Four philosophers, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Dennett, and Hegel, who hold for the most part radically different philosophies, all agree on rejecting the notion of atomic entities, of “things-in-themselves,” and insist that objects only make sense – can only be what they are -- in a context.

In standard quantum mechanics, a state vector \ may belong to infinitely many different orthogonal bases, as soon as the dimension N of the Hilbert space is at least three. On the other hand, a complete physical observable A is associated with a N-dimensional orthogonal basis of eigenvectors. In an idealized case, measuring A again and again will give repeatedly the same result, with the same eigenvalue. Let us call this repeatable result a modality \, and the corresponding eigenstate \. (...) A question is then: does \ give a complete description of \? The answer is obviously no, since \ does not specify the full observable A that allowed us to obtain \; hence the physical description given by \ is incomplete, as claimed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in their famous article in 1935. Here we want to spell out this provocative statement, and in particular to answer the questions: if \ is an incomplete description of \, what does it describe? is it possible to obtain a complete description, maybe algebraic? Our conclusion is that the incompleteness of standard QM is due to its attempt to describe systems without contexts, whereas both are always required, even if they can be separated outside the measurement periods. (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that (...) of dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)

Textualist and originalist legal reasoning usually involves something like the following thesis, whether implicitly or explicitly: the legal content of a statute or constitutional clause is the linguistic content that a reasonable member of the relevant audience would, knowing the context and conversational background, associate with the enactment. In this paper, I elucidate some important aspects of this thesis, emphasizing the important role that contextual enrichment plays in textualist and originalist legal reasoning. The aim is to show how the (...) linguistic framework underlying sophisticated versions of new textualism and public-meaning originalism can help to shed important light on the plausibility of what John Perry calls conception textualism. Contra Perry, I do not think that conception textualism—arguably best classified as a version of expected-applications originalism—is “confused, implausible, and unworkable.” I also briefly compare my linguistic case for conception textualism with Justice Scalia's nonlinguistic argument for it, the main premise of which concerns the constitutive function of constitutions. (shrink)

In Science as Social Knowledge in 1990 and The Fate of Knowledge in 2002, Helen Longino develops an epistemological theory known as Critical Contextual Empiricism (CCE). Knowledge production, she argues, is an active, value-laden practice, evidence is context dependent and relies on background assumptions, and science is a social inquiry that, under certain conditions, produces social knowledge with contextual objectivity. While Longino’s work has been generally well-received, there have been a number of criticisms of CCE raised in (...) the philosophical literature in recent years. In this paper I outline the key elements of Longino’s theory and propose modifications to the four norms offered by the account. The version of CCE I defend, which draws on lessons learned by medical researchers in recent years, gives principles of epistemic diversity a central role and also provides greater specification of three of the four norms. Further, it offers additional resources for defending CCE against Alvin Goldman’s suggestion that there is a need for a “healthy dogmatism” in science, as well as a concern about “manufactured uncertainty” arising out of recent work by David Michaels. Finally, the modified version proposed here is also well positioned to respond (negatively) to a suggestion from Kristen Intemann that CCE needs to be adapted to incorporate a central insight from feminist standpoint theory. In light of the variety of social pressures influencing contemporary scientific research, and the role of science in shaping public policy, I argue that a rigorous social epistemology such as CCE is indispensable for understanding and assessing contemporary scientific practice. (shrink)

Deliberate contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is a reader’s ability to figure out a (not the) meaning for an unknown word from its “context”, without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. The appropriate context for such CVA is the “belief-revised integration” of the reader’s prior knowledge with the reader’s “internalization” of the text. We discuss unwarranted assumptions behind some classic objections to CVA, and present and defend a computational theory of CVA that we have adapted to a (...) new classroom curriculum designed to help students use CVA to improve their reading comprehension. (shrink)

Van Fraassen explains rejections and asymmetries in science in terms of his contextual theory of explanation in the same way that scientists explain observable phenomena in the world in terms of scientific theories. I object that van Fraassen’s skeptical view regarding inference to the best explanation together with the English view of rationality jointly imply that the contextual theory is not rationally compelling, so van Fraassen and his epistemic colleagues can rationally disbelieve it. Prasetya replies that the truth (...) of the contextual theory coincides with its empirical adequacy, so the contextual theory is compelling. He also replies that the contextual theory is compelling, provided that van Fraassen’s argument for it instantiates a compelling subset of IBE. I argue that Prasetya’s replies either fail or help scientific realism. (shrink)

Realist political theory is often confronted with the objection that it is biased towards the status quo. Although this criticism overlooks the fact that realist political theories contain various resources for critique, a realist approach that is strong in status quo critique and contributes, constructively, to the theorising of alternatives to the status quo is a desideratum. The article argues that contextual realism, which sources its normativity from particular contexts, harbours an underexploited potential to establish such a form of (...) political theorising. By drawing on ideas and principles that have guided critical engagements with social and political forms in a particular context, and on widely shared views of need for reform, realists can identify deficits of the status quo and contribute to a debate on how these deficits might be addressed. This article describes and illustrates the idea of a transformative contextual realism, and defends it against some potential objections. (shrink)

Contextual Bible Reading (CBR) and Intercultural Bible Reading (IBR) have enabled the cooperation between socially engaged scholars and marginalised groups to find new resources in biblical texts to interpret their contexts and fight against the surrounding violence. As the use of these two methods has not been the object of a comparative study based on concrete experiences, this article presents them through four cases of Christian communities in Colombia. This comparative study not only illustrates the differences between these two (...) methods of Bible reading, but also shows how they open new hermeneutic and liberation perspectives in the struggle for social justice and the search for reconciliation. The article depicts the CBR of the story of the Levite’s concubine (Jdg 19:1–30) by a group of women living in vulnerable conditions as well as the CBR of the parable of the father and his two sons (Lk 15:11–32) by a group of violence victims’ relatives. It also depicts the IBR of the story of the widow and the judge (Lk 18:1–8) by four groups of Caribbean readers as well as the IBR of the garden story (Gn 2:4b–25) by two Andean indigenous groups. Ordinary readers’ central role as interpreters of biblical texts let them recognise their own capabilities to transform their contexts in an emancipatory way and challenge biblical scholars and theologians. Even though CBR and IBR pursue different hermeneutical goals, they converge in giving a central role to the community as the subject of counter-hegemonic interpretations that open new horizons starting from reality and triggering liberation processes. Contribution: Beyond their differences and tensions, CBR and IBR are inclusive and dialogical methods intended for liberation that should be used to transcend the limits of dominant interpretations of biblical texts as well as the isolation of marginalised ordinary readers. (shrink)

Drawing on research reviewed in this special section, the present article discusses how various contextual factors impact on production and decoding of emotion-related facial activity. Although emotion-related variables often contribute to activation of prototypical “emotion expressions” and perceivers can often infer emotional meanings from these facial configurations, neither process is invariant or direct. Many facial movements are directed towards or away from events in the shared environment, and their effects depend on these relational orientations. Facial activity is not only (...) a medium for descriptive representation of internal affective states, but also a means of adjusting to, and operating on, external objects, and of influencing other people’s appraisals of those objects. (shrink)

The category-theoretic representation of quantum event structures provides a canonical setting for confronting the fundamental problem of truth valuation in quantum mechanics as exemplified, in particular, by Kochen–Specker’s theorem. In the present study, this is realized on the basis of the existence of a categorical adjunction between the category of sheaves of variable local Boolean frames, constituting a topos, and the category of quantum event algebras. We show explicitly that the latter category is equipped with an object of truth values, (...) or classifying object, which constitutes the appropriate tool for assigning truth values to propositions describing the behavior of quantum systems. Effectively, this category-theoretic representation scheme circumvents consistently the semantic ambiguity with respect to truth valuation that is inherent in conventional quantum mechanics by inducing an objective contextual account of truth in the quantum domain of discourse. The philosophical implications of the resulting account are analyzed. We argue that it subscribes neither to a pragmatic instrumental nor to a relative notion of truth. Such an account essentially denies that there can be a universal context of reference or an Archimedean standpoint from which to evaluate logically the totality of facts of nature. (shrink)

What are philosophers doing when they prescribe a particular epistemology for science? According to science and technology studies, the answer to this question implicates both knowledge and politics, even when the latter is hidden. Exploring this dynamic via a specific case, I argue that Longino’s “critical contextual empiricism” ultimately relies on a form of political liberalism. Her choice to nevertheless foreground epistemological concerns can be clarified by considering historical relationships between science and society, as well as the culture of (...) academic philosophy. This example, I conclude, challenges philosophers of science to consider the political ideals and accountability entailed by their prescribed knowledge practices. (shrink)

The article proposes to deepen and expand the classical methodological approaches formulated at the beginning of the 21st century within the framework of academic religious studies. Based on the methodological works of the founder of modern Ukrainian religious studies, Prof. Kolodnyi, who first clearly defined the principles of the scientific study of religion, in particular objectivity, historicism, worldview neutrality, pluralism, etc., the authors justify the need for contextualization as one of the main methodological approaches in the study of current (...) religious processes. They insist on rethinking not only the universality and effectiveness of some methodological principles in new circumstances — the Russian-Ukrainian war, but also on the actualization of new ones, critically rethinking their neglect in the pre-war period. It is proved that in the hierar- chy of religious principles, the principle of contextuality becomes a particularly sought-after re- ality of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Even the concepts that researchers use describing a new religious situation must be contextualized. The authors remind about those contextual dangers for the life world of Ukraine that exist in its religious segment, highlighting external and internal factors that cannot be ignored when analyzing the contemporary religious situation in Ukraine and in the world. Analyzing the current reality, the authors conclude that contextuality as a methodological approach in religious studies should consider: 1) The event context — Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine — as a condition for the manifestation of religion, which determines its functional and substantive features; 2) Features, depth and intensity of research’s contextual inclusion/exclusion. Tragic changes in the context of the life of Ukrainians — linguistic, cultural, informational, religious, etc. necessarily correct expert neutrality, objectivity, non-involvement. According to the authors, the war situation liberates from an unbiased, out-of-contextual analysis. The admis- sibility of such contextualization is a matter of debate. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is a comprehensive analysis of basic reasoning patterns that are characteristic of vague predicates. The analysis leads to rigorous reconstructions of the phenomena within formal systems. Two basic features are dealt with. One is tolerance: the insensitivity of predicates to small changes in the objects of predication (a one-increment of a walking distance is a walking distance). The other is the existence of borderline cases. The paper shows why these should be treated as different, though (...) related phenomena. Tolerance is formally reconstructed within a proposed framework of contextual logic, leading to a solution of the Sorites paradox. Borderline-vagueness is reconstructed using certain modality operators; the set-up provides an analysis of higher order vagueness and a derivation of scales of degrees for the property in question. (shrink)

A provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true. The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence (...) Horgan and Matjaz Potrc argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. (shrink)

The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence Horgan and Matjaz [hacek over z] Potrc [hacek over c] argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and (...) ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc [hacek over c] consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. Terence E. Horgan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. Matjaz [hacek over z] Potrc [hacek over c] is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. (shrink)

In Pantsar (2014), an outline for an empirically feasible epistemological theory of arithmetic is presented. According to that theory, arithmetical knowledge is based on biological primitives but in the resulting empirical context develops an essentially a priori character. Such contextual a priori theory of arithmetical knowledge can explain two of the three characteristics that are usually associated with mathematical knowledge: that it appears to be a priori and objective. In this paper it is argued that it can also explain (...) the ... (shrink)

In Pantsar, an outline for an empirically feasible epistemological theory of arithmetic is presented. According to that theory, arithmetical knowledge is based on biological primitives but in the resulting empirical context develops an essentially a priori character. Such contextual a priori theory of arithmetical knowledge can explain two of the three characteristics that are usually associated with mathematical knowledge: that it appears to be a priori and objective. In this paper it is argued that it can also explain the (...) third one: why arithmetical knowledge appears to be necessary. A Kripkean analysis of necessity is used as an example to show that a proper analysis of the relevant possible worlds can explain arithmetical necessity in a sufficiently strong form. (shrink)

In his recent paper, C. Fuchs formulates QBism in the form of eight postulates. We criticise QBism as an anti-realist position and propose an alternative – contextual quantum realism (QCR). 1. A quantum state is not “an agent’s personal judgement” (QBism), nor is it subjective (QBism), but objective (QCR). It describes not the current experience (QBism), but a state of a physical system in context (QCR). 2. A quantum measurement is a (literally) measurement of quantum reality (QCR), rather than (...) an agent’s action upon its external world (QBism). It can only be regarded as an action in the sense in which a cognitive Wittgensteinian language game is an action (QCR). 3. The result of a quantum meas- urement is objective, though context-sensitive (QCR), rather than subjective (QBism), personal to the agent performing the action (QBism). 4. The quantum formalism is normative (QCR and QBism) and at the same time descriptive (QCR). The wave function tells us what to expect and how a quantum experiment should be conducted (i.e. plays the role of a norm), and also describes the state of a quantum system in context (QCR). 5. Unitary evolution is objective (QCR), not subjective (QBism). It does not express an agent’s degrees of belief (QBism). 6. Probability 1 is ontic (QCR), not an agent’s maximum degree of subjective certainty without ontic content (QBism). 7. In general, measurement outcomes are not predetermined (QCR and QBism), i.e. “unperformed measurements have no outcomes” (for QCR, this is an analytical judgement; for QBism this is a thesis), but they are predeter- mined in the case of probabilities 1 and 0 (QCR). In the case of probabilities 0 and 1, one can speak of performed measurements (QCR). 8. Quantum theory is a universal Wittgen- steinian rule (norm), i.e. a rule (norm) rooted in experience, reality (QCR). It can be used by any competent subject (QCR and QBism). We illustrate the difference between QCR and QBism on the example of how they treat “Wigner’s friend” thought experiment and consider their attitude to phenomenology. (shrink)

Conceptual knowledge is acquired through recurrent experiences, by extracting statistical regularities at different levels of granularity. At a fine level, patterns of feature co-occurrence are categorized into objects. At a coarser level, patterns of concept co-occurrence are categorized into contexts. We present and test CONCAT, a connectionist model that simultaneously learns to categorize objects and contexts. The model contains two hierarchically organized CALM modules (Murre, Phaf, & Wolters, 1992). The first module, the Object Module, forms object representations based on co-occurrences (...) between features. These representations are used as input for the second module, the Context Module, which categorizes contexts based on object co-occurrences. Feedback connections from the Context Module to the Object Module send activation from the active context to those objects that frequently occur within this context. We demonstrate that context feedback contributes to the successful categorization of objects, especially when bottom-up feature information is degraded or ambiguous. (shrink)

Amending and Defending Critical Contextual Empiricism: Lessons from Medical Research In Science as Social Knowledge (1990) and The Fate of Knowledge (2002), Helen Longino develops a social epistemological theory known as Critical Contextual Empiricism (CCE). While Longino’s work has been generally well-received, there have been a number of criticisms of CCE raised in the philosophical literature in recent years. In this paper I outline the key elements of Longino’s theory and propose several modifications to the four norms offered (...) by the account. The revisions I propose are shaped by a number of developments in the medical context in recent years. The modified norms, which determined whether a particular community produces objective knowledge, are thus: 1. Avenues for Criticism – there must be recognized avenues for criticism, and these avenues must be publicly accessible and require transparent disclosure of all relevant information (including competing interests) from those who present their ideas. It must also be a community requirement that all members present their ideas for critical scrutiny if they wish them to be recognized as knowledge. 2. Responsiveness to Criticism – the community must be responsive to criticism. 3. Shared Public Standards – there must be some shared standards that determine community membership. Outsiders to a particular community are welcome to engage in critical debates as long as they share at least one of the community standards with the target community. 4. Cultivation of Diverse Perspectives – communities must cultivate diverse perspectives, that is, the perspectives of those who express strong dissent. The version of CCE I defend gives the principle of diversity a more central role than the original and provides greater specification of two of the other norms in light of challenges faced by medical researchers in recent years. The medical context provides us with a number of cautionary tales in which knowledge production that appears to meet the original four norms has been seriously compromised by particular social interests. The proposed modifications attempt to address these ‘loopholes’ in a way that is not ad hoc. I argue that the modifications I suggest are in line with the underlying assumptions and goals of CCE. The modified version of CCE also offers resources for defending CCE against the criticisms leveled against it by Miriam Solomon & Alan Richardson, Alvin Goldman and Philip Kitcher as well as one general concern arising out of a recent work by David Michaels. I provide responses to these criticisms in the final section of the paper. Throughout the paper I connect the theoretical work done in social epistemology to the real practice of knowledge-production as is occurs in the medical context. In light of the variety of social pressures influencing contemporary scientific research, and the role of science in shaping public policy, I argue that a rigorous social epistemology such as CCE is indispensable for understanding and assessing contemporary scientific practice. (shrink)

Stecker's revised definition of art in Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value is stated thus: "w is a work of art at t if and only if (a) w has form c which is a member of C and the maker of w intended it to fulfill a sub-set of functions f1 ... fn of F such that f1 ... fn are functions of c or (b) w is an object which achieves excellence in fulfilling a function in F" 1 where: w (...) is an artwork; t is a time; C is the set of central art forms at t; c is a member of the set C; F is the set of functions standardly or correctly regarded as belonging to C at t; f1 ... fn are members of the set F. (shrink)

Analyses of the role of technological development in agriculture are central to an understanding of social change in agri-food systems. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the formation of a broader perspective of how farmers are positioning themselves with respect to controversial agricultural technologies through an empirical analysis of Washington State farmers’ willingness or unwillingness to try Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) technology on their farms. The use of this type of biotechnology in farming has been criticized for (...) its potential harmful effects on natural environments and socio-cultural systems, while proponents highlight the possibilities for increasing production with minimal use of other inputs. An analysis of the extent of farmers’ expressed willingness to use GMOs provides an opportunity to better understand how their diverse thoughts about controversial agricultural technologies are shaped not only by their own experiences but also by social context. The present study does this by analyzing data from a farm survey conducted on a random sample of farmers from across Washington State. The results show that the production practices farmers utilize and the market strategies they employ may be at least as useful as farmers’ socio-economic characteristics in explaining what types of farmers appear to be more or less interested in potentially using this technology. Furthermore, the relationship between level of formal education and willingness to use GMOs is not straightforward. It may hide differences between farmers with respect to where and how they received their formal education as well as the type(s) of knowledge they gained. It is argued that future research should recognize the diversity that exists in farmers’ interests vis-á-vis particular technologies and should also explore how these interests are shaped by farmers’ past and present social networks and life experiences. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to defend the view that the processes underlying early vision are informationally encapsulated. Following Marr (1982) and Pylyshyn (1999) I take early vision to be a cognitive process that takes sensory information as its input and produces the so-called primal sketches or shallow visual outputs: informational states that represent visual objects in terms of their shape, location, size, colour and luminosity. Recently, some researchers (Schirillo 1999, Macpherson 2012) have attempted to undermine the idea of (...) the informational encapsulation of early vision by referring to experiments that seem to show that colour recognition is affected by the subject's beliefs about the typical colour of objects. In my view, however, one can reconcile the results of these experiments with the position that early vision is informationally encapsulated. Namely, I put fort a hypothesis according to which the early vision system has access to a local database that I call the mental palette and define as a network of associative links whose nodes stands for shapes and colours. The function of the palette is to facilitate colour recognition without employing central processes. I also describe two experiments by which the mental palette hypothesis can be tested. (shrink)

I argue for the thesis that causal evidence is context-dependent. The same causal claim may be warranted by the same piece of evidence in one context but not another. I show this in particular for the type of causal evidence characteristic of the manipulability theory defended by Woodward (Making things happen: a theory of causal explanation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003). My thesis, however, generalises to other theories—and at the end of the paper I outline the generalization to counterfactual theories. (...) The paradigmatic form of causal evidence in the manipulability theory is provided by tests of the functional invariance of the relation between putative cause and effect under interventions (on the putative cause). I show that such evidence exhibits at least two kinds of context-relativity: personal, or epistemic; and situational, or objective. (shrink)

Understanding nature of science is widely considered an important educational objective and views of NOS are closely linked to science teaching and learning. Thus there is a lively discussion about what understanding NOS means and how it is reached. As a result of analyses in educational, philosophical, sociological and historical research, a worldwide consensus about the content of NOS teaching is said to be reached. This consensus content is listed as a general statement of science, which students are supposed to (...) understand during their education. Unfortunately, decades of research has demonstrated that teachers and students alike do not possess an appropriate understanding of NOS, at least as far as it is defined at the general level. One reason for such failure might be that formal statements about the NOS and scientific knowledge can really be understood after having been contextualized in the actual cases. Typically NOS is studied as contextualized in the reconstructed historical case stories. When the objective is to educate scientifically and technologically literate citizens, as well as scientists of the near future, studying NOS in the contexts of contemporary science is encouraged. Such contextualizations call for revision of the characterization of NOS and the goals of teaching about NOS. As a consequence, this article gives two examples for studying NOS in the contexts of scientific practices with practicing scientists: an interview study with nanomodellers considering NOS in the context of their actual practices and a course on nature of scientific modelling for science teachers employing the same interview method as a studying method. Such scrutinization opens rarely discussed areas and viewpoints to NOS as well as aspects that practising scientists consider as important. (shrink)

I critically discuss the contextualist approach to essentialism, which was developed as an explanation of the seeming inconstancy of our essentialist intuitions. The problem is supposed to be that we vacillate a great deal in judging what properties an object has essentially from one occasion to another, which obviously undermines the reliability of our essentialist intuitions. Contextualists solve the problem by combining the metaphysical view that objects have essential properties with the semantic thesis that the term “essentially” is a context (...) sensitive expression. Once we are aware of the context shifting, the conflict of intuitions turns out to be onlyapparent. My aim is to show that contextualism is not the answer that a proponent of essentialism should adopt. First, I outline the contextualist strategy and argue by help of an example that our linguistic practice does not seem to support the contextualist claim that “essentially” is a context-sensitive term. Secondly, the contextualist strategy deals only with the vacillation of intuitions in one person, but offers a very unfavorable explanation of the conflict of intuitions among different persons. Thus, contextualists face the challenge of proving the reliability of essentialist intuitions nevertheless. I conclude with David Lewis’s proposal in order to illustrate that the contextualist approach only provides the appearance, but not the real essentialism. (shrink)

This paper examines some common measures of complexity, structure, and information, with an eye toward understanding the extent to which complexity or information‐content may be regarded as objective properties of individual objects. A form of contextual objectivity is proposed which renders the measures objective, and which largely resolves the puzzle of Maxwell's Demon.

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not (...) disinterested or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account. (shrink)

Terence Horgan's "contextual semantics" is supposed to be a means to avoid unwanted ontological commitments, in particular commitments to non-physical objects, such as institutions, theories and symphonies. The core of contextual semantics is the claim that truth is correct assertibility, and that there are various standards of correct assertibility, the standards of "referential semantics" being only one among others. I am investigating the notions of correct assertibility,assertibility norms and indirect reference. I argue that closer inspection reveals that (...) class='Hi'>contextual semantics ultimately amounts – contra Horgan's intentions – to a paraphrase strategy. I defend an ontological commitment to theories and symphonies. (shrink)

To a great extent, Kant more than Tolstoy influenced twentieth-century aesthetics in Eurocentric cultures. Formalist theorists insisted that disinterested apprehension of directly perceivable properties (color, rhythm, meter, balance, proportion, etc.) distinguished aesthetic experiences from all others. Kant never won the day in many non-Eurocentric cultures, however. Native Americans, for example, continued to connect aesthetic activity directly to "interested" and functional objects and events. Decriptions of objects or events as "beautiful" in most African cultures never required distinguishing "What is it for?" (...) from "How does it look?" Even in Eurocentric cultures, outside the rather narrow "mainstream" art world (professional artists, critics, curators, etc.) formalism was never wholly accepted or practiced. Attributions of beauty made by ordinary persons-on-the-street have been unabashedly affected by moral values and factual beliefs. Recognition of this has resulted in what I have elsewhere described as a "contextual turn" in aesthetics. Feminists and ethicists have contributed greatly to this turn. As the title of this symposium suggests, beauty matters (verb) and beauty matters (noun) have really never stopped being centrally important for a whole lot of reasons beyond the pleasure taken in morally and factually disinterested apprehension of form. Tolstoy thought if Kant were correct, beauty could not matter--or at least could not matter enough. His tack was to look elsewhere to explain the importance of art. but suppose we go another way and say, _but beauty does matter_. then Kant must not be correct. But just where did he go astray? (shrink)

Social factors have so far been neglected in embodied theories of perception despite the wealth of phenomenological insights and empirical evidence indicating their importance. I examine evidence from developmental psychology and neuroscience and attempt an initial classification according to whether social factors play a contextual, enabling, or constitutive role in the ability to perceive objects in a detached manner, i.e. beyond their immediate instrumental use. While evidence of cross-cultural variations in perceptual styles and the influence of social cues on (...) visual attention could not be said to play more than a contextual role, other factors such as the intricate developmental links between dyadic and triadic interactions in infancy, as well as episodes of peer-learning in children, play enabling roles. A common element in these factors is the presence and resolution of interpersonal conflict. Detached object perception could not develop without these social factors. I argue, in addition, that social skills such as managing partial social acts which are addressed to and completed by others, linguistic mediation, makebelieve play, and the ability to control perspectival switches are constitutive -- i.e. are of the essence -- of the ability to see objects as present with a detached attitude. I discuss the prospects of incorporating such social elements into dynamical interpretations of the sensorimotor approach through the enactive notion of participatory sense-making. (shrink)

This thesis argues for two main points concerning the philosophy of natural language semantics. Firstly, that the objects of assertion are distinct from the entities appealed to in the compositional rules of natural language semantics. Secondly, natural languages contain context-shifting operators known as "monsters". In fact, it will be shown that these theses are simply two sides of the same coin.

This essay is a commentary on Helmut Reich’s recently published book on relational and contextual reasoning (RCR). Reich’s ideas are relevant in contexts of conflict, and they enable us to consider the notion of objectivity differently. He makes us see the constraints in individual perspectives. His book also can enable people to formulate problems of human concern in a wider and richer framework, which may lead to solutions not obtainable on the basis of binary logic.

Many philosophers affiliated with the analytic school contend that the history of philosophy is not relevant to their work. The present study challenges this claim by introducing a strong variant of the philosophical history of philosophy termed the “logical–contextual history of philosophy.” Its objective is to map the “logical geography” of the concepts and theories of past philosophical masters, concepts and theories that are not only genealogically, but also logically related. Such history of philosophy cannot be set in opposition (...) to the traditional “systematic philosophy.” Rather, the logical–contextual history of philosophy is, like the traditional school philosophies, systematic, although it develops along different lines. (shrink)

Lloyd analyzes every proposed evolutionary explanation of female orgasm and argues that all but one suffers from serious evidential errors. Lloyd attributes these errors to two main biases: androcentrism and adaptationism. This paper begins by arguing that the explanation Lloyd favors—the by-product account—is guilty of the androcentrism which supposedly implicates the other explanations of female orgasm with numerous evidential discrepancies. This suggests that there is another error afflicting orgasm research in addition to the biases Lloyd identities. I attempt to diagnose (...) and characterize this additional error. In short, I think the error is using an imprecise definition of the trait in question. Further, Lloyd takes her analysis to support Longino’s contextual empiricist model of scientific objectivity. I consider what implications this analysis has for contextual empiricism. Finally, I argue that theorizing about female orgasm should be done from a conceptual engineering approach. (shrink)

Leading philosophical accounts presume that Thomas H. Morgan’s transmission theory can be understood independently of experimental practices. Experimentation is taken to be relevant to confirming, rather than interpreting, the transmission theory. But the construction of Morgan’s theory went hand in hand with the reconstruction of the chief experimental object, the model organism Drosophila melanogaster . This raises an important question: when a theory is constructed to account for phenomena in carefully controlled laboratory settings, what knowledge, if any, indicates the theory’s (...) relevance to phenomena outside highly controlled settings? The answer, I argue, is found within the procedural knowledge embedded within laboratory practice. †To contact the author, please write to: Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, Department of Philosophy, 831 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455‐0310; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The traditional ontology is a substance-ontology. It is the ontology that an object is primarily a substance, which has a definite being and properties. A lot of philosophical problems are tied to this ontology. I deconstruct the ontology of substance and propose a being-ontology. It is a way to see the world, instead of as a totality of substances, as a totality of ways of being. It has two theses. First, an object is not viewed as a substance which has (...) properties, but as an entity that has various ways of being, among which one may be viewed as prominent in certain circumstances and another in other circumstances. For example, an object is a statue, it is also a piece of marble, and many more; it is itself no more a statue than a piece of marble, nor more a piece of marble than a statue, but can be viewed as prominently a statue or a piece of marble depending on circumstances. Second, the being of an object is contextually constituted. That is, while an object has a variety of being, each being is constituted in a context. Without a context, no being can be constituted. Thus, my ontology may be viewed at two levels. On the being level, each being is contextually constituted; on the entity level, each entity is a totality of its various ways of being. My ontology is feministic and democratic, in a very broad sense of these terms, in that it deconstructs the 'totalitarian' core of objects and allows a variety of being on their own right. My ontology has consequences for other branches of philosophy. For instance, it explains why in aesthetic critiques the same object may be subject to two or more equally well-grounded assessments. Without the conception of substance, my notion of identity is relative and context-dependent. Using this ontology I offer solutions to a number of metaphysical problems, such as individual identity, personal identity, and mind-body identity, etc. (shrink)

Helen Longino’s “contextual empiricism” is one of the most sophisticated recent attempts to defend a social theory of science. On this view, objectivity and epistemic acceptability require that research be produced within communities that approximate a Millian marketplace of ideas. I argue, however, that Longino’s embedding of her epistemology within the framework of Mill’s political liberalism implies a conception of individual epistemic agents that is incompatible with her view that scientific knowledge is necessarily social, and I begin to (...) articulate an alternative conception that is better suited to a truly social theory of science. †To contact the author, please write to: School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, 685 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332‐0345; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Cyberstalking is a significant challenge in the era of Internet and technology. When dealing with cyberstalking, institutions and governments struggle in how to manage it and where to allocate resources. Therefore, it is important to understand how individuals feel about the problem of cyberstalking and how it can be managed. In this paper, we use Nissenbaum’s :119–158, 2004) contextual integrity as a theoretical framework for applying Keeney’s value-focused thinking technique to develop actionable objectives aimed at the prevention of cyberstalking. (...) By systematically interviewing over 100 individuals, we extract 20 objectives based on the underlying norms of distribution and appropriateness relevant to the context of cyberstalking. The objectives ensure that contextual integrity is maintained and cyberstalking prevented. Organizations can benefit from the objectives developed in this research since they are a means for developing an ethical policy regarding cyberstalking. Therefore, they help to ensure an ethical engagement with society at large by organizations when dealing with cyberstalking. Researchers can use these objectives to explore the best means for their implementation by organizations and institutions. Additionally they can explore the network mapping of fundamental and means objectives to determine relationships and their strengths in the cyberstalking context. (shrink)

Johannes von Kries’s Spielraum-theory is regarded as one of the most important philosophical contributions of the nineteenth century to an objective interpretation of probability. This paper aims at a critical and contextual analysis of von Kries’s approach: It is contextual insofar as it reconstructs the Spielraum-theory in the historical setting that formed his scientific and philosophical outlook. It is critical insofar as it unfolds systematic tensions and inconsistencies which are rooted in this context, especially in the grave change (...) of mechanism which took place in the late nineteenth century. In this regard, the paper focuses on von Kries’s understanding of natural laws and nomological knowledge in relation to his concept of objective probability. While the formal approach of the Spielraum-theory—as far as developed by von Kries—seems sound, his epistemological claims with respect to nomological knowledge sustain classical mechanism and are hence difficult to substantiate from the point of view of modern science. (shrink)

One of the earliest discussions of the so-called 'bad company' objection to Neo-Fregeanism, I show that the consistency of an arbitrary second-order 'contextual definition' (nowadays known as an 'abstraction principle' is recursively undecidable. I go on to suggest that an acceptable such principle should satisfy a condition nowadays known as 'stablity'.