I explore some of the ways that assumptions about the nature of substance shape metaphysical debates about the structure of Reality. Assumptions about the priority of substance play a role in an argument for monism, are embedded in certain pluralist metaphysical treatments of laws of nature, and are central to discussions of substantivalism and relationalism. I will then argue that we should reject such assumptions and collapse the categorical distinction between substance and property.

Causation is at once familiar and mysterious. Neither common sense nor extensive philosophical debate has led us to anything like agreement on the correct analysis of the concept of causation, or an account of the metaphysical nature of the causal relation. Causation: A User's Guide cuts a clear path through this confusing but vital landscape. L. A. Paul and Ned Hall guide the reader through the most important philosophical treatments of causation, negotiating the terrain by taking a set of examples (...) as landmarks. They clarify the central themes of the debate about causation, and cover questions about causation involving omissions or absences, preemption and other species of redundant causation, and the possibility that causation is not transitive. Along the way, Paul and Hall examine several contemporary proposals for analyzing the nature of causation and assess their merits and overall methodological cogency.The book is designed to be of value both to trained specialists and those coming to the problem of causation for the first time. It provides the reader with a broad and sophisticated view of the metaphysics of the causal relation. (shrink)

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

Книга предназначена для исследователей, специалистов, преподавателей, аспирантов, студентов, а также всех тех, кто интересуется вопросами философии.

Few diagnoses present as great a challenge to one's life as cancer. Many men each year are confronted with a diagnosis of early stage prostate cancer and find themselves making decisions about treatment in the face of side effects that present often devastating effects, including problems controlling one's urine and an inability to perform sexually. In this paper, we explore the narratives of men who, having chosen and undergone treatment for early stage prostate cancer, are living with the consequences. Faced (...) with what Charmaz calls an ‘identity dilemma’, how do these men linguistically construct their identities in the face of challenges to their bodily, personal, and social integrity? Drawing upon theories of social languages and Discourses, we examine how men linguistically resolve the identity dilemmas they encounter and in turn construct an identity in response to a question about the quality of their lives in the face of the adverse event of prostate cancer. We present an analysis of the interview narratives of two men and show how they ‘re-collage’ an identity in the face of fundamental changes in their functioning as men. We argue that these men draw upon alternative discourses to construct themselves as whole, competent, and ‘no less a man'. (shrink)

I claim that Mill has a theory of poetry which he uses to reconcile nineteenth century associationist psychology, the tendency of the intellect to dissolve associations, and the need for educated members of society to desire utilitarian ends. The heart of the argument is that Mill thinks reading poetry encourages us to feel the feelings of others, and thus to develop pleasurable associations with the pleasurable feelings of others and painful associations with the painful feelings of others. Once the associations (...) are developed, they are supported and maintained by our natural capacity for sympathy and by external elements in society, and provide motivation for the pursuit of utilitarian ends. Further, the additional support causes the associations to be strengthened to the extent that they come to be seen as ‘natural and necessary’, and as such are immune from the dissolving force of the intellect. (shrink)

The term fuzzy logic is used in this paper to describe an imprecise logical system, FL, in which the truth-values are fuzzy subsets of the unit interval with linguistic labels such as true, false, not true, very true, quite true, not very true and not very false, etc. The truth-value set, , of FL is assumed to be generated by a context-free grammar, with a semantic rule providing a means of computing the meaning of each linguistic truth-value in as a (...) fuzzy subset of [0, 1].Since is not closed under the operations of negation, conjunction, disjunction and implication, the result of an operation on truth-values in requires, in general, a linguistic approximation by a truth-value in . As a consequence, the truth tables and the rules of inference in fuzzy logic are (i) inexact and (ii) dependent on the meaning associated with the primary truth-value true as well as the modifiers very, quite, more or less, etc. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Psychedelics have again become a subject of widespread interest, owing to the reinvigoration of research into their traditional uses, possible medical applications, and social implications. As evidence for psychedelics' clinical potential mounts, the field has increasingly focused on searching for mechanisms to explain the effects of psychedelics and therapeutic efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). This paper reviews three general frameworks that encompass several prominent models for understanding psychedelics' effects—specifically, neurobiological, psychological, and spiritual frameworks. Following our review, the implications of each (...) framework for ethics and professional competencies in the implementation of psychedelics as medicines are explored. We suggest that interdisciplinary education may be necessary to improve communication between researchers, develop models that effectively incorporate multiple levels of analysis, and facilitate collaboration between professionals with diverse backgrounds in the implementation of psychedelic medicines. We also address pitfalls associated with overemphasis on neuro-mechanisms, risks associated with instigating vulnerable states of consciousness, and hurdles associated with the integration of spiritual frameworks in medicine. Ultimately, as psychedelics push the boundaries of explanatory frameworks focused on one level of analysis, developing new and more useful models to reflect knowledge being produced in this field should be a central aim of psychedelic science going forward. (shrink)

Chercher à établir un commun, ou ce qui est commun à l’humanité, est une question qui bien souvent trouve comme seule résolution une définition claire de l’être humain, doté de caractéristiques et de facultés déterminées. Cette démarche nourrissant déjà amplement le débat philosophique, nous nous concentrerons plutôt sur une reconsidération du problème de la détermination de ce que pourrait être la communauté humaine. Notre travail de recherche a pour objet la nécessité et l’obligation chez K...

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

The question I want to explore is whether experience supports an antireductionist ontology of time, that is, whether we should take it to support an ontology that includes a primitive, monadic property of nowness responsible for the special feel of events in the present, and a relation of passage that events instantiate in virtue of literally passing from the future, to the present, and then into the past.

Critics of contemporary metaphysics argue that it attempts to do the hard work of science from the ease of the armchair. Physics, not metaphysics, tells us about the fundamental facts of the world, and empirical psychology is best placed to reveal the content of our concepts about the world. Exploring and understanding the world through metaphysical reflection is obsolete. In this paper, I will show why this critique of metaphysics fails, arguing that metaphysical methods used to make claims about the (...) world are similar to scientific methods used to make claims about the world, but that the subjects of metaphysics are not the subjects of science. Those who argue that metaphysics uses a problematic methodology to make claims about subjects better covered by natural science get the situation exactly the wrong way around: metaphysics has a distinctive subject matter, not a distinctive methodology. The questions metaphysicians address are different from those of scientists, but the methods employed to develop and select theories are similar. In the first section of the paper, I will describe the sort of subject matter that metaphysics tends to engage with. In the second section of the paper, I will show how metaphysical theories are classes of models and discuss the roles of experience, common sense and thought experiments in the construction and evaluation of such models. Finally, in the last section I will discuss the way these methodological points help us to understand the metaphysical project. Getting the right account of the metaphysical method allows us to better understand the relationship between science and metaphysics, to explain why doing metaphysics successfully involves having a range of different theories, to understand the role of thought experiments involving fictional worlds, and to situate metaphysical realism in a scientifically realist context. (shrink)

As you face a life-defining change, you might ask yourself: Who will I become? This can be understood as a question about the nature and character of your future life, asked from your first person, or subjective, perspective. The nature and character of your conscious, first person, lived experience is a defining constituent of what it is like to be you. Framed this way, knowing the nature of your future lived experience is a way of knowing your future self. In (...) this paper, I explore this way of understanding one’s self and its implications for understanding life-defining changes in high-stakes contexts. My exploration of this way of understanding one’s self highlights the role of experience in grasping perceptual truths, and the importance of imagination, empathy, and testimony in self-understanding and prediction. (shrink)

Cet article se concentre sur le jeu de danse d’une petite fille de neuf ans, filmé par elle-même dans la cour d’une école primaire écossaise, en 2018. Olivia incorpore dans son jeu des objets numériques, non numériques, et son environnement, passant de la sélection de chansons sur un téléphone à la danse avec la caméra, au jeu avec le vent, et à la manipulation d’un cône de signalisation. Elle créé un espace de jeu personnel au milieu de l’espace commun, marqué (...) par la musique, le mouvement, les objets et elle-même. Cet article examine comment, à travers ce processus de danse ludique, Olivia met en scène son enfance genrée au féminin, dans sa façon d’interagir avec les gens, l’espace et les objets. Olivia s’inscrit ainsi dans la tradition du jeu dansé des filles. Mais dans la cour post-numérique, les objets numériques deviennent une partie de son jeu, suivant une autre tradition enfantine du jeu, le “bricolage”, dans lequel les enfants utilisent le monde qui les entoure, à travers le temps et l’espace. (shrink)

Summary of Transformative Experience by L.A. Paul and replies to symposiasts. Discussion of undefined values, preference change, authenticity, experiential value, collective minds, mind control.

يقدم المؤلف لنا قانونا اجتماعيًا لعلماء النفس والاجتماع السياسي صاغه كالآتي: (إذا زاد عدد الأفراد الذين يمارسون تصرّفًا يعدّ خزيًا، وتساهل القانون في محاسبة مرتكبيه، وعجز الناس عن إيقافه أو وجدوا له تبريرًا، تحوّل إلى ظاهرة ولم يعد خزيًا كما كان). و من هذه العبارة التقديمية يمكن أن نؤكد أن هذا الكتاب لا يمكن إيفاءه حقه بنبذة موجزة، فهو سفر فكري ممتع، حيث يتناول المؤلف فيه بشكل تحليلي وعلمي مقنع أهم الموضوعات التي تشغل العقل العربي، ما بين شخصيات سياسية كصدام (...) وسليماني، وما بين فكرة الموت والانتحار، والبغاء والجريمة، والالحاد والإيمان، واللاوعي الجمعي العربي وما يحمله من أمراض وانحرافات، والتحرش والكبت، والفساد والسلطة، واللغة العربية والحضارة. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the spatiotemporalist approach way of modeling the fundamental constituents, structure, and composition of the world has taken a wrong turn. Spatiotemporalist approaches to fundamental structure take the fundamental nature of the world to be spatiotemporal: they take the category of spatiotemporal to be fundamental. I argue that the debates over the nature of the fundamental space in the physics show us that (i) the fact that it is conceivable that the manifest world could be (...) exactly as it appears to us, even though spatiotemporal entities are not fundamental, means that a central premise of spatiotemporalism, that we may assume, given ordinary experience, that the world is fundamentally spatiotemporal, is false. (ii) Spatiotemporalism must be seen as a contingent, a posteriori physical truth. Finally, (iii) I argue that a metaphysically deeper conclusion follows from the debate over the nature of the fundamental space. The debate in physics over which sort of space is the fundamental space suggests that physicists have discovered that, even if a spacetime is an actual constituent of the world-space category, there is a world-space category that is more fundamental than the category of spacetime. (shrink)

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e. directed-towards or away from the viewer) might impact defensive responses in humans, participants were shown pictures of a man carrying a gun (threat) or nonlethal object (neutral) directed-away from or towards the participant. Cardiac and electrodermal responses were collected. Compared to neutral images, threatening images depicting a gun directed-towards the (...) participant induced sustained bradycardia and an increased electrodermal response, interpreted as immobility under attack. This defensive immobility reaction is evoked by high perceived threat and inescapable situations and indicates intense action preparation. Pictures of guns directed-away from the participant induced shorter bradycardia and no significant modulation of the electrodermal response compared to neutral pictures, which might be consistent with the perception of a less threatening situation. The results show that the directionality of threat stimuli is a key factor that prompts different patterns of defensive responses. (shrink)

De 1815 - avec le Congrès de Vienne qui inaugure une ère de Restauration - à mars 1848, avec les répercussions de la révolution de février en Europe, la période du Vormârz ("avant mars") se caractérise, au sein du monde germanique, par une vie intellectuelle d'une particulière effervescence. Les grandes philosophies qui se sont construites pour dépasser Kant, avec Fichte, Schelling et Hegel, autorisent bon nombre de penseurs allemands à considérer l'Allemagne comme étant philosophiquement en avance sur son temps, ou (...) tout au moins à la pointe de la modernité. Cette avance théorique tranche pourtant avec la réalité politique et sociale de l'époque, façonnée par Metternich. Une solution de cette contradiction dans laquelle se trouve l'Allemagne semble alors résider, aux yeux de certains auteurs, dans l'idée suivant laquelle il ne resterait plus à l'Allemagne qu'à réaliser sa philosophie. Le présent ouvrage entend contribuer à l'analyse de la façon dont le thème de la réalisation de la philosophie est élaboré par, ou à partir des réflexions de plusieurs auteurs de l'époque. Il s'agit des Jeunes Hégéliens, et principalement : Eduard Gans, Heinrich Heine, Arnold Ruge, Ludwig Feuerbach, Max Stirner, David Strauss, les frères Bruno et Edgar Bauer, Moses Hess, Michel Bakounine, August von Cieszkowski, Karl Marx et Friedrich Engels."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

It would be no exaggeration to say that our art is presently undergoing a revolutionary stage in its development. The revolutionary renewal that has seized all spheres of life is being ever more forcefully represented in artistic culture as well. That culture is beginning to free itself from bureaucratic regimentation, incompetent pressure from above, inflated authorities, lifeless cliches, and opportunism of the moment. Art is actively seeking its place in perestroika, and is in turn in many respects defining the moral (...) climate of perestroika. Recent works such as Fire [Pozhar] by V. Rasputin, the Sad Detective Story [Pechal'nyi detektiv] by V. Astaf'ev, The Execution Block [Plakha] by Ch. Aitmatov, the paintings of G. Korzhev and V. Sidorov, the sculpture of V. Klykov, etc., are actively working for renewal. (shrink)

Recent work in philosophy could benefit from paying greater attention to empirical results from cognitive science involving judgments about the nature of our ordinary experience. This paper describes the way that experimental and theoretical results about the nature of ordinary judgments could—and should—inform certain sorts of enquiries in contemporary philosophy, using metaphysics as an exemplar, and hence defines a new way for experimental philosophy and cognitive science to contribute to traditional philosophical debates.

It is often claimed that the intentions of physicians are multiple, ambiguous, and uncertain—at least with respect to end-of-life care. This claim provides support for the conclusion that the principle of double effect is of little or no value as a guide to end-of-life pain management. This paper critically discusses this claim. It argues that proponents of the claim fail to distinguish two different senses of “intention,” and that, as a result, they are led to exaggerate the extent to which (...) clinical intentions in end-of-life contexts are ambiguous and uncertain. It argues further that physicians, like others who make life and death decisions, have a duty to get clear on what their intentions are. Finally, it argues that even if the principle of double effect should be rejected, clinical intentions remain ethically significant because they condition the meaning of extraordinary clinical interventions, such as that of palliative sedation. (shrink)

A theory of the causal relate as aspects or property instances is developed. A supposed problem for transitivity is assessed and then resolved with aspects as the causal relata.