The article is devoted to the study of philosophizing as questioning. It is substantiated that in terms of content, it is, firstly, an ideological questioning about the world and the place of human in it; secondly, conceptual questioning, which is realized in a developed philosophical theory; thirdly, metaphysical questioning, the purpose of which is the knowledge of being as such; fourth, transcending questioning, expanding and complicating the spheres of knowledge and practice; fifth, projective questioning aimed at creating and (...) implementing possible models of a person; sixth, personal questioning, which forms the consciousness of a particular individual. Various types of philosophizing in ancient, medieval, modern European and modern thought are analyzed. It is emphasized that the definition of the main issue of philosophy as the question of the relationship of thinking to being, spirit to nature makes sense only within the framework of classical thought. In post-non-classical philosophy, interrogation is carried out within disparate semantic "clusters", through which it is impossible to comprehend the being as such, to cognize the world whole. (shrink)

David DeGrazia1 offers, to my mind, a decisive response to the bioconservative suggestion that moral bioenhancement threatens human freedom or undermines its value. In this brief commentary, I take issue with DeGrazia's way of defining MB. A different concept of MB exposes a danger missed by his analysis.Two ways to define MBDeGrazia presents MB as a form of enhancement directed at moral capacities. There are, in the philosophical literature, two broad approaches to defining human enhancement. Simplifying somewhat, one account identifies (...) enhancement with improvement. DeGrazia joins other advocates of MB in preferring this type of account, defining a human enhancement as ‘any deliberate intervention that aims to improve an existing capacity, select for a desired capacity, or create a new capacity in a human being.’1An alternative approach relativises enhancement to human norms.2 ,3 In this view, improvements up to levels of functioning properly considered normal for humans are therapy, not enhancement. Improvements beyond those levels are enhancements. The injection of synthetic erythropoietin by someone suffering from anaemia is therapy. When healthy Tour de France competitors inject EPO, it is enhancement.We can minimise philosophical disputes about word meanings by endorsing a conceptual pluralism that acknowledges the need for more than one concept of human enhancement to address the hugely varied ways in which technology may alter humans. In the debate about biomedical moral improvements there would be enhancement as improvement and enhancement beyond human norms.DeGrazia effectively deploys the concept of enhancement as improvement to …. (shrink)

In this paper, I present my solutions to two closely related questions about pleasure. One of these questions is fairly well known. The second question seems to me to be at least as interesting as the first, but it apparently hasn't interested quite so many philosophers.

This article engages Friendship: A Central Moral Value by Michael H. Mitias. It questions Mitias’ distinction between friendship as a moral and theoretical concern as opposed to a practical one. It distinguishes the narrow from the wide meanings of philia in Aristotle’s approach. It looks at the resonances of classical approaches in later theories of friendship, while also attending to the innovations of later thinkers. It suggests that the moral paradigms Mitias delineates might not be as hegemonic nor as hermetically (...) sealed as he suggests. Mitias’ contribution is better understood as an addition to moral philosophy than to friendship studies. (shrink)

The ways human behavior is conceptualized need to be refined. Major stumbling blocks have been the reification of verbal descriptions of behavior and the construction of ill-defined clusters of dissimilar problems. The effect of behavior-modifying drugs can be completely dependent on situational details. Behavior is a complex product of many interacting factors and cannot be rigorously predictable as the same behavior may be arrived at in different ways. Thus similar-looking behaviors can be functionally different and conversely different-looking behaviors can be (...) functionally identical. More answerable questions about behavior need to be formulated. (shrink)

The Crimea Conference is by all means an extremely complex historical event. Any attempt to estimate its role and significance without analyzing its ethical components would unavoidably result in unduly simplifying the historical reality of the time, as well as in forming erroneous assumptions that would necessarily be used in the analysis of the causes of Cold War. A thorough examination will show that as far as the ‘ethical’ issues are concerned, there are significant developments with regard to general methodology, (...) as well as its application to the sources. Generations of historians who have addressed the issue of Yalta Conference, although they have not been able to form a scientific, distinct ‘ethical’ tradition so far, have developed all the necessary prerequisites for its establishment. This is evident in the possibility of segmenting the issue in two parts on the one hand, and on the other in the availability of sufficient sources, structured databases, and selected outstanding works. Still, there are no studies about the Yalta Conference so far that address exclusively ethical issues concerning ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ ‘morality,’ ‘duty,’ and ‘honor.’ Although historiographical approaches are to a large extent dependent upon ethical viewpoints, in the case of Yalta agreements so far there have been no techniques available, so as to connect historical accounts with ideology, and historical facts with their philosophical background. In a sense, the situation is quite the same as it is with the study of prehistory: although there is an abundance of data and facts that can be primarily processed, there are no methodological guidelines, nor any devices to classify and explain them. This is also typical for any question raised about the ethics of the Yalta agreements in February 1945. (shrink)

So far as Anglophone academic study is concerned, interest in the idea of virtue as a central concept in ethical theory only dates from the late 1950s beginning with Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” but getting its first specific discussion in Georg Von Wright’s 1963 book The Varieties of Goodness in which he writes: “Virtue is a neglected topic in modern ethics”. As the present essay shows, these words became a common refrain through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The rise (...) to prominence of ideas of virtue in philosophy and then in educational theory and in psychology, as well as in schemes for establishing good practice in various fields of professional and public life raises questions about how a focus on virtue relates to other ways of evaluating agents and actions, and of how virtue itself may be identified and assessed. (shrink)

Hume's essay on the credibility of miracle reports has always been controversial, with much debate over how it should be interpreted, let alone assessed. My aim here is to summarise what I take to be the most plausible views on these issues, both interpretative and philosophical, with references to facilitate deeper investigation if desired. The paper is divided into small sections, each headed by a question that provides a focus. Broadly speaking, §§1–3 and §20 are on Hume's general philosophical (...) framework within which the essay is situated, §§4–11 and §19 are on Part 1, §12–18 are on Part 2, and the final three sections §§18–20 sum up my assessment of his arguments. (shrink)

Patients and physicians have confronted many ethical dilemmas in Japan and more complete medical ethics education should be developed to cope with them. We have to be cautious, however, when adopting ethical guidelines and decision-making priorities utilized in Western countries and expert ethicists' opinions without critical deliberation. Accepting them as absolute norms would fail to resolve ethical problems deeply rooted in the idiosyncratic Japanese human relationship and value system. Traditional ethical attitudes in Japan should be also criticized because they have (...) apparently failed to deal with present ethically difficult situations.We have to, therefore, start our consideration regarding appropriate medical ethics education by asking the following questions: What is an ethical problem in Japan, what kind of decision-making process should be used, and what is ethically right in this country? We would obtain valid answers only through recognition of present situation in this regard. (shrink)

SummaryDo we need to recognize distinctive forms of reasoning about what should be done that are not reducible to deductive or inductive forms? A canonical form for such deliberative reasoning is proposed, in which the conclusion is a “praxigenic dictum” . It is argued that a deliberative argument has a kernel that can be viewed as the proposed solution to a specified problem or task. In evaluating such a solution no distinctively “practical” principles seem to be needed.

Claims about ‘the meaning of life’ have tended to be made and discussed in conjunction with bold metaphysical and theological affirmations. For life to have meaning, there must be a comprehensive divine plan to give it meaning, or there must be an intelligible cosmic process with a ‘telos’ that a man needs to know if his life is to be meaningfully orientated. Or, it is thought to be a condition of the meaningfulness of life, that values should be ultimately (...) ‘conserved’ in some way, that no evil should be unredeemable and irrational. And it may be claimed that if death were to end our experience, meaninglessness would triumph. (shrink)

The history of Slovak philosophy can be reconstructed along two basic lines: along the line of the school philosophy, developed at existing high schools, colleges and universities, as well as along the other line - that of philosophical thinking. The researches should focus not only on professional philosophy, but also on the forms of applied philosophical thinking as a part of the community's culture. The standpoint of the researches should be non-ideological, non-national, non-ethnical. "The Slovak philosophy" is related to all (...) philosophical expressions, historically present in Slovak region or in Slovak culture. This option as an alternative to previous paradigmatic scheme, used by Marxist historiography. It represents a methodological issue par excellence, demanding a special attention and also theoretical and methodological selfreflection of the historians of philosophy. (shrink)

The tremendous philosophical focus on how to characterize explanatory metaphysical dependence has eclipsed a number of other unresolved issued about scientific explanation. The purpose of this paper is taxonomical. I will outline a number of other questions about the nature of explanation and its role in science—eight, to be precise—and argue that each is independent. All of these topics have received some philosophical attention, but none nearly so much as it deserves. Furthermore, existing views on these topics have (...) been obscured by not distinguishing among these independent questions and, especially, by not separating them from the question of what metaphysical dependence relation is explanatory. Philosophical analysis of scientific explanation would be much improved by attending more carefully to these, and probably still other, elements of an account of explanation. (shrink)

Semantics plays a role in grammar in at least three guises. (A) Linguists seek to account for speakers‘ knowledge of what linguistic expressions mean. This goal is typically achieved by assigning a model theoretic interpretation in a compositional fashion. For example, *No whale flies* is true if and only if the intersection of the sets of whales and fliers is empty in the model. (B) Linguists seek to account for the ability of speakers to make various inferences based on semantic (...) knowledge. For example, *No whale flies* entails *No blue whale flies* and *No whale flies high*. (C) The wellformedness of a variety of syntactic constructions depends on morpho-syntactic features with a semantic flavor. For example, *Under no circumstances would a whale fly* is grammatical, whereas *Under some circumstances would a whale fly* is not, corresponding to the downward vs. upward monotonic features of the preposed phrases. It is usually assumed that once a compositional model theoretic interpretation is assigned to all expressions, its fruits can be freely enjoyed by inferencing and syntax. What place might proof theory have in this picture? (shrink)

It is hard not to sympathise with Professor Honderich's starting point. It is easy to feel pessimistic about philosophy's ability to throw light on the nature of consciousness. What, then, to do? One option is to persist with the various current approaches. It is clear that Honderich thinks this would be akin to putting more effort into trying to work out the temporal priority of the chicken and the egg. The thought of the orthodox is that an account of (...) consciousness is going to be either fundamentally materialist or fundamentally dualist. The first of these is untenable as consciousness has other or more than neural properties. The second is untenable for various reasons, Honderich's favoured one being that it renders consciousness as out of space and of a mysterious nature. A second option would be to follow Colin McGinn's lead, and think that the problem is of such a nature that it is necessarily unsolvable (McGinn, 1989). Alternatively, we should be more radical and think creatively, not necessarily respecting our current conceptual boundaries between the mental and the physical, the inside and the outside. The solution, Honderich says, lies in the thought that `my consciousness now consists in the existence of a world' (Honderich, 2004, p. 130). I shall say a little about what I understand by this claim, by raising what I take to be three obvious questions, looking at Honderich's answers them, and inviting some further clarification. Throughout I will address only the question of perceptual consciousness. (shrink)

Following the formulation of the Identity Theory by Place and Smart a few years ago, there was considerable discussion of subjective mental states and of the importance of first-person reports of mental events. One concern was that the logical status of first-person claims might commit us to belief in irreducible mental phenomena referred to by such propositions. If so the Identity Theory would be false. Kurt Baier went so far as to argue that the incorrigibility of propositions such as “I (...) have a pain” demonstrates that Smart's identification of sensations with brain states and processes is untenable. While there is no point to reintroducing historical discussions it is worth remarking because a more general problem is reflected in this kind of debate. This is the problem of how we expect our ordinary intuitions and ways of talking about something to affect our theoretical view of it or vice versa. In this particular instance it manifests itself as the question of the extent to which a theory of persons is to be dictated to or decided by the common and generally accepted intuitions embedded in our psychological language. (shrink)

One approach to understanding how the human cognitive system stores and operates with quantifiers such as “some,” “many,” and “all” is to investigate their interaction with the cognitive mechanisms for estimating and comparing quantities from perceptual input (i.e., nonsymbolic quantities). While a potential link between quantifier processing and nonsymbolic quantity processing has been considered in the past, it has never been discussed extensively. Simultaneously, there is a long line of research within the field of numerical cognition on the relationship between (...) processing exact number symbols (such as “3” or “three”) and nonsymbolic quantity. This accumulated knowledge can potentially be harvested for research on quantifiers since quantifiers and number symbols are two different ways of referring to quantity information symbolically. The goal of the present review is to survey the research on the relationship between quantifiers and nonsymbolic quantity processing mechanisms and provide a set of research directions and specific questions for the investigation of quantifier processing. (shrink)

Treating species as individuals and not classes has been crucial to the integration of evolutionary theory with modern systematics. Despite the theoretically important role the concept of individuality plays in modern phylogenetic systematics and in evolutionary theory more generally, many have been content to rely on common-sense intuitions about what counts as an individual. One of the most often cited intuitions is that individuals should be defined intrinsically. Unfortunately, common-sense intuitions like this one have proven to be inadequate for (...) identifying and characterizing historical individuals (like species). An examination of real-world biological examples shows that our common-sense intuitions are equally inadequate when applied to at least some biological organisms--the paradigm individuals. (shrink)

This article explores three philosophical issues regarding the concept of violence. First, violence is not just an act, it is also an experience. The study of violence should not focus exclusively on understanding actions that cause harm. Instead, a more phenomenological approach is required, one that prioritizes the experience of violence, especially those of victims and survivors of violence. Second, it is necessary to distinguish between “unwanted” and “unconsented” violence. Third, the definition of violence as violation of integrity or wholeness (...) will come into scrutiny. In particular, to what extent does integrity as intactness apply to human beings, and if violence is defined in terms of breaking something intact, can violence be done to something that is already broken? (shrink)

Frequently Asked Questions about Time This supplement provides background information about many of the topics discussed in both the main Time article and its companion article What Else Science Requires of Time. It is not intended that this article be read in order by section number. Table of Contents What Are Durations, Instants, Moments, and … Continue reading Frequently Asked Questions about Time →.

Open peer commentary on the article “Ethics: A Radical-constructivist Approach” by Andreas Quale. Upshot: Radical constructivism views ethics as an individual responsibility. What are the limits of that responsibility? I pose some questions but do not accept the responsibility to answer them. Radical constructivism may be neutral but it need not be indifferent. An ethically neutral constructivism need not construct an ethically neutral constructivist.

There is a move towards more use of engagement strategies in responsible investment. This change in strategies is motivated by a number of claims about the effectiveness of engagement versus exclusion of companies from the investment universe. This paper examines the basis for three central claims: That engagement, in contrast to exclusion, does not reduce the investment universe; That exclusion reduces an investor's influence on a company; and That engagement with exclusion is necessarily a more effective means of influencing (...) companies than pure exclusion. All three claims are argued to be open to challenge. It is possible that the move towards more engagement reflects bureaucratic incentives and political considerations among institutional investors, rather than arguments about the effectiveness and efficiency of engagement. (shrink)

It would seem obvious to assume that nothing enters our consciousness that does not have a `meaning'. Feelings, customs, prescriptions, gestures — all these are involuntarily interpreted and valued in function of various historical, social and cultural conceptions and circumstances. This is why philosophical considerations about justice, ethics and rights nowadays are linked with the concrete `meaning' of goods, customs, institutions and persons. Walzer is no exception when he situates his moral and political reflections in the `meaning' that goods, (...) customs and institutions have in a particular culture at a particular time.Though the importance of meaning is seldom overlooked, this does not prevent there from being opposed theories about it. Two of the current theories about how meaning is created give rise to quite divergent views about what founds ethics. Because I am curious about which of the currents Walzer would subscribe to, I will briefly sketch both of them.In contemporary philosophy we see, on the one hand, those who assume that the meaning of a person or a thing is the result of an interpretation based on reference narratives, ideologies, novels, articles of faith, cultural patterns of expectation, scientific models, and other sorts of interpretative frameworks. Alongside their attention to linguistic expressions and narratives, and contextual, historical circumstances, these thinkers also take into account something which, in their opinion, escapes reference, something that appears more in a negative than a positive experience. On this view, it is assumed, when speaking for example about human rights, that although there exist various cultural modes of interpretation, phenomena such as `human dignity' refer in one way or another to something that various cultures aim at. In every culture, the infringement of this underlying principle gives rise to some form of outrage which is expressed in an original way within the particular cultural context.Others claim that customs, narratives, practices, etc., cannot be considered as media that make meanings `interpretable' and communicable, but rather they should be seen as signs that establish meaning by virtue of their relationship with each other. Sometimes the structuralists who defend this notion are accused of giving the impression that we are all wanderers in a Kafkaesque dictionary labyrinth, moving from one entry to another without ever seeing the light of day. The critics say that language and signs play an important role, but ultimately reality consists of concrete people, concrete landscapes with houses, trees and roads, populated by plants, animals and various sorts of objects. (shrink)

The article deals with philosophical questions on the “art of living” in philosophy in recent decades. It provides an overview of the conceptions that continue to resonate in philosophy, covering the basic approach to conceptions of the “art of living” found in the work of theorists such as P. Hadot, J. Kekes, A. Nehamas, Z. Bauman, A. MacIntyre, R. Veenhoven, W. Schmid, and J. Dohmen.The basic framework of the “art of living” can, we believe, be imagined as a square, where (...) each side represents an essential component : 1. value system; 2. integrity of life; 3. meaning of life; 4. authenticity of life. The art of living therefore presupposes that there is a value system the individual can use as a navigational guide and to make decisions in the world. It also presupposes an ability to integrate one’s life within a meaningful whole and to seek out and find the meaning of one’s life. Finally the art of living depends on the ability to lead an authentic life. (shrink)

Foundations of theology -- Can theology be made simple? -- Why is the Bible important? -- Is faith reasonable? -- Can expressions of faith change? -- Questions about God -- Why is God called God? -- If God made the world, who made God? -- Did God really make the world in seven days? -- So where is God? -- If God is almighty, why is there so much suffering? -- Does God have a plan for me? -- Can (...) we prove the existence of God? -- What is the difference between Jesus and God? -- How can God be one and three? Who is the Holy Spirit? -- Is God the same in all religions? Why is our God the true God? -- Is God the same as nature? -- Why doesn't God answer my prayers? -- Does god like being god? -- Where to from here? (shrink)

A connection between things and properties is required to hold things and properties together. Exemplification is such a connection. Exemplification is usually considered primitive, and therefore analysis of exemplification is nearly absent from the literature. I maintain that exemplification might not be primitive; and in giving a description of exemplification, I point out a new problem having to do with the issue of how things are tied to properties.

Barbour’s interpretation of Mach’s principle led him to postulate that gravity should be formulated as a dynamical theory of spatial conformal geometry, or in his terminology, “shapes.” Recently, it was shown that the dynamics of General Relativity can indeed be formulated as the dynamics of shapes. This new Shape Dynamics theory, unlike earlier proposals by Barbour and his collaborators, implements local spatial conformal invariance as a gauge symmetry that replaces refoliation invariance in General Relativity. It is the purpose of this (...) paper to answer frequent questions about (new) Shape Dynamics, such as its relation to Poincaré invariance, General Relativity, Constant Mean (extrinsic) Curvature gauge, earlier Shape Dynamics, and finally the conformal approach to the initial value problem of General Relativity. Some of these relations can be clarified by considering a simple model: free electrodynamics and its dual shift symmetric formulation. This model also serves as an example where symmetry trading is used for usual gauge theories. (shrink)

First let's see what a paradox is. Broadly speaking, there are two opinions. One is lax; it is common among non-philosophers, but occasionally comes up in philosophy as well. According to the lax view, a paradox (or the paradoxical – there is a distinction, but I will not make it here) can be anything perplexing, unusual, unexpected, or ironic. The strict view closely connects paradoxes to the idea of a contradiction. Mark Sainsbury in PARADOXES defines it thus: “an apparently unacceptable (...) conclusion derived by apparently acceptable reasoning from apparently acceptable premises” (1996:1). (shrink)

Section 1 briefly examines three theories of indicative conditionals. The Suppositional Theory is defended, and shown to be incompatible with understanding conditionals in terms of truth conditions. Section 2 discusses the psychological evidence about conditionals reported by Over and Evans (this volume). Section 3 discusses the syntactic grounds offered by Haegeman (this volume) for distinguishing two sorts of conditional.

This article is an evaluation of Le Poidevin’s use of Carnap ’s stance on ontology within the philosophy of religion. Le Poidevin claims that 1) theists need to take God to be a putative entity within space-time in order for their claim that God exists to be meaningful, and that 2) instrumentalism about theology is viable. I argue that although Le Poidevin’s response to Carnap ’s argument is no less problematic than that argument itself, his position is in fact (...) thoroughly un-Carnapian. The upshot is that his discussion provides some support to atheism, but none to either of his two official conclusions. (shrink)

Sister chromatid separation in anaphase is an important event in the cell's transmission of genetic information to a descendent. It has been investigated from different aspects: cell cycle regulation, spindle and chromosome dynamics within the three‐dimensional cell architecture, transmission fidelity control and cellular signaling. Integrated studies directed toward unified understanding are possible using multidisciplinary methods with model organisms. Ubiquitin‐dependent proteolysis, protein dephosphorylation, an unknown function by the TPR repeat proteins, chromosome transport by microtubule‐based motors and DNA topological change by DNA (...) topoisomerase II are all necessary for progression from metaphase to anaphase. Chromosome condensation, mitotic kinetochore function and spindle formation require a large number of proteins, which are prerequisites for successful sister chromatid separation. Factors that help to retain sister chromatid connection after replication and prevent premature separation remain to be determined. Although sister chromatid separation occurs in anaphase, gene functions in other cell cycle stages also ensure the progression of correct chromatid separation. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] don’t like sports, but it is a sports metaphor that comes to mind: if my team were out of the playoffs, I’d be rooting for Cameron. Unlike Cameron, I think that The Block Universe Theory of Time is true, but like Cameron I’ve argued that the best alternative, the theory it should be squaring off against in the (...) World Series of The Philosophy of Time, is The Moving Spotlight Theory. I came to Cameron’s book, therefore, curious about how his argument for this claim was going to go.1...Parts of the book really opened my eyes. I’m thinking especially of Cameron’s discussion of the argument that the presentist can, while the moving spotlight theorist cannot, accept the claim that they know that they are... (shrink)

Following the formulation of the Identity Theory by Place and Smart a few years ago, there was considerable discussion of subjective mental states and of the importance of first-person reports of mental events. One concern was that the logical status of first-person claims might commit us to belief in irreducible mental phenomena referred to by such propositions. If so the Identity Theory would be false. Kurt Baier went so far as to argue that the incorrigibility of propositions such as “I (...) have a pain” demonstrates that Smart's identification of sensations with brain states and processes is untenable. While there is no point to reintroducing historical discussions it is worth remarking because a more general problem is reflected in this kind of debate. This is the problem of how we expect our ordinary intuitions and ways of talking about something to affect our theoretical view of it or vice versa. In this particular instance it manifests itself as the question of the extent to which a theory of persons is to be dictated to or decided by the common and generally accepted intuitions embedded in our psychological language. (shrink)

Can a society be just if it ignores the plight of other societies? Does it matter whether those societies are contemporaries? Moral “purists” are likely to assume that the answer to these questions must be “no.” Relying on familiar claims about impartiality or universalizability, the purist is likely to assert that the dictates of justice have no bounds, that they extend with equal strength across space and time. On this view, if, for example, justice requires us to maximize the (...) expectations of the worst-off group in our society, it also requires us to maximize the expectations of the worst-off group in any society, at any time, so far as it is in our power to do so. Is such a position plausible? Is it more plausible than alternative positions? I am unsure about the answers to these questions, but both the questions, and the answers, are important. Clearly, the nature and extent of a just society's obligations will vary markedly depending on the scope of the correct principles of justice. (shrink)

IN THE FOREWORD of Zur Seinsfrage Heidegger distinguishes two questions of being. One he speaks of in the form of the participle, die Frage nach dem Seiendem als Seiendem, the question about being as being. This he identifies with the tradition of metaphysics which he repudiates as forgetful of the real question of being. "The answering of this question," he adds, "refers at the same time to an interpretation of be [des Seins] (...) which remains in what is unasked [im Fraglosen] and provides the ground and the basis for metaphysics." What is unasked in this first question of metaphysics has to be thought of as a second question which is spoken of in the form of the infinitive: die Frage nach dem Sein als Sein, the question about be as be. This is the question which Heidegger tried to raise at the beginning of Sein und Zeit and which remains for him as the task of thinking at the end of philosophy. It is a question which Heidegger was ultimately unable to answer but which he was also unable to put to rest. It is a question in which we are still floundering, caught up in what remains for us the question of metaphysics. It is time perhaps to see if the question has been rightly framed. (shrink)

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Freedman’s paper on “Akratic Believing.” Often, philosophy of psychiatry offers insights to clarify psychological and psychiatric concepts. Less frequently, it involves a real dialogue between philosophy and psychological science. Dr. Freedman’s account of what is bothersome, rather than just philosophically wrong-headed, about the concept of epistemic akrasia demonstrates that, at least where anxiety is concerned, the a posteriori world may have a great deal to offer theoretical philosophy. Freedman argues that understanding somatic responses to trauma, (...) or more broadly construed, to anxiety, dissolves the problem of why there seems to be more to the problem of epistemic... (shrink)

From its earliest beginnings, the women’s movement has evolved into a complex enterprise combining social, political, economic and academic organizations around the globe. The move into the academic scene (women’s studies, gender studies, etc.), in the past forty or so years, has given rise to debate about the purpose of feminism: what is feminism’s raison d’etre ? Should feminism primarily be an advocate for political and social change, as it was in its early days, or should it focus on (...) theoretical questions about women and their place in the world? The debate asks about method: what is the best way forward? How should we proceed? In response, my article explores Bernard Lonergan’s idea of Functional Specialization as a method that offers the potential to unify the global enterprise of feminism with the concrete and practical intent of improving women’s rights around the globe. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s account of proper basicality, which suggests a “broad foundationalism,” raises nagging questions. A first such question is how a disposition to accept certain beliefs as properly basic could contribute to their being so. A second is whether broadfoundationalists can really make headway in identifying the criteria of proper basicality by using, as Plantinga suggests, an inductive approach. A third is whether members of the set of statements that give criteria for proper basicality are (a) themselves properly (...) basic and (b) necessary or only contingent truths. I argue that each of these questions has a satisfactory answer, although at Ieast one inductive approach to detennining proper basicality fails. (shrink)

Rationality requires that our mental attitudes exhibit specific patterns of coherence. Do we have reason to comply? 'Prichardian Quietists' regard this question as fundamentally confused: the only reasons to comply with rational requirements are the ones given by the requirements themselves. In this paper, I argue that PQ fails. I proceed by granting that Prichard's own position, from which PQ draws inspiration, is defensible, while identifying three serious problems with the parallel position about rationality. First, as I argue, (...) PQ is not plausibly combined with either the narrow-scope or the wide-scope formulations of rational requirements. Second, PQ implies that the reasons to comply with rational requirements are reasons of the wrong kind. And finally, PQ lacks a crucial component of its explanation, viz. a plausible theory of what constitutes being rationally required to V. (shrink)

Stimulant drugs, transcranial magnetic stimulation, brain-computer interfaces, and even genetic modifications are all discussed as forms of potential cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancement can be conceived as a benefit-seeking strategy used by healthy individuals to enhance cognitive abilities such as learning, memory, attention, or vigilance. This phenomenon is hotly debated in the public, professional, and scientific literature. Many of the statements favoring cognitive enhancement (e.g., related to greater productivity and autonomy) or opposing it (e.g., related to health-risks and social expectations) rely (...) on claims about human welfare and human flourishing. But with real-world evidence from the social and psychological sciences often missing to support (or invalidate) these claims, the debate about cognitive enhancement is stalled. In this paper, we describe a set of crucial debated questions about psychological and social aspects of cognitive enhancement (e.g., intrinsic motivation, well-being) and explain why they are of fundamental importance to address in the cognitive enhancement debate and in future research. We propose studies targeting social and psychological outcomes associated with cognitive enhancers (e.g., stigmatization, burnout, mental well-being, work motivation). We also voice a call for scientific evidence, inclusive of but not limited to biological health outcomes, to thoroughly assess the impact of enhancement. This evidence is needed to engage in empirically informed policymaking, as well as to promote the mental and physical health of users and non-users of enhancement. (shrink)

Why does Hume think that the "distinct existence" of sensible objects implies their "continu'd existence"? Does Hume have any reason for thinking that objects have an intermittent existence, other than that they lack a "distinct" existence? Why does Hume think that the inference from the "coherence" of our impressions to the continued existence of objects is "at bottom" considerably different from causal reasoning? The answers proposed are, respectively, that perceptually delimited objects would for Hume be causally dependent on being (...) perceived; that Hume's collapse of the object/perception distinction leads him to the view that objects have as "gappy" an existence as our perceptions of them, and that cases of coherence falsify the generalizations that would need to hold for inferences from coherence to qualify as causal reasoning. (shrink)

Three reservations about Keller & Miller's (K&M's) argument are explored: Serious validity problems afflict epidemiological criteria discriminating disorders from non-disorders, so high rates may be misleading. Normal variation need not be mild disorder, contrary to a possible interpretation of K&M's article. And, rather than mutation-selection balance, true disorders may result from unselected combinations of normal variants over many loci. (Published Online November 9 2006).

This chapter for our edited volume (Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology) provides background material on what we consider to be several of the fundamental questions about character, such as whether character traits exist, what their makeup is, and how they can be improved.

About 540 million years ago, a rapid radiation of animal phyla radically changed the Earth’s biota in a geological eye-blink. What caused this “Cambrian explosion”? Over the years, paleontologists have pointed to a wide array of different physical mechanisms as the causal “trigger” for the explosion. More recently, some paleontologists have proposed complex causal pathways to which multiple physical mechanisms are said to have contributed. Despite their variety, these answers share an assumption that a single explanation can in principle (...) be constructed that identifies some factor or confluence of factors as the cause of the Cambrian explosion. That assumption is unjustifiable. The Cambrian explosion had multiple causes, and different aspects of the event are best explained by different causes. These different causes cannot, even in principle, be integrated into a single causal explanation. We can learn much about the causes of the Cambrian explosiondor for that matter about any historical eventdbut only by attending more carefully to how we frame our causal questions about the past. (shrink)

A pioneer work in comparative philosophy, this book approaches the question of being through a range of traditions: the Greek, the Christian, the post-Nietzschean European, the Hindu, and the Buddhist. _The Question of Being_ therefore is both a fresh, cross-cultural approach to a vital issue and also an example of comparative philosophy in action. The editor's introduction clarifies historically the concept of comparative philosophy from A. du Perron's journey to Persia in the late 18th century to the (...) work of such modern thinkers as Deussen, Jung, and Aurobindo. Chapters by Owens and Kahn are concerned with the questions of being in Greek philosophy; Gadamer, Adamczewski, and Scharff relate Heidegger's though variously to Plato and the Greeks, the Upanishads, and the question of being. From the Eastern perspective: Halbfass examines the Indian realist school of Vaisesika with reference to Aristotle; Arapura writes of Advaita Vedanta thought of sat and brahman; Sprung discusses the importance of the Buddhist middle way in relation to the question of being and Mohanty contrasts Vedanta, Nyaya, and Buddhist theories about being. Each chapter is historical and yet not merely so: the pervasive theme ensures treatment of the historical material in a contemporary philosophical context. Ultimately this book demonstrates that all philosophical problems reach beyond the bounds of any one tradition, being essentially human. Every chapter contains a carefully selected bibliography. (shrink)

I experienced the 2016 Presidential election as a loss of innocence. For the first time in my life, the prospect of losing my most basic rights and freedoms did not feel so remote. Confronting this possibility prompted the musings in this article. I call them ‘musings’ because the article is not a systematic defense of a clearly demarcated position. It is, rather, a somewhat circuitous exploration of the many questions that pressed themselves upon me as I struggled to understand what (...) distinguishes reasonable accommodations to injustice from morally unacceptable accommodations. When is a commitment not really a commitment? When does reasonable fear become shameful cowardice? When does my knowledge that I can do something to resist injustice give me good enough reason to resist? Under what conditions is my reason an enemy of my ideals? What is the proper balance between valuing myself beyond price and appreciating that many, many things matter far more than my own life and security? In grappling with these questions, I have been reminded of the extent to which moral discernment does not involve applying a ‘philosophy’ and the extent to which it cannot be secured by prior training. (shrink)

EVERYONE IS INVOLVED in the question of being in one way or another. When we ask someone how to change the oil in an automobile, or what the diameter of the moon is, or how numbers are different from numerals, we are asking about being. Such interrogations, whether addressed to others or addressed by ourselves to ourselves, are particular questions about beings. But when as metaphysicians we raise the question of being, we do (...) not pursue just one more of these particular investigations. We ask a question that is somehow essentially singular, a question that cannot be made into many. If our question were to become plural, it would be a sign that we have cut off only part of being for our study and that we allow still other questions of being to be raised concerning the parts we have left out. It would be a sign that we have turned being into a genus, into one kind among many. Somehow the question of being has to be complete and comprehensive in itself; it has to be one question; and it must get at issues that enable all the particular questions to arise and to be answered. It is not that the question of being has nothing to do with questions about automobile oil and the diameter of the moon and numbers and numerals; the question of being can be recognized in all these particular questions, but it cannot be reduced to being one like them. (shrink)

We give a short, critical review of the issue of decoherence. We estab- lish the most general framework in which decoherence can be discussed, how it can be quantified and how it can be measured. We focus on environment induced decoher- ence and its degree of usefulness for the interpretation of quantum theory. We finally discuss the emergence of a classical world. An overall emphasis is given in pointing at common fallacies and misconceptions.

This article examines the relationship between unity and progress in psychology. It contends that psychologists have traditionally sought unity in order to fulfill positivistic criteria of progress and success. In accordance with innovations in the philosophy of science, and in accordance with recent trends toward methodological pluralism, such unity is neither required nor recommended. However, a problem that arises under the new philosophy of science &emdash; incommensurability &emdash; must also be addressed. It is argued that before psychology can be a (...) coherent discipline, three important questions pertaining to incommensurability must be answered. (shrink)