This is an attempt to take a look at chemistry from the point of view of practical realism. Besides its social–historical and normative aspects, the latter involves a direct reference to experimental research. According to Edward Caldin chemistry depends on our being able to isolate pure substances with reproducible properties. Thus, the very basis of chemistry is practical. Even the laws of chemistry are not stable but are subject to correction. At the same time, these statements do not necessarily make (...) Edward Caldin a predecessor of practical realism. The latter has other predecessors, like Rom Harré’s policy realism or Sami Pihlström’s pragmatic realism. Chemistry is an experimental science. The experiment is a purposeful and critically theory-guided constructive, manipulative, material interference with nature according to Rein Vihalemm, the founder of practical realism. Chemistry is physics-like science but just partly so. This is an important point in the context of the current paper. (shrink)

The paper deals with the philosophy of science and technology from a new perspective. The analysis connects closely to the novel approach to scientific research called practical realism of the late Estonian philosopher of science and chemistry Rein Vihalemm. From his perspective, science is not only theoretical but even more clearly a practical activity. This kind of practice-based approach puts chemistry rather than physics into the position of the most typical science as chemistry has a dual character resting on both (...) constructive-hypothetico-deductive and classifying-historico-descriptive types of cognition. Chemists deal with finding out the laws of nature just like the physicists do. However, in addition to this chemistry deals with substances or stuff that is rather an activity typical to natural history. The analysis of the dual character of chemistry brings forward the need to analyse philosophically also the reasons why physics has held the position of the model science so far. The problem unfolds in the context of practical realism. However, some earlier observations concerning the dual character of chemistry influenced us as well, i.e. by Friedrich Paneth, Michael Polanyi and Edward Caldin. More recently, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Jonathan Simon have given their own explanation of why and how chemistry has a dual character. From their perspective, chemistry is a perfect technical science as it aims at applications, literally at producing something new. Bensaude-Vincent and Simon call their approach operational realism. The latter, however, does not differ from practical realism. (shrink)

Practical realism is focused on the problem of how science really works. In the case of physics and chemistry, experiment is the centrepiece of scientific practice. The rapid development of contemporary natural science does not leave the experiment unaffected. The classical experiment is normally applied only to systems that can be considered structurally stable, repeatability being the key feature. After the introduction of the theoretical basis of irreversibility by Ilya Prigogine the essence of the experiment changed. The strict requirement of (...) repeatability has to be dropped. It will be discussed, whether the change is big enough for calling it revolutionary. There are means to update the understanding of the experiment by applying the experimental settings. The material experiment will probably be with us forever but its position on the scientific landscape will be shifted. (shrink)

For decades, the British philosopher of science Nicholas Maxwell has been promoting a new approach to science called aim-oriented empiricism. Maxwell's basic claim is that the regular way of doing science, called standard empiricism, is untenable because it does not account for the basic general assumptions that scientists actually adhere to without acknowledgment. Standard empiricism is unable to make sense of the progress of science as it is happening. The alternative approach that Maxwell advocates, aim-oriented empiricism, acknowledges some basic metaphysical (...) assumptions, comprehensibility, unity and simplicity as inherent parts of science itself. By including these metaphysical assumptions into science, Maxwell is looking for ways to make sense of the progress of science from a philosophical perspective. This paper challenges Maxwell's claim with the help of another new approach to science, practical realism. While the founder of practical realism, Rein Vihalemm, claims that his approach is closely related to Maxwell's views, he does not acknowledge any need for metaphysics in science. (shrink)

This is an attempt to take a look at chemistry from the point of view of practical realism. Besides its social–historical and normative aspects, the latter involves a direct reference to experimental research. According to Edward Caldin chemistry depends on our being able to isolate pure substances with reproducible properties. Thus, the very basis of chemistry is practical. Even the laws of chemistry are not stable but are subject to correction. At the same time, these statements do not necessarily make (...) Edward Caldin a predecessor of practical realism. The latter has other predecessors, like Rom Harré’s policy realism or Sami Pihlström’s pragmatic realism. Chemistry is an experimental science. The experiment is a purposeful and critically theory-guided constructive, manipulative, material interference with nature according to Rein Vihalemm, the founder of practical realism. Chemistry is physics-like science but just partly so. This is an important point in the context of the current paper. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl believed that he had a method in phenomenology, which could be systematically applied. The essence of the method concerned the so-called “bracketing” of the objects outside of our consciousness. Husserl elaborated his idea through the conception of reductions, which he divided into eidetic,transcendental and phenomenological ones. The conception has recently been carefully analyzed by Dagfinn Føllesdal, an outstanding analytical thinker. But he had do admit that Husserl was not consistent in applying his method. Definitely, the core of Husserl’s (...) phenomenology can be studied using the analytic method. However, this does not mean that we can speak about applying a method in the case of Husserl himself. We get somewhat closer to a clearly defined method when we apply the priority argument of Merleau-Ponty for making the method of a phenomenological thinker intelligible. This helps us to clarify that what is being bracketed in phenomenology is the idea of the world embraced by traditional philosophical theory. What we are left with after the reduction is a reformedunderstanding. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly. There are technologies available that fulfil several tasks better than humans can and even behave like humans to some extent. Thus, the situation prompts the question whether AI should be granted legal person- and/or agenthood? There have been similar situations in history where the legal status of slaves or indigenous peoples was discussed. Still, in those historical questions, the subjects under study were always natural persons, i.e., they were living beings belonging to the species Homo (...) sapiens. We analyse the situation from moral-ethical and practical perspectives. The final conclusion is that the currently existing AIs are still so far removed from humans that there is simply no need to think seriously about legal person- or agenthood. Doing so would mean imposing obligations on the AI to follow. This, in turn, would mean that certain rights in relation to those obligations would have to be granted as well. By all evidence, this is something that humans are not ready to do yet and might never get that far. (shrink)

Georges Frédéric Parrot, the first Rector of the University of Tartu after it was reopened in 1802, was a son of the French Enlightenment. He considered it his mission to implement these ideas in the context of the new university. One of the foci of his activities was arranging the university according to a new type of statutes endorsing free development of all kinds of branches of science in the framework of the so-called ‘Academic Republic’, which would be no longer (...) dominated by theology. Parrot was successful in his pursuits. The University of Tartu became an outstanding centre of astronomy, mathematics and natural science—the fields Parrot himself was actively involved in. Today, the term Academic Republic is becoming more and more frequently used by the university employees again. The emphasis on the role of natural science, which was one of Parrot’s main ideas, caused the need for a New Enlightenment. This is the term invented by Nicholas Maxwell, the British philosopher of science. Although the focus of Maxwell’s New Enlightenment seems to be much narrower than that of the classical one, the final goal is still the same. According to Maxwell, making physics the science proper, the basis of constructing serious academic knowledge, has caused the concentration of research on the quest for some kind of special knowledge, the scientific one. Everything stops there. We have lost sight of the general goal of serving humanity, looking for solutions to actual grave problems that Homo sapiens is facing today. Obviously, to serve the whole humanity was the basic goal of the “original” Enlightenment as well. We have to restore the view of the so-called philosophes concerning the position of social science in the academia. It is social science that form the basis for the understanding and solving the problems that are of real importance to human life. (shrink)

Georges Frédéric Parrot (1767–1852), the first Rector of the University of Tartu (Dorpat) after it was reopened in 1802, was a son of the French Enlightenment. He considered it his mission to implement these ideas in the context of the new university. One of the foci of his activities was arranging the university according to a new type of statutes endorsing free development of all kinds of branches of science in the framework of the so-called ‘Academic Republic’, which would be (...) no longer dominated by theology. Parrot was successful in his pursuits. The University of Tartu became an outstanding centre of astronomy, mathematics and natural science—the fields Parrot himself was actively involved in. Today, the term Academic Republic is becoming more and more frequently used by the university employees again. The emphasis on the role of natural science, which was one of Parrot’s main ideas, caused the need for a New Enlightenment. This is the term invented by Nicholas Maxwell, the British philosopher of science. Although the focus of Maxwell’s New Enlightenment seems to be much narrower than that of the classical one, the final goal is still the same. According to Maxwell, making physics the science proper, the basis of constructing serious academic knowledge, has caused the concentration of research on the quest for some kind of special knowledge, the scientific one. Everything stops there. We have lost sight of the general goal of serving humanity, looking for solutions to actual grave problems that Homo sapiens is facing today. Obviously, to serve the whole humanity was the basic goal of the “original” Enlightenment as well. We have to restore the view of the so-called philosophes concerning the position of social science in the academia. It is social science (and the humanities) that form the basis for the understanding and solving the problems that are of real importance to human life. (shrink)

The typical way to express the aim of science is to connect it with knowledge pursuit. This aim has been so strongly felt that sometimes typical scientific research has been called knowledge-inquiry. There is nothing wrong with knowledge as such. Especially when we have the knowledge of the highest quality, the scientific one, in mind. Still, science today should aim higher, surpass knowledge as its final goal and reach for wisdom. This brings about the need to implement wisdom-inquiry instead of (...) knowledge-inquiry as Nicholas Maxwell has suggested. In order to succeed, the problems of living rather than the problems of knowledge have to be brought to the foreground. (shrink)

It is always a pleasure to announce the publication of a new issue of Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum. We have reasons to believe that we have successfully started conquering the new challenges mentioned in the editorial of the last issue. The achievements we are building on have become more solid than ever before. The journal has acquired a truly global reach.

The open-access peer-reviewed journal Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum has been published for two years by now. During this time, the journal has found its place in the field of the history and philosophy of science.

As an idealist, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz could not recognize anything corporeal as substantial. However, under the influence of Cartesian terminology, he devoted considerable effort to analysing the corporeal world, while not recognizing its real substantiality of course. Leibniz took the concept of substance from Plato, Aristotle and the scholastics, but developed it in two ways. It is a well-known fact that Leibniz introduced the term ‘corporeal substance’ in his letter to Antoine Arnauld dated to October 1687. In the letter, Leibniz (...) understands an object of nature, like an animal or a plant, as ‘corporeal substance’. In the very same letter, Leibniz introduces the terms ‘indivisibility’ and ‘phenomenon’. Every corporeal substance can be real only as a unity, i.e. by being indivisible. Such entity must have a soul or at least an entelechy. In an opposite case, that entity would not be a real unity but just a phenomenon. No corporeal entity is indivisible and therefore not a substance. The paper aims at introducing Leibniz’s distinction between substances and phenomena and taking a closer look at the historicalphilosophical influences Leibniz experienced while developing his views of the corporeal world. Aristotle and Descartes will receive most of the attention, of course, as the concepts of ‘entelechy’ and ‘hylomorphism’ were introduced by the former, and the understanding of corporeal substance as determined by extension alone is part of the latter. The core of the original critique by Leibniz takes off from the properties of the continuum as well as the nature of shape, motion and extension. The case of continuum will receive special attention. It is analysed with the help of the novel approaches by Samuel Levey and Vassil Vidinsky. Leibniz was critical about our poor understanding of the continuum but his own interpretation of it was not fully consistent either. Although the new developments enable us to take a fresh look that has not been possible so far, the issue remains open for further study. (shrink)

The focus of the paper is on Rein Vihalemm’s novel approach to science called practical realism. From the perspective of Vihalemm, science is not only theoretical but first and foremost a practical activity. This kind of approach puts chemistry rather than physics into the position of a typical science as chemistry has a dual character resting on both constructive-hypothetico-deductive and classifying-historico-descriptive types of cognition. Chemists deal with finding out the laws of nature like the physicists. However, in addition to this (...) they deal with substances or stuff that is rather an activity typical to natural history. The analysis of the dual character of chemistry brings about the need to analyse philosophically the reasons why physics has held the position of the only science proper so far. The comparative analysis of physics and chemistry at the basis of practical realism suggests that it is chemistry rather than physics that should hold a special position among sciences. Perhaps we should exchange ϕ-science for χ-science. (shrink)

As an idealist, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz could not recognize anything corporeal as substantial. However, under the influence of Cartesian terminology, he devoted considerable effort to analysing the corporeal world, while not recognizing its real substantiality of course. Leibniz took the concept of substance from Plato, Aristotle and the scholastics, but developed it in two ways. It is a well-known fact that Leibniz introduced the term ‘corporeal substance’ in his letter to Antoine Arnauld dated to October 1687. In the letter, Leibniz (...) understands an object of nature, like an animal or a plant, as ‘corporeal substance’. In the very same letter, Leibniz introduces the terms ‘indivisibility’ and ‘phenomenon’. Every corporeal substance can be real only as a unity, i.e. by being indivisible. Such entity must have a soul or at least an entelechy. In an opposite case, that entity would not be a real unity but just a phenomenon. No corporeal entity is indivisible and therefore not a substance. The paper aims at introducing Leibniz’s distinction between substances and phenomena and taking a closer look at the historicalphilosophical influences Leibniz experienced while developing his views of the corporeal world. Aristotle and Descartes will receive most of the attention, of course, as the concepts of ‘entelechy’ and ‘hylomorphism’ were introduced by the former, and the understanding of corporeal substance as determined by extension alone is part of the latter. The core of the original critique by Leibniz takes off from the properties of the continuum as well as the nature of shape, motion and extension. The case of continuum will receive special attention. It is analysed with the help of the novel approaches by Samuel Levey and Vassil Vidinsky. Leibniz was critical about our poor understanding of the continuum but his own interpretation of it was not fully consistent either. Although the new developments enable us to take a fresh look that has not been possible so far, the issue remains open for further study. (shrink)

Philosophy has sometimes been considered to be the science of science. Analogously, it can perhaps be called inquiry of inquiry. Traditional modern science has been aimed at acquiring knowledge of truth. Thus, it can be called knowledge-inquiry. It can be debated, however, whether knowledge of truth is the ultimate goal we have to achieve in science. Perhaps solving the problems of living should be brought to the foreground rather than the problems of knowledge. In order to fulfil this task, we (...) have to exchange knowledge-inquiry for wisdom-inquiry as Nicholas Maxwell has suggested. The latter involves the quest for knowledge but adds its application to the picture. There has to be constant improvement of the aims of scientific research in order to reach for the problems of living. This can be achieved in the scope of a new Enlightenment. As the result, the position of social sciences and humanities will be turned into a fundamental one. The attempts to model these fields after physics have to be stopped. The main task of social sciences and humanities is decisively different from that of physics and all other natural sciences. A new methodology has to be invented for these intellectual fields. (shrink)

The article addresses the two sides of the work of Nicholas Maxwell – his criticism of science and his call to bring about a revolution in academia encouraging it to become much more effective in tackling the real problems humanity is facing. I would use: It focuses on the connection of these two aspects of Maxwell’s work and provides a critical analysis of Maxwell’s conceptual framework. It is argued here that the two sides of Maxwell’s whole conception are not necessarily (...) connected, and do not have to be. Academia can be more effectively organized even without a change in our understanding of science. Maxwell has argued that academia has to aim at making wisdom rather than knowledge its goal. The knowledge-inquiry framework that currently prevails should be exchanged for wisdom-inquiry. Maxwell has explained his understanding of wisdom in several publications, while not being fully consistent in his explanations of what wisdom-inquiry has to embrace. In addition, Maxwell’s original approach to rationality goes against traditional attitudes. Maxwell is definitely critical of the Enlightenment but his attitude to Romanticism remains unclear. Related to these, the article addresses the future tasks of universities. (shrink)

The article discusses the origins, formation, and development of the scientific school of chemical physics and nanotechnology in Kazakhstan. The authors describe the achievements of a scientific school that is on par with the best of its kind locally and globally, adding new competitive results of practical relevance to the economic development of the country. The article also highlights the special role of the outstanding scientist Zulkhair Aimukhametovich Mansurov in the development of the methodological foundations of the scientific school, the (...) targeted training of the scientific personnel in the priority areas of the development of Kazakhstani chemical physics, and the creation of nanoscale materials for multifunctional purposes. Also, the main principles of the philosophy of Mansurov’s scientific school are presented. (shrink)

This paper presents a survey of the philosophy of science in Estonia. Topics covered include the historical background (science at the 17th century Academia Gustaviana, in the 19th century, during the Soviet period) and an overview of the current situation and main areas of research (the problem of demarcation, a critique of the traditional understandings of science, φ-science, classical and non-classical science, the philosophy of chemistry, the problem of induction, the sociology of scientific knowledge, semiotics as a methodology).

Nonclarity around the understandingof the concept of chaos has caused someconfusion in the contemporary natural science.For instance, not making a clear distinctionbetween the deterministic and quantum chaos hasmade it impossible to evaluate the approach ofIlya Prigogine in an appropriate way. It isshown that Jean Bricmont has missed the targetin his critique of I. Prigogine's ideas, as thelatter has concentrated his interest on systemsconsisting of infinite (arbitrarily large)number of particles in incessant mutualimpact, the former on systems that have afinite (not necessarily (...) large, althoughsometimes very large) number of particles,which move freely of any mutual impact orparticipate only in transient interaction. Thedifference may sometimes be quite crucial. Itis also suggested that if we consider theirreversibility as the basic element ofdescription of physical world, the world oftrajectories and wave functions cannot beresearched apart from this real irreversibility. (shrink)

Within current debates about the future impact of Artificial Intelligence on human society, roughly three different perspectives can be recognised: the technology-centric perspective, claiming that AI will soon outperform humankind in all areas, and that the primary threat for humankind is superintelligence; the human-centric perspective, claiming that humans will always remain superior to AI when it comes to social and societal aspects, and that the main threat of AI is that humankind’s social nature is overlooked in technological designs; and the (...) collective intelligence-centric perspective, claiming that true intelligence lies in the collective of intelligent agents, both human and artificial, and that the main threat for humankind is that technological designs create problems at the collective, systemic level that are hard to oversee and control. The current paper offers the following contributions: a clear description for each of the three perspectives, along with their history and background; an analysis and interpretation of current applications of AI in human society according to each of the three perspectives, thereby disentangling miscommunication in the debate concerning threats of AI; and a new integrated and comprehensive research design framework that addresses all aspects of the above three perspectives, and includes principles that support developers to reflect and anticipate upon potential effects of AI in society. (shrink)

In this commentary, I discuss three aspects of Monique Deveaux’s account. First, the method of Grounded Normative Theorizing she adopts to engage directly with the contexts and views of those experiencing poverty fits within a range of proposals to enhance the methodology of moral and political philosophy, and I would call on all philosophers working in this space to further develop these innovative methodologies. Second, Deveaux extends the capabilities approach by focusing on the group-based character of poverty and making the (...) case for building the collective capabilities of poor-led social movements. While I do not substantially disagree with this argument (in practice), I argue that we should be careful to avoid normative collectivism (as a theoretical assumption). Finally, Deveaux discusses political solidarity with people experiencing poverty. I argue that this should be based on esteeming each other’s various contributions in more diverse ways than only in narrow economic terms. Treating people in poverty and poor-led social movements as agents of justice, as Deveaux advocates, is a significant step in this endeavour. (shrink)

The article sets out to initiate a dialogue between two normative conceptions of democratic society, overwhelmingly depicted as irreconcilable by the partisans of each position: the political liberalism of John Rawls and the radical democracy of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The paper argues that both approaches share the same underlying ethos in envisioning society (called the “the ethos of contingency” in the paper) informing Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy and hegemony, as well as Rawls's view of justice (...) as fairness conceived in terms of reciprocity with its accompanying idea of public reason and reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described as the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The first approach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the (...) latter one suggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic faces the same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals important mechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic interpretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientists beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together interlinguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for the further understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culture might be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the othervaluable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M. Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semiotics of culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy — creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2014 Heft: 202 Seiten: 365-393.

Interview met Babs van den Bergh over haar studie filosofie en de daaropvolgende carrière.

Reposant la question de la structure logique de la modalite chez Kuki, cette etude vise a mettre en evidence les multiples dimensions du temps humain. Une telle meditation s’accompagne d’une reflexion sur le ≪ vecu ≫ de la vie concrete dont Kuki fournit une elucidation que l’on pourrait qualifier de metaphysique. Cette metaphysique de la vie est a rapprocher de la pensee de l’Instant tel que Kierkegaard le pense, de la temporalisation heideggerienne et de la duree chez Bergson. Mais le (...) philosophe le plus important convoque par Kuki reste Nietzsche dont la pensee fulgurante de l’eternel retour du meme nourrit la categorie de la contingence de l’existence. Sauf que precisement, la contingence ne peut pas etre une categorie. La philosophie nietzscheenne traverse et nourrit l’oeuvre de Kuki. La presente etude a pour ambition de laisser se confronter la pensee du retour et le temps de la duree. C’est dire qu’il est question ici de reflexion metaphysique sur cette dimension fondamentale de la conscience qu’est la forme du sens interne. Utiliser cette notion c’est eo ipso faire reference a Kant. Quels sont les rapports de ces multiples temporalites avec le temps eternel des dieux et du destin, telle est la question que souleve l’opus magnum de Kuki. Nous montrons les articulations d’abord logico-metaphysiques, ensuite existentiales de la structure de l’existant. C’est le raffinement esthetique de l’aristocrate qu’etait Kuki qui a nourri notre essai de penser et de comprendre la structure de l’Iki. (shrink)

In view of the recent criticisms of Janar Mihkelsaar the authors explicate their position on what political semiotics is and why it is important for both semiotics and the social sciences. Some further research trajectories are also discussed in moving from semiotic theory of hegemony to fully developed subdiscipline of political semiotics that would be part of the “relational turn” in political analysis more generally.

The article concentrates on the possibilities of bringing into dialogue two different theoretical frameworks for conceptualising social reality and power: those proposed by Ernesto Laclau, one of the leading current theorists of hegemony, and Juri Lotman, a path breaking cultural theorist. We argue that these two models contain several concepts that despite their different verbal expressions play exactly the same functional role in both theories. In this article, however, we put special emphasis on the problem of naming for both theorists. (...) We propose to see naming as one of the central translating strategies in the politico-hegemonic discourse. Our main thesis is that through substituting some central categories of Laclau’s theory with those of Lotman’s, it is possible to develop a model of hegemony that is a better tool for empirical study of power relations in given social formations than the model proposed by Laclau, who in his later works tends more and more to ground it in psychoanalytic ontology. (shrink)

Technological artefacts have, in recent years, invited increasingly intimate ways of interaction. But surprisingly little attention has been devoted to how such interactions, like with wearable devices or household robots, shape our minds, cognitive capacities, and moral character. In this thesis, I develop an embodied, enactive account of mind--technology interaction that takes the reciprocal influence of artefacts on minds seriously. First, I examine how recent developments in philosophy of technology can inform the phenomenology of mind--technology interaction as seen through an (...) enactivist lens. Second, I show how an enactive account of remembering can improve operationalizations of the memory palace mnemonic through virtual reality devices. Third, I draw on virtue ethics to argue that an enactivist approach allows us to better grasp the morally shaping aspects of artefacts by looking at social robots. Fourth, I fend off an underlying metaphysical concern about enactivism by arguing that an embodied, enactive account is compatible with the multiple realization of cognitive processes. This principle is often seen as a crucial test favouring accounts such as extended functionalism over enactivism and I argue that some forms of enactivism pass this test as well. Finally, I conclude by considering what the future relationship between enactivism and functionalism may have in store for the study of mind--technology interaction. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists typically explain cognitive processes in groups from the study of the individual. Even researchers who recognize that our cognition is inherently situated and cannot be understood without placing it in a social context take the individual as the starting point for looking at group processes. It is reason for Robert Wilson (2004) to argue for 'group minds'. With this he creates room for the idea that certain group processes cannot solely be explained as the sum of the individual (...) cognitive participants. Marc Slors does not go that far in his article on group identification and cognition. Yet his writing takes important steps toward better understanding group cognition. Broadly speaking, I can agree with the reasoning of the article and agree with the conclusion. But there is an important point missing that must be elaborated if the article is not to fall prey to a fundamental critique. Slors' writing integrates an assumption that is under discussion in ecological psychology, namely that information perception for cultural affordances need not be specific and precise. I am skeptical of this assumption and explain why in what follows. As a helping hand, I also take a stab at reinforcing Slors' narrative. (shrink)

Unlike the majority of philosophers, Hannah Arendt was not inclined to look down on common sense. She became convinced of common sense’s invaluable significance for our common world, especially when she came to understand that totalitarianism consists of its undermining. No matter how important the role of the concept in her thought, however, its meaning remains ambiguous insofar as it refers to two related, yet different ‘faculties’, common sense as a cognitive faculty on the one hand and common sense as (...) a faculty of judgment on the other. The aim of this two-part paper is to clarify this complicated relation.The first part sketches the development of the concept and demonstrates how the polemic created by Eichmann in Jerusalem sharpened Arendt’s understanding of the difference between truth and opinion, knowing and judging. Subsequently, it focuses on Arendt’s analysis of common sense as a cognitive faculty, i.e. as a ‘sixth sense’ that enables us to grasp the common and worldly context of our experiences and therefore also enables us to tell truth from falsehood. It is not thinking, with its search for meaning, but our common sense that warrants the revelation of truth and with it the possibility of knowledge . Because truth compels the mind and precludes debate, Arendt distinguishes it sharply from opinion, which is never self-evident.Nevertheless, this distinction does not end, as in Plato, in the hierarchical subordination of opinion to truth . At the same time, Arendt was aware of the powerlessness and vulnerability of truth in the public forum, in spite of its compelling character. This paradox calls for a discussion of Arendt’s view on the possibilities and limitations of modern mass-manipulation. (shrink)

How should sociologists use the word theory? Gabriel Abend’s recent insistence that this question should be tackled politically raises two important issues: Is sociology political? And if so, what normative implications follow for its organization? Drawing on Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance and post-Gramscian theories of hegemony, I argue that Abend’s proposal that semantic questions about theory can be addressed separately from ontological, evaluative, and teleological ones is untenable. Disagreements about the latter are constitutive, not merely supplementary to the meaning (...) of theory. Against Abend’s deliberative-democratically oriented vision, I propose an agonistic politics of theory. In doing so, I consider both the internal inconsistencies of deliberativism and the practical advantages and sociological relevance of agonism. (shrink)

During the past decades, our image ofHomo neanderthalensishas changed dramatically. Initially, Neanderthals were seen as primitive brutes. Increasingly, however, Neanderthals are regarded as basically human. New discoveries and technologies have led to an avalanche of data, and as a result of that it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint what the difference between modern humans and Neanderthals really is. And yet, the persistent quest for a minimal difference which separates them from us is still noticeable in Neanderthal research. Neanderthal discourse is (...) a vantage point from which the logic of ‘us’ versus ‘other’ is critically reconsidered. Studying contemporary academic literature and science autobiographies from an oblique perspective, focusing not on Neanderthals as objects, but on the dynamics of interaction between Neanderthal researchers and their finds, basic convictions at work in this type of research are retrieved. What is at issue is not the actual distinction between modern humans and Neanderthals, but rather the dualistic construction of human and nonhuman. Neanderthal understanding is affected by the desire to safeguard human uniqueness. The overall trend is to identify the human mark or spark, which defines us as favoured ‘winners’. The paradoxes emerging in contemporary Neanderthal discourse are symptomatic of the fact that a dualistic style of thinking is no longer tenable. (shrink)

Darwin1 introduced the idea that ornamental secondary sexual traits have evolved in response to female preferences for showy males. Among such traits, yellow and red carotenoid‐based ornaments have been considered as particularly good candidates for explaining why and how females would benefit from mating with showy partners. Because carotenoids can be used for promotion of both health and appearance, colourful male ornaments should honestly reveal the vigour of the bearers. Two recent experiments with birds2,3 now show how allocation of bodily (...) carotenoids to sexual signalling is traded off against the use of carotenoids for boosting immune function. BioEssays 25:746–747, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)