This book argues that the irreducible singularity of each person as a psychical subject implies the privacy of the psychical and that of experience, and yet the private accessibility of each person to his or her mind is compatible with interpersonal communication and understanding. The book treats these major issues against the background of the author's original metaphysics--panenmentalism."--Publisher's website.

Considering various arguments in Hume’s Treatise, I reconstruct a Humean argument against personal identity or unity. According to this argument, each distinct perception is separable from the bundle of perceptions to which it belongs and is thus transferable either to the external, material reality or to another psychical reality, another bundle of perceptions. Nevertheless, such transference (Hume’s word!) is entirely illegitimate, otherwise Hume’s argument against causal inference would have failed; furthermore, it violates private, psychical accessibility. I suggest a Humean thought (...) experiment clearly demonstrating that, to the extent that anything within a psychical reality is concerned, no distinction leads to separation or transference and that private, psychical accessibility has to be allowed in the Humean argument for personal identity or unity. Private accessibility and psychical untransferability secure personal identity and unity. Referring to the phenomenon of multiple personality along the lines of the Humean argument for personal identity or unity, I illustrate both private accessibility and a possible notion of one and the same person distinct from his/her alters or psychical parts. Finally, I show why Parfit’s Humean argument against personal identity must fail. (shrink)

From Mendeleev’s time on, the Periodic Table has been an attempt to exhaust all the chemical possibilities of the elements and their interactions, whether these elements are known as actual or are not known yet as such. These latter elements are called “eka-elements” and there are still some of them in the current state of the Table. There is no guarantee that they will be eventually discovered, synthesized, or isolated as actual. As long as the actual existence of eka-elements is (...) predicted, they cannot be considered as actual but only as purely possible. Given that eka-elements are chemical pure possibilities, a possibilist approach, entitled “panenmentalism,” can gain support as well as an important implication. (shrink)

Brain-imaging technologies have posed the problem of breaching our brain privacy. Until the invention of those technologies, many of us entertained the idea that nothing can threaten our mental privacy, as long as we kept it, for each of us has private access to his or her own mind but no access to any other. Yet, philosophically, the issue of private, mental accessibility appears to be quite unsettled, as there are still many philosophers who reject the idea of private, mental (...) accessibility. I have attempted to refute such rejections and to establish this idea on firmer grounds. My arguments in this paper show that brain imaging allows no access to our mind and that mind privacy is quite different from brain privacy, as the latter can be breached by brain imaging, whereas the former cannot. A reduction of the mind to the body inescapably fails, as there is a categorial difference between mind and body or brain, which is compatible with their inseparability. Brain imaging cannot enable one to “read” the mind or to breach our mental privacy. There is no external access to one’s mind. Each of us has exclusive access to his or her own mind. (shrink)

This book discovers areas and themes, especially in philosophical psychology, for novel observations and investigations, the diversity of which is systematically unified within the frame of the author¿s original metaphysics, panenmentalism. The book demonstrates how by means of truthful fictions we may detect meaningful possibilities as well as their necessary relationships that otherwise could not be discovered.

This book elaborates the author's original metaphysics, panenmentalism, focusing on novel aspects of the singularity of any person. Among these aspects, integrated in a systematic view, are: love and singularity; private, intersubjective, and public accessibility; multiple personality; freedom of will; akrasia; a way out of the empiricist-rationalist conundrum; the possibility of God; and some major moral questions.

This book introduces a new metaphysics which deals with the psycho-physical problem in philosophical psychology, as well as with problems in the scientific standing of psychoanalysis and chaos theory, the feminine psyche, the possibility of cinematic illusion, meaningful madness, and why machines cannot think.

Already in 1863, Jules Verne knew about Caselli's "pantelegraphy," which was what he described as a "photographic telegraphy, invented during the last century by Professor Giovanni Caselli of Florence."1 Following the mistaken belief that facsimile machines could not been invented until well after the nineteenth century, and wrongly assuming that Caselli was a fictional inventor, merely a figment of Verne's most productive fertile imagination (as such imaginative elements characterize his latter writings), some of Verne's readers mistakenly ascribed to him the (...) discovery of the possibility of the fax machine. They thus committed what I will call soon "a reversed actualist fallacy."In challenging actualist mistakes .. (shrink)

Regardless or independent of any actuality or actualization and exempt from spatiotemporal and causal conditions, each individual possibility is pure. Actualism excludes the existence of individual pure possibilities, altogether or at least as existing independently of actual reality. In this paper, I demonstrate, on the grounds of my possibilist metaphysics—panenmentalism—how some of the most fascinating scientific discoveries in chemistry could not have been accomplished without relying on pure possibilities and the ways in which they relate to each other . The (...) discoveries are the following: Dan Shechtman’s discovery of quasicrystals; Linus Pauling’s alpha helix; the discovery of F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina concerning the destruction of the atmospheric ozone layer; and Neil Bartlett’s noble gas compounds. On the grounds of the analysis of these cases, actualism must fail, whereas panenmentalism gains support. (shrink)

In spite of some panentheistic traits in his philosophy, Spinoza was clearly a pantheist. Spinoza’s God is not personal and not transcendent but immanent, as God is identical to the world or Nature. There are no miracles in nature, and only because of ignorance, mistakes, and errors do we wonder or feel enchantment about it. What is allegedly above reason, is, in fact, much under it, and Nature’s wisdom is entirely immanent. The laws of Nature are the laws of God, (...) and theology and natural science are identical. There is no need of panentheistic traits to know and understand God-Nature-Substance. Nevertheless, the author expresses some doubts concerning this conclusion about Spinoza’s philosophy, a conclusion that he, too, finally endorses. (shrink)

In discussing cruelty toward human beings, I argue that disregarding the singularity of any human being is necessary for treating her or him cruelly. The cruelty of Peter the Great, relying upon the intolerance of any human singular individuality, serves me as a paradigm-case to illustrate that. The cruelty of Procrustes and that of Stalin rely upon similar grounds. Relating to a person’s singularity is sufficient to prevent cruelty toward that person. In contrast, a liberal state of mind or solidarity (...) is insufficient to prevent cruelty and, under some circumstances, may even cause it. (shrink)

This book presents a systemic analysis of Spinoza’s philosophy and challenges the traditional views. It deals with Spinoza’s concepts of substance, truth conditions, attributes, and the first, second, and supreme grades of knowledge. Based upon an analysis of the relevant details in all of Spinoza’s philosophical works, the book reveals many important points, including the following: Spinoza’s system is not, nor is meant to be, a foundational-deductive system but was meant to be a coherent system of a network model. Spinoza’s (...) reality is not made in the image of a mathematical model. Imaginatio, the first grade of knowledge, and ratio, the second grade, are parts or properties of the supreme grade of knowledge, scientia intuitiva, which is their essence. Finite beings, especially humans, are necessary and eternal (unless they are mistakenly perceived by imaginatio) whereas time, place, and death are simply “entities of imagination.” The salvation, happiness, and blessedness that Spinoza’s Ethics offers us, are active and depend only upon us. Concluding a careful examination and interpretation, the book suggests additional novel viewpoints in interpreting Spinoza’s philosophical psychology and political philosophy. (shrink)

This book presents a philosophy of science, based on panenmentalism: an original modal metaphysics, which is realist about individual pure (non-actual) possibilities and rejects the notion of possible worlds. The book systematically constructs a new and novel way of understanding and explaining scientific progress, discoveries, and creativity. It demonstrates that a metaphysics of individual pure possibilities is indispensable for explaining and understanding mathematics and natural sciences. It examines the nature of individual pure possibilities, actualities, mind-dependent and mind-independent possibilities, as well (...) as mathematical entities. It discusses in detail the singularity of each human being as a psychical possibility. It analyses striking scientific discoveries, and illustrates by means of examples of the usefulness and vitality of individual pure possibilities in the sciences. (shrink)

Panenmentalist possibilities are individual pure possibilities existing independently of any mind, actual reality, and possible-world conception. These possibilities are a priori accessible to our intellect and imagination. In this paper, I attempt to shed some panenmentalist light on the discovery of chemical branched chain reactions and its implications on biology and cancer research. I also examine the case of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction which, at first, was believed to be impossible. Finally, I proceed to examine through a panenmentalist lens Szilard’s discovery (...) of the possibility of physical chain reactions and Mullis’s discovery of a polymerase chain reaction. All these major actual discoveries clearly depend on the discovery of the relevant panenmentalist possibilities and the ways in which they relate to one another. (shrink)

Challenging the idea of personal identity, Derek Parfit has argued that persons are replicable and that personal identity does not really matter. In a recent paper Parfit again defends the idea of personal replicability. Challenging this idea in turn, I explain why persons are absolutely not replicable. To prove this I rely on two arguments—the Author Argument and the Love Argument. The irreplicability of persons relies upon the singularity of each person and thus entails that personal identity is irreducible and (...) that it really does matter. (shrink)

This book is a detailed study of how Plato constructs his seminal philosophical dialogue, the Phaedo, as a unique tragedy, a poetic masterpiece whose structure is organic and symmetrical. Plato's mental Odyssey leads to the internal drama of the Phaedo plot. The analysis examines how Plato's literary art overcomes the philosophical problem of the separation of Ideas from sensible things. And it traces literary and philosophical offspring of the mental Odyssey, including Joyce and Proust.

I suggest two valid and sound arguments refuting physicalism, whether it is reductive or supervenience physicalism. The first argument is a self-referential one that is not involved with any self-referential inconsistency. The second argument demonstrates that physicalism is inescapably involved with self-referential inconsistency. Both arguments show that arguments and propositions (to be distinguished from sentences) are not physical existents. They are rather mental existents that are not reducible to any physical existent and do not supervene on anything physical. From these (...) two arguments, it clearly follows that any physicalist argument or proposition, as a mental existent, is self-refuting. (AN PHL2326365) Subjects: EXISTENTS; INCONSISTENCY; METAPHYSICS; MIND; PHYSICALISM; SELF-REFERENCE. (shrink)

The Spinozistic essence is the factor of individuation of a particular or individual thing. Affects or emotions are properties of an essence, which, under the attribute of thought, is an idea, i.e., cognition. Such essence is the human mind, which is the idea of a particular actual body. Since our emotions are properties of our cognitions, whether adequate or not, concerning the state of our body, which reflects nature as a whole in a particular way, I entitle Spinoza’s theory of (...) emotions "cognitivism." In light of Spinoza’s cognitivism, I attempt to explain what is precisely the significance of the intellectual love of God and how cognitive means serves Spinoza’s philosophical psychotherapy or theory of salvation. (edited). (shrink)

As early as 1981, about 1 year before Shechtman’s discovery of an actual quasicrystal, Alan L. Mackay discussed, in a seminal paper, the first steps for the expansion of crystallography toward its modern phase. In this phase, new possibilities of structures and order, such as the structures of five-fold symmetry, for crystals have been discovered. Medieval Islamic decorators as well as Albrecht Dürer, Johannes Kepler, Roger Penrose, Mackay himself, and other pioneer crystallographers raised important contributions to the theoretical discovery of (...) crystalline possibilities long before or independently of the discovery of their actual existence. In this paper, I discuss further the philosophical significance of Mackay’s theoretical discovery and his contribution to the expansion of pure geometrical crystallography, biological crystallography, and generalized crystallography. (shrink)

As early as 1981, about 1 year before Shechtman’s discovery of an actual quasicrystal, Alan L. Mackay discussed, in a seminal paper, the first steps for the expansion of crystallography toward its modern phase. In this phase, new possibilities of structures and order, such as the structures of five-fold symmetry, for crystals have been discovered. Medieval Islamic decorators as well as Albrecht Dürer, Johannes Kepler, Roger Penrose, Mackay himself, and other pioneer crystallographers raised important contributions to the theoretical discovery of (...) crystalline possibilities long before or independently of the discovery of their actual existence. In this paper, I discuss further the philosophical significance of Mackay’s theoretical discovery and his contribution to the expansion of pure geometrical crystallography, biological crystallography, and generalized crystallography. (shrink)

Human reason consists of all the patterns of individuation and order, of a priori concepts, principles, ideas and the ideal, as well as interests, needs, imperatives, postulates, and ends, whether embodied in theory, in practice, or in aesthetic judgment. Our reason is not an aggregate but a system. In other words, the unity of all these aspects, parts, and activities of reason is determined a priori and, therefore, necessarily. This multiplicity is subordinated to the unity of the end of reason (...) as a whole. Kant deals with this problem in “The Architectonic of Pure Reason” of the Critique of Pure Reason. Architectonic is the art of systems, a theory about the scientific nature of our knowledge, since there is no science without systematic unity. (shrink)

The paper proposes to base the notion of the significance of life on the grounds of the singularity of each person as a psychical subject, i.e. personal singularity. No two persons are alike; each one of us, as a person, is intrinsically different from every other person. This personal singularity has a universal significance, namely, it makes a universal difference, whether or not this difference is distinct and acknowledged. Because morality and the significance of a person's life both rely upon (...) personal singularity, there is an inseparable connection between morality and the significance of a human life. Nevertheless, as relying upon personal singularity, there is no insignificant or meaningless life, for a person's life has a universal significance whatever the actions of that person may be. Immoral actions or behavior do not reflect or express the personal singularity of an agent, whereas moral ones reflect or express this singularity. There is more to personal singularity and the significance of life than morality. As singularity is not subject to any comparison or competition, personal singularity implies that the life of one person is not more significant than the life of any other person. Thus, in my view, the significance of life is strictly egalitarian. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 436-443 [Access article in PDF] How Does Love Make the Ugly Beautiful? Amihud Gilead IT IS OBVIOUS TO SEE how greatly Gideon loves his wife, who is physically quite an ugly old lady. Nothing about her physical appearance or gait seems beautiful, at least to the extent of what meets your eye. Physically, she seems not to be considered beautiful at all. (...) Still, Gideon is quite sure that his beloved wife is the most beautiful woman in the entire world. He cannot fathom why other people do not realize that obvious truth: Mira is a real, fascinating, unique beauty. "But, dear Gideon," says one of his friends, "you cannot deny a very simple fact, Mira is a most beautiful person, and it is a great fortune to know her, all the more to know her intimately. Still, physically judging, she is not beautiful at all. It is an undeniable, objective fact." Gideon's answer does not fail in its directness: "Well, those who are blind to her physical, actual beauty, should discover it. Like the Michelangeloean sculptors, who must reveal and disclose the sculpture hidden in the marble, those people should expose and realize her physical, actual beauty." For Gideon, beauty, physical or mental, is an objective matter, which should be discovered, not invented. For him, beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder, but it lies there waiting to be uncovered and revealed to the world. For Gideon, those whose eyes meet Mira's ugliness are not ready or fit to remove the superfluity that covers her beauty, whether mental or physical. Removing all that is superfluous in the marble is necessary to give birth to the sculpture. Like a midwife, the artistic gaze gives birth, and this gaze is not just the property of customary artists, but also of lovers. To love means to reveal, to create or discover beauty. [End Page 436]I believe that William Butler Yeats put this in the most adequate words: "All changed, changed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born." The lover's gaze exposes such a beauty, even as regards the husband of the woman that the poet loved for so many years but in vain: "This other man I had dreamed / A drunken, vainglorious lout. / He had done most bitter wrong / To some who are near my heart, / Yet I number him in the song; / He, too, has been changed in his turn, / Transformed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born" ("Easter, 1916"). The artistic, poetic gaze redeems the "direct object" of his love, but also redeems what is so ugly, like the "drunken, vainglorious lout," about her. After all, her decision to maintain her miserable marriage instead of accepting the poet's love, is quite ugly or contemptuous, to say the least, in the eyes of the poet-lover. But this is the strength of his poetic, artistic revelation: to give birth even to the hidden beauty of that vainglorious lout who, unfortunately, happened to be her husband. All the more so, to reveal the real beauty of the loved woman, "the loveliest woman born" ("A Prayer for my Daughter"). Another gaze, by those who do not love her or were indifferent to her, could not realize her beauty at all, physically as well as mentally.Yet others believe that we can love somebody who is physically ugly, even the "ugliest woman born"—as a person she may be considered "the loveliest woman born." I would like to challenge this commonplace. In the eyes of the artist-lover she is physically beautiful, no matter how ugly or lacking in beauty she may be in the eyes of others looking at her indifferently, as though nothing has happened, there is nothing to stay with, and nothing has left its impression. Indeed, Gideon's love reveals that Mira is physically beautiful no less than mentally. Her gaze, gait, even clumsiness, all her physical "flaws," and other attributes are considered beautiful in his eyes as a lover-artist. To be more precise, all of her traits are so considered. The... (shrink)

The attempts to justify torture tacitly assume that no person is a singular being. This assumption ignores the ontological and moral status of any human being as a singular subject, whose inner, psychical reality cannot be accessible from without, and whose value as a singular being is universal. Were torturers and those who attempt to justify them right, the categorical difference between objects and persons would be obliterated. Torturers also ignore the absolute moral rights of any person as a singular (...) human being, however atrocious. In light of the principle that any person is a singular human being, I clarify in detail that inflicting torture is absolutely immoral. Torture fails to meet the universal test emerging from the singularity principle. (AN PHL2160254) Subjects: ETHICS; PERSON; SINGULARITY; TERRORISM; TORTURE. (shrink)

Immunologists use psychological and cognitive terms to describe and explain the behavior of our immune system. Do they use them metaphorically or literally? In this paper I show that on the grounds of some psychophysical assumptions, the uniqueness of each person as an individual organism necessarily corresponds to the singularity of each person as a psychological subject. On the basis of these assumptions, immunologists, irrespective of their various conceptual frames, are entitled to ascribe psychological and cognitive traits to our immune (...) system and its behavior. Immunologists are allowed to do so because each immune system of any higher, unique individual organism corresponds to psychological traits, which are ascribable only to persons, each of whom is a singular being. This correspondence is necessarily compatible with the psychophysical unity or inseparability. Furthermore, the psychological or cognitive traits pertain to the immune system require no consciousness. In the case of artificial immune systems, in contrast, the application of psychological or cognitive terms is only metaphorical, for each such system is not unique but it is duplicable or replicable. Only the immune system of unique individual organisms that as psychological subjects are singular beings—i.e. persons—can be subject, literally or non-metaphorically, to psychological and cognitive terms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How Few Words Can the Shortest Story Have?Amihud GileadOf the best shortest story, we have only tales. According to one of them, Ernest Hemingway was proud of being the author of a story written in merely six words: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." He considered this as his best story.1 Interviewing Gary Paulsen, Lori Atkins Goodson heard another version:Probably the best writing ever done was by Hemingway (...) and several other writers—I think it was in North Africa. During a drunken discussion, somebody said that they should write the best and shortest story they could write. They all had stories. Hemingway came up with six words: "For sale: Baby shoes. Never used."... Isn't that great? That's all there is. Six words. There's a book, there's a movie, there's a short story, there's a poem—anything you want to do with those six words, you can do it. It's just amazing what you can do with your words.2I greatly prefer the first version to the second despite its musicality or semi-rhythm. The minor colon is better than the major full stop and the capital letters. The whole story is genuinely minor in tone, and its great power rests upon this tone. "Used" is much less evocative and more commercially practical than "worn." "Used" draws the attention to the shoes, whereas "worn" intimately relates to the dead baby. Yes indeed, these six words can initiate a book, a feature movie, and the like; yet, as you will see below, I prefer to think about a whole world centered around, or arising out of, Hemingway's six words. Whether his six-words story is the shortest ever written is quite a different question, which will not be discussed in this paper.A very short story may comprise more than six words, say, seventeen, [End Page 119] such as the following: "The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door" ("Knock" by Fredric Brown).3Which of these two stories is the better? The shorter one, Hemingway's story in the first version. Why? Not only because there is not a single superfluous word or, even, a letter or punctuation mark; each word, each mark must be there, each is necessary for the story. Hemingway's six words create or initiate a whole story, actually a universe, of sorrow, bereavement, mourning, solitude, silence, untimely death, despair, loss, and tragedy.4 Thus, each word in this story gets the utmost meaningfulness or significance that a word may have. Hemingway's story shows us a tragic world of dread "in a handful of" six words, each of which is very simple. In contrast, although Brown's story bears a lot of tension and it is quite enigmatic (Who is knocking on the door? God, the Devil, an alien? Or is it simply a hallucination?), it conveys much less in seventeen words than do Hemingway's six. Brown's seventeen words do not create or reveal a world, let alone a universe. They create some tension, perhaps a thrill, possibly an enigma but not a world. There is certainly some puzzle that the reader may attempt to solve, but not much more.Even in this respect, Hemingway's story is more enigmatic: What is the purpose of the sale of this baby's shoes? Is there some hope that what cannot be used for the lost baby will be useful for another, living baby? Or is it the stinginess of the dead baby's parents or relatives? Or is it their poverty that forces them to sell even these little shoes? Or is it their wish not to possess these shoes any longer despite their great significance? Regarding this last possibility, it is more suitable to sell them than to throw them away. In any of these possibilities, the shoes have some value. And the enigma under discussion is certainly tragic in any of these possibilities.In contrast, Brown's story suggests merely a puzzle, not a tragic enigma. Such a puzzle may be found even in pulp fiction, not in fine writing, whereas... (shrink)

Abstract:Describing the metamorphosis of a beloved wife into a vixen, David Garnett's novella Lady into Fox does not depict a possible world that is remote from our actual one. This metamorphosis is a metaphor, a speech act embedded in a literary description of actual reality, in which marriage, dissociated from natural, free untrammeled love, turns into a hunt—terminating in the horrible death of the wife as a hunted vixen. The unity of the literary realism and fantasy, as a metaphor, is (...) what makes Lady into Fox such a moving novella. (shrink)

The time-honored questions concerning the meaning and significance of life should be discussed not only in the light of various philosophical and literary considerations but also from the natural scientific perspectives as human beings are conditioned parts of nature as a whole. Hence, in this paper, I discuss these questions from the perspectives of two major and universal scientific fields, namely, generalized crystallography and quantum mechanics. On the philosophical grounds, the question of the meaning and, especially, the significance of life (...) should be focused on the assumption that each human being is a singular individual whose significance is universal. Such a philosophical approach is compatible with the two above-mentioned natural scientific aspects. (shrink)

This book discusses and analyses the contribution of mind-independent individual literary pure possibilities in exploring and understanding actual reality. The relationship between literary imagination, literary possibilities, and actual reality poses a major philosophical problem in the field of metaphysics of literature. In a detailed analysis of some literary masterpieces (by Proust, Kafka, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner), I attempt to demonstrate that actual reality actualizes or “imitates” literary pure possibilities. Hence, such masterpieces should be treated not (...) as romans a clef but, instead, as paradigm-cases on whose basis we grasp and understand actual reality. (shrink)

This paper differs from any previous view in discussing quantum pure possibilities as individuals, existing independently of any observer or mind. These pure possibilities are also absolutely independent of any metaphysical or logical view that endorses the notion of possible worlds. In my view, the relationship between quantum possibilities and classical physical reality is not between reality as such, as it is in itself, and its phenomena. It is rather between fundamental or primary reality, consisting of quantum pure possibilities, on (...) the one hand, and its actualization in what classical physics has discovered so far, on the other. As individual pure possibilities, quantum entities must be, at least ontologically, distinct and different from one another, regardless of the epistemological standing of quantum physics. Hence, quantum metaphysics is committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Finally, I analyze the two-slit experiment, interference, and entanglement in the light of my approach. (shrink)

I attempt to save akrasia from the skeptical doubt and denial as to its possibility in a new way. I argue that the akratic agent – the akrates – has unconscious reason(s) for the akratic action. Moreover, the akrates does not weigh and value the reasons for and against the akratic action in full awareness, including their emotive significance, consciously experienced as feelings. He follows his feelings favoring the akratic action (since he does not tolerate or resist them), and does (...) not let his unconscious emotions, supporting the wanted, chosen action, play a causal role in impelling him to perform this action. (shrink)

Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain' conveys some insights into the distinction between images and reality. Like a prisoner in the Platonic cave, Hans Castorp is enslaved to images. His fascination for the X-ray images of the 'interior portrait,' especially of Clawdia Chauchat, may anticipate the current illusion that brain imaging may allow access to the minds of other persons, may draw their mental portraits. In Mann's novel, Director Behrens, the ardent materialist, anticipates such an illusion. It is only the 'license (...) of fiction,' however, that allows the narrator of this novel access to the minds of some of the characters. (AN PHL2239369) Subjects: BRAIN IMAGING; CINEMA; IDENTITY; IMAGE; METAPHYSICS; MIND; NARCISSISM; REALITY. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHERS MAY BE ARMED with valid and logically faultless arguments and yet remain entirely blind to meaningful possibilities whose philosophical significance is immense. Philosophical blindness may also concern physical or psychical phenomena as well as their meanings and significance. Some entirely valid arguments should be considered blind. Argumentatively and logically, such arguments are deemed faultless or good enough. Hence, in this respect, blind arguments should not be bad ones. Yet, they have greatly misled philosophers by shutting their eyes to realize, (...) understand, and see deeply into crucial philosophical matters. The question is, what makes philosophers blind despite their valid, logically faultless, or even overwhelming arguments? (shrink)

This book, combining integratively-revised previously-published papers with entirely new chapters, challenges and treats some major problems in Kant’s philosophy not by means of new interpretations but by suggesting some variations on Kantian themes. Such variations are, in fact, reconstructions made according to Kantian ideas and principles and yet cannot be extracted as such directly from his writings. The book also analyses Kant's philosophy from a new metaphysical angle, based on the original metaphysics of the author, called panenmentalism. It reconstructs some (...) missing links in Kant's philosophy, such as the idea of teleological time, which is vital for Kant's moral theory. Although these variations cannot be found literally in Kant’s works, they can be legitimately explicated, developed, and implied from them. Such is the case because these variations are strictly compatible with the details of the texts and the texts as wholes, and because they are systematically integrated. Their coherence supports their validation. The target audiences are graduate and PhD students as well as specialist researchers of Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

This book, combining integratively-revised previously-published papers with entirely new chapters, challenges and treats some major problems in Kant’s philosophy not by means of new interpretations but by suggesting some variations on Kantian themes. Such variations are, in fact, reconstructions made according to Kantian ideas and principles and yet cannot be extracted as such directly from his writings. The book also analyses Kant's philosophy from a new metaphysical angle, based on the original metaphysics of the author, called panenmentalism. It reconstructs some (...) missing links in Kant's philosophy, such as the idea of teleological time, which is vital for Kant's moral theory. Although these variations cannot be found literally in Kant’s works, they can be legitimately explicated, developed, and implied from them. Such is the case because these variations are strictly compatible with the details of the texts and the texts as wholes, and because they are systematically integrated. Their coherence supports their validation. The target audiences are graduate and PhD students as well as specialist researchers of Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

What is the relationship between formal, “general” logic and transcendental logic? Is the former prior to the latter or is it the other way round? Can the one be deduced and derived from the other or based upon it? There is a widespread controversy among philosophers concerning these questions. In any case, most of them accept the assumption that one of these logics should be prior to the other. As for me, I don’t accept this assumption at all, and in (...) this paper I attempt to show that such a priority is impossible, since the two logics are but different uses or employments of the same understanding. (shrink)

IN this paper I would like to suggest that by reconstructing the relationship between time and teleology --as this relationship might be implied by Kant's theory--one of the most complicated problems of this theory may be solved. This problem concerns a construction of time suitable to the particular needs of Kant's doctrines of the history of reason and philosophy, or of the history of mankind, which proceeds according to the total imperative of morality. Teleological time, a concept which I shall (...) attempt to present in this paper, has to do with the two employments of judgment, the determinant and the reflective. This teleological time is not merely a form of intuition, nor is it subject to the schematism of deterministic causality, and it is exempt from some impediments which render rational history, in the domains of theory and praxis alike, impossible, if indeed such a history requires time. Thus, I shall attempt in this paper to suggest a solution to the so-called Kantian "antinomy of history": Kant's theory employs time as a form of intuition, which, on the one hand, has mechanical-deterministic qualities and, on the other, a rational history, although it seems that these two are in antagonism. I attempt to suggest a solution to this antinomy without claiming that the history of reason is a "pure supra-temporal processuality." This is a crucial problem in Kant's theory and the possibility of solving it is necessary for the success of the theory. This is also a problem of systematization: How is it possible to solve the problem of the duality of time and reason? (shrink)

This paper defends the view that the primary necessary ontological conditions for any existents and for their knowledge are individual pure possibilities. As being such conditions, pure possibilities exist absolutely independently of actualities, possible worlds, or minds. Pure possibilities are exempt from spatiotemporal and causal restrictions or conditions, whereas any actuality is inescapably subject to them. Each actuality is an actualization of an individual pure possibility, which also serves as its identity. The existence of individual pure possibilities is necessary because (...) it is ontologically indispensable for the existence of anything, possible or actual, and because there are some existents instead of nothing. Ignoring or not acknowledging relevant pure possibilities may result in overlooking their actualities without recognizing or identifying them and, thus, this has hindered the progress of science and knowledge. Hence, the knowledge of actual possibilities, too, depends on their pure possibilities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Not Kill a Mandarin?:An ExchangeAmihud GileadIn a powerful and well-written thought experiment, Iddo Landau attempts to persuade us that "people cannot be trusted... people... such as ourselves need to be well supervised... there are important advantages in fearing others, in hesitating to be real individuals, and in constantly apprehending what 'they' will say."1Following Balzac, Landau's thought experiment echoes, to some extent, Plato's myth of Gyges's ring in the (...) Republic (359d ff. and 612b). One of the lessons the reader may draw from this myth is that not only fear but shame also plays a crucial role in human morality. With no shame, without the fear of being caught in a shameful act or deed, people would behave much less morally than they actually do. Like Plato's Socrates, mentioning the gods, the supreme judges in Hades,2 Landau relates his idea also to the belief in God (p. 93). Note also that Socrates's view of morality is compatible with the view that each human being is nothing but smikron, a trifle (Symposium 210b8). Plato's Socrates entertains no false ideas about the alleged "human individuality."A similar logic leads Landau to conclude about the moral requirement "in hesitating to be real individuals," or, better, really autonomous individuals. Thus this conclusion also hints critically against Kantian autonomous morality. As if, contrary to Kant, Landau suggests that in order to behave morally, respecting the moral law or value is certainly less than enough. Instead, he argues, we have to fear what others will say about our behavior and preferences and, while behaving immorally, we [End Page 153] should be ashamed of ourselves in the eyes of other people; otherwise we would not be moral beings at all. All other motives, however sublime, are not sufficient to make us moral beings. Landau regards self-deception or simply wistful thinking of any attempt at thinking otherwise (p. 94), namely, that other motives (such as the respect for the moral law) are sufficient to behave morally. Landau's view is prudent, realistic, and powerful, but, nonetheless, annoying. I have a strong feeling that he is wrong, and this feeling of mine, I believe, does not rest upon self-deception or wishful thinking about humanity; it relies instead upon insight that is backed by sound argument.Why a fairly ordinary person, one of us, would not like to kill a Mandarin, who has done no harm to any of us and who is a completely remote stranger, a lonely person whose death would not change any one else's life but instead would benefit that ordinary person a lot? Suppose, like Landau's thought experiment, that no one, absolutely no one, not even omniscient God, if He exists at all, would know even a little bit about the intention, let alone the deed, of any such potential murderer who can be any human being. What could be his or her reason, as sufficient motive, not to kill the Mandarin after all, even if such a murder would change the life of the potential murderer enormously for the better?We have to explicate Balzac-Landau's thought experiment slightly in order to realize its failure. I call this explication "the mutual effect presupposition" (or, if you like, "the reflexive effect presupposition"). Actually, the thought experiment presupposes it for, if the wish or consent of the potential ("wishful") murderer can cause the Mandarin's death which, in turn, benefits the potential murderer immensely, they are both under the mutual effect presupposition. The problem is that Landau and others appear to be unaware of the moral significance or implication of this presupposition. According to it, given that if I can wish for the Mandarin's death and cause it by means of this wish, then someone, sharing the same world with me, may wish for my own death and may bring it about by means of such a wish alone, provided that absolutely no one knew about such a wish. Would I accept that? Would the potential murderer accept a possible situation in which he would be the Mandarin whom somebody else would like to murder for the... (shrink)

The revolutionary discovery of actual quasicrystals, thanks to Dan Shechtman’s stamina, is a golden opportunity to analyze once again the role that pure (“theoretical”) possibilities and saving them plays in scientific progress. Some theoreticians, primarily Alan Mackay, contributed to saving pure possibilities of quasicrystalline structures and to opening materials science for them. My analysis rests upon an original modal metaphysics—panenmentalism—which I introduced and have been developing since 1999, quite independently of any familiarity with modern crystallography, and which deals with saving (...) pure possibilities as indispensably contributing, inter alia, to our knowledge and sciences. (shrink)