Wittgenstein und Merleau-Ponty gelten als Vertreter zweier gegensätzlicher Schulen, der Analytischen Philosophie und der Phänomenologie. In ihrer topologisch vergleichenden Analyse eröffnet Stengel an Hand der Situierung des Menschen im intersubjektiven Raum einen neuen Blick auf wesentliche Themen der modernen Philosophie, insbesondere die Probleme der Sprache und der Wahrnehmung. Der Vergleich der Wittgensteinschen Sprach- und der Merleau-Pontyschen Wahrnehmungsanalyse offenbart dabei verblüffende Ähnlichkeiten, die sich in einer Theorie des Schauens zusammenführen lassen. Das Buch revolutioniert die Debatte zwischen "Analytischer" und "Kontinentaler" Philosophie.

The objects we encounter in ordinary life and scientific practice - cars, trees, people, houses, molecules, galaxies, and the like - have long been a fruitful source of perplexity for metaphysicians. The Structure of Objects gives an original analysis of those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in our ordinary, scientifically informed discourse. Koslicki focuses on material objects in particular, or, as metaphysicians like to call them "concrete particulars", i.e., objects which occupy a single region of (...) space-time at each time at which they exist and which have a certain range of properties that go along with space-occupancy, such as weight, shape, color, texture, and temperature. The Structure of Objects focuses in particular on the question of how the parts of such objects, assuming that they have parts, are related to the wholes which they compose. (shrink)

Some theories of linguistic meaning, such as those of Paul Grice and David Lewis, make appeal to higher–order thoughts: thoughts about thoughts. Because of this, such theories run the risk of being empirically refuted by the existence of speakers who lack, completely or to a high degree, the capacity of thinking about thoughts. Research on autism during the past 15 years provides strong evidence for the existence of such speakers. Some persons with autism have linguistic abilities that qualify them as (...) speakers, but manifest a severely impaired capacity to understand what it is to have beliefs. (shrink)

In public debate GMPs are oftenreferred to as being unnatural or a violationof nature. Some people have serious moralconcerns about departures from what is natural.Others are concerned about potential risks tothe environment arising from the combination ofhereditary material moving across naturalboundaries and the limits of scientificforesight of long-term consequences. To addresssome of these concerns we propose that anadditional element in risk assessment based onthe concept of familiarity should beintroduced. The objective is to facilitatetransparency about uncertainties inherent inthe risk assessment of (...) the GMP. Familiarityconventionally involves data and experiencerelating to the plant species and the ecosystemin question. We would like to extend thisconcept to the molecular level of plantbreeding and suggest that GMP characteristicsshould be compared to a reference baselinedetermined by conventional breeding techniques.Three GMPs are ranked according to familiarityat the plant and ecosystem level and themolecular level. The approach may help tointegrate discussion of the scientificarguments and moral questions raised in thedebate about GMOs by providing an operationalscheme within which moral concerns are broughtwithin the framework of science-based riskassessment. (shrink)

Implicit bias is one of the most successful cases in recent memory of an academic concept being translated into practice. Its use in the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program—which seeks to promote gender equality in STEM careers through institutional transformation—has raised fundamental questions about organizational change. How do advocates translate theories into practice? What makes some concepts more tractable than others? What happens to theories through this translation process? We explore these questions using the ADVANCE program as a case study. (...) Using an inductive, theory-building approach and combination of computational and qualitative methods, we investigate how the concept of implicit bias was translated into practice through the ADVANCE program and identify five key features that made implicit bias useful as a change framework in the academic STEM setting. We find that the concept of implicit bias works programmatically because it is demonstrable, relatable, versatile, actionable, and impartial. While enabling the concept’s diffusion, these characteristics also limit its scope. We reflect on implications for gender theories of organizational change and for practitioners. (shrink)

Beta‐oxidation of fatty acids and detoxification of reactive oxygen species are generally accepted as being fundamental functions of peroxisomes. Additionally, these pathways might have been the driving force favoring the selection of this compartment during eukaryotic evolution. Here we performed phylogenetic analyses of enzymes involved in beta‐oxidation of fatty acids in Bacteria, Eukaryota, and Archaea. These imply an alpha‐proteobacterial origin for three out of four enzymes. By integrating the enzymes' history into the contrasting models on the origin of eukaryotic cells, (...) we conclude that peroxisomes most likely evolved non‐symbiotically and subsequent to the acquisition of mitochondria in an archaeal host cell. (shrink)

Normativism in the theory of meaning and content is the view that linguistic meaning and/or intentional content are essentially normative. As both normativity and its essentiality to meaning/content can be interpreted in a number of different ways, there is now a whole family of views laying claim to the slogan “meaning/content is normative”. In this essay, we discuss a number of central normativist theses, and we begin by identifying different versions of meaning normativism, presenting the arguments that have been put (...) forth for and against them. (shrink)

This inaugural lecture, delivered on 17 November 2021 at the University of Neuchâtel, addresses the question: Are material objects analyzable into more basic constituents and, if so, what are they? It might appear that this question is more appropriately settled by empirical means as utilized in the natural sciences. For example, we learn from physics and chemistry that water is composed of H2O-molecules and that hydrogen and oxygen atoms themselves are composed of smaller parts, such as protons, which are in (...) turn composed of yet smaller parts, such as quarks, and so on. While the question at the center of this lecture might thus appear to fall more appropriately into the empirical domain of natural science, I argue that metaphysics in fact has an important role to play in determining how best to answer the question before us. More concretely, I propose that the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism, when appropriately interpreted, provides the best metaphysical answer to the question of whether and how material objects are analyzable into more basic constituents. Hylomorphism holds that those entities to which this doctrine applies are, in some sense, compounds of matter (“hylē”) and form (“morphē” or “eidos”). Thus, the title of this lecture, “Form, Matter, Substance”, refers to the claim that lies at the center of the doctrine of hylomorphism, as applied to the domain of material objects, namely that sensible substances are the result of combining matter and form in the right sort of way; or, for short, “form + matter = substance”. I begin in Section II by providing some historical background which brings out Aristotle’s motivations for proposing the doctrine of hylomorphism in the context of his analysis of change. Section III turns to some of the main features of the contemporary hylomorphic theory I have defended especially in Koslicki (2008) and Koslicki (2018). Section IV discusses some challenging questions concerning artifacts which arise for both hylomorphic and other approaches to the metaphysics of concrete particular objects. Section V concludes by summarizing why, as contemporary metaphysicians, we should prefer a hylomorphic theory over its competitors as an analysis of concrete particular objects that is compatible with our current scientific understanding of the world. (shrink)

Some theories of linguistic meaning, such as those of Paul Grice and David Lewis, make appeal to higher–order thoughts: thoughts about thoughts. Because of this, such theories run the risk of being empirically refuted by the existence of speakers who lack, completely or to a high degree, the capacity of thinking about thoughts. Research on autism during the past 15 years provides strong evidence for the existence of such speakers. Some persons with autism have linguistic abilities that qualify them as (...) speakers, but manifest a severely impaired capacity to understand what it is to have beliefs. (shrink)

In _Form, Matter, Substance_, Kathrin Koslicki defends a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects (e.g., living organisms). The Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism holds that those entities that fall under it are compounds of matter (hulē) and form (morphē or eidos). Koslicki argues that a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects is well-equipped to compete with alternative approaches when measured against a wide range of criteria of success. A successful application of the doctrine of hylomorphism to the special case of concrete (...) particular objects, however, hinges on how hylomorphists conceive of the matter composing a concrete particular object, its form, and the hylomorphic relations which hold between a matter-form compound, its matter and its form. Through the detailed answers to these questions Koslicki develops in this book, matter-form compounds, despite their metaphysical complexity, emerge as occupying the privileged ontological status traditionally associated with substances, due in particular to their high degree of unity. (shrink)

After many years of enduring the drought and famine of Quinean ontology and Carnapian meta-ontology, the notion of ground, with its distinctively philosophical flavor, finally promises to give metaphysicians something they can believe in again and around which they can rally: their very own metaphysical explanatory connection which apparently cannot be reduced to, or analyzed in terms of, other familiar idioms such as identity, modality, parthood, supervenience, realization, causation or counterfactual dependence. Often, phenomena such as the following are cited as (...) putative examples of grounding connections: systematic connections between entire realms of facts (mental/physical; moral/natural; etc.); truthmaking (e.g., the relation between the truth of the proposition that snow is white and snow’s being white); logical cases (e.g., the connection between conjunctive facts or disjunctive facts and their constituent facts); the determinate/determinable relation (e.g., the relation between something’s being maroon and its being red). I argue in this paper that classifying all of these phenomena as exhibiting grounding connections does not achieve much in the way of illumination. In fact, by treating a collection of phenomena which is in fact heterogeneous as though it were homogeneous, we have, if anything, taken a dialectical step backward. (shrink)

A large body of research shows that emotionally significant stimuli are better stored in memory. One question that has received much less attention is how emotional memories are influenced by factors that influence memories after the initial encoding of stimuli. Intriguingly, several recent studies suggest that post-encoding factors do not differ in their effects on emotional and neutral memories. However, to date, only detrimental factors have been addressed. In the present study, we examined whether emotionally negative memories are differentially influenced (...) by a well-known beneficial factor: the testing of memories. We employed a standard cued recall testing-effect paradigm where participants studied cue-target pairs for negative and neutral target pictures. In a subsequent post-encoding phase, one third of the cue-target pairs were tested and one third restudied; the remaining third served as control pairs. After one week, memory for all cue-target pairs was tested. While replicating both the testing effect and the emotional enhancement effect, no differences between negative and neutral memories in the benefits received from testing and restudying were observed. Thus, it seems to be true that post-encoding factors do not influence emotional memories in any other way than neutral memories, even when they are beneficial. (shrink)

A significant reorientation is currently under way in analytic metaphysics, away from an almost exclusive focus on questions of existence and towards a greater concentration on questions concerning the dependence of one type of phenomenon on another. Surprisingly, despite the central role dependence has played in philosophy since its inception, interest in a systematic study of this concept has only recently surged among contemporary metaphysicians. In this paper, I focus on a promising account of ontological dependence in terms of a (...) non-modal and sufficiently constrained conception of essence developed by Kit Fine. I argue that even this essentialist account is, as it stands, not fine-grained enough to recognize different varieties of dependence which ought to be distinguished even within the realm of ontology. In some cases, an entity may be ontologically dependent on its essential constituents out of which it is constructed; but in other cases, an entity may be ontologically dependent on another for a different reason. A framework which glosses over these differences does not offer a proper diagnosis of why one entity ontologically depends on another. (shrink)

Hands are notoriously hard to draw. To compellingly capture their detail, proportion, and movement is generally considered a mark of an artist’s mastery of tech.

In cognitive research, metaphors have been shown to help us imagine complex, abstract, or invisible ideas, concepts, or emotions. Contributors to this book argue that metaphors occur not only in language, but in audio visual media well. This is all the more evident in entertainment media, which strategically "sell" their products by addressing their viewers’ immediate, reflexive understanding through pictures, sounds, and language. This volume applies cognitive metaphor theory to film, television, and video games in order to analyze the embodied (...) aesthetics and meanings of those moving images. (shrink)

Rooftop gardens, rooftop greenhouses and indoor farms have been established or planned by activists and private companies in Berlin. These projects promise to produce a range of goods that could have positive impacts on the urban setting but also carry a number of risks and uncertainties. In this early innovation phase, the relevant stakeholders’ perceptions and social acceptance of ZFarming represent important preconditions for success or failure of the further diffusion of this practice. We used the framework of acceptance to (...) investigate the stakeholders’ attitudes and to identify the key factors that might hinder or promote the introduction of ZFarming. The results are based on an analysis of 38 qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders in Berlin. As the results show, major perceived benefits of ZFarming include improved consumer awareness, education, and the creation of experimental spaces. Stakeholders further perceive opportunities for resource savings, new business models, repurposing of abandoned buildings and improved aesthetics. Major perceived risks are associated with growing techniques that are considered “unnatural”, health risks, conflicts with images of traditional agriculture, the rejection of animal production in urban areas, the risk of projects being too expensive and too complex or being implemented too early, i.e. before the mechanisms are fully understood. The analysis further reveals which contextual factors—political, legal, market-related, spatial or societal—might negatively or positively influence ZFarming acceptance. (shrink)

Essences have been assigned important but controversial explanatory roles in philosophical, scientific, and social theorizing. Is it possible for the same organism to be first a caterpillar and then a butterfly? Is it impossible for a human being to transform into an insect like Gregor Samsa does in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis? Is it impossible for Lot’s wife to survive being turned into a pillar of salt? Traditionally, essences (or natures) have been thought to help answer such central questions about (...) existence, identity, persistence, and modality. These questions are not only of great philosophical interest, they also are of great interest to society at large. This Handbook surveys the state of the art on essence. Core issues about essence are discussed in 33 chapters, all of them written exclusively for this volume by leading experts. (shrink)

We design a framework for assisted normative reasoning based on Aristotelian diagrams and algorithmic graph theory which can be employed to address heterogeneous tasks of deductive reasoning. Here we focus on two problems of normative determination: we show that the algorithms used to address these problems are computationally efficient and their operations are traceable by humans. Finally, we discuss an application of our framework to a scenario regulated by the GDPR.

As meaning's claim to normativity has grown increasingly suspect the normativity thesis has shifted to mental content. In this paper, we distinguish two versions of content normativism: 'CE normativism', according to which it is essential to content that certain 'oughts' can be derived from it, and 'CD normativism', according to which content is determined by norms in the first place. We argue that neither type of normativism withstands scrutiny. CE normativism appeals to the fact that there is an essential connection (...) between content and correctness conditions. But, we argue, this fact is by itself normatively innocent, and attempts to add a normative dimension via the normativity of belief ultimately fail. CD normativism, in turn, falls prey to the 'dilemma of regress and idleness': the appeal to rules either leads to some form of regress of rules, or the notion of rule-following is reduced to an idle label. We conclude by suggesting that our arguments do not support naturalism: it is a mistake to assume that normativism and naturalism are our only options. (shrink)

This essay provides an opinionated survey of some recent developments in the literature on ontological dependence. Some of the most popular definitions of ontological dependence are formulated in modal terms; others in non-modal terms (e.g., in terms of the explanatory connective, ‘because’, or in terms of a non-modal conception of essence); some (viz., the existential construals of ontological dependence) emphasise requirements that must be met in order for an entity to exist; others (viz., the essentialist construals) focus on conditions that (...) must be satisfied in order for an entity to be the very entity it is at each time at which it exists; some are rigid, in the sense that they concern a relation between particular entities; others are generic, in the sense that they involve only a relation between an entity and some entities or other, which bear certain characteristics. I identify three potential measures of success with respect to which these different definitions of ontological dependence can be evaluated and consider the question of how well they in fact meet these desiderata. I end by noting that certain challenges face even the most promising essentialist construals of ontological dependence. (shrink)

Whether it is consciously focusing on a painting’s intricate layers of pigment or spontaneously being drawn to new layers of voices in a choral performance, attention appears essential to aesthetic experience. It is surprising, then, that the actual nature of attention is little discussed in aesthetic theory. Conversely, attention is currently one of the most vibrantly discussed topics in the philosophy of perception and in cognitive science. My aim is to demonstrate the need for and the value of aestheticians considering (...) such philosophical accounts in order to establish a clear understanding of ‘aesthetic attention’. I assess the existing aesthetic candidates against Wayne Wu’s characterization of attention as ‘selection for a task’. Finding that these candidates lack full explanatory force, I make the novel proposal that aesthetic attention is best characterized as ‘selecting for the sake of selection’. Finally, I suggest that both aesthetics and, more broadly, the philosophy of attention would benefit from paying aesthetic attention more attention. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 84-95, January 2022. Emotional stimuli such as images, words, or video clips are often used in studies researching emotion. New sets are continuously being published, creating an immense number of available sets and complicating the task for researchers who are looking for suitable stimuli. This paper presents the KAPODI-database of emotional stimuli sets that are freely available or available upon request. Over 45 aspects including over 25 key set characteristics have been extracted and (...) listed for each set. The database facilitates finding of and comparison between individual sets. It currently contains sets published between 1963 and 2020. A searchable online version allows users to select specific set characteristics and to find matching sets accordingly, as well as to add new published sets. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 84-95, January 2022. Emotional stimuli such as images, words, or video clips are often used in studies researching emotion. New sets are continuously being published, creating an immense number of available sets and complicating the task for researchers who are looking for suitable stimuli. This paper presents the KAPODI-database of emotional stimuli sets that are freely available or available upon request. Over 45 aspects including over 25 key set characteristics have been extracted and (...) listed for each set. The database facilitates finding of and comparison between individual sets. It currently contains sets published between 1963 and 2020. A searchable online version allows users to select specific set characteristics and to find matching sets accordingly, as well as to add new published sets. (shrink)

Does the notion of ground, as it has recently been employed by metaphysicians, point to a single unified phenomenon? Jonathan Schaffer holds that the phenomenon of grounding exhibits the unity characteristic of a single genus. In defense of this hypothesis, Schaffer proposes to take seriously the analogy between causation and grounding. More specifically, Schaffer argues that both grounding and causation are best approached through a single formalism, viz., that utilized by structural equation models of causation. In this paper, I present (...) several concerns which suggest that the structural equation model does not transfer as smoothly from the case of causation to the case of grounding as Schaffer would have us believe. If it can in fact be shown that significant differences surface in how the formalism in question applies to the two types of phenomena in question, Schaffer’s attempt at establishing an analogy between grounding and causation has thereby been weakened and, as a result, the application of the Unity Hypothesis to the case of grounding once again stands in need of justification. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans la revue Philosophique, 11 | 2008, 79-96 et mis en ligne ici. Nous remercions Kathrin H. Rosenfield de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire sur RHUTHMOS. On sait qu'Hölderlin s'est délibérément opposé à la « conception régnante par rapport au monde Grec » et au classicisme de Weimar qui voit Sophocle comme le modèle de la mesure rationnelle. Déjà Hellingrath et Beissner ont signalé qu'il accentue « l'enthousiasme excentrique », c'est-à-dire, les - XVIIIe siècle (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Risk assessment studies of herbicide resistant sugarbeet have revealed no risks to human health or the environment.Indeed it appears that commercial growth of this crop mightsecure benefits such as decreased pesticide use and increasedbiodiversity. However, widespread resistance to GM crops such asherbicide resistant sugar beet still persists in Europe. It isargued that this is not just because people do not know therelevant facts. Rather it is because popular resistance to GMfood is driven in part by concerns other than the fear (...) ofnarrowly defined risks to health and the environment. These otherconcerns include an aversion to commercial monopoly and anegative view of pesticide use in general. Herbicide resistantsugar beet may also be perceived as a ``Trojan horse,'''' i.e., acrop whose licensing would create a precedent and make it morelikely that other, less environmentally friendly, crops will beapproved within the current strictly technical and science-basedrisk assessment procedures. To meet these public concerns, a kindof technology assessment reflecting factors such as benefits andconsumer choice is called for. (shrink)

On sait qu’Hölderlin s’est délibérément opposé à la « conception régnante par rapport au monde Grec » (herrschende Griechenauffassung) et au classicisme de Weimar qui voit Sophocle comme le modèle de la mesure rationnelle. Déjà Hellingrath et Beissner ont signalé qu’il accentue « l’enthousiasme excentrique », c’est-à-dire, les tendances déstabilisantes arrachant le héros au centre de la vie proprement humaine. Ceci exige qu’on développe des remarques comme celle de Beissner qui défend l’idée...

_Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change_ critically appraises current animal use in science and discusses ways in which we can contribute to a paradigm change towards human-biology based approaches.

According to some phenomenologists, a tool can be experienced as incorporated when, as a result of habitual use or deliberate practice, someone is able to manipulate it without conscious effort. In this article, we specifically focus on the experience of expertise tool use in elite sport. Based on a case study of elite rope skipping, we argue that the phenomenological concept of incorporation does not suffice to adequately describe how expert tool users feel when interacting with their tools. By analyzing (...) a combination of insights gained from participant observation of 11 elite rope skippers and autoethnographic material from one former elite skipper, we take some initial steps toward the development of a more nuanced understanding of the concept of incorporation; one that is able to accommodate the experiences of expert tool users. In sum, our analyses indicate that the possibility for experiencing a tool as incorporated depends on the existence of an extraordinary kind of relationship between th... (shrink)

It is common to think of essence along modal lines: the essential truths, on this approach, are a subset of the necessary truths. But Aristotle conceives of the necessary truths as being distinct and derivative from the essential truths. Such a non-modal conception of essence also constitutes a central component of the neo-Aristotelian approach to metaphysics defended over the last several decades by Kit Fine. Both Aristotle and Fine rely on a distinction between what belongs to the essence proper of (...) an object and what merely follows from the essence proper of an object. In order for this type of approach to essence and modality to be successful, we must be able to identify an appropriate consequence relation which in fact generates the result that the necessary truths about objects follow from the essential truths. I discuss some proposals put forward by Fine and then turn to Aristotle’s account: Aristotle’s central idea, to trace the explanatory power of definitions to the causal power of essences has the potential to open the door to a philosophically satisfying response to the question of why certain things are relevant, while others are irrelevant, to the nature or essence of entities. If at all possible, it would be desirable for example to have something further to say by way of explanation to such questions as ‘Why is the number 2 completely irrelevant to the nature of camels?’. (shrink)

Em 1910, quatro anos depois de publicar O Jovem Törless, Musil terminou, enfim, sua difícil segunda obra. É um período de incertezas, primeiro porque Musil duvida que suas novelas teriam o sucesso do primeiro romance, segundo, porque se preocupa com sua carreira de escritor. Nesse momento de crise ainda sorrateira, ele começa a anotar ideias sobre as relações da moral com a arte. É um assunto antigo que acompanha a reflexão estética desde Platão e Aristóteles, mas ele recebe na reflexão (...) de Musil um novo horizonte que conecta a moral e a estética com o conhecimento científico. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, students were facing great challenges. Learning was shifted from the classroom to the home of the students. This implied that students had to complete their tasks in a more autonomous way than during regular lessons. As students’ ability to handle such challenges might depend on certain cognitive and motivational prerequisites as well as individual learning conditions, the present study investigates students’ cognitive competencies as well as affective-motivational factors as possible predictors of coping with this new learning (...) situation at home. The study uses data of Starting Cohort 2 of the German National Educational Panel Study. Data of two measurement points are analyzed: Predictors were assessed at the earlier time point, when students mostly attended seventh grade of a secondary school. They completed competence tests in reading as well as mathematics and rated affective-motivational aspects in terms of willingness to exert effort, learning enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation. One and a half years later − during the COVID-19 pandemic and the first period of school closures − the second measurement point took place. Students’ parents rated the situation of learning at home with respect to students’ coping with the new situation and parents’ difficulties to motivate them. Regression analyses controlling for school track, students’ gender, and parents’ educational level and parental stress revealed that students’ reading competencies and their willingness to exert effort were significant predictors of their coping with the new learning situation at home. Moreover, parents reported that boys were more difficult to motivate to learn during this time as compared to girls. Other predictors turned out to be non-significant when entered simultaneously in the regression analyses. The results point to the importance of children’s prerequisites for autonomous learning situations without structuring elements by teachers within the school context. (shrink)

Patient ambivalence is a little studied phenomenon. Therefore, the contribution of Moore et al. (2022) about patient ambivalence in medical decision-making is welcome. Also, the idea that ambivalen...

In this article, we argue that a critical examination of epistemological and anthropological presuppositions might lead to a more fruitful use of theory in clinical-ethical practice. We differentiate between two views of conceptualizing ethics, referring to Charles Taylors' two epistemological models: ‘monological’ versus ‘dialogical consciousness’. We show that the conception of ethics in the model of ‘dialogical consciousness’ is radically different from the classical understanding of ethics in the model of ‘monological consciousness’. To reach accountable moral judgments, ethics cannot be (...) conceptualized as an individual enterprise, but has to be seen as a practical endeavor embedded in social interactions within which moral understandings are being negotiated. This view has specific implications for the nature and the role of ethical theory. Theory is not created in the individual mind of the ethicist; the use of theory is part of a joint learning process and embedded in a cultural context and social history. Theory is based upon practice, and serves practical purposes. Thus, clinical ethics support is both practical and theoretical. (shrink)

Today, many philosophers think that perceptual experiences are conscious mental states with representational content and phenomenal character. Subscribers to this view often go on to construe experience more precisely as a propositional attitude sui generis ascribing sensible properties to ordinary material objects. I argue that experience is better construed as a kind of belief ascribing 'phenomenal' properties to such objects. A belief theory of this kind deals as well with the traditional arguments against doxastic accounts as the sui generis view. (...) Moreover, in contrast to sui generis views, it can quite easily account for the rational or reason providing role of experience. (shrink)

Starting from the famous statement by Deleuze and Guattari in What Is Philosophy? that ‘[i]mmanence can be said to be the burning issue of all philosophy’, this article explores their claim of an ontology of immanence and/as relational ontology in quantum terms. The theme of this special issue allows for a rereading of the terminology of different/ciation, which Deleuze developed in ‘The Method of Dramatization’ and Difference and Repetition, and I here relate it to the question of consistency of the (...) plane of immanence, such as it is emphasised in the later work of Deleuze and Guattari. The article exemplifies the significance that the early issue of ‘dramatization’ as different/ciating passage has on an adequate understanding of both ‘immanence’ and ‘becoming’, and it shows their in/seperability for a relational ontology as onto-ethology. By making the Deleuze-Guattarian immanence resonate with Barad's agential realism, the article zooms in on the specific quality of the ‘passage’ in order to do justice to the claim of a ‘mature’ philosophy that thinks immanence as immanent only to itself. (shrink)

Germany is an interesting case with respect to the governance of reprogenetics. It has a strong profile in the technosciences and high aims regarding the global bioeconomy, yet her regulation of human genetics, reproductive medicine and embryo research has for a long time been rather restrictive. German biopolitical exceptionalism has often been explained by reference to Catholicism and the legacy of the Nazi past. The Germans, so goes the common story, have learnt the lessons of history and translated them into (...) unconditional respect for human dignity, which in turn translates into unconditional protection of human life, including the human embryo, and the firm repudiation of any eugenic distinction between ‘life worth to live’ and ‘life not worth to live’. This, however, is not the whole story. Alongside deontological strictness we find another strand of governing body politics and reprogenetics in Germany, the rule-and-exception model, running from the mid-1970s abortion law via the 2002 Stem Cell Act to the 2011 regulation of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. In contrast to the former, that strongly draws on Kant and his concept of human dignity, the latter bears resemblances to Carl Schmitt's concept of state of exception. The article will show that the rule-and-exception model builds the exception into the rule and transforms the meaning and mandate of ethics, namely from safeguarding ethical standards to deciding about the exception. Given that the exception has now tended to become the rule, the question is whether the lessons of history will govern German reprogenetics for much longer. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, in order to account for the apparently substantive nature of definitional disputes, a commitment to what we call ‘Socratic essentialism’ is needed. We defend Socratic essentialism against a prominent neo-Carnapian challenge according to which apparently substantive definitional disputes always in some way trace back to disagreements over how expressions belonging to a particular language or concepts belonging to a certain conceptual scheme are properly used. Socratic essentialism, we argue, is not threatened by the possibility (...) that some apparently substantive definitional disputes may turn out to be verbal or conceptual, since this pluralist strategy, in our view, requires a commitment to more, rather than fewer, essences. What is more, a deflationary, metaphysically ‘light-weight’ construal of the essence-ascriptions in question leads to a peculiar conception of the pursuit of metaphysicians as behaving like deceptive (or self-deceived) grammarians pretending to be scientists. Moreover, this deflationary attitude, we argue, spreads beyond metaphysics and philosophy more broadly to apparently substantive definitional disputes in the sciences as well as other in other disciplines, such as art criticism. (shrink)

Social phenomena—quite like mental states in the philosophy of mind—are often regarded as potential troublemakers from the start, particularly if they are approached with certain explanatory commitments, such as naturalism or social individualism, already in place. In this paper, we argue that such explanatory constraints should be at least initially bracketed if we are to arrive at an adequate non-biased description of social phenomena. Legitimate explanatory projects, or so we maintain, such as those of making the social world fit within (...) the natural world with the help of, e.g., collective intentionality, social individualism, and the like, should neither exclude nor influence the prior description of social phenomena. Just as we need a description of the mental that is not biased, for example, by (anti)physicalist constraints, we need a description of the social that is not biased, for example, by (anti)individualist or (anti)naturalist commitments. Descriptive social ontology, as we shall conceive of it, is not incompatible with the adoption of explanatory frameworks in social ontology; rather, the descriptive task, according to our conception, ought to be recognized as prior to the explanatory project in the order of inquiry. If social phenomena are, for example, to be reduced to nonsocial (e.g., psychological or physical) phenomena, we need first to understand clearly what the social candidates for the reduction in question are. While such descriptive or naive approaches have been influential in general metaphysics (see Fine 2017), they have so far not been prominent in analytic social ontology (though things are different outside of analytic philosophy, see esp. Reinach (1913). In what follows, we shall outline the contours of a descriptive approach by arguing, first, that description and explanation need to be distinguished as two distinct ways of engaging with social phenomena. Secondly, we defend the claim that the descriptive project ought to be regarded as prior to the explanatory project in the order of inquiry. We begin, in Section 2, by considering two different ways of engaging with mental phenomena: a descriptive approach taken by descriptive psychology and an explanatory approach utilized in analytic philosophy of mind. We take these two ways of approaching the study of the mind to be analogous to the distinction we want to draw in social ontology between a descriptive and an explanatory approach to the study of social phenomena. We consider next, in Section 3, how our approach compares to neighboring perspectives that are familiar to us from general metaphysics and philosophy more broadly, such as Aristotle’s emphasis on “saving the appearances”, Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, as well as Fine’s contrast between na¨ive and foundational metaphysics. In Section 4, we apply the proposed descriptive/explanatory distinction to the domain of social ontology and argue that descriptive social ontology ought to take precedence in the order of inquiry over explanatory social ontology. Finally, in Section 5, we consider and respond to several objections to which our account might seem to be susceptible. (shrink)