Descartes’ accounts of sensory perception have long troubled his interpreters, for their lack of clear and explicit statements on some fundamental issues. His readers have wondered whether he allows spatial sensory ideas (spatial qualia); whether sensory ideas such as color or pain are representations and, if so, what they represent; and what cognitive value Descartes attributed to sense perception. Recent discussions take differing stands on the questions just mentioned, and also disagree over Descartes’ account of the externalization of sensory qualities, (...) on the origin and correct analysis of the “material falsity” he attributes to some sensory ideas, and on the value of the “teachings of nature.” Such disagreement should not be surprising, for although sensory perception was an important topic for Descartes, his treatment of these particular issues is not systematic – or at least not apparently so. Generally, there are no proof texts that unequivocally settle questions about Descartes’ views on spatial qualia, the representationality of sensory ideas, their cognitive value, externalization, material falsity, and the status of the teachings of nature. Yet these questions and topics naturally arise from matters about which Descartes is explicit and (reasonably) consistent, regarding the role of the senses in philosophy and everyday life and concerning the nature of minds and ideas. It is, therefore, worthwhile to ask what his positions might have been. This chapter develops answers by considering Descartes’ systematic doctrines on the nature of the mind and its ideas and by combing his statements on sensation and perception for hints about how to apply such principles. The first section reviews some key texts. Succeeding sections develop positions on representationality, cognitive value, externalization, material falsity, and the teachings of nature. Ultimately, I favor an interpretation in which, for Descartes, all sensory ideas represent by resemblance, different kinds of sensory ideas vary in cognitive value, externalization arises through spatial localization, and, with sensory ideas of color and the like, as materially false they do not intrinsically misrepresent but afford occasion for false judgments, which arise as merely apparent, and so not actually legitimate, teachings of nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Objective Reality of Ideas in Descartes, Caterus, and Su irez NORMAN j. WELLS IT HAS LONG BEEN ACKNOWLEDGEDthat Francisco Sufirez's distinction between a formal and an objective concept exercised some influence upon Descartes's teaching on 'idea'.' It would appear, however, that not enough attention has been given to that distinction of Sufirez (and especially to another to be mentioned shordy) to aid in dispelling what I (...) take to be a widespread confusion and misunderstanding with regard to 'idea' in Descartes, especially with respect to 'idea' taken 'objectively'. Much, if not all, of the confusion in question has to do with Descartes's admittedly equivocal use of the term 'idea'. For he had allowed that 'idea' could be taken 'materially' (materialiter), on the one hand, for the knowing activity of the intellect. On the other hand, it could be taken 'objectively' (objective) for the thing (res) represented by that knowing activity.' At this point, the contemporary reader can only be brought up short, See E. Gilson, Index scolastico-cart~sien (New York: Burt Franklin Reprint, 1912), 48-49; Discours de la m~thode: Texte et commentazre (Paris: J. Vrin, 1947), 321; G. Rodis-Lewisin her edition of Meditationes de Prima PhRosoph.m (Paris: J. Vrin, 1953), 41 n. 1; L'oeuure de Descartes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971), 53~ n. 8; J. Collins, Modern European Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954), 165;T.J. Cronin, S.J., Objecttve Being m Descartes and SuArez (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1966); "Objective Reality of Ideas in Human Thought: Descartes and Su~rez," Wisdom in Depth: Essays in Honor of Henri Renard, SJ., eds. V. F. Daues, S.J., M. R. Holloway, S.J., L. Sweeney, S.J. (Milwaukee : Bruce, 1966), 68-79; L. Gilen, S.J., "Uber die Beziehungen Descartes zur zeitgenossischen Scholastik," Scholastik 32 (1957): 41-66; R. Dalbiez, "Les sources scolastiques de la th~orie cart6sienne de l'&re objectif," Revue d'histoire de la philosophic 3 (1929): 464-72;J. Owens, C.S.S.R., in The Cambridge HtstoU of Later Medu,val Philosophy, eds. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 459; G. Nuchelmans,Judgment and Propositwnfrom Descartesto Kant (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1983), 36-54. " Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam et P. Tannery, 11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1897-19o9; hereafter cited according to volume, page and line), Praefatio ad Lectorem, 7: 8. 19-251 "Sed respondeo hic subesse aequivocationem in voce ideae: sumi enim potest vel materialiter, pro operatione intellectus, quo sensu me perfectior dici nequit, vel objective, pro re per istam operationem repraesentata, quae res, etsi non supponatur extra intellectum existere, potest tamen me esse perfectior ratione suae essentiae." It is clear that two realities are to be causally accounted for. The [33] 34 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28"1 JANUARY 1990 conditioned as we are by an appreciation of 'objectivity' altogether extramental! It makes for a considerable wrench of perspective to do justice to Descartes's acknowledged doctrine of intramental objectivity and an intramental 'thing represented' (resrepraesentata). 'Idea', then, in traditional Cartesian fashion, designates the act of representing as well as the 'thing represented '. S Yet, for all this, and despite repeated expressions of the same doctrine, there is a persistent tendency in the history of Cartesianism and its scholarship to interpret 'idea' taken 'objectively' as in some way representative. Contrary to what I take to be Descartes's constant position, such a rendering unwittingly transfers that function which is proper to the cognitive activity, mind is the efficient cause of its cognitive activity. With respect to ideas taken 'objectively', such as the ideas of God and the triangle on the levels of metaphysical and mathematical intelligibility, an efficient cause, extrinsic to the mind, is certainly at issue. For here we are in the presence of what is independent of the mind, however intramental it may be. On the triangle, see Medit. 5; 7: 64. ]4s7 : "...est tamen profecto determinata quaedam ejus natura, sire essentia, sive forma, immutabUis et aeterna, quae a me non efficta est, nec a mente mea dependet." For the idea of God, see Medit. 5; 7: 68. l o-12: "Nam sane multis modis inteUigo illam [ideam... (shrink)

This paper explores Spinoza’s therapy of passions and method of salvation through knowledge and love of God. His optimism about this method is perplexing: it is not even clear how his God, who is unlike any traditional notion of divinity, can be loved. Sorting out Spinoza’s view involves distinguishing an ethics of bondage from another of freedom, and two corresponding notions of love of God. The paper argues that the highest kind of love—‘pure intellectual love of God’—should not be understood (...) as an affect at all, but instead as unimpeded intellectual activity. This suggestion requires reconsidering Spinoza’s account of cognition, particularly his use of the Cartesian notions of objective and formal reality which are not only central to his theory of ideas but constitute the foundations of his salvation project. (shrink)

in kant’s account of cognition, Eric Watkins and Marcus Willaschek distinguish between a ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ sense of Kant’s use of the term ‘cognition.’ Every “conscious representation that represents an object” counts as a cognition, taken in the broad sense.1 Every “conscious representation of a given object and of its general features” counts as a cognition in the narrow sense.2 In the case of finite beings, they argue, cognition in the narrow sense must fulfill two conditions: First, the object must (...) be given, since cognition must actually latch onto an object, and intuition satisfies that condition insofar as it immediately relates to the object represented in the intuition.... (shrink)

Some Whiteheadians argue that past actual entities only exist and are available for prehension by later actual entities within the divine consequent nature. Others insist that past actual entities are objectively immortal and available for prehension within the extensive continuum. Based on an interpretation of Whiteheadian societies as structured fields of activity for their constituent actual occasions, this article proposes that the world has an objective reality even apart from the existence of God, and that past actual entities (...) arereflected in the current structure of the cosmic process. Yet the world still needs God as its ultimate source of creativity. (shrink)

“The Standard Interpretation” of Descartes on material falsity states that Descartes believed that materially false ideas (MFIs) lack “objective reality” [realitas objectiva]. The argument for the Standard Interpretation depends on a statement from the “Third Meditation” that MFIs are caused by nothing. This statement, in conjunction with a causal principle introduced by Descartes, seems to entail that MFIs lack objective reality. However, the Standard Interpretation is incorrect. First, I argue that, despite initial appearances, the manner in (...) which Descartes understands the proposition that MFIs are caused by nothing does not entail that they lack objective reality. Secondly, I argue that Descartes is committed to the objective reality of MFIs because of his quasi-scholastic explanation of MFIs. (shrink)

Unlike our basic theories of space and time, quantum mechanics is not a locally causal theory. This well known fact was brought forth by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen in 1935. Today it is widely believed that any hopes of restoring local causality within a realistic theory have been undermined by Bell's theorem and its supporting experiments. By contrast, we provide a strictly local, deterministic, and realistic explanation for the correlations observed in two such supporting experiments performed at Orsay and Innsbruck. (...) To this end, a pair of local variables is constructed to simulate detections of photon polarizations at various angles, chosen freely by Alice and Bob. These generate purely random outcomes: A = +/-1 and B = +/-1. When these outcomes are compared, however, the correlation between them turn out to be exactly equal to -cos2, with the corresponding CHSH inequality violated for the polarization angles alpha, alpha', beta, and beta' in precisely the manner predicted by quantum mechanics. The key ingredient in our explanation is the topology of 3-sphere, which remains closed under multiplication, thus preserving the locality condition of Bell. (shrink)

Spirituality and science discover that they are both motivated by the desire to know, and realize that mere sensory perception does not guarantee the truth of knowledge. The concepts that emerge in the new sciences show a striking similarity to the ideas that come to the mind of spiritually intuitive persons, giving rise to the hope that with the recognition that at the bottom objective reality and spiritual truth are one, the historic opposition (or feud) between science and (...) spirituality can at last be overcome. (shrink)

Like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, we now have both an A- and a substantially revised B-edition of Henry Allison's commentary to and defence of that work: Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense . Unlike Kant's Critique, however, Allison's first edition is unlikely to persist as an occasional rival to the second, since reviewers rightly consider the second to have superseded the landmark scholarship of the first. Nevertheless, before Allison's first edition is entirely supplanted, I would like to save (...) a neglected insight from its treatment of the B-deduction that is not retained in the second edition. (shrink)

The paper proposes an outline of a reconciliatory approach to the perennial controversy between epistemological realism and anti-realism (constructionism). My main conceptual source in explaining this view is the philosophy of pragmatism, more specifically, the epistemological theories of George H. Mead, John Dewey, and also William James’ radical empiricism. First, the paper analyzes the pragmatic treatment of the goal-directedness of action, especially with regard to Mead’s notion of attitudes, and relates it to certain contemporary epistemological theories provided by the cognitive (...) sciences (Maturana, Rizzolatti, Clark). Against this background, the paper presents a philosophical as well as empirical justification of why we should interpret the environment and its objects in terms of possibilities for action. In Mead’s view, the objects and events of our world emerge within stable patterns of organism-environment interactions, which he called “perspectives”. According to pragmatism as well as the aforementioned cognitive scientists, perception and other cognitive processes include not only neural processes in our heads but also the world itself. Elaborating on Mead’s concept of perspectives, the paper argues in favor of the epistemological position called “constructive realism.”. (shrink)

This article explores the metaphor of Science as provider of sharp images of our environment, using the epistemological framework of Objective Cognitive Constructivism. These sharp images are conveyed by precise scientific hypotheses that, in turn, are encoded by mathematical equations. Furthermore, this article describes how such knowledge is pro-duced by a cyclic and recursive development, perfection and reinforcement process, leading to the emergence of eigen-solutions characterized by the four essential properties of precision, stability, separability and composability. Finally, this article (...) discusses the role played by ontology and metaphysics in the scientific production process, and in which sense the resulting knowledge can be considered objective. (shrink)

What lies at the heart of physical inquiry? What are the foundational ideas and working assumptions that inform the enterprise of natural science? What principles guide research? How do scientists decide whether they are building theories in the right direction? Is there a right direction? Do physical theories actually approximate an objective reality, or are they simply useful summaries, mnemonics for experimental results? This book is Nobel Prize winner Jim Peebles's contribution to such big, classic debates in the (...) philosophy of science, drawing on a lifetime of experience as a leading physicist and taking the development of physical cosmology as a "worked example." He begins with a consideration of the history of thought about the nature of the physical sciences since Einstein, culminating in a succinct statement of what he sees as the fundamental working assumptions of physics. Then, through a careful examination of the development of the general theory of relativity, Einstein's cosmological principle, the big bang theory, and our current model of the universe, he makes the argument that physical theories ultimately are useful approximations to an objective reality whose nature science is discovering. An essential reflection on and interrogation of the nature and practice of science by a giant in the field, The Whole Truth will be illuminating reading for cosmologists, physicists, and historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science alike. (shrink)

Jim Cushing emphasized that physical theory should tell us an intelligible and objective story about the world, and concluded that the Bohm theory is to be preferred over the Copenhagen interpretation. We argue here, however, that the Bohm theory is only one member of a wider class of interpretations that can be said to fulfill Cushing’s desiderata. We discuss how the pictures provided by these interpretations differ from the classical one. In particular, it seems that a rather drastic form (...) of perspectivalism is needed if accordance with special relativity is to be achieved. (shrink)

이 논문은 『순수이성비판』의 주요 개념 중 하나인 ‘객관적 실재성’ 개념의 의미를 철학사적 맥락에서 검토한다. 이를 통해 우리는 ‘객관적 실재성’이라는 전통적 개념을 칸트가 어떻게 수용하였는지 확인하는 동시에 『순수이성비판』의 체계 내에서 칸트가 ‘객관적 실재성’ 개념에 어떻게 새로운 의미를 부여하였는지 확인하고자 한다. 이 논문에서 우리의 주장은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 철학사의 전통적인 용법에서 ‘객관적 실재성’ 개념은 ‘표상의 대상과의 관계맺음’으로 이해되지만, 이 때 대상은 주관 독립적인 실재로서의 대상이 아니라 주관내에서 지향된 대상을 의미한다. 둘째, 『순수이성비판』에서도 ‘객관적 실재성’개념은 마찬가지로 ‘표상의 대상과의 관계맺음’을 의미하지만, 전통적 용법과 달리 이 (...) 때 대상은 주관 독립적인 대상을 의미한다. 셋째, 이러한 ‘객관적 실재성’ 개념의 의미는 칸트의 경험적 실재론에 따른 것이며, 이는 칸트의 초월적 관념론의 궁극적 귀결이다. (shrink)

This paper engages with two contrasting approaches to conceptualising and studying consumer behaviour that appear to dominate existing research on consumption. On one hand, agency-focused perspectives take an individual consumer to be the primary author of practice and a basic unit of analysis. On the other hand, socio-centric paradigms focus on the social roots of consumption activities and the wider societal contexts in which they take place. The need to provide a more balanced view of consumption phenomena has been acknowledged, (...) yet not adequately acted upon. This paper begins to fill this gap through relevant theoretical and empirical contributions. First, we provide a critical review of the dominant theoretical perspectives on consumption in general and ethical consumption in particular, highlight their key ontological assumptions and explain how they preclude a fuller understanding of the ways in which consumer practices are moulded and shaped. Taking a critical realist approach, we then present the findings from qualitative analysis of consumers' ethical food practices to empirically demonstrate the role of human agency and social structure in creating and shaping ethical consumption. Thus, by means of theoretical analysis and empirical research this paper responds to the call for a more comprehensive understanding of consumption and provides a consolidated account of consumer behaviour which acknowledges and explains the complex ensemble of individual and systemic powers in which consumer practices are contained. (shrink)

One of the most widespread claims combining epistemology and metaphysics in post-Avicennian Islamic philosophy was that every object of thought is real. In Muʿtazilite reading, it was endorsed due to a theory of knowledge which states that knowledge is a connection or relation between the knower and the object known. Avicennists accepted it due to the rule that in a proposition “s is p” if p is something positive s has to be positive and real too. Hence, insofar as one (...) can conceptually distinguish between two non-existent items, they have to be real. In this article, the author presents significant consequences of this theory: the acceptance and denial of non-existent yet real extramental objects; the concept of mental existence as an alternative solution; the conceivability of paraconsistent ideas and their reality or reducibility to some real objects. (shrink)

“The longer you work, the more the mystery deepens of what appearance is, or how what is called appearance can be made in another medium."—Francis Bacon, painter This, in a nutshell, is the central problem in the theory of art. It has fascinated philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. And it fascinates artists and art historians, who have always drawn extensively on philosophical ideas about language and representation, and on ideas about vision and the visible world that have deep philosophical roots. (...) John Hyman’s _The Objective Eye_ is a radical treatment of this problem, deeply informed by the history of philosophy and science, but entirely fresh. The questions tackled here are fundamental ones: Is our experience of color an illusion? How does the metaphysical status of colors differ from that of shapes? What is the difference between a picture and a written text? Why are some pictures said to be more realistic than others? Is it because they are especially truthful or, on the contrary, because they deceive the eye? _The Objective Eye_ explores the fundamental concepts we use constantly in our most innocent thoughts and conversations about art, as well as in the most sophisticated art theory. The book progresses from pure philosophy to applied philosophy and ranges from the metaphysics of color to Renaissance perspective, from anatomy in ancient Greece to impressionism in nineteenth-century France. Philosophers, art historians, and students of the arts will find _The Objective Eye_ challenging and absorbing. (shrink)

How, if at all, does the internal structure of human phenomenological color space map onto the internal structure of objective reflectance‐profile space, in such a fashion as to provide a useful and accurate representation of that objective feature space? A prominent argument (due to Hardin, among others) proposes to eliminate colors as real, objective properties of objects, on grounds that nothing in the external world (and especially not surface‐reflectance‐profiles) answers to the well‐known and quite determinate internal structure (...) of human phenomenological color space. The present paper proposes a novel way to construe the objective space of possible reflectance profiles so that (1) its internal structure becomes evident, and (2) that structure’s homomorphism with the internal structure of human phenomenological color space becomes obvious. The path is thus reopened to salvage the objective reality of colors, in the same way that we preserved the objective reality of such features as temperature, pitch, and sourness—by identifying them with some objective feature recognized in modern physical theory. (shrink)

Our objectives in this article are to bring some theoretical order into developmental sequences and simultaneities in children’s ability to appreciate multiple labels for single objects, to reason with identity statements, to reason hypothetically, counterfactually, and with beliefs and desires, and to explain why an ‘implicit’ understanding of belief occurs before an ‘explicit’ understanding. The central idea behind our explanation is the emerging grasp of how objects of thought and desire relate to real objects and to each other. To capture (...) this idea we make use of the notion of discourse referents, as did Perner and Brandl (2005), to explain the developmental link between understanding beliefs and alternative naming. We present confirming evidence of the prediction from this analysis that children should have comparable problems with understanding identity statements. We explain the precociously correct answers in ‘implicit’ false belief tests based on indirect measures in the following way: From infancy children are able to keep track of other people’s experiences, to reason about counterfactual circumstances, and to reason about goal-directed (rational) action depending on given circumstances. Indirect tasks reduce the bias to use actual circumstances for reasoning about goal directed action compared to the traditional task, which leads to more correct answers. An emerging metarepresentational understanding helps overcome these biases and enables not only correct action prediction but also the explanation of erroneous actions. The common metarepresentational element explains why false belief tasks and the alternative naming task are mastered at the same time as children understand identity statements. (shrink)

We explain why exactly the simplified abstract scheme of reality within the standard science paradigm cannot provide the consistent picture of “truly fundamental” reality and how the unreduced, causally complete description of the latter is regained within the extended, provably complete solution to arbitrary interaction problem and the ensuing concept of universal dynamic complexity. We emphasize the practical importance of this extension for both particular problem solution and further, now basically unlimited fundamental science development (otherwise dangerously stagnating within (...) its traditional paradigm). (shrink)