This book examines the origins and boundaries of Japanese digital role-playing games. A geographically diverse roster of contributors introduces English-speaking audiences to Japanese video game scholarship and applies postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text.

This book examines the origins and boundaries of Japanese digital role-playing games. A geographically diverse roster of contributors introduces English-speaking audiences to Japanese video game scholarship and applies postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text.

The problem of the creation of artificial man and the creation of artificial intelligence are issues that have now become not just potential, but also actual scientific tasks. The original genetic kinship of philosophy and literature as forms of human culture and meaning formation made it possible to comprehend the most important problems in works rich in ideological content and beautiful in form. The subject of the research is the philosophical aspects of the problem of the creation of (...) artificial man in the classic works of fantasy literature of the XIX-XX centuries. This goal is achieved by consistent consideration and comparison of philosophical and anthropological ideas that can be isolated from the works of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Mary Shelley, Herbert George Wells and M.A. Bulgakov. Hermeneutical method as interpretation and reconstruction of meanings, comparative historical analysis, philosophical comparative studies are used as the methodological basis of this historical and philosophical research. The novelty of the research lies in the historical and philosophical reconstruction of the problem of creating an artificial person, posed for the first time on the pages of the world art classics. The very idea of creating an artificial man was a continuation of the God-fighting aspirations of the Renaissance and the embodiment of the ardent desire to become not only on a par with the Creator, but also to surpass Him. When creating the image of the homunculus, Goethe also had in mind the contrivance, artificiality and fruitlessness of many enlightenment ideas, because the enlighteners questioned the very existence of God, putting a scientist-creator in His place. Goethe's idea of the futility and danger of experimenting with human nature was later developed by Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells and Mikhail Bulgakov. Wagner's homunculus and the creation of Dr. Frankenstein are the closest to the idea of man that prevailed in the philosophy of Modern times and educational pedagogy. Powerful notes of philosophical foresight of many plot moves of the coming history of mankind sound in the novel by Wells (the creation of Dr. Moreau) and the story of Bulgakov (Sharikov). (shrink)

ABSTRACTVirtual games are played by millions of people today. Almost everyone has the means to access virtual worlds in most places in the world. Virtual games are new worlds for the players waiting to be discovered. Video games in this new world are considered to be sports activities by some people, while some oppose to this conception. In this regard, philosophical approaches set out and the current state of whether video games are considered as sports (...) activities is presented. In addition to this classificatory issue an ethical one concerning the level of addiction for the players who immerse into the virtual worlds is also discussed, since the level of immersion is sometimes so high that some people die while playing video games on the computer. The answer to the question of how these video games can be so addictive is considered in relation to Johan Huizinga’s Homo ludens, and the notion of phantasm by Gilles Deleuze. It is argued that the fantasy aspect of video games is more dominant their being the... (shrink)

Abstract In this article we develop a relational understanding of sociality, that is, an account of social life that takes relation as primary. This stands in contrast to the common assumption that relations arise when subjects interact, an account that gives logical priority to separation. We will develop this relational understanding through a reading of the work of Martin Buber, a social philosopher primarily interested in dialogue, meeting, relationship, and the irreducibility and incomparability of reality. In particular, the article contrasts (...) Buber’s work with that of poststructuralist theorists who take as their starting point the deconstruction of the Hegelian logic of binary oppositions. Deconstruction understands difference as the excess that undoes the binary, but Buber, we argue, shows how difference derives from the primacy and ontological undefinability of relation. Relational logic does not exclude the logic of separations and oppositions: relation is the primal ground that makes separations possible. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11841-011-0278-9 Authors Andrew Metcalfe, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia Ann Game, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia Journal Sophia Online ISSN 1873-930X Print ISSN 0038-1527. (shrink)

Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination analyzes theological, religious, and philosophical themes in classical Christian fantasy, contemporary “post-Christian” fantasy, and fantasy at play in table top games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: the Gathering.

Philosophical and popular ethics tend to focus on the question "What ought I to do?" Is there, in addition to the ethics of action, an ethics of fantasy? Are there fantasies one ought not to have? Of course there are fantasies with horrific content. Does it follow that there is something wrong with a person who has such fantasies or that they ought to make efforts to suppress them or to otherwise change themselves? Do the problems such fantasies (...) raise depend on their links to desire and action? Masturbation fantasies are considered as well as fantasies that may emerge during sex with others, fantasies that include actual others, and fantasies that get embodied in pornography. Psychoanalytic and legal aspects of the issues are emphasized. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

A collection of paradoxes, dialogues, problems, and essays discusses aspects of philosophy, including the natures of reality, truth, existence, and death.

In the last decades videogames have become very popular. In this article I argue that they establish a new relationship between bodies and identities. In videogames, the storylines are based on a mixture of other types of media fiction, where women's bodies are overrepresented and stereotypical, because of the market logic underlying these new media productions, which target a wide audience. Nevertheless, videogames' interactivity shapes new experiences of acting through other bodies. The erotic gaze on virtual bodies is shaped by (...) the elements of exoticism and the grotesque. The virtual spaces and actions are characterized by exoticism (the recurrent presence of death, fear, surprise, thrills) and the realism necessary to involve the user's senses. I also argue that interaction in games is a process of imagination and action. The game user acts through another body, which he/she controls. This process opens possibilities for a resisting oppositional gaze and subversive practices, beyond the commercial aims of the games' designers. Of course, there are oppressive aspects of the virtual bodies; a female body becomes a mathematical series of polygons, out of space and time, and, only as such, the object of desire of invisible cyberteenagers. Nevertheless, as gendered subjects, to have a virtual body to play with is a liberating appropriation of a space not designed for us. (shrink)

The general aim of this paper is to introduce some ideas of the theory of infinite topological games into the philosophical debate on supertasks. First, we discuss the elementary aspects of some infinite topological games, among them the Banach-Mazur game.Then it is shown that the Banach-Mazur game may be conceived as a Newtonian supertask.In section 4 we propose to conceive physical experiments as infinite games. This leads to the distinction between determined and undetermined experiments and (...) the problem of how it is related to that between determinism and indeter-minism. Finally the role of the Axiom of Choice as a source of indetermi-nacy of supertasks is discussed. (shrink)

Fantasy sports have become a major sector of our sport industry. With millions of participants worldwide and billions of dollars generated, fantasy sports have become a fixed part of our sport spectatorship. However, this prevalence has come without much intellectual investigation. Therefore, in this paper I discuss the metaphysics and ethics of fantasy sports. After providing arguments for the consistency of fantasy sports with prominent descriptions of play and games, I compare fantasy sports to (...) other genres of play and games ? sports, card games, ?cybersports?, and spectatorship. After this juxtaposition, I delineate how fantasy sports are different from their real sport correlates. Fantasy sports are second-order games that are parasites of their real-sport counterparts. The differences between fantasy and real sports change our collective cultural views of the correlating real sports. While much good comes from the popular participation in fantasy sports, there are also drawbacks. That is, while fantasy sports participants tend to be more engaged spectators of sports, they also tend to only focus on particular, sensationalized aspects of the sports to which their fantasy ownership correlates. (shrink)

Although World of Warcraft utilizes ethnic and gender stereotypes in the construction of its playable characters, the structure of the gaming environment provides a modest utopian vision that is structurally just, maximizing both liberty and equality among participants in a way consistent with John Rawls's Theory of Justice. As a result, class, race, and gender are much more a matter of human (humanoid) variety, rather than a tool for hierarchically differentiation. Nevertheless, in players' engagement with the game, class, race, and (...) gender differences take on meaning well beyond the strucuture of the Warcraft universe demonstrating how real world values infect our imagination. (shrink)

Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2009. 320pp. pbk. $19.95 ISBN-13: 978-0816666119. In Games of Empire , Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter expand an earlier study of “the video game industry as an aspect of an emerging postindustrial, post-Fordist capitalism” (xxix) to argue that videogames are “exemplary media of Empire” (xxix). Their notion of “Empire” is based on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s (...) Empire (2000), which characterizes the contemporary world order as a decentralized system of global economic, political, and economic power that transcends national boundaries. In the view of the authors, Hardt and Negri’s account sets itself apart from other analyses of international politics by offering a “comprehensive account of conditions of work, forms of subjectivity, and types of struggle in contemporary capital” (xx). Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter thus divide Games of Empire into three sections to reflect each of these aspects of Empire ’s argument, seeing their work as the first account to explore “virtual games within a system of global ownership, privatized property, coercive class relations, military operations, and radical struggle” (xxix). Books in the University of Minnesota Press’s Electronic Mediations series “explore the humanistic and social implications” of new technologies that spark “significant changes in society and culture, politics and economics, thinking and being.” That’s an abstract goal, and one that Games of Empire surely meets. Yet at times it can be difficult to understand exactly which specific intervention this book seeks to make. It is unclear whether the authors of Games of Empire see their work as an indictment of game scholars’ lack of attention to political economy, or whether it’s a work of political theory hoping to show that other disciplines should be paying more attention to the production and play of videogames. Because Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter don’t directly criticize previous political critiques of gaming—such as Edward Castronova’s exploration of the “porous membrane” allowing two-way traffic between virtual economies and those of the real world, or Alexander Galloway’s unraveling of control protocols in algorithmic design, or Ian Bogost’s idea of political procedural rhetoric—they sometimes leave the reader wondering how to situate the book in the broader discourse on games and politics, either separately or together. Thus, Games of Empire might best be seen as an introduction to the writings of Hardt and Negri for game players and designers, rather than as a text for communicating the basic concepts of game studies and design. It is neither a truly new theory of games or digital media, nor is it a new theory of Empire—and that’s not a criticism. It is instead an introduction to Empire through popular culture, as Zizek does for Lacan in Looking Awry . If one were teaching an introductory course on contemporary political theory, this book would offer obvious inroads into Negri and Hardt’s thinking for a number of reasons. Despite its radical ideological bent, the book isn’t off-putting to readers who don’t necessarily share the authors’ politics. It synthesizes complex ideas from difficult thinkers like Marx, Foucault, and Guattari while integrating modifications and critiques of Empire theory itself. And although the book is dense, sometimes feeling longer than it actually is (just over 200 pages), Games of Empire maintains a breezy readability by tightly coupling core concepts of Empire theory to well-known games and widely-publicized conflicts within the videogame industry. The first section of the book focuses on immaterial labor, the accumulation of “cognitive capital,” and the global process of manufacturing videogame consoles. It is significant for the authors that videogames began as hacker experiments within research institutes of the military industrial complex, programmed on stolen time, before becoming a commodity (7). This is the first in a string of examples showing how creative dissidence and conflict fuel the continuing evolution of Empire’s control. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter explain that the videogame industry now constitutes an international production apparatus dominating both creative work in developed nations and manual labor in developing ones. Because game industries in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan are predominately non-unionized, they serve as an exemplary system for analyzing how global capital exploits contemporary intellectual work—including an excellent analysis of the “EA Spouse” scandal of 2004. On the side of the consumer, the authors argue that rabid “console races” that drive the industry forward from a technological perspective serve to structure gamer identity and combat piracy; later in the book, these machines offer a window into the worlds of Congolese coltan mining and electronic waste (222-224). In the second section, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter move on to deep case studies of individual games to show how the most popular game genres embed imperial assumptions about conflict, exchange, and urban life. First they argue that military training games such as Full Spectrum Warrior —co-developed by university researchers, industry developers, and military contractors—contribute to the “banalization” of war, a subjective state wherein perpetual preparedness for war is accepted as a part of everyday life (100). Chapter five covers Michel Foucalt’s notion of “biopower,” the extension of capital accumulation to life itself. The authors argue that virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft , which take market capitalism as a given and force players into essentialist roles and racial antagonisms, are organized to maximize control and profit (often on the backs of virtual currency “farmers” in China and southeast Asia). Finally, they criticize the naïve assumption that humor and cynicism in the popular sandbox game franchise Grand Theft Auto offer any remedy to its racialized, violent content. Instead, such games indulge and normalize the fantasy of getting rich at any cost by keeping the realities of contemporary urban life and corporate greed at a safe distance (181). Part three of Games of Empire focuses on “games of multitude,” a preliminary attempt to escape from Empire’s order through alternate modes of videogame development and play. Multitude is defined dialectically, as “the engine and the enemy” of Empire (187). This is the most important, yet also most contradictory section of the text. It lays bare the process by which Empire and its media feed our creative and intellectual development to overabundance. At a certain point, the force of the multitude reaches such a level that it threatens the stability of Empire; however, instead of following Hardt and Negri’s utopian assumptions about the radical potential of the multitude, the authors here follow Paolo Virno’s warning that Empire is “very good at adopting apparently iconoclastic practices and utopian ideas as management techniques and revenue sources” (188). At every turn, advances in player configurative power provide new sources of revenue and advertising angles for the game industry. A disappointing shortcoming of these latter pages is the lack of truly new examples for radical resistance within game development. Instead, it turns out that the radical left seems satisfied with the same mild successes that the left-of-center also has celebrated: artist’s mods, virtual world activism, and critical counterplay within strategy- and wargames. Having been frequently cited by many authors before Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter, this idea of subversion or resistance through play feels tired and unpersuasive. It is unclear if the authors believe it is possible to embrace game design itself as a way of pursuing what they call “exodus” from Empire, or if an all-too-fashionable subversion is the only workable strategy. While the book does explore how the earliest independent game studios were eventually subverted and incorporated into the game industry proper, it doesn’t affirm or critique more recent non-commercial, DIY game development projects such as Klik-of-the-Month Club and Ludum Dare. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter’s analysis of so-called “tactical games,” including the editorial works of La Molleindustria, leads to an even more ambivalent take on the contemporary design ecology. At the conclusion of his essay on “Countergaming,” Galloway asserts that avant-garde videogame artists “should create new grammars of action […] should create alternative algorithms” (Galloway 125). Yet Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter characterize works such as McDonald’s Video Game and Oiligarchy as didactic, suggesting that the role of radical political games might be “limited to that of agitprop” (199). They are concerned that games like those of Molleindustria rigidly structure the activities of their players in order to prove a point. Yet, despite their repeated assertion that the equation of greater interactivity with democratic digital liberation is flawed, the authors see potential in policy simulators that “allow players to edit or tweak” (202) their parameters in response to what Bogost has called simulation fever , the simultaneous drive toward and fear of simulation (Bogost 108). The possibility of practicing radical design is bucked, and early attempts at critical game development like those of Molleindustria’s seem to be relegated to the status of exceptions that prove the rule for player-centered exodus. Overall, there is one glaring question Games of Empire leaves unanswered: how exactly are videogames the “exemplary media” of Empire, and what are the implications of videogames being exemplary in this way? Presumably Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter want to avoid essentialist claims, so they’re not keen on following Wark’s desire to mark “the game’s difference from [legacy media] as something that speaks to changes in the overall structure of social and technical relations” (Wark 225). It is also unclear how the production apparatuses, labor standards, and subjectivizing processes involved in the creation and use of other any other kind of digital media would fail to justify their equally exemplary status. Even the book’s concluding paragraph holds that virtual games “are one molecular component of this undecidable collective mutation” (Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter 229) of intellect, labor, and daily life. In the end, the authors seem to back away from their focus on games as exemplary to bring their work in line with broader theories of the gradual digitization of the everyday, in line with Galloway and Manovich. Despite these flaws, there is an undeniable elegance to Games of Empire ’s contrasting of gaming’s overwhelmingly imperial content with its multitudinous form . And its ambivalence about the potential of independent or political game development might be seen by scholars of Empire as a strength rather than a weakness, an acceptance that every new expression of multitude offers another opportunity for the expansion of Empire. The book also functions as a strong, all-encompassing call to greater responsibility on the part of mainstream game developers to be more conscious of the ideologies they embed in their work, of the way their intellectual property is used and manipulated by those who employ them, and of the material impact their industry has on the world at large. For players it offers a toolbox of concepts for radical examinations of their own play activities, asking them to be more cognizant of the consequences of their consumption of digital media and the ways in which their virtual lives interface with the real. REFERENCES Bogost, Ian. Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Castranova, Edward. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games . Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Dyer-Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games . Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Galloway, Alexander. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture . Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2006). Wark, McKenzie. Gamer Theory . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wittgenstein’s Reflection in Lewis Carroll’s Looking-GlassLeila S. MayAccording to one tradition in the theory of fiction, there is a kind of fantasy whose function is to invite the reader to "acknowledge the possibility of a different reality."1 In this essay I want to ask whether Lewis Carroll's Alice books fit into this category; that is, I want to explore the possibility that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through (...) the Looking-Glass are not the pure nonsense that many readers take them to be. In considering the Alice books as fantasy offering a view of a "different reality" I do not deny that there are in these stories some mimetic elements alongside the fantastic—representations of things going on somewhere, somehow, in Victorian society—in which case the "different reality" presented will not be so terribly different as to be unrecognizable. For example, the Mad Tea Party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is not only an act of fantasy but also an act of mimesis. It certainly imitates the real tea parties often held throughout Victorian England—if caricature is a form of imitation—but it may also mime those mock tea parties held in English asylums whose goal was to model sane-like behavior to the inmates.2 An analogous question can be asked about Carroll's books in general: In addition to the component of fantasy, are they mimetic of Victorian culture itself, or merely of the Victorian conception of madness? Michel Foucault has argued that, while the very idea of la folie is an historical construct, the dialectical relationship between reason and unreason, with each pole parasitic on the other, is a structural constant. Carroll's Alice books produce images that are discharged in the confused nineteenth-century landscape where these two opposites meet. In that respect, his books are not so different from many of the more standard novels written in mid-century England. In this essay I [End Page 79] will explore features of this landscape, using a theoretical framework that has been synthesized from a number of related claims in the work of the linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In addition to my long-range aim of urging further study of Wittgenstein's work by literary critics, one of my specific goals is to show that the application of Wittgensteinian methods to the works of Lewis Carroll reveals something about the hidden logic of Carroll's stories, and conversely that this procedure tests some of Wittgenstein's intuitions concerning language. Yet another goal is to suggest that the structure of the discourse of domesticity as reflected in many mid-nineteenth-century novels is curiously similar to the structure of discourse in Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land—that the language-games played at these sites are at the same time functional and dysfunctional in much the same way. That may seem like a lot to attempt in a few pages,... but to paraphrase Humpty-Dumpty, when I ask words to do that much extra work, I pay them overtime.In 1965 the philosopher George Pitcher published an essay, "Wittgenstein, Nonsense, and Lewis Carroll," in which he sought to demonstrate "the remarkable extent and depth of affinity between these two great writers with respect to nonsense." In addition, he showed that "the very same confusions with which Wittgenstein charged philosophers were deliberately employed by Carroll for comic effect," and that many of the examples that Wittgenstein used to illustrate his points "resemble, in varying degrees, examples that are found in the works of Carroll."3 While I agree with Pitcher's observation that the examples of nonsense that Wittgenstein offers are very similar to a primary strain of nonsense that runs through the Alice books, in the first section I intend to go beyond that observation and to apply some of Wittgenstein's tools to Carroll's work and show that Wittgenstein's work can be used to reveal features of literary narrative that might otherwise be obscured, and in the second section, to apply these tools to the works of fiction this side of the Looking-Glass.IWittgenstein says that a language is a "language-game." He... (shrink)

In this paper I give a reconstruction of Dummett’s main arguments concerning the theory of the occult origin of the Tarot, and discuss the reasons behind the success of the Tarot pack – in particular the Major Arcana – in the history of card games. I also provide some indication of the links between Dummett’s interest in the history of card games and aspects of his philosophical background. As I am not an expert on card (...) class='Hi'>games, this paper is mainly a personal tribute to a side of Dummett’s work to which philosophers have in general paid little attention. (shrink)

Many philosophical and public discussions of the ethical aspects of violent computer games typically centre on the relation between playing violent videogames and its supposed direct consequences on violent behaviour. But such an approach rests on a controversial empirical claim, is often one-sided in the range of moral theories used, and remains on a general level with its focus on content alone. In response to these problems, I pick up Matt McCormick’s thesis that potential harm from playing (...) computer games is best construed as harm to one’s character, and propose to redirect our attention to the question how violent computer games influence the moral character of players. Inspired by the work of Martha Nussbaum, I sketch a positive account of how computer games can stimulate an empathetic and cosmopolitan moral development. Moreover, rather than making a general argument applicable to a wide spectrum of media, my concern is with specific features of violent computer games that make them especially morally problematic in terms of empathy and cosmopolitanism, features that have to do with the connections between content and medium, and between virtuality and reality. I also discuss some remaining problems. In this way I hope contribute to a less polarised discussion about computer games that does justice to the complexity of their moral dimension, and to offer an account that is helpful to designers, parents, and other stakeholders. (shrink)

_An in-depth look at the philosophical issues behind HBO's _Game of Thrones_ television series and the books that inspired it_ George R.R. Martin's _New York Times_ bestselling epic fantasy book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the HBO television show adapted from it, have earned critical acclaim and inspired fanatic devotion. This book delves into the many philosophical questions that arise in this complex, character-driven series, including: Is it right for a "good" king to usurp (...) the throne of a "bad" one and murder his family? How far should you go to protect your family and its secrets? In a fantasy universe with medieval mores and ethics, can female characters reflect modern feminist ideals? Timed for the premiere of the second season of the HBO _Game of Thrones_ series Gives new perspectives on the characters, storylines, and themes of _Game of Thrones_ Draws on great philosophers from ancient Greece to modern America to explore intriguing topics such as the strange creatures of Westeros, the incestuous relationship of Jaime and Cersei Lannister, and what the kings of Westeros can show us about virtue and honor as they play their game of thrones Essential reading for fans, _Game of Thrones and Philosophy_ will enrich your experience of your favorite medieval fantasy series. (shrink)

Approaches the direct experience of gaming by asking: what does it mean for the player to enter the machinic "world" of the game? What forms of subjectivity does the game offer to the player? What happens to consciousness itself when one plays?

In his work, Bernard Suits presents and pursues a stated objective: to define ‘game’ or, more precisely, ‘game-playing’. In The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, the author seeks a definition not as a ‘commitment to the universal fruitfulness of definition construction’, but rather with the idea ‘that some things are definable, and some are not’. This is something he believed could resolve many of the issues surrounding the debate on ‘game’ and ‘play’, such as those with Huizinga (in Homo (...) Ludens) or proposed by the anti-definitionism of Wittgenstein, a philosopher who did not accept that it was possible to define ‘game’. In this article, we will trace Suits’ definitional steps and aim to critique his resolution as a kind of ‘formalism’, as it tended to prioritize rules. Furthermore, notwithstanding the merit of his theoretical endeavor – seen in the attempt to define a social component that is so complex and the target of the most diverse interpretations and misconceptions –, it seems to us that, with his theoretical unifying element (lusory attitude), the author has summoned another problem to the debate, that of ‘subjectivism’, rather than a solution (especially to his formalism), even subjecting himself to comparisons with other conceptions (e.g. Fichte) that are also problematic. This aspect will also be criticized. The attention of this article will shift to these two lines of critique, drawing on an insightful analysis of Malaby’s work at a specific juncture, aiming to delve further into the subject and taking an additional step. (shrink)

This paper comparatively presents three notions related to the concept of creative fantasy. These three terms (”imagination”, ”imaginaire”, ”imaginal”) have been developed by the French school of research on the imagination (“recherches sur l’imaginaire”), which is little known in the Anglo-Saxon academic field. As such, the terms don’t even have convenient translations and linguistic equivalents. Briefly, imagination is fantasy conceived as a combinatory faculty of the psyche. French rationalistic “philosophes” saw it as a misleading and rather weakly creative (...) ability. ”L’imaginaire” is the resourceful and inventive aspect of fantasy, as conceived by the Romantics and then theorized by psychoanalysis and contemporary French philosophers. ”L’imaginal”, or ”mundus imaginalis” is a concept defined by Henry Corbin in order to designate fantasies as self-sustained, ontological beings. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Westworld functions as a role‐play experience that continually entices its guests with suggested but unrealized layers of meaning and significance in its immersive western landscape. Where traditional role‐play experiences deliver meaning through player and Game Master group interaction, Westworld provides its guests with violent escapism, sexual fantasy, and nostalgic indulgence. Within the series, the Westworld park presents itself as a combination of two aspects of tabletop role‐playing game: sandbox format and Live Action Role‐play (LARP). (...) Within the role‐play experience, the cultivation of motivation on the part of the Game Master entices players to undertake or follow particular narrative threads. Gameplay was designed to cultivate certain personality traits and instincts. Herein the game's rules, style and structures “influence a user's behavior without forcing the change” ‐ essentially enacting education through restriction. In the case of role‐play games, these restrictions are less over by the narrative nature of the game. (shrink)

Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, a new Cold War is being waged in our societies. During the Cold War a theoretical model of man was developed by economists and the military, an egotistical being interested only in his own benefit and in duping his opponents to achieve his ends: a modern homo oeconomicus. After his career in the Cold War ended, he was not scrapped but adapted to the needs of the twenty-first century. He became the (...) ringmaster of a new era of information capitalism. He sought to read, control and influence thoughts; to predict, price and eliminate risks. Today stock-market trading is guided by him. He uses computer algorithms and Big Data to build up detailed pictures of our preferences and then suggest and sell goods to us. The model has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are no longer the masters of our own fate. The Game of Life runs without us. Schirrmacher traces the progress of this extreme rationalization of social life from the Cold War games of the 1950s Rand Corporation to the stock-market trading techniques that brought about the financial crash of 2008, showing how these developments were interwoven with the rise of game theory, rational choice theory and neoliberal economics. The state and politics increasingly submitted themselves to the logic of computerized game theory and an economistic view of the world, evading real decision-making in the process. In this brave new world individuals, alone in front of their computers, may think they are constructing a reality of their own choosing, but in fact they are being manipulated all along by others who are setting the rules of the game. This international bestseller by one of Germanys most distinguished journalists is a powerful indictment of a way of thinking that has become pervasive and threatens to undermine not only parliaments and constitutions but also the sovereignty of the individual to be the person he or she wants to be. (shrink)

Ethics in the Virtual World examines the gamer's enactment of taboo activities in the context of both traditional and contemporary philosophical approaches to morality. The book argues that it is more productive to consider what individuals are able to cope with psychologically than to determine whether a virtual act or representation is necessarily good or bad. The book raises pertinent questions about one of the most rapidly expanding leisure pursuits in western culture: should virtual enactments warrant moral interest? Should (...) there be a limit to what can be enacted or represented within these games? Or, is it all just a game? (shrink)

An exploration of modern society and the critical value of popular culture.

This article examines questions of trust in cinema through the lens of Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010). With its self-referential allusion to the mechanical “eye” of a camera, a stage-managed fantasy embedded within its plot and image of a dark lighthouse, Shutter Island explores its spectators' and its own cinematic sense of suspicion. The plot revolves around a protagonist who has locked himself out of certain memories and into a fantasy world. The article links pathological and therapeutic (...) class='Hi'>aspects of trust with interpersonal and institutional trust issues in ways that blur distinctions between trusting others and trusting oneself, and shows how reliant each is on the other. Construing trust as a type of participant attitude and highlighting techniques used to render it cinematically, the article tracks its emergence and erosion, both in terms of the diegesis and its bearing on film spectatorship. As a post-classical commentary on film-making, Shutter Island is viewed as intricately exemplifying what Robert Sinnerbrink (2016) describes as an action-driven film with “a highly reflective consciousness of cinematic spectatorship” (p. 70), as well as what Thomas Elsaesser (2009) describes as a “mind-game film”. To make sense of its ending, which may strike viewers as baffling and unnerving, and show how the protagonist's seemingly irrational decision is part of its film-philosophical point, traumatic disturbances in subjectivity and “monstrosities” depicted in the film are linked to Jean Epstein's notion of “something monstrous” in cinematic imagery. The protagonist's deliberately chosen fate is interpreted as a reparative gesture, expressing a desire for psychological healing and a way of helping him to marshal and recover a semblance of moral order and integrity under demoralizing circumstances. (shrink)

The present paper entitled "Subaltern Language Games and Political Conditions: A Perspective on Applied Philosophy" attempts to streamline Wittgensteinian language games and political conditions. The expression `subaltern ` stands for the meaning as given in the concise oxford dictionary, that is, `of inferior rank`. Subaltern language game is the game of marginalized people. Language game is meaningful in the context of social and political relationship. My contention is that technical or symbolic language is an instrument to serve the (...) end of the affluent class. I think that any social and political change requires change in languagegame. By applied philosophy, I mean that philosophical theories are applicable in concrete human situation. In this sense, I have considered Wittgenstein as an applied philosopher because he holds that words are dead but assume life when it is used or applied in the concrete life situation. In order to make society free from exploitation and reduce inequality, we have to change the prevailing language game. The language game which I am proposing may be called as the "Subaltern Language Game". I have tried to understand Wittgenstein's language game in the light of Derrida's theory of deconstruction. The ordinary languagephilosophy as expounded in` Philosophical Investigation` deconstructs `technical language philosophy' of `Tractatus` because technical language gives an abstract system of symbols and lacks blood and flesh of lifeworld. My contention is that language game is inseparable from socio-political structure. As a matter of fact language game is the expression of forms of life. The language game of the affluent and the ruling class is different from the language game of the poor and downtrodden. The language game of one ethnic group is different from the language game of another ethnic group. The language game of the white people is different from the language game of the black. In Indian context, the language game of the upper caste is different from the language game of the lower caste. The possibility of inequality due to linguistic advantages of privileged class is a fact and not a fantasy. In order to develop linguistic capacity, it requires socio-political and socio-cultural mechanism. The social inequality due to linguistic handicap of individual can be lessened by a process of change in values. This process of change in value system is called culturalisation or sanskritisation. It can be helpful in changing the use of language and its meaning. Thus, in moving from theory to practice, philosophers work to change these words and rules for those philosophers who are trying to do applied philosophy. The language game of the applied philosopher should be fashioned in accordance with socio-political realities. It is not plausible to do applied philosophy with outdated mode of philosophising. (shrink)

We attempt to make superdeterminism more intuitive, notably by simulating a deterministic model system, a billiard game. In this system an initial ‘bang’ correlates all events, just as in the superdeterministic universe. We introduce the notions of ‘strong’ and ‘soft’ superdeterminism, in order to clarify debates in the literature. Based on the analogy with billiards, we show that superdeterministic correlations may exist as a matter of principle, but be undetectable for all practical purposes. Even if inaccessible, such strong-superdeterministic correlations can (...) explain why soft-, or effective, superdeterministic theories can be built. We counter classic objections to superdeterminism such as the claim that it would be at odds with the scientific method, and with the construction of new theories. Finally, we show that probability theory, as a physical theory, indicates that superdeterminism has a greater explanatory power than its competitors: it can coherently answer questions from probability theory for which other positions remain powerless. Since probability theory is, in a sense, the most unifying physics theory (all physical systems comply with it), this argument confers considerable weight. (shrink)

Jon Robson and Aaron Meskin have argued that the insights obtained through the philosophical analysis of video games is not specific to video games, but to a larger class of artistic creations they term Self-Involving Interactive Fictions, or SIIFs. But there is at least one aspect of SIIF video games that is philosophically interesting and does not apply to the class of SIIFs as a whole, the ability to represent non-classical time. If SIIF video games (...) are considered to be an extension of the art form of graphic narrative story-telling, the art form dominated by film, then the ability to represent time in in this fashion represents a revolution akin to that of vanishing point perspective in painting. This makes SIIF video games philosophically interesting for both philosophers of film and philosophers of video games. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of Wittgenstein’s method of language-games as a method of logic that exhibits important continuities with Russell’s and the early Wittgenstein’s conceptions of logic and logical analysis as the method of philosophy. On the proposed interpretation, the method of language-games is a method for isolating and modeling aspects of the uses of linguistic expressions embedded in human activities that enables one to make perspicuous complex uses of expressions by gradually building up the complexity (...) of clarificatory models. Wittgenstein’s introduction of the language-game method constitutes an attempt to overcome certain limitations of calculus-based logical methods, and to respond in this way to problems with Russell’s and his own early philosophy of logic. The method is nevertheless compatible with the employment of calculus-based methods in logic and philosophy, and makes no exclusive claim to being the correct method. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to review and critically discuss the philosophical aspects of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). Given that estimates of seismic hazard are typically riddled with uncertainty, diferent epistemic values (related to the pursuit of scientifc knowledge) compete in the selection of seismic hazard models, in a context infuenced by non-epistemic values (related to practical goals and aims) as well. We frst distinguish between the diferent types of uncertainty in PSHA. We claim that epistemic (...) and nonepistemic considerations are closely related in the selection of the appropriate estimate of seismic hazard by the experts. Finally, we argue that the division of scientifc responsibility among the experts can lead to responsibility gaps. This raises a problem for the ownership of the results (“no one’s model” problem) similar to the “problem of many hands” in the ethics of technology. We conclude with a plea for a close collaboration between philosophy and engineering. (shrink)

The point of view expressed in the present research is directed towards the ideational “torsion” from rationalism to the “language-games” drawing up an analysis according to which one can notice the rationalist and post-rationalist aspects in the philosophy of communication, and the consequences of these perspectives, which could be of great interest as regards the philosophical concepts related to communication, to man or to the human community. As a matter of fact, “the torsion” is only apparent; it (...) cannot hold a dramatic change of the thinking range, from “rationalism” to “neo-positivism”, as regards the comment on Habermas’ theory of communication, as compared to Wittgenstein’s ideas about “the language-games” as central elements of human communication. Jürgen Habermas manifest a specific turn in his way of thinking, aiming at the contemporary modulation of the rationalist approach by means of inter-subjectivism orhumanism, and stressing the modulation of the logical approach, by means of “language-games” and “life-forms.”. (shrink)

The problem considered in the paper is whether the stereotype of zerosum games is applicable to present-day discussions on environmental threats. Decision theory could be considered as a tool to substantiate the philosophical notion of rationality of actions and in this aspect, it could be a good methodological instrument of philosophical economics. Decision theory can be used to assess positions in problem situations and predict possible solutions in terms of gains and losses. This can also be applied (...) to human actions in relation to nature. In the paper this theory is used to assess the moral and political validity of the positions of developing countries against the main claims of the forceful countries for unified solutions for protection of the natural environment. Justified solutions in the field of environmental security can be sought only by overcoming the economic and social imbalances and corporate interests. The most justified perspective for international relations and in searching for solutions of present-day social and ecological conflicts is to move from the form of a zero-sum game, in which the powerful countries win and the poor ones invariably lose, to a true non-zero-sum game suitable for implementing cooperative strategies. This type of development can become a reality only on the basis of a new social contract, based on pluralism and balance of interests, on the scale of all humanity. (shrink)

No one is surprised anymore by the dialogue between Buddhism and Western science, which develops the foundations of cognitive and contemplative sciences. But there have been requests for reflection on the results achieved, or even for a strategy for analytical research of the Buddhist East, which brings this dialogue to the philosophical level. And this level of discussion is, in fact, the dialogue between Buddhism and Western philosophy, which requires a new discourse that should be built on their common (...) ground. And the first question that arises against this background is how to focus attention on the philosophical aspect of Buddhism, which orientalists usually call “Buddhist philosophy”. Thus, realizing the beginning of the dialogue between Buddhist and Western philosophies, we are faced with the need to take the next, but already conscious step in the direction of this discussion. In order to make this step confident, we need to know where and how to start, and what key subjects we can rely on. Therefore, in an effort to find possible warnings against gross mistakes in such discussions, we sought the help of Western experts in the field of Buddhist studies by reading their works and talking to them. One of the well-known scholars is Professor Jan Westerhoff, who kindly agreed to give me an interview and answer some questions: whether there is a Buddhist philosophy; what are the approaches and stages of its research; what are the peculiarities of using the terms of Western philosophy in these studies; what can be the criterion for the best reading of traditional Buddhist texts; what can such a discussion give to contemporary Western philosophy, etc. This interview was not intended to be a conceptual deepening of either Buddhist or Western philosophy; we only tried to identify key questions that could start a dialog between them in the right direction. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Meaning as Use Language Games Mind and Matter Mathematics and Other Sciences Science, Myth, and Religion Seeing Aspects World Pictures The Inner and the Outer A Field of Diversity Further reading.

Famously, Kripke has argued that the central portion of the Philosophical Investigations describes both a skeptical paradox and its skeptical solution. Solving the paradox involves the element of the community, which determines correctness conditions for rule-following behavior. What do such conditions precisely consist of? Is it accurate to say that there is no fact to the matter of rule following? How are the correctness conditions sustained in the community? My answers to these questions revolve around the idea that a (...) rule is followed insofar as a convention is in place. In particular, I consider the game-theoretic definition of convention offered by David Lewis and I show that it illuminates essential aspects of the communitarian understanding of rule-following. Make the following experiment: say “It’s cold here” and mean “It’s warm here”. Can you do it?Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953, §510.I can’t say “it’s cold here” and mean “it’s warm here”—at least, not without a little help from my friends.David Lewis, Convention. (shrink)

This book presents not only the mathematical concept of probability, but also its philosophical aspects, the relativity of probability and its applications and even the psychology of probability. All explanations are made in a comprehensible manner and are supported with suggestive examples from nature and daily life, and even with challenging math paradoxes.

This paper is a beginning—an initial attempt to think of the function and character of epistemic norms as a kind of social norm. We draw on social scientific thinking about social norms and the social games to which they respond. Assume that people individually follow epistemic norms for the sake of acquiring a stock of true beliefs. When they live in groups and share information with each other, they will in turn produce a shared store of true beliefs, an (...) epistemic public good. True beliefs, produced individually or in groups, constitute an epistemic good—one commonly stockpiled and distributed within a community. Epistemic norms can then be understood as a kind of socially developed and transmitted normative sensibility having to do with the production of this individual and public good. Epistemic norms should serve to regulate this practice—coordinating the practice of individuals so as to afford the benefits of life in an interdependent epistemic community—and to manage the risks of being epistemically dependent on others within such a community. Here, we provide some attempts to characterize the central aspects of "the epistemic game"—the epistemic choice situation confronted by communities of epistemic agents. (shrink)

Introduction: De disciplina scolarium and the Boethian corpus -- Reproduction and philosophical life in the Consolatio philosophiae -- De disciplina and Translatio studii -- Boethian humor -- "Bitwixen game and ernest": contrary Boethianism in Troilus and Criseyde -- Boethius and the humanists: Valla, Badius, and persistence of De disciplina in print.

People inhabit a vast and intricate social network nowadays. In addition to our own decisions and actions, we confront those of various groups every day. Collective decisions and actions are more complex and bewildering compared to those made by individuals. As members of a collective, we contribute to its decisions, but our contributions may not always align with the outcome. We may also find ourselves excluded from certain groups and passively subjected to their influences without being aware of the source. (...) We are used to being in overlapping groups and may switch identities, supporting or opposing the claims of particular groups. But rarely do we pause to think: What do we talk about when we talk about groups and their decisions? At the heart of this dissertation is the question of collective agency, i.e., in what sense can we treat a group as a rational agent capable of its action. There are two perspectives we take: a philosophical and logical one. The philosophical perspective mainly discusses the ontological and epistemological issues related to collective agency, sorts out the relevant philosophical history, and argues that the combination of a relational view of collective agency and a dispositional view of collective intentionality provides a rational and realistic account. The logical perspective is associated with formal theories of groups, it disregards the psychological content involved in the philosophical perspective, establishes a logical system that is sufficiently formal and objective, and axiomatizes the nature of a collective. The first topic that is addressed is the ontology of collective agency, i.e., the question what exactly is collective agency. The philosophical discussion of collective agency centres around the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long influenced orthodox theories and made them face the choice between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories such as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as also realized on the level of a collective. To adequately explain social phenomena that are essentially relational in nature, we propose a relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. While acknowledging the irreducibility of the concept of a collective, we find that there is a deep incompatibility between the concept of a collective and the concept of intentionality as the mark of the mental. To explain how collective intentionality nevertheless is possible and why we tend to use it analogously to how we use the concept of individual intentionality, we explore a dispositional account of intentionality which enables us to give an account of the concept of intentionality at both the individual and collective level. Specifically, we subdivide the dispositional account into three aspects: behavioral, purely mental, and cognitive. We then argue that collective intentionality is real by analyzing different forms of attributive judgments of intentionality and by introducing the perspective of indispensable collective responsibility. We also analyze how philosophical theories about collective agency relate to central features of formal theories about collective decisions, such as game theory. Although the two fields are both concerned with collectives, there are also differences that need to be addressed. For example, game theory is clearly anti-psychologistic since its aim is a formal and objective analysis. However, from the relational and dispositional perspective, intentionality at the individual level and collective intentionality as we analyze it, inevitably involve mental content. In order to explain this difference and identify where the boundary is, we analyze the relationships between the three basic concepts involved, namely intentionality, preference, and dependency, so as to provide a unified picture of collective theory across philosophical and formal theories. After paving the nexus between philosophical and formal perspectives, the logical perspective becomes the theme of our discussion. To be able to express game theoretical concepts and to connect them to our philosophical perspective, We present a logic of preference and functional dependence and its hybrid extension, and provide an axiomatization which is sound and strongly complete. The decidability of this logic is also proved. Its application to modeling non-cooperative and cooperative games in strategic form is explored. The resulting framework provides a unified view of Nash equilibrium, Pareto optimality, and the core. The philosophical relevance of these game-theoretical notions to discussions of collective agency is made explicit. Finally, we conclude and clarify the position of our theory in the broader field of research on the topics addressed in the thesis. Also, we point out many new questions and directions suggested by our analysis, including philosophical and logical open problems. (shrink)

This essay concerns the place of e-sport in the history of sport. E-sport is construed as an entity in this corpus, by seeking out historical counterparts that display similar forms of play and organisation. Thus, ancient Roman games are identified as an early instance of what could be called public gaming, i.e. competitive digital games in a public setting. Two recent philosophical statements regarding the history of sport furnish the point of departure of the analysis: Steven Connor's (...) historicising of the term sport, and Heather Reid's treatise of virtue in the games and athletics of antiquity. The varying content of sport in its course through time is discussed foremost in relation to how the human and nonhuman elements have been organised. In order to settle the role of public gaming in the history of sport, two aspects of Roman games are highlighted to 'fabricate' its legacy in the history of e-sport: Pollice Verso and simulations. It is concluded that the way Roman games ha... (shrink)

In the present article, the work of contemporary English writer and screenwriter Neil Gaiman is studied from the point of view of artistic and philosophical reinterpretation of the principles of surrealism. His novels ‘Neverwhere‘, ‘Coraline‘ and the script for the film ‘Mirror mask‘are analysed, in which the interpenetration of the real and unreal world can be traced and the planes of reality and dreams are woven into one inseparable whole. It is emphasized that for the creative style of Neil (...) Gaiman game with space and time is typical: climbing the stairs out of the sewer, you can find yourself on a roof, away from home, you can go back to his door, looking through a window in the world of dream, you can see yourself sleeping. Therefore, the writer often uses the theme of dream, program for the philosophy of surrealism: the characters have dreams that are either echoes of the past or images of predicted future, reflection of dreams or the dream itself turns into a full-fledged reality that is being created by sleeping character. However, it can be noted that the approach of the writer to value of phantasmagoric worlds is changing. If in the novel ‘Neverwhere‘ the world of London below is conceptualized as an alternative to the real world, in the novel ‘Coraline‘, and especially in the movie ‘Mirror mask‘ filmed in 2005, staying in a different world helps heroes to understand the real world better and to seek that fills it with meaning. (shrink)

Strong reasoning skills are an important aspect to cultivate in life, as they directly impact decision making on a daily basis. By examining the different ways the world views logic and order, new methods and techniques can be employed to help expand on this skill further in the future. -/- Philosophical Perceptions on Logic and Order is a pivotal scholarly resource that discusses the evolution of logical reasoning and future applications for these types of processes. Highlighting relevant topics including (...) logic patterns, deductive logic, and inductive logic, this publication is an ideal reference source for academicians, students, and researchers that would like to expand their understanding of how society currently employs the use of logical reasoning techniques. (shrink)

In the most recent edition of Language, Truth and Logic , Professor A. J. Ayer still maintains that pure mathematics is analytic, being in fact merely a vast system of tautology. He is much more confident about this than are most contemporary professional mathematicians who have investigated the foundations of their subject. Following the breakdown of the efforts both of Frege and of Russell and Whitehead to derive pure mathematics from logic, i.e. to prove that the denial of any one (...) proposition of mathematics would necessarily be self-contradictory, Hilbert attempted to prove the more modest thesis that pure mathematics is consistent, i.e. that no two propositions of mathematics can contradict each other; but in 1931 Gödel discovered that even this thesis was undecidable according to the “rules of the game.” As Weyl has recently lamented, “From this history one thing should be clear: we are less certain than ever about the ultimate foundations of mathematics.” The sense in which Ayer uses the terms analytic and tautology implies also that in his view the activities of pure mathematicians lead to nothing new. It is true that he remarks that “there is a sense in which analytic propositions do give us new knowledge. They call attention to linguistic usages of which we might otherwise not be conscious, and they reveal unsuspected implications in our assertions and beliefs.” But, he continues, “we can also see that there is a sense in which they may be said to add nothing to our knowledge. For they may be said to tell us what we know already. ” This denial of novelty in mathematics is as typical of contemporary positivism as the prophecy of Comte that the composition of the stars would never be revealed to us and the objections of Mach to the atomic hypothesis were characteristic of nineteenth century positivism. Indeed, one wonders why the term positivism should have been appropriated by successive philosophers whose common outlook could be so much more fittingly described as negativism. (shrink)

With his 1951 publication of “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, W.V.O. Quine launched a series of arguments against the idea that analyticity – “truth in virtue of meaning alone” – could be a philosophically explanatory notion. While his rejection represents a significant philosophical stride in its own right, to which many in the contemporary philosophical scene pay verbal respects, the revolutionary consequences of this insight often go ignored today. Much of current professional philosophy in virtually every sub-discipline carries on (...) as though analyticity were a viable notion, because much of it aims at conceptual analysis – the “discovery” of the meanings of philosophical concepts, such as ‘mind’, ‘truth’, ‘meaning’, ‘person’, and ‘right’. Rejecting analyticity as a viable philosophical notion undermines such efforts insofar as they aim at conceptual analysis. If philosophers give up the notion of analyticity, as they should, they are left with the questions of what goals and methods are viable for the analysis of concepts. One option is to concentrate effort on explication of familiar concepts; explication is an alternative to conceptual analysis in that it does not aim to dig out analytic truths about given concepts. Rather, it identifies what is interesting about a certain vague concept, and generates a new, more rigorous and precise concept to replace the old one. The justification for the replacement, in the most appealing cases, is in the possibilities for understanding that are introduced by the new explication. Examples of explication in my sense are the replacement of ordinary grammatical terms by the operators of first order logic, replacement of ‘game’ with a decision theoretic notion of games in game theory, and replacement of ‘true’ with ‘true-in-L’ in Tarskian semantics. Advances of this sort depart consciously in some ways from ordinary usage of the terms they focus on, but in so departing, they develop new possibilities and perspectives for rigorously understanding the world. In the dissertation that follows, I not only recommend explication as a method, I also put it into practice. I develop an explication of the sameness and difference relations that relies solely on the relation of denotation between a predicate and objects of which it is true. Two things are the same with respect to R just in case there is at least one R-predicate that denotes them in common. I used this explication to develop related explications of similarity and analogy. These latter explications, I use to critique the current fashion of research on similarity and analogy in cognitive psychology. These studies have produced an immense body of interesting and promising work in the past several decades; however, much of the research design and data interpretation harbors philosophical errors and so often imports unjustified prejudices from the researchers themselves. My explication offers alternative formulations of the most salient aspects of these research traditions, formulations that avoid the errors of past research and, more importantly, suggest new research questions and possibilities that would not occur under the previous, philosophically muddled paradigm. The project closes with an application of my explication of analogy to a discussion and critique of the philosophical literature on analogical arguments. While philosophers and logicians have developed workable theories for deductive and inductive reasoning, very little work of promise has been done on analogical arguments. My explication of analogy is used to diagnose the problems of past attempts by philosophers to develop logics for analogical arguments and suggest, in light of the psychological research on analogy and the use of analogies in scientific thought, that philosophers should focus on analogical arguments as creative, heuristic devices, rather than as truth-preserving inference structures. (shrink)

Sport, Rules and Values presents a philosophical perspective on some issues concerning the character of sport. Central questions for the text are motivated from real life sporting examples as described in newspaper reports. For instance, the (supposed) subjectivity of umpiring decisions is explored via an examination of the judging ice-skating at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games of 2002. Throughout, the presentation is rich in concrete cases from sporting situations, including baseball, football, and soccer. While granting the constitutive (...) nature of the rules of sport, discussion focuses on three broad uses commonly urged for rules: in defining sport; in judging or assessing sport (as deployed by judges or umpires); and in characterizing the value of sport, especially if that value is regarded as moral value. In general, McFee rejects a conception of the determinacy of rules as possible within sport, and a parallel picture of the determinacy assumed to be required by philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Signs of Logic: Peircean Themes on the Philosophy of Language, Games, and CommunicationRobert W. BurchAhti-Veikko Pietarinen Signs of Logic: Peircean Themes on the Philosophy of Language, Games, and Communication Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2006. xiv + 496 pp.This compendious volume of fourteen of Pietarinen's essays on Peirce, plus a three-page set of "Final Words" relating to the work of Robert Aumann, is a "must-have" for both (...) the Peirce scholar and any other philosopher who wishes to relate Peirce's thinking on language and logic to other major thinkers and logical themes of the twentieth century (and beyond). The essays extend or complement discussions of Peirce's logic and philosophy of language that have come to be expected from the "Finnish school" of philosophers, which includes Hintikka and Hilpinen, as well as Pietarinen.Nine of the essays (Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, and 14), comprising about two-thirds of the entire book, are revised and expanded versions of essays that Pietarinen has previously published. The remaining one-third (approximately) of the book is brand new. Chapters 1 and 2 serve as general introductions to the book's major interests. Chapter 6 is on evidence for constructivism in Peirce, as well as several other topics. Chapter 9 compares Peirce's ideas with Wilfred Hodges's "dialogue foundations" and contains a small philosophical dialogue, which has Peirce, Wittgenstein, and Hodges as its characters. Chapter 11 concerns evolutionary semantics and language [End Page 577] games. And the cursory Chapter 15 of "Final Words" predicts that the game-theoretical approach to semantics and Peirce scholarship has an exploding future, like an erupting volcano.From the foregoing one can gather, correctly, that each essay in the book is separately conceived and that the book is not a single continuous line of argumentative development of one or even of a few themes. Still, the essays are similar to one another in two ways, which ways are closely related to each other. First, they all concern the Peircean doctrine that semeiotic and semeiosis constitute the heartland of logic, and that this heartland is vastly richer than the sort of pure mathematical calculi that might mistakenly be taken for logic itself (and were in fact so taken for much of the twentieth century). Second, they all deal with the Peircean insistence that semeiosis is inherently a form of Praxis in which interchanges occur between or among various "agents" or "actors," one of which might be nature itself; so that at the very least logic is dialogic, and so that more generally one may justifiably speak of semeiosis as involving something like a "game." These lines of exploration will surprise no seasoned Peirce scholar, but the special genius of the Finnish "school" of Peirce interpretation from Hintikka forward is to have spotlighted in dramatic fashion the game-theoretical nature of many elements in Peirce's semeiotic.In these essays Pietarinen amply exhibits two attainments of mind that are indispensable for the serious Peirce scholar. One is the object of what we might call "The Eisele Imperative" after the vehement urgings of Carolyn Eisele: this is the possession of some significant degree of sophistication in mathematics. Pietarinen's mathematical skills are plainly sufficient for his discussions of logic and game theory. For example, his Chapter 5 is an excellent technical discussion of Peirce's existential graphs, and his Chapter 7 is an admirable technical discussion of certain aspects of game theory and generalized quantifiers. Another crucial skill needed by the serious Peirce scholar is the object of what we might call "The Pietarinen Corrective" after the practices exemplified in these essays: this is the possession of extremely broad knowledge of recent and contemporary philosophy, especially philosophy of language, logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of science.Indeed, the breadth of Pietarinen's acquaintance with twentieth century logic and philosophy of language, both "analytic" and "continental," is breathtaking. This allows him scope for comparisons of Peirce's views with an extraordinarily wide, and not always easily anticipated, range of philosophers and philosophic traditions. Pietarinen's range of reference is so extensive that it would be pointless to attempt to discuss in... (shrink)

The clinical concept of projective identification encompasses both unconscious fantasies of putting aspects of oneself into another person, as well as interpersonal processes aimed at evoking a corresponding response in another person, all for purposes of defensive evacuation, control and/or communication.1 In thinking about this complex situation, we need to consider its interpersonal dimensions as well as the intrapsychic processes that take place in each party. Louise Braddock's paper is thought provoking, far-reaching, and important in its use of concepts (...) from analytic philosophy to attempt to bring clarity on both fronts. Her account makes use of two crucial philosophical notions... (shrink)

This paper points to the lack of scientific images, including moving images, for promoting behavior analysis. Examples of what could be done to rectify this situation are contained in two teaching gambits that address practical and philosophical issues in the analysis of behavior. The first gambit is an elaboration of the shaping game that highlights issues associated with discriminative control and the role of private events in the analysis of behavior. The second gambit uses specially designed graphics, both 2-D (...) and 3-D, to show how an understanding of the behavioral stream underpins every aspect of the analysis of behavior. (shrink)

Lesniewski’s ontology was one of the most inspiring aspects of Polish philosophy in the 20th century. I would like to reveal two original ways of thinking about names present in Polish pre-war philosophy and inspired by Lesniewski’s ideas, i.e. Kotarbinski’s reism and Ajdukiewicz’s criticism of the latter. It seems obvious, at least in texts of the philosophers quoted above, that the question of names was hiding much deeper quarrels. Although Kotarbinski’s and Ajdukiewicz’s positions were not in radical opposition, several (...) disagreements between them were very fruitful regarding their respective works. This paper gives an overview of their respective contributions to logic presented against the background of their philosophical positions. (shrink)