This book charts the shape of future philosophical investigation by posing the question: "What is the Matrix?" Guided by the example of the Matrix film trilogy, the author examines issues ranging from simulation, proof and action to value, culture and mythology, offering a progressively deeper diagnosis of modern philosophical conditions. In contrast to the contemporary focus upon cognitive science and a commitment to the distinction between appearance and reality, this book helps readers to explore the argument that such abstractions are (...) inevitably displaced by a more concrete distinction between dreaming and waking, with the Matrix as the real and only world we inhabit. Researchers and scholars will find this work an engaging and enlightening examination of reality, via the medium of popular culture and film. (shrink)

This paper rejoins the debate surrounding Thomas Tymockzko’s paper on the surveyability of proof, first published in the Journal of Philosophy, and makes the claim that by attending to certain broad features of modern conceptions of proof we may understand ways in which the debate surrounding the surveyability of proof has heretofore remained unduly circumscribed. Motivated by these historical reflections, I suggest a distinction between local and global surveyability which I believe has the promise to open up significant new advances (...) in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

This book addresses the philosophy of Kant and the poetry of Shelley as historical starting points for a new way of thinking in the modern age. Fusing together critical philosophy and visionary poetry, Bassler develops the notion of visionary critique, or paraphysics, as a model for future philosophical endeavor. This philosophical practice is rooted in the concept of the indefinite power associated with the sublime in both Kant and Shelley’s work, to which the notion of the parafinite or indefinitely (...) large is extended in this book. (shrink)

New light is shed on Leibniz’s commitment to the metaphysical priority of the intensional interpretation of logic by considering the arithmetical and graphical representations of syllogistic inference that Leibniz studied. Crucial to understanding this connection is the idea that concepts can be intensionally represented in terms of properties of geometric extension, though significantly not the simple geometric property of part-whole inclusion. I go on to provide an explanation for how Leibniz could maintain the metaphysical priority of the intensional interpretation while (...) holding that logically the intensional and the extensional stand in strictly inverse relation to each other. (shrink)

In den „Fundamenta praedemonstrabilia“ der Theoria motus abstracti entwickelt Leibniz den Versuch, das Kontinuum als aus grundsätzlich unteilbaren Einheiten in einer Weise aufgebaut zu denken, die seine Kontinuität bewahrt - durch die systematische Unterscheidung der Verhältnisse von ,unum ad infinitum‘ und von ,nullius ad unum‘ versucht er hier Balance zu halten. Zwar komme ich zu dem Ergebnis, daß Leibniz' Auffassung vom Kontinuum in der Theoria motus abstracti letztlich inkohärent bleibt, gleichwohl bildet er Begriffe, die sein weiteres Bemühen, den Zugang zum (...) Unendlich-Kleinen neu zu legen, zum Mittel seiner Lösung des ,labyrinthus de compositione continui‘ gestalten. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit konfrontiere ich die hier vorgelegte Interpretation der Position von Leibniz einer Deutung, die unlängst Philip Beeley gab. (shrink)

In der Zeit zwischen 1668 und 1671 ändert Leibniz seine Ansicht zu Bewegung und Körper von dem Standpunkt, Bewegung sei keine essentielle Eigenschaft eines Körpers, zu dem, dass Bewegung den Wesenskern eines Körpers bilde. Dieser Aufsatz will den Prozess analysieren, der diesem Wandel zu Grunde liegt. Die Theoria motus abstracþi wird dabei als vorsichtige Synthese interpretiert, die zwar den Wandel ankündigt, die aber den neuen Standpunkt noch nicht explizit vertritt. Die ausdrückliche Hinwendung zu der Position, Bewegung sei der Wesenskern eines (...) Körpers, wird als Folge davon gesehen, dass Leibniz die Existenz einer unbewegten materia prima verneint; und diese Haltung führt zu einer ausdrücklich phänomenologischen Ableitungsmethode im zweiten Entwurf des Specimen demonstrationum de natura rerum corporearum ex phaenomenis, die mit ihrer Unterscheidung zwischen dem Körper als wandelbar und dem Raum als unwandelbar zu der Schlussfolgerung, Bewegung sei der Wesenskern eines Körpers, führt. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel konzentriert sich auf zwei der frühesten Schriften aus Leibniz' Pariser Zeit, die „Accessio ad Arithmeticam Infinitorum“ und die „De Minimo et Maximo. De corporibus et mentibus“ , und er beurteilt die Beziehung zwischen den in der AAI angegebenen mathematischen Ergebnissen und dem Wandel in Leibniz' Metaphysik, der in MM und in den damit in Verbindung stehenden Schriften und Briefen zum Ausdruck gebracht wird. Sowohl Leibniz' mathematische Ergebnisse als auch der Wandel seiner Haltung in der Metaphysik können als Resultat (...) einer stärkeren Verpflichtung gegenüber dem Euklidischen Axiom betrachtet werden, daß das Ganze größer ist als der Teil. Indem das Euklidische Axiom eine bedeutendere Rolle in Leibniz' Metaphysik und mathematischer Arbeit einnimmt, bewegt sich Leibniz von der Vorstellung der Zusammensetzung des Kontinuums aus unteilbaren Punkten zu einer Aufgliederung des Kontinuums in unvergleichbar kleine Teile, die in sich selbst kontinuierlich sind. Dieser Wandel führt Leibniz dazu, die Rolle der Identität und eines Kalküls von Teil und Ganzem zu betonen und sich in Richtung einer Vorstellung vom Unbestimmten als eines Unendlichen zu bewegen. (shrink)

The second volume of Jaakko Hintikka’s selected papers brings together essays from the decade 1986–96 concerning an often tacit distinction between “two competing overall views concerning our relationship to our language”. The first of these Hintikka characterizes as the view of language as lingua universalis, a single universal medium of communication; the second view, of language as calculus ratiocinator, is not meant to indicate that language is a “mere play with symbols” but rather that language “can be re interpreted like (...) a calculus”. (shrink)

In The Principles of Mathematics Revisited Jaakko Hintikka proposes nothing less than “to prepare the ground for the next revolution in the foundations of mathematics”. Hintikka’s proposal involves a rejection, inter alia, of the views that ordinary first-order logic is the basic elementary logic and that axiomatic set theory is a natural framework for theorizing about mathematics.

Well-Being and Death addresses philosophical questions about death and the good life: what makes a life go well? Is death bad for the one who dies? How is this possible if we go out of existence when we die? Is it worse to die as an infant or as a young adult? Is it bad for animals and fetuses to die? Can the dead be harmed? Is there any way to make death less bad for us? Ben Bradley defends (...) the following views: pleasure, rather than achievement or the satisfaction of desire, is what makes life go well; death is generally bad for its victim, in virtue of depriving the victim of more of a good life; death is bad for its victim at times after death, in particular at all those times at which the victim would have been living well; death is worse the earlier it occurs, and hence it is worse to die as an infant than as an adult; death is usually bad for animals and fetuses, in just the same way it is bad for adult humans; things that happen after someone has died cannot harm that person; the only sensible way to make death less bad is to live so long that no more good life is possible. (shrink)

Die "Theoretische Psychologie" Sigmund Freuds -- Affekt und Bild vs. Handlung und Symbolisierung - "Mentalisierung" als Regulation. Anmerkungen über eine neuere Konzeption zu Freuds metapsychologischen Schriften -- Bild vs. Sprache : vom Unbewussten zum Bewusstwerden -- Der Primärprozess und das halluzinatorisch-bildliche Erleben des Klein(st) kindes - nebst einem Anhang über das Verhältnis der Leistungen der modernen Gehirnphysiologie zur Erforschung und Erklärung inhaltlich-seelischer Vorgänge -- Träume sind Bildgeschichten -- Erst Verbildlichung, dann Verbalisierung -- Weitere Konsequenzen für die therapeutische Praxis : Fallgeschichten (...) -- Kausales vs. strukturelles Denken in der Psychotherapie. (shrink)

This paper examines the implications of the context-sensitivity of counterfactuals for the correctness of emotions and attitudes towards death. I argue that the correctness of an attitude such as fear must be explained by appeal to its causal relations to certain preferences.

T. H. Green was a leading member of the British Idealist movement, which adopted the continental philosophy of Hegel and Kant while rejecting utilitarianism. As well as being a prominent philosopher, Green was an influential educational reformer and an active member of the Liberal party. Green's writings can be placed into three categories: religion, philosophy and politics. This work was the most complete statement of Green's philosophy, although it remained unfinished at his death. Edited by A. C. Bradley, a (...) former student and brother of Green's fellow Idealist F. H. Bradley, the book, which contains four parts, was published posthumously in 1883. Like other Idealists, Green criticised empiricism for creating an unnecessary dualism between thought and the real. (shrink)

This paper explores some aspects of the relation between different ways of achieving a consensus on the judgemental values of a group of indviduals; in particular, aggregation and deliberation. We argue firstly that the framing of an aggregation problem itself generates information that individuals are rationally obliged to take into account. And secondly that outputs of the deliberative process that this initiates is in tension with constraints on consensual values typically imposed by aggregation theory, at least when deliberation is modelled (...) as process of learning from others compatible with Bayesian updating principles. (shrink)

In Chapter 6 of Objects of Credence, Anna Mahtani argues that the opacity of credence raises difficulties for the Principal Principle and proposes a revised principle relating credence and chance that avoids it. In this comment on her book, I both defend Mahtani’s proposed principle against a charge of triviality and argue that the opacity of belief does not threaten the role of chance in guiding credence.

In this daring blend of Jewish theology, science and Process Thought, theologian Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson explores our actions through Judaism and the sciences as dynamically interactive and mutually informative.

Time is what clocks are used to measure. Information about time tells the durations of events and when they occur and which events happen before which others, so time plays a very significant role in the universe’s structure, including the structure of our personal lives. But carefully describing time’s properties has led to many unresolved issues, both philosophical and scientific.

As readers of this journal can attest to, although philosophers and economists are somewhat used to talking to and learning from each other, it tends to be the subset of philosophers working in decision theory, philosophy of science, and particular areas of ethics and political philosophy that contribute to our interdisciplinary field of research. The book that is the subject of this review symposium, Anna Mahtani’s The Objects of Credence (Oxford University Press, 2024), is a wonderful exemplar of what can (...) be learned when a different branch of philosophy is brought to bear on central questions in this field. Both philosophers and economists talk about and work with credences, or degrees of belief, all the time. These are usually modelled as probabilities, which are in turn usually thought of as attaching to propositions. But it has long been argued by philosophers of language that propositions cannot be the objects of credence. Mahtani’s book is an investigation into all that begins to unravel once we accept this insight. The results have profound implications both for rational choice modelling and for welfare economics. (shrink)

If an agent believes that the probability of E being true is 1/2, should she accept a bet on E at even odds or better? Yes, but only given certain conditions. This paper is about what those conditions are. In particular, we think that there is a condition that has been overlooked so far in the literature. We discovered it in response to a paper by Hitchcock (2004) in which he argues for the 1/3 answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem. (...) Hitchcock argues that this credence follows from calculating her fair betting odds, plus the assumption that Sleeping Beauty’s credences should track her fair betting odds. We will show that this last assumption is false. Sleeping Beauty’s credences should not follow her fair betting odds due to a peculiar feature of her epistemic situation. (shrink)

This introduces the special issue “Literature and Emotion.”.

Many philosophers and scientists have claimed that time has an arrow that points in a special direction. The Roman poet Ovid may have referred to this one-way property of time when he said, “Time itself glides on with constant motion, ever as a flowing river.” However, understanding this arrow is not … Continue reading The Arrow of Time →.

Life -- Labour -- Psyche -- Being -- The other -- Time -- Death.

Monothematic delusions are delusions whose contents pertain to a single subject matter. Examples include Capgras delusion, the delusion that a loved one has been replaced by an impostor, and Cotard delusion, the delusion that one is dead or does not exist. Two-factor accounts of such delusions hold that they are the result of both an experiential deficit, for instance flattened affect, coupled with an aberrant cognitive response to that deficit. In this paper we develop a new expressivist two-factor account of (...) delusion. In contrast to existing endorsement and explanationist accounts, which treat delusions as either explanations or endorsements of the contents of these disordered experiences, we hold that delusional beliefs have an expressive function: they characterize, in impressionistic terms, what the subject’s experience is like for them. We show how our account improves upon existing two-factor views in explaining the central features of monothematic delusions, in particular the way in which delusional subjects fall short of the ideal of rationality. (shrink)

Compiling empirical work from management and social science disciplines, the Research Companion to Ethical Behavior in Organizations provides an entry point for academic researchers and compliance officers interested in measuring the moral dimensions of individuals. Accessible to newcomers but geared toward academics, this detailed book catalogs the varied and nuanced constructs used in behavioral ethics, along with measures that assess those constructs. With its cross-disciplinary focus and expert commentary, a varied collection of learned scholars bring essential studies into one volume, (...) creating a resource that promises to enhance the burgeoning field of behavioral ethics"--Publisher's web site. (shrink)

I argue that two of the standard axioms of the AGM theory of belief revision stand in the way of it serving as the basis for an adequate account of defeasible reasoning, because they respectively disallow the adoption of beliefs not logically entailed by those previously learned and the abandonment of those not contradicted by them.

Jean Paul Sartre and Michael Foucault -- Socrates and the Buddha -- Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins -- Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh -- Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade -- Charles Darwin and Michael Behe -- Frans de Wall and Barbara King -- Paul Maclean and Michael Persinger -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Francis Collins -- John Hick and the Dalai Lama.

Seventh in the New Dialogues in Philosophy series, this book discusses the concept of time and shows in the simplest ways how time informs discussions about causality, creation, physics, natural disasters, and much more. Creating a series of conversations between two fictional characters, Bradley Dowden uses the characters to explore nine metaphysical issues involving time.