The ‘hard problem’ of the origin of phenomenal consciousness in a physical universe is aggravated by a simplistic and uncritical concept of the physical realm which still predominates in much discussion of the subject. David Chalmers is correct in claiming that phenomenal experience is logically independent of a physical description of the world, but his proposal for a ‘natural supervenience’ of experience on a physical substrate is misguided. His statements about machine consciousness and the role of information are especially compromised. (...) A careful analysis of physical concepts indicates that the hard problem as originally proposed is insoluble but also fortunately based on misconceptions. Modern physics suggests a more sophisticated and richer ontology which will be essential for a deeper understanding of our rapidly growing knowledge of psychology and neuroscience. (shrink)

Plusieurs auteurs se sont inspirés des thèses du deuxième Wittgenstein pour proposer une nouvelle approche en sciences sociales qui viserait la justification plutôt que l'explication de l'action. Sur la base d'une étude de trois types d'énoncés formulés grâce au langage de l'action (factuels, normatifs et attributifs d'états mentaux), cet article évalue les difficultés et possibilités d'une telle suggestion.

Je me propose d'examiner la solution davidsonnienne au problème de la duperie de soi afin de clarifier en quel sens il s'agit d'un acte intentionnel. Après une étude de quelques difficultés liées au concept même de duperie de soi, mon analyse met en lumière que la notion de partition de l'esprit que Davidson emprunte à son traitement de la faiblesse de la volonté ne peut être appliquée de manière satisfaisante à ce nouveau problème. J'indique ensuite que non seulement Davidson mais (...) la majorité des philosophes qui étudient le phénomène ont négligé de donner un traitement adéquat du rôle qui est dévolu aux pro-attitudes dans la formation des croyances. Je reviens finalement à la question fondamentale, celle de savoir s'il est approprié de considérer que la duperie de soi est un acte intentionnel, afin de mettre en évidence le caractère paradoxal de tout raisonnement pratique qui prétendrait rationaliser un tel état ou processus. (shrink)

Demandée dès 1840 par Siméon-Denis Poisson, une agrégation spécialisée pour les sciences naturelles est créée par Victor Duruy: elle établit une triple spécialisation (sciences mathématiques, physiques, naturelles) au concours d'agrégation pour les lycées et introduit conjointement dans chacune des agrégations une composition de méthode et d'histoire des sciences dans la spécialité concernée. L'évolution de ce concours est étudiée jusqu'au milieu du xxe siècle. D'autres types de concours d'agrégation (agrégation de l'enseignement spécial, agrégation féminine, agrégation des facultés) ont existé où l'histoire (...) naturelle a trouvé place. (shrink)

Résumé : L’article propose une démarche méthodologique permettant d’identifier la réflexion professionnelle chez des stagiaires en formation à l’enseignement. En effet, la capacité d’analyser sa pratique de façon réflexive est une composante d’une compétence professionnelle à développer selon le Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec. Une certaine forme de réflexion chez les étudiants est donc à acquérir et, du point de vue des tuteurs de stage, à faire acquérir. Quels sont les critères implicites que les enseignants associés des écoles ou les (...) superviseurs universitaires identifient afin d’évaluer la présence ainsi que la qualité de la compétence réflexive chez le stagiaire ? L’étude identifie une dizaine de points de repère afin de favoriser chez les tuteurs de stage l’évaluation de la compétence réflexive de leurs stagiaires. L’article valide ces critères à partir d’un extrait de discours de stagiaire, puis confronte cet extrait à une autre approche, consistant à détecter des reconceptualisations chez les stagiaires pour dépister de la réflexion. Une certaine cohérence s’établit avec les critères empiriques d’identification de la réflexion identifiés par induction chez les tuteurs de stage. S’ensuit une discussion sur ces critères en lien avec les approches méthodologiques adoptées. La recherche utilise un devis qualitatif et s’appuie sur des entretiens semi-structurés. Abstract : This article proposes a methodological process aimed at identifying professional reflection among student teachers in teacher education. The ability to analyze one’s practice reflectively is a component of one of the professional competencies that must be developed according to Quebec’s Ministry of Education. A certain form of reflection must therefore be acquired by students, and, from the standpoint of practicum supervisors, it must be developed in students. What are the implicit criteria that mentor teachers in schools or university-based supervisors identify in order to assess the presence and quality of student teachers' reflective competence? This study identifies a dozen guideposts to assist supervisors in this direction. The article first validates these criteria based on an excerpt of a student teachers’ statements, then submits the same excerpt to another approach aimed at detecting the student teacher’s reconceptualizations with a view to pinpointing reflection. A certain degree of coherence is established with the empirical criteria for identifying reflection as identified inductively by practicum supervisors. A discussion follows on these same criteria in line with the methodological approaches adopted. This research is based on a qualitative study and draws on semi-structured interviews. (shrink)

Peut-on entrevoir des liens fructueux entre la psychologie positive et la spiritualité en contexte psychothérapeutique? La thématique de cet ouvrage intéressera des chercheuses et des chercheurs, des cliniciens et des cliniciennes, des étudiantes et des étudiants des domaines de la psychothérapie et de la relation d’aide, ainsi que toute personne soucieuse de mieux comprendre la complexité de l’être humain. Tout au long de ce collectif, la lectrice ou le lecteur trouvera une pensée tissée serrée, sous forme parfois d’essais théoriques, de (...) réflexions issues d’observations cliniques, de recherches empiriques (réalisées ou en cours), de réflexions basées sur l’expérience professionnelle ou de recension critique de la documentation scientifique. Dix auteurs et auteures oeuvrant en tant que psychologues cliniciens ou cliniciennes, psychothérapeutes, intervenants ou intervenantes dans le domaine de la relation d’aide, et dont plusieurs sont également professeurs et chercheurs, ou professeures et chercheuses dans des universités ontariennes ou québécoises, présentent leurs réflexions originales, en solo ou en collaboration. Ce sont Christian R. Bellehumeur, André Belzile, Cynthia Bilodeau, Alexandre Brien, Laure-Marie Carignan, Stéphanie Larrue, Buuma M. Maisha, Judith Malette, Lucie Mandeville et Lise Séguin. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept and role of ‘institutional racism’ in contemporary discussions of race should be reconsidered. It starts by distinguishing between ‘intrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their constitutive features, and ‘extrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their negative effects. It accepts intrinsic institutional racism, but argues that a ‘disparate impact’ conception of extrinsic conception faces a number of objections, the most serious being that it (...) has no plausible account of what it is that makes extrinsically racist institutions racist. It also argues that claims about the explanatory indispensability of institutional racism are overstated (individual racism is at least as important), critiques structural approaches to racial inequality, and suggests that there is reason to doubt whether institutional reform can provide us with all that morality may require in the racial domain. (shrink)

This is a study of the nature of time. In it, redeploying an argument first presented by McTaggart, the author argues that although time itself is real, tense is not. He accounts for the appearance of the reality of tense - our sense of the passage of time, and the fact that our experience occurs in the present - by showing how time is indispensable as a condition of action. Time itself is further analysed, and Dr Mellor gives answers to (...) most of the metaphysical questions it provokes, concerning the relation of time to space, the dissection of time, and its relation to change and causation. (shrink)

We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of (...) what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity. (shrink)

By questioning the validity of some of our basic concepts, such as space, object, and causality, quantum physics contributes quite decisively to the dramatic changes now taking place in our world picture. Veiled Reality provides a detailed view of the reasons why such a questioning arises, a survey of the corresponding conceptual and theoretical problems, and a comprehensive, up-to-date account, useful to scientists and epistemologists alike, of the various ways present-day physicists tackle these problems.The book deals with the E.P.R. reality (...) criterion, local causality, and quantum measurement including relativistic quantum collapse, decoherence theories, consistent histories approaches, and ontologically interpretable theories. Questions bearing on the connection between counterfactuality and realism, intersubjective agreement, and limits of the bearing of the verbs “to have” and “to be,” follow naturally from the analysis and are thoroughly examined. Finally, distinguishing between empirical reality and a veiled independent reality whose only knowable features are structural yields a clue to a plausible interpretation of current physics.Accessible to readers with only very elementary background in modern physics, Veiled Reality offers nonspecialists, including students in physics and philosophy, easy access to basic problems in the foundation of physics. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for explaining the subjective character of pain experience in terms of what we will call ‘embodied predictive processing’. The predictive processing (PP) theory is a family of views that take perception, action, emotion and cognition to all work together in the service of prediction error minimisation. In this paper we propose an embodied perspective on the PP theory we call the ‘embodied predictive processing (EPP) theory. The EPP theory proposes to explain pain (...) in terms of processes distributed across the whole body. The prediction error minimising system that generates pain experience comprises the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic system in continuous causal interaction with pathways spread across the whole neural axis. We will argue that these systems function in a coordinated and coherent manner as a single complex adaptive system to maintain homeostasis. This system, which we refer to as the neural-endocrine-immune (NEI) system, maintains homeostasis through the process of prediction error minimisation. We go on to propose a view of the NEI ensemble as a multiscale nesting of Markov blankets that integrates the smallest scale of the cell to the largest scale of the embodied person in pain. We set out to show how the EPP theory can make sense of how pain experience could be neurobiologically constituted. We take it to be a constraint on the adequacy of a scientific explanation of subjectivity of pain experience that it makes it intelligible how pain can simultaneously be a local sensing of the body, and, at the same time, a more global, all-encompassing attitude towards the environment. Our aim in what follows is to show how the EPP theory can meet this constraint. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is devoted to the analysis of the urgent problem of the information society: the overload of a person with information and, as a result, the impossibility of adequate formation and development of the personality; as well as the problem of "digitization" of human existence and the formation of a new reality of dataism. Theoretical basis. A lot of modern scientific works are devoted to the analysis of the information society, its problems and features. The information society is (...) a logical continuation of the scientific and technological revolution, which led to the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and the technology development. In the 20th century, technologies have touched the sphere of knowledge and information, as a result of which the formation and development of the information society, or "knowledge society", takes place. Information becomes the main resource in it, and, one way or another, a person’s life is inextricably connected with the information space. With the information society formation, the problem of information search and processing becomes one of the most urgent. It turns out that despite the abundance and availability of information, it is very difficult to determine its relevance. A lot of effort is spent on developing information retrieval algorithms. Another problem is related to the person’s inability to process large amounts of data. This situation begins to influence not only the education process and professional activity, but also the formation of a person’s personality. A person is "lost" in the information space and gradually loses his/her "I". Algorithms for data analysis come to the rescue, but gradually, instead of giving a person material for thought, they begin to make decisions on their own, and therefore, live life instead of a person. With the advent of Big Data processing algorithms, a new ideological paradigm appears – dataism, which predicts the merger of a person with the general data flow. Originality. The authors make assumptions that the dataistic future is "natural". A lot of works, including in the framework of philosophy, are focused on the problem of "dissolving" a person in the information space and finding ways to overcome it. But, in our opinion, this process is a completely logical continuation of human evolution. Conclusions. Existence of a person as a data flow is not a problem and a threat, but a new dimension of his/her being, and, therefore, requires a careful study and formulation of the main principles of this form of existence. (shrink)

Screen-based virtual worlds have been described as fundamentally disembodying. Contrary to this, the aim of this article is to provide a phenomenological analysis of bodily presence in one case of screen-based virtuality. By integrating phenomenology with qualitative research methodologies, I explore esports practitioners’ experiences of bodily presence in League of Legends (LoL). Here, descriptions from real-life esports practitioners are analyzed within the phenomenological framework of ‘incorporation’. My analysis shows that the practitioners’ experience and engage with their virtual world not just (...) by incorporating their physical gaming equipment, but also through incorporation of virtual abilities and tools specific to the game world. Having shown that the LoL practitioner’s body spans both physical and virtual space without leaving the body behind, I situate these results within the discussion of virtual presence in video games. I claim that the practitioners’ sense of presence can be accounted for by situating the integrated physical and virtual tools and abilities within the phenomenological framework of the ‘nullpoint’, understood as a bodily field of activity shaped by our incorporated skills and tools. (shrink)

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...) a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

Two of the most well-known belief contraction operators are partial meet contractions (PMCs) and kernel contractions (KCs). In this paper we propose two new classes of contraction operators, namely the class of generalized partial meet contractions (GPMC) and the class of generalized kernel contractions (GKC), which strictly contain the classes of PMCs and of KCs, respectively. We identify some extra conditions that can be added to the definitions of GPMCs and of GKCs, which give rise to some interesting subclasses of (...) those classes of functions, namely the classes of extensional and of uniform GPMCs/GKCs. In the context of contractions on belief sets the classes of partial meet contractions, uniform GPMCs and extensional GPMCs are all identical. Nevertheless, when considered as operations on belief bases, the class of uniform GPMCs coincides with the class of partial meet contractions, but the extensional GPMCs constitute a new kind of belief base contraction functions whose characterizing postulate of irrelevance of syntax is extensionality—the same postulate of irrelevance of syntax which occurs in the classical axiomatic characterization of partial meet contractions for belief sets—rather than the postulate of uniformity—which is the irrelevance of syntax postulate used in the axiomatic characterization for partial meet contractions on belief bases. Analogous results are obtained regarding the classes of extensional and of uniform GKCs. We present the interrelations in the sense of inclusion among all the new classes of operators presented in this paper and several well known classes of PMCs and of KCs. (shrink)

Reflection without Rules offers a comprehensive, pointed exploration of the methodological tradition in economics and the breakdown of the received view within the philosophy of science. Professor Hands investigates economists' use of naturalistic and sociological paradigms to model economic phenomena and assesses the roles of pragmatism, discourse, and situatedness in discussions of economic practice before turning to a systematic exploration of more recent developments in economic methodology. The treatment emphasizes the changes taking place in science theory and its relationship to (...) the movement away from a rules-based view of economic methodology. The work will be of interest to all economists concerned with methodological issues as well as philosophers and others studying the relationships between economics and contemporary science theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK R]]JVIEWS room for different theories and new developments. He does not try to tie up every loose end. Furthermore, he avoids the rut of the specialist by willingly and capably addressing questions of biblical exegesis, philosophy, psychology, science, and popular culture with even-handed competence. Space does not permit me to discuss his fascinating analysis of the psychology of near-death experiences or specific rejoinders to important objections (e.g., the (...) Bible depicts the dead as bodily beings, not immaterial spirits; dualism is a result of the Fall; dualism implies that the whole person does not die; at death we pass out of time, and, hence, there is no intermediate state). But I can assure you that his account is cogent and illuminating. Lenoir-Rhyne College Hickory, North Carolina PHILIP BLOSSER: The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective. Edited by KENNETH L DEUTSCH AND WALTER SOFFER. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. Pp. ix+ 304. $54.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). For Leo Strauss, the superiority of classical political philosophy over modern social science (and political theory based on social science) lies in at least four principles. First, it treats political matters as they actually appear to man qua philosopher and, in a qualified way, to the good citizen. Because Strauss claims that social science (and much post-classical political philosophy) abstracts from his canon of intelligibility, he thinks that it cannot lead to a humane, rational politics. (See "What is Political Philosophy?", in What is Political Philosophy? [Westport: Greenwood], pp. 27-28, and "Distinction between Facts and Values" in Natural Right and History [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1953], pp. 78-80.) Second, Plato and Aristotle believed that only the good man properly judges politics. This belief attracts Strauss, because it identifies virtue as the best claimant to political rule. ("What is Political Philosophy? ", pp. 36-38.) A third principle is derived immediately from this second: politics ought to be organized hierarchically. In the hierarchy, either the truly virtuous or gentlemen should rule, and those having a passive, obediential form of virtue should be the ruled. Fourth, this arrangement is rational and humane. For although the virtues of the ruler and the ruled are complementary in justice and necessary to it, still they are different and, in fact, require the stratification just mentioned. ("Classic Natural Right" in Natural Right and History, pp. 130-44.) BOOK REVIEWS 527 Because of the controversial nature of these principles and Strauss's eminence in political philosophy, one welcomes the present collection of essays by his disciples. They believe that in liberal democracies people confuse liberty with the uses to which liberty can and ought to be put. Doing so, people undermine that regime's foundations. Strauss and his disciples believe that modern natural right makes the clash between liberty and natural right inevitable, because its principal founders, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, conceived man as non-political. They conceived individuals as gaining certain advantages from governments hut as gaining no good in the exercise of politics itself. Classic natural right, by contrast, bases itself on the assumption that man is radically political. Moreover, it conceives politics as an arena for liberating, ennobling activities. Hobbes and Locke viewed the individual as independent of politics, which they placed at the low end of the range of human activity, along with everyday concerns and popular morality, rather than at the high end, as Strauss would. Thus for Strauss, liberal democracy is founded on modern principles, which are either apolitical and liberal (Locke) or apolitical and illiberal (Hobbes). Consequently, it cannot withstand the individualist and collectivist onslaughts that we have seen in this century. What, then, have Strauss's disciples to say about liberal democracy and the prospect of classic natural right in a Western world which is more or less permanently Hobbesian-Lockean? This can be answered by describing first the hook's divisions and then its diagnoses and prescriptions. In part one the contributors appraise the work of Strauss itself; in part two they define issues in liberalism ; and in part three they discuss liberalism in American political life. In the first part, Michael Platt outlines how Strauss's thought... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 719 An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of lnterreligious Dialogue. By PAUL J. GRIFFITHS. New York: Orbis, 1991. ISBN: 0 88344 761 4. pp. 113. Jesus Christ at the Encounter of World Religions. By J. DUPUIS. New York: Orbis, 1991 (ET: Robert R. Barr, from French, 1989). ISBN: 0 88344 723 1. pp. 301. Griffiths presents a rigorous argument for the possibility of con· (...) tradictory claims between different religious communities. His inspira· tion, as he acknowledges, is William Christian Snr. His basic argu· ment is: " If representative intellectuals belonging to some specific religious community come to judge at a particular time that some or all of their own doctrine-expressing sentences are incompatible with some alien religious claim(s), then they should feel obliged to engage in both positive and negative apologetics vis-a-vis these alien religious claim(s) and their promulgators" (3). He takes negative apologetics to be a critique of arguments made against one's own religious claims, showing that such arguments fail or are inconsistent or incoherent. Positive apologetics shows how a particular religious community's doctrines are cognitively superior, in some respect(s), to another religious community 's doctrines. It is essential for this enterprise that only methods of argumentation and criteria of knowledge acceptable to the adversary are employed. This requires the acceptance of natural theology. Griffiths is well aware of the lion's den he is entering, as his proposals run counter to much scholarship in the area of interreligious dialogue, so he spends three chapters apologetically tackling the lions. The objectors (who mainly remain in notes) include Derrida, Barthes, Winch, Lindbeck, Hick, Huxley, Nasr, Plantinga and others, although Mac· Intyre is curiously missing. This technique has the advantage of isolating and presenting arguments, without falling into problems of cor· rect exegesis of opponents. And this is also its weakness, as objectors will sometimes feel caricatured or misunderstood-as is surely the case with Plantinga and in one instance, Hick. First, he tackles objections that sentences from one tradition are either incomprehensible or incommensurable with those of another, convincingly showing that the strong versions of both claims are self· defeating and unsustainable. Weaker versions still allow for his proj· ect-or so he thinks. This is where Maclntyre's work should have been considered. Then he tackles various theories of religious language (following Lindbeck's typology). He argues against non-cognitive accounts that reduce beliefs to the credibility of causes for holding beliefs, a position incapable of asserting its truth over other views because of its 720 BOOK REVIEWS own presuppositions. He follows Lindbeck in criticizing experiental expressivism, and then turns upon Lindbeck's own form of rule theory (which is ambivalent regarding cognitive claims), arguing convincingly that to suggest that only sentences uttered confessionally and with performative function can possess ontological truth is confused (42). In a brief review it is not possible to rehearse Griffiths's careful argumentation. Griffiths then sets about tackling two types of universalists: Hick and Huxley. Of Hick, he argues that some criteria are required to discern true from false religions (e.g. Jim Jones) and in so doing such a position needs to support and develop such criteria, thereby effectively introducing apologetics. He neglects to deal with Hick's pragmatic criteria of beneficial ' fruits ' evident in adherents, but the logic of his argument can be applied to Hick's proposals. Using Katz and Zaehner, he argues against the esoteric universalism of the philosophia perennis. (The arguments of Robert Forman's recent book, The Problems of Pure Consciousness, are strangely neglected, despite Griffiths's being a contributor to that collection.) Finally, he tackles objections against positive apologetics-first, on the grounds that it has a negative effect on interreligious relations. Logically, this need not be the case, although Griffiths is well aware that the political context of apologetics can obscure its proper goal: deeper critical understanding, learning and problem solving. Then, in sustained dialogue with Plantinga, he argues against the objection that success is impossible. It is impossible only if " knockdown drag-out" (64) argumentative victory is expected. Griffiths suggests the cumulative -case argument and gives instances of such successful apologetics (medieval... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:530 BOOK REVIEWS I think none of these books contains a wholly satisfactory treatment of the particular issues it takes up. Taken together, however, they do show that evil presents not just one but many problems to reflective religious minds. In addition, they make it perfectly evident that not just one but many academic disciplines continue to have helpful things to say in response to these gripping perplexities. University (...) of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana PHILIP L. QUINN Di,alogue with the Other: The Inter-religious Dialogue. By DAVID TRACY. Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs, 1. Louvain : Peeters; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990. Pp. 123. $12.95. With this book David Tracy continues the hermeneutical project he launched in the Analogical Imagination: a concern to converse with the classics and to encounter the ' other '. However, here the ' other ' is extended beyond the traditional Western classics to the religions of the world and the often neglected archaic traditions. Tracy is surely correct when he says: " I believe that we are fast approaching the day when it will not be possible to attempt Christian systematic theology except in serious conversation with the other great ways" (p. xi). Here he follows a pioneering line drawn in Chicago by Tillich, Eliade and Kitagawa. Tracy brings to this venerable tradition his particular concern with hermeneutics and his experience with Jewish-Christian and Buddhist-Christian dialogue. The essays are further united by Tracy's desire to restore the unity between the mystical and prophetic within the Christian tradition. Employing Kenneth Burke's analysis of rhetoric, Chapter one shows that Freud and Lacan can be interpreted in terms of a clash of prophetic and mystical rhetorics respectively. Both are concerned with the ' other ', Freud more instrumentally and didactically and Lacan more subversively and anarchically but not nihilistically or in the way of Zen. In this chapter Tracy has a tendency towards overdetermination. Still, the brunt of his argument is that all discourse has concealed foundations, the archaeology of which will help illuminate the opera· tive rhetoric. Furthermore, the mystical/prophetic typology used in religion can illuminate secular issues, viz., the debate between Freud and Lacan. However, Tracy does not pay full attention to the nature of the 'other', but too easily assimilates it. For instance, is Freud's attention to the subconscious analogous to religious rhetoric's regarding the otherness of God? And does it really serve Tracy's purpose to start BOOK REVIEWS 531 the book by remammg within such very western waters despite the brave navigational direction he charted in the introduction? Chapter two revisits the classics: he uses the writings of William James to throw light on the criteria for interreligious dialogue. These criteria are used to affirm the authenticity of religions; these are not intended to " replace the dialogue but, at best, heuristically to inform it" (p. 27). Tracy offers a good and sensitive appreciation of James (despite his anachronistic elements), but his conclusions are somewhat thinly related to James's work and relate more closely to Tracy's own hermeneutical approach. The three criteria that he advances are: first, the notion of " immediate luminousness," understood as manifestation in a Heideggerian sense (and in keeping with von Balthasar) ; second, the necessity of coherence, understood as the compatibility of religious belief with science, art, and other humanistic traditions; and third, an ethical-pragmatic criterion related to James's notion of "fruits." With regard to the second, Tracy is aware of the problem of assuming a neutral form of "reason" in adjudicating such coherence. Still, his study would have been more helpful with specific examples to highlight some of the intractable problems in such a task. For instance, autonomy has been granted to the sciences by most western Christians but has not been by some other religious traditions in certain parts of the world, and so the notion of coherence begs the question. Tracy needs to grapple with the issues raised by Macintyre and Winch (among others) to move beyond the potentially sterile dichotomy implied in his notion of coherence. With regard to the third criterion there is question begging, too. Would Abraham have passed this test in his willingness to kill his son? Or... (shrink)

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works of (...) Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

Discrepancies between the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) and the adult and pediatric diagnostic guidelines for brain death (BD) (the “Guidelines”) have motivated proposals to revise the UDDA. A revision proposed by Lewis, Bonnie and Pope (the RUDDA), has received particular attention, the three novelties of which would be: (1) to specify the Guidelines as the legally recognized “medical standard,” (2) to exclude hypothalamic function from the category of “brain function,” and (3) to authorize physicians to conduct an apnea (...) test without consent and even over a proxy’s objection. One hundred seven experts in medicine, bioethics, philosophy, and law, spanning a wide variety of perspectives, have come together in agreement that while the UDDA needs revision, the RUDDA is not the way to do it. Specifically, (1) the Guidelines have a non-negligible risk of false-positive error, (2) hypothalamic function is more relevant to the organism as a whole than any brainstem reflex, and (3) the apnea test carries a risk of precipitating BD in a non-BD patient, provides no benefit to the patient, does not reliably accomplish its intended purpose, and is not even absolutely necessary for diagnosing BD according to the internal logic of the Guidelines; it should at the very least require informed consent, as do many procedures that are much more beneficial and less risky. Finally, objections to a neurologic criterion of death are not based only on religious belief or ignorance. People have a right to not have a concept of death that experts vigorously debate imposed upon them against their judgment and conscience; any revision of the UDDA should therefore contain an opt-out clause for those who accept only a circulatory-respiratory criterion. (shrink)

This paper rigorously examines the primitive foundations of economic reasoning through a framework based on symbolic logic. Extending previous work, it formalizes economic conceptions (\(\mathbb{C}\)), symbols (\(s_i\)), and introduces a structured language (\(\mathcal{L_{\mathbb{C}}}\)) to define their formation and interpretation. Organized as a continuous chain of declarations and illustrations, the paper offers a concise, systematic approach to understanding the philosophy of economic reasoning through formal symbolic representations.

There is increased interest in deviant behavior in the workplace. However, research is lacking on the moral economy of such behavior. Moral economy is particularly important in contexts where syncretic forces impinge on deviant behavior. Consequently, we use moral economy reasoning to examine the relationship between ethnic obligation and deviant behavior in the African context. In Study 1, data (_N_ = 27, 148) show an inverted U-shape effect of meta-agency and deviant behavior. In Study 2, difference-in-difference (DID) analysis of data (...) (_N_ = 25,387 in 2005 and _N _= 51,587 in 2013) shows significant DID effect of meta-agency. Primary data from Study 3 (_N_ = 229) shows a U-shaped effect of agency and deviant behavior. In Study 4 (_N_ = 333), a replication shows support for the U-shape effect in Study 3. The four studies thus show complex patterns that reflect U-shape and inverted U-shape relationships between ethnic obligation and deviant behavior as indicated by bribery, corruption, and unethicality. Robustness checks support the curvilinear relationships suggesting that the effects are not due to chance. We discuss implications for research and practice. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate AGM belief contraction operators by using the tools of algebraic logic. We generalize the notion of contraction to arbitrary finitary propositional logics, and we show how to switch from a syntactic-based approach to a semantic one. This allows to build a solid bridge between the validity of AGM postulates in a propositional logic and specific algebraic properties of its intended algebraic counterpart. Such a connection deserves particular attention when we deal with maxichoice contractions, as studied (...) in the final part of the paper. (shrink)

Vendler’s :161–173, 1979) puzzle about imagination is that the sentences ‘Imagine swimming in that water’ and ‘Imagine yourself swimming in that water’ seem at once semantically different and semantically the same. They seem semantically different, since the first requires you to imagine ’from the inside’, while the second allows you to imagine ’from the outside.’ They seem semantically the same, since despite superficial dissimilarity, there is good reason to think that they are syntactically and lexically identical. This paper sets out (...) the puzzle and offers a novel solution. Our proposal is that, just as there is knowledge-wh, there is also imagining-wh and that the inside/outside distinction Vendler points to is properly understood as a distinction within imagining-wh. In particular, to imagine swimming from the inside is to imagine what it feels like to swim, while to imagine swimming from the outside is to imagine what it looks like to swim. We show that this proposal is well grounded in both the semantics and syntax of ‘imagine.’ We also argue it makes better sense than its rivals of the data Vendler found so puzzling. (shrink)

In this chapter, it is argued that the Mind-Body Powers model of neural correlates of consciousness provides a metaphysical framework that yields the theoretical possibility of empirically detecting consciousness. Since the model is informed by an Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphic ontology rather than a physicalist ontology, it provides a philosophical foundation for the science of consciousness that is an alternative to physicalism. Our claim is not that the Mind-Body Powers model provides the only alternative, but rather that it provides a sufficient framework (...) for empirically detecting and scientifically studying consciousness. Elsewhere, the integrated information theory’s prediction about the neural correlate of being conscious has been used to illustrate how the Mind-Body Powers model grounds the possibility of empirically detecting consciousness (see M. Owen, 2021, ch. 8). The theory’s prediction was used as one plausible example of a hypothesis about the nature and location of the neural correlate that can be combined with the model. However, there is no settled conclusion about which neurobiological theory of consciousness accurately identifies the neural mechanisms corresponding to being conscious (NAS, 2021, p. 39; Sattin et al., 2021; Seth, 2017; Seth & Bayne, 2022). Therefore, this work will employ another plausible neurobiological prediction provided by the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis. The hypothesis is combined with the Mind-Body Powers model to demonstrate that empirically detecting consciousness is metaphysically plausible wholly apart from a physicalist framework. (shrink)

A diagonal version of the strong reflection principle is introduced, along with fragments of this principle associated with arbitrary forcing classes. The relationships between the resulting principles and related principles, such as the corresponding forcing axioms and the corresponding fragments of the strong reflection principle, are analyzed, and consequences are presented. Some of these consequences are “exact” versions of diagonal stationary reflection principles of sets of ordinals. We also separate some of these diagonal strong reflection principles from related axioms.

_The purpose_ of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of (...) anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). _Originality._ For the first time in research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. _Conclusions._ The comprehension of the Husserlian model of intentionality of consciousness through the "grasping-from-now" and the constitution of phases of phenomenological time through the component of "exiting-from-now" showed that solving the problem of phased-differentiation of phenomenological time leads to the observation of the impossibility of isolating the modes of past, present, and future as self-sufficient and unconditional. More accurate indications, based on the constitutive intentionality of consciousness on the "grasping-from-now" phases of time (as conventional), are as follows: a) the abilities of retention and recollection are the foundation for the constitution of the past and its connections to the present; b) the perception establishes the basis for the phase of the present itself; c) the possibilities of protention and anticipation (as forms of imagination) constitute the future and its connections to the present. By the concept of retention, Husserl fixes a certain primary memory (the present "now" of a past interval), which enables retaining the past in the present. The category of recollection or secondary memory is used by the philosopher to refer to the self-sufficient reproduction of past experiences (without being joined to present perception). The fundamental difference between recollection and retention is that the former _re-_presents a temporal interval, grasping its content and reproducing it as it was in the past, while in the latter, the perceived duration is presented as a fragment of time that has just passed. According to the German philosopher, the "grasping" of the present phase is performed by perception. Through the constitutive intentionality of consciousness, perception synthesizes the results of primary-actual activity and retentional holding of duration. The second part of the article will present solutions to the following research tasks: 1) analysis of the possibilities of protention and anticipation in constituting the future and its connections with the present; 2) understanding the possibility of using interpreted forms of Husser’s ideas in reconstructing the concept of anthropic time. (shrink)

The variety of residuated lattices includes a vast proportion of the classes of algebras that are relevant for algebraic logic, e.g., \-groups, Heyting algebras, MV-algebras, or De Morgan monoids. Among the outliers, one counts orthomodular lattices and other varieties of quantum algebras. We suggest a common framework—pointed left-residuated \-groupoids—where residuated structures and quantum structures can all be accommodated. We investigate the lattice of subvarieties of pointed left-residuated \-groupoids, their ideals, and develop a theory of left nuclei. Finally, we extend some (...) parts of the theory of join-completions of residuated \-groupoids to the left-residuated case, giving a new proof of MacLaren’s theorem for orthomodular lattices. (shrink)

At a time when firms signal their commitment to CSR through online communication, news sources may convey conflicting information, causing stakeholders to perceive firm hypocrisy. Here, we test the effects of conflicting CSR information that conveys inconsistent outcomes (results-based hypocrisy) and ulterior motives (motive-based hypocrisy) on hypocrisy perceptions expressed in social media posts, which we conceptualize as countersignals that reach a broad audience of stakeholders. Across six studies, we find that (1) conflicting CSR information from internal (firm) and external (news) (...) sources elicits hypocrisy perceptions regardless of whether the CSR information reflects inconsistencies in results or motives, (2) individuals respond to conflicting CSR information with countersignals accusing firms of hypocrisy expressed in social media posts, (3) hypocrisy perceptions are linked to other damaging stakeholder consequences, including behavior (divestment, boycotting, lower employment interest), affect (moral outrage), and cognition (moral condemnation), and (4) firms with higher credibility are more likely to experience adverse effects of conflicting CSR information. These findings advance theory regarding the effects of conflicting CSR information as it relates to the role of credibility and different forms of hypocrisy. Importantly, damaging social media posts and stakeholder backlash can arise from hypocrisy perceptions associated with inconsistent CSR results as well as inconsistent motives, and strong firm credibility only makes a firm more vulnerable to this backlash. (shrink)

A model of spontaneous collapse of fermionic degrees of freedom in a quantum field is presented which has the advantages that it explicitly maintains energy conservation and gives results in agreement with an existing numerical method for calculating quantum state evolution, namely the quantum trajectories model.