Over recent decades there has been a growing interest in the question of whether computer programs are capable of genuinely creative activity. Although this notion can be explored as a purely philosophical debate, an alternative perspective is to consider what aspects of the behaviour of a program might be noted or measured in order to arrive at an empirically supported judgement that creativity has occurred. We sketch out, in general abstract terms, what goes on when a potentially creative program (...) is constructed and run, and list some of the relationships (for example, between input and output) which might contribute to a decision about creativity. Specifically, we list a number of criteria which might indicate interesting properties of a program’s behaviour, from the perspective of possible creativity. We go on to review some ways in which these criteria have been applied to actual implementations, and some possible improvements to this way of assessing creativity. (shrink)

Science communicators, including journalists and experts in the field of public relations in science, are often seen as an external and optional addition to the scientific community. Their influence on scientific practices and public perception of science is often underestimated, and their role is understood as a technical one: as a simple retelling of scientific research in a language understandable to the public. In this paper, using the example of such a criterion as “creativity”, we propose to reconsider the (...) role of science communicators more broadly. The paper shows that it is science communicators, rather than representatives of the scientific community, who should be the primary subjects of evaluating articles according to the criterion of creativity. The authors argue that the creativity of scientific research is an essential element in the development of science as a social phenomenon, rather than just a component of its internal operation. Science communicators are not considered as “external” actors in relation to science – their work has a significant impact on the fundamental criteria for scientific success, such as the establishment of scientific reputation, and influences the perception of science among the general public. They do not just describe research, they form ideas about the value aspects of science in society and influence the image of science, which is broadcast into the public space, selecting articles according to certain criteria that are not always the most significant in science, endowing scientific results with a special, socially relevant significance that is not explicitly presented in the texts of scientific articles. The activities of science communicators can influence the funding and development of a scientific field, its public and government support, its popularity among applicants, students and young scientists – and, consequently, the quality of scientific personnel involved in this field. In fact, science communicators turn out to be key architects of public, and often intrascientific, ideas about science and various scientific fields. (shrink)

In the article I refer to the philosophy of William Hasker and his proposal to reconcile respect for the basic dogmas of Christianity with the contemporary standards of knowledge and the needs of people today. In the first part I analyse Hasker’s view on the idea of Christian philosophy. Since he assumes the truthfulness of the main doctrines of Christianity, he is not opposed to being referred to as a Christian philosopher, but neither is he enthusiastic about this name. This (...) attitude is the result of his conviction that the state of absolute neutrality is not possible in philosophy and that regardless of the views accepted as true by a given thinker the requirement for good philosophy is fairness and evaluating all perspectives and beliefs for their internal coherence and their correspondence with the evidence. Therefore, Hasker first tries very carefully to reconstruct positions different from his own and to track down various difficulties in them, especially contradictions. In my opinion, however, the objection of self-contradiction is ineffective when applied to philosophical positions which, as a rule, use vague concepts. The same applies to the claim that these positions are contradictory to evidence, because one of such vague notions is also the notion of evidence. That is why philosophical claims have the extraordinary ability to persist in life or unexpectedly revive after being considered definitively dead. It does not follow from this that one cannot convincingly justify one’s position using less formal criteria. In the second part I focus on the rhetorical device used by Hasker to make his concept of God more attractive. He suggests that we should shape our concept of God based on our idea of a great man, i.e. one who educates children to live independently and is able to effectively and fairly manage large groups of people. Leaving aside the accusation of anthropomorphism, the question arises about the epistemic value of this image, which is not universal, changes over time and depends on the conditions in which people live. The content of this image proposed by Hasker isn’t also consistent with the idea of the God of Christian orthodoxy, which is dominated by traditional rather than open theism. This is where the problem of linking creative thinking and respect for Christian identity arises. Regardless of the opinion that open theism has among traditional theists, Hasker supports the concept of a strong Christian identity determined by a universally recognized creed. I propose to treat this identity a little more flexibly. (shrink)

In creative cognition research, the Romantic view about creative cognition is traditionally rejected in favor of the modern view. The modern view about creative cognition maintains that creativity is neither mysterious nor unintelligible and that it is indeed susceptible to analysis. The paradigmatic objects of analysis in creative cognition research have been creative output and the creative process. The degree of creativity of an output is assessed in accordance with certain criterial definitions. The degree of creativity of (...) a cognitive process is assessed in accordance with certain models of creative cognition, psychometric test measures, and neuroimaging studies that are grounded in certain criteria for assessment. The reliance on criterial definitions and criteria for assessment in analyzing either the creative output or the creative process suggests that creative cognition researchers remain under the sway of the classical, bundles-of-criteria theory of meaning. In this paper, I will critically evaluate the criterial problems that confront both criterial definitions and criteria for assessment before proposing an alternative theory of meaning. (shrink)

Creativity is an imperative need of the twenty-first century, and it seems to be a skill that will monopolize interest for many years. It is, in substance, a newly established scientific field and despite attempts to encroach on the science of psychology, its origin and functions have not been probed yet. Still, it continues to be researched, with ever-increasing vigor, almost in every area of science and action, with the main scope of potential exploitation being education. The philosophical foundation (...) of creativity has not reached the depths that one would expect, and most scientists-thinkers (and... (shrink)

The modern world is confronted with a series of global problems, exacerbated by technological advancements. In this context, concerns arise in the public consciousness regarding the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to surpass humans in intellectual and creative activities. The topic of AI creativity becomes pertinent and sparks debates within the scientific community regarding its creative potential. In response to these challenges, members of the Club of Rome in 2018 propose the concept of a new Enlightenment and the principle (...) of balance as a response to the demands of technological development. These ideas underscore the need for a balanced approach to technical progress, taking into account global values and ethical principles. I explore the definitions of creativity and AI, formulate criteria for assessing creativity, and analyse recent achievements in modelling creative processes in AI. I also focus on the utilisation of various algorithms for implementing diverse forms of creative activities, including text, image and music generation. Additionally, I present diverse opinions of researchers regarding creativity in AI. To systematise these perspectives, I propose a classification which allows their ranking. The conclusion emphasises that currently the issue of evaluating the creative potential of AI lacks a definitive solution, underscoring the relevance of further research. The future outlook may alter this situation, prompting the necessity to focus on predicting potential consequences of technological developments and developing mechanisms for controlling AI activities; humans, after all, bear responsibility for AI actions. Such an approach aligns with the concept of a new Enlightenment which seeks a balance between technological advancements and the preservation of global harmony. (shrink)

Background: A growing body of evidence has demonstrated significant social and emotional benefits of music-making amongst senior citizens. However, several as-yet unresolved age-related barriers to ‘musicking’ have been identified. Positioned within the emergent field of gerontechnology, concerned with the interface between aging and technology research, this review of literature thus explores the potential for music technologies to function as a vehicle for creative musical opportunities in later-life. Methods: ERIC, PsychInfo and Web of Science databases were searched, focusing on the intersection (...) between music, technology and ageing. The criteria for inclusion were that the paper should: 1) be in English; 2) report empirical research involving the use of music technologies intended to support receptive (listening, interpreting, reflecting) or active (playing, creating, performing) engagement with music amongst older persons, defined as being aged 60 years or above (United Nations, 2017); 3) be published as a peer reviewed journal article. Results: Of 144 papers screened, eighteen papers were retained. Ten studies focused on using technology to support musicking in the form of listening, reflecting and interpreting. Just five studies explored the utility of technology in promoting singing or playing instruments, while a further three were focused on music and movement. Conclusions: Overall, the literature reviewed suggests that older people, even those with complex needs, are capable of, and interested in using music technologies to access and create personally meaningful music. The limited research that does exist points to multiple and significant benefits that may be derived from receptive or active musicking supported by a range of music technologies. (shrink)

Ethics designates a structured process by which important human values and meanings of life are understood and tackled. Therein, the ability to discuss openly and reflect on (aka deliberation) understandings of moral problems, on solutions to these problems, and to explore what a meaningful resolution could amount to is highly valued. However, the indicators of what constitutes a high-quality ethical deliberation remain vague and unclear. This article proposes and develops a pragmatist approach to evaluate the quality of deliberation. Deliberation features (...) three important moments: (1) broadening and deepening the understanding of the situation, (2) envisioning action scenarios, (3) coming to a judgment based on the comparative evaluation of scenarios. In this paper, we propose seven criteria to evaluate ethical deliberations: (1) collaborative diversity, (2) experiential literacy, (3) organization of experiences, (4) reflective capacity to instrumentalize the experiences of others, (5) interactional creativity, (6) openness of agents, (7) quality of the reformulation of scenarios. These criteria are explained and applied to the three moments of deliberation. Based on these criteria, three kinds of outcomes for deliberations are identified and discussed: good ethical deliberations, partial ethical deliberations, bad ethical deliberations. Our proposal will guide researchers and practitioners interested in the evaluation of the quality of ethical deliberations. It provides a reference tool that allows them to identify the possible limitations of a deliberation and to implement actions aimed at correcting these limitations in order to achieve the desired qualitative objectives. (shrink)

Background: There has for some time now been recognition that there was a relationship between exceptional creative talent and mental disorder. The works of Andreasen (2008) and others in this area have been very significant. However, most of the research has been carried out in USA and Europe. Very little has come out of Africa on the subject. Aim : To survey the beliefs of different groups within an African society, concerning the possibility of a relationship between creative talent and (...) mental disorder. To assess creativity within a community of people with a formal diagnosis of mental disorder. Materials and Methods: Some of the mythology of the Yoruba was examined for content, concerning the behaviour of certain notable individuals and the existence of psychopathology based on modern-day criteria. The beliefs of members of the general public and mental health professionals concerning the existence of a relationship between creative talent and psychopathology were surveyed using a questionnaire designed for the project. A sample of patients with formal diagnoses of affective disorder or schizophrenia drawn from two units, the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Yaba, were assessed for 'Creativity.' Results : Although there are notable 'eccentric' figures in local mythology, the overwhelming majority of the people surveyed do not believe there is any relationship between creativity and mental illness. They however believe that engaging in creative activities helps the mentally ill to recover from illness. The mental health professionals, who were clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, had a significant minority who believed that a relationship does exist, and they also strongly assert that creative activity has a therapeutic effect for the mentally ill. A survey of in-patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and affective disorder failed to show a significant difference in the creativity of the two populations, as measured by the originality score of the Rorschach scale. The survey of patients is inconclusive, based on small sample size (ten patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, ten with bipolar affective disorder.). The linkage between formal mental disorder is only recognised by a significant minority of mental health professionals. A significant proportion of the population believe that creative activity aids recovery from mental illness. More research is required into this important subject in Africa. (shrink)

The associative theory of creativity states that creativity is associated with differences in the structure of semantic memory, whereas the executive theory of creativity emphasises the role of top-down control for creative thought. For a powerful test of these accounts, individual semantic memory structure was modelled with a novel method based on semantic relatedness judgements and different criteria for network filtering were compared. The executive account was supported by a correlation between creative ability and broad retrieval (...) ability. The associative account was independently supported, when network filtering was based on a relatedness threshold, but not when it was based on a fixed edge number or on the analysis of weighted networks. In the former case, creative ability was associated with shorter average path lengths and higher clustering of the network, suggesting that the semantic networks of creative people show higher small-worldness. (shrink)

The concept of homology is the most solid theoretical basis elaborated by the morphological thinking during its history. The enucleation of some general criteria for the interpretation of homology is today a fundamental tool for life sciences, and for restoring their own opening to the question of qualitative innovation that arose so powerfully in the original Darwinian project. The aim of this paper is to verify the possible uses of the concept of compositional homology in order to provide of (...) an adequate understanding of the dynamics of creative thinking. (shrink)

Creative Experiencing was an unpublished manuscript found among Hartshorne’s papers now deposited at the Center for Process Studies at the Claremont School of Theology. Hartshorne mentions in the manuscript’s preface that he considered the book to be the final part of a trilogy including Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (1970) and Wisdom as Moderation (1987). The book was edited and published under the direction of longtime Hartshorne scholars Donald Viney and Jincheol O.“Metaphysics,” Hartshorne writes in the preface, “is the attempt (...) to interpret concrete experience rationally, in terms of the most general principles of valid reasoning” (xi). The first chapter, “Some Formal Criteria of Good .. (shrink)

The current pandemic and the measures taken to address it, on a global scale, are unprecedented. Times of crisis call for creative solutions, and these are not reduced to the work of scientists or politicians. In everyday life, both in online and offline spaces, people use their creativity to make sense of the current situation, to cope with it, and to learn its lessons. Social media is a privileged space for mundane and participative creativity through the production and (...) sharing of coronavirus Internet memes. In this article, we examine the creativity of such memes from a dedicated Reddit community. We ask, in particular, what makes a coronavirus meme creative and what this creativity tells us about the pandemic and popular understandings of it. To answer these questions, we use a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods by having 480 memes coded by three social media users for surprise, meaningfulness, elaboration, humor, and creativity and qualitatively analyzing those memes that score highly on each dimension. An interesting finding concerns the importance of elaboration and humor for the evaluation of creativity in the case of memes, above the more traditional criteria of surprise and meaningfulness, perhaps a feature unique for Internet spaces. The article ends with reflections on what these findings tell us about creativity on social media more generally and the creative processes involved in the generation and reception of coronavirus memes in particular. (shrink)

The article examines social and creative capitals and their interconnections. Some authors observe similarities in them as well as areas where they complement each other. Other authors argue that social and creative capitals are still mutually exclusive and cannot be compared. The article analyses various aspects of social and creative capital, searches for similarities and differences between them, and reviews measurement methodologies and issues related to the reliability of measurement indices and criteria. All this is analysed in the context (...) of the creative society. (shrink)

As the title indicates, this most recent of Hartshorne's works blends doctrinal exposition with analyses of methodological issues. Each of the sixteen chapters can be read as an independent essay, although the entire work is intended as "an essay in systematic metaphysics." The paradox is resolved once we realize that Hartshorne does not separate substantive discussion and the examination of methodological principles--the text exemplifies the principles latent in "creative synthesis" as he understands it. Each chapter takes shape out of a (...) position-matrix in terms of which a number of possible positions on problems of relations, modality, and temporality are exhibited and finally sifted in order to determine the most viable for future philosophic inquiry. Portions of six of the chapters had previously been published, one as early as 1958; the remaining ten appear for the first time in this volume. Although much of the doctrinal content will be familiar to those who have read Hartshorne's earlier works, the clarity and coherence of these essays make it an especially valuable work for students of metaphysics, whether they accept the neoclassical position or not. In the first chapter, "A Philosophy of Shared Creative Experience," Hartshorne presents his case for the inclusive priority of "becoming" over "being"; in the next three chapters, he turns to a more detailed analysis of technical problems in metaphysics--the specification of the domain of metaphysical inquiry, the viability of the notion of inclusive contrast as the heart of "relativity", and the ultimate coincidence of modal and temporal categories as the summit of the analyses of "abstractions". Each of these chapters is an excellent example of Hartshorne's working through "position-matrices"; but for those who are unfamiliar with Hartshorne's work, or for those who desire a less 'naïve' approach to metaphysical inquiry it might be advisable to turn to Chapters V and VI immediately after Chapter I. In these two essays, Hartshorne presents a general exposition of the structure of his system, exposing and defending the conception of relativity which lies at the heart of his system: the triadicity [[sic]] of creative synthesis must be construed relatively, the contrast of relative and absolute being included within the relative member of the contrast. In the succeeding chapters, the difficulties which such a conception must face are explored in detail. Among the difficulties which Hartshorne focuses upon are the possibility of "non-restrictive or necessary existential truths", the psychological reeducation which a conception of the priority of events necessitates, the explanatory power of directed or asymmetrical relations as opposed to non-directed, symmetrical ones, and the critique of the notion of ens realissimum and its substitution by the universal forms of dependence and independence. It is interesting that at various places in this work Hartshorne indicates that the importance of the problem of the relations among contemporaries must be relegated to secondary status in the philosophy of shared creative experience. It becomes increasingly evident that were the author to stress its importance, he should have to turn to a conception of eternal objects functioning relationally or affirm interaction between God and any other individual in strictly simultaneous states. Either move would necessitate a major shift in his methodological principles and substantive doctrines. That he has struggled with the problem of the relations among contemporaries for so long shows his willingness to confront the possibility of such a shift. This is one of the major criteria for evaluating metaphysicians, as Hartshorne notes; in the light of this criterion, Hartshorne's newest work will be judged a significant contribution to metaphysical inquiry.--R. L. C. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.2 (2005) 36-57 [Access article in PDF] "Being With": The Resonant Legacy of Childhood's Creative Aesthetic Lori A. Custodero Teachers College, Columbia University Introduction...enrichment of the present for its own sake is the just heritage of childhood....1In this paper, the qualities of artistic pursuit exemplified in the musical play of children and the compositional processes of adults provide a context for exploring how "being (...) with" influences teaching and learning. Specifically I propose that "being with" music generates a sense of the aesthetic as we both transform musical materials — timbres, pitches, rhythms, phrases, harmonies — and are transformed by our experiences with them, and that "being with" others as we partake in musical activity often broadens and deepens that experience. In many ways, this is an exploration into why childhood matters, how it functions as a mirror for our adult lives as we experience and revel in the seemingly miraculous moments of aesthetic insight, where the familiar is welcomed with fresh perception and the addition of novelty is greeted as the solution to a previously unfathomable problem. It is also about why children matter, as our responses to their ways of being connect and transform us as adults. In this piece, recorded observations of children's musicality are juxtaposed with first-person accounts of adults' creative processes, revealing contributions to our understanding of artistry-in-action as it is manifested in both the musical and the pedagogical. The Aesthetic in Childhood and Adulthood To be "in the moment" is to encounter the aesthetic — fully engaged in an activity for which one's individual contributions are perceived as vital, aware of surprise relationships between seemingly disparate phenomena, and enveloped by sensory messages of color, sound, and movement meeting personal criteria for beauty. Such experiences exemplify features of artistry, an approach defined by openness to possibility and orientation toward discovery, where cues emanating from involvement in activity are clearly interpreted and utilized, and reflection is an ongoing process informing action. Characterized by a sense of wonder and ability to imagine and invent, the creative worlds of young children have provided a source of artistic genesis cited by composers, performers, psychologists, and educators.2Edith Cobb's thoughtful, groundbreaking account of the relationship between childhood and artistry, The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood, was introduced by Margaret Mead, who highlighted the work's thesis: "that in the imaginative experiences of childhood could be found the essential kernels of the highest forms of human thought."3 The legacy of childhood is universal to our existence; in acknowledging its contributions to ontological and cultural artistry, we can both connect personal histories across the [End Page 36] lifespan and identify characteristic trends across a spectrum of aesthetic rendering.4One trait common to both the child and the creative adult is a focused attentiveness to perceived affordances, that is, materials and human resources accessible in the environment. Acting upon and with these resources,children and artists become aesthetic agents as sensitivity to both experience and milieu combine to produce relevant and innovative outcomes.5 These two interactive dimensions have been described in interviews with composers I have interviewed as "being with the moment" and "being with yourself and at the same time with another" and are operating in the musical play of children, as noted in this description recorded by a mother/student: On Thanksgiving Day, we had a family gathering of sixteen people, five of whom are under the age of eight years. Three-year-old Louise is thrilled to be with her female cousins, who all dress up in ballet-type frilly costumes in order to put on a "show" for the family. Cousin Lily, now eight years old, assumes the role of pianist, while Louise, and five-year-old cousin Amy creatively dance to Lily's improvised accompaniment. Their movements are directly related to Lily's playing, in her fluidity and well as "jumps!" Here, family members serve as catalysts for creative activity — costumes and musical instruments in the environment... (shrink)

I begin by examining perception of photographs from two directions: what we think photographs are, and the aspects of mind involved when viewing photographs. Traditional photographs are shown to be mnemonic tools, and memory identified as a key part of the process by which photographs are fully perceived. Second, I describe the metamorphogram; a non-traditional photograph which fits specific, author-defined criteria for being memory. The metamorphogram is shown to be analogous to a composite of all an individual’s episodic memories. (...) Finally, using the metamorphogram in artistic works suggests a bi-directional relationship between individual autobiographical memory and shared cultural memory. A model of this relationship fails to align with existing definitions of cultural memory, and may represent a new form: sociobiographical memory. I propose that the experiences documented here make the case for promoting a mutually beneficial relationship between philosophy and other creative disciplines, including photography. (shrink)

As a philosopher and a reflective practitioner of philosophy in schools, I explore two aspects of presentation which I call unveiling and packaging. Both aspects bear on the work of designing and facilitating philosophy workshops for school students. I describe unveiling philosophy as a practice of collaborative inquiry and dialogic argument: social processes that foster thinking skills and dispositions, an evaluativist epistemology, and a range of constructive norms. I then discuss packaging philosophical materials in ways that create effective stimuli for (...) thinking. I encourage educators engaged in designing or curating stimuli to draw on the rich diversity of available media, to focus on the quality of both the philosophical content and its creative expression, and to ensure that the content connects with students’ life experiences. I propose five criteria for judging the likely effectiveness of a philosophical stimulus: that it activate emotion, induce perplexity, challenge intuitions, ignite controversy and elicit reasoned argument. I offer three detailed examples of high school philosophy workshops to illustrate the practical application of these criteria, and to illuminate fruitful possibilities for arranging stimuli, including using a Provocation-Complication sequence or arranging stimuli as elements in a more complex puzzle. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Affirmation is a central concept in Gilles Deleuze's philosophical work. Alongside Friedrich Nietzsche, he considers its fundamental promise to be that of overcoming nihilism, or the triumph of reactive forces. In this article, I analyze Deleuze's notion of affirmation to identify criteria for affirmative philosophical thinking. Specifically, I argue that Deleuze's notions of “problems” and “questions” correspond to an ethics of learning. Affirmative philosophical thinking is accordingly a project of infinite learning that exceeds, or moves beyond, reactive types (...) of thought. Following this, I experiment with an affirmative political philosophical concept of revolution. (shrink)

Rorty's aversion to metaphysics is well known, so the extent of his early work on Whitehead might come as a surprise. This article examines the young Rorty's critical assessment of Whitehead to show how it demonstrates the consequences of diverging metaphilosophical orientations. It argues that Rorty's insistence on judging Whitehead's work through an exclusively epistemological frame causes him to miss its more radical existential and epistemic implications. After examining how Rorty and Whitehead operate with different cost-benefit analyses as to the (...) risks and benefits of speculative philosophy, it suggests that closer attention to the fuller stakes of Whitehead's project shows that his metaphysics are not opposed to the “poeticized” culture that Rorty calls for, one where the distinction between making and finding is no longer metaphysically foundational. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 161-167 [Access article in PDF] Social, Cognitive, and Neural Constraints on Subjectivity and Agency:Implications for Dissociative Identity Disorder Peter Q. Deeley In this commentary, I consider Matthew's argument after making some general observations about dissociative identity disorder (DID). In contrast to Matthew's statement that "cases of DID, although not science fiction, are extraordinary" (p. 148), I believe that there are natural analogs of (...) the disorder that, when considered, make it seem less puzzling and exotic. After discussing these examples, I examine the relations between social, cognitive, and neural processes supporting subjectivity and agency, to identify sources of personal identity in cases of DID that can be used as a basis for assessing Matthew's points against Behnke and Sinnott-Armstrong. I am not proposing a comprehensive theory, but rather identifying what I believe are components of such a theory. I then outline an approach to determining criminal responsibility in DID, drawing on analogies with other psychiatric disorders. Dissociative Identity Disorder DID is a disorder described in DSM-IV, which "is characterised by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of the individual's behaviour accompanied by an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness" (American Psychiatric Association, p. 519). Recognizing Personal Identity How is personal identity recognized in normal cognition? If we take personhood to involve recognition of continuity of social, psychological, and physical identity for a given individual, then such judgments are routinely made rapidly and automatically as an aspect of what has come to be termed social cognition (Adolphs 2003). There is likely to be considerable redundancy in [End Page 161] the types of information used to make judgments about whether a person is the same as one who was previously encountered, or perhaps heard about—for example, facial features, movement patterns, speech prosody, dress, speech content, gender, ethnicity, social role, among other features, all provide information about individual identity, and hence personhood. When uncertainty exists, it is likely to reflect a loss or alteration of cues that would ordinarily be used in a rapid, automatic, unexamined way (Adolphs 2003). In such extreme cases (for example, severe mental illness or disfigurement), the problem of identification becomes the subject of explicit reasoning (and hence of potential disagreement, because we then engage in post hoc rationalizations to establish criteria for determining personhood, whereas normally we rely on essentially automatic, implicit abilities that work in most circumstances, some of which make little use of linguistic representations and formal reasoning—for example, individual facial identity recognition, which may occur as quickly as 170 ms after stimulus onset [Adolphs 2003]). Nevertheless, examining our judgments and intuitions in cases that force us to explicitly consider whether personal identity is preserved may provide analogies and clues for how we should proceed with DID. Let us consider, then, some natural analogs of DID. Natural Analogs of DID Method Acting I suggest that method acting is an analog of DID (Manderino 1985). Method acting refers to an approach to acting training and performance in which emphasis is placed on intensely imagining and identifying with the mental life of the character being portrayed. Training courses and manuals list many techniques and practices that can be used to facilitate absorption in a role, drawing on different kinds of memory—for example, experiential memories, memories of others, general knowledge (semantic memory), and memories of sensations and feelings, to creative a vivid sense of the subjective experience and actions of the character. Manderino, a method acting teacher, comments: "it is important to investigate the way in which your own mental makeup can improperly influence a character. Insecurities, self-consciousness, shyness or self-doubts can maintain a strong hold, and permitting any of these feelings to enter a performance is to remain the actor and not enter into the mental life of the character. For some, acting allows personal problems to be left behind, and they are thankful for the complete escape that... (shrink)

The notion that human activity can be characterised in terms of dynamic systems is a well-established alternative to motor schema approaches. Key to a dynamic systems approach is the idea that a system seeks to achieve stable states in the face of perturbation. While such an approach can apply to physical activity, it can be challenging to accept that dynamic systems also describe cognitive activity. In this paper, we argue that creativity, which could be construed as a ‘cognitive’ activity (...) par excellence, arises from the dynamic systems involved in jewellery making. Knowing whether an action has been completed to a ‘good’ standard is a significant issue in considering acts in creative disciplines. When making a piece of jewellery, there a several criteria which can define ‘good’. These are not only the aesthetics of the finished piece but also the impact of earlier actions on subsequent ones. This suggests that the manner in which an action is coordinated is influenced by the criteria by which the product is judged. We see these criteria as indicating states for the system, e.g. in terms of a space of ‘good’ outcomes and a complementary space of ‘bad’ outcomes. The skill of the craftworker is to navigate this space of available states in such a way as to minimise risk, effort and other costs and maximise benefit and quality of the outcome. In terms of postphenomonology, this paper explores Ihde’s human-technology relations and relates these to the concepts developed here. (shrink)

Many studies about organizational experiences and theories converge today in the idea that the economic factor, most competitive now in the production of value, is the de-materialization of the economical and organizational processes. Immaterial factors (like knowledge, services, information, relationships, virtual transactions, etc.) are the competitive and crucial innovations for future competition and, at the same time, the most important criteria to rethinking and understanding the future organization. If this is true, we can realize that every person in organizations, (...) every personal history in organizations, or better the evolutionary uniqueness of every person in organizations, is the real depositary and bearer of this de-materialization. (shrink)

The article is based on selected findings from a study in the field of rehabilitation in a religious context viewed from the perspective of cognitive psychology and psychology of religion. The study shows how a therapeutic process can be facilitated in cases where the psychotherapeutic intervention is co-ordinated with a creative, sound religious activity. One central phenomenon that emerged from the study was the experience of a therapeutic dialogue with the divine person God and/ or Jesus being apprehended as a (...) crucial therapeutic agent. The material is analysed focusing on criteria for creative persons and products. A basic mechanism of creativity is hypothesised by Martindale to be defocused attention. The greater the spread of the attention capacity, the more likely the combinational leap, giving the rich possibility of combining elements in new ways. Religion can extend the perspective and thereby increase the possibilities of finding new and appropriate emotional and cognitive combinations. The analysis shows significant creative qualities in the treatment model studied. (shrink)

Centralization and over-professionalization can lead to the disappearance of a critical environment capable of linking the human sciences to the "real world." The authors of this volume suggest that the humanities need to operate in a concrete cultural environment able to influence procedures on a hic et nunc basis, and that they should not entirely depend on normative criteria whose function is often to hide ignorance behind a pretentious veil of value-neutral objectivity. In sociology, the growth of scientism has (...) fragmented ethical categories and distorted discourse between our inner and outer selves, while philosophy is suffering from an empty professionalism current in many philosophy departments in industrialized and developing countries where boring, ahistorical, and nonpolitical exercises are justified through appeals to false excellence. In all branches of the humanities, absurd evaluation processes foster similar tendencies as they create a sterile atmosphere and prevent interdisciplinarity and creativity. Technicization of theory plays into the hands of technocrats. The authors offer a broad range of approaches and interpretations, reaching from philosophy of education to the re-evaluation of business models for universities. (shrink)

This paper explores the relevance of the theology of Paul Tillich for the contemporary dialogue with the natural sciences. The focus is on his Systematic Theology, volume I. First I discuss the general relevance of Tillich's methodology (namely, the method of correlation) for that dialogue, stressing that a genuine dialogue requires cognitive input from both sides and that both sides find “value added” according to their own criteria (or what I call the method of “mutual creative interaction”). Then I (...) move specifically to a Tillichian theological analysis of twentieth‐century theoretical science and its empirical discoveries, including Big Bang, inflationary, and quantum cosmologies, quantum physics, thermodynamics, chaos and complexity, and molecular and evolutionary biology, suggesting how they relate to such Tillichian themes as finitude and the categories of being and knowing (time, space, causality, and substance) and to Tillich's understanding of such symbols as God, freedom and destiny, creation, and estrangement. In doing so, my intention is to provide a point of departure for further extended analyses of Tillich's theology in relation to contemporary natural science. (shrink)

As machines take over more tasks previously done by humans, artistic creation is also considered as a candidate to be automated. But, can machines create art? This paper offers a conceptual framework for a philosophical discussion of this question regarding the status of machine art and machine creativity. It breaks the main question down in three sub-questions, and then analyses each question in order to arrive at more precise problems with regard to machine art and machine creativity: What (...) is art creation? What do we mean by art? And, what do we mean by machines create art? This then provides criteria we can use to discuss the main question in relation to particular cases. In the course of the analysis, the paper engages with theory in aesthetics, refers to literature on computational creativity, and contributes to the philosophy of technology and philosophical anthropology by reflecting on the role of technology in art creation. It is shown that the distinctions between process versus outcome criteria and subjective versus objective criteria of creativity are unstable. It is also argued that we should consider non-human forms of creativity, and not only cases where either humans or machines create art but also collaborations between humans and machines, which makes us reflect on human-technology relations. Finally, the paper questions the very approach that seeks criteria and suggests that the artistic status of machines may be shown and revealed in the human/non-human encounter before any theorizing or agreement takes place; an experience which then is presupposed when we theorize. This hints at a more general model of what happens in artistic perception and engagement as a hybrid human-technological and emergent or even poetic process, a model which leaves more room for letting ourselves be surprised by creativity—human and perhaps non-human. (shrink)

As the efficiency and reach of global fishing has grown, overfishing has unwittingly undermined the industry’s future while at the same time depriving poor people of a dietary staple. Several problems that most concern the critics of globalization come into play: undermining the power of governments to protect their environments and citizens, an economic system that robs the poor and future generations of basic necessities, and market developments that undercut long term economic and environmental stability. I examine how creative institutional (...) measures could avert total collapse of ocean ecosystems despite the complexity of enacting marine ethics in a globalized economy. I look at companies that work with the Marine Stewardship Council’s criteria as well as more creative measures including revamped marketing and changes in how members of the industry work together in order to encourage long term environmental and economic sustainability. (shrink)

The Branch of Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center for Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the RAS, the RAS Institute of Philosophy, and the RAS Institute of Psychology are arranging “Individualization and Collectivism in Contemporary Russian Society” scientific conference, to be held in Moscow, April 2024. The event marks the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 95th birth anniversary of the Russian philosopher and social theorist (...) A.S. Akhiezer. Its primary objective is to foster the development of criteria for analyzing intersubjective relations within the act of social development. The conference’s focus on the investigation of social development is grounded in the dominants of contemporary philosophical-sociological non-classics and proposes several topics for discussion. These include the transition from the absolutization of Kant’s categorical imperative, which mandates the consideration of humans solely as the ultimate end in the system of intersubjective communication and the knowledge process, to an alternative consideration of humans as means of self-improvement and a crucial resource for social development (V.S. Bibler). It encompasses the rejection of absolutizing the function of contrasting faith and knowledge, the Self and the Other, the “own” and the “foreign,” scientific and everyday consciousness (V.A. Lectorsky, I.T. Kasavin, V.N. Porus). The interpretation of the meaning of personality shifts from concepts like cogito ergo sum, “pure Self,” “Self,” “Ego,” “Super-,” to the “ability of the Self to respond to the call of the Other,” thereby forming the smallest cell of the socio-individual as a synthesis of the social and the individual (M.M. Bakhtin, V.A. Lectorsky, R.S. Grinberg). Overcoming the established inequality of economic systems is addressed through the socio-individualism of small and medium-sized enterprises (A.S. Akhiezer, R.S. Grinberg). The conference also anticipates discussions on the following topics: How do the transfer and exchange of accumulated global knowledge from the individual to the other, and vice versa, contribute to the formation of small creative groups, serving as a communicative platform for nurturing socially oriented individuals – agents of social development? Moreover, how can dialogue be effectively constructed among participants of partnership relations who operate on differing premises (J.-P. Sartre)? The discussion is aimed at contemplating the contradictory, oxymoronic, yet dialogue and synthesis-oriented concepts of “individualization of the social,” “socially oriented individual,” and “socio-individualism.”. (shrink)

Philosophical pragmatism takes human experience as the touchstone of any theorizing. Authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller suggested to transform philosophy into a critical and emancipatory project, turning the quest for truth into a project of creative and responsible world-making. Their basic insight that man is the measure of all things demands for being actively engaged in building a better world. As pragmatism denies objective criteria for critique, listening to a plurality of voices and their experiences becomes crucial. (...) This chapter offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its challenges and prospects. With pointing out problematic assumptions in the work of James and Schiller, the unfinished agenda of their pragmatic humanism becomes visible. (shrink)

order to defend Putnam’s conceptual pluralism. Finally, the paper defends the compatibility between conceptual pluralism and the idea of convergence in a final opinion. Consequently, I conclude that objectivity depends on the particular vocabularies employed. This paper examines the concept of objectivity as a point of view without perspective. This sense of objectivity is present (among others) in Williams’ works (particularly in its notion of absolute conception of reality). The structure of the paper is the following: first, Williams’ physicalist program (...) is described. Secondly, the article presents some objections to Williams’ physicalism. Thirdly, some reasons are given against the notion of objectivity as a point of view without perspective in. (shrink)

Industry 4.0, which is at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, posits the challenge of humanizing it. Drawing upon Catholic Social Teaching (CST), this article offers a set of ethical and spiritual criteria for such humanization. The starting point is a positive attitude of CST toward technology, admiring it not only for its usefulness, but also as an expression of human creativity, ingenuity, and beauty. This entails a transcendent sense leading to praise the Creator. At the same (...) time, CST warns that technology involves the risk of fostering a techno-centered worldview and calls for a humanistic-centered worldview. Other ethical criteria regard conducting technological developments with ethical guidelines, minimizing inside effects of technological implementations, managing technology for the common good, and introducing technology into the production process in respect of human dignity and favoring human flourishing. (shrink)

The global space is in need of creative solutions to the challenges posed by those seeking, and deserving of, asylum. In some democratic states, experiments in permitting citizens to have a greater role in selecting refugees for admission are underway; in this article, I consider the conditions that must apply to any citizen‐selection scheme, in order for such a scheme to be morally acceptable. I begin with an account of the way in which citizen‐selection schemes – usually called ‘sponsorship programs’ (...) – operate presently. I then offer a justification for engaging citizens in refugee resettlement in general, as well as in selecting specific refugees for admission in particular, and then identify several conditions that must attend any permissible citizen‐selection scheme. I defend this account from two objections: (1) that states should be the primary, and indeed only, agent that selects refugees for admission and (2) that citizens will inevitably use problematic criteria in selecting refugees for admission, so they should be denied the right to do so. I conclude with some proposals for how a citizen‐selection scheme can be crafted to respond to this latter worry, including an outline of an exception clause that permits citizens to make the case that some refugees ought to be resettled, even if not specially selected by the UNHCR for resettlement priority, including especially family members and friends. (shrink)

The paper presents an innovative approach to teaching philosophy, which the authors name as a comicsophy approach to teaching philosophy. Such creative application of comics in the teaching of philosophy fully corresponds to the skandalonic and dialogical character of philosophy itself. The methodical value of using comics in philosophy teaching is manifested exactly in comics’ distinctly skandalonic character. The skandalon is a methodical process that seeks to provoke students' curiosity by questioning something that otherwise seemed unquestionable, self-evident, to present it (...) in a new light, in order to make it the subject of critical questioning and reflection. Given the visuality of the comics, its fun and root in popular culture, it is an excellent motivational tool for philosophical reflection and understanding of reality, philosophical issues, ideas and concepts in teaching philosophy. By introducing comics as recognizable products of pop culture close to students' reading interest and experience in teaching philosophy, it is easier for them to connect what they learn in school with real life, ie to apply what they have learned in everyday life situations. Comics can be used as a source of information, a form of learning new content, as well as a basis for encouraging dialog and discussion in the classroom. Also, students can individually or in pairs/groups create comics on specific philosophical topics, thus developing creative, critical and collaborative thinking. The paper presents specific criteria for evaluating comics on philosophical issues that students create in philosophy classes. (shrink)

Abstract I distinguish various ways in which human life may be thought to be meaningful and present an account of what might be called existential meaningfulness. The account is neutral with respect to both theism and naturalism, but each is addressed in several places and the paper's main points are harmonious with certain versions of both. A number of important criteria for existential meaningfulness are examined, and special emphasis is placed on criteria centering on creativity and excellence, (...) on contributing to the well-being of persons, and on human relationships, particularly those pervaded by love. In the light of a conception of intrinsic goodness, the good life is compared with the meaningful life, and the relation between the two notions is explored. I argue that goodness in a life counts towards its meaningfulness and that the goodness of a life is sufficient for an important kind of meaningfulness. I also suggest that the overall notion of rewarding elements in a life-intrinsically good elements that are typically but not necessarily pleasurable-is a significant unifying concept that helps both in understanding existential meaningfulness and in integrating the various kinds of constituents in a life that conduce to its meaningfulness. (shrink)

In this article from 1928, translated here for the first time, Tanabe Hajime examines the concept of self-evidence, mainly in the light of Husserl and Brentano. The author starts out by establishing, through a preliminary analysis of the Cartesian cogito, two criteria for self-evidence, namely adequate fulfillment of the intention of Sosein, and the coextension of Dasein and Sosein (being-there, or existence, and being-such, or essence/properties). He then proceeds to consider four domains of knowledge through the prism of the (...) question of their claim to self-evidence: knowledge of mathematical objects, categorial intuition, the ontological proof for the existence of God and finally, outer perception. Dedicating the last paragraph to a critical assessment of Husserl’s account of perception, the author concludes that all self-evidence is founded on inner perception. Outlining a creative appropriation of phenomenology while elucidating the conditions for certainty, this text constitutes an important milestone in a period leading up to Tanabe’s break with Nishida as well as to his critique of Heidegger, thus laying the groundwork for his independent philosophical stance. (shrink)

I distinguish various ways in which human life may be thought to be meaningful and present an account of what might be called existential meaningfulness. The account is neutral with respect to both theism and naturalism, but each is addressed in several places and the paper's main points are harmonious with certain versions of both. A number of important criteria for existential meaningfulness are examined, and special emphasis is placed on criteria centering on creativity and excellence, on (...) contributing to the well-being of persons, and on human relationships, particularly those pervaded by love. In the light of a conception of intrinsic goodness, the good life is compared with the meaningful life, and the relation between the two notions is explored. I argue that goodness in a life counts towards its meaningfulness and that the goodness of a life is sufficient for an important kind of meaningfulness. I also suggest that the overall notion of rewarding elements in a life—intrinsically good elements that are typically but not necessarily pleasurable—is a significant unifying concept that helps both in understanding existential meaningfulness and in integrating the various kinds of constituents in a life that conduce to its meaningfulness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 377 Parmenides: Being, Bounds, and Logic. By S. AUSTIN. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. xi + 203. $20.00. Within carefully drawn limits Austin conducts a rigorous analysis of Parmenides's poem that is both creative and forceful. His analysis reveals a logical structure to the poem that is more intricate and subtle than has previously been acknowledged. The result is a deeper insight into Parmenides 's (...) accomplishments in logic and methodology. Austin's view is that Parmenides first establishes criteria for the formation of judgments, and then uses a consciously systematic and comprehensive method to determine the sort of judgments that can describe being. Thus, Austin argues, all the arguments and distinctions of the " Truth " section-and to some extent those of " Opinion "-are necessary for a complete description of being. The argumentation is rigorous and Austin's thesis is certainly plausible, though some modifications are in order. The charge of anachronism presents the most fundamental challenge to Austin's thesis. For him, Parmenides is not only the "first logician" and " ontologist ", but the " founder of Western rational theology as well as of scientific explanation." These accolades are commonplace, but nonethe less misleading. More serious is Austin's claim that Parmenides employs the principles of noncontradiction and excluded middle, and displays an understanding-albeit a partial one-of the functions of negation, double negation, copula and predicate. Austin sees countless anticipations of Parmenides's successors from Plato to the present, and has no qualms about rendering parts of the poem in contemporary philosophical jargon. For example, the phrase "not the same" in fr. 8.22 should, on Austin's reading, be taken to mean, " having its numerical nonidentity secured by means of qualitative difference" (p. 88). Austin recognizes the charge of anachronism, but believes his interpretation best accounts for the poem's logical structure. More specific anticipations of Plato and Aristotle are tackled in chapter 5. Chapter 1 ("Why Not 'Is Not'~") contains an ingenious solution to a problem that has puzzled scholars and students alike for centuries. The goddess of Parmenides's poem proclaims (fr. 2) : "that it is not and that it is right for it not to be, this I point out to you as a completely uninformative track." Why, then, do nearly all the signposts of being in fr. 8 use negative language and indirect prooH This problem, Austin suggests, has not been sufficiently appreciated. Austin shows forcefully that no interpretation of fr. 8 can stand which explains away the goddess 's use of negative language. Austin's own explanation results from careful scrutiny of the grammar of predications and assertions in fr. 8. Curiously, of all the negative expressions in fr. 8, the expression ovK e. (shrink)

This paper stems from the current global worsening of the scarcity of resources for healthcare, which will deepen even more in future public emergencies. This justifies strengthening the reflection on the allocation of resources which, in addition to considering technical issues, should also involve ethical concerns. The two plans in which the allocation of resources develops—macro and micro—are then systematized, both requiring the identification of ethical criteria for the respective complex decision-making. Then, we describe how the complexity at the (...) macro level focuses on the joint consideration of the rectitude of the principles, the goodness of the ends, and the integrity—respectively the deontological, teleological, and procedural perspectives; and at the micro level, it focuses in prioritizing people, which can result in the exclusion of some, as happened with the elderly during peaks of COVID-19. The main objective of this article is to show that, in public health emergency situations, in which the daily criteria for prioritizing access to health care are not efficient, it is possible not only to ration the available means but also to rationalize them. We argue that rationing and rationalization are different concepts, entail different consequences, have different ethical foundations, and draw different guidelines for patient care. We apply them to the distribution of intensive care and vaccines to the elderly thus demonstrating the ethically legitimate domain of implementation of each of these two prioritization criteria. We conclude that rationalization respects more strictly the core ethical principles of our common morality. (shrink)

Conceptual spaces are a frequently applied framework for representing concepts. One of its central aims is to find criteria for what makes a concept natural. A prominent demand is that natural concepts cover convex regions in conceptual spaces. The first aim of this paper is to analyse the convexity thesis and the arguments that have been advanced in its favour or against it. Based on this, I argue that most supporting arguments focus on single-domain concepts (e.g., colours, smells, shapes). (...) Unfortunately, these concepts are not the primary examples of natural concepts. Building on this observation, the second aim of the paper is to develop criteria for natural multi-domain concepts. The representation of such concepts has two main aspects: features that are associated with the concept and the probabilistic correlation pattern which the concept captures. Conceptual spaces, together with probabilistic considerations, provide a helpful framework to approach these aspects. With respect to feature representation, the existence of characteristic features (i.e., that apples have a specific taste) is essential. Moreover, natural concepts capture peaks of a probabilistic distribution over complex spaces. They carve up nature at its joints, that is, at areas with no or low probabilistic density. This last aspect is shown to be closely related to the convexity demand. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

Rorty claims argument is inherently conservative and philosophical progress comes from "sparkling new ideas," not argument. This assumes an untenable opposition between the generation and the evaluation of ideas, with argument relegated to evaluation. New ideas that contribute to progress arise from critical reflection on problems posed by the tradition, and constrained by the criteria governing evaluation. Thinking directed toward the criticism and evaluation of ideas or products is not algorithmic; it has a generative, creative component. An overall assessment (...) in any complex circumstance requires constructing a new view from the questioning, weighing, rejecting, reconciling, and integrating of numerous divergent points of view. Thus, the process of argumentation can issue in new ideas. (shrink)

In the 4th edition of this best-selling textbook, the authors introduce students to the business of philosophizing, thereby inducting them into the art of reasoning and analyzing key concepts in education. This introductory text, continuously in print for more than thirty years, is a classic in its field. It shows, first and foremost, the importance of philosophy in educational debate and as a background to any practical activity such as teaching. What is involved in the idea of educating a person (...) or the idea of educational success? What, if anything, can be known and how should we organize what we know for curriculum purposes? What are the criteria for establishing the optimum balance between formal and informal teaching techniques? How trustworthy is educational research? In addition to these questions, which strike to the heart of the rationale for the educative process as a whole, the authors explore such concepts as culture, creativity, autonomy, indoctrination, needs, interests and learning by discovery. In this new updated edition, the authors draw on the latest research in genetics to argue that education is uniquely human and is essentially what develops us as humans. Resisting modern tendencies to equate knowledge with opinion, and value judgments with taste, this book leads the reader into the business of philosophizing and champions the cause of reason in education. (shrink)

False dilemma is a specific form of reasoning : despite the fact that it is based on a deductively valid argument form, it is rightly depicted as fallacy. A systematic exposition of false dilemma is missing in theoretical approaches to fallacies. This article formulates six criteria for a well-grounded exposition of a fallacy, suggesting also a systematic exposition of false dilemma. These criteria can be used to both explain, and categorise, the various false dilemma fallacies. The article introduces (...) distinction between four types of false dilemma : False quandary, Defeasible sound quandary, False obstruction and Defeasible sound obstruction. The types of criticism appropriate for each variant of false dilemma are suggested. Being able to discover false dilemma in situations when it is important to make good and free choices is a significant dimension of critical thinking. It may liberate us from accepting the consequences that necessarily follow from prearranged alternatives, when these are not the only alternatives possible. It may also liberate us from refraining from actions on the basis of obstructive disjunctive statements. In that respect, the faculty of critical thinking directed at uncovering reasoning based on false dilemma may also initiate the discovery of new alternatives, or discover the ways of unifying seemingly opposing alternatives. Thus, a well-developed ability to understand the tricky argumentative moves of false dilemma may be a good step towards initiating some features of creative thinking. (shrink)

ResumeMeans-centered approach to science is contrasted with a problem-centered orientation. Overstress on and too exclusive concern with method, instrument, technique or procedure fosters the following mistakes:1) Emphasis on polish and elegance rather than on vitality, significance and creativeness.2) Giving the commanding positions in science to technicians rather than discoverers.3) Over-valuation of quantification for its own sake.4) Fitting problems to techniques rather than vice-versa.5) Creation of a false and pernicious hierarchical system among the sciences.6) Overstrong compartmentalization between the sciences.7) Emphasis on (...) the difference rather than the similarities between scientists and other truth-seekers.8) Creation of a scientific orthodoxy, which in turn a) tends to block the development of new methods, b) tends to exclude many problems from the jurisdiction of science and c) tends to make scientists “safe” rather than daring and unconventional.9) Neglect of the problems of values, with a consequent blurring of the criteria for judging the worth or importance of an experiment. (shrink)

Appropriation art involves the use of pre-existing works of art with little to no transformation. Works of AA fail to satisfy established criteria for originality, such as creative labour and transformative use. As such, appropriation artists are often subject to copyright lawsuits and defend their work under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law. In legal cases regarding AA and fair use, judges lack a general principle whereby they can determine whether or not the offending party has ‘transformed’ (...) the original work. Further, it is not the case that there is some antecedent fact that could determine the outcome one way or another. I diagnose debates surrounding the transformative nature of works of AA as cases of ‘metalinguistic negotiation’ over what concepts we should attach to terms like ‘copy’, ‘transformative’, and ‘work of art’. (shrink)

Due to constraints on institutional capacity and financial resources, the road to universal health coverage (UHC) involves difficult policy choices. To assist with these choices, scholars and policy makers have done extensive work on criteria to assess the substantive fairness of health financing policies: their impact on the distribution of rights, duties, benefits and burdens on the path towards UHC. However, less attention has been paid to the procedural fairness of health financing decisions. The Accountability for Reasonableness Framework (A4R), (...) which is widely applied to assess procedural fairness, has primarily been used in priority-setting for purchasing decisions, with revenue mobilization and pooling receiving limited attention. Furthermore, the sufficiency of the A4R framework’s four criteria (publicity, relevance, revisions and appeals, and enforcement) has been questioned. Moreover, research in political theory and public administration (including deliberative democracy), public finance, environmental management, psychology, and health financing has examined the key features of procedural fairness, but these insights have not been synthesized into a comprehensive set of criteria for fair decision-making processes in health financing. A systematic study of how these criteria have been applied in decision-making situations related to health financing and in other areas is also lacking. This paper addresses these gaps through a scoping review. It argues that the literature across many disciplines can be synthesized into 10 core criteria with common philosophical foundations. These go beyond A4R and encompass equality, impartiality, consistency over time, reason-giving, transparency, accuracy of information, participation, inclusiveness, revisability and enforcement. These criteria can be used to evaluate and guide decision-making processes for financing UHC across different country income levels and health financing arrangements. The review also presents examples of how these criteria have been applied to decisions in health financing and other sectors. (shrink)

Contemporary brain reading technologies promise to provide the possibility to decode and interpret mental states and processes. Brain reading could have numerous societally relevant implications. In particular, the private character of mind might be affected, generating ethical and legal concerns. This paper aims at equipping ethicists and policy makers with conceptual tools to support an evaluation of the potential applicability and the implications of current and near future brain reading technology. We start with clarifying the concepts of mind reading and (...) brain reading, and the different kinds of mental states that could in principle be read. Subsequently, we devise an evaluative framework that is composed of five criteria-accuracy, reliability, informativity, concealability and enforceability-aimed at enabling a clearer estimation of the degree to which brain reading might be realistically deployed in contexts where mental privacy could be at stake. While accuracy and reliability capture how well a certain method can access mental content, informativity indicates the relevance the obtainable data have for practical purposes. Concealability and enforceability are particularly important for the evaluation of concerns about potential violations of mental privacy and civil rights. The former concerns the degree with which a brain reading method can be concealed from an individual’s perception or awareness. The latter regards the extent to which a method can be used against somebody’s will. With the help of these criteria, stakeholders can orient themselves in the rapidly developing field of brain reading. (shrink)

Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in healthcare raise pressing questions about how much users should trust AI/ML systems, particularly for high stakes clinical decision-making. Ensuring that user trust is properly calibrated to a tool’s computational capacities and limitations has both practical and ethical implications, given that overtrust or undertrust can influence over-reliance or under-reliance on algorithmic tools, with significant implications for patient safety and health outcomes. It is, thus, important to better understand how variability in trust (...) criteria across stakeholders, settings, tools and use cases may influence approaches to using AI/ML tools in real settings. As part of a 5-year, multi-institutional Agency for Health Care Research and Quality-funded study, we identify trust criteria for a survival prediction algorithm intended to support clinical decision-making for left ventricular assist device therapy, using semistructured interviews (n=40) with patients and physicians, analysed via thematic analysis. Findings suggest that physicians and patients share similar empirical considerations for trust, which were primarilyepistemicin nature, focused on accuracy and validity of AI/ML estimates. Trust evaluations considered the nature, integrity and relevance of training data rather than the computational nature of algorithms themselves, suggesting a need to distinguish ‘source’ from ‘functional’ explainability. To a lesser extent, trust criteria were also relational (endorsement from others) and sometimes based on personal beliefs and experience. We discuss implications for promoting appropriate and responsible trust calibration for clinical decision-making use AI/ML. (shrink)