Philosophers working within the pragmatist tradition have pictured their relation to Kant and Kantianism in very diverse terms: some have presented their work as an appropriation and development of Kantian ideas, some have argued that pragmatism is an approach in complete opposition to Kant. This collection investigates the relationship between pragmatism, Kant, and current Kantian approaches to transcendental arguments in a detailed and original way. Chapters highlight pragmatist aspects of Kant’s thought and trace the influence of Kant on the work (...) of pragmatists and neo-pragmatists, engaging with the work of Peirce, James, Lewis, Sellars, Rorty, and Brandom, among others. They also consider to what extent contemporary approaches to transcendental arguments are compatible with a pragmatist standpoint. The book includes contributions from renowned authors working on Kant, pragmatism and contemporary Kantian approaches to philosophy, and provides an authoritative and original perspective on the relationship between pragmatism and Kantianism. (shrink)

Unlike nonhuman primates, thousands of bird species have articulatory capabilities that equal or surpass those of humans, and they develop their vocalizations through vocal imitation in a way that is very similar to how human infants learn to speak. An understanding of how speech mechanisms have evolved is therefore unlikely to yield key insights into how the human brain is special.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of solidarity has been invoked frequently. Much interest has centred around how citizens and communities support one another during times of uncertainty. Yet, empirical research which accounts and understands citizen’s views on pandemic solidarity, or their actual practices has remained limited. Drawing upon the analysis of data from 35 qualitative interviews, this article investigates how residents in England and Scotland enacted, understood, or criticised (the lack of) solidarity during the first national lockdown in the (...) United Kingdom in April 2020—at a time when media celebrated solidarity as being at an all-time high. It finds that although solidarity was practiced by some people, the perceived lack of solidarity was just as pronounced. We conclude that despite frequent mobilisations of solidarity by policy makers and other public actors, actual practices of solidarity are poorly understood—despite the importance of solidarity for public health and policy. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

The essays in this book engage the original and controversial claims from Michael Boylan's A Just Society. Each essay discusses Boylan's claims from a particular chapter and offers a critical analysis of these claims. Boylan responds to the essays in his lengthy and philosophically rich reply.

Some philosophers of religion have argued that moral anti-theodicy begs the question. This paper evaluates the arguments from two such philosophers, writing a decade apart—Robert Mark Simpson, and Lauri Snellman. Simpson argues that any global argument against theodicy must allow for the possibility of there existing a plausible theodicy, and that anti-theodical arguments (the argument from insensitivity, the argument from detachment, and the argument from harmful consequences) all implicitly discount this possibility, thus ending up begging the question. Snellman argues (...) that moral anti-theodicies presuppose that some evils cannot be justified, which would presuppose that theodicy is false from the start, which in turn would beg the question against theodicy. The author of the paper argues that Simpson’s arguments rest on an erroneous assumption regarding the nature of anti-theodicy, and that one of Simpson’s arguments sets a problematic standard for argumentation that the author argues we should not accept. It is also argued that Snellman’s argument relies on an unsupported claim from Toby Betenson. Therefore, the author concludes that Simpson and Snellman have not managed to show that moral anti-theodicies beg the question. (shrink)

During the last few decades, the historical turn within the tradition of the analytic tradition has experienced growing enthusiasm concerning the procedure of rational reconstruction, whose validity or importance, despite its paradigmatic examples in Frege and Russell, has not always enjoyed a consensus. Among the analytic philosophers who are the frontrunners of this movement, Robert Brandom is one of a kind: his work on Hegel as well as on German Idealism has been increasing interest in, as well as awareness (...) of, Hegel´s possible contributions to some current problems in that tradition, and connecting Hegel scholars to current questions. Thus, this work aims to explore Brandom´s methodology of rational reconstruction, as well as his dialogue with history of Philosophy, mainly exposed in his Tales of the mighty dead (2002). As we will see, Brandom´s distinction between a de dicto and a de re approach intends to present a way of identifying and analyzing a given philosopher´s theoretical (hidden) commitments that can be useful to improve the quality of the dialogue with past philosophers. From such methodological exposition, I to turn to Kierkegaard in order to make explicit some of his ontological commitments and presenting Brandom’s approach as a valuable tool for doing history of philosophy. (shrink)

Resumo: Mesmo que neguemos qualquer tipo de excepcionalismo à filosofia como empreendimento intelectual (ver Williamson, 2007), parece fácil conceder que, pelo menos no que diz respeito às relações com sua própria história, a filosofia é diferente de outros campos do conhecimento (ver Williamson, 2018). No entanto, questões relacionadas ao escopo, papel e validade da história da filosofia para a atividade filosófica são tão antigas quanto a própria filosofia, além de se tornarem relevantes no chamado parting of ways entre as tendências (...) analítica e hermenêutico-fenomenológica. No entanto, é possível dizer que, pelo menos desde a segunda metade do último século, temos visto uma inflexão importante sobre o lugar e a importância da história da filosofia na filosofia contemporânea: tanto por causa da “virada histórica” na filosofia analítica, com obras de Strawson, Sellars e, mais recentemente, Brandom, servindo como bons exemplos desse movimento, quanto pelo interesse recentemente renovado em questões de metafilosofia. Um exemplo desse segundo movimento é o debate entre os chamados apropriacionistas e os contextualistas. Portanto, este artigo tem como objetivo analisar os dois principais argumentos contra as reconstruções racionais - o GTRC e a acusação de anacronismo - e oferecer uma defesa de uma abordagem inferencialista para a história da filosofia, com base no trabalho de Robert Brandom, que é simultaneamente aberto a certo contextualismo, bem como estabelece parâmetros para as reconstruções racionais. (shrink)

"This volume in Religion and Public Life, a series on religion and public affairs, provides a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The contributions address the decline of social capital-those patterns of behavior which are conducive to self-governance and the spirit of self-reliance-and its relation to the demise of the civic-humanist tradition in American education. The unifying theme, is that classical studies do not merely result in individual mastery over a particular technique or body of knowledge, (...) but also link the individual to the polity and even to the whole of the cosmic order. At the same time, American republicanism, in its exaltation of the common man from the Jeffersonian agrarian soldier to the apotheosis of Lincoln tempers the classical ideal into something less exalted, if more democratic. The effects on the contemporary state of the liberal arts curriculum are demonstrated in articles critical of the market-model university. Two essays explore the historical and philosophical significance of the discipline of rhetoric, that has suffered under the hegemony of rationalistic philosophy. A concluding contribution, invokes Giambattista Vico as an eloquent defender of the humanities. Humanities and Civic Life includes: "Rome, Florence, and Philadelphia: Using the History of the Humanities to Renew Our Civic Life" by Robert E. Proctor; "The Dark Fields of the Republic: The Persistence of Republican Thought in American History" by David Brown; "Unleashing the Humanities" by Robert Weisbuch; "Liberal Arts: Listening to Faculty" by Dennis O'Brien; "Historical Consciousness in Antiquity" by Paul Gottfried; "Taking the Measure of Relativism and the Civic Virtue of Rhetoric" by Gabriel R. Ricci; "The River: A Vichian Dialogue on Humanistic Education" by Randall E. Auxier."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Hans-Georg GADAMER, Hermeneutische Entwürfe. Vorträge und Aufsätze ; Pascal MICHON, Poétique d’une anti-anthropologie: l’herméneutique deGadamer ; Robert J. DOSTAL, The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer ; Denis SERON, Le problème de la métaphysique. Recherches sur l’interprétation heideggerienne de Platon et d’Aristote ; Henry MALDINEY, Ouvrir le rien. L’art nu ; Dominique JANICAUD, Heidegger en France, I. Récit; II. Entretiens ; Maurice MERLEAU-PONTY, Fenomenologia percepţiei ; Trish GLAZEBROOK, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Science ; Richard WOLIN, Heidegger’s Children. Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans (...) Jonas and Herbert Marcuse ; Ivo DEGENNARO, Logos – Heidegger liest Heraklit ; O. K. WIEGAND, R. J. DOSTAL, L. EMBREE, J. KOCKELMANS and J. N. MOHANTY, Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics and Logic ; James FAULCONER and Mark WRATHALL, Appropriating Heidegger. (shrink)

In 1854 the British East India Company, acting in co-operation with the Prussian Crown, commissioned Hermann, Adolph and Robert Schlagintweit to undertake a scientific expedition to India and High Asia. Despite the mission's outstanding achievements, all the brothers ended forgotten and miserable. This article will discuss (1) how three sons of a Munich eye surgeon attracted and lost so much high-level attention, and (2) what the Schlagintweits' successes and failures tell us about British and German science in the middle (...) of the 19th century. (shrink)

A portfolio-resampling procedure invented by Richard and Robert Michaud is a subject of highly controversial discussion and big scientific dispute. It has been evaluated in many empirical studies and Monte Carlo experiments. Apart from the contradictory findings, the Michaud approach still lacks a theoretical foundation. I prove that portfolio resampling has a strong foundation in the classic theory of rational behavior. Every noise trader could do better by applying the Michaud procedure. By contrast, a signal trader who has enough (...) prediction power and risk-management skills should refrain from portfolio resampling. The key note is that in most simulation studies, investors are considered as noise traders. This explains why portfolio resampling performs well in simulation studies, but could be mediocre in real life. (shrink)

IN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF HIS BOOK Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, Robert Pasnau takes a position in a longstanding debate concerning the metaphysical status and the epistemological role of sensible forms in Aquinas’s theory of cognition. His main claim is that Aquinas was a materialist about sensation and developed “a theory of the sort that a modern materialist could love.”.

This collection of essays provides an exemplary overview of the diversity and relevance of current scholarship on German Idealism. The importance of German Idealism for contemporary philosophy has received growing attention and acknowledgment throughout competing fields of contemporary philosophy. Part of the growing interest rests on the claim that the works of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel remain of considerable interest for cultural studies, sociology, theology, aesthetics and other areas of interest. In the domain of philosophy, the renaissance of innovative readings (...) of German Idealism has taken scholarly debates beyond merely antiquarian perspectives. This renaissance has been a major factor of current efforts to bridge the gap between so-called “analytic” and so-called “continental” philosophy. The volume provides a selection of well-chosen examples of readings that contribute to systematic treatments of philosophical problems. It contains contributions by Markus Gabriel, Robert Pippin, Anders Moe Rasmussen, Sebastian Rödl. (shrink)

Em Anarquia, Estado e Utopia, Robert Nozick defende um Estado mínimo ao qual não deve ser dado o direito de redistribuir a propriedade que já foi distribuída pelos individuos. Nozick se apoia na ideia de estado de natureza tal como Locke propôs no Segundo Tratado Sobre o Governo, aproveitando, inclusive, a maneira de Locke fundamentar a propriedade privada. Locke explicou o direito natural à propriedade por meio do trabalho para superar uma crítica que Robert Filmer havia dirigido a (...) Hugo Grotius anos antes. Grotuis considerava haver, originalmente, um direito comum à posse dos bens e defendia que a propriedade privada surgiu a partir de um contrato entre os indivíduos. Filmer colocou em dúvida que um contrato para dividir a propriedade pudesse ter sido firmado entre todos ao mesmo tempo. Locke também defendia a propriedade privada a partir da propriedade comum, mas precisava superar a objeção que Filmer havia dirigido a Grotius. Nesse sentido surge a ideia de trabalho como fundamentador da propriedade privada, pois é o trabalho que a legitima em vez do contrato. Nozick, apesar de uma longa análise sobre a teoria da aquisição de Locke, em que discorre, inclusive, sobre o papel do trabalho no surgimento da propriedade privada, afirma que Locke pensava os bens naturais originalmente sem dono, quando, na verdade, para Locke eles eram propriedade comum a todos. O propósito do presente texto é elencar e avaliar algumas possíveis consequências desse pequeno equívoco interpretativo. (shrink)

Whilst agreeing with Robert Pippin that Hegel undertakes his philosophical enterprise in light of Kant's insights into the failings of pre-critical metaphysics, this paper outlines the shortcomings of Pippin's Hegel interpretation by contrasting what I call 'apperceptive idealism' on the one hand with 'transcendental ontology' on the other. By privileging subject over substance, Pippin commits Hegel to an ontologically modest form of Kantianism that, in missing how reality as a whole is the main topic of Hegel’s philosophy, leaves no (...) room for a crucial Hegelian task, namely accounting for the presence of self-conscious thinking in nature. Appreciating the nature of Hegel's true ambitions whilst remaining aware of how his Logic maps a 'realm of shadows', opens up the possibility of understanding his philosophy as forging a middle path: Hegel is neither the subjective idealist of Pippin's interpretation nor the advocate of a revival of first-order metaphysical theorising depicted by so many of Pippin's critics. (shrink)

In The Devil and Philosophy, 34 philosophers explore questions about one of the most recognizable and influential characters (villains?) of all time. From Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion to Bram Stoker's Dracula to Darth Vader to Al Pacino's iconic performance in The Devil's Advocate, this book demonstrates that a little devil goes a long way. From humorous appearances, as in Kevin Smith's film Dogma and Chuck Palahniuk's novels Damned and Doomed, to more villainous (...) appearances, such as Gabriel Byrne's cold outing as Satan in End of Days, The Devil in Philosophy proves that the Devil comes in many forms. Are there any good arguments for the actual existence of the Devil? Does demonic evil thrive in Gotham City? Can humans really be accountable for all evil? Which truths about the Devil are actual facts? Is Milton correct, in that the Devil believes he is doing good? Through the lenses of Jung, Kant, Kundera, Balkan, Plato, Bradwardine, Aristotle, Hume, Blackburn, Descartes, Lavey, Thoreau, and Aquinas, The Devil and Philosophy takes a philosophical look at one of time's greatest characters. (shrink)