The terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ have become established in the popular vernacular in the 25 years or so since the publication of the report of the Brundtland Commission. Often, ‘sustainability’ is thought to represent some long-term goal and ‘sustainable development’ a means or process by which to achieve it. Two fundamental and conflicting philosophical positions underlying these terms are identified. In particular, the commonly held notion that sustainable development can be a pathway to sustainability is challenged, and the expedient (...) view that both terms ultimately serve holistic development is questioned. Furthermore, it is argued that perpetuating the unclear and misleading distinction between the two positions will limit the development of efficacious policy, as it will not resonate with the broadest possible gamut of beliefs and value systems. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

This collection of essays by one of the most prominent and internationally respected philosophers of action theory is concerned with deepening our understanding of the notion of intention. In Bratman's view, when we settle on a plan for action we are committing ourselves to future conduct in ways that help support important forms of coordination and organization both within the life of the agent and interpersonally. These essays enrich that account of commitment involved in intending, and explore its implications for (...) our understanding of temptation and self-control, shared intention and shared cooperative activity, and moral responsibility. The essays offer extensive discussions of related views by, among others, Donald Davidson, Hector-Neri Castañeda, Christine Korsgaard, Harry Frankfurt, and P. F. Strawson. This collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students. (shrink)

Thinking, Language, and Experience was first published in 1989.Hector-Neri Castañeda's intricate and provocative essays have been widely influential, especially his work in epistemology and ethics, and his theory on the relation of thought to action. The fourteen essays in Thinking, Language, and Experience -- half of them written expressly for this volume -- demonstrate the breadth and richness of his recent work on the unitary structure of human experience.A comprehensive, unified study of phenomena at the intersection between experience, thinking, (...) language, and reality, this book focuses on singular reference -- that is, reference to individuals insofar as they are thought of as individuals: indicators, quasi-indicators, proper names, singular descriptions. Castañeda establishes a large number of new facts -- linguistic, semantic, psychological, and sociological -- about the workings of language in human experience, and from them develops a network of new theories, all grounded in his comprehensive Guise Theory.These theories offer a systematic account for: the structure of human experience and the world at large; the mental powers required to think of the world and to undergo experiences; self-consciousness; the language for thinking of other minds; perception and the interaction between indexical reference and perceptual fields; and the role of subjectivity in perception and intentional action. (shrink)

Teny Pinkard's discussion of explanation in science and history raises some issues important for social science generally, as well as for history. I would like to focus on his analysis of the relationship between explanation and understanding, with the aim of reopening an issue which his treatment appears to have closed. In doing so, I hope to encourage further analysis of the problem of how we ‘understand’. My own discussion of this issue will be brief, moving only a little beyond (...) Pinkard's. Primarily. I hope to show that ‘understanding’ is in fact a problem, and one that cannot merely be viewed as secondary to an analysis of ‘explanation’. (shrink)

In this paper, we reflect upon our experience in Mexico, as weIl as review the literature on reflection developed by adult educators in the United States in order to begin to develop a theory of “relevant retlection” useful for family literacy practitioners. We feel that engaging in relevant reflection can help to empower family literacy practitioners in the United States to work more effectively with participants and help participants think more critically about the meaning of literacy in their lives. It (...) is the participant’s perception of their life-world that we hold to be valid. In the context of family literacy, our initial interest is in promoting the exploration of the educational validity of a certain form of reflection as it relates to learning process and outcomes. Our theory derived from reviewing the literature on reflection and critical reflection is thus stated: When family literacy paticipants are encouraged to reflect upon the relevance of literacy as it relates to their life-world, learning is significantly enhanced. Relevant reflection can be facilitated through engaging participants in reflecting upon the relevance of literacy to their lives, their families, their communities and their livelihoods. Indeed, this can be done individuaIly, in dialogue with another and/or as a group. Family literacy practitioners are provided a framework for facilitating relevant reflection for participants. (shrink)

In the process of knowledge imagination is, according to Hegel, the point where the human mind dissociates the object into two different contents - i.e. the thing of the external world and the internal content of the mind -, so that both versions of the object must corroborate each other in the way of a synthesis of heterogenous elements that only in their collation recognizes their identity. Comprehension sublates this dualism, and, by doing that, it sublates also the empiricist approach (...) to knowledge and the correspondence theory of truth which, for Hegel, are at its basis. (shrink)

Hegel develops his theory of will simultaneously in two different contexts of his work: on one side, in the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the corresponding Berlin lessons and in texts which can be considered as incipient versions of the Encyclopedia; on the other hand, in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the lessons based on them and in previous texts on the Philosophy of Right in which Hegel exposes his theory of subjective will. Now, the systematic structure and (...) consequent periodization of the volitive process differ in both cases. This article aims to reconstruct Hegel’s System of the will by integrating organically the developments of both groups of texts. (shrink)

This is an investigation into the fundamental connections between the referential use of language and our rich human experience. All types of experience — perceptual, practical, scientific, literary, esthetic, ludic,... — are tightly unified into one total experience by the structure of reference to real or possible items. Singular reference is essential for locating ourselves in our own corner of the world. General reference, by means of quantifiers, is our main tool in ascertaining the accessible patterns of the world. Both (...) are primitive and mutually irreducible. (Often this has been denied.) The unity of total experience is constructed through the biographical unity of a person, and the sociological unity of the communications across a community. This unity of experience is wrought out by an underlying unitary system of reference. We need, therefore, a comprehensive theory of individuation, existence, predication, and truth. One such a theory is Guise Theory. (shrink)

Aristóteles ha pasado a la historia como el padre de la lógica. Este artículo resalta dos puntos. Primero, analiza los motivos por los cuales Aristóteles rechaza habitualmente la definición metafórica, especialmente en el ámbito de la llamada metafisica; segundo, pone al descubierto algunas inconsistencias metodológicas en el corpus al respecto.

Kant explicitou, talvez com maior clareza que qualquer outro filósofo antes do que ele, a essência do conflito que implica a relação da causalidade natural e a causalidade livre. Hegel assevera que com o dualismo fenômeno-coisa em si Kant deixa intacta como tal a incompatibilidade entre as noções de causalidade natural e causalidade livre, já que, conserva sua contraposição mesma para simplesmente localizá-la na estrutura do sujeito. Hegel aspira precisamente a fechar o ciclo da metafísica dualista que definiu a filosofia (...) dos seus começos e, com isso, a dar solução definitiva às dificuldades que lhe são inerentes; para esse fim exige o abandono do paradigma que a constituiu como tal e propõe no seu lugar uma autêntica revolução no campo da ontologia e a teoria do conhecimento. Neste contexto geral, Hegel oferece uma solução inovadora ao problema da incompatibilidade entre causalidade natural e causalidade livre, entre determinismo e liberdade. (shrink)

Este artículo propone que Palacios enuncia los elementos esenciales para un esbozo sistemático de una antropología filosófica, no exenta de las influencias de los pensadores de su época, principalmente racistas y evolucionistas, pero se separa de estos al intentar dar una visión panorámica del mesti..

The main claim of Hegel´s System is that in its inner structure reality is consubstantial with subjective reason, so that, in spite of all its eventual contradictions, reality can be understood by the human mind. However, the process of knowledge of the rationality of reality is at the same time the process of self-knowledge of the rationality that defines as such the human mind. In this general process of knowledge-self-knowledge, the different artistic forms and the different periods of the History (...) of Art have, according to Hegel, a precise function. The main objective of this article is, in the first place, to clarify the function that, according to Hegel, Art has in the process of self-knowledge of human rationality, and, secondly, to analyze in that context the logic of the sublation of Art in the discursive element of language. (shrink)

Is rhetoric just a new and trendy way toépater les bourgeois?Unfortunately, I think that the newfound interest of some economists in rhetoric, and particularly Donald McCloskey in his new book and subsequent responses to critics, gives that impression. After economists have worked so hard for the past five decades to learn their sums, differential calculus, real analysis, and topology, it is a fair bet that one could easily hector them about their woeful ignorance of the conjugation of Latin (...) verbs or Aristotle's Six Elements of Tragedy. Moreover, it has certainly become an academic cliché that economists write as gracefully and felicitously as a hundred monkeys chained to broken typewriters. The fact that economists still trot out Keynes's prose in their defense is itself an index of the inarticulate desperation of an inarticulate profession. (shrink)

En esta contribución se analizan dos grandes períodos de la obra intelectual de Pietro Barcellona. El primero se corresponde con sus originarias reflexiones sobre los distintos usos del derecho, en el sentido de la transformación-adecuación de las instituciones y del ordenamiento jurídico italiano de la postguerra con los principios de la Constitución de 1948. De este primer período hay que destacar sus investigaciones sobre el uso alternativo del derecho y de los lazos de funcionalidad existentes entre el Estado, la economía (...) y el derecho. En el segundo período, se analiza el tránsito del pensamiento barcelloniano hacia las cuestiones que deben enriquecer un concepto de democracia plena de sentido para un individuo cada vez más alienado, sometido a la lógica de lo económico y, por tanto, menos libre y autónomo. Barcellona afronta esta última cuestión analizando los fundamentos de la Modernidad, para comprender principalmente dos cosas: a) el destino del individuo en esta fase de la sociedad occidental, y b) saber cómo ha logrado la burguesía, a través de qué principios y formas, consolidar y reproducir su hegemonía social en la sociedad moderna. En esta etapa el siguiente trabajo se centra, en primer lugar, en su teoría del individualismo propietario y en la crítica al "derecho igual", para después, en un segundo momento, plantear sus propuestas acerca de la política y de la democracia como forma de vida. Todo el análisis de la obra de Barcellona, considerada por los autores del siguiente ensayo, como fundamental para entender diversos aspectos jurídico-políticos de las sociedades post-industriales, ha sido desarrollado respetando el orden cronológico de la producción intelectual de Barcellona a lo largo de los dos períodos tratados. (shrink)

Vaesen and van Amerongen (Philosophical Psychology 21:779-797, 2008) criticize Dennett’s design stance, arguing that as a cognitive thesis about artifact categorization, it is falsified by empirical findings. I assess their criticism in light of both further results and alternate findings the authors acknowledge (but did not discuss in detail). I argue that the design stance still stands in virtue of the conflicting character of these findings, and suggest shifting the domain of empirical scrutiny.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddha Loves Me! This I Know, for the Dharma Tells Me SoDonald K. SwearerI intend no disrespect to either the Buddha or the Christ by my rewrite of Anna Bartlett Warner’s 1859 Sunday school song, “Jesus Loves Me.” That one might construct the Buddha in the image of a loving Jesus may be more startling or offensive to Buddhists (and also to Christians) than the modern, apologetic view of (...) the Buddha as a rational renouncer. Versions of both can be textually justified; however, each is a reification that reflects the bias of the interpreter. Both ignore the complexity of the figure of the Buddha within the varied and diverse traditions of Buddhism. My starting point in the following essay acknowledges this complexity as well as the inevitable limitations of my personal interpretation of the Buddha, necessarily conditioned by my experience. I propose to structure the essay around two polarities—universal/particular and wisdom/compassion—looking first at the Buddha and then briefly reflecting dialogically at the end of each section on the figure of the Christ.Buddha: Universal and ParticularIn my personal experience in Buddhist Asia, especially Thailand, and my studies of Buddhist traditions, in particular the Theravada, I have been impressed by the creative tension between the universal and particular dimensions of the figure of the [End Page 113] Buddha. Even the modern Western view of the Buddha evidences this tension. Typically the word Buddha evokes the story of Prince Siddhattha’s renunciation of his royal status, subsequent quest for enlightenment, and eventual realization of nibbana. 1 In the hands of a comparative mythologist such as Joseph Campbell, the detailed embellishments of the Buddha’s sacred biography are absorbed into the tripartite, monomyth structure of the hero’s narrative—separation, attainment, return. For Campbell, the story of the historical Buddha, Siddhattha Gotama, represents a rite of passage, a deep psychological truth of self-discovery symbolized by other heroes in world mythology. Despite the antistructuralist critique by historical and textual scholars, as well as the feminist criticism that the heroic journey does not reflect women’s experience, in one form or another the Buddha reified as an exemplar of the universal paradigm of the individual’s journey of self-realization continues to capture the Western imagination.A somewhat more sophisticated version of the universal hero motif is the Buddha as ‘rational renouncer,’ an interpretation favored by both Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism who portray the Buddha as an empiricist and pragmatist somewhat on the order of William James. In this view, Prince Siddhattha’s quest was a rational response to the experience of suffering, and the truth he perceived on the night of his enlightenment was nothing more nor less than a direct perception of the universal law of cause and effect obscured to ordinary awareness. De-emphasizing both the ascetical and devotional aspects of the Buddha’s sacred biography, the rational renouncer school of thought places its emphasis on epistemological transformation characterized in Buddhist texts as “seeing things as they really are.”The Buddha as universal hero and as rational renouncer can be critiqued as modernized, rationalized, westernized reifications of the Buddha, an example of the ‘orientialist’ distortion that characterized the colonial project. Charles Hallisey has pointed out that such reconstructions of the Buddha were not merely the products of Western scholars but owed much to Asian Buddhists as well. 2 But are we to assume that throughout the history of Buddhism, similar hermeneutical moves and debates over the nature of the Buddha did not exist? I find a tension in the Buddhist tradition between two contrasting images of the Buddha: as an exemplar of a universal truth, and as a being defined by the contingencies of human particularities.Theravada Buddhists find strong support in the sutta for a humanistic interpretation of the Buddha. In particular, they argue that the Buddha of the early Buddhist canonical texts specifically denied that he was a god, and that he was a teacher of the truth he perceived at his enlightenment. They find support for this view in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, wherein the Buddha tells his followers that when he dies the teaching and the disciplinary rules he... (shrink)

"Examines ethical, religious, and aesthetic dimensions of the environment from several different disciplines related to the humanities including anthropology, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and history, with examples drawn from Confucianism, aboriginal Australia, Moby-Dick, liberal democracies, Ken Wilber, Joanna Macy, and Gary Snyder"--Provided by publisher.

The aim of this paper is to address the question: Can an artificial neural network (ANN) model be used as a possible characterization of the power of the human mind? We will discuss what might be the relationship between such a model and its natural counterpart. A possible characterization of the different power capabilities of the mind is suggested in terms of the information contained (in its computational complexity) or achievable by it. Such characterization takes advantage of recent results based (...) on natural neural networks (NNN) and the computational power of arbitrary artificial neural networks (ANN). The possible acceptance of neural networks as the model of the human mind's operation makes the aforementioned quite relevant. (shrink)

Theoria , the international Swedish philosophy journal, was founded in 1935. Its contributors in the first 75 years include the major Swedish philosophers from this period and in addition a long list of international philosophers, including A. J. Ayer, C. D. Broad, Ernst Cassirer, Hector Neri Castañeda, Arthur C. Danto, Donald Davidson, Nelson Goodman, R. M. Hare, Carl G. Hempel, Jaakko Hintikka, Saul Kripke, Henry E. Kyburg, Keith Lehrer, Isaac Levi, David Lewis, Gerald MacCallum, Richard Montague, Otto Neurath, (...) Arthur N. Prior, W. V. Quine, Nicholas Rescher, Ernest Sosa, Robert C. Stalnaker, P. F. Strawson, Patrick Suppes, Johan van Benthem, Georg Henrik von Wright and many others. Hempel's confirmation paradoxes, Ross's deontic paradox, Montague's universal grammar and Lindström's theorem are among the contributions to philosophy that were first published in Theoria. (shrink)

La eleuthería tiene una connotación política y cultural para los antiguos griegos. Refiere la condición libre de los ciudadanos griegos frente a los pueblos bárbaros que prefieren el gobierno tiránico. Platón y Aristóteles, además, hablan de la eleuthería en un sentido moral; esto es, como la condición libre del hombre virtuoso. Pero Aristóteles se refiere a una virtud en concreto: la liberalidad. La liberalidad supone el uso prudente de las riquezas, es decir, el justo medio entre la avaricia y la (...) prodigalidad. Pero el ejercicio de esta virtud repercute en el ámbito político. Primero, porque la ciudadanía presupone en sí misma la virtud moral. Segundo, porque en el núcleo de la liberalidad radica la estabilidad de la pólis; la avaricia o la ambición desmedidas son las que ponen en peligro la estabilidad de la pólis. Por lo tanto, eleuthería tiene un sentido unitario, que va del ámbito privado al político. (shrink)

This book is for people who find themselves beset by arguments: persuasions open and hidden, put forward in books or on buses, blown up onto hoardings or piped right into the home by television and radio. Such arguments may need to be critically weighed and cautiously assessed, if the arguee is not to be taken for a ride. For such analysis, some introduction to logic is required. This book explains how to decide which arguments are sound and what makes the (...) bad ones bad. (shrink)

Contemporary trends in politics and historical interpretation have raised the specter of the end of philosophy. In the post-philosophical era, every attempt to explain or make sense of the world would be considered no more than a particular myth or worldview, possessing relative rather than universal validity. Arguing that philosophy fails to transcend the relativity of worldviews entails rejecting Hegel’s attempt to complete, or comprehend absolutely, the sense of history via his logical interpretation of Christ. The post-Hegelian loss of faith (...) in the human ability to achieve an absolutely reasonable or objective understanding of our world can be seen as requiring a turn to Christianity to correct the deficiencies of objective understanding. However, the Hegelian logical interpretation of Christ may be needed to protect Christian faith against the same historicism that is so corrosive of faith in philosophy. Does the middle or mediating ground between Christianity and its critics disintegrate, leaving the vacuum of nihil absolutum, if it is not held together by the Hegelian science of logic? Such a vacuum would be filled by a will to the power of world making, which some people call divine and others insist is purely human. But giving up Hegel might mean giving up the possibility of a reasoned mediation of this dispute. Without reason, or on faith, one could leap in countless different directions and embrace countless different worldviews—until one simply wearied of the effort and resigned to the credo of nothingness. (shrink)

This book traces the emergence of abstract philosophical thought from the concrete concerns of everyday speech. Studies of Plato and Hegel illustrate the fruits of reflection as well as the perils of alienation that are attached to abstract thought. The book's central concern is the future of philosophy, or what one ought to do to pursue wisdom. Unlike many books which share the same concern, this book returns to the roots of philosophy in search of clues to how to go (...) on. Written in a straightforward style, minimizing the need for technical jargon, this book should be of interest to anyone perplexed about the nature and aims of the philosophical vocation. (shrink)