, final epistemic value. Perhaps the most plausible version of Epistemic Value Monism is Truth Value Monism, the view that only true beliefs are of basic, final epistemic value. Several authors—notably Jonathan Kvanvig and Michael DePaul—have criticized Truth Value Monism by appealing to the epistemic value of things other than knowledge. Such arguments, if successful, would establish Epistemic Value Pluralism is true and Epistemic Value Monism (...) is false. This paper critically examines those arguments, finding them wanting. However, I develop an argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism that succeeds which turns on general reflection on the nature of value. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises because of the standard method for assessing the truth of (...) certain counterfactuals. The truth of deterministic laws is `modally fragile' on the standard semantics for counterfactuals: if determinism is true and you were to do otherwise, the laws would be different. We provide two ways of avoiding this problem: 1) supplement the standard semantics for counterfactuals with impossible worlds, or 2) introduce rigid designators into the description of problematic decision situations. We argue that both of these approaches are well-motivated and can be readily incorporated into Lewisian Causal Decision Theory. (shrink)

The paper clarifies and defends the orthodox view that counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents are vacuously true against recent criticisms. It argues that apparent counterexamples to orthodoxy result from uncritical reliance on a fallible heuristic used in the processing of conditionals. A comparison is developed between such counterpossibles and vacuously true universal generalizations.

Truthmaker theorists hold that there is a metaphysically explanatory relation that holds between true claims and what exists. While some critics try to provide counterexamples to truthmaker theory, that response quickly leads to a dialectical standoff. The aim of this paper is to move beyond that standoff by attempting to undermine some standard arguments for truthmaker theory. Using realism about truth and a more pragmatic account of explanation, I show how some of those arguments can be undermined.

When I take off my glasses, the world looks blurred. When I put them back on, it looks sharpedged. I do not think that the world really was blurred; I know that what changed was my relation to the distant physical objects ahead, not those objects themselves. I am more inclined to believe that the world really is and was sharp-edged. Is that belief any more reasonable than the belief that the world really is and was blurred? I see more (...) accurately with my glasses on than off, so visual appearances when they are on have some cognitive priority over visual appearances when they are off. If I must choose which kind of visual appearance to take at face value, I will choose the sharp-edged look. But what should I think when I see a mist, which looks very blurred however well I am seeing? Indeed, why choose to take any of the looks at face value? Why not regard all the choices as illegitimate projections of ways of seeing the world onto the world itself? (shrink)

Humean arguments from evil are some of the most powerful arguments against Theism. They take as their data what we know about good and evil. And they argue that some rival to Theism better explains, or otherwise predicts, that data than Theism. However, this paper argues that there are many problems with various methods for defending Humean arguments. I consider Philo’s original strategy; modern strategies in terms of epistemic probability; phenomenological strategies; and strategies that appeal to scientific and metaphysical explanations. (...) None of these methods have been sufficiently developed to provide a clear and distinctive defense of Humean arguments. Defenders of Humean arguments need to spend more time on the underlying methodology of their arguments. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that bodily signals from internal organs are associated with diverse cortical and subcortical processes involved in sensory-motor functions, beyond homeostatic reflexes. For instance, a recent study demonstrated that the preparation and execution of voluntary actions, as well as its underlying neural activity, are coupled with the breathing cycle. In the current study, we investigated whether such breathing-action coupling is limited to voluntary motor action or whether it is also present for mental actions not involving any overt (...) bodily movement. To answer this question, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and respiratory signals while participants were conducting a voluntary action paradigm including self-initiated motor execution (ME), motor imagery (MI), and visual imagery (VI) tasks. We observed that the voluntary initiation of ME, MI, and VI are similarly coupled with the respiration phase. In addition, EEG analysis revealed the existence of readiness potential (RP) waveforms in all three tasks (i.e., ME, MI, VI), as well as a coupling between the RP amplitude and the respiratory phase. Our findings show that the voluntary initiation of both imagined and overt action is coupled with respiration, and further suggest that the breathing system is involved in preparatory processes of voluntary action by contributing to the temporal decision of when to initiate the action plan, regardless of whether this culminates in overt movements. -/- . (shrink)