This paper examines the prevalent assumption that when people interact online via proxies—avatars—they encounter each other. Through an exploration of the ontology of users and their avatars we argue that, contrary to the trend within current discussions of interaction online, this cannot be unproblematically assumed. If users could be considered in some sense identical to their avatars, then it would be clear how an encounter with an avatar could ground an encounter with another user. We therefore engage in a systematic (...) investigation of several conceptions of identity, concluding that in none of these senses can users and avatars be identified. We go on to explore how current accounts of identity-as-selfhood online might resolve this problem by appealing to narrativity or authorship, ultimately concluding that as these accounts stand they are unable to provide grounds for the claim that users encounter each other online and so supplementary work is required. (shrink)

Paul Virilio passed away on the 10th of September 2018. This article surveys his considerable legacy to cultural theory in order to locate a largely dormant contribution to questions of moral respo...

It has been suggested that we turn to solar geoengineering to counter global warming, which would consequently transform the relationship of terrestrial plant-life to the sun. This is an article not about geoengineering as such, but instead what is called photosynethics, or, thinking about our moral relationship to the light – in particular, as it is mediated by plants. Working from within but then extending the idea of responsibility found in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, it is argued here that, (...) since the plant cultivates the conditions of life on earth by photosynthesis, its relationship to the sun is then a relation of giving to others that is properly moral. The plant’s existence is an exposure so out of kilter with human ways of understanding existence that it interrupts our own and brings us into a relation of responsibility. It is concluded that rather than redirecting the sun’s radiation, we should turn to plants to reconsider how we live with the light on a heating planet. This first means separating moral responsibility from human vision so that we might encounter light on its own terms, and not simply as an element of rationality or sentiment or discipline. (shrink)

Media analyses of the aesthetic presentation of news frequently and persuasively demonstrate the skewed ethics of news production, where those in need who are distant and dissimilar are often presented in ways that do not fully humanize their condition. However, it is argued here, they also locate too fully the locus of moral responsibility in the production and presentation of the media text. This article explores the moral demands inherent in two kinds of media presentation: the explicit focus on shock (...) and awe over intimacy; and minimal presentations that substitute bare information for affective stories. It is argued that in both cases a moral encounter with the other can be motivated despite the news presentation and it is concluded that an excessive emphasis on the role of the news in generating moral responsibility justifies a spectatorish inertia that should be resisted. (shrink)

This review of Medium, Messenger, Transmission outlines and introduces the media philosophy of Sybille Krämer. Her argument that communication initiates a relationship with the other as an ethical act is read alongside the work of Emmanuel Levinas, before exploring the impact of our contemporary obligation to be available for communication in working environments that seem not to encourage or instantiate this moral encounter.

The release of a reader’s edition of the critical text of Essays, First Series and Essays, Second Series, in which readers can trace Emerson’s growing awareness that his true interest is in the constitution of consciousness rather than in ontological questions, is a welcomed fulfillment of the promise of the textual “industry” of the last twenty-five years. The textual accuracy of the Harvard texts is documented in the fuller Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, where one can reconstruct copy-texts. While (...) even a serious student would find an accurate text without textual apparatus sufficient for all by the last stages of serious reading and thinking, the omission of the informational annotations of the Collecte Works edition could raise problems of interpretation, since Emerson’s particular sources often determine the direction toward which his striking word-plays point. The listing of parallel journal passages in the Collected Works is an even more important tool, which opens to the student of Emerson the extensive source-studies which went into the ongoing Lectures series and the now-completed Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks series. (shrink)

Sir Austin Bradford Hill’s ‘aspects of causation’ represent some of the most influential thoughts on the subject of proximate causation in health and disease. Hill compiled a list of features that, when present and known, indicate an increasing likelihood that exposure to a factor causes—or contributes to the causation of—a disease. The items of Hill’s list were not labelled ‘criteria’, as this would have inferred every item being necessary for causation. Hence, criteria that are necessary for causation (...) in health, disease and intervention processes, whether known, knowable, or not, remain undetermined and deserve exploration. To move beyond this position, this paper aims to explore factors that are necessary in the constitution of causative relationships between health, disease processes, and intervention. To this end, disease is viewed as a causative pathway through the often overlapping stages of aetiology, pathology and patho-physiology. Intervention is viewed as a second, independent causative pathway, capable of causing changes in health for benefit or harm. For the natural course of a disease pathway to change, we argue that intervention must not only occupy the same time and space, but must also share a common form; the point at which the two pathways converge and interact. This improved conceptualisation may be used to facilitate the interpretation of clinical observations and inform future research, particularly enabling predictions of the mechanistic relationship between health, disease and intervention. (shrink)

Psychologists' emerging interest in spirituality and religion as well as the relevance of each phenomenon to issues of psychological importance requires an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of each construct. On the basis of both historical considerations and a limited but growing empirical literature, we caution against viewing spirituality and religiousness as incompatible and suggest that the common tendency to polarize the terms simply as individual vs. institutional or ′good′ vs. ′bad′ is not fruitful for future research. Also cautioning against (...) the use of restrictive, narrow definitions or overly broad definitions that can rob either construct of its distinctive characteristics, we propose a set of criteria that recognizes the constructs' conceptual similarities and dissimilarities. Rather than trying to force new and likely unsuccessful definitions, we offer these criteria as benchmarks for judging the value of existing definitions. (shrink)

We contend that social science variables are the product of multiple partly heritable traits. Genetic associations with socioeconomic status (SES) may differ across populations, but this is a consequence of the intermediary traits associated with SES differences also varying. Furthermore, genetic data allow social scientists to make causal statements regarding the aetiology and consequences of SES.

We would like to thank the commentators for their generous comments, valuable insights and helpful suggestions. We begin this response by discussing the selfishness axiom and the importance of the preferences, beliefs, and constraints framework as a way of modeling some of the proximate influences on human behavior. Next, we broaden the discussion to ultimate-level (that is evolutionary) explanations, where we review and clarify gene-culture coevolutionary theory, and then tackle the possibility that evolutionary approaches that exclude culture might be sufficient (...) to explain the data. Finally, we consider various methodological and epistemological concerns expressed by our commentators. (shrink)

Thus, Meyers provides a valuable account, not only of current medical attitudes, but also of relevant case and statute law as it stands at present.

Two hundred years ago, J.M.W. Turner packed up two large leatherbound sketchbooks, pencils, and watercolors and set off for the north of England. When he returned from the tour that he regarded as one of the most important of his career, Turner had completed more than two hundred sketches - works that later became the basis of more than fifty major oil paintings and watercolors. For this illustrated book, David Hill has taken photographs of many of the actual (...) sites Turner sketched on his northern tour. The result is an look at the whole of Turner's creative process, from site to exhibited picture, and at the quality and intensity of the artist's experience. (shrink)

Abstract:Spirituality is an undeniable human need and is thus the subject of increasing interest among management scholars and practitioners. In this article, we propose using archetypal psychology as a framework for understanding the human need for spirituality more clearly because it provides important insights into spirituality and organizational life. Because most spiritual needs reside in the deepest aspects of the self, an archetypal approach helps us recognize not only that we have spiritual needs but alsowhywe have them. We present three (...) common archetypes and their implications in a management context. That is followed by an application of the archetypal approach to some of the more spiritually corrosive aspects of organizational life and a discussion of the implications of archetypes as a source of motivation. (shrink)

This book explores the way that human symbolic abilities have precipitated the colonisation and replacement of the natural world by the industrial order, transforming human character and experience.

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

Historically, nonclassical physics developed in three stages. First came a collection of ad hoc assumptions and then a cookbook of equations known as "quantum mechanics". The equations and their philosophical underpinnings were then collected into a model based on the mathematics of Hilbert space. From the Hilbert space model came the abstaction of "quantum logics". This book explores all three stages, but not in historical order. Instead, in an effort to illustrate how physics and abstract mathematics influence each other we (...) hop back and forth between a purely mathematical development of Hilbert space, and a physically motivated definition of a logic, partially linking the two throughout, and then bringing them together at the deepest level in the last two chapters. This book should be accessible to undergraduate and beginning graduate students in both mathematics and physics. The only strict prerequisites are calculus and linear algebra, but the level of mathematical sophistication assumes at least one or two intermediate courses, for example in mathematical analysis or advanced calculus. No background in physics is assumed. (shrink)

Fichte-Studien, volume 49 (Leiden: Brill/Rodopi Publishers, 8 April 2021), edited by David W. Wood, 471pp. -/- Presenting new critical perspectives on J.G. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, this volume of articles in English by an international group of scholars addresses the topic of first principles in Fichte’s writings. Especially discussed are the central text of his Jena period, the 1794/95 Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, as well as later versions like the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-99) and the presentations of 1804 and 1805. Also (...) included are new studies on the first principles of the particular sub-disciplines of Fichte’s system, such as the doctrines of aesthetics, nature, right, ethics, and history. The volume also contains a number of miscellaneous essays on Fichte research, as well as several book reviews. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's existential, republican concept of politics spurned Carl Schmitt's idea that enmity constituted the essence of the political. Famously, she isolated the political sphere from social conflict, sovereign regimes, and the realm of military violence. While some critics are now interested in applying Arendt's more abstract political ideas to international affairs, it has not been acknowledged that her original reconceptualization of politics was in fact driven by her analysis of global war, and in particular, the startling new challenges raised (...) by nuclear warfare. Arendt's early, unpublished manuscript on the nature of politics contains important reflections on the nature of war and empire. Surprisingly, these reflections tentatively explore the relationship between war and political freedom. A close reading of this work on war can help explain both her later, more radical non-violent concept of political action, and the difficulties she faced integrating her existential republicanism within the global context of conflict in the Cold War. (shrink)

David Miller elegantly and provocatively reformulates critical rationalism—the revolutionary approach to epistemology advocated by Karl Popper—by answering its most important critics. He argues for an approach to rationality freed from the debilitating authoritarian dependence on reasons and justification. "Miller presents a particularly useful and stimulating account of critical rationalism. His work is both interesting and controversial... of interest to anyone with concerns in epistemology or the philosophy of science." —Canadian Philosophical Reviews.

This book discusses the development of Edward Tolman's purposive behaviourism from the 1920s to the 1950s, highlighting the tension between his references to cognitive processes and the dominant behaviourist trends. It shows how Tolman incorporated concepts from European scholars, including Egon Brunswik and the Gestalt psychologists, to justify a more purposive form of behaviourism and how the theory evolved in response to the criticisms of his contemporaries. The manuscript also discusses Tolman's political activities, culminating in his role in the California (...) loyalty oath controversy in the 1950s. Tolman was involved in a number of progressive causes during his lifetime, activities that drew the attention of both state legislators in California and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It treats Tolman's theoretical and political activities as emanating from the same source, a desire to understand the learning process in a scientific manner and to apply these concepts to improve the human condition. (shrink)

David Miller is the foremost exponent of the purist critical rationalist doctrine and here presents his mature views, discussing the role that logic and argument play in the growth of knowledge, criticizing the common understanding of argument as an instrument of justification, persuasion or discovery and instead advocating the critical rationalist view that only criticism matters. Miller patiently and thoroughly undoes the damage done by those writers who attack critical rationalism by invoking the sterile mythology of induction and justification (...) that it seeks to sweep away. In addition his new material on the debate on verisimilitude is essential reading for all working in this field. (shrink)

Agricultural decision making is characterized by two challenges common to multiple arenas: linking science to decision making and linking science and decision making across multiple levels. The U.S. agricultural research, education, and extension system was designed to address these challenges. By investigating this system, this study deepens the understanding of science and decision making, specifically exploring the notion of boundary organizations in two significant ways. First, it provides a preliminary test of the hypothesis that boundary organizations mediate between the shifting (...) domains of science and policy, finding that they are instrumental in creating and maintaining an integrated system of assessment and decision making for addressing depletion of the High Plains Aquifer. Second, it extends the concept of boundary organization beyond the science-policy dimension to incorporate the dimension of levels of organization—not only bridging science and policy but linking science and policy across different levels. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a noncognitive, care-based view of identification, of what privileged psychic subset provides the source of self-determination in actions and attitudes. The author provides an extended analysis of "caring," and then applies it to debates between Frankfurtians, on the one hand, and Watsonians, on the other, about the nature of identification, then defends the view against objections.

This essay points to parallel criticisms made by Charles Peirce and Polanyi against the “critical method”or “method of doubt.” In an early set of essays (1868–1869) and in later work, Peirce claimed that the Cartesian method of doubt is both philosophically bankrupt and useless because practitioners do not apply the method upon the criteria of doubting itself. Likewise, in his 1952 essay “The Stability of Beliefs” and in Personal Knowledge, Polanyi charges practitioners of the critical method with a failure to (...) apply the method rigorously enough. Polanyi contends that “critical” philosophers apply the method of doubt only to beliefs they find distasteful and rarely ever to the tacit beliefs that make doubt possible. (shrink)

This paper examines the interactive effects of apology source and apology components on forgiveness. Results revealed a significant source by component interaction. A remorseful employee apology was more successful than a remorseful CEO apology because consumers felt more empathy for the employee. Furthermore, a compensatory CEO apology was more effective than a compensatory employee apology because CEOs could significantly affect consumer perceptions of justice. No significant differences were found between apology source and the apology component of acknowledging violated rules and (...) norms. (shrink)

Philosophers and cognitive scientists address the relationships among the senses and the connections between conscious experiences that form unified wholes. In this volume, cognitive scientists and philosophers examine two closely related aspects of mind and mental functioning: the relationships among the various senses and the links that connect different conscious experiences to form unified wholes. The contributors address a range of questions concerning how information from one sense influences the processing of information from the other senses and how unified states (...) of consciousness emerge from the bonds that tie conscious experiences together. Sensory Integration and the Unity of Consciousness is the first book to address both of these topics, integrating scientific and philosophical concerns. A flood of recent work in both philosophy and perception science has challenged traditional conceptions of the sensory systems as operating in isolation. Contributors to the volume consider the ways in which perceptual contact with the world is or may be “multisensory,” discussing such subjects as the modeling of multisensory integration and philosophical aspects of sensory modalities. Recent years have seen a similar surge of interest in unity of consciousness. Contributors explore a range of questions on this topic, including the nature of that unity, the degree to which conscious experiences are unified, and the relationship between unified consciousness and the self. Contributors Tim Bayne, David J. Bennett, Berit Brogaard, Barry Dainton, Ophelia Deroy, Frederique de Vignemont, Marc Ernst, Richard Held, Christopher S. Hill, Geoffrey Lee, Kristan Marlow, Farid Masrour, Jennifer Matey, Casey O'Callaghan, Cesare V. Parise, Kevin Rice, Elizabeth Schechter, Pawan Sinha, Julia Trommershaeuser, Loes C. J. van Dam, Jonathan Vogel, James Van Cleve, Robert Van Gulick, Jonas Wulff. (shrink)

Evolution is frequently concentrated in bursts of rapid morphological change and speciation followed by long‐term stasis. We propose that this pattern of punctuated equilibria results from an evolutionary tug‐of‐war between host genomes and transposable elements (TEs) mediated through the epigenome. According to this hypothesis, epigenetic regulatory mechanisms (RNA interference, DNA methylation and histone modifications) maintain stasis by suppressing TE mobilization. However, physiological stress, induced by climate change or invasion of new habitats, disrupts epigenetic regulation and unleashes TEs. With their capacity (...) to drive non‐adaptive host evolution, mobilized TEs can restructure the genome and displace populations from adaptive peaks, thus providing an escape from stasis and generating genetic innovations required for rapid diversification. This “epi‐transposon hypothesis” can not only explain macroevolutionary tempo and mode, but may also resolve other long‐standing controversies, such as Wright's shifting balance theory, Mayr's peripheral isolates model, and McClintock's view of genome restructuring as an adaptive response to challenge. (shrink)

Remarks to the effect that a correct answer depends upon a correct question —that from a misleading question there can result only a misleading answer—are common today. In fact, one might suspect that such common concentration on finding the right questions has something to do with what seems to be an uncommon lack of answers. This concentration on the importance of asking the right questions can be applied to the interpretation of biblical literature. For here, certainly, the questions asked are (...) often decisive. They guide the inquiry by setting the terms of the search and, in this sense, they determine at least the kind of answers that will be given. Further, they often disclose the presuppositions with which one is working. (shrink)

Many philosophers have taken there to be an important relation between personal identity and several of our practical concerns (among them moral responsibility, compensation, and self-concern). I articulate four natural methodological assumptions made by those wanting to construct a theory of the relation between identity and practical concerns, and I point out powerful objections to each assumption, objections constituting serious methodological obstacles to the overall project. I then attempt to offer replies to each general objection in a way that leaves (...) the project intact, albeit significantly changed. Perhaps the most important change stems from the recognition that the practical concerns motivating investigation into personal identity turn out to be not univocal, as is typically thought, such that each of the different practical concerns may actually be related to personal identity in very different ways. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph: Paksi and Héder’s Guide to Personal Knowledge (hereafter GPK and Guide) is, as the title suggests, a guide of the most important and original ideas of Michael Polanyi’s book Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958, hereafter PK). Is a guide to Personal Knowledge needed? I think the answer is a resounding “yes” for many new readers. To see why, let’s briefly review two common complaints about PK.

Professor Imwinkelried has boldly attempted to justify the admissibility of normative ethical expertise in the face of a legal evidentiary rule requiring a scientific basis for expert testimony. Because ethical testimony is inherently unscientific, Professor Imwinkelried prudently focuses his analysis on circumstances where evidentiary requirements are less strict; those involving the legislative rather than adjudicative function of courts and those in which substantive law overrides normally rigorous evidentiary requirements. While both proposals may have merit and are thoughtful and creative, Professor (...) Imwinkelried ultimately fails to provide sufficient doctrinal support or persuasive rationale for his arguments.Professor Imwinkelrieds argument for the admissibility of “expert” normative ethical testimony has two parts. The major proposition is that, when courts are engaged in legislative functions, they should be permitted to consider all sources of information. The assumption that apparently underlies this proposition is that nothing limits courts’ exercise of legislative powers. (shrink)

Professor Imwinkelried has boldly attempted to justify the admissibility of normative ethical expertise in the face of a legal evidentiary rule requiring a scientific basis for expert testimony. Because ethical testimony is inherently unscientific, Professor Imwinkelried prudently focuses his analysis on circumstances where evidentiary requirements are less strict; those involving the legislative rather than adjudicative function of courts and those in which substantive law overrides normally rigorous evidentiary requirements. While both proposals may have merit and are thoughtful and creative, Professor (...) Imwinkelried ultimately fails to provide sufficient doctrinal support or persuasive rationale for his arguments.Professor Imwinkelrieds argument for the admissibility of “expert” normative ethical testimony has two parts. The major proposition is that, when courts are engaged in legislative functions, they should be permitted to consider all sources of information. The assumption that apparently underlies this proposition is that nothing limits courts’ exercise of legislative powers. (shrink)

While a number of classical pragmatists crafted their philosophies in conjunction with a careful study of Hegel's works, others saw their philosophies emerge in antagonism with proponents of Hegel. In this paper, we offer an instance of the latter case. Namely, we show that the impetus for Charles S. Peirce's early articulation and avowal of realism (the claim that some generals are real) was William Torrey Harris's claim that the formal laws of logic lacked universal validity. According to Harris, the (...) leading representative of Hegelism in the United States, the universal validity of the laws of logic rested on a nominalistic metaphysics that a Hegelian-realism showed to be false. In response to this charge, we articulate how Peirce's attempt to prove the universal validity of the laws of logic resulted in avowing a realism that differed from both nominalism and Harris's Hegelian-realism. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to show that the moral/conventional distinction simply cannot bear the sort of weight many theorists have placed on it for determining the moral and criminal responsibility of psychopaths. After revealing the fractured nature of the distinction, I go on to suggest how one aspect of it may remain relevant—in a way that has previously been unappreciated—to discussions of the responsibility of psychopaths. In particular, after offering an alternative explanation of the available data on psychopaths and (...) their judgments of various sorts of norm transgressions, I put forward a hybrid theory of their responsibility, suggesting how they might be criminally responsible, while nevertheless failing to meet the conditions for an important arena of moral responsibility. (shrink)

[Open access] In this book symposium the author takes up questions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethical theory, and intellectual history raised by a group of scholarly interlocutors from a range of backgrounds. In the course of engaging with these issues, he discusses, inter alia, McDowell’s realism, Jonathon Lear’s work on the end of a world, Michael Oakeshott’s view of selfhood, Heidegger’s conception of Jemeinigkeit, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of truth.

Take a hypothetical sequence of human beings ordered by height from tallest to shortest. Make sure there is no more than a difference of a millimeter between each person and make sure the tallest person is clearly tall and the shortest person is clearly not tall. Now consider the following argument: P1 A person of height n is tall ; P2 For any height n, if n is tall, then n–1mm is tall ; C Therefore, a person of height n (...) = 1mm is tall. P1 and P2 are intuitively true, C is intuitively false, yet the argument is deductively valid (the conclusion follows... (shrink)

Brimming with visual examples of concepts, derivation rules, and proof strategies, this introductory text is ideal for students with no previous experience in logic. Students will learn translation both from formal language into English and from English into formal language; how to use truth trees and truth tables to test propositions for logical properties; and how to construct and strategically use derivation rules in proofs.

This paper is a combination of a grandfather's musings over his grandson's drawings, combined with a reconsideration of hermeneutics as an early childhood educational theory.

Since the advent in the early thirties of logical positivism much attention has been focused upon the nature of ethics.