It is routinely observed in NLP that sentences seem to “evoke” situations (where I use this term comprehensively to cover events, episodes, eventualities, processes, etc.). Much like discourse entities evoked by explicit noun phrases, these evoked situations can be referred to anaphorically, as for instance in (1) and (3) below, and can be modified in various ways, for instance by supplying their duration and location, as in (2) and (4).

Scientists typically use a variety of representations, including different kinds of figures, to present and defend hypotheses. In order to understand the justification of scientific hypotheses, it is essential to understand how visual representations contribute to scientific arguments. Since the logical understanding of arguments involves the truth or falsity of the representations involved, visual representations must have the capacity to bear truth in order to be genuine components of arguments. By drawing on Goodman's analysis of symbol systems, and on Tarski's (...) work on truth, I show that the figures used in science meet this criterion. (shrink)

According to Weyl, “‘inexhaustibility’ is essential to the infinite”. However, he distinguishes two kinds of inexhaustible, or merely potential, domains: those that are “extensionally determinate” and those that are not. This article clarifies Weyl's distinction and explains its enduring logical and philosophical significance. The distinction sheds lights on the contemporary debate about potentialism, which in turn affords a deeper understanding of Weyl.

Philosophers of perception have a notoriously difficult time trying to account for hallucinatory experiences. One surprisingly quite popular move, and one that cross-cuts the representationalism/relationalism divide, is to say that hallucinations involve an awareness of uninstantiated properties. In this paper, I provide a new argument against this view. Not only are its proponents forced to classify many hallucinations as veridical, such experiences turn out to be necessarily veridical. In addition, I show that representationalists who endorse the uninstantiated property view must (...) reject the common fundamental kind claim and adopt disjunctivism, and naïve realists/relationalists must radically modify their disjunctivism: The distinction between ‘veridical’ and ‘hallucinatory’ will no longer track a metaphysical distinction between the relevant experiences. (shrink)

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason remains one of the most opaque of Kant's published writings. Though this opacity belongs, partly, to the text itself, a key claim of this article is that this opacity stems also from the narrow lenses through which his readers view this text. Often read as part of Kant's moral philosophy or his universal history, the literature has thus far neglected a different vantage point on the Religion, one that does not refute the utility (...) of these lenses but complements them. This paper places the Religion alongside parts of Kant's corpus that it is less typically paired with, namely his natural history writings—in particular, his writings on the concept of race and the development of the human races. I argue that by doing so, we can shed much light on Kant's infamous claim that there is a radical evil in the human species. More precisely, we will come to appreciate that this evil is not, as it is usually understood, a static property or fixed characteristic of human beings. Instead, radical evil concerns a dynamic, changing defect in human nature that increasingly threatens our aspirations to collective moral perfection. (shrink)

Welches Verhältnis besteht zwischen „Bild" und menschlichem Denken? Welche Rolle spielt das Konzept der „Form" im menschlichen Wissen? Forscher aus Philosophie, Kulturwissenschaften, Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Ästhetik, Literatur, Anthropologie, Mathematik und Biologie untersuchen aus historischer und theoretischer Perspektive den Zusammenhang zwischen der Aktivität des Denkens und den Konzepten von Bild und Form.

The Fold is a book of practical philosophy that takes a radical new approach to aesthetics. Laura U. Marks calls this philosophy "enfolding-unfolding aesthetics," based in ideas derived from Gilles Deleuze and others (G.F.W. Leibniz, David Bohm, and Édouard Glissant) that the universe is folded in on itself. She proposes a theory of mediation as contact and connection across the folds and a set of embodied methods for detecting such cosmic connections. In drawing out this aesthetics, Marks considers the (...) embodied and sensuous dimensions of engaging with audiovisual works and works of art-dimensions that Marks suggests are composed of the very folds that compose everything and everyone: all living beings, from humans to particles, sandwiches to stars, technologies, thoughts and images, in the present, the past, and the future. Making use of art and film, with a focus on African diaspora and Arab cinema, Marks opens ways to strengthen connections to the cosmos and to better trace processes of becoming that are immanent within the fold. (shrink)

The volume provides a thorough look into Marina Sbisà’s distinctive, Austinian-inspired approach to speech acts. By gathering original essays from a world-class lineup of philosophers of language, linguists, social epistemologists, action theorists, and communication scholars, the collection provides the first comprehensive critical treatment of Sbisa’s outstanding contribution to speech act theory.

previous theories and the relevance of those criticisms to the new accounts. Additionally, we have included a new section at the end, which gives some directions to literature outside of formal semantics in which the notion of mass has been employed. We looked at work on mass expressions in psycholinguistics and computational linguistics here, and we discussed some research in the history of philosophy and in metaphysics that makes use of the notion of mass.

Predicativity is a notable example of fruitful interaction between philosophy and mathematical logic. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century from methodological and philosophical reflections on a changing concept of set. A clarification of this notion has prompted the development of fundamental new technical instruments, from Russell's type theory to an important chapter in proof theory, which saw the decisive involvement of Kreisel, Feferman and Schütte. The technical outcomes of predica-tivity have since taken a life of their own, (...) but have also produced a deeper understanding of the notion of predicativity, therefore witnessing the " light logic throws on problems in the foundations of mathematics. " (Feferman 1998, p. vii) Predicativity has been at the center of a considerable part of Feferman's work: over the years he has explored alternative ways of explicating and analyzing this notion and has shown that predicative mathematics extends much further than expected within ordinary mathematics. The aim of this note is to outline the principal features of predicativity, from its original motivations at the start of the past century to its logical analysis in the 1950-60's. The hope is to convey why predicativity is a fascinating subject, which has attracted Feferman's attention over the years. (shrink)

Laura Nader is a towering figure as anthropologist, teacher, and public intellectual. Her letters give a glimpse of academic life mostly unseen by academics and by the general public. The collection includes letters from academic colleagues, but it also contains correspondence from lawyers, politicians, citizens, people on death row, Peace Corps workers, members of the military, scientists, and more.

Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and (...) nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species. (shrink)

Neoliberal Techniques of Social Suffering: Political Resistance and Critical Theory from Latin America and Spain is the result of the critical and political commitment of various Latin American and Spanish philosophers who share a critical approach to the global “stealth revolution” in recent decades, where neoliberalism has forced the well-being and reproduction of life to adapt to a system devastating for both humans and non-humans. The authors voice the shared concern of contemporary Spanish and Latin American societies to build new (...) conceptions of the public and the common through mobilizing affects usually disavowed in political theory. If, in Ancient Greece, the idea of strengthening the most vulnerable and weakest was deplored as the art of sophists, this collection edited by Laura Quintana and Nuria Sánchez Madrid explores the other side of our social world to revive grassroots strategies of resistance and emancipation, which are able to bring about new distributions of power, welfare, and discursive legitimation and to extend our goal of creating a radically democratic world. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)

In this paper the exclusive focus on large firms in the field of business ethics is challenged. Some of the idiosyncrasies of small firms are explained, and links are made between these and potential ethical issues. A review of the existing literature on ethics in small firms demonstrates the lack of appropriate research, so that to date we can draw no firm conclusions in relation to ethics in the small firm. Recommendations are made as to the way forward for small (...) firm business ethics research. Questions for investigation are suggested using micro, meso and macro perspectives. Much exploratory work needs to be done to lay the groundwork for this important area of social and commercial research in the future. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem that afflicts Fitting-Attitude analyses of value. I argue that we can distinguish reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind by being clear about what our reasons are for. In Wrong Kind of Reason cases, our reason to have a certain affective attitude is a reason for an action, and it is this category-mistake that is the source of the problem.

The so-called bottoming-out problem is considered one of the most serious problems in Stuart Glennan's mechanistic theory of causality. It is usually argued that such a problem cannot be overcome with the acknowledgement of the non-causal character of fundamental phenomena. According to such a widespread view, in the mechanistic account causation must go all the way down to the bottom level; a solution to the bottoming-out problem, therefore, requires an appeal to an ancillary account of causation that covers fundamental phenomena. (...) In this paper I reconsider the arguments that led to this conclusion and criticize them. I argue that the no-causality-at-the-fundamental-level solution is in harmony with the causal anti-fundamentalism that characterizes the mechanistic theory. Moreover, contrarily to the dualistic solution put forward by Glennan, the no-causality-at-the-fundamental-level is not an ad-hoc solution.Finally, I provide the sketch for an account of the existence of an order in nature at the fundamental level that is consistent with the singularist and ontologically parsimonious spirit of the mechanistic account. (shrink)

We began writing the first edition of this textbook in 2006, soon after a wave of major corporate scandals had shaken the financial world. Headlines made the companies involved in these ethical scandals household names: Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, KPMG, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Salomon Smith Barney. At that time, we suggested that, in light of such significant cases of financial fraud, mismanagement, criminality, and deceit, the relevance of business ethics could no longer be questioned.

Despite the centrality of the term within the title, the meaning of ?care? in residential child care remains largely unexplored. Shifting discourses of residential child care have taken it from the private into the public domain. Using a care ethics perspective, we argue that public care needs to move beyond its current instrumental focus to articulate a broader ontological purpose, informed by what is required to promote children's growth and flourishing. This depends upon the establishment of caring relationships enacted within (...) the lifespaces shared by children and those caring for them. We explore some of the central features of caring in the lifespace and conclude that residential child care is best considered to be a practical/moral endeavour rather than the technical/rational one it has become. It requires morally active, reflexive practitioners and containing environments. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

The price for morality as the meaning of existence is the entrance of another kind of absurdity, a moral absurdity. Clearly, there is something absurd about life on The Good Place. Moral worth, both on The Good Place and in our real‐life existence, comes in degrees. Deontological views, most famously associated with Immanuel Kant, hold that the morality of an action is determined based on whether or not it adheres to a moral rule. Care requires being flexible in different situations (...) so as to best foster caring relationships with others. A care ethics approach would give some support to Eleanor's claims in The Good Place, insofar as a caring home life is essential to the development of the child in a variety of ways. The power of caring relationships is perhaps nowhere more salient than in the show's final few episodes. (shrink)

Why do men and women compete? And what makes them compete more or less? An answer to the first question follows directly from Darwin. If Homo sapiens, like other species, is a product of natural selection, then we should have evolved to compete in order to reproduce. An answer to the second question follows from more recent versions of Darwinism. People, like other organisms, are likely to compete socially - to form dominance hierarchies - to the extent that it is (...) costly for subordinates to flee ecologically. This paper first reviews evidence that winners at political competition have consistently won at reproductive competition. Next, it documents the slow shift toward declining political competition - toward democracy, and toward declining reproductive competition - toward monogamy, in the course of Western history. Last, it offers a model of what might account for that change. (shrink)

Il n'est pas fruit du hasard cette rencontre qui a précédé l'édition de ce livre. Les rapports entre philosophes français et catalans viennent de loin. Le XIXe était modèle des "voyages philosophiques". Est parmi les plus connus celui de Cousin en Allemagne. Moins connus, mais également fructifères étaient ceux des philosophes exilés qui partirent sous les régimes de persécutions pour trouver en France non seulement un lieu d'accueil, mais également l'opportunité de confrontation de leurs idées avec celles des philosophes français. (...) De la même manière, certains exilés de la commune avaient trouvé un lieu d'accueil dans la Barcelone révolutionnaire des années républicaines. Ces rencontres n'ont jamais totalement fini de se produire au long du XXe siècle, période au cours de laquelle l'exil avait constitué la manière d'échapper à une morte sûre dans l'Espagne de la guerre civile. La période actuelle vit une nouvelle revitalisation des échanges, et ce livre en est un exemple."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Notre défi consiste à penser avec les lèvres, à faire sentir la portée de certaines philosophies contemporaines qui font jouer l'exigence d'avoir la bouche bien ouverte et des lèvres qui montrent les dents. Comment faire de la philosophie, non pas avec le langage, mais avec la langue, autrement dit avec sa matérialité et sa singularité? Ce livre ne traite pas du langage, de l'identité ou du sujet, ou peut-être que si, mais à partir des lèvres : il questionne la frontière, (...) l'altérité, le pouvoir, la jouissance, la littérature et ses politiques. Bref, il recherche le plaisir de faire de la philosophie en langues. (shrink)

Focusing on a recent wave of international art cinema, Animal Worldsoffers the first sustained analysis of the relations between cinematic time and animal life. Through an aesthetic of extended duration, films such as Bestiaire(2010), The Turin Horse(2011) and A Cow's Life(2012) attend to animal worlds of sentience and perception, while registering the governing of life through biopolitical regimes. Bringing together Gilles Deleuze's writings on cinema and on animals - while drawing on Jacques Derrida, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Nicole Shukin and others - (...) the book argues that these films question the biopolitical reduction of animal life to forms of capital, opening up realms of virtuality, becoming and alternative political futures. (shrink)

Many mothers with intellectual disabilities lose their parental rights due to child welfare (CW) concerns. Despite the growing interdisciplinary scholarship on parenting with intellectual disabilities, there is scant research that has explored the discursive practices embedded within CW or family courts involving mothers with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to explore portrayals of mothering with intellectual disability in CW court reports filed in Québec, Canada. A three-level critical discourse analysis was performed, focusing on 10 reports that were (...) retrieved from a publicly available legal database, and their larger discursive societal context. Analysis highlighted unequal power relations as discursive practice underpinned by the following discursive patterns: (1) The ideal caregiver vs the unfit mother (2) Devalued voices of mothers with intellectual disability (3) Professionals as holding authoritative knowledge and (4) Decision-making based on the best interest of the child. Revealing the hidden ideological assumptions embedded in discourse can help to challenge and confront injustice faced by mothers with intellectual disability within the CW system. (shrink)

Quaker Epistemology analyzes a distinctive 'Inward Light' theory of knowledge. This expanded experiential empiricism integrates spiritual and religious knowledge with an ethically grounded vision of scientific knowledge.