This chapter contains sections titled: Preamble The case of proper names The difference principle The ‘within a world’ version of the argument using the difference principle Sentences containing “actual” and “actually” Demonstrative adjectives Natural kind terms A passing comment on centering Where to from here?

The notion of intersubjectivity has achieved a primary status in contemporary psychoanalytic debate, stimulating new theoretical proposals as well as controversies. This paper presents an overview of the main contributions on inter-subjectivity in the field of neurosciences. In humans as well as—probably—in other species, the ability for emotional resonance is guaranteed early in development. Based on this capacity, a primary sense of connectedness is established that can be defined inter-subjective in that it entails sharing affective states and intentions with caregivers. (...) We propose to define such a form of inter-subjectivity ascontingent, since the infant’s early abilities for resonance do not imply the more generalized capacity to permanently conceive of the relationship outside the realm of current interactions and the infant-caregiver’s mutual correspondence of internal states. This form of connection, hence, results in a self-referential, bodily, and affectively codified, context- and time dependent, like-me experience of interactions. The gradual maturation of brain structures and processes as well as interactive experiences allow proper intersubjectivity exchanges, grounded on new intentional and representational capacities, to evolve. In this more mature form of intersubjectivity, the individual is allowed to conceive of her own psychic space both as distinct and as possibly connected with the other’s contents and experience, even in the absence of current behavioral indicators of such correspondence. This multi-layered model of intersubjectivity, which is embraced by current neuroscience research, seems to allow for new interpretations of psychoanalytic models of human relatedness based upon classic clinical observations. (shrink)

Michael Beaney has argued that Frege’s characterization of the senses of names as modes of presentation early in “On Sense and Reference” is problematic, but the problem disappears if we use the notion of modes of determination as that was deployed in the Begriffsschrift to characterize senses. It is argued that there is no philosophically interesting difference between the two notions, and no problem posed by modes of presentation that would be resolved by appeal to (...) modes of determination. (shrink)

Michael Beaney has argued that Frege’s characterization of the senses of names as modes of presentation early in “On Sense and Reference” is problematic, but the problem disappears if we use the notion of modes of determination as that was deployed in the Begriffsschrift to characterize senses. It is argued that there is no philosophically interesting difference between the two notions, and no problem posed by modes of presentation that would be resolved by appeal to (...) modes of determination. (shrink)

Due to the obvious and widely studied Deweyan foundations in the educational program elaborated by philosopher Mathew Lipman, Philosophy for Children is often presented as a continuation of Dewey’s democratic ideal, as a mode of associated living. I argue that there is a democratic model specific to Lipman’s P4C, that cannot be reduced to Dewey’s theories. To do so, I propose to compare Dewey’s and Lipman’s educational models through the Bourdieusian notion of habitus, understood as a set of lasting mental (...) dispositions, following a specific social conditioning, revealed by some practical habits. Studying in depth Dewey’s and Lipman’s educational recommendations concerning inquiry does not only reveal that they are structured according to different rationalities, it also highlights the fact that they tend to develop different habits and dispositions in the child, that ultimately form two distinct citizen habitus. Dewey’s habitus could be called experimental and Lipman’s habitus dialogical and they both correspond to their respective reflections on democracy and the role a citizen should be playing. I conclude by highlighting the interesting possibilities that stem from the analysis and comparison of educational models through the notion of habitus.Resumen: En razón de las indudables y ampliamente estudiadas fundaciones deweyana en la pedagogía elaborada por el filósofo Mathew Lipman, la filosofía para niños es generalmente presentada como una continuación del ideal democrático de John Dewey, como un modo de vida asociada. Sostengo que existe un modelo democrático específico a la filosofía para niños como la que fue elaborada por Lipman, que no se puede reducir a las teorías de Dewey. Para mostrar eso, propongo de comparar las pedagogías de Dewey y de Lipman a través de la noción bourdieusiana del habitus, entendida como un conjunto de disposiciones mentales duraderas, proveniente de un condicionamiento social específico, que se manifiesta por hábitos prácticos. Un estudio en profundidad de las recomendaciones educativas de Dewey y de Lipman en cuento a la encuesta no sólo revela que están organizadas por racionalidades diferentes, sino también que desarrollan hábitos y disposiciones diferentes en el niño, que últimamente forman dos habitus ciudadanos distintos. El habitus de Dewey se puede llamar experimental, y el de Lipman un habitus dialógico, los dos corresponden a sus reflexiones respectivas sobre la democracia y el rol del ciudadano. Concluyo subrayando las posibilidades interesantes que emerjan de la analiza y comparación de las pedagogías a través de la noción de habitus. (shrink)

This paper presents an implementation of two radically different control schemes for a state-coupled two-tank liquid-level system. This is due to the purpose of transferring theoretical studies to industrial systems. The proposed schemes to be introduced and compared are the nonsingular terminal sliding mode control and the backstepping control. The performances of the developed methods are experimentally tested on a particular class of second-order nonlinear systems. The main purpose of the considered control schemes is to achieve a tracking trajectory (...) for a coupled-tank system. It is proved that the designed robust controllers guarantee the stability of the corresponding closed loop systems. The obtained results are verified with the same setup test to ensure a suitable basis for their comparison. During the experiments, we resorted to adding an integrator to the backstepping control so that we improve the results, leading to the appearance of the integrator backstepping control. To focus on the adequacy and applicability of the suggested control layout, theoretical comparisons as well as experimental results are afforded and debated. (shrink)

Current descriptivist accounts of proper names entail two claims: that the expressions we know as different proper names are the bearers of different meanings and that the descriptions corresponding to these meanings contain quotations of the expressions whose meanings they are taken to be. While is the source of a number of intractable problems, descriptivists feel committed to it because it is the only available option to adhere to, which they use to take as a matter (...) of course. In the present paper I will bring up for discussion a, to my knowledge, new descriptivist account, inter-nominal descriptivism, which avoids the commitment to by rejecting. According to this account, all tokens of the expressions known as different proper names express the same descriptive mode of presentation and this descriptive mode of presentation is akin to the character of an indexical. I will try to show that, contrary to first appearance, this idea can be developed in a consistent and plausible manner. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Good and Bad Ways to Think about Religion and Politics by Robert Benne, and: The Way of Peace: Christian Life in the Face of Discord by James M. Childs Jr.Bruce P. RittenhouseGood and Bad Ways to Think about Religion and Politics Robert Benne Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. 127 pp. $14.00The Way of Peace: Christian Life in the Face of Discord James M. Childs Jr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, (...) 2008. 149 pp. $19.00A comparison of Robert Benne’s Good and Bad Ways to Think about Religion and Politics and James Childs’s The Way of Peace illustrates the current divisions in political theology in the US Lutheran tradition. Benne’s book is a polemic aimed at the leadership of the mainline Protestant denominations and their mode of engagement with the American political process. In Benne’s account, these denominations draw too direct and exclusive a line between Christian faith and liberal political commitments; conversely, he sees greater agreement between core Christian norms and conservative political concerns. By contrast, Childs’s book provides an exegetical development of Christian norms of peace and peacemaking, followed by direct applications of Christian norms to public issues of economic justice and war that parallel the positions of secular liberals.Benne seeks to explore anew the issue of how Christians should interact with the political process. Unlike H. Richard Niebuhr, who undertook a similar project in Christ and Culture, Benne engages contemporary secular interpretations and critiques of religious engagement in politics. Benne rejects the strict separationist positions of the new atheists such as Richard Dawkins and the fusionist positions he attributes to Paul Tillich and the leadership of the contemporary mainline denominations in favor of a critical engagement model based on the Lutheran two kingdoms doctrine. Benne’s passion is not matched by the strength of his arguments. There is a straw man quality to his characterization of his antagonists. For example, Benne describes Tillich as seeing no difference between the demands of the Christian faith and democratic socialism. But Tillich explicitly recognizes the limitations of democratic [End Page 195] socialism in expressing Christian ideals and makes clear that his preference for this form of government is conditioned on a historical situation in which the alternatives are laissez-faire capitalism, fascism, and communism. Benne displays epistemological hubris when he questions mainstream scientific judgments. For example, he mocks the “alleged global warming consensus” (35) without offering any evidence that he possesses the necessary evidence or expertise to judge that consensus. He adds questionable historical claims, exaggerating Nazi persecution of Christians and minimizing the religious motivation of the European wars following the Reformation.Childs’s treatment of the question of how Christians are to engage in the US political process is even more problematic than Benne’s. His political prescriptions are written as if the problem did not exist, as if there existed a unified Christian polity fully faithful to its ideals that could express those ideals directly in the nation’s public policies. In this, there is a lack of the moral realism that Lutherans traditionally express through the doctrine that Christians are simul justus et peccator (at the same time justified and sinner). It is telling that the only sins that Childs acknowledges in the church are those that correspond to secular liberal norms: “racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination” (110). Childs’s representations of the church as holy, a community of peacemakers, and a sign of peace are normative not descriptive, effacing the traditional Lutheran distinction between the visible and invisible church. Childs also demonstrates a lack of political realism with respect to the influence of Christians in the American political process. In proposing that public policy be directed by Christian ideals, Childs either presupposes a significant conversion of our pluralistic society or he imagines that those not presently acting in the political process according to Christian moral principles can be persuaded to selflessness without conversion. The former position is not an empirical reality, and the latter contradicts the traditional Lutheran understanding of original sin, which holds that in the absence of faith human beings are curvatus in se, curved in upon themselves.Benne makes a... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a constructive solution to Frege's puzzle (largely limited to the mathematical context) based on type theory. Two ways in which an equality statement may be said to have cognitive significance are distinguished. One concerns the mode of presentation of the equality, the other its mode of proof. Frege's distinction between sense and reference, which emphasizes the former aspect, cannot adequately explain the cognitive significance of equality statements unless a clear identity criterion (...) for senses is provided. It is argued that providing a solution based on proofs is more satisfactory from the standpoint of constructive semantics. (shrink)

The notion of collective action is one of the most discussed topics in contemporary social ontology, which offers different explanations of how two or more individuals can act together in the pursuit of a common goal. Many believe that collective intentionality is at the basis of actions of this kind, whereas others deny that collective actions have a distinctive nature or involve different faculties than those required by individual actions. The article aims to outline the most influential approaches (...) to collective agency and discuss the disputed case of Margaret Gilbert’s theory, which is subject to conflicting interpretations. I start from asking the question: what is it that makes a group of people act together intentionally? First, I will outline three approaches offered in social ontology, i.e., content, mode, and subject account. Then, I will focus on Gilbert’s view, allegedly a proponent of the (plural) subject account. The main purpose of these pages is to show that Gilbert’s approach should rather be classified as a mode account and that the interpretation attributing to her a subject account is, if not to be discarded, at least to be regarded as uncertain. While some scholars have questioned the theory of plural subjects as presented in Gilbert’s early essays, this article makes the point by considering Gilbert’s latest publications. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that the probability axioms constitute norms of rationality governing degrees of belief. This view, known as subjective Bayesianism, has been widely criticized for being too idealized. It is claimed that the norms on degrees of belief postulated by subjective Bayesianism cannot be followed by human agents, and hence have no normative force for beings like us. This problem is especially pressing since the standard framework of subjective Bayesianism only allows us to distinguish between two kinds of (...) class='Hi'>credence functions—coherent ones that obey the probability axioms perfectly, and incoherent ones that don’t. An attractive response to this problem is to extend the framework of subjective Bayesianism in such a way that we can measure differences between incoherent credence functions. This lets us explain how the Bayesian ideals can be approximated by humans. I argue that we should look for a measure that captures what I call the ‘overall degree of incoherence’ of a credence function. I then examine various incoherence measures that have been proposed in the literature, and evaluate whether they are suitable for measuring overall incoherence. The competitors are a qualitative measure that relies on finding coherent subsets of incoherent credence functions, a class of quantitative measures that measure incoherence in terms of normalized Dutch book loss, and a class of distance measures that determine the distance to the closest coherent credence function. I argue that one particular Dutch book measure and a corresponding distance measure are particularly well suited for capturing the overall degree of incoherence of a credence function. (shrink)

There has been a long tradition of characterizing man as the animal that talks. However, the remarkable ability of using pictures also only belongs to human beings, after all we know empirically so far. Are there conceptual reasons for that coincidence? Such a question belongs to the philosophy of language just as well as to philosophical visualistics. Comparing the two abilities to use words or pictures yields several similarities as well as distinctions. A well-known conceptual disparity between pictures and words (...) appears in their relation to perception: the difference can be further determined in an act-theoretic manner by four modes of use of the sign vehicles during the corresponding sign acts. Furthermore, the figure/ground dichotomy means something different for language uses and picture uses. In both cases, however, there is a close relation to the function of context building, by which humans are able to communicate not only with respect to the present situation of behavior but with respect to arbitrary contexts as well. Although the structural comparison does clarify the conceptual relations, it cannot explain that the conceptual structure ought to be like that. Therefore, the paper concludes with the programme of a "concept-genetic" consideration of the two abilities (i.e., to use propositional language or to use pictures) that is able to give us such a foundation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy: Two Paths of Liberation from the Representational Mode of ThinkingRobert MagliolaZen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy: Two Paths of Liberation from the Representational Mode of Thinking. By Carl Olson. New York: State University of New York Press, 2000. 309 pp.Carl Olson's Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy compares two paths of liberation from the representational mode of thinking, namely, (...) Zen Buddhism and postmodern philosophy. Olson is to be commended for encouraging this dialogue, especially since professors of religious studies usually marginalize Gallic postmodern thought. He is also to be appreciated for the enormous effort that must have been required to describe so much material. Olson treats Bataille, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Guattari, Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, Levinas, and Lyotard on the postmodern side; and Dogen, Hakuin, Nishitani, many Chinese Ch'anists, and some Indian Buddhists on the Buddhist side. His method is to arrange the chapters according to topoi such as "Language, Disruption, and Play," "Ways of Thinking," "The Body," and so on, and to treat the pertaining ideas of the individual Buddhist and postmodern authors insofar as applicable.Because Olson's book assembles between two covers the names, selected works, and—at least in a general sense—the "key" ideas of the postmodern movement and their grosso modo similarities/dissimilarities via-à-vis Zen Buddhism, I think it serves an undergraduate readership well enough. The problem is that the book too often performs like a crib sheet in the CliffsNotes manner, reducing so-called "key" ideas to misleading clichés. The book is at its best when it gives an author some length of attention, as it does with Dogen. Rather than reduce my review to a series of sound bites (print bites?) corresponding to Olson's, I shall resort to what hermeneuts call an Auerbachian decoupage, that is, a close analysis of several passages that can be taken as indicative of an author's mode in general. I'll address three interpretations from Olson's book, one of Derrida, one of a Chinese kung-an (koan), and one of Lacan.Within his comparison of Derrida/language/Buddhism, Olson cites (p. 46) a sentence from Derrida's Writing and Difference: "Speech is stolen: since it is stolen [End Page 295] from language it is, thus, stolen from itself, that is, from the thief who has always already lost speech as property and initiative." Olson glosses as follows: "Derrida claims that a speaking subject, representing an irreducible secondary status, is no longer the person who speaks because his/her origin is elusive in an already established field of speech." Because of glosses like this, Derrida is all too often subjected to the ridicule of nonspecialists, who exclaim, "Derrida denies that a person can use speech instrumentally? Aren't his lectures the instruments of his own ideas?" Actually in the section Olson quotes, Derrida is appropriating Lacanian thought and mutating it for Derridean purposes. For Derrida, all life is stretched out in time and diced-out in space in such a way that phenomenological self-identity is an illusion. Physical writing is the best metaphor for this, in that written words (even Chinese ideograms) cannot, in the scientific sense, be perceived in one absolute moment: it "takes time" and it "takes space" to recognize a word, that is, "build" a word-meaning. Derrida calls life a "text" or "writing" because life is like writing: life on the phenomenological level appears holistic (much as a word-meaning appears self-identical, i.e., arising all at once), but life is actually a time/space "drift."1In the sentence Olson quotes, what Derrida means has the following gist: Speech (spoken words) is stolen from language in that it belongs to language as writing and is really writing; and insofar as it is really writing, it is stolen from itself; speech has "always already" been lost to language in that the instrumentality of speech is always undercut by language's nature as writing. Speech is always undercut by an inevitable drift that subverts intentionality and foils our attempts to make speech our absolute "property." This does not mean most of the intention... (shrink)

What is it for two people to think of an object, natural kind or other entity under the same mode of presentation (MOP)? This has seemed a particularly difficult question for advocates of the Mental Files approach, the Language of Thought, or other ‘atomistic’ theories. In this paper I propose a simple answer. I first argue that, by parallel with the synchronic intrapersonal case, the sharing of a MOP should involve a certain kind of epistemic transparency between the token (...) thoughts of the two thinkers. I then explain how shared words help bring about this transparency. Finally, I show how this account can be extended for thoughts expressed using demonstratives or indexicals. (shrink)

In this paper the author presents two different modes of relationship between phenomenological psychopathology and philosophy. The dominant mode conforms to the medical-psychiatric discourse which takes pathological time experiences as negative deviations from the ‘normal’ and ‘adequate’ equivalent. In this mode phenomenological description of ‘disturbed’ time experiences requires philosophy to provide an insight into the ‘essence’ of time and an essentially adequate experience of time. Only such a philosophical insight can deliver a valid reference point for investigating what (...) is really missing in pathological time experiences. This philosophical reference point can either consist in a metaphysical-normative concept of time and time experiences, or in a transcendental concept of how normal and abnormal time experiences are constituted in the inner consciousness of time. There is another mode of relationship which conforms to Freud’s discovery that pathological symptoms are not just negative alterations of the ‘normal’ but hide an own ‘meaning’. The author makes the case for the use of philosophy to unveil the specific kind of meaning in pathological experiences of time. She refers to existential philosophy in this respect, and in particular to its concept of Angst as a fundamental philosophical experience. This allows for a hermeneutic approach to ‘disturbed’ time experiences. What looks from a pure psychiatric perspective to be a mere ‘disorder’ of the ‘normal’, becomes understandable as a specific form of ‘suffering from one’s own temporality’. She argues that people with disturbed time experiences are especially sensitive to anxiety-laden experiences of what it means to be temporal, whilst ‘normal’ people can screen them out in favor of a ‘mentally undisturbed’ everyday life. (shrink)

In his article, Florian Vermeiren attributes to Leibniz – like other interpreters before him – the distinction of two different kinds of relations: 1) relations in the proper sense of the word as, for example, the fatherhood subsisting between Sophroniscus and Socrates, which Leibniz considers situated ‘outside the subjects’ involved; 2) relational properties, such as being a father, inherent in Sophroniscus. The distinction is clearly present in Leibniz’s writings. According to Vermeiren, Leibniz considers ‘purely mental’ only the relations ‘out (...) of the subjects’ and not the relational predicates, by means of which, on the other hand, the individuals of the Leibnizian world would be truly related. In this sense, therefore, Leibniz would admit the reality of relations, which would play an important role in his ontology. At least since 1686 (the year in which he wrote the Discourse), however, Leibniz states that the world is made only of individuals with their internal modifications: just as there are no properties with a leg in one subject and a leg in another, there are no individuals bound together by any kind of material nexus or ‘real’ ties. Thus, if we make a list of all fathers on the one hand and sons on the other, there remains the problem of how to properly connect the fathers exactly with their sons. Attributing to each of two related individuals a relational property is not enough to connect them. Being a father in David must necessarily refer in some way to Solomon as a son. Leibniz is aware of this, as his attempts to analyze relational propositions in his essays on rational grammar show. Given the sentence ‘Cajus is killed by Titius’ for example, Leibniz attempts to reduce it to an inference between a pair of categorical sentences, each of which attributes a relational predicate to the subject. Relations (and relational properties) result from the substances and their modes, “without producing any change” of themselves but only in virtue of a consequence, that is of a logical inference. The image of the world derived so from the Monadology and other Leibnizian writings is that of a world composed of a collection of isolated individuals, independent of each other and lacking mutual connections. Relational properties correspond to internal modifications of each individual: the second term, in the case of binary relations (the ‘external’ one: Helen, if Paris loves Helen) is resolved into an internal representation (of Paris, in this case). It is God who coordinates the various representations of individuals with each other, to result in a harmonious whole. Since relations are a consequence of the existence of the individual substances with their intrinsic properties, God himself can be said to be the creator of relations, in so far as he calls the individuals into existence. And this is exactly what Leibniz states, in his commentary on Temmik’s book. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that hoping is an integral part of what it is to be human. The present article strives to make sense of the myriad competing conceptions of hope that have emerged over the past half-century. Two problems with the literature are highlighted. First, discussions of hope tend to take place within rather than between disciplines. Second, hope is often taken to be an undifferentiated experience. In order to address the first problem, the article takes an interdisciplinary approach, (...) drawing on research from the fields of philosophy, anthropology, psychology, theology and politics. In order to address the second problem, the article proposes that hope be regarded as a human universal that can be experienced in different modes. A variety of theories and models of hope are discussed, including those offered by Marcel, Dauenhauer, Bloch, Moltmann, Bovens, Pettit, Snyder, Rorty and Gutiérrez. While many of these claim to have identified the characteristics of hope, it is argued that each captures something about a particular mode of hoping. The theories and models are integrated into a framework comprising five modes of hoping: patient, critical, estimative, resolute and utopian. Examining hope in this way, as a human universal that can be experienced in different modes, may help us see the varying conceptions that presently exist within the human sciences not as conflicting, nor even as competing, but rather as complementary. (shrink)

Spontaneous activity levels prior to stimulus presentation can determine how that stimulus will be perceived. It has also been proposed that such spontaneous activity, particularly in the default-mode network (DMN), is involved in self-related processing. We therefore hypothesised that pre-stimulus activity levels in the DMN predict whether a stimulus is judged as self-related or not. Method: Participants were presented in the MRI scanner with a white noise stimulus that they were instructed contained their name or another. They then had (...) to respond with which name they thought they heard. Regions where there was an activity level difference between self and other response trials two seconds prior to the stimulus being presented were identified. Results: Pre-stimulus activity levels were higher in the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), the right temporal pole (RTP), and the left superior temporal gyrus in trials where the participant responded that they heard their own name than trials where they responded that they heard another. Conclusion: Pre-stimulus spontaneous activity levels in particular brain regions, largely overlapping with the DMN, predict the subsequent judgement of stimuli as self-related. This extends our current knowledge of self-related processing and its apparent relationship with intrinsic brain activity in what can be termed a rest-self overlap. (shrink)

There is a general conception of levels in philosophy which says that the world is arrayed into a hierarchy of levels and that there are different modes of analysis that correspond to each level of this hierarchy, what can be labelled the ‘Hierarchical Correspondence View of Levels” (or HCL). The trouble is that despite its considerable lineage and general status in philosophy of science and metaphysics the HCL has largely escaped analysis in specific domains of inquiry. The goal (...) of this paper is to take up a recent call to domain-specificity by examining the role of the HCL in cognitive science. I argue that the HCL is, in fact, a conception of levels that has been employed in cognitive science and that cognitive scientists should avoid its use where possible. The argument is that the HCL is problematic when applied to cognitive science specifically because it fails to distinguish two important kinds of shifts used when analysing information processing systems: shifts in grain and shifts in analysis. I conclude by proposing a revised version of the HCL which accommodates the distinction. (shrink)

In the first part of chapter 2 of book II of the Physics Aristotle addresses the issue of the difference between mathematics and physics. In the course of his discussion he says some things about astronomy and the ‘ ‘ more physical branches of mathematics”. In this paper I discuss historical issues concerning the text, translation, and interpretation of the passage, focusing on two cruxes, the first reference to astronomy at 193b25–26 and the reference to the more physical branches at 194a7–8. In (...) section I, I criticize Ross’s interpretation of the passage and point out that his alteration of has no warrant in the Greek manuscripts. In the next three sections I treat three other interpretations, all of which depart from Ross's: in section II that of Simplicius, which I commend; in section III that of Thomas Aquinas, which is importantly influenced by a mistranslation of, and in section IV that of Ibn Rushd, which is based on an Arabic text corresponding to that printed by Ross. In the concluding section of the paper I describe the modern history of the Greek text of our passage and translations of it from the early twelfth century until the appearance of Ross's text in 1936. (shrink)

This article brings forth a new perspective concerning the relation between stupidity and thinking by proposing to conceptualise the state of non-thinking in two different ways, situated at the opposite ends of the spectrum of thinking. Two conceptualisations of stupidity are discussed, one critical which follows a French line of continental thinkers, and the other one which will be called educational or ascetic, following the work of Agamben. The critical approach is conceptualised in terms of seriality of thinking, or (...) thinking captured by an apparatus, whereas the ascetic-educational approach is discussed by tracing the links between studying and stupidity. Both accounts assume that stupidity as non-thinking is a condition for thinking, either placed before thinking emerges or as an after-thought. However, the political implications concerning the role of philosophy in the public realm are divergent: for the critical approach, the task of the philosopher is to criticise the world, whereas for the ascetic approach, the task is to work on one’s own self and hope that the world will be changed through thinking. The wider aim of this article is to contribute to the debate concerning the public role of the intellectual starting from the assumption that there is a duty to think publicly and then clarifying what this duty entails in relation to the self and the others. (shrink)

The metaphor of progress as it applies to education refers to the steps taken by students on a road leading from one way of understanding or misunderstanding in the direction of another, better understanding. This process of acculturation, understood in the light of the metaphor of progress, is thought here as connecting two commensurate realms. This metaphoric mode evokes a technical, natural, scientific way of understanding education. The cultural metaphor of a rite of passage as it is used by preliterate (...) societies presents acculturation as a transcending movement between incommensurate realms. The root metaphor for the rite of passage is that of dying to one way of life and being reborn to another. The metaphor of progress, like that of homo faber, leads to an understanding of acculturation in terms of becoming literate. The metaphor of the rite of passage and of transcendence leads to an understanding of acculturation as essentially a process of becoming inscribed. The rite of passage places human learning and understanding within the context of human suffering and mortality; modern progressive theories place our thirst for knowledge within the context of everyday usefulness and the practical desire to improve our life. It is possible to think of the young child's passage from the home environment to the grade-school environment in terms of progress; the world of the home and that of the school are then thought of as commensurate realms, as together forming one unproblematic whole. The child's problem in moving from the one environment to the other is then seen as a problem of adjustment. If we look at this transition in terms of a rite of passage, it can then be thought of as a radical personal and individual transformation or conversion that cannot be accomplished by purely technical means. This mode of understanding casts in high relief the essential differences that mark the incommensurate realms of the home and the school. An investigation concerning the essential differences between the incommensurate realms of home and school brings to the fore the more fundamental differences between the incommensurate spheres of the private and the public, each of which has its own specific structural and ontological characteristics that determine the characteristic manner in which these realms are inhabited. (shrink)

There is a gap between two different modes of computation: the symbolic mode and the subsymbolic (neuron-like) mode. The aim of this paper is to overcome this gap by viewing symbolism as a high-level description of the properties of (a class of) neural networks. Combining methods of algebraic semantics and non-monotonic logic, the possibility of integrating both modes of viewing cognition is demonstrated. The main results are (a) that certain activities of connectionist networks can be interpreted as (...) non-monotonic inferences, and (b) that there is a strict correspondence between the coding of knowledge in Hopfield networks and the knowledge representation in weight-annotated Poole systems. These results show the usefulness of non-monotonic logic as a descriptive and analytic tool for analyzing emerging properties of connectionist networks. Assuming an exponential development of the weight function, the present account relates to optimality theory – a general framework that aims to integrate insights from symbolism and connectionism. The paper concludes with some speculations about extending the present ideas. (shrink)

There are many alternative ways that a mind or brain might represent that two of its representations were of the same object or property, the 'Strawson' model, the 'duplicates' model, the 'synchrony' mode, the 'Christmas lights' model, the 'anaphor' model, and so forth. I first discuss what would constitute that a mind or brain was using one of these systems of identity marking rather than another. I then discuss devastating effects that adopting the Strawson model has on the notion that (...) there are such things as modes of presentation in thought. Next I argue that Evans' idea that there are 'dynamic Fregean thoughts' has exactly the same implications. I argue further that all of the other models of thought discussed earlier are in fact isomorphic to the Strawson model. a search for the source of these difficulties reveals the classical notion of modes of presentation as resting on two assumptions, neither of which I recommend. It depends on denying that the way the mind reacts to or understands the thoughts or ideas that it harbours has any bearing on their intentional contents. And it depends on an internalist view of thought content, in particular, on denying that the natural informational content carried or potentially carried by a thought has any bearing on its intentional content. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:164 BOOK REVIEWS Thomas Buckingham and the Contingency of Futures-The Possibility of Human Freedom: A Study and Edition of Thomas Buckingham, De contingentia futurorum et arbitrii libertate. By BARTHOLOMEW R. DE LA TORRE, O.P. University of Notre Dame, The Medieval Institute Publications in Medieval Studies, Vol. XXV. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987. Pp. xii +394. In this volume, Fr. Batholomew de la Torre offers the (...) text and an extended study of Thomas Buckingham's De contingentia futurorum et arbitrii libertate, which is the first of six questions of this scholastic's Quaestiones theologicae, more properly entitled Ostensio meriti liberae actionis. The six questions are found in their entirety in two English manuscripts, namely Oxford New College 134 and Oxford Merton 143. The New CoUege (late fourteenth century) manuscript is earlier and superior to Merton (early fifteenth century), and accordingly the editor adopts it except in cases where the Merton reading makes better sense. The author, Thomas Buckingham, born in the early days of the fourteenth century, was an Oxford scholar at Merton, chancellor of Exeter, and died, very likely a victim of the Black Death, in 1348. The work edited here probably formed a part of Buckingham's exercise prescribed by University statute for those incepting as Masters of Theology. In the editor's view, this inception took place sometime between 1341 and 1346, when Thomas departed Oxford to take up duties at Exeter. There is some reason to believe that Buckingham may have been a student of Thomas Bradwardine (p. 7); irt is certain, however, that the present work "is a sustained attack on Bradwardine's notion that all future contingents come about by antecedent necessity relative to the first cause, God" (p. 103) • Bradwardine presented his view regarding how we must reconcile God's universal and immutable causality with human freedom in his magnum opus De causa Dei contra Pelagium. De la Torre describes Bradwardine's position this way: "For Bradwardine, God is the universal cause of all things, including future contingents. Future contingents are determined by divine antecedent necessity, for God's will concerning them is omnipotent and unimpedible. Such futures nevertheless remain contingent because only man as a secondary cause-and no other secondary cause-is responsible for his free choice. The theory that, once God has determined what a future shall be, He can still determine otherwise, is patently untenable BOOK REVIEWS 165 for Bradwardine because it predicates mutability of God and nullifies all inspired prophecy, including that of Christ" (p. 101). Bradwardine's exposition here outlined corresponds in its essentials with what Thomas Aquinas had taught in the previous century. The freedom or contingency in man's will act is to he understood in terms of its relationship to secondary or proximate causes. Unlike those events which are determined to come about by virtue of necessitating proximate causes, will acts in this respect remain totally undetermined. Along with this, says Aquinas, we must allow that God, because of His eternal knowledge, knows all futures-determined, as well as contingent -as present. His knowing future contingents, however, does not take away the condition of contingency, since the latter condition rests solely on their mode of occurrence as they relate to secondary or proximate causes. Thomas Buckingham finds this explanation inadequate. In order to safeguard future contingents or human freedom. Buckingham insists there must be a sense in which the ultimate cause, God, is casually contingent with respect to the human will act. Though his exposition is different in many details, Buckingham's fundamental direction is in accord with what certain predecessors, especially Scotus and Ockham, had argued regarding the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingents. Indeed, in view of the way Buckingham cites Scotus, the editor considers it reasonable to suppose that he regarded himself a disciple of the Subtle Doctor (p. 132). There is at least one instance where Buckingham exhibits a markedly Scotistic and anti-Ockhamist analysis. This occurs in connection with the explanation as to how in one and the same instant, because of the different moments of natural priority and posteriority, the divine will can both will and not will the same thing. The... (shrink)

The purpose of the present article is to show that the key to understanding the philosophical meaning of the Two Modes of Scepticism is directly linked to the metaepistemic function performed by the criterion of truth (kriterion tes aletheias) in the Hellenistic theories of knowledge. Since the criterion can also be regarded as an epistemic instrument through which it is possible to immediately identify the foundational elements upon which our knowledge of the world is based, the Two Modes (...) show the problems that arise when we try to incontrovertibly identify a set of special and foundational elements that have no need of further justification. (shrink)

The article presents an ontological analysis of games. In every game one could distinct four constitutive elements: players, game rules, material substratum of the game and intentional world of the game. The last element correspond with make-believe quality of games. These are two kinds of acts of playing (creating the world of the game): performative and kinetic. The article presents an analysis of these two kinds of acts of playing and present the division of games (performative-based/kinetic-based) which is ontologically fundamental (...) and sets two radically different groups of games. Kinetic games are based on physical, kinetic aspect of the player’s bodies and material tools they use in the game. Performative games are based on transmission some pieces of information. This division enable us to indicate some non-trivial facts about games, like implicit presence of laws of physics in kinetic games or double character or rules in performative games. Interesting fact is that although these two groups of games are very different in the terms of kinds of acts of playing (and also kinds of effort connected with these acts) there is at least one performative-kinetic hybrid game – chessboxing. (shrink)

The paper presents a comparison of the two most commonly used diagnostic tests for orthorexia – ORTO-15 Questionnaire and BOT (Bratman Orthorexia Test) – that use data-mining methods. Orthorexia nervosa is perceived as a new, unclassified eating disorder, which is characterized with pathological fixation on the consumption of healthy foods. In order to assess the coherence of the aforementioned tests, a method from the data-mining group, i.e. correspondence analysis, was used in addition to traditional statistical methods. On the basis of (...) the obtained results, only average correlation between ORTO-15 Questionnaire and BOT test was found. More cases of orthorexia were diagnosed with the use of ORTO-15 Questionnaire, which may result from its higher sensitivity. It was also noted that the coherence of tests increases with increasing BMI values, despite no relationship between BMI and the presence of orthorexia having been proved. Diagnosis of an orthorexia case with the use of BOT test implies that there is a high probability that it will also be diagnosed with the use of ORTO-15 test, but not necessarily the other way around. The performed correspondence analysis confirmed a not very strong coherence of the results of both tests. (shrink)

Traditional human–computer interaction (HCI) allowed researchers and practitioners to share and rely on the ‘five E’s’ of usability, the principle that interactive systems should be designed to be effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn. A recent trend in HCI, however, is that academic researchers as well as practitioners are becoming increasingly interested in user experiences, i.e., understanding and designing for relationships between users and artifacts that are for instance affective, engaging, fun, playable, sociable, creative, involving, meaningful, exciting, (...) ambiguous, and curious. In this paper, it is argued that built into this shift in perspective there is a concurrent shift in accountability that is drawing attention to a number of ethical, moral, social, cultural, and political issues that have been traditionally de-emphasized in a field of research guided by usability concerns. Not surprisingly, this shift in accountability has also received scarce attention in HCI. To be able to find any answers to the question of what makes a good user experience, the field of HCI needs to develop a philosophy of technology. One building block for such a philosophy of technology in HCI is presented. Albert Borgmann argues that we need to be cautious and rethink the relationship as well as the often-assumed correspondence between what we consider useful and what we think of as good in technology. This junction—that some technologies may be both useful and good, while some technologies that are useful for some purposes might also be harmful, less good, in a broader context—is at the heart of Borgmann’s understanding of technology. Borgmann’s notion of the device paradigm is a valuable contribution to HCI as it points out that we are increasingly experiencing the world with, through, and by information technologies and that most of these technologies tend to be designed to provide commodities that effortlessly grant our wishes without demanding anything in return, such as patience, skills, or effort. This paper argues that Borgmann’s work is relevant and makes a valuable contribution to HCI in at least two ways: first, as a different way of seeing that raises important social, cultural, ethical, and moral issues from which contemporary HCI cannot escape; and second, as providing guidance as to how specific values might be incorporated into the design of interactive systems that foster engagement with reality. (shrink)

The construct of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) has drawn much attention in the study of business ethics for over two decades. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has made a significant contribution to the literature as an easy-to-administer CMD instrument, and the Moral Judgment Test (MJT), an alternative scale, has also been used widely especially in Europe. The two scales differ in their approaches to measuring CMD, focusing on stage preference (DIT) and stage consistency (MJT), yet empirical comparisons have been scarce. (...) The present research empirically compares the two scales in terms of their correspondence with ethical ideology as a reference scale, and it demonstrates a clear distinction between the DIT and the MJT. Although they both aim to measure CMD, their dissimilar approaches lead to distinctly different implications. (shrink)

Restorativeness is defined as the potential of the environment to re-establish certain cognitive capacities related to human information processing. The most frequently used instrument for evaluating the restorativeness of places is the Perceived Restorativeness Scale, proposed by Hartig and colleagues (1991). Later on, shorter versions of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale were proposed. The aim of this work is to evaluate the discriminatory capacity of the original and of a shorter Spanish version of the PRS, considering urban settings previously selected for (...) having different level of restorativeness, according to expert’s criteria. The study involved 244 students and used a 3 x 2 mixed experimental design, with two independent variables: Restorativeness of a place (between-subjects), which was manipulated by showing pictures of settings selected with varying levels of restorativeness (high, medium, low), and length of the scale (within-subjects), which was manipulated by asking subjects to fill in both the original and a shorter version of the PRS. The order of presentation of the two scales was counterbalanced. Results show an appropriate reliability for both version of the scale. Items of being-away, fascination, and coherence of the shorter scale correlate more strongly with the corresponding factor of the original scale, compared to the others factors. Both scales produce similar values for the perceived restorativeness of the different places, except for places with low restorativeness. (shrink)

In 2011, two Chinese municipalities, Chongqing and Shanghai, enacted a property tax on rich homeowners. However, the two municipal governments sharply diverged in their designs of the tax and the justifying frames used. Whereas Chongqing explicitly framed the tax as a redistributive measure targeting the economic elite, Shanghai framed it as an ad hoc technical intervention in the housing market that would antagonize no one. This article explains how the only two Chinese cities that introduced this unconventional tax ended up (...) enacting the tax in such different ways. In doing so, this article proposes a theoretical framework synthesizing two main pillars of Bourdieu’s state theory – a conceptualization of the state as a field of competition, and a careful consideration of the symbolic dimension of state power. The political competition in which the top leaders of the two municipalities were engaged drove them to enact the tax. The positions these leaders occupied in the field of competition shaped their specific strategies of accumulating competition-specific capital, getting their capital noted and recognized by other players in the field, and theatricalizing their capital-seeking acts as serving some universal interest. These dynamics gave rise to divergent styles of enacting the tax. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:48 SOME CQUHSEL ON HUMEAN RELATIONS In a paper published eight years ago I tried to bring out a neglected feature of Hume's theory of relations, namely the difference between philosophical and natural re1 2. lations. Now Ijnlay, without referring to my work, has expanded some of its themes in an extremely interesting and, I think, important way. At least he has made me rethink the whole distinction between (...) philosophical and natural relations and, what goes with relation theory, Hume's analytic-synthetic distinction. The strengths of his paper are, embarrassingly, the weaknesses of my own. I did not articulate clearly the connection between relation theory in Hume and the analytic-synthetic distinction. I shall turn to these strengths presently. My focus in this paper, however, will be on a central weakness in Imlay 's; and the point, it turns out, is one I gave full credence to earlier. Imlay does not distinguish what in Hume can and must be distinguished if we are to make any sense (let alone full sense) of his theory of causation. The distinction is be3 tweer, necessity and certainty. In trying to explicate Hume's distinction between intuitive and demonstrative inference on the one hand, and probability on the other, Imlay finally reaches an impasse. For, if the absence of the corresponding impression does not deprive mathematical necessity of... existence, why should it do so in the case of causal necessity? This, as Imlay recognizes, is at least related to standard criticisms of Hume, most forcibly articulated by Prichard. Imlay fortunately does not recommend—as Prichard does — throwing out the baby with the bath. If I understand him correctly, what he advocates is that we simply admit that Hume's attempts to ground necessity are inadequate. Before proceeding to details, let me issue two brief caveats. 49 First. It is of course not surprising that Hume fails to make a clear analytic-synthetic distinction. Has anyone? Lacking the logical tools of a Russell, or the mathematical understanding of a Leibniz, Hume labors under insuperable difficulties which, in many instances, are selfcreated. He is not clear as to whether necessity attaches to 'objects' or ideas (let alone sentences or propositions); he confuses, by invoking pseudo-psychological criteria involving conceivability, analytic with synthetic a priori truths; he has what many, including myself, consider to be a ludicrous theory about mathematics and mathematical objects. With these horrors to work with it is small wonder that necessity never gets grounded. Indeed, it is miraculous that the discussion even gets off the ground. But, Prichard's sneeringly just comments notwithstanding, both he and Imlay miss something, and I hope to show precisely what that is. Second. Hume is notoriously obscure in his discussion of what we would call ordinary physical objects. Sometimes (when he is in a psychologist or even ordinaryperson mood) he speaks as if physical objects cause impressions. Sometimes (when in the philosopher's closet) he speaks as if it makes no sense to speak of anything but impressions and collections of them, ordinary physical objects being relegated to the fictions of the vulgar. His theory of relations rather obviously suffers from the same disease; it is not clear what the relata are. Are impressions related temporally? Spatially? Is it relations between objects 'out there' of which he speaks when he discusses causation? Imlay is quite aware of the confusion ; he just lets it go. For now, I shall more or less follow suit. Later, as we shall see, one's choice makes a difference. In the long run, I think any coherent view of Hume will have to treat his analysis of physical objects in a way similar to Berkeley's · I. Hume, Prichard, and Imlay At first glance it would seem easy to allay at least Prichard' s fears. What, after all, is the connection between Hume's theory of relations, his attempt at distinguishing the necessary from the probable or possible, and his theory of causation? Hume claims that causation is a relation that, unlike some others, eg., resemblance, cannot be 'seen' to hold between its relata. But all of us believe that causal connections are necessary. Why do we all believe what... (shrink)

There are currently two robust traditions in philosophy dealing with doxastic attitudes: the tradition that is concerned primarily with all-or-nothing belief, and the tradition that is concerned primarily with degree of belief or credence. This paper concerns the relationship between belief and credence for a rational agent, and is directed at those who may have hoped that the notion of belief can either be reduced to credence or eliminated altogether when characterizing the norms governing ideally rational agents. (...) It presents a puzzle which lends support to two theses. First, that there is no formal reduction of a rational agent’s beliefs to her credences, because belief and credence are each responsive to different features of a body of evidence. Second, that if our traditional understanding of our practices of holding each other responsible is correct, then belief has a distinctive role to play, even for ideally rational agents, that cannot be played by credence. The question of which avenues remain for the credence-only theorist is considered. (shrink)

With regards the crucial issue of the existence of the self, within canonical texts of the Buddhist Abhidharma schools we find passages that are frequently at odds with one another. Sometimes the Buddha defends or respects the belief in the self and in personal continuity; at other times he seems to deny that beyond the psycho-physical factors to which our existential experience can be reduced there is an ātman that contains, owns or controls these same factors; in further cases still, (...) he states that the use of the metaphysical categories of “being” and “non-being” must be avoided – thus, about the self (or everything else), it is inappropriate to say that it exists or that it does not exist. Faced with these divergences (or contradictions) within contemporary Buddhist studies, we can detect two main tendencies. Some scholars start from the assumption that the Buddha’s teaching is or should be coherent and univocal, and, therefore, propose readings of his original message that are supposed to iron out or conciliate any inconsistencies. Others believe that the inconsistencies are actually irreconcilable and, therefore, maintain that the Abhidharma canons are a composite and stratified redaction in which the opposite views of different writers overlap and intersect. Against these historiographical approaches, the purpose of the present paper is to show that the three aforementioned modes of the Buddha’s teaching are, in fact, both alternative and irreconcilable. This, however, far from presenting a puzzle to be solved or explained (by resorting to suppositions of which, in the canons, we have no explicit confirmation), is nothing more than a feature of the Buddha’s Dharma, which appears to be a teaching that develops different pedagogical/soteriological modes for different purposes, and which is conceived for the spiritual growth of followers with different intellectual and psychological profiles. (shrink)

Some have defended a Fregean view of perceptual content. On this view, the constituents of perceptual contents are Fregean modes of presentation (MOPs). In this paper, I propose that perceptual MOPs are best understood in terms of object files. Object files are episodic representations that store perceptual information about objects. This information is updated when sensory conditions change. On the proposed view, when a subject perceptually represents some object a under two distinct MOPs, then the subject initiates two (...) object files that both refer to a. My defense of this view appeals to its satisfaction of four constraints that I argue theories of perceptual MOPs should satisfy. Furthermore, I show that some existent accounts of perceptual MOPs fail to satisfy them. The defended constraints also indicate what is unique about perceptual, as opposed to linguistic or cognitive, MOPs. (shrink)

In the paper I discuss the problem of the nature of the relationship between objects and their properties. There are three contexts of the problem: of comparison, of change and of interaction. Philosophical explanations of facts indicated in the three contexts need reference to properties and to a proper understanding of a relationship between them and their bearers. My aim is to get closer to this understanding with the use of some models but previously I present the substantialist theory (...) of object and shortly argue for its main theses. The two models enabling us the understanding of the subject–properties structure are: the plastic stuff model and the functional model. On the ground of the first a subject is compared to a piece of plastic stuff which is informed by different shapes. Properties are ways how a subject is, they “give” some “figure” to a subject. The core idea of the second model is that essences (performing the role of subjects) are immanent functional laws governing correlations of properties. As such they are similar to mathematical functions which are saturated by values. The relationship between a subject and properties can be grasped by analogy to such a saturation. (shrink)

The state-of-art research in the field of life’s organization confronts the need to investigate a number of interacting components, their properties and conditions of sustainable behaviour within a natural system. In biology, ecology and life sciences, the performance of such stable system is usually related to homeostasis, a property of the system to actively regulate its state within a certain allowable limits. In our previous work, we proposed a deterministic model for systems’ homeostasis. The model was based on dynamical system’s (...) theory and pairwise relationships of competition, amensalism and antagonism taken from theoretical biology and ecology. However, the present paper proposes a different dimension to our previous results based on the same model. In this paper, we introduce the influence of inter-component relationships in a system, wherein the impact is characterized by direction (neutral, positive, or negative) as well as its (absolute) value, or strength. This makes the model stochastic which, in our opinion, is more consistent with real-world elements affected by various random factors. The case study includes two examples from areas of hydrobiology and medicine. The models acquired for these cases enabled us to propose a convincing explanation for corresponding phenomena identified by different types of natural systems. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to initiate a systematic exploration of the model theory of epistemic plausibility models (EPMs). There are two subtly different definitions in the literature: one by van Benthem and one by Baltag and Smets. Because van Benthem's notion is the most general, most of the paper is dedicated to this notion. We focus on the notion of bisimulation, and show that the most natural generalization of bisimulation to van Benthem-type EPMs fails. We then introduce (...) parametrized bisimulations, and prove various bisimulationimplies- equivalence theorems, a Hennessy-Milner theorem, and several (un)definability results. We discuss the problems arising from the fact that these bisimulations are syntax-dependent (and thus not fully structural), and we present and compare two different ways of coping with this issue: adding a modality to the language, and putting extra constraints on the models. We argue that the most successful solution involves restricting to uniform and locally connected (van Benthem-type) EPMs: for this subclass the intuitively most natural notion of bisimulation and the technically sound notion coincide. Such EPMs turn out to correspond exactly with Baltag/Smets-type EPMs, which can be interpreted as constituting a methodological argument, favoring Baltag and Smets's definition of EPM over that of van Benthem. (shrink)

Purpose: The article pursues three aims. First, it intends to differentiate between two different approaches for knowledge studies, namely an empirical and a normative mode. In a second move, two different epistemologies in the work of Ernst von Glasersfeld will be introduced under the labels of “Epistemology I” and “Epistemology II.” Epistemology I relates to empirical research, Epistemology II is normative in nature. Third, the article makes the point that while Ernst von Glasersfeld’s Epistemology II has already been (...) presented in a finite and mature form, his empirical analysis of cognitive processes still provides a rich pool of tools and designs that should be further developed and advanced in the years and decades ahead. Method: The article is analytical in nature, identifying the different building blocks and relational networks of von Glasersfeld’s two epistemologies. By this, the article intends to contribute to a further advancement of von Glasersfeld’s Epistemology I. Results: The main finding lies in recognizing the radical and innovative elements of von Glasersfeld’s Epistemology I and on the still-challenging research designs of Epistemology I. (shrink)

The combined use of molecular and structural biology techniques has proved very efficient in elucidating structure‐function relationships in aminoacyl‐tRNA synthetases. Our present understanding of this family of enzymes is based on two main unifying principles: (i) division into two different classes, corresponding to two different modes of ATP binding and attachment of the activated amino acid to the last nucleotide of tRNA (either 2′OH or 3′OH of the ribose) by two different catalytic mechanisms and two (...) structural domains with completely different folding, and (ii) the modular organization into separate and additional domains that we are just beginning to understand. Sequence analysis complements very nicely existing structural, biochemical and genetic results and makes them more general, leading to verifiable predictions. (shrink)

One stream in contemporary philosophical and psychological study of the emotions argues that they are perceptual capacities. The present project is to compare and contrast two possible models of emotional perception. The central difference between these models is the notion of modularity, and the corresponding overall view of the nature of the mind, that they use. One model uses classic, Fodorian modules, which S.L. Hurley characterizes as “vertical”. The other model uses “horizontal” modules. I suggest some empirical tests that (...) might adjudicate between these different kinds of emotional modularity, and hence between these two models of emotional perception. I conclude with some remarks about the extent of the relevance of this issue. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper we investigate how scientific theories can be represented by frames. Different kinds of scientific theories can be distinguished in terms of the systematic power of their frames. In the second part we outline the central questions and goals of our research project. In the third and final part of this paper we show that frame-representation is a useful tool in the comparison of the theories of phlogiston and oxygen, despite those theories being (...) traditionally conceived as incommensurable. The frame-theoretic representation reveals common attributes, values and ultimately structural correspondence relations between the two theories. In our view this outcome lends credence to a structural realist view of science. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present and analyze the argumentative structures which are decisive for Leibniz’s position regarding the issue of the ontological status of material things (or bodies) and matter. I reconstruct and thoroughly analyze (i) two different argumentative strategies of Leibniz’s – viz. an “epistemic” and a “realistic” one – for his general thesis that nothing material (and a fortiori no body) has rigore metaphysico the status of a substance, as well as (ii) the (...) class='Hi'>corresponding suggestions of his as to how the material world is to be construed out of substances and their modes. Throughout, I lay special emphasis onpinpointing the real key elements of Leibniz’s arguments and on articulating them in such terms that would allow for their direct confrontation with other paradigmatic positions regarding the issue in Leibniz’s times. (shrink)

The intellectualist strategy of appealing to the notion of a practical mode of presentation to explain the practical component of know-how faces two standard objections. According to the first, the notion of a practical mode of presentation is mysterious; according to the second, intellectualists get the order of explanation wrong when they use the practical mode of presentation to explain know-how. In the first section, after reviewing recent literature on defusing the first objection, I employ some phenomenological (...) insights to develop four lines of argument which do show that the objection does not work. In the second section, I maintain that although the current version of the second objection is not conclusive, a restricted version of it is tenable. According to this restricted version, intellectualists do indeed get the order of explanation wrong at the level of basic action. The upshot is twofold: a challenge for anti-intellectualism to make room for the well-defined notion of the practical mode of presentation, and a challenge for intellectualism to explain the practical component of know-how at the basic level. (shrink)

We re-examine the long-held postulate that there are two modes of thought, and develop a more fine-grained analysis of how different modes of thought affect conceptual change. We suggest that cognitive development entails the fine-tuning of three dimensions of thought: abstractness, divergence, and context-specificity. Using a quantum cognition modeling approach, we show how these three variables differ, and explain why they would have a distinctively different impacts on thought processes and mental contents. We suggest that, through (...) simultaneous manipulation of all three variables, one spontaneously, and on an ongoing basis, tailors one's mode of thought to the demands of the current situation. The paper concludes with an analysis based on results from an earlier study of children's mental models of the shape of the Earth. The example illustrates how, through reiterated transition between mental states using these three variables, thought processes unfold, and conceptual change ensues. While this example concerns children, the approach applies more broadly to adults as well as children. (shrink)

It has been well documented that the auditory system in the superior temporal cortex is responsible for processing basic auditory sound features, such as sound frequency and intensity, while the prefrontal cortex is involved in higher-order auditory functions, such as language processing and auditory episodic memory. The temporal auditory cortex has vast forward anatomical projections to the prefrontal auditory cortex, connecting with the lateral, medial, and orbital parts of the prefrontal cortex. The connections between the auditory cortex and the prefrontal (...) cortex thus help in localizing, recognizing, and comprehending external auditory inputs. In addition, the medial prefrontal cortex is believed to be a core region of episodic memory retrieval and is one of the most important regions in the default mode network. However, previous neural evidence with regard to the comparison between basic auditory processing and auditory episodic memory retrieval mainly comes from fMRI studies. The specific neural networks and the corresponding critical frequency bands of neuronal oscillations underlying the two auditory functions remain unclear. In the present study, we reported results of direct cortical stimulations during stereo-electro-encephalography recording in a patient with drug-resistant epilepsy. Electrodes covered the superior temporal gyrus, the operculum and the insula cortex of bilateral hemispheres, the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe, the anterior and middle cingulate cortex, and the amygdala of the left hemisphere. Two types of auditory hallucinations were evoked with direct cortical stimulations, which were consistent with the habitual seizures. The noise hallucinations, i.e., “I could hear buzzing noises in my head,” were evoked with the stimulation of the superior temporal gyrus. The episodic memory hallucinations “I could hear a young woman who was dressed in a red skirt saying: What is the matter with you?,” were evoked with the stimulation of MPFC. The patient described how she had met this young woman when she was young and that the woman said the same sentence to her. Furthermore, by analyzing the high gamma power induced by direct electrical stimulation, two dissociable neural networks underlying the two types of auditory hallucinations were localized. Taken together, the present results confirm the hierarchical processing of auditory information by showing the different involvements of the primary auditory cortex vs. the prefrontal cortex in the two types of auditory hallucinations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Poems Ancient and Contemporary HELAINE L. SMITH On the cover of Like: Poems by A. E. Stallings is a double photograph of a double image: two ancient carved heads, in profile and facing each other, of the pole horses of a quadriga, a four-horse chariot, dated about 570 BC, and currently in the collection of The Acropolis Museum. The marble horse in profile on the right side of the (...) cover, looking to the left, has a longer neck and face, and is undamaged except for a hairline crack at the neck. Its counterpart has a broader cheek, with light chipping above the nostril and an ear broken off. But they so mirror each other, they are so “like,” that at first glance one might suppose the photographs to be the right and left sides of the same horse. The bottom half of the cover of Like is an exact replica of the top, but the tinting is different, the heads in the top band cream-colored, in the arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Like: Poems by A. E. Stallings was published in 2018 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. Stallings’s earlier books of poetry include Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), Olives (2012), and a verse translation of Lucretius’ The Nature of Things (2007). bottom a delicate ochre or sand. There is, then, on the very cover of Like a promise of complex correspondence and subtle variation within the volume itself. Stallings’s title suggests poetry as the art of locating and articulating likeness or as the act of finding one thing in another. And in Stallings’s delicate, robust, witty, and humane use of the past, “like” also and most significantly means that they—the figures of ancient myth—and we are alike in our shared experience and shared humanity. Stallings sometimes presents classical and mythological references glancingly, and that is part of the delight—catching the joke in Hermes’ epithet, “lord of florists,”1 finding in “The Rosehead Nail” that the local blacksmith in Monteagle, Tennessee, “was a god / Before... the tasks / That had been craft were jobbed out to machine.” Likeness is, of course, the mode of Homeric simile, and in “Selvage” Stallings turns the simile of Odyssey 22.468–73, in which Homer compares the hanged maids to thrushes caught in a net, into a different but contextually relevant parallel: “they hang... From the warp like a dozen ancient loom weights,” a likeness that evolves from Stallings’s double entendre in line seven describing the maids as “spinsters of their own doom,” an allusion both to the task, properly theirs, of weaving and to their disclosure to their lovers of Penelope’s secret unravelling. Stallings can expand as well as adapt Homeric similes. At Iliad 2.87–2.90 Homer likens the Achaians’ assembly at Agamemnon’s command to arm and attack Troy to bees leaving the hive: Like the swarm of clustering bees that issue forever in fresh bursts from the hollow in the stone, and hang like bunched grapes as they hover beneath the flowers in springtime fluttering in swarms together this way and that way so the many nations of men from the ships and the shelters along the front of the deep sea beach marched in order by companies to the assembly2 178 poems ancient and contemporary Homer finds likeness in the orderly setting forth—of bees, of men—to do what is required. This, on the other hand, is what Stallings does: Colony Collapse Disorder (Iliad, 2.87–2.90) Just as a swarm pours from a hollow rock In one long beeline for the wild thyme, Alighting in clusters on this purple and that, But is stricken with a mass amnesia That disorients the compass of the sun, And they forget the steps to traditional dances, And each helicopters into a different dimness Taking their saddlebags of sweetness with them, And the hive goes dark, the queen is left to starve, And the drones humbug the whimper of the world, And the palace falls to ruins, broken into By vandals who would loot the golden stores Left in the brittle wax hexameters, Just so... And “so” her... (shrink)

This study, limited to Kitl al-sa'āda, examines two points: the first point concerns the place of political science in the hierarchy of the sciences and its dependence on Metaphysics. This dependence gives it a theoretical status and a proper subject, namely voluntary intelligibles which appear as objective entities and stable essences. The second point to be examined concerns these intelligibles, considered in their relationship to deliberation. From this viewpoint, they appear as formal invariants open to different formulations which correspond (...) to different modes of existence. These formulations are also formal rules to the realisation of intelligibles, and though they are more or less general, they are not universal. They are objects for deliberative discovery and the model of deliberative operations seems similar to the model of ingeniosity present in Algebra and the arts of ingenious devices. (shrink)

We should now be able to come to some general conclusions about the main lines of Cuvier's development as a naturalist after his departure from Normandy. We have seen that Cuvier arrived in Paris aware of the importance of physiology in classification, yet without a fully worked out idea of how such an approach could organize a whole natural order. He was freshly receptive to the ideas of the new physiology developed by Xavier Bichat.Cuvier arrived in a Paris also torn (...) by many overlapping debates on the nature of classification, and in particular that between the natural and artificial systems. The very validity of the enterprise of classification was questioned in many quarters. Cuvier's achievement on his entry into the Parisian world of science was not simply to establish himself as a highly competent anatomist: far more important, he also began to use ideas from many different specialties to change completely the notion of what was involved in natural history.124 At the same time that he himself swung away from the guiding image of the field naturalist as the ideal of the specialty, he took ideas from the new physiology to answer questions about the order of the animal world, and from comparative anatomy to resurrect extinct creation — and to come to conclusions from that creation about the history of the forms of life and the manner of their succession. He showed himself able to alter the relationships between natural history and many other fields of study in a way that implied, rightly or wrongly, his own complete mastery over such a movement. Partly he was able to do this because the ideas he borrowed were not themselves logically articulated and thus could be easily adapted and refocused for many different specific purposes. The value of the heuristic possibilities inherent in the idea of life, for example, far outweighed its inability to generate full systems of classification. Cuvier also consistently refused to consider in science matters relating to the first causes of events. Freed from the consideration of first-order phenomena, he was able to use second-order explanations across a far wider field of applicability. Personal doubts about the validity of a theology that had used science in order to bolster its own claims were combined here with the strong influence of the Kantian critique of the limits of human reason.125Cuvier's characteristic mode of procedure was that of intellectual appropriation and a bold capacity for altering the relationships between different fields of knowledge, rather than, with the exception of taxonomy, the technique of expanding their subject matter. His claims to originality came, first, from this reappropriation and reorientation and, second, from the sheer scope of his work, which aimed at nothing less than the cataloging and classification of all animate objects.126 They rested also on his acute use of his assertion of a certain relationship with the past of his subject. Very often he would present this history in such a way as to obscure his own intellectual genealogy, and often too he would give differing accounts of the priority of use of an idea in order to distract attention from the questionable exactitude of his own claims to originality. Cuvier came to Paris at precisely the time when society and institutions were most profitably malleable for a newcomer; it was also a time when many scientific disciplines had reached a stage advanced in terms of their factual content, yet relatively inadequate in conceptual organization. They were ripe for takeover by large-scale organizing ideas such as the animal economy and the subordination of characteristics. Paleontology is a particularly good example of a specialty in this particular form of underdevelopment in 1795.Cuvier paid a high price for his initial success. His electic applications of large-scale organizing ideas tended to mean that little of his own work had complete coherence at all levels. Ideas, as we have seen, that proved capable of providing a complete reform of the larger groups of the animal kingdom were incapable of producing its detailed working-out in the taxonomy of smaller groups, which had to be supplied from observed analogical correlations. Further, his physiological approach to classification involved the breakdown of strict correspondence between organs and functions, which left the way open for workers such as Geoffroy St. Hilaire gradually to tilt the balance away from the study of the correlations of hierarchies of functions, and toward morphology as the basis of the order of nature. Cuvier's brilliant appropriations from physiology from the beginning, therefore, contained the seeds of conflict with Geoffroy.Cuvier's eclectic approach made it very nearly impossible for him to present a clear idea of the ways in which the life sciences could be said to be lawful. In spite of his efforts to assimilate them to the position of the physical sciences in this respect, he was forced in the end to accord only an ambiguous status as “laws” to observational correlations. From this area of failure came much of the attempt to give his own two laws — the correlation of parts and the subordination of characteristics — predictive qualities, particularly in relation to paleontological research.It is not surprising that Cuvier's title as the “legislator” of natural history should represent more a claim than a reality. How, then, was he able to emerge as the leading French naturalist of his day? First of all must be adduced the sheer scale of his undertakings. Then comes his expertise as a practical anatomist, and the range of different topics toward which he turned his interest. His collaborators cannot be given credit for his output nor, as we have seen, for slavish adherence to his ideas. Cuvier was able to successfully claim to have dominated the underdeveloped specialties, such as paleontology, and turned them into a major heuristic input into both geology and comparative anatomy; but in other fields, such as physiology, he appropriated concepts and encouraged research but made little impact on the field himself. His attempts in 1812 to head off, or neutralize and absorb the growth of morphological studies landed him in a dangerously rigid position, which despite his encouragement of the new physiological research under the Restoration made further elaboration of his own conceptual underpinnings almost impossible.Cuvier's authority in the scientific world would in any case have been great because of his substantive achievement in taxonomy, but the rest of his work had enough ambiguities and dislocations for it to need the support of his political and social power. Cuvier's detractors seized on a vital fragment of the truth when they accused him of finding the political dimension all-important: it obscured the disjunctions in his theories and at the same time gave him the authority to make new claims for the status of the observational sciences - and for their relations of power with their surrounding specialties. Cuvier's science both thrived on and was halted by the power games of intellectual appropriation, manipulation of the past to confirm the present, and continual claims for hegemony. (shrink)