This book re-evaluates New Left and Marxist texts from the 1980s, in order to explore problems facing the study of 'class' which have emerged within Australian and international theories. The author contrasts the popular ideas of Connell, Bourdieu and the 'Death of Class' thesis, with those of lesser known texts, concluding that no single definition can account for the various historical meanings of class. Instead, loosely following Castoriadis, the concept of class can best be understood as creatively imagined and institutionalised. (...) Paternoster proposes that class is best studied through historical phenomenology, which can be used to link political economy, cultural sociology and anthropological ethnographies. This approach allows the contributions of Marxist and New Left authors to be reintegrated with contemporary theories. Doing so highlights the significance of labour populism, while cautioning against the ahistorical applications of texts such as Boudieu's Distinction. Reimagining Class in Australia will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, history, political economy and anthropology. (shrink)

Of all the developments in twentieth century physics, none has given rise to more heated debates than the changes in our understanding of science precipitated by the quantum revolution''. In this revolution, Niels Bohr's dramatically non-classical theory of the atom proved to be the springboard from which the new atomic physics drew it's momentum. Furthermore, Bohr's contribution was crucial not only because his interpretation of quantum mechanics became the most widely accepted view but also because in his role as educator (...) and spokesman for atomic physics Bohr was very much the patron spirit of the entire quantum revolution. The conceptual framework which he proposed to provide a new viewpoint for understanding the quantum theoretical description of atomic systems became for most of this century the dominant outlook of countless productive experimental and theoretical physicists. He called this new framework complementarity''. (shrink)

This work, edited by Henry Rosemount, Jr, is Volume I in the series of "Critics and Their Critics". Angus C. Graham is the leading translator and interpreter of Chinese philosophical texts; he has written philosophical works of his own, he has written at length and in detail on early Chinese grammar and philology, he has translated Chinese poetry, and he has published some of his own poetry. Graham's polymathic achievement explains the polygenous nature of his collection, which has some (...) essays ranging broadly over aesthetics, ethics, religion, and epistemology; others providing concentrated discussion of specific problems in early Chinese syntax, semantics, etymology, and paleography; and yet others being admixtures, moving by turns through etymology, epistemology, and problems of the translation, interpretation, and dating of Chinese texts. (shrink)

According to the semantic view of computation, computations cannot be individuated without invoking semantic properties. A traditional argument for the semantic view is what we shall refer to as the argument from the cognitive science practice. In its general form, this argument rests on the idea that, since cognitive scientists describe computations (in explanations and theories) in semantic terms, computations are individuated semantically. Although commonly invoked in the computational literature, the argument from the cognitive science practice has never been discussed (...) in detail. In this paper, we shall provide a critical reconstruction of this argument and an extensive analysis of its prospects, taking into account some ways of defending it that have never been explored so far. We shall argue that explanatory considerations support at best a weak version of the argument from the cognitive science practice, according to which semantic properties concur with formal syntactic properties in individuating computations in cognitive science, but not a strong version, according to which computation individuation in cognitive science is semantic as opposed to formal syntactic. (shrink)

: According to Crane intentionality is nothing less than the mark of the mental. Nonetheless, there are many issues raised by this concept, beginning with the problem of non-existent relata. In this comment-article I discuss the concept of intentionality in its generality, trying to state its ontological status and to assess its explanatory dispensability. In particular, I focus on the argument, addressed by Crane, whereby Wittgenstein eliminates intentionality, characterizing it as a grammatical fiction, a pseudo-entity created by the grammar of (...) the language of mental states ascriptions. I will argue that: although Crane’s specific argument against Wittgenstein is not conclusive, Wittgenstein’s linguistic strategy does not work; and yet we should not be committed to a robust realist account of intentionality. Keywords : Intentionality; Ludwig Wittgenstein; Mark of the Mental; Ontological Commitment; Realism/Anti-realism. L’intenzionalità è sufficientemente reale? Riassunto : Il concetto di intenzionalità è l’autentico cuore della filosofia di Tim Crane, secondo il quale l’intenzionalità è niente di meno che il marchio del mentale. Nondimeno, vi sono diversi noti problemi sollevati da questo concetto. In questo articolo-commento discuto il concetto di intenzionalità nelle sue linee generali cercando, da un lato, di determinarne lo statuto ontologico e, dall’altro, di valutarne la dispensabilità esplicativa. Mi concentro in particolare sull’argomento, discusso da Crane, con cui Wittgenstein elimina l’intenzionalità, caratterizzandola come una finzione grammaticale, una pseudo-entità creata della grammatica del linguaggio con cui attribuiamo stati mentali. Sosterrò che: sebbene lo specifico argomento di Crane non sia conclusivo, la strategia “linguistica” di Wittgenstein non funziona e tuttavia non dovremmo indulgere a una concezione realista “robusta” dell’intenzionalità. Parole chiave : Intentionalità; Ludwig Wittgenstein; Marchio del mentale; Impegno ontologico; Realismo/Anti-realismo. (shrink)

This Hackett edition, first published in 1981, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the seventh edition as published by Macmillan and Company, Limited. From the forward by John Rawls: In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick has an important place. His fundamental work, The Methods of Ethics, is the clearest and most accessible formulation of what we may call 'the classical utilitarian doctorine.' This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest (...) net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happinesss is specified by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness.... (shrink)

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is a significant problem in sport. It cheats clean athletes of their hard-earned rewards from perfecting their skills though dedication and hard work. It defrauds fans by substituting a distorted playing field for a true competition. Anti-doping agencies have been charged with enforcing drug policies, primarily through the use of drug testing programs. We propose that drug testing, while important, is not sufficient to achieve deterrence. Engaging the principles of perceptual deterrence and development of a (...) moral community of athletes can greatly enhance compliance with rules. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage n'est ni un commentaire ni une explication d'obedience historiciste ou deterministe. Par questionnement, lecture et interpretation, l'auteur a voulu produire une semantique philosophique. La doctrine des idees est ainsi reexaminee a la convergence des problemes du langage, de la science et de la cite (logos, episteme, polis). Elle ne peut plus des lors etre interpretee sous l'hypothese de l' idealisme. Elle se manifeste comme une serie de questions de sens ou s'indique une philosophie de la raison. Partout ou (...) le logos nous porte, c'est la qu'il faut aller, tel en serait le mot d'ordre, mais avec la precision qu'a l'articulation du mythique et du theorique, du tragique et du philosohique, et plus profondement de la deraison et du logos, le rationalisme platonicien n'est fait que de raison. (shrink)

Henry Home (1696-1782) has been called "perhaps the most complete 'Enlightenment man' among the eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers." Kinsman and friend of David Hume, mentor and patron of Adam Smith, John Millar, and Thomas Reid, he was a key figure in that circle of luminaries. He read law, was called to the bar in 1723, was raised to the Bench of the Court of Session in 1752, with the title Lord Kames (the name of his family estate), and joined the (...) High Court of the Justiciary in 1763. Publishing broadly in law, history, philosophy, and criticism, Kames made significant contributions to the Enlightenment's science of human nature. The Essays is commonly considered Kames's most important philosophical work. In the first part, he sets forth the principles and foundations of morality and justice, attacking Hume's moral skepticism and addressing the controversial issue of the freedom of human will. In the second part, Kames focuses on questions of metaphysics and epistemology to offer a natural theology in which the authority of the external senses is an important basis for belief in the Deity. The text of this volume is based on the third edition of 1779, while the appendix presents substantial variant readings in the first and second editions. (shrink)

On the traditional view, a sense of selfhood appears relatively late in infancy, since to be, or to possess, a self is taken to require such capacities as language and metacognition. Recent research in psychology, however, shows that there are some rudimentary forms of self-consciousness already in the very first months of life. The exercise of these early abilities in interactional contexts with caretakers shapes gradually a sense of self, or a primitive form of what we also call “personal identity”, (...) following a psychological terminology. In this paper we shall argue that the hypothesis of a very precocious personal identity can accord an important role to the Other in the formation of the Self without being committed to some outdated versions of empiricism or relativism. In the first section we introduce a pair of views about selfhood that seem to lead to relativism. In the second section we present what we call the “precocious identity view”. In the third section we describe the role of the Other in the precocious identity view. Finally, we make some remarks concerning what kind of (self-)consciousness is actually involved in the precocious identity view. (shrink)

The paper discusses some recent suggestions offered by the so-called sensorimotor (or enactivist) theorists as to the problem of the explanatory gap, that is, the alleged impossibility of accounting for phenomenal consciousness in any scientific theory. We argue in the paper that, although some enactivist theorists’ suggestions appear fresh and eye-opening, the claim that the explanatory gap is (dis)solved is much overstated.

Negli ultimi vent’anni si è instaurato nella filosofia analitica un clima confusamente naturalistico, in cui non sempre si è distinto tra il progetto di riportare ricerche tradizionalmente filosofiche entro l’ambito delle scienze naturali e l’idea che la filosofia stessa sia “continua con la scienza”, cioè che non ci sia una distinzione di principio tra ricerche scientifiche e ricerche filosofiche. Questa seconda idea si contrappone alla tradizionale immagine, che vuole la filosofia come un’i...

The objectivity of representation Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9505-1 Authors Alfredo Paternoster, University of Bergamo, Via Pignolo 123, 24121 Bergamo, Italy Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is one of the truly great philosophers of the modernist period, and there is currently a major renaissance of interest in his unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Creative Evolution (1907) is the text that made Bergson world-famous in his own lifetime; in it Bergson responds to the challenge presented to our habits of thought by modern evolutionary theory, and attempts to show that the theory of knowledge must have its basis (...) in a theory of life. (shrink)

Few books have so firmly established their place in American literature as The Education of Henry Adams. When it was first published in 1918, it became an instant bestseller and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. More than eighty years later, in an age of self-reflection and exhaustive memoirs, The Education still stands as perhaps the greatest American autobiography. The son of a diplomat, the grandson and great-grandson of two American presidents, a man of extraordinary gifts and learning (...) in his own right, Henry Adams recounts his life from his birth in 1838 and upbringing as a Boston Brahmin, through the Civil War, the nation's industrial expansion, and its emergence as a world power. In the process, he gives us a brilliant history of a changing country as well as a thoughtful, humane, often tender exploration of himself. From the original publisher, this edition of The Education of Henry Adams, newly introduced by Donald Hall, celebrates and honors this classic work on what it means to be an American. (shrink)

One of the most influential of the Victorian philosophers, Henry Sidgwick also made important contributions to fields such as economics, political theory, and classics. An active promoter of higher education for women, he founded Cambridge's Newnham College in 1871. He attended Rugby School and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained his whole career. In 1859 he took up a lectureship in classics, and held this post for ten years. In 1869, he moved to a lectureship in moral philosophy, (...) the subject where he left arguably his greatest mark when he produced this work, regarded as his masterpiece. Published in 1874, the book argues the utilitarian approach to ethics, and a systematic and historically sensitive approach to ethical research that influenced utilitarian philosophers well into the twentieth century. It remains a valuable introduction to the philosophy, practice and history of ethics. This reissue includes the 1877 supplement. (shrink)

In his new book the eminent Kant scholar Henry Allison provides an innovative and comprehensive interpretation of Kant's concept of freedom. The author analyzes the concept and discusses the role it plays in Kant's moral philosophy and psychology. He also considers in full detail the critical literature on the subject from Kant's own time to the present day. In the first part Professor Allison argues that at the centre of the Critique of Pure Reason there is the foundation for (...) a coherent general theory of rational agency. The second part employs this account of rational agency as a key to understanding Kant's concept of moral agency and associated moral psychology. The third part focuses on Kant's attempt to ground both moral law and freedom in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. This is a major contribution to the interpretation of Kant which will be of special interest to scholars and graduate students of Kant's moral theory. (shrink)

As I define it, metaphysical naturalism (in the philosophy of mind) is the thesis according to which mental facts supervene in strong sense on neurophysiological states, i.e., the former can be deduced from the latter. In this paper I discuss this thesis by taking into consideration two different kinds of mental states: I shall argue that, while metaphysical naturalism is false for standard propositional attitudes (beliefs and desires), it can be defended in the case of low-level phenomenal states, or raw (...) feelings. As a consequence, since the instantiation of high-order mental states requires those neurophysiological mechanisms that constitute raw feelings, the notion of self has a biological basis, and to this extent we can regard subjectivity as a natural phenomenon. (shrink)

Introduzione Il problema filosofico centrale di Lexical Competence (Marconi 1997 — i riferimenti che faremo sono relativi all’edizione italiana apparsa due anni dopo) è che cosa distingue la comprensione del linguaggio da parte di un agente umano da quella che potrebbe essere attribuita a un sistema artificiale. Nel rispondere a questa domanda Marconi (d’ora in poi, M.) offre una teoria della conoscenza del significato, descrive cioè in che cosa consiste conoscere il significato delle parole...

Within a digital corpus of 20 Italian post-unification conduct books, UAM CorpusTool is used to perform a manual annotation of 13 emotive rhetorical figures as indices of “shown” emotion. The analysis consists in two text mining tasks: classification, which identifies emotive figures using the 13 categories, and clustering, which identifies groups, i.e. clusters where emotive figures co-occur. Emotive clusters mainly discuss diligence and parsimony—personal values linked to self-improvement for which reader agreement is not taken for granted. In this corpus they (...) function as “moving” values, that is, values acting recurrently as contexts for “argued” emotion. (shrink)

As I define it, metaphysical naturalism (in the philosophy of mind) is the thesis according to which mental facts supervene in strong sense on neurophysiological states, i.e., the former can be deduced from the latter. In this paper I discuss this thesis by taking into consideration two different kinds of mental states: I shall argue that, while metaphysical naturalism is false for standard propositional attitudes (beliefs and desires), it can be defended in the case of low-level phenomenal states, or raw (...) feelings. As a consequence, since the instantiation of high-order mental states requires those neurophysiological mechanisms that constitute raw feelings, the notion of self has a biological basis, and to this extent we can regard subjectivity as a natural phenomenon. (shrink)

Metaphysical naturalism is the thesis according to which mental states can be reduced to, and thereby explained by, neurophysiological states. In this paper I discuss whether this thesis is plausible taking into consideration different kinds of mental states: propositional attitudes, on the one hand, and phenomenal states, on the other. I shall argue that, while metaphysical naturalism is false for standard propositional attitudes , it can be defended in the case of low-level phenomenal states, or raw feelings. As a consequence, (...) since the instantiation of high-order mental states requires the neurophysiological mechanisms that constitute raw feelings, the notion of self has a biological basis, and in this sense, we can speak of a “natural self”. The structure of the paper is the following. In the first paragraph I shall focus on the naturalization of paradigmatic intentional states . In the second paragraph I move to the discussion of raw feelings and show the consequences of my view for the notion of self. (shrink)

Introduzione Sebbene la nozione di rappresentazione mentale svolga non da ieri un ruolo cruciale in filosofia e in scienza cognitiva, lo statuto ontologico delle rappresentazioni mentali resta tuttora precario. Questa situazione è particolarmente imbarazzante per la scienza cognitiva, fondata come sull’assunto che i processi mentali siano computazioni su rappresentazioni mentali. Nelle recenti Dewey Lectures Hilary Putnam ha sviluppato una critica molto severa del concetto di rappresentazione...

This paper addresses, fundamentally, a single issue: assessing whether the currently very influent approach in cognitive sciences, i.e., Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, is committed to some version of emergentism. The structure of the paper is the following. In the first section I introduce the leading ideas of RECS. In the second section I compare certain standard formulations of emergentism with the main claims of RECS, trying to assess whether the latter involve some emergentist tenets. Some conclusions, in the third section, (...) follow. My conclusion will be that, on the one hand, there are some substantive epistemological analogies between RECS and emergentism, but, on the other hand, the metaphysics of RECS is not of an emergentist kind, in spite of some shallow similarities. Therefore, depending on one’s taking emergentism as an epistemological rather than a metaphysical thesis, RECS will be considered as being committed to emergentism or not. (shrink)

This landmark book is now reissued in a new edition that has been vastly rewritten and updated to respond to recent Kantian literature.

This article identifies a novel challenge to standard understandings of responsibility practices, animated by experimental studies of biases and heuristics. It goes on to argue that this challenge illustrates a general methodological challenge for theorizing about responsibility. That is, it is difficult for a theory to give us both guidance in real world contexts and an account of the metaphysical and normative foundations of responsibility without treating wide swaths of ordinary practice as defective. The general upshot is that theories must (...) either hew more closely to actual practice than they appear to, or they must provide some normative foundation for responsibility that does not go through actual practice. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage n'est ni un commentaire ni une explication d'obedience historiciste ou deterministe. Par questionnement, lecture et interpretation, l'auteur a voulu produire une semantique philosophique. La doctrine des idees est ainsi reexaminee a la convergence des problemes du langage, de la science et de la cite (logos, episteme, polis). Elle ne peut plus des lors etre interpretee sous l'hypothese de l' idealisme. Elle se manifeste comme une serie de questions de sens ou s'indique une philosophie de la raison. Partout ou (...) le logos nous porte, c'est la qu'il faut aller, tel en serait le mot d'ordre, mais avec la precision qu'a l'articulation du mythique et du theorique, du tragique et du philosohique, et plus profondement de la deraison et du logos, le rationalisme platonicien n'est fait que de raison. (shrink)

A monumental work by an important modern philosopher, Matter and Memory (1896) represents one of the great inquiries into perception and memory, movement and time, matter and mind. Nobel Prize-winner Henri Bergson surveys these independent but related spheres, exploring the connection of mind and body to individual freedom of choice. Bergson’s efforts to reconcile the facts of biology to a theory of consciousness offered a challenge to the mechanistic view of nature, and his original and innovative views exercised a profound (...) influence on other philosophers--including James, Whitehead, and Santayana--as well as novelists such as Dos Passos and Proust. Matter and Memory is essential to an understanding of Bergson’s philosophy and its legacy. (shrink)