This article aims to make an analysis of the cultural and anthropological issues raised by synthetic biology. The novelty of the field makes it relatively difficult to compose a comprehensive analysis, even for philosophers with experience, but who are not familiar with the specifics of the field. The article will follow the synthesis of the models of ethical decision applicable in the field of ethical evaluation of technologies from a cultural and anthropological perspective, their critical analysis and will highlight (...) the limitations of each model, as well as a possible synthesis of a model of ethical evaluation of technologies. Afterwords, it can be decided whether a particular technology - such as those involved in synthetic biology - poses risks to the environment, to those involved in research, to future generations, to humanity as a whole or to present or future ecosystems. (shrink)

Nondualism, ontology, and anthropology -- Anthropology and the synthetic a priori: Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty -- Blind faith and the binding of Isaac: the Akedah -- Excursus I: sacrifice as human existence -- Counter-sacrifice and instrumental reason: the Holocaust -- Bourdieu's anti-dualism and "generalized materialism" -- Habermas's anti-dualism and "communicative rationality" -- Technological efficacy, mythic rationality, and non-contradiction -- Epistemic efficacy, mythic rationality, and non-contradiction -- Contradiction and choice among the Dinka and in Genesis -- Contradiction in Azande (...) oracular practice and in psychotherapeutic interaction -- Epistemic and ethical gain -- Transcending dualism and amplifying choice -- Excursus II: what good, ethics? -- Anthropology and the generative primacy of moral order -- Conclusion: Emancipatory selfhood and value-rationality. (shrink)

Review of: Sophia Roosth, Synthetic: How Life Got Made (University of Chicago Press, 2017); and Andrew S. Balmer, Katie Bulpin, and Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, Synthetic Biology: A Sociology of Changing Practices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

_Purpose._ The study aims to substantiate philosophical anthropology as a space for the development of biopolitics, which is a relatively new synthetic scientific knowledge of the political in the biological and the biological in the political, which, however, has its roots in the era of antiquity. The analysis of biopolitics in the context of contemporary global challenges, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic, is carried out, which allows to actualize a new direction of biopolitics – microbiopolitics. _Theoretical basis._ The (...) study is based on an understanding of the initial, in relation to biopolitics, the nature of philosophical anthropology. While philosophical anthropology seeks an answer to the question – who is _Homo sapiens_, given the biosocial nature of man, biopolitics specifies the question in the form – who is _homo politicus_ in modern socio-political space with a focus on the imperative of a human-centred approach in the social sciences. The study is based on scientific works by specialists in philosophical anthropology and biopolitics. _Originality._ The authors substantiate the expediency and relevance of considering philosophical anthropology as a contextual space for the evolution of biopolitical knowledge from the natural philosophy of Antiquity to modern microbiopolitics. _Conclusions._ Philosophical anthropology is seen as a specific epistemological landscape in which fields of scientific knowledge are formed and developed that are in one way or another involved in the philosophical problems of man: philosophical psychology, social anthropology, philosophy of medicine, humanology, philosophy of education, ethics, as well as biophilosophy, bioethics, and, in particular, biopolitics. (shrink)

The rapidity with which new sciences are being formed and the older ones are becoming further specialized calls for a complementary effort to interrelate the sciences. A genuine synthetization must be completely open to all future discoveries and developments within science. Such an openness would be possible only if scientific understanding possesses certain invariable patterns according to which the synthetization could be constructed. Lonergan's Insight (New York, 1958) seems to have uncovered these basic and irrevisable patterns. Not only do they (...) demonstrate the complementarity of classical and statistical methods but the isomorphic Emergent Probability operative in world-process may well provide the framework for an open synthetization. In the present essay this possibility is demonstrated by interrelating, according to it, certain generic fields of the scientific endeavor, from physics to cultural anthropology. (shrink)

Buchanan and Rawls have reminded us that economic science has neglected the institutional settings of exchange. Buchanan is in keeping with the epistemological fiction of Hobbes, that of envisaging social institutions as the intended result of the interaction of rational rationalities. Rawls uses the Lockean tradition to apprehend the fundamental structure of society as the intended result of agreement between reasonable rationalities. These two visions establish the juxtaposition of human motivations.By contrast, we suggest to combine rationalities. For, if social institutions, (...) and notably justice, encourage – or discourage – the wealth of nations as Smith taught us, they must then be circumscribed with regard to what man is in his more general traits. This combination of abstract rationalities requires then that a synthetic rationality be put forward, that allows the exploration of the complexity of human choice, both in its instrumental and axiological dimension. Aristotle had already discovered this rationality through his studies of prudential rationality, which this paper complements with the notion of customary rationality.Buchanan et Rawls ont rappelé que l’échange possède sa raison institutionnelle que la science économique ne reconnaît plus. Le premier s’inscrit dans la tradition de la fiction épistémologique hobbesienne pour envisager les institutions sociales comme le résultat volontaire de l’interaction de raisons rationnelles. Le second reprend la méthode lockéenne pour appréhender la structure de base de la société comme le résultat volontaire de l’accord de raisons raisonnables. Ces deux démarches consacrent la juxtaposition des rationalités.Par contraste, nous suggérons de les combiner car si les institutions sociales, au coeur desquelles se trouve la justice, favorisent, ou non, la richesse des nations, comme Smith l’enseignait déjà, elles doivent par conséquent être circonscrites en fonction de ce qu’est l’homme dans sa plus grande généralité possible. Cette combinaison de rationalités abstraites suppose donc la mise en perspective d’une rationalité synthétique, permettant de considérer la complexité du choix humain, simultanément instrumental et axiologique. Cette rationalité, Aristote l’avait déjà découverte à travers son étude de la raison prudentielle dont nous proposons ici un complément en y associant la rationalité coutumière. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The authors aim to reveal the influence of philosophical and esoteric principles on the formation and further development of Roberto Assagioli’s concept of psychosynthesis. _The theoretical basis_ of the study is determined by the latest methodological approaches in the study of the relationship between philosophical, psychological, and esoteric approaches in the study of the unconscious and the formation of a harmonious personality. _Originality._ For the first time, a systematic analysis of the anthropological foundations of Roberto Assagioli’s work has been (...) carried out in Ukrainian philosophical literature, the specificity of the connection between esoteric teachings and psychosynthesis has been revealed on the basis of a thorough study of primary sources and biographical evidence of the life and work of the famous Italian thinker. _Conclusions._ Psychosynthesis, which is one of the leading directions of modern psychology, has a rather multicultural philosophical and methodological basis. Its founder Roberto Assagioli, while developing his concept, was influenced by theosophical-esoteric, pragmatic kabbalistic, and Eastern religious concepts and practices. Unlike psychoanalysis, which saw the unconscious as physiological-naturalistic determinants of the human psyche and behavior, psychosynthesis considers the unconscious as a hidden potential for self-development of the individual. Roberto Assagioli went through a long and difficult way to finally form his own concept, which became the basis of the psycho-techniques of disidentification and work with subpersonalities, which help to discover the true transpersonal self, which is the source of human self-improvement. Modern discussions about the relationship between psychosynthesis and various forms of parapsychology once again testify to the synthetic nature of Assagioli’s teaching, which combines various psychotherapeutic practices. This is what gives psychosynthesis a new push for development in the conditions of wars, disasters, loneliness, and related psychological disorders. (shrink)

The article assumes that the expression “comparative relativism”—the title of the Common Knowledge symposium in which the essay appears—is neither tautological nor oxymoronic. Rather, the author construes the term as an apt synthetic characterization of anthropology and illustrates that idea by means of four quotations, taken from authors as different as Richard Rorty and David Schneider, Marcel Mauss and Henri Michaux. The quotations can be said to “exemplify” anthropology in terms that are interestingly (and diversely) restrictive: some (...) of them amount to extrinsic negations of anthropology that would paralyze it; others suggest intrinsic negativities that would propel it. All of the passages chosen evoke the idea of belief, which is profoundly implicated, in all possible senses (and especially the worse ones), in the majority of arguments that connect the themes of anthropology, comparison, and relativism. (shrink)

Taken as a philosophical issue, the idea of representation implies the prior assumption of a difference between reality and its “doubles.” Things are paired with images, concepts, or symbols, acts with rules and norms, events with structures. Traditionally, the problem with representations has been their “accuracy,” the degree of fit between reality and its reproductions in the mind. When philosophers lost the hope of ever determining accuracy , they found consolation in the test of usefulness: a good representation is one (...) that works. The proof of its working is that it enables us to act on the world together.1 In such a frame, science, including anthropology, is conceived as the pursuit of privileged representations, privileged in that, by their nature of by their combination, they establish knowledge of a special kind. In the case of anthropology, “culture” has served as a sort of umbrella concept for representations. The strcuturalists have been most explicit about the need to think of representation in the plural, but their position is shared, in varying degrees, by all those who conceive of knowledge as the selection and combination of signs in systems, patterns, or structures, in short, as some kind of conceptual order ruling perceptual chaos. 1. Remember the connection between the Kantian quest for synthetic forms and Émile Durkheim’s idea of collective representations sustained by the moral authority of a society. Durkheim certainly was one to look for the “ethic” in the “ethnic” primitive, and it makes me wonder whether Stephen A. Tyler’s characterization of postmodern ethnography as a return to “an earlier and more powerful notion of the ethical character of all discourse, as captured in the ancient significance of the family of terms ‘ethos,’ ‘ethnos,’ ‘ethics’” might not signal a return to the Durkheimian fold . Johannes Fabian is professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. His publications include Jamaa: A Charismatic Movement in Katanga , Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object , and Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation of Swahili in the Former Belgian Congo, 1880-1938 . Two books will appear in 1990: History from Below: The Vocabulary of Elisabethville by André Yav, a commented edition-translation of a colonial history written in Swahili by the colonized for the colonized, and Power and Performance, a study of conceptions of power through popular wisdom and theater in Shaba/Zaire. (shrink)

Bergmann’s rule and Allen’s rule played important roles in mid-twentieth century discussions of adaptation, variation, and geographical distribution. Although inherited from the nineteenth-century natural history tradition these rules gained significance during the consolidation of the modern synthesis as evolutionary theorists focused attention on populations as units of evolution. For systematists, the rules provided a compelling rationale for identifying geographical races or subspecies, a function that was also picked up by some physical anthropologists. More generally, the rules provided strong evidence for (...) adaptation by natural selection. Supporters of the rules tacitly, or often explicitly, assumed that the clines described by the rules reflected adaptations for thermoregulation. This assumption was challenged by the physiologists Laurence Irving and Per Scholander based on their arctic research conducted after World War II. Their critique spurred a controversy played out in a series of articles in Evolution, in Ernst Mayr’s Animal Species and Evolution, and in the writings of other prominent evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists. Considering this episode highlights the complexity and ambiguity of important biological concepts such as adaptation, homeostasis, and self-regulation. It also demonstrates how different disciplinary orientations and styles of scientific research influenced evolutionary explanations, and the consequent difficulties of constructing a truly synthetic evolutionary biology in the decades immediately following World War II. (shrink)

This book suggests a bold comparative approach to broad cultural differences between Africa and Melanesia. Its theme is personhood, understood in terms of what anthropologists call embodiment. These concepts are applied to questions ranging from the meanings of spirit possession, to the logics of witchcraft and kinship relations, the use of rituals in healing, and even the impact of capitalism. Questioning common assumptions about the huge differences among these discrete areas, the contributions document surprising continuities.

Social robotics entertains a particular relationship with anthropomorphism, which it neither sees as a cognitive error, nor as a sign of immaturity. Rather it considers that this common human tendency, which is hypothesized to have evolved because it favored cooperation among early humans, can be used today to facilitate social interactions between humans and a new type of cooperative and interactive agents - social robots. This approach leads social robotics to focus research on the engineering of robots that activate anthropomorphic (...) projections in users. The objective is to give robots "social presence" and "social behaviors" that are sufficiently credible for human users to engage in comfortable and potentially long-lasting relations with these machines. This choice of ’applied anthropomorphism’ as a research methodology exposes the artifacts produced by social robotics to ethical condemnation: social robots are judged to be a "cheating" technology, as they generate in users the illusion of reciprocal social and affective relations. This article takes position in this debate, not only developing a series of arguments relevant to philosophy of mind, cognitive sciences, and robotic AI, but also asking what social robotics can teach us about anthropomorphism. On this basis, we propose a theoretical perspective that characterizes anthropomorphism as a basic mechanism of interaction, and rebuts the ethical reflections that a priori condemns "anthropomorphism-based" social robots. To address the relevant ethical issues, we promote a critical experimentally based ethical approach to social robotics, "synthetic ethics," which aims at allowing humans to use social robots for two main goals: self-knowledge and moral growth. (shrink)

In the predominant pedagogical frameworks of our days, rationalist, voluntarist or sentimentalist reductionisms are seen, from which it is about educating people regardless of their Origin and the singular and unrepeatable originality with which they have been given to existence. Faced with this anthropocentric confinement, Sensitive Education arises so that every person, regardless of their culture and creed, remains sensitive to their Origin and captures their own originality, which in the end is what they must accept and try to manifest (...) with education. When educational systems are not sensitive to the original, they develop falsehood. With the aim of consolidating the validity of the pedagogical-anthropological foundation of Sensitive Education, this study seeks to show how Edith Stein’s argument explains Sensitive Education, although Stein, after her conversion, uses explicitly Christian terminology. Stein’s direct terms serve to describe Education Sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but for those who do not start from a Christian worldview, Education Sensitive to Origin can be a more non-denominational way of approaching the Original. To achieve this objective, an analytical-synthetic methodology has been followed in which essential features of Sensitive Education are proposed and in a hermeneutic manner, arguments are extracted from the writings of Edith Stein that offer support for these essential features. In conclusion, it is sufficiently shown that Edith Stein’s thought provides a pedagogical foundation to Sensitive Education. (shrink)

In an intriguing but neglected passage in the Transcendental Deduction, Kant appears to link the synthetic activity of the understanding in experience with the phenomenon of attention (B156-7n). In this paper, we take up this hint, and draw upon Kant's remarks about attention in the Anthropology to shed light on the vexed question of what, exactly, the understanding's role in experience is for Kant. We argue that reading Kant's claims about synthesis in this light allows us to combine (...) two aspects of Kant's views that many commentators have thought are in tension with one another: on the one hand, Kant's apparent commitment to naïve realism about perception and, on the other, his apparent commitment to the necessity of synthetic activity by the understanding for any kind of cognitive contact with external objects. (shrink)

What is recognition and why is it so important? This book develops a synoptic conception of the significance of recognition in its many forms for human persons by means of a rational reconstruction and internal critique of classical and contemporary accounts. The book begins with a clarification of several fundamental questions concerning recognition. It then reconstructs the core ideas of Fichte, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth and utilizes the insights and conceptual tools developed across these chapters for (...) developing a case for the universal importance of recognition for humans. It argues in favour of a universalist anthropological position, unusual in the literature on recognition, that aims to construe a philosophically sound basis for a discourse of common humanity, or of a shared human life-form for which moral relations of recognition are essential. This synthetic conception of the importance of recognition provides tools for articulating deep intuitions shared across cultures about what makes human life and forms of human co-existence better or worse, and thus tools for mutual understanding about the deepest shared concerns of humanity, or of what makes us all human persons despite our differences. -/- Recognition and the Human Life-Form will appeal to readers interested in philosophical anthropology, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and the history of philosophy. It also provides ideas and conceptual tools for fields such as anthropology, education, disability studies, international relations, law, politics, religious studies, sociology, and social research. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology is a distinctive discipline established in the 1920s-30s by German thinkers. It arose as an attempt to integrate various philosophical methods and theories and to confirm the synthetic conception of man by scientific data from fields such as biology, psychology, ethnology, and sociology. The task was to use the ideas and information about man provided by religious and historical experience, philosophical speculation, and scientific research to develop a general theory of man that would be comprehensive enough (...) to qualify for philosophical status and grounded enough empirically to qualify for scientific status. This ambitious program ran into various difficulties some of which are discussed in the selections in this issue of our journal. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to discover the ambivalent nature of the idea of optiman in the concept of the problem of new humanism. The essence of ecological and anthropological crises is the subject of analysis by the authors of this article. The given problematics is revealed through the reference to the analysis of the idea of optiman. Methodology of research are general lofical research methods, method of historical and philosophical reconstruction, method of comparative analysis, method of system analysis. (...) The scientific novelty of the research is the synthetic approach to solving the anthropological crisis, taking into account both ecological, biological and existential problems. Anthropological crisis has shown not only existential, but also biosocial problems of human existence and preservation of his biological bases. In this context, the idea of the possibility of purposeful intervention in human genetics and creation of an optiman or a superman dominates. The concept of «optiman» implies an attempt of harmonization of human innings, but not the replacement of natural givenness with something else. The «control over evolution» in such transcription assumes conscious work of many generations on creation of an opriman. However, technocratic attitudes of modern society demarcate this sense, emphasizing that the nature of an individual is determined not so much by the natural capabilities of the organism as by the technological achievements of modern civilization, which allow overcoming the natural barriers. The ambivalent nature of the idea of optiman appropriately constituents the search for new meanings in the notions of human nature. In this article two approaches to understanding optimen: transhumanism and existentialism are considered. The first approach is based on the positions of the expediency of transformation of human nature by technology, the second understands the ideal of the human as his ability to self-overcome. Conclusions. It is noted that transhumanism without recourse to the existentials of human existence can lead to increased alienation of a person and his technical suppression. The authors of the article conclude that a new humanism should be established. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology and philosophical biology were both very powerful and influential movements in the German academic discussion of the early 20th century. Starting with a similar conceptual background (particularly with reference to Hans Driesch’s bio-Aristotelism) they aimed at a synthetic philosophy of nature, which was supposed to include human nature into the realm of a monist description of nature itself. Within this field of biophilosophical reasoning, Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of organism and his theoretical biology hold a central (...) place. In this paper, Uexküll’s theoretical biology is reconsidered as a resumption and reformulation of a theory of knowledge from a “Kantian” provenience. Its specific structure as a generalized theory of knowledge is reconstructed and the pitfalls of a biological interpretation of the condition of the possibility of knowledge are outlined. The theory of organism is reconstructed as a centrepiece of Uexküll’sapproach. The last section of this paper presents a proposal of engineering morphology which allows the full application of Uexküll’s insights into the relativity of organismic constitution. The usefulness of functional modeling for evolutionary reconstructions on the basis of a theory of organism of uexküllian type and its relevance for biological research is evaluated. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology and philosophical biology were both very powerful and influential movements in the German academic discussion of the early 20th century. Starting with a similar conceptual background (particularly with reference to Hans Driesch’s bio-Aristotelism) they aimed at a synthetic philosophy of nature, which was supposed to include human nature into the realm of a monist description of nature itself. Within this field of biophilosophical reasoning, Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of organism and his theoretical biology hold a central (...) place. In this paper, Uexküll’s theoretical biology is reconsidered as a resumption and reformulation of a theory of knowledge from a “Kantian” provenience. Its specific structure as a generalized theory of knowledge is reconstructed and the pitfalls of a biological interpretation of the condition of the possibility of knowledge are outlined. The theory of organism is reconstructed as a centrepiece of Uexküll’sapproach. The last section of this paper presents a proposal of engineering morphology which allows the full application of Uexküll’s insights into the relativity of organismic constitution. The usefulness of functional modeling for evolutionary reconstructions on the basis of a theory of organism of uexküllian type and its relevance for biological research is evaluated. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology and philosophical biology were both very powerful and influential movements in the German academic discussion of the early 20th century. Starting with a similar conceptual background (particularly with reference to Hans Driesch’s bio-Aristotelism) they aimed at a synthetic philosophy of nature, which was supposed to include human nature into the realm of a monist description of nature itself. Within this field of biophilosophical reasoning, Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of organism and his theoretical biology hold a central (...) place. In this paper, Uexküll’s theoretical biology is reconsidered as a resumption and reformulation of a theory of knowledge from a “Kantian” provenience. Its specific structure as a generalized theory of knowledge is reconstructed and the pitfalls of a biological interpretation of the condition of the possibility of knowledge are outlined. The theory of organism is reconstructed as a centrepiece of Uexküll’sapproach. The last section of this paper presents a proposal of engineering morphology which allows the full application of Uexküll’s insights into the relativity of organismic constitution. The usefulness of functional modeling for evolutionary reconstructions on the basis of a theory of organism of uexküllian type and its relevance for biological research is evaluated. (shrink)

This article aims to demonstrate the existence of a parataxic mentality both in Homeric works and in the Old Testament, establishing a parallel to show that the body, as a living organic unit, which is shown through its parts that express not only the whole but also the individual. Therefore, there is a possible relationship between what Giovanni Reale understood as the “parataxic mentality” of Homeric poems, and what Hans Walter Wolff indicates as the “stereometric-synthetic thinking” of the Old (...) Testament. By attesting this relation and similarity between the mentalities of the Old Testament and the Homeric works, it’s shown not only the importance of a comparative study but also a renewal of both the anthropological grammar of these texts and the history of the anthropological concepts in Ancient Greece and even in the Judeo-Christian tradition. (shrink)

How can we deal with the diversity of theories in mathematics education? This was the main question that led the authors of this book to found the Networking Theories Group. Starting from the shared assumption that the existence of different theories is a resource for mathematics education research, the authors have explored the possibilities of interactions between theories, such as contrasting, coordinating, and locally integrating them. The book explains and illustrates what it means to network theories; it presents networking as (...) a challenging but fruitful research practice and shows how the Group dealt with this challenge considering five theoretical approaches, namely the approach of Action, Production, and Communication (APC), the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS), the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD), the approach of Abstraction in Context (AiC), and the Theory of Interest-Dense Situations (IDS). A synthetic presentation of each theory and their connections shows how the activity of networking generates questions at the theoretical, methodological and practical levels and how the work on these questions leads to both theoretical and practical progress. The core of the book consists of four new networking case studies which illustrate what exactly can be gained by this approach and what kind of difficulties might arise. (shrink)

How can we deal with the diversity of theories in mathematics education? This was the main question that led the authors of this book to found the Networking Theories Group. Starting from the shared assumption that the existence of different theories is a resource for mathematics education research, the authors have explored the possibilities of interactions between theories, such as contrasting, coordinating, and locally integrating them. The book explains and illustrates what it means to network theories; it presents networking as (...) a challenging but fruitful research practice and shows how the Group dealt with this challenge considering five theoretical approaches, namely the approach of Action, Production, and Communication (APC), the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS), the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD), the approach of Abstraction in Context (AiC), and the Theory of Interest-Dense Situations (IDS). A synthetic presentation of each theory and their connections shows how the activity of networking generates questions at the theoretical, methodological and practical levels and how the work on these questions leads to both theoretical and practical progress. The core of the book consists of four new networking case studies which illustrate what exactly can be gained by this approach and what kind of difficulties might arise. (shrink)

"Time. Perception. Imagination. Phenomenological Studies on the Question of Time by Augustine, Kant and Husserl". (rus), SPb, 2013. Summary: The monograph is devoted to the key elements of the philosophy of time which determine the necessity of historicism in the analysis of subjectivity. The main idea which defined the composition and design of this work is to trace how the Kantian definition of time as the “form of inner sense” is revealed in Husserl’s phenomenology. The original intention was to understand (...) all three components of this definition. Firstly, what is the inner form, in terms of phenomenology, what are the principles of its constitution and how one can talk about the property of formation? Secondly, what is the meaning of the term "inner" in philosophy, where the division into internal and external has always been a formality, not affecting the essence of things? And finally, what sort of “sensibility” is assumed in transcendental science, bound to become the basis of understanding the history and culture. Presumably, these three Kantian concepts constituted the original plan to analyze the nature of cognitive capabilities of the subject, claiming the gnoseological stage on which the philosophy of time is unfolded. In other words, this work deals with the historical and philosophical analysis of the phenomenological principles by which the concept of time as developed in the twentieth century emerged in the framework of phenomenology. The analyze of the structure of the subject assumes that time, perception and imagination combine in a special type of inner synthesis, which may not be relevant to certain aspects of the method but maintain the basis for a kind of anthropology of time, in continuation of the traditional “inner” contemplation. I consider the inner structure of time with the account of philosophy of St. Augustine, who in many respects not only anticipated the conclusions of phenomenology, but also in his reflections encompassed deeper layers of inner experience. The first chapter is devoted to the doctrine of St. Augustine, in which the theory of time is analyzed in conjunction with the doctrine of “inner word”, specifics of memory representations and notion of inner sense. Additionally, I consider St. Augustine’s reflections about numbers that constitute the basis of aesthetic perception of music (De Musica). Thus, the philosophy of St. Augustine already covers the whole spectrum of anthropology of time, including the question of relation between time and eternity, which remains practically unexplored in phenomenology and serves as the proof of that in interactions between philosophy and theology the tradition remains important. The second chapter of this study is devoted to analysis of the transcendental aesthetic of Kant, which includes all the methodological possibilities of considering the category of time as a formal condition for any experience, consequentially serving as a foundation for further logical development by Husserl, which includes the critical disengagement of the founder of phenomenology from Kant's transcendentalism. Particular attention is paid to the origin of the concept of inner sense, as well as possible interpretations of the function of imagination, which as a transcendental ability remains the most interesting type of synthesis. Handwritten fragments of Kant’s works are also of interest to the character of the imagery as considered in detail by Husserl. Chapter three discusses the phenomenology of inner time consciousness, represented in those important aspects, without which it is impossible to speak about the internal structure of temporal experience - the subjectivity of time, retention, "living present", and the character of synthesis. Particular attention is paid to Husserl's polemics with those representatives of psychological branch in the studies of consciousness, whose ideas greatly influenced the very motivation for creating the method. Apart from the well-known criticism of Brentano, the third chapter highlights the rarely analyzed psychological ideas that motivated the choice of Husserl’s terminology - the "Präsenzzeit” by W. Stern, the "psychological analysis" by A. Meinong, and the “fusion” (Verschmelzung) by K. Stumpf. Chapter four deals with the need to analyze the specifics of image as an element of consciousness and imagery as such, which includes a system of objectified acts. Thus is revealed the very nature of synthetic connections in the acts of consciousness, as well as the presumably imaginative character of the constitution of temporal form. (shrink)

Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System (...) geared to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This “swamps” working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model. (Published Online February 8 2007) Key Words: childhood ritual; compulsion; event boundaries; evolutionary psychology; obsessive-compulsive disorder; ritual; thought intrusion. (shrink)

According to Viveiros de Castro, comparison as ontology defines the ontological turn in anthropology. It presents a necessity for philosophy to approach the matter with comparative strategy. Morten Pedersen claims that ontological turn should be interpreted as a fulfillment of an anthropological version of Husserl’s method. Thus, phenomenology enters the field of interest along with its critique in Speculative Realism. In this article, we will see clearly why this selection is not accidental but rather unavoidable. Amerindian perspectivism necessitates the (...) philosophical reconceptualization of perspective in general, which is to be taken as a challenge for the established discourses. The need arises to rethink the problematic of Kantian perspectivism and its offspring. Amerindian perspectivism proposes cosmological deictics that hold a spatiality of the perspective of the other, of the in-itself, thus it comes into an opposition to Kant’s system. Phenomenological perspective, as one of the Kantian offspring, faces a predicament that is interwoven with the critique of correlationism arriving from Speculative Realisms. The synthetic character of phenomenology allows enough flexibility for it to traverse these recent charges. We will draw a comparative picture of dynamic co-evolution of strains of recent thought, striving for a synthetic multiplicity, permeated by a common perspectival thread. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Mimetic SacredGirard and Bataille Transcending DesireJeffery D. McNeil (bio)René Girard's (1923–2015) mimetic theory and Georges Bataille's (1897–1962) theory of the sacred both describe an unwitting pull to violence fueled by an aspect of desire. This violence cannot be denied but may be channeled through ritual, resulting in social cohesion or utter catastrophe. Their theories also illustrate the contagious flow of affective violence between individuals, quickly infecting the whole. (...) Girard describes a violent contagion that threatens physical annihilation, while Bataille's more vital contagion illustrates the dissolution of self into other. Both come to the same result—collective cohesion. However, for all the similarities, the essential mechanisms "end up with profoundly different visions of the dynamics sustaining the social bond and, indeed, of society's whole affective economy."1 For Girard, the operative community requires distinct individuals specific in their identities. A lack of distinctions between individuals—a state he calls undifferentiation—leads to a struggle for identity, conflict, and violence. Unity comes from the catharsis of collectively thwarting violence before conflict can destroy the community. For Bataille, unity comes from collectively communicating through ritual. A [End Page 103] primal urge to slip out of the hierarchical mastery of discontinuous being and join with the other in a step closer to continuous being unites through mutual affect generated through shared experience. Girard asserts that cohesion occurs by maintaining separation, while Bataille describes cohesion generated in its destruction.Despite their similar concerns and many agreements, Girard and Bataille have rarely been compared. Among those few studies, Tiina Arppe argues that the divergence in both thinkers' theories can be found in their sources, namely, Emile Durkheim's theory of the sacred and Alexandre Kojève's reading of Hegel.2 Antony D. Traylor argues in answering the question of the purpose of sacrifice that Bataille's understanding may add to or replace Girard's scapegoat mechanism.3 Traylor dissects both theories focusing on Girard's critique of metaphysical desire and Bataille's notion of sovereignty. Nidesh Lawtoo mobilizes both thinkers and others to unmask the mimetic forces entwined in ego creation.4 First, similar to Arppe, I argue that apparent contradictions between Girard and Bataille arise from critical influences of each thinker and offer an analysis paving the way, like Traylor, toward compatibility. However, I focus on the influence (or denial) of Sigmund Freud and Marcel Mauss—whom I argue are the most crucial influences for untangling these theories. By examining Girard's interpretation of Freud's theory of cultural origin and Bataille's use of Mauss's notion of the gift and potlatch, I trace a short anthropological genealogy of the sacred that proves critical to both theories.5 In that regard, I eschew wrestling with metaphysical concerns and instead take an anthropological approach to the sacred that moves beyond compatibility. Second, we perform a synthetization, illuminating a shared mimetic force lurking within both theories and how Bataille offers an expansion to Girard's already acute observations—for which Lawtoo's notions of the mimetic unconscious and mimetic communication are essential.My primary source for Girard's theory is Violence and the Sacred, with secondary support from The Scapegoat and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. For Bataille, I consult Erotism: Death and Sensuality and two essays: "The Notion of Expenditure" (and its later development in The Accursed Share) and "Definition of Heterology." I also use a small but significant excerpt from Theory of Religion concerning sacrifice and the festival. Secondary literature is introduced as needed. [End Page 104]PSYCHOANALYTIC ANTHROPOLOGYGirard and Bataille found varying degrees of influence in Freud. A short detour through the relationship between subject and desire and the violent origins of the sacred will set the stage for a deeper comparison. While Girard does not explicitly admit using the father of psychoanalysis as a starting point,6 he acknowledges the influence and relegates it under his own, claiming that Freud's theory "has been replaced by another explanation, at once very close to and very far removed from the Freudian viewpoint."7 Lawtoo illustrates essential similarities to be "Girard's emphasis on desire as the essence of... (shrink)

The ontological turn (OT) is a loose cluster of theoretical approaches within cultural anthropology that advocates a synthetic, overarching way forward for ethnographically oriented cultural anthropology. We argue that in order to contribute substantively to ethnobiology the OT needs to distance itself from a long-standing tradition of thinking within ethnography that assumes some kind of fundamental divide between the natural and the social sciences. This distancing seems especially unlikely in light of the meta-anthropological nature of the OT (...) as primarily a perspective on ethnographic methodology. Instead, we advocate for naturalistic theoretical alternatives for thinking about human sociality, where philosophical innovation develops in concert with ongoing empirical work across the biological, cognitive, and social sciences. We illustrate this perspective by drawing on two naturalistic accounts likely to prove more fruitful for ethnobiological practice, namely, trans-genera models of sociality and progenerative views of kinship. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed the extraordinary growth of radical relativism, a doctrine which now dominates the entire culture, from popular music to journalism and from religion to school curricula. According to the radical relativist creed, any proposition can be true or false in relation to a chosen framework, the evaluation of fundamental theories or 'paradigms' is beyond argument, there are no universal standards of rationality, and, methodologically, 'Anything goes!'. As James Harris explains in Against Relativism, the new relativism undoes the (...) work of the Enlightenment and inevitably leads to the conclusion that Galileo was wrong to insist that the Earth indeed moves. Succor for relativism has come from many philosophical schools, both Analytic and 'Continental'. Among the sources of the new relativism are the collapse of Logical Positivism and the shift within anthropology from a linear evolutionary model to numerous models for understanding human culture. In this detailed critique, Professor Harris has selected the strongest and most plausible arguments for relativism within contemporary academic philosophy. He turns the techniques of relativism against relativism itself, showing that it is ultimately self-refuting or otherwise ineffectual. He demonstrates that Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction appeals to the very analytic truths Quine tries to dispel; that Kuhn's celebrated account of paradigms must be either self-refuting or unintelligible; that Rorty cannot avoid presuppposing the epistemological principles he attacks; and that (although feminist criticisms of science exert a welcome corrective) attempts to develop a distinctively 'feminist science'are misconceived and unhelpful to feminism. In all these discussions, the author explains the arguments he is criticizing, for the benefit of the non-specialist reader, so that this work can serve as a partisan but fair introduction to some of the most important of present-day philosophy. (shrink)

1. The most important aspect of touch is its relation to time and space, a relation which is established by the movement of touching itself. Referring to the ideas of E. Straus, the distinction between touching and being touched is elaborated in light of experiments done by us with animals. 2. Touching is: being in one's own limits and at the same time going beyond these limits, a situation in which the touched object is felt at the same time as (...) a "Gegenstand" and as "Mit-seiend." "Pour le tactile, c'est l'être à deux qui se place au premier rang" . The awareness of being by the sense of touch is particularly poignant in the case of touching oneself, which is an exceptional unity of the active and the passive state of mind. 3. The tactile recognition of form also presents a dialectic of activity and passivity, a dialectic which takes place in the form of a development which conquers time, and this after a scheme produced during the act of grasping itself. We refer to the studies of V. von Weizsäcker on the "Gestaltkreis." We must also remember the basic restlessness of the hand, which becomes lasting in the play of the hand with an object. 4. The hand can hold an object. In doing so a schematic tactile image is given, an image which functions as a hypothesis or as an organizing principle of the proleptic development of further tactile exploration. The phenomenological analysis of touch with the hand appears as a prefiguration of thought by synthetic judgments. Thus, it is true, as Herder remarked, and as Gold-stein and Merleau-Ponty confirmed, that perception by man and spiritual existence are identical. 5. Referring to the research of Révèsz and Palagyi, the real nature of the tactile world is anlyzed. Tactile exploration is done according to a real development, during which take place anticipatory and retrospective determinations which assure the continuity of the event and its meaning. Tactile perception permits description of the continuous unity of the discontinuous phases which we can state objectively "as if" expectation and memory, preliminary judgments and their checking, conceptual fixations and corrections had been put to work. 6. Important is the affective and emotional aspect of tactile impressions and their connection with inter-human relationships. 7. By touch, man establishes in a "feeling" way a personal relationship with the matter of things, which is hidden to the distance senses. This participation has a double aspect. It is like the birth of a "mood," of a "Befindlichkeit," but at the same time it is the active point of departure of a "feeling," of an "understanding," of an "inner grasp," of a being moved, of a being struck by the touched object which is then in our presence as a real "quale," as a material object, as a being in itself. We remember the proper nature of the caress, by which the "being together" of the caressed object complements that of the active caresser. The usual concepts by means of which, in practical and gnostic life, the most important tactile qualities are indicated intend to refer us to the characteristics of the things which take up space in the geometric world and in objectively measurable space, and on which is founded our natural orientation. We remember von Hornborstel's research on the intermodal characteristics of tactile impressions. These show us how a "knowledge" which accompanies perception can change an impression of feeling. The affective relationship, determined by a shaded "knowledge" and by a system of values, changes tangible reality, the substantiality of the body, of the "flesh." This affective change of matter, this "phenomenal transsubstantiation," easily becomes a reality in connection with objects of which we know that they belong or did belong to someone. The meaning which a thing has changes the matter of the object, an object which precisely by the touch is present "in the flesh." This is illustrated more precisely by the phenomena of fetishism, and by simple experiences of daily life. If we look for an anthropological point of view from which touch, of which the hand realizes the point of view will have to be attempted starting from the unimaginable certitude that the ontological unity of nature and spirit is in man the reality of a possible participation, a participation which, in our existence, is only indicated. The "restlessness" of the hand, never fulfilled and always searching, which we noted, is the human token of our concrete existence. Thus touch shows us what Valery remarked about the mind: "The mind is at the mercy of the body, as the blind are at the mercy of the seeing.". (shrink)

The primary method by which science endeavors to order the world is the analytic approach, consistent with Cartesian principles of dividing the problem in as many sections as required for an optimal solution, and progressing from the simplest to the most complex reasoning. When the interactions among the various elements of the system being studied are minimal, such a procedure indeed makes it possible to formulate laws that describe chains of causality. However, when the variables are interdependent and linked by (...) non-linear equations, the atomistic method cannot account for the phenomenon in its entirety. Spurred by this inadequacy, scientists sought to discover synthetic methods which, early in the twentieth century, led to the conceptualization of holistic theories in a number of disciplines. The most highly developed fields are the psychology of form, structural anthropology (1), and the various systems theories (2). More recently, the development of epigenetic concepts in biology has corresponded to the appearance of different theories of pattern in physics and mathematics (3, 4) and to the progressive emergence of the concept of self-organization (5, 6, 7). The objective is to explain the production of complex structures on the basis of interacting elements, none of which contains a guiding scheme that dictates these structures. In biology, the challenge is to locate the constraints that are expressed in a space of possibilities (8) in order to develop a theory of organization that is capable of predicting the finite number of forms that living creatures can assume (9). This school of thought can be described as structuralist, emergentist, self-organizational, or epigeneticist, depending on the theoretical version that is emphasized. (shrink)

It should be clear that Lyell's scientific contemporaries would hardly have agreed with Robert Munro's remark that Antiquity of Man created a full-fledged discipline. Only later historians have judged the work a synthesis; those closer to the discoveries and events saw it as a compilation — perhaps a “capital compilation,”95 but a compilation none the less. Its heterogeneity made it difficult to judge as a unity, and most reviewers, like Forbes, concentrated on the first part of Lyell's trilogy. The chapters (...) on glaciation were admired by Lyell's friends but had relatively little appeal to more general readers. His discussion of the species question hedged far too much to please those who accepted the cogency of Darwin's evidence and arguments. This last section of the book blatantly lacks originality or commitment and certainly has no claim to classical status in anthropology.We are left, then, with the first twelve chapters, for it was this portion that dictated the book's title and that amassed the available evidence favoring the antiquity of the human species. Did it do anything more than marshall the evidence that others had discovered? I think not. Lyell could write with style and verve. Principles of Geology is a remarkably readable book. But Antiquity is the work of a geologist, not of a systematic student of man. Despite its occasional touches of power, it never captures the freshness and immediacy of Lubbock's Pre-historic Times nor the theoretical brilliance of E. B. Tylor's Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865).96 Antiquity utilizes little of the comparative method whereby Lyell's contemporaries used data from modern “savagery” to elaborate the possible social functions of the prehistoric remains being uncovered. It contains little social theory and has virtually no integrated framework. Even the first twelve chapters do not really hang together. As Hooker, commenting to Darwin on Lubbock's review, sadly wrote: “Lubbock in [the] N[atural] H[istory] Review, had in a note called attention to Lyell's ... ‘doing injustice’ to Prestwich & Falconer. I modified this expression ‘injustice’ in Lubbock's paper (which was friendly and apologetic). I am deeply sorry for it, but what can one do? I do think Lyell's first XII chapters a complete mess.”97 In another letter to Darwin, Hooker described this first portion of Antiquity as “confused and confusing.”98Part of the problem, of course, lay in the subject's novelty for Lyell and for most of his contemporaries. At a deeper level, however, I believe that the book accurately reflects Lyell's uncertainties about Darwin's work and its implications for man.99 Leonard Wilson's edition of Lyell's Scientific Journals provides a unique insight into Lyell's mind during the years just before he began to write Antiquity.100 Preoccupied with the human implications of evolutionary biology, Lyell was not clear how many of those implications were compatible with his deep convictions about the dignity of man's place in the cosmos. With a certain naiveté, Lyell complained in 1873 that many of his readers had failed to see the “natural connections” among the three portions of Antiquity.101 Connections could indeed be drawn between man's antiquity and his evolutionary origins; Lyell's private Scientific Journals movingly demonstrate that he was well aware of this fact. But he never fully made the connections in his published writings. Antiquity of Man is more appropriately seen as the last gasp of the heroic period in British geology than as the opening salvo in a new, post-Darwinian anthropological synthesis. Between the founding of the Geological Society of London in 1807 and the middle of the nineteenth century, geology was recognized as one of the most exciting and innovative scientific fields in Britain.102 Lyell himself had contributed much to that drama, and by the 1860's he was a public figure of venerable proportions. More then any other man he represented a geology that had extended the boundaries of process, time, and life. The fundamental achievements of Lyell and his colleagues had been assimilated into the wider Victorian consciousness, yet the earlier public debates about “genesis and geology” had left untouched in its essentials the concept of Man as a moral, responsible, created being.103Lyell never abandoned this view of his own species, and in 1863 it was a completely responsible creature which, under the weight of empirical evidence, Lyell admitted had lived on earth far longer than had previously been thought. Certainly this more generous allowance for human existence was constitutive to what Burrow calls the evolutionary social theory of midcentury Britain.104 Unlike Lyell, the younger representatives of this anthropology quietly accepted both man's antiquity and his aboriginal animality. Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology (1855), as well as the other volumes of his grand Synthetic Philosophy, presented as part of the cosmic process the development of human from prehuman beings.105 Tylor's discussion of what in his Researches (1865) he called the “gesture-language” presupposed the gradual and de novo origin of language in early human populations.106 Lubbock's young and polished mind was untroubled by the human implications of Darwin's work, and he cast his Prehistoric Times into such a perfect mold that it and its companionpiece (On the Origin of Civilization, 1870) went through seven editions each between 1865 and World War I, with their original theoretical structures intact. In a way that Lyell could not grasp, Lubbock was intrigued by questions concerning the origins of moral and religious beliefs and did not flinch at the thought of an amoral, atheistic creature as an ancestor.107 Indeed, as the German naturalist Carl Vogt pointed out in his Lectures on Man, translated into English the year after Antiquity, both Darwin's theories and the primitive flint knives of the Stone Age bore witness to a time beyond that imaginable from the condition of the lowest present-day “savage”:From such a low condition [little better than anthropomorphous apes], compared to which that of the so-called savages of the old and new world is a refined civilisation, has the human species gradually extricated itself, in a bitter struggle for existence, which it was well able to maintain, by being gifted with a larger amount of brain and intelligence than that possessed by the surrounding animal world.108The easy integration of biological and social themes was perhaps the distinguishing hallmark of Victorian anthropology of the 1850's and 1860's. After his fashion, Lyell got both themes into Antiquity, but he carefully separated them with a seven-chapter wall of glacial ice. Lyell's anthropology was not that of a thoroughgoing evolutionist like Lubbock, Tylor, or Spencer. For Lyell prehistoric man was not a product of biological evolution. Rude and superstitious he may have been, but he possessed ritual and a belief in a future state, and thus deserved “the epithet of ‘noble,’ which Dryden gave to what he seems to have pictured to himself as the primitive condition of our race: as Nature first made man/when wild in woods the noble savage ran.”109As a systematic argument, Lyell's book was at best a significant failure. As a popularization, it was a success — largely because of the personal stature of its author and the particular moment of its appearance. It helped establish the fact of man's antiquity with a wider Victorian audience, in itself no mean achievement. But Lyell was unable to exploit the fuller implications of his material in the service of a secular science of man. Ironically, he exploited only his colleagues' discoveries. Though the aging Lyell, with failing eyesight but unfailing mental powers, can still be seen as a man of considerable importance, his Antiquity belongs to the carefully circumscribed world of British geology rather than to the less disciplined world of Victorian anthropology. (shrink)

Starting from research on biotechnology and its applications to living organisms, this paper presents the key features of modern-day synthetic biology, as well as its main ethical implications. The analysis of the paradox of the concept of robustness in the creation of microorganisms through synthetic biology leads us to address the topic of vulnerability, applied to man, but also to all other living beings. The concept of “enhanced human being” will strengthen the link between complexity and vulnerability as (...) inherent features of living beings. Reflecting upon the importance of considering vulnerability applied to man’s three-fold dimensions - physical, psycho-social and spiritual - and their interaction with their environment, we will define a type of anthropology which may constitute the basis of the study on the ethical implications of synthetic biology. This will lead to present the purpose of an ethical limit to the temptation of « allmightiness », which the concept of enhanced human being could entail, and vulnerability as a defining feature of all living beings. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é demonstrar que os estudos de antropologia de Kant não constituem um agregado de elementos isolados senão que respondem a uma ordem sistemática de conhecimento estabelecido pelo plano da filosofia transcendental. Isso significa que a Antropologia está definida por um objeto sobre o qual se aplicam um conjunto de predicados segundo a ordem das capacidades, temperamentos e disposições. Porém, isto se faz a partir da possibilidade de uma proposição sintética a priori fundamental, a saber: “o homem (...) é cidadão do mundo”. Essa predicação conforma outras proposições sintéticas. Ditas proposições possuem características sui generis. Não são apenas predicações sobre objetos empíricos, mas não desconhecem as particularidades das observações da experiência; não referem diretamente à lei moral, mas não a desconhecem na constituição de seu objeto. Assim sendo, aqui se propõe uma interpretação sistemática do lugar, definição, divisão, objeto e método da Antropologia. Para poder chegar a isto, primeiro, avaliaremos a literatura secundária sobre o tema, segundo, formularemos com especificidade nosso problema e, terceiro, desenvolveremos a solução.The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that Kant’s studies of anthropology are not an aggregate of isolated elements but rather that they correspond to a systematic order of knowledge established by the project of transcendental philosophy. This means that Anthropology is defined by an object to which a conjunction of predicates are applied according to the order of their capabilities, temperaments, and dispositions. However, this comes as a result of the possibility of an a priori fundamental, synthetic proposition, specifically: “man is a citizen of the world.” This predication suits other synthetic propositions. These propositions have some sui generis characteristics. They are not merely predications about empirical objects, but they do not ignore the particularities of experience’s observations; they do not refer directly to moral law, but they are not ignorant of it in the constitution of its object. Being thus, a systematic interpretation of place, definition, division, object, and method of Anthropology is herein proposed according to a logical-semantic analysis of its fundamental proposition. In order to arrive at this interpretation, we will first make use of the secondary literature available on the topic. Second, we will formulate our problem in greater detail. Finally, we will develop the solution. (shrink)

First, it is clearly a great honor to our society that Paul Rabinow has agreed to present the Coss Dialogue Lecture for 2012. His work in the field of what he has termed "the anthropology of the contemporary" has reached out to otherwise diverse traditions in anthropology and philosophy in order to incorporate their best elements into a novel approach to the logos of anthropos. His case-based studies have focused on the relations between the physical sciences and the (...) human sciences, and especially between the efforts of scientists working in the fields of synthetic biology and the efforts of those working in the fields of the human sciences who take it as their task to evaluate the ethical and other diagnostic .. (shrink)

The role and nature of imagination in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is intensively examined. In addition, the text of Kant's Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View will also be considered because it helps illustrate this issue. Imagination is the fundamental power of the mind responsible for any act of forming and putting together representations. A new interpretation of imagination in Kant is given which recognizes its necessary roles as the factor responsible for producing space and time, as (...) an essential component in perception, as the mediator of concepts and intuitions, and as the synthesizing agent which groups together representations into categories. ;The work is divided basically into two parts. The first part looks at the imagination in the Transcendental Aesthetic. It will be shown that space and time themselves are products of imagination. As pure and a priori intuitions space and time are objects of thought and thus are conditioned by the synthetic power of imagination. Moreover, as forms of intuitions space and time are also conditioned by imagination; hence, imagination is a necessary factor in spatial and temporal perception. ;The second part of the thesis concerns the role of imagination in the Transcendental Analytic. Here the role of the imagination is more pervasive. In the Metaphysical Deduction the thesis argues that the imagination is responsible for uniting representations into twelve categories which are the conditions of thinking in general. Therefore the categories themselves owe their origins to imagination. This interpretation hinges on Kant's distinction between transcendental and general logic, which the thesis will discuss in detail. In the Transcendental Deduction the imagination is responsible for taking up representations in such a way that results in their belonging to a single framework of consciousness, thus showing that the categories apply to a posteriori representations. In the Schematism the imagination is necessary in forming the schemata, which join together concepts and intuitions so that both empirical and transcendental judgments are produced. Finally, a critique of Heidegger's idea on imagination as the "common root" of sensibility and understanding will be offered. (shrink)

The Western cultural archetype of Narcissus experiences a significant turning point in the 1400s, thanks to Leon Battista Alberti’s work. Indeed, the myth evolves from being a subject embodying a taboo in the Antiquity to become the glance that generates the image; in so doing this myth assumes the rank of science and philosophy. Alberti does not follow Pliny’s reading of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, but handles Philostratus’s version; with his visual description he represents in the “Eikones” the darting glance towards the (...) water. The rendering of this image anticipates the notion of centric ray, on which Alberti establishes his perspective’s theory based on the diaphanous nature of “velum”. The art of painting is compared to an “open vitreous and translucent window”. Narcissus does not see the water, so to say, but the image, as well as the painting’s observer instantly grasps the iconic value of it, rather than the material support. Because of this immediacy, the art of painting becomes the terrain of revelation: it makes clear the emerging progressive visibility of “something”, thus concurring with philosophy; better, the art of painting overtakes philosophy with the simple representation of polysemous complexities. This is the new art of painting, in which “there is nothing that is not philosophy”. Furthermore, in this synthetic role of representation in which the icon becomes all one with the spectator – in addition to the centric ray and to the orthogonality of the vision, topics already analyzed by the author in previous studies – consists an outstanding resemblance between Alberti and Cusanus. The two philosophers show their synergy in exploring a new anthropology. From this point of view can be read Alberti’s explanation, often misinterpreted, of Narcissus’ transformation into a flower: a synthesis between “imaginatio” and “executio”, or inactiveness versus activeness. Among all Narcissus’ portrayals of that time, it would be useful to consider the Pseudo Boltraffio’s version of London; this rendering applies thematically Alberti’s theory in its essential aspects, introducing it within Leonardo Da Vinci’s circle of artists. (shrink)

Numerous theories have attempted to overcome the anti-essentialist scepticism about the possibility of defining art. While significant advances have been made in this field, it seems that most modern definitions fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art raised by Morris Weitz, and rarely even attempt to provide an account which would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This thesis looks at the most successful definitions currently defended, determines their strengths and weaknesses, (...) and offers a new, cultural definition which can preserve the good elements of other theories, solve or avoid their problems, and have a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. The resulting theory is a synthetic one in that it preserves the essential institutionalism of Dickie's institutional views, is inspired by the historical and functional determination of artistic phenomena present in Levinson's historicism and Beardsley's functionalism, and presents the reasons for something becoming art in a disjunctive form of Gaut's cluster account. Its strengths lie in the ability to account for the changing art-status of objects in various cultures and at various times, providing an explanation of not only what is or was art, but also how and why the concept 'art' changes historically and differs between cultures, and successfully balancing between the over-generalisations of ahistorical and universalist views, and the uninformativeness of relativism. More broadly, the cultural theory stresses the importance of treating art as a historical phenomenon embedded in particular social and cultural settings, and encourages cooperation with other disciplines such as anthropology and history of art. (shrink)

Natural sociability and the basic features of human nature stood at the centre of Thomas Abbt's confrontation with conjectural history, the popular eighteenth-century mode of reconstructing the evolution of human culture. Abbt (1738–1766) criticised conjectural histories due to their arbitrary character, and opted for a synthetic approach consisting of both sacred and secular history. He suggested that the anthropology of Genesis should be accepted as the starting point for a conjectural history, since it left ample room for further (...) questions and speculations. Yet his own perspective on human nature and its evolution remained naturalistic, as attested by his divergent interpretations of the confusion of tongues at Babel. Attempting to shed new light on the lesser-known elements of Abbt's work, the essay links his views on the Bible and conjectural history to his debate with Moses Mendelssohn over the constitution and destination of man. In this debate, both Mendelssohn and Abbt dealt with the contemporary controversy over the natural or artificial character of sociability, self-interest, and fellow-feeling. (shrink)

In this book the editors invited prominent researchers with different perspectives and deep insights into the various facets of the relationship between reality and representation in the following three classes of agent: in humans, in other living beings, and in machines. -/- The book enriches our views on representation and deepens our understanding of its different aspects, a question that connects philosophy, computer science, logic, anthropology, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, linguistics, information and communication science, systems theory and engineering, computability, cybernetics, (...) synthetic biology, and bioinformatics biosemiotics. This book will be relevant to researchers in these fields. (shrink)

This paper discusses the cardinal points of Krąpiec’s metaphysical personalism, in the context of a synthetic reading of his most important works in philosophical anthropology. A new vision of Krąpiec’s thought is proposed, via a discussion of the metaphysical foundations of his anthropology and by emphasizing his notion of the three stages or phases in which personhood reveals itself. Each of these emerges as an integral element when outlining a conception of persons and when demonstrating the overriding (...) importance of the issue of personhood for philosophical anthropology. Firstly, personhood manifests itself in the inner experience of one’s own subjectivity as something universally shared by human beings. Next, this fact is itself shown to be grounded metaphysically in the soul as an immaterial principle organizing the body. As a result, persons emerge as substantial rational beings. An examination of the potentialities of such beings then reveals the transcendence of persons in respect of nature and society, together with their self-fulfillment in intellectual and moral acts, in interpersonal relations, and—ultimately—in their relatedness to the Person of the Absolute. Krąpiec’s personalism relies upon classical Thomistic metaphysics, and presents a person’s life in universal terms as a process culminating in the actively experienced moment of death. (shrink)

Some anthropologists advocate going back to Boas’s anthropology to retrieve his sense of the individual and agency, among other things. Such a "psycho-logical Boas" could only exist in his holistic works. Elsewhere, I argued in a very synthetic way that Boas’s ethnography was not holistic. Here, I move a step further; perusing the very texts that famous commentators have singled out to prove Boas’s holism, I discover no holism; I find history as mere movement in space, and no (...) individual agents; hence, no real psychology or agency. I only discern cultural fragments randomly assembling to form regional cultures. Key Words: neo-Boasian anthropology • Boas • holism • history of anthropology. (shrink)