In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John BehrMatthew Z. ValeJohn the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John Behr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), xv + 388 pp.Father Behr's book defies summary. Its ambitions span several fields—patristics, contemporary biblical scholarship, speculative systematics, phenomenology—and Behr has controversial proposals in each. The book is not (expressly) a work of systematic (...) theology, but its speculative élan and its ambition to give a normative account of Christian theology's beating heart is unmistakable. If a vice of the book is vagueness on questions of burning Christological, protological, and eschatological interest, among its virtues is the verve and vividness with which it provokes such questions to begin with. Behr has written, not a book on John, but a Johannine manifesto on theology. [End Page 989]The book is a "symposium" in three parts, each inviting a different kind of reader of John's gospel. The first is predominantly "historical" (the early Fathers of the Johannine school, reconstructed by modern scholarship), the second predominantly "exegetical" (contemporary biblical studies), and the third "philosophical," with a single guest in Michel Henry. The book's heart is an argument about what "incarnation" means. When it comes to the Incarnation, we labor, Behr says, under what Quentin Skinner calls a "mythology of doctrine," the hermeneutical fallacy of projecting onto a tradition's classical writers positions and whole doctrinal categories developed only later (6–8). The mythology of doctrine Behr opposes is, in fact, a mythological notion of the Incarnation as "an episode in the biography of the Word" (a phrase from Rowan Williams), the episode when a "pre-incarnate Word" is born as Jesus (3, and throughout). To break the ice on this mythology, part 1 reconstructs an original milieu for John's Gospel—a school of John the Evangelist, centered upon an original Pascha celebration—in which "becoming flesh," "Word," and "human being" mean something other than the dogmatic meanings we project back onto them. This Johannine school is not the Johannine "community" posited by historical-critical studies, but the school of John's "hearers" that J. B. Lightfoot traced from Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, Papias of Hierapolis, and Melito of Sardis down to Irenaeus (30–31). Behr's reconstruction makes the following proposals. Our evangelist is John the Elder, the beloved disciple, not the Synoptics' son of Zebedee. This John was plausibly an eyewitness to the crucifixion—alone among the evangelists. He authored both the Gospel and the Apocalypse bearing his name, according to near unanimous second-century tradition (76). The Apocalypse was possibly written before the Gospel, perhaps before the Temple's destruction. John the Elder originated the yearly Pascha celebration, and it remained peculiar to his school until the second half of the second century. This feast originally celebrated the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost as the single event of the Passion, just as in John's Gospel Jesus's ascension (12:32), glorification (13:31–2), and "handing down the Spirit" (19:30) are identified with the crucifixion. Only later was the Passion's simple white light refracted into the liturgical cycle's rainbow of distinct feasts (91–92, 243).This reconstruction is explicitly speculative. Its purpose is to enliven our imaginations about what the evangelist's vision may possibly be. If the mythological picture of the Incarnation is easily recognized as false, our theological traditions still have not entirely exorcised it from their standard narration. Behr proposes a Johannine narration untroubled by this [End Page 990] mythology. The Incarnation is not a novelty occurring for God at some moment. No previously fleshless divine agent undergoes change to become flesh at some time. The Incarnation must instead be understood "apocalyptically," as the eternal mystery of Jesus Christ being revealed for us in time (256-57). The Incarnation is Jesus's eternal identity as the Word being revealed and wrought in time and pro nobis by the Passion (24, 29, 257, 130). John's Gospel should be read, in John Ashton's words, as "an apocalypse—in reverse, upside down, inside out" (4, 99... (shrink)

This paper identifies the difficulties in confronting novel history from both a rigorous scientific and artistic literary perspectives and suggests a practical reconciliation—in the form of a discussion and metaphorical opening space—between the two apparent poles of historical understanding and their accompanying genres, types, and tropes.

Abstractabstract:A desideratum for Buddhist-Christian exchange is more first-order philosophical engagement—engagement that brings our traditions into direct conversation on genuinely shared first-order questions. To converse in that way, we have to identify shared philosophical loci, areas where our systems are—as much as this is possible—reflecting on the same problem, or the same data. This essay identifies one such shared locus, so that the Christian philosopher Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984) can philosophize together with the broadly Yogācārin authors Dignāga (ca. 480–540 ce) and Dharmakīrti (...) (mid-sixth–mid-seventh century). That shared locus is, as Lonergan describes it, the fact that what is "primary" in our knowing is the identity of knowing and known. Nondual cognition plays, for both parties, a constitutive and primary role in our knowing. But Lonergan and the Yogācārins draw divergent conclusions from the shared phenomenological insights. For the Yogācārins, this observation motivates their distinctive mind-only idealism—the conclusion that nothing but mere nondual experiencing can be established as real. For Lonergan, this same identity is the basis for affirming that our knowing attains to objective knowledge of an intelligible order whose actuality is distinct from our knowing it. Those divergent conclusions are grounded in divergent accounts of what the real is, and how it is to be known. What Lonergan shares with the Buddhists, though, makes him the rare Christian philosopher whose technical cognitional theory is quietly pervaded by the notion of cognition's "primary" nonduality. Lonergan, then, can provide the technical philosophical basis for wider ranging Christian receptions of Indian accounts of nondual cognition—including theological receptions which enshrine nondual cognition in accounts of the Trinity, and of human consciousness as a created image of the Trinity. (shrink)

Microbial genome sequencing has entered a new phase, where DNA sequence information is gathered from entire microbial communities (metagenomics or environmental genomics) rather than from individual microorganisms. By providing access to the genetic material of vast numbers of organisms, most of which are organisms that have never been isolated or cultivated, a new level of insight is being gained into the diversity and extent of the microbial processes that are presently occuring in environmental communities. By extending metagenomic‐based approaches to the (...) study of very complex and methodologically recalcitrant soil environments, a recent study has found that ammonia‐oxidizing archaea are more abundant in many soils than bacteria.1 These findings not only highlight the undoubtedly critical yet unknown roles that archaea play in global nutrient cycles but illustrate the importance of genomic studies for informing us about the functional capacity of life on Earth. BioEssays 29: 11–14, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

At the same time that social justice concerns are on the rise on college campuses, empathy levels among US college students are falling. Social injustice resulting from organizational decisions and actions causes profound and unnecessary human suffering, and research to understand antecedents to these decisions and actions lacks attention. Empathy represents a potential tool and critical skill for organizational decision-makers, with empirical evidence linking empathy to moral recognition of ethical situations and greater breadth of understanding of stakeholder impact and improved (...) financial success. This study explores the potential relationship between empathy and social justice, using a multifaceted operationalization of social justice, which includes management actions and social sympathies. Results broadly support the positive empathy and social justice relationship and suggest higher education interventions to develop empathy in college business students. (shrink)

Peterson et al. (2023) identify important ethical issues that are relevant to psychedelic therapy and research in various clinical populations and contexts. This is certainly the case in palliative...

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

As we write, U.S. cities and states with extensive community transmission of Covid‐19 are in harm's way—not only because of the disease itself but also because of prior and current failures to act. During the 2009 influenza pandemic, public health agencies and hospitals developed but never adequately implemented preparedness plans. Focused on efficiency in a competitive market, health systems had few incentives to maintain stockpiles of essential medical equipment. Just‐in‐time economic models resulted in storage of only those supplies needed then. (...) At the same time, global purchasing in search of lower prices reduced the number of U.S. suppliers, with hospitals dependent on foreign companies. There is still a possibility that the pandemic will be manageably bad rather than unmanageably catastrophic in this country. Immediate, powerful, and sustained federal action could make the difference. (shrink)

From film theory to post-theory -- Sublime objects of cinema -- Class struggle in film studies -- Interlude: the pervert and the analyst -- Cinema, ideology, and form -- Enjoyment in the cinema -- Conclusion: theory as realism set in drive.

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is a key node in the human salience network. It has been ascribed motor, pain-processing and affective functions. However, the dynamics of information flow in this complex region and how it responds to inputs remain unclear and are difficult to study using non-invasive electrophysiology. The area is targeted by neurosurgery to treat neuropathic pain. During deep brain stimulation surgery, we recorded local field potentials from this region in humans during a decision-making task requiring motor output. (...) We investigated the spatial and temporal distribution of information flow within the dACC. We demonstrate the existence of a distributed network within the anterior cingulate cortex where discrete nodes demonstrate directed communication following inputs. We show that this network anticipates and responds to the valence of feedback to actions. We further show that these network dynamics adapt following learning. Our results provide evidence for the integration of learning and the response to feedback in a key cognitive region. (shrink)

There is no uniquely standard concept of an effectively decidable set of real numbers or real n-tuples. Here we consider three notions: decidability up to measure zero [M.W. Parker, Undecidability in Rn: Riddled basins, the KAM tori, and the stability of the solar system, Phil. Sci. 70(2) (2003) 359–382], which we abbreviate d.m.z.; recursive approximability [or r.a.; K.-I. Ko, Complexity Theory of Real Functions, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1991]; and decidability ignoring boundaries [d.i.b.; W.C. Myrvold, The decision problem for entanglement, in: R.S. (...) Cohen et al. (Eds.), Potentiality, Entanglement, and Passion-at-a-Distance: Quantum Mechanical Studies fo Abner Shimony, Vol. 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Great Britain, 1997, pp. 177–190]. Unlike some others in the literature, these notions apply not only to certain nice sets, but to general sets in Rn and other appropriate spaces. We consider some motivations for these concepts and the logical relations between them. It has been argued that d.m.z. is especially appropriate for physical applications, and on Rn with the standard measure, it is strictly stronger than r.a. [M.W. Parker, Undecidability in Rn: Riddled basins, the KAM tori, and the stability of the solar system, Phil. Sci. 70(2) (2003) 359–382]. Here we show that this is the only implication that holds among our three decidabilities in that setting. Under arbitrary measures, even this implication fails. Yet for intervals of non-zero length, and more generally, convex sets of non-zero measure, the three concepts are equivalent. (shrink)

Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988), Fodor and McLaughlin (1990) and McLaughlin (1993) challenge connectionists to explain systematicity without simply implementing a classical architecture. In this paper I argue that what makes the challenge difficult for connectionists to meet has less to do with what is to be explained than with what is to count as an explanation. Fodor et al. are prepared to admit as explanatory, accounts of a sort that only classical models can provide. If connectionists are to meet the (...) challenge, they are going to have to insist on the propriety of changing what counts as an explanation of systematicity. Once that is done, there would seem to be as yet no reason to suppose that connectionists are unable to explain systematicity. (shrink)

The behavior of some systems is non-computable in a precise new sense. One infamous problem is that of the stability of the solar system: Given the initial positions and velocities of several mutually gravitating bodies, will any eventually collide or be thrown off to infinity? Many have made vague suggestions that this and similar problems are undecidable: no finite procedure can reliably determine whether a given configuration will eventually prove unstable. But taken in the most natural way, this is trivial. (...) The state of a system corresponds to a point in a continuous space, and virtually no set of points in space is strictly decidable. A new, more pragmatic concept is therefore introduced: a set is decidable up to measure zero (d.m.z.) if there is a procedure to decide whether a point is in that set and it only fails on some points that form a set of zero volume. This is motivated by the intuitive correspondence between volume and probability: we can ignore a zero-volume set of states because the state of an arbitrary system almost certainly will not fall in that set. D.m.z. is also closer to the intuition of decidability than other notions in the literature, which are either less strict or apply only to special sets, like closed sets. Certain complicated sets are not d.m.z., most remarkably including the set of known stable orbits for planetary systems (the KAM tori). This suggests that the stability problem is indeed undecidable in the precise sense of d.m.z. Carefully extending decidability concepts from idealized models to actual systems, we see that even deterministic aspects of physical behavior can be undecidable in a clear and significant sense. (shrink)

A comprehensive and timely examination of the history and current status of immigrants and refugees--their stories, the events that led to their movement, and the place of these movements in contemporary history and politics. Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present is an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the key concepts, terms, personalities, and real-world issues associated with the surge of immigration from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It focuses on the United States, but is (...) also the first encyclopedic work on the subject that reflects a truly global perspective. With contributions from the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Immigration and Asylum offers nearly 200 entries organized around four themes: immigration and asylum; the major migrating groups around the world; expulsions and other forced population movements; and the politics of migration. In addition to basic entries, the work includes in-depth essays on important trends, events, and current conditions. There is no better resource for exploring just how profoundly the voluntary and forced movement of asylum seekers and refugees has transformed the world--and what that transformation means to us today. Nearly 200 A-Z entries on immigration and asylum around the world 150+ contributors, including leading immigration scholars from around the globe such as Nathan Glazer, Saskia Sassen, Ari Zolberg, James Hollifield, Desmond King, and Stephen Castles A separate volume of primary source documents, including legislation, treaties, speeches, and United Nations documents A chronology of major movements of migrants and asylum seekers. (shrink)

The processes mediating dynamic and flexible responding to rapidly changing task-environments are not well understood. In the present research we employ a Stroop procedure to clarify the contribution of context-sensitive control processes to online performance. In prior work Stroop interference varied as a function of probe location context, with larger Stroop interference occurring for contexts associated with a high proportion of congruent items [Crump, M. J., Gong, Z., & Milliken, B. . The context-specific proportion congruent stroop effect: location as a (...) contextual cue. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 316–321.] Here, we demonstrate that this effect does not depend on awareness of the context manipulation, but that it can depend on attention to the predictive context dimension, and on the relative salience of the target and predictive context dimensions. We discuss the implications of our results for current theories of cognitive control. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 295 [Access article in PDF] Agency, Narrative, and Self:A Philosophical Case Conference John Z. Sadler and K. W. M. Fulford This issue of PPP features our second "philosophical case conference," which addresses three important and interrelated concepts in the philosophy of psychiatry. Our first philosophical case conference (Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology Volume 5, Number 2, 1998) featured detailed case material concerning the manifold (...) issues involved in psychiatric euthanasia. For this issue, guest edited by J. Melvin Woody, the rich cases supplied by Lloyd Wells provide the foundation for a discussion of narrative accounts of the self and what it means to be an agent.Philosophical case conferences are an occasional feature of PPP, and develop topics to satisfy one or more criteria: to provide discussions that are important to clinical practice or research, to embed current or perennial philosophical debates in the nitty gritty of clinical practice and personal experience, and/or to provide a clinical testing ground for new conceptual developments relevant to the philosophy of psychiatry.The format for this issue involves four feature articles, the first by Wells, presenting detailed case material of several patients, followed by discussions (by Kennett & Matthews, Phillips, and Woody) inspired by, or addressing explicitly, the philosophical questions implied in such cases. Following these four feature articles, a panel of commentators (Glas, Hardcastle, Radden, Thornton, Weiner, Woodbridge) respond to the four feature articles as they wish, providing the variations on the agency, narrative, and self themes. We think you will find this issue of PPP to be a fine example of what the philosophy of psychiatry can do, and we give our abundant thanks to Mel Woody for putting this issue together.... (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest prezentacja i krytyczna analiza koncepcji uczuć egzystencjalnych, autorstwa współczesnego filozofa psychiatrii o orientacji fenomenologicznej — Matthew Ratcliffe’a. Uczucia egzystencjalne są specjalną klasą stanów afektywnych, nadającą emocjonalnego zabarwienia subiektywnemu doświadczeniu rzeczywistości. Mają one charakter przedrefleksyjny i stanowią niejawne tło świadomości fenomenalnej, które w potocznym doświadczeniu pozostaje poza polem uwagi. Uczucia te mają ścisły związek z emocjami, determinując typy przedmiotów intencjonalnych zawartych w stanach emocjonalnych i wyznaczając repertuar możliwych do doświadczenia emocji. Najważniejsze uczucia egzystencjalne, które wyróżnia Ratcliffe, to: (...) (1) poczucie rzeczywistości, czyli przedrefleksyjne i fenomenalne wrażenie o realnym istnieniu świata jako takiego; (2) poczucie przynależności, czyli przedrefleksyjne i fenomenalne wrażenie własnego istnienia i osadzenia w świecie pośród osób i rzeczy. Te dwie kategorie stanowią fundamentalne składowe pierwszoosobowego doświadczenia podmiotu, wyznaczając tym samym jego relację do innych ludzi oraz rzeczywistości w jej najbardziej ogólnym sensie. W artykule przedstawiam główne cechy i typy uczuć egzystencjalnych. Zwracam także uwagę na szczególną rolę psychopatologii w analizie i uzasadnianiu istnienia tego zjawiska. W związku z tym, za Ratcliffem, opisuję w jaki sposób określone aspekty uczuć egzystencjalnych ulegają dezintegracji w przebiegu epizodów zaburzeń psychicznych, takich jak depresja czy schizofrenia. Pokazuję także różnicę pomiędzy fenomenologicznym i poznawczo-behoawioralnym podejściem do zaburzeń psychicznych. Powołując się na badania neurobiologiczne staram się wskazać potencjalne neuronalne korelaty uczuć egzystencjalnych. Tekst wieńczą krytyczne uwagi na temat koncepcji uczuć egzystencjalnych w ujęciu Matthew Ratcliffe’a. Rozwiązanie zidentyfikowanych wad i niedociągnięć tej teorii filozoficznej zarazem nakreśla przyszłe perspektywy jej rozwoju. (shrink)

SPIS TREŚCI Ryszard Moń Wstęp -/- Rozdział 1: Lękam się świata bez filozofii. O nieodzowności humanistyki w dobie techniki i globalizacji -/- 1.1 Konieczność filozofii 1.2 Narodziny sztuk wyzwolonych 1.3 Uniwersytet domem humanistyki 1.4 Upadek humanistyki 1.5 Uniwersytet – biznes i korporacyjna logika 1.6 Kognitywny kapitalizm 1.7 Złowroga moc etatyzmu 1.8 Pragmatyzm a ideały kształcenia 1.9 Demokracja – dialog, kultura, światopogląd 1.10 Humanistyka na straży demokracji 1.11 Edukacja filozoficzna w szkole 1.12 Podsumowanie – filozofia jako fundament -/- Rozdział 2: Czy (...) starożytna paideia może być alternatywą dla współczesnej pedagogiki? Antyczne metody wychowawcze i ich obecna rola -/- 2.1 Filozofia jako sposób życia 2.2 Rola ćwiczeń duchowych w paidei starożytnej Grecji oraz starożytnego Rzymu 2.3 Antyczna paideia a aktualne wzorce kształcenia -/- Rozdział 3: Problem ujawniania przez nauczyciela własnej tożsamości moralnej w nauczaniu etyki i filozofii -/- 3.1 Nauczyciel na lekcjach filozofii i etyki 3.2 Etyka, moralność i tożsamość 3.3 Matthew Lipmana filozofowanie z dziećmi i młodzieżą 3.4 Filozofia! Ale jaka? 3.5 Nauczyciel-filozof 3.6 Tożsamość moralna nauczyciela -/- Rozdział 4: Język i filozofia. O Naturalnym Metajęzyku Semantycznym i jego związkach z filozofią -/- 4.1 Naturalny Metajęzyk Semantyczny – rozważania wstępne 4.2 Inspiracje filozoficzne koncepcji NMS 4.3 Naturalny Metajęzyk Semantyczny – cel i założenia koncepcji 4.4 Kierunki rozwoju NMS 4.5 Jak wykorzystać NMS w dydaktyce filozofii? -/- Rozdział 5: Metody problemowe na lekcji etyki i filozofii jako możliwe działanie prewencyjne -/- 5.1 Metody rozwiązywania problemów – informacje ogólne 5.2 Rozwiązywanie problemów poznawczych 5.3 Rozwiązywanie problemów decyzyjnych 5.4 Rozwiązywanie problemów praktycznych 5.5 Nauczanie i uczenie się metodą „układanki” 5.6 Metoda wychowania bez porażek 5.7 Rola nauczyciela 5.8 Kształcenie umiejętności rozwiązywania problemów 5.9 Oceny i wartościowania 5.10 Podsumowanie Rozdział 6: Trudności w uczeniu się – profilaktyka i terapia -/- 6.1 Trudności w uczeniu się 6.2 Specyficzne trudności w uczeniu się 6.3 Niepowodzenia szkolne 6.4 Profilaktyka i terapia -/- Aneks – konspekty lekcji o tematyce filozoficznej i etycznej. (shrink)

This is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on moral responsibility.

Using the example of recent attempts to engineer the concept of conspiracy theory, I argue that philosophers should be far more circumspect in their approach to conceptual engineering than we have been – in particular, that we should pay much closer attention to the history behind and context that surrounds our target concept in order to determine whether it is a site of what I have elsewhere called ‘conceptual domination’. If it is, we may well have good reason to avoid (...) engineering. In their recent ‘What is a Conspiracy Theory?’, M. Giulia Napolitano and Kevin Reuter argue that the disagreement between generalists and particularists in the literature on conspiracy theories is best characterized as a set of dueling conceptual engineering projects. While I agree with their turn to this metaphilosophical literature, I give a very different account of its applicability. Particularists, on my account, are better read as aiming to diagnose the ways in which many discussions of the concept of conspiracy theories are a form of conceptual domination, where this broader context should then prompt us to abandon or block any concept of conspiracy theory that treats its referents as inherently defective. Broader metaphilosophical lessons are drawn. (shrink)

In Real Hallucinations, Matthew Ratcliffe offers a philosophical examination of the structure of human experience, its vulnerability to disruption, and how it is shaped by relations with other people. He focuses on the seemingly simple question of how we manage to distinguish among our experiences of perceiving, remembering, imagining, and thinking. To answer this question, he first develops a detailed analysis of auditory verbal hallucinations (usually defined as hearing a voice in the absence of a speaker) and thought insertion (...) (somehow experiencing one's own thoughts as someone else's). He shows how thought insertion and many of those experiences labeled as "hallucinations" consist of disturbances in a person's senseof being in one type of intentional state rather than another. Ratcliffe goes on to argue that such experiences occur against a backdrop of less pronounced but wider-ranging alterations in the structure of intentionality. In so doing, he considers forms of experience associated with trauma, schizophrenia, and profound grief. The overall position arrived at is that experience has an essentially temporal structure, involving patterns of anticipation and fulfillment that are specific to types of intentional states and serve to distinguish them phenomenologically. Disturbances of this structure can lead to various kinds of anomalous experience. Importantly, anticipation-fulfillment patterns are sustained, regulated, and disrupted by interpersonal experience and interaction. It follows that the integrity of human experience, including the most basic sense of self, is inseparable from how we relate to other people and to the social world as a whole. (shrink)

This essay updates Aaron Smuts', 2009 Philosophy Compass piece, “Art and Negative Affect” in light of recent work on the topic. The “paradox of painful art” is the general problem of how it is possible to enjoy or value experiences of art that involve painful emotions. It encompasses both the paradox of tragedy and the paradox of horror. Section 2 lays out a taxonomy of solutions to the paradox of painful art and argues that we should opt for a pluralistic (...) approach rather than seeking a unified solution. Section 3 surveys recent work on the topic, with an emphasis on views holding that it is possible for an experience of art to be pleasant partly in virtue of involving painful emotion. Section 4 suggests a range of phenomena that are not usually considered under the umbrella of the paradox of painful art but that offer promising directions for further research. (shrink)

Implicit in much of the recent literature on conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics is the assumption that when speakers argue that we should talk or think about a concept in a specific way, they are doing so as inquirers—as speakers who are invested in arriving at the correct or best view of this concept. In this paper I question that assumption and argue that philosophers have been too quick to project idealized versions of themselves into the contexts of conceptual articulation (...) and conceptual dispute. Speakers often engage in this activity to further interests of theirs that have nothing to do with inquiry, instead carrying out what I call ‘conceptual domination’. Speakers are engaged in conceptual domination when they aim to bring about and enforce widespread uptake for a view of a concept by exploiting institutions and institutional authority. They do so because this view best serves interests that are either irrelevant to or actively interfere with inquiry concerning this concept—paradigmatically their material interests. I consider sources of evidence for assessing whether speakers are engaging in conceptual domination, analyze two case studies, and consider how to push back against conceptual dominators. (shrink)

It is through touch that we are able to interact directly with the world; it is our primary conduit of both pleasure and pain. Touch may be our most immediate and powerful sense—“the first sense" because of the central role it plays in experience. In this book, Matthew Fulkerson proposes that human touch, despite its functional diversity, is a single, unified sensory modality. Fulkerson offers a philosophical account of touch, reflecting the interests, methods, and approach that define contemporary philosophy; (...) but his argument is informed throughout by the insights and constraints of empirical work on touch. Human touch is a multidimensional object of investigation, Fulkerson writes, best served by using a variety of methods and approaches. -/- To defend his view of the unity of touch, Fulkerson describes and argues for a novel, unifying role for exploratory action in touch. He goes on to fill in the details of this unified, exploratory form of perception, offering philosophical accounts of tool use and distal touch, the representational structure of tangible properties, the spatial content of touch, and the role of pleasure in tactual experience. -/- Fulkerson’s argument for the unique role played by exploratory action departs notably from traditional vision-centric philosophical approaches to perception, challenging the received view that action plays the same role in all sensory modalities. The robust philosophical account of touch he offers in The First Sense has significant implications for our general understanding of perception and perceptual experience. (shrink)

People maintain a positive identity in at least two ways: They evaluate themselves more favorably than other people, and they judge themselves to be better now than they were in the past. Both strategies rely on autobiographical memories. The authors investigate the role of autobiographical memories of lying and emotional harm in maintaining a positive identity. For memories of lying to or emotionally harming others, participants judge their own actions as less morally wrong and less negative than those in which (...) other people lied to or emotionally harmed them. Furthermore, people judge those actions that happened further in the past to be more morally wrong than those that happened more recently. Finally, for periods of the past when they believed that they were very different people than they are now, participants judge their actions to be more morally wrong and more negative than those actions from periods of their pasts when they believed that they were very similar to who they are now. The authors discuss these findings in relation to theories about the function of autobiographical memory and moral cognition in constructing and perceiving the self over time. (shrink)

The sex/gender distinction is a staple of feminist philosophy. In slogan form: sex is “natural,” while gender is the “social meaning” of sex. Considering the importance of the sex/gender distinction—which, here, I neither endorse nor reject—it’s interesting to ask if philosophers working on the metaphysics of sexuality might make use of an analogous distinction. In this paper, I argue that we ought to endorse the sexual orientation/identity distinction. In particular, I argue that the orientation/identity distinction is indispensable to normative explanations (...) regarding LGBTQIA+ oppression and resistance. As a case study, I consider the oppression involved in the gentrification of historic queer neighborhoods. (shrink)

I argue that that an influential strategy for understanding conspiracy theories stands in need of radical revision. According to this approach, called ‘generalism’, conspiracy theories are epistemically defective by their very nature. Generalists are typically opposed by particularists, who argue that conspiracy theories should be judged case-by-case, rather than definitionally indicted. Here I take a novel approach to criticizing generalism. I introduce a distinction between ‘Dominant Institution Conspiracy Theories and Theorists’ and ‘Non-Dominant Institution Conspiracy Theories and Theorists’. Generalists uncritically center (...) the latter in their analysis, but I show why the former must be centered by generalists’ own lights: they are the clearest representatives of their views, and they are by far the most harmful. Once we make this change in paradigm cases, however, various typical generalist theses turn out to be false or in need of radical revision. Conspiracy theories are not primarily produced by extremist ideologies, as generalists typically claim, since mainstream, purportedly non-extremist political ideologies turn out to be just as, if not more responsible for such theories. Conspiracy theories are also, we find, not the province of amateurs: they are often created and pushed by individuals widely viewed as experts, who have the backing of our most prestigious intellectual institutions. While generalists may be able to take this novel distinction and shift in paradigm cases on board, this remains to be seen. Subsequent generalist accounts that do absorb this distinction and shift will look radically different from previous incarnations of the view. (shrink)

Midwest Studies In Philosophy, EarlyView.

There has been much recent philosophical discussion concerning the relationship between emotion and feeling. However, everyday talk of 'feeling' is not restricted to emotional feeling and the current emphasis on emotions has led to a neglect of other kinds of feeling. These include feelings of homeliness, belonging, separation, unfamiliarity, power, control, being part of something, being at one with nature and 'being there'. Such feelings are perhaps not 'emotional'. However, I suggest here that they do form a distinctive group; all (...) of them are ways of 'finding ourselves in the world'. Indeed, our sense that there is a world and that we are 'in it' is, I suggest, constituted by feeling. I offer an analysis of what such 'existential feelings' consist of, showing how they can be both 'bodily feelings' and, at the same time, part of the structure of intentionality. (shrink)

The emergence of signaling systems has been observed in numerous experimental and real-world contexts, but there is no consensus on which shared mechanisms underlie such phenomena. A number of explanatory mechanisms have been proposed within several disciplines, all of which have been instantiated as credible working models. However, they are usually framed as being mutually incompatible. Using an exemplar-based framework, we replicate these models in a minimal configuration which allows us to directly compare them. This reveals that the development of (...) optimal signaling is driven by similar mechanisms in each model, which leads us to propose three requirements for the emergence of conventional signaling. These are the creation and transmission of referential information, a systemic bias against ambiguity, and finally some form of information loss. Considering this, we then discuss some implications for theoretical and experimental approaches to the emergence of learned communication. (shrink)

Recent discussions of culinary authenticity have focused on the problematic sociopolitical implications of Euro‐Americans seeking authenticity in food perceived as ethnic. This article seeks to rehabilitate the concept of culinary authenticity. First, the author relates the issue of culinary authenticity to other philosophical debates concerning authenticity, arguing that the concept of authenticity is value‐neutral. Second, a general theory of culinary authenticity making use of the theoretical apparatus of Kendall Walton's “Categories of Art” is developed and defended against objections. Third, a (...) variety of reasons that authenticity is valued are discussed, with an emphasis on aesthetic reasons. Ultimately, the author acknowledges that some ways of valuing culinary authenticity are objectionable but argues that this should not lead us to abandon our interest in authenticity altogether. (shrink)

I defend Conciliationism: rationality requires belief revision of epistemic peers who find themselves in disagreement and lack dispute-independent reason to suspect each other of error. (Kelly 2010) argues that Conciliationists are committed to the Uniqueness Thesis: a given body of evidence rationalizes a unique degree of confidence for a given proposition. (Ballantyne & Coffman 2012) cogently critique Kelly's argument and propose an improved version. I contend that their version of the argument is unsound, and I offer some friendly amendments. But (...) I show that even this amended argument threatens only extreme versions of Conciliationism. (shrink)

When we carry out a speech act of stipulation, it seems that we can shape our language however we see fit. This autonomy, however, also seems to make such acts arbitrary: it is unclear if there are any constraints on what counts as a "correct" or "incorrect" stipulation. In this paper, I offer a novel, detailed account of the pragmatics of stipulation and explain its crucial role in conceptual analysis and articulation. My account shows that stipulation does indeed equip us (...) with a key tool for changing our linguistic practices, but that such acts can nonetheless count as meaningfully, normatively constrained: they are always subject to felicitous criticism and the possibility of defeat by others. I then examine the metaphilosophical implications of this account. Philosophers often describe the project of conceptual analysis as having a crucial stipulative dimension, but they rarely explain what they take this act to consist in. On my view, speech acts of stipulation are best understood as acts that generate a shared inferential entitlement for speaker and audience, an entitlement justified on the basis of its utility. In developing this account, I distinguish stipulations from more familiar speech act kinds such as assertions and commands, synthesize and criticize alternative views of stipulation in the literature, and discuss the relationship between stipulation and seemingly kindred speech acts (such as assumptions, suppositions, and proposals). (shrink)

I argue that Sarah Sawyer's and Herman Cappelen's recent accounts of how speakers talk and think about the same concept or topic even when their understandings of that concept or topic substantially diverge risk multiplying our metasemantic categories unnecessarily and fail to prove explanatory. When we look more closely at our actual practices of samesaying, we find that speakers with seemingly incompatible formulations of a subject matter take one another to samesay when they are attempting to arrive at a correct (...) understanding of that subject matter. These speakers adopt what I call a prospective externalist perspective on the subject matter in question. I then argue that there are contexts where judgments of samesaying are more routinely defeated because speakers are taking up a perspective I call retrospective internalism. From this perspective, speakers are aiming to render maximally intelligible the linguistic behavior of other speakers that appear to them to deviate from their own. Whether or not we count speakers as samesaying with us will therefore depend on the kind of the perspective we adopt. Different perspectives, it will turn out, often yield different verdicts. On my perspective-based approach, there is no need to hypostatize or inflate our metasemantic taxonomies. (shrink)

The pragmatist faces the challenge of accounting for the possibility of rational conceptual change. Some pragmatists have tried to meet this challenge by appealing to Neurathian imagery—imagery that risks being too figurative to be helpful. I argue that we can develop a clearer view of what rationally constrained conceptual revision looks like for the pragmatist. I do so by examining the work of the pragmatist who in recent years has addressed this issue most directly, Richard Rorty. His attempts to solve (...) the puzzle ultimately fall short, but prove instructive. Rorty characterizes inter-language transitions in exclusively causal terms because, along with the very philosophical traditions he criticizes, he uncritically privileges the role of truth claims or assertions in our pragmatics. I show that if we instead broaden our pragmatic imaginations, we encounter various non-assertoric speech acts involved in speakers aiming to change how we make sense of our language and concepts. With these acts in view, we are able to arrive at a demystified view of rational conceptual change from a pragmatist perspective and identify future lines of inquiry for pragmatist projects. (shrink)