This book offers a new interpretation of the metaphysics of Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism and one of America's greatest philosophers. Robert Lane begins by examining Peirce's basic realism, his belief in a world that is independent of how anyone believes it to be. Lane argues that this realism is the basis for Peirce's account of truth, according to which a true belief is one that would be settled by investigation and that also represents the real world. He then (...) explores Peirce's application of his Pragmatic Maxim to clarify the idea of reality, his two forms of idealism, and his realism about generality and vagueness. This rich study will provide readers with a clear understanding of Peirce's thoughts on reality and truth and how they intersect, and of his views on the relation between the mind and the external world. (shrink)

Since Freud, clinicians have understood that disturbing memories contribute to psychopathology and that new emotional experiences contribute to therapeutic change. Yet, controversy remains about what is truly essential to bring about psychotherapeutic change. Mounting evidence from empirical studies suggests that emotional arousal is a key ingredient in therapeutic change in many modalities. In addition, memory seems to play an important role but there is a lack of consensus on the role of understanding what happened in the past in bringing about (...) therapeutic change. The core idea of this paper is that therapeutic change in a variety of modalities, including behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, results from the updating of prior emotional memories through a process of reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experiences. We present an integrated memory model with three interactive components – autobiographical memories, semantic structures, and emotional responses – supported by emerging evidence from cognitive neuroscience on implicit and explicit emotion, implicit and explicit memory, emotion-memory interactions, memory reconsolidation, and the relationship between autobiographical and semantic memory. We propose that the essential ingredients of therapeutic change include: reactivating old memories; engaging in new emotional experiences that are incorporated into these reactivated memories via the process of reconsolidation; and reinforcing the integrated memory structure by practicing a new way of behaving and experiencing the world in a variety of contexts. The implications of this new, neurobiologically grounded synthesis for research, clinical practice, and teaching are discussed. (shrink)

“The most likely use for Haack’s volume will be in introductory pragmatism courses and it is eminently appropriate for this task. However, others who would wish to speak out about pragmatism authoritatively would do well to go through the book from cover to cover. Outside of philosophy, the volume provides an introduction to a vital aspect of what philosophy has to offer to other disciplines, psychology among them....it is hard to think what could have been done to improve upon the (...) collection.”. (shrink)

For many years, Charles Peirce maintained that all senses of the modal terms "possible" and "necessary" can be defined in terms of "states of information." But in 1896, he was motivated by his work in set theory to criticize that account of modality, and in 1905 he characterized that criticism as a return "to the Aristotelian doctrine of a real possibility ... the great step that was needed to render pragmaticism an intelligible doctrine." But since Peirce was a realist about (...) modality before 1896, and since he continued defining "possibility" in terms of "states of information" after that date, it is not clear exactly what he changed his mind about. In this essay I explain what it was that Peirce changed his mind about and why, in retrospect, he viewed that change as a decisive step in the development of pragmaticism. (shrink)

This book, a member of the Series in Affective Science, is a unique interdisciplinary sequence of articles on the cognitive neuroscience of emotion by some of ...

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

Feminist and trans theory challenges "the" binary sex/gender system, but can create a new binary opposition of subversive transgender versus conservative transsexual. This paper aims to shift debate concerning bodies as authentic/real versus constructed/mutable, arguing that such debate establishes a false dichotomy that may be overcome by reappraising scientific understandings of sex/gender. Much recent biology and neurology stresses nonlinearity, contingency, self-organization, and open-endedness. Engaging with this research offers ways around apparently interminable theoretical impasses.

This is a discussion of a three-valued logic in Peirce's writings.

In this essay I describe two of the accounts that Peirce provides of personhood: the semiotic account, on which a person is a sequence of thought-signs, and the naturalistic account, on which a person is an animal. I then argue that these disparate accounts can be reconciled into a plausible view on which persons are numerically distinct entities that are nevertheless continuous with each other in an important way. This view would be agreeable to Peirce in some respects, as it (...) is modeled on his theory of perception, incorporates his categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, and is in harmony with his objective idealism. But it diverges from Peirce in one important respect, viz. its rejection of the idea that some groups of human beings count as persons. (shrink)

... I was many years ago led to define "real" as meaning being such as it is, no matter how you, or, I, or any man or definite collection of men may think it to be; where I use the long and awkward phrase in order to avoid all appearance of meaning independently of human thought. For obviously, nothing that I or anybody ever can mean can be independent of human thought. That is real which men would eventually and finally (...) come to think to be absolutely necessary to be thought in order to understand the truth, supposing the existence and advance in knowledge of the human race to be continued without any limitation, though I cannot pretend that I have as distinct an idea of exactly what that means as I could wish.... (shrink)

This is the first of two papers that examine Charles Peirce’s denial that human beings have a faculty of intuition. The semiotic and epistemo-logical aspects of that denial are well-known. My focus is on its neglected metaphysical aspect, which I argue amounts to the doctrine that there is no determinate boundary between the internal world of the cognizing subject and the external world that the subject cognizes. In the second paper, I will argue that the “objective idealism” of Peirce’s 1890s (...) cosmological series is a more general iteration of the metaphysical aspect of his earlier denial of intuition. (shrink)

Don Marquis has argued that abortion is immoral because it deprives the fetus of a "future like ours." But Marquis's argument fails by incorrectly assuming that a zygote and the late-term fetus with which it is physically continuous are numerically identical. In fact, the identity of a prebirth human (PBH) across gestation is indeterminate, such that it is determinately morally permissible to destroy an early-term PBH and determinately immoral to destroy a late-term PBH. Beginning at some indeterminate point during gestation (...) and ending at some indeterminate point later in gestation, destroying a PBH is neither determinately morally permissible nor determinately immoral. (shrink)

Although we agree that a constructivist approach to emotional experience makes sense, we propose that implicit (visceromotor and somatomotor) emotional processes are dissociable from explicit (attention and reflection) emotional processes, and that the conscious experience of emotion requires an integration of the two. Assessments of implicit emotion and emotional awareness can be helpful in the neuroscientific investigation of emotion.

The active inference framework offers an attractive starting point for understanding cultural cognition. Here, we argue that affective dynamics are essential to include when constructing this type of theory. We highlight ways in which interactions between emotional responses and the perception of those responses, both within and between individuals, can play central roles in both motivating and constraining sociocultural practices.

This chapter presents a detailed explanation of Peirce’s early and late views on semiotic indeterminacy and then considers how those views might be applied within biosemiotics. Peirce distinguished two different forms of semiotic indeterminacy: generality and vagueness. He defined each in terms of the “right” that indeterminate signs extend, either to their interpreters in the case of generality or to their utterers in the case of vagueness, to further determine their meaning. On Peirce’s view, no sign is absolutely determinate, i.e., (...) every sign is indeterminate to at least some degree and so exhibits some degree of generality or vagueness. If Peirce was right about this, then no instance of biosemiosis is completely determinate—every biosign must be general or vague to some degree. I show that on Peirce’s view, whether a sign is general or vague depends on its immediate object, “the idea which the sign is built upon,” and I explain how Peirce would go about identifying the immediate object of a sign lacking both a minded utterer and a minded interpreter—an identification that must be possible if any biosign is indeterminate. (shrink)

Peirce was the first logician to define three-valued logical connectives. In 1909, he defined four one-place three-valued connectives and six two-place three-valued connectives, all of which were rediscovered by later logicians. Peirce’s motivation was to accommodate within formal logic a specific, narrow range of propositions he took to be neither true nor false, viz. propositions that predicate of a breach in mathematical or temporal continuity one of the properties that is a boundary-property relative to that breach.

Since the mid?1960s in advanced and rapidly advancing economies, there has been a rising tide of clinical depression and dysphoria, a decline in mutual trust, and a loosening of social bonds. Most studies show that above a minimal level, income is irrelevant to one's sense of well?being, but companionship and social support increase well?being. Since shopping and consumption are increasingly solitary activities, and watching television is not genuinely sociable, the increased time devoted to these activities may be responsible for rising (...) levels of depression. Advanced societies are likely to increase ?utility? if they maximize friendship rather than the getting and spending of wealth. (shrink)

Susan Haack has argued that an account of perception based on that developed by Charles Peirce can overcome the false dichotomy between realist theories that downplay perception's interpretative character and irrealist theories that deny its directness. Haack believes that this dichotomy is overcome by Peirce's distinction between the perceptual judgment, the belief that accompanies a perceptual experience, and the percept, the phenomenal, interactive aspect of a perceptual experience. But I provide reasons for thinking that Haack's account of perception is inadequate.

This is the second of two papers that examine Charles Peirce’s denial that human beings have a faculty of intuition. In the first paper, I argued that in its metaphysical aspect, Peirce’s denial of intuition amounts to the doctrine that there is no determinate boundary between the internal world of the cognizing subject and the external world that the subject cognizes.In the present paper, I argue that, properly understood, the “objective idealism” of Peirce’s 1890s cosmological series is a more general (...) iteration of the metaphysical aspect of his earlier denial of intuition. I also consider whether Peirce continued to deny that there is a definite boundary between the internal and external worlds in the years after the cosmological series. (shrink)

People are excused from moral blame for the harm they are said to have caused if they could not have done otherwise. Such excuses rely on causal explanations deriving mostly from social and biological sciences whose paradigms are probabilistic, disjunctive, and combine dispositional and circumstantial factors according to the variance accounted for by each type of factor. The more complete the explanation, the less choice the harm-doer seems to have and therefore the less moral blame is warranted. Thus, the biological (...) bases of people’s behaviour, their earlier socialization, and their prior choices reduce the scope and severity of moral blame — but have no effect on judgments of right and wrong. Fairness also requires a similar analysis of the behaviour of moral judges whose standards vary with their dispositions, social class, and culture. It follows that moral assessments are joint products of both ethics and the social and biological sciences, with neither group able to make fair moral assessments of people’s behaviour without help from the other. (shrink)

Charles Peirce claimed that "anything is general in so far as the principle of excluded middle does not apply to it and is vague in so far as the principle of contradiction does not apply to it." This seems to imply that general propositions are neither true nor false and that vague propositions are both true and false. But this is not the case. I argue that Peirce's claim was intended to underscore relatively simple facts about quantification and negation, and (...) that it implies neither that general propositions are neither true nor false nor that vague propositions are both true and false. (shrink)

I provide an account of the moral status of pre-birth humans that integrates ideas from Charles Peirce, including: synechism, the idea that "all that exists is continuous"; the reality of "Seconds," independently existing individual entities; and Peirce's pragmatic conceptions of truth and reality. This account implies that destroying a pre-birth human is determinately moral very soon after conception and determinately immoral very late in pregnancy. But it also implies that during much of gestation, destroying a pre-birth human is of indeterminate (...) moral status, neither determinately moral nor determinately immoral. (shrink)

I provide an account of the moral status of pre-birth humans that integrates ideas from Charles Peirce, including: synechism, the idea that "all that exists is continuous"; the reality of "Seconds," independently existing individual entities; and Peirce's pragmatic conceptions of truth and reality. This account implies that destroying a pre-birth human is determinately moral very soon after conception and determinately immoral very late in pregnancy. But it also implies that during much of gestation, destroying a pre-birth human is of indeterminate (...) moral status, neither determinately moral nor determinately immoral. (shrink)

Some opponents of reproductive human cloning have argued that, because of its experimental nature, any attempt to create a child by way of cloning would risk serious birth defects or genetic abnormalities and would therefore be immoral. Some versions of this argument appeal to the consent of the person to be conceived in this way. In particular, they assume that if an experimental reproductive technology has not yet been shown to be safe, then, before we use it, we are morally (...) obligated to get either the actual consent or the presumed consent of the person to be conceived. In this article, I attempt to explain the appeal of such consent-based arguments as deriving from a mistaken view of personal identity. I then argue that since this view is false, such arguments are unsound. Finally, I argue that even if reproductive cloning is unsafe, it may still be morally permissible in some circumstances. (shrink)

It is well known that C. S. Peirce eventually accepted an "extreme scholastic realism" about "generals" and "vagues." But it has been a subject of debate among Peirce scholars whether he was a nominalist early on. In particular, it remains unsettled whether Peirce's earliest position regarding generals was one of antirealism or whether he was a realist about generals from the very beginning. In this essay I argue that despite first appearances, the textual evidence does not support the claim that (...) Peirce moved from a position of antirealism to one of realism about generals. His earliest statements on the subject are compatible with a moderate, nonmodal realism about generality. (shrink)

If the obstacles to human development lie in the paucity of resources, in insuperable technical barriers, the task would be hopeless. We know instead that it is too often a lack of political commitment, not of resources, that is the ultimate cause of human neglect. United Nations, Human Development Report, 1991.

Rational choice theories have been falsified by experimental tests of economic behavior and have not been supported by analyses of behavior in the market. Politics is an even less fertile field of application for rational choice theories because politics deals with ends as well as means, thus preventing ends?means rationality; voters have partisan loyalties often ?fixed? in adolescence; political benefits have no common unit of measurement; ?rational ignorance? inhibits rational choices; and there is no market?like feedback to facilitate learning. Research (...) comparing public and private efficiency does not support rational choice. Ironically, while law and business schools are now employing better microeconomic theories, political scientists are taking up rational choice theory, regardless of the disconfirming evidence. (shrink)

Contributors explore the social, medical, and ethical dilemma of assisted suicide in this revised edition that includes international as well as domestic viewpoints. The federal government's continued challenges to Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, the disabled community's response to assisted suicide, and the slippery slope argument are all examined.

Beckett and Philosophy examines and interrogates the relationships between Samuel Beckett's works and contemporary French and German thought. There are two wide-ranging overview chapters by Richard Begam (Beckett and Postfoundationalism) and Robert Eaglestone (Beckett via Literary and Philosophical Theories), and individual chapters on Beckett, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Badious, Merleau-Pointy, Adorno, Hebermas, Heidegger and Nietzsche. The collection takes a fresh look as issues such as postmodern and poststructuralist thought in relation to Beckett studies, providing useful overview chapters and original essays.