Nicholas of Cusa and his daringly speculative theology seem odd matches for Blaise Pascal, the constant critic of the philosophies en vogue during his life. A commonality they share is their mutual concern for the apparent disproportion between the infinite God and the finite human. In this paper, I compare and analyse the shape this question takes in Cusanus's De ludo globi and Pascal's Pensées. Both men observe a sort of ‘ludic’ character inherent to the pursuit of bridging finite and (...) infinite. Cusanus's ‘ball game’ realises the universe and the human being's pursuit of salvation as a circular field in which the player seeks to reach the vanishing point of its centre. Pascal likewise portrays human life as a cosmic game that everyone must ‘play’ with their ethical decisions. Ultimately, they both come to register Christ as the agent and object of their games, the divine player who fashions finitude into infinity. I conclude by sketching a way to reconcile Pascal with natural theology based on his universal game. (shrink)

Deacon’s target article is a welcome contribution not only on “biological information” but, more generally, on representation in cognitive science. Some kind of explanation and justification for use of the terms “representation” and “interpretant” for primordial autogen system would be helpful. A connection between the notions of “information” and “representation” can be elaborated more in this respect.

Ethical education should help students become more sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of others. However, the field is dominated by the teaching of moral values as a subject-matter, or by the fostering of character traits in students, or by moral reasoning. This book proposes an alternative to these limited moralistic approaches. It places human relationships at the core of ethical education, in its understanding of both ethics and education. With contributions from renowned international scholars, this approach is laid out (...) in three parts. Part I develops the underlying theory of ethics and education; Part II focuses on the relevant pedagogical principles, and Part III provides illustrations of emergent innovative ethical educational practices in worldwide schools. Against a backdrop of divisiveness and apathy, the innovative practices described in this book show how a new vision for ethical education might be centred around caring for students' well-being. (shrink)

How the various things that are said to have meaning—purpose, natural signs, linguistic signs, perceptions, and thoughts—are related to one another.

The latter part of the twentieth century saw the Chinese economy moving towards a socialist market economy rather than a planned system. Despite growing interest in Chinese business ethics, little work has examined ethical issues concerning the Chinese sales force. This study draws from existing work on Chinese and Western business and sales ethics to develop hypotheses regarding the perceptions of unethical selling behaviour of modern Chinese salespeople. A survey of Chinese sales executives is conducted and statistically analysed. Results are (...) compared with those reported in previous US-based research with regard to differences in perceptions of unethical selling behaviour. The results indicate that contemporary Chinese salespeople were more favourably disposed than expected towards unethical selling behaviour, and also more favourably disposed than previously studied US salespeople. Younger Chinese salespeople evaluated unethical behaviours more favourably than older ones. The results are discussed, along with implications for theory, practice and future work. (shrink)

“Teleosemantics and Pushmi-Pullyu Representations” (call it “TP-PR,” this journal 2014 79.3, 545–566) argues that core teleosemantics, particularly as defined in Millikan (Language, thought and other biological categories, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1984, J Philos 86(6):281–297, 1989, White queen psychology and other essays for Alice, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1993, Philosophical perspectives, Ridgeview Publishing, Alascadero, 1996, Varieties of meaning, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2004–2008), seems to imply that all descriptive representations are at the same time directive and that directives are at the same time (...) descriptive, hence that all representations are pushmi-pullyu representations. A pushmi-pullyu representation is at once indicative and imperative, telling both what the case is and what to do about it. The usefulness at all of the notion of a pushmi-pullyu representation is then questioned. I have recently found several new papers, dissertations, discussions, in which TP-PR is treated as definitive. However, the conclusions of TP-PR rest on misunderstandings of my position, so although the date is late, clarification seems still to be in order. I will indicate a few significant corrections that need to be made to TP-PR’s description of my position (originally called “biosemantics”) and explain central features of biosemantics that are omitted in TP-PR’s description of basic teleosemantics and which are incompatible with the main argument and conclusions of TP-PR. I will try to clarify and explain the value of the notion of a pushmi-pullyu representation. (shrink)

Objective correlates—behavioral, functional, and neural—provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the ‘fallacy of misplaced objectivity’: the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically— its subjective properties—not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be magical (...) rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do. (shrink)

Adam Smith sought to explain the persistence of slavery as an institution in Wealth of Nations and Lectures on Jurispridence. In order to accomplish this he also drew on arguments he had developed in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The result was a sophisticated explanation which bridged economic, psychological, and moral considerations. After presenting Smith’s explanation I will consider a discussion of the moral wrong of slavery in Ottobah Cugoano, the author of the incisive criticism of the slave trade Thoughts (...) and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787). I will suggest that Cugoano’s account of what is morally wrong in slavery shows an important lacuna in Smith‘s views. (shrink)

Sainsbury and Tye (2011) propose that, in the case of names and other simple extensional terms, we should substitute for Frege's second level of content—for his senses—a second level of meaning vehicle—words in the language of thought. I agree. They also offer a theory of atomic concept reference—their ‘originalist’ theory—which implies that people knowing the same word have the ‘same concept’. This I reject, arguing for a symmetrical rather than an originalist theory of concept reference, claiming that individual concepts are (...) possessed only by individual people. Concepts are classified rather than identified across different people. (shrink)

I discuss a stochastic model of language learning and change. During a syntactic change, each speaker makes use of constructions from two different idealized grammars at variable rates. The model incorporates regularization in that speakers have a slight preference for using the dominant idealized grammar. It also includes incrementation: The population is divided into two interacting generations. Children can detect correlations between age and speech. They then predict where the population’s language is moving and speak according to that prediction, which (...) represents a social force encouraging children not to sound out-dated. Both regularization and incrementation turn out to be necessary for spontaneous language change to occur on a reasonable time scale and run to completion monotonically. Chance correlation between age and speech may be amplified by these social forces, eventually leading to a syntactic change through prediction-driven instability. (shrink)

If the quasi-realist wants to earn the right to talk like a moral realist, he needs to be able to make sense of moral error. A special form of error—fundamental moral error—is often thought to be u...

In a new interpretation, Garrett Wallace Brown considers Kant's cosmopolitan thought as a form of international constitutional jurisprudence that requires minimal legal demands. He explores and defends topics such as cosmopolitan law, cosmopolitan right, the laws of hospitality, a Kantian federation of states, a cosmopolitan epistemology of culture and a possible normative basis for a Kantian form of global distributive justice.

We present a self-organizing approach to sentence processing that sheds new light on notional plurality effects in agreement attraction, using pseudopartitive subject noun phrases. We first show that notional plurality ratings predict verb agreement choices in pseudopartitives, in line with the “Marking” component of the Marking and Morphing theory of agreement processing. However, no account to date has derived notional plurality values from independently needed principles of language processing. We argue on the basis of new experimental evidence and a dynamical (...) systems model that the theoretical black box of notional plurality can be unpacked into objectively measurable semantic features. With these semantic features driving structure formation, our model reproduces the human verb production patterns as a byproduct of normal processing. Finally, we discuss how the self-organizing approach might be extended to other agreement attraction phenomena. (shrink)

At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are... confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.".

Weak particularism about reasons is the view that the normative valency of some descriptive considerations varies, while others have an invariant normative valency. A defence of this view needs to respond to arguments that a consideration cannot count in favour of any action unless it counts in favour of every action. But it cannot resort to a global holism about reasons, if it claims that there are some examples of invariant valency. This paper argues for weak particularism, and presents a (...) framework for understanding the relationships between practical reasons. A central part of this framework is the idea that there is an important kind of reason-a 'presumptive reason'-which need not be conclusive, but which is neither pro tanto nor prima facie. /// [Richard Holton] Should particularists about ethics claim that moral principles are never true? Or should they rather claim that any finite set of principles will not be sufficient to capture ethics? This paper explores and defends the possibility of embracing the second of these claims whilst rejecting the first, a position termed 'principled particularism'. The main argument that particularists present for their position-the argument that holds that any moral conclusion can be superseded by further considerations-is quite compatible with principled particularism; indeed, it is compatible with the idea that every true moral conclusion can be shown to follow deductively from a finite set of premises. Whilst it is true that these premises must contain implicit ceteris paribus clauses, this does not render the arguments trivial. On the contrary, they can do important work in justifying moral conclusions. Finally the approach is briefly applied to the related field of jurisprudence. (shrink)

Some have thought that the plausibility of teleosemantics requires that it yield a determinate answer to the question of what the semantic “content” is of the “representation” triggered in the optic nerve of a frog that spots a fly. An outsize literature has resulted in which, unfortunately, a number of serious confusions and omissions that concern the way teleosemantics would have to work have appeared and been passed on uncorrected leaving a distorted and simplistic picture of the teleosemantic position. I (...) will speak to a half dozen of the worst of these misunderstandings and then say just a word about the frog question itself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Glen Pettigrove’s ‘What Virtue Adds to Value’ maintains that sometimes virtue is fundamental in the order of value, and that we should reject the general thesis that the value of our responses depends on their proportionality to the value of the objects toward which they are directed. He argues that this view is needed to account for the moral phenomena surrounding love, forgiveness and ambition. I object that his view is unable to explain the forms of discrimination that distinguish (...) the good kinds of love, forgiveness and ambition from the bad ones; and that explaining this requires a version of the proportionality thesis he opposes. (shrink)

A familiar part of ordinary moral thought is this idea: when other people are doing something worthwhile together, there is a reason for you to join in on the same terms as them. Morality does not tell you that you must always do this; but it exerts some pressure on you to join in. Suppose we take this idea seriously: just how should it be developed and applied? More particularly, just which groups and which actions are the ones with respect (...) to which you have participatory moral reasons? And just when is it wrong not to join in? I present answers to these questions, and discuss the implications—including for joint action on a very large scale, like global efforts to address climate change or fight a pandemic. (shrink)

Bruineberg and colleagues highlight work using Markov blankets to demarcate the bounds of the mind. This echoes earlier attempts to demarcate the bounds of the mind from a dynamical systems perspective. Advocates of mechanistic explanation have challenged the dynamical approach to independently motivate the application of the formalism, a challenge that Markov blanket theorists must also meet.

We’ve seen a significant increase in the attention AI research is receiving this past decade, in large part due to some of the impressive feats of machine learning, particularly deep learning. This has resulted in something of a hype in the ability of AI’s in tackling various issues. The aim of the current essay is to examine the speculative questions “what would it mean for systems to transition from merely intelligently executing a task to knowledgably executing a task?” and “what (...) is the relation between consciousness and intelligence, such that specific evaluations about conscious AI might be made?” We offer what we hope is a roadmap for how to navigate asking these questions and a route forward in understanding how AI goes from intelligence to knowledge and potentially to some types of consciousness. (shrink)

The failure to understand the needs, beliefs, and values of others is widely blamed on a lack of empathy, which has been touted in recent years as the necessary ingredient for bringing us together and ultimately for tackling issues of social justice and harmony. In this essay, I explore whether empathy really can serve the role it has been tasked with. To answer this question, I will first identify what empathy is and why its champions believe it plays such an (...) essential role in social life. With this in mind, I contend that promoting empathy on its own may make solidarity among diverse populations more difficult to achieve and undermine social reconciliation. Instead, I argue for a different approach that begins with acknowledging our self-oriented perspective and how it shapes what we see, appreciate, and interpret, before turning to others with a kind of loving attention. Unlike empathy, loving attention allows us to see others as they really are, not as we imagine we would be in their shoes, and is that kind of perception that is necessary for bridging divides and building solidarity in our contemporary world. (shrink)

Examining Seneca’s account of friendship produces an interpretative puzzle: if the good of the Stoic sage is already both complete and self-sufficient, how can friendship be a good? I reject the solution that friendship is simply a preferred indifferent instead of a good and argue that though Seneca’s account can consistently explain both why friendship’s nature as a good does not threaten the completeness or the self-sufficiency of the sage, Stoic friends must choose between intimate friendships that leave them vulnerable (...) or impersonal friendships that lack intimacy but do not undermine their happiness. The consistent Stoic must choose the latter, but I argue that this conflict shows why we ought to reject the Stoic model of friendship. (shrink)

Written by one of today's most creative and innovative philosophers, Ruth Garrett Millikan, this book examines basic empirical concepts; how they are acquired, how they function, and how they have been misrepresented in the traditional philosophical literature. Millikan places cognitive psychology in an evolutionary context where human cognition is assumed to be an outgrowth of primitive forms of mentality, and assumed to have 'functions' in the biological sense. Of particular interest are her discussions of the nature of abilities as (...) different from dispositions, her detailed analysis of the psychological act of reidentifying substances, and her critique of the language of thought for mental representation. In a radical departure from current philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, this book provides the first in-depth discussion on the psychological act of reidentification. (shrink)

This contribution investigates the first treatise on natural theology intended as such by its author. Nicholas Bonetus is the author of this treatise. The article examines Bonetus' life, works, and commitment to Scotism before surveying Duns Scotus' views on natural theology. Scotus is shown to have been optimistic regarding whether some doctrines now regarded to be strictly theological, such as the Trinity, can be proven by pure reason. Bonetus followed in Scotus' footsteps. The article surveys Bonetus' fundamental ideas on the (...) nature of natural theology. It is shown that he organized the science along the lines of an Aristotelian science, with the result that natural theology has a subject, and attributes that are demonstrated of the subject. The subject according to Bonetus is the first immoveable mover, and the science demonstrates various attributes of God, such as divine intellect and will, from which Bonetus derives the Trinitarian processions. Following the article is an appendix containing descriptions of the manuscripts, where it is shown that the majority do name the text «theologia naturalis». (shrink)

At a time when agri-food biotechnologies are receiving a surge of investment, innovation, and public interest in the United States, it is common to hear both supporters and critics call for open and inclusive dialogue on the topic. Social scientists have a potentially important role to play in these discursive engagements, but the legacy of the intractable genetically modified (GM) food debate calls for some reflection regarding the best ways to shape the norms of that conversation. This commentary argues that (...) agri-food scholars interested in promoting a more constructive agri-food biotechnology discussion could do so by blending key insights, as well as guarding against key shortcomings, from the fields of science communication and science and technology studies (STS). Science communication’s collaborative and translational approach to the public understanding of science has proven pragmatically valuable to scientists in academia, government, and private industry, but it has too often remained wedded to deficit model approaches and struggled to explore deeper questions of public values and corporate power. STS’s critical approach has highlighted the need for multi-stakeholder power-sharing and the integration of diverse knowledge systems into public engagement, but it has done little to grapple with the prevalence of misinformation in movements against GM foods and other agri-food biotechnologies. Ultimately, a better agri-food biotechnology conversation will require a strong foundation in scientific literacy as well as conceptual grounding in the social studies of science. The paper concludes by describing how, with attention to the structure, content, and style of public engagement in the agri-food biotechnology debates, social scientists can play a productive conversational role across a variety of academic, institutional, community-level, and mediated contexts. (shrink)

Kelly Brown Douglas offered two countermeasures to aid ethicists in expanding the moral imaginary of a people: (1) examine critically the work of interlocutors and (2) change our gaze to those voices that have been traditionally refused epistemic authority. This essay explores concrete examples of these countermeasures in theological scholarship.

Mormon Transhumanism is the idea that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is essential to Mormonism, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Mormon Transhumanists are not limited to traditional or popular accounts of religion, and embrace opportunities and risks of technological evolution. Although usually considered secular, Transhumanism originates partly in religious Humanism and sometimes functions as religion. Accelerating change contextualizes Mormon Transhumanist narratives, which illustrate parallels between Mormonism and Transhumanism. (...) Mormon Transhumanists have produced secular arguments for faith in God and religious arguments for Transhumanism. This is a revision and update of “What Is Mormon Transhumanism?”. (shrink)

It is often argued that cosmopolitanism faces unique motivational constraints, asking more of individuals than they are able to give. This ‘motivational problem’ is held to pose a significant challenge to cosmopolitanism, as it appears unable to transform its moral demands into motivated political action. This article develops a novel response to the motivational problem facing cosmopolitanism, arguing that self-interest, alongside appeals to sentiment, can play a vital and neglected, transitional role in moving towards an expanded cosmopolitical condition. The article (...) explicates the ‘motivational problem’, analyses the relationship between self-interest and sentimental cosmopolitanism in addressing it, and develops a series of claims that self-interest can be one important component in what we label as ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’. In doing so, we argue that self-interested motivations can be compatible with sentiment-based approaches, rendering them more plausible. In addition, two expected critiques of self-interested ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’ are tackled: (A) That it cannot address feasibility constraints, and (B) That self-interested motivations cannot meet what an ‘authentic’ cosmopolitanism entails. We refute and challenge these critiques and outline three conditions in which self-interest can advance a transitional form of cosmopolitanism, while also being compatible with cosmopolitanism writ large. (shrink)

The political upheavals of China's Warring States period proved to be intellectually fertile, giving rise to one of history's greatest flowerings of political philosophy. The most eminent thinkers of the day sought to articulate models for good government amidst the ruins of the Zhou dynasty. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, appears to many readers to eschew these political questions. In this article, however, I contend that the Zhuangzi has a more practical political teaching than has often been appreciated. It is (...) intended to help others to navigate the treacherous political waters in which they might well find themselves, particularly in an era of profound instability, by teaching them how to understand their own... (shrink)

Standard ways of conceptualizing moral development and measuring pedagogical interventions in ethics classes privilege the growth of moral judgment over moral sensitivity, moral motivation, and moral habits by too often conflating improvement in moral judgment with holistic moral development. I argue here that if we care about students’ construction and cultivation of their ethical selves, our assessment design principles ought to take seriously the transformative possibilities of philosophy as a way of life and be based on a more robust and (...) holistic account of moral development. I illustrate these principles of assessment design through an examination of the Character Project, which I created to help students engage in their own deliberate ethical transformation through self-directed, individualized, and concentrated practice. Finally, I conclude with a discussion about how to appropriately and fairly assess this kind of deeply personal learning. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. By Hans Jonas.

For Aristotle, some wrongdoers do not deserve blame, and the virtuous judge should extend sungnōmē, a correct judgment about what is equitable, under the appropriate excusing circumstances. Aristotle’s virtuous judge, however, does not forgive; the wrongdoer is excused from blame in the first place, rather than being forgiven precisely because she is blameworthy. Additionally, the judge does not fail to blame because she wishes to be merciful or from natural feeling, but instead, because that is the equitable action to take (...) under the circumstances. Moreover, while Aristotle does claim in his discussions of the virtues of megalopsychia and praotēs that the virtuous person will sometimes fail to become angry at blameworthy wrongdoers, Aristotle’s reasons for repudiating anger or forestalling blame have little to do with the sorts of reasons that one would or could be forgiving for. Although an Aristotelian virtuous agent does let go of anger for her own reasons, she does not forgive. As a result, I argue that since Aristotle’s account of equity entails that forgiveness is positively vicious, forgivingness is not merely a virtue left out of Aristotle’s account, but is in fact incompatible with his account. (shrink)

The Ockhamist claims that our ability to do otherwise is not endangered by God’s foreknowledge because facts about God’s past beliefs regarding future contingents are soft facts about the past—i.e., temporally relational facts that depend in some sense on what happens in the future. But if our freedom, given God’s foreknowledge, requires altering some fact about the past that is clearly a hard fact, then Ockhamism fails even if facts about God’s past beliefs are soft. Recent opponents of Ockhamism, including (...) David Widerker and Peter van Inwagen, have argued along precisely these lines. Their arguments, if successful, would undermine Ockhamism while avoiding the controversy over the alleged softness of facts about God’s past beliefs. But these arguments do not succeed. The past facts they rely on must be clear and uncontroversial examples of hard facts about the past, and these facts must be such that an ability to refrain from the relevant future action implies an ability to alter the relevant hard fact. We demonstrate the flaw in these arguments by showing how they rely on past facts that do not satisfy these criteria. The Ockhamist may have troubles, but this type of argument is not one of them. (shrink)

This book introduces the field of hermeneutics through a critique of military operations in Afghanistan. Following a brief survey of modern political history of the country, the authors examine the link between cultural factors and the inefficiency of nation-building operations. Additionally, the project discusses contending academic approaches to culture, and identifies shortcomings in their theoretical propositions for military operations in failed states. Ultimately, this volume contextualizes the evolution of hermeneutical thinking and the benefits it provides in assessing the transformation of (...) culture through military intervention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Epiphany in Munich LINCOLN PERRY W hen I used to say the sentence (softly and to myself ) “I hate palms” or “Palms are not beautiful; possibly they are not even trees,” it was a composite palm that I had somehow succeeded in making without even ever having seen, close up, many particular instances. Conversely, when I now say, “Palms are beautiful,” or “I love palms,” it (...) is really individual palms that I have in mind. This quote from Elaine Scarry’s On Beauty and Being Just applies perfectly to an experience I recently had regarding a painting by an artist I had assumed I didn’t much care for. Perhaps it would be best to lead into my epiphany gradually, to recreate the preparation that might have been necessary to have my realization. Actually, I speak of a double epiphany, in that it was shared by the friend I was travelling with when we saw the artwork in question. He and I are both painters, and have much in common, both in terms of our own work and our voracious appetite for seeing museums, so when I planned a trip for late October 2018 to see thirty museums in two weeks in Germany and Austria, I knew just whom to call. David Carbone and I have known each other, and appreciated each other’s work, since leaving graduate school in 1975, meeting at the College Art Association held that year in Washington, DC, where people compete for jobs while trying to maintain a veneer of civility. David made less of an effort than most, and I vividly remember him in saddle shoes he had painted bright blue, wearing a tie featuring a burlesque dancer, sipping champagne in the garden courtyard of the National Gallery. All the nearby aspiring art historians were immaculately dressed and scrupulously behaved, but David finished his drink, and in imitation of a arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Russian toast, threw his empty glass against the wall, where it noisily shattered. I like this guy, thought I. Over the next few days, visiting DC’s museums together, I recognized the brilliance of his commentaries on the art we saw. And his wit: He told of studying with his painting professor, who became frustrated with David’s pace in painting and said “David, painting is really very simple!” The reply: “But, what if you’re not simple?” I can’t conjure a single artist about whose work we’ve disagreed in the course of the fortythree years we’ve known each other. Meeting often in New York, where he lives with his wife Donna (who, like my wife, is always perfectly willing to let us go museum schlepping without them), we’ve also travelled in central Italy, and even flew to Fort Worth to see a show of the Le Nain brothers. A very sweet guard there asked us, “Who ARE you?” and when we said we were painters, she said, “Oh, because I’ve never seen anybody look at paintings this long, or talk about them so much!” Berlin is a treasure trove, where we visited ten fine museums, then flew to Vienna, which was hosting an extensive exhibit of Bruegel’s paintings, though feast might be a more apt word. A visual feast, but one that didn’t leave one sated, jaded, or bloated, but rather improved, made less ambivalent about membership in a questionable species. Yes, the viewer consumed a meal of war, famine, foolishness, and pride, but the chef made it not just palatable but beautiful, thought-provoking and humorous. Bruegel and his contemporary Rabelais seem kindred spirits, skeptical but amused, bawdy but tender, creating not just works but micro to macro worlds, an alternate world view, in fact. Each painting mesmerized anyone looking long and carefully enough, discovering that a tiny girl on a sled is able to get a purchase on the ice not just with her diminutive sticks, but by the miniscule iron nails in which they end, painted with a one hair-brush. From this minutia we graduate to a wider and wider view, one that comes to imply infinity. Bruegel’s brilliant guidance doesn’t confront us... (shrink)