For Descartes, our minds are not natural causes because they are not themselves objects; rather, they are the activities that identify objects. In short, they are our challenges to the natural order of things, both in how we adapt to novel situations (as exhibited in what has been called the “rational action test”) and in how we respond in unexpected yet appropriate ways to linguistic cues (in the “language test”). Because these tests reveal ways in which our minds (as “pure,” (...) creative, willful, and immortal substances) introduce novelty into nature, we are not determined (as animals are) by other objects. That is, our rational or linguistic activities are challenges to the order of nature precisely because they are not part of, but rather constitute, nature. Accordingly, “real” (creative) speech is logically prior to finite differentiations and is not limited by laws of nature that constrain animal behavior. (shrink)

We present three experiments using a novel problem in which participants update their estimates of propensities when faced with an uncertain new instance. We examine this using two different causal structures (common cause/common effect) and two different scenarios (agent‐based/mechanical). In the first, participants must update their estimate of the propensity for two warring nations to successfully explode missiles after being told of a new explosion on the border between both nations. In the second, participants must update their estimate of the (...) accuracy of two early warning tests for cancer when they produce conflicting reports about a patient. Across both experiments, we find two modal responses, representing around one‐third of participants each. In the first, “Categorical” response, participants update propensity estimates as if they were certain about the single event, for example, certain that one of the nations was responsible for the latest explosion, or certain about which of the two tests is correct. In the second, “No change” response, participants make no update to their propensity estimates at all. Across the three experiments, the theory is developed and tested that these two responses in fact have a single representation of the problem: because the actual outcome is binary (only one of the nations could have launched the missile; the patient either has cancer or not), these participants believe it is incorrect to update propensities in a graded manner. They therefore operate on a “certainty threshold” basis, whereby, if they are certain enough about the single event, they will make the “Categorical” response, and if they are below this threshold, they will make the “No change” response. Ramifications are considered for the “categorical” response in particular, as this approach produces a positive‐feedback dynamic similar to that seen in the belief polarization/confirmation bias literature. (shrink)

Classical Indian views of the self and person range from maximal to minimal conceptions, from a view of everyone's true self as the supreme being, infinite, immortal, self‐existent, self‐aware, and intrinsically blissful, to a view of the person as nothing more than the living human body that ceases to be at death. (“Consciousness is an adventitious attribute of the body, like the intoxicating power of fermented grain.”) Every major school and subschool takes a stance on what a self is and (...) how it is known; a rich diversity of opinion and argument marks this area of classical Indian thought. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism is an issue at the forefront of philosophy of science. This landmark work addresses the question, Can pluralism be advanced as a general, philosophical interpretation of science? Scientific Pluralism demonstrates the viability of the view that some phenomena require multiple accounts. Pluralists observe that scientists present various—sometimes even incompatible—models of the world and argue that this is due to the complexity of the world and representational limitations. Including investigations in biology, physics, economics, psychology, and mathematics, this work provides (...) an empirical basis for a consistent stance on pluralism and makes the case that it should change the ways that philosophers, historians, and social scientists analyze scientific knowledge. Contributors: John Bell, U of Western Ontario; Michael Dickson, U of South Carolina; Carla Fehr, Iowa State U; Ronald N. Giere, U of Minnesota; Geoffrey Hellman, U of Minnesota; Alan Richardson, U of British Columbia; C. Wade Savage, U of Minnesota; Esther-Mirjam Sent, U of Nijmegen. Stephen H. Kellert is professor of philosophy at Hamline University and a fellow of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. Helen E. Longino is professor of philosophy at Stanford University. C. Kenneth Waters is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism is an issue at the forefront of philosophy of science. This landmark work addresses the question, Can pluralism be advanced as a general, philosophical interpretation of science?

This paper investigates the role of literature and, in particular, Proust in Merleau-Ponty’s late works’ rehabilitation of the ontology of the sensible. First, I trace Proust’s role in Phenomenology of Percpetion, contrasting it with the somewhat more paradigmatic status as a model it plays in the late works. Second, I compare this with the role of the novel as partial myth in Schelling, who also played an essential role in Merleau-Ponty’s refiguration of the sensible. I briefly trace his examination of (...) the historical or “sociological meaning” of literature through works of the fifties, beginning with his Collège de France candidacy proposal and continuing through his examination of the rationality of modern disenchantment or dépoétization in the Adventures of the Dialectic. Finally, discussing the late analysis of Proust against this backdrop, I conclude with considerations concerning the relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s overall analysis of Proust both in his thought and contemporary literary criticism and philosophy more generally. Cet article examine le rôle de la littérature et, en particulier, celui de Proust, dans la réhabilitation ontologique du sensible qui se trame dans les derniers écrits de Merleau-Ponty. En premier lieu, je retracerai le rôle de Proust dans la Phénoménologie de la perception, en l’opposant au statut quelque peu plus paradigmatique, comme s’il s’agissait d’un modèle, qu’il joue dans le dernier Merleau-Ponty. Deuxièmement, je comparerai cela avec la fonction du roman conçu comme un mythe incomplet chez Schelling, qui a aussi joué un rôle essentiel dans la reconfiguration du sensible chez Merleau-Ponty. Je décrirai brièvement son analyse de la « signification sociologique » ou historique de la littérature à travers des oeuvres des années ’50, en me penchant, d’abord, sur sa candidature au Collège de France, et, ensuite, sur son étude de la rationalité du désenchantement moderne ou dépoétisation dans les Aventures de la dialectique. Finalement, en examinant les dernières analyses de Proust à partir de ces prémisses, je conclurai avec des considérations sur l’intérêt de l’ensemble de l’analyse que Merleau-Ponty fait de Proust à la fois pour sa pensée, pour la critique littéraire contemporaine et, plus généralement, pour la philosophie.Il presente articolo indaga il ruolo della letteratura e, in particolare, di Proust nella riabilitazione ontologica del sensibile negli ultimi scritti di Merleau-Ponty. In primo luogo, si delinea il ruolo di Proust nella Fenomenologia della percezione, contrapponendolo, in qualche modo, allo statuto paradigmatico di modello che l’autore riveste nei lavori dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty. In secondo luogo, si confronta questo con il ruolo del romanzo come mito parziale in Schelling, che pure ha giocato una parte essenziale nella rifigurazione del sensibile in Merleau-Ponty. Si articolerà brevemente il significato storico o sociologico della letteratura attraverso gli scritti degli anni Cinquanta, a partire dalla proposta di candidatura di Merleau-Ponty al Collège de France e proseguendo mediante il suo esame della razionalità del disincanto moderno o depoetizzazione ne Le avventure della dialettica. Infine, esaminando l’ultima lettura di Proust a partire da queste analisi, propongo una considerazione riguardo alla rilevanza complessiva dell’autore della Recherche nella riflessione di Merleau-Ponty e, più in generale, nella critica letteraria e nella filosofia contemporanee. (shrink)

What happens to scientific knowledge when researchers outside the natural sciences bring elements of the latest trend across disciplinary boundaries for their own purposes? Researchers in fields from anthropology to family therapy and traffic planning employ the concepts, methods, and results of chaos theory to harness the disciplinary prestige of the natural sciences, to motivate methodological change or conceptual reorganization within their home discipline, and to justify public policies and aesthetic judgments. Using the recent explosion in the use of chaos (...) theory, _Borrowed Knowledge and the Challenge of Learning across Disciplines _examines the relationship between science and other disciplines as well as the place of scientific knowledge within our broader culture. Stephen H. Kellert’s detailed investigation of the myriad uses of chaos theory reveals serious problems that can arise in the interchange between science and other knowledge-making pursuits, as well as opportunities for constructive interchange. By engaging with recent debates about interdisciplinary research, Kellert contributes a theoretical vocabulary and a set of critical frameworks for the rigorous examination of borrowing. (shrink)

This book is a study of the philosophy of the early 18th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley in the intellectual context of his times, with a particular focus on how, for Berkeley, mind is related to its ideas. It does not assume that thinkers like Descartes, Malebranche, or Locke define for Berkeley the context in which he develops his own thought. Instead, he indicates how Berkeley draws on a tradition that informed his early training and that challenges much of the (...) early modern thought with which he is often associated. Specifically, the book indicates how Berkeley's distinctive treatment of mind (as the activity whereby objects are differentiated and related to one another) highlights how mind neither precedes the existence of objects nor exists independently of them. This distinctive way of understanding the relation of mind and objects allows Berkeley to appropriate ideas from his contemporaries in a manner that transforms the issues with which he is engaged. The resulting insights--for example, about how God creates the minds that perceive objects--are only now starting to be fully appreciated. (shrink)

In this book, Phillips gives an overview of the contribution of Nyaya--the classical Indian school that defends an externalist position about knowledge as well as an internalist position about justification. Nyaya literature extends almost two thousand years and comprises hundreds of texts, and in this book, Phillips presents a useful overview of the under-studied system of thought. For the philosopher rather than the scholar of Sanskrit, the book makes a whole range of Nyaya positions and arguments accessible to students of (...) epistemology who are unfamiliar with classical Indian systems. (shrink)

This essay introduces the volume Scientific Pluralism (Volume 19 of Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science). Varieties of recent pluralisms are surveyed, the difference between monism and pluralism vis a vis the sciences is clarified, and the authors’ notion of scientific pluralism is advanced.

Tradition II Hermeneutics, Ethics, and the Dispensation of the Good Stephen H. Watson Examines concepts of tradition in 20th-century Continental philosophy. In Tradition II, Stephen H. Watson engages post-Kantian Continental philosophy in his continuing investigation into the concept of tradition which he began in his work, Tradition. According to Watson, the problem of tradition became explicit in 20th-century philosophy, and is especially apparent in the work of Heidegger, Gadamer, Husserl, Benjamin, Adorno, Levinas, Kristeva, and Derrida, among others. By (...) formulating a series of dialogues between these philosophers and their predecessors, Watson articulates the issues and concerns surrounding tradition and traditionality. Taking on topics such as the hermeneutics of the self, the rationality of tradition, the pluralistic nature of historical interpretation, and the question of the "other," Watson emphasizes the importance of classical accounts of ethical and political discourse for contemporary philosophy and today’s multicultural world. Watson extends his analysis of tradition to include the problems of meaning and narrative and the nature of the self. He also considers the meaning of the Good and how Good is dispensed in the world. By questioning past philosophical narratives and their influence on modern and postmodern philosophy, Watson brings fresh perspective to the complex meanings of tradition for a pluralistic world. Stephen H. Watson is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of Extensions: Essays on Interpretation, Rationality, and the Closure of Modernism and Tradition: Refiguring Community, Remembrance, and Virtue in Classical German Thought. Studies in Continental Thought—John Sallis, general editor June 2001 320 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index cloth 0-253-33900-6 $35.00 s / £26.50. (shrink)

Berkeley’s appeal to a posteriori arguments for God’s existence supports belief only in a God who is finite. But by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. In this latter argument, God is not the efficient cause of particular finite things in the world, for such an explanation does not provide a justification or rationale for why the totality of finite things would exist in the first place. Instead, God is understood as the creator (...) of the total unity of all there is, the whole of creation. In this a priori argument, we should not focus on the specific objects that God creates, for that requires that we think that God knows each finite thing as distinct from every other. Rather, we should recognize how God creates all things in creating the complex, infinite totality of finite perceivings, each of which exists in virtue of the distinctions and relations it expresses. (shrink)

In his work on the moral status of nonhuman animals, David Clough rejects the theory of anthropocentrism while accepting its practical importance. He thus leaves theology in a dilemma: reflection on animals should not support the very concept that practical approaches to animals require. An alternative is a “weak anthropocentrism” along the line of Gianni Vattimo's “weak ontology.” A weak anthropocentrism is better suited to a Neoplatonic theory of participation, not the traditional framework of creation out of nothing, and it (...) also can give new meaning to the idea of imago Dei and a Christocentric affirmation of nonhuman value. (shrink)

Drawing on a variety of published and unpublished material representing Toland's broad interests, Professor Daniel reveals a common theme emphasizing man's capacity for independent thought on basic philosophical, religious, and political issues. Roughly chronological, Daniel's treatment describes Toland's progressive refinement of this fundamental aspect of his thought. After examining, in his early works, the process whereby religion becomes mystified, Toland turned to biography, demonstrating that through it one can regain rational control over religion. Prejudices and superstitions, topics of the Letters (...) to Serena, are shown to be overcome through corrections implicit in the principles of biographical and historical exegesis. Polemic as philosophic methode required Toland to provide a doctrine of esoteric communication. In the course of his later writings this doctrine became grounded in a metaphysics suitable for the Cieronian religion of the pantheists. (shrink)

Berkeley argues that claims about divine predication (e.g., God is wise or exists) should be understood literally rather than analogically, because like all spirits (i.e., causes), God is intelligible only in terms of the extent of his effects. By focusing on the harmony and order of nature, Berkeley thus unites his view of God with his doctrines of mind, force, grace, and power, and avoids challenges to religious claims that are raised by appeals to analogy. The essay concludes by showing (...) how a letter, supposedly by Berkeley, to Peter Browne ("discovered" in 1969 by Berman and Pittion) is, in fact, by John Jackson (1686-1763), controversial theologian and friend of Samuel Clarke. (shrink)

Study of Upādhiprakaraṇa of Gaṅgeśa, 13th cent., treatise on Navya Nyāya philosophy; includes text and translataion.

Since nothing about God is passive, and the perception of pain is inherently passive, then it seems that God does not know what it is like to experience pain. Nor would he be able to cause us to experience pain, for his experience would then be a sensation (which would require God to have senses, which he does not). My suggestion is that Berkeley avoids this situation by describing how God knows about pain “among other things” (i.e. as something whose (...) identity is intelligible in terms of the integrated network of things). This avoids having to assume that God has ideas (including pain) apart from his willing that there be perceivers who have specific ideas that are in harmony or not in harmony with one another. (shrink)

This paper addresses a number of issues concerning both the status of phenomenology in the work of one of its classical expositors, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and the general relation between theoretical models and evidence in phenomenological accounts. In so doing, I will attempt to explain Merleau-Ponty's departure from classical transcendental accounts in Husserl's thought and why Merleau-Ponty increasingly elaborated on them through aesthetic rationality. The result is a phenomenology that no longer understands itself as foundational and no longer understands itself in (...) the strict opposition of intuition and concept. Rather both emerge from an operative experience generated in the exchange between situated embodied knowing and historical knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:There's Nothing Wrong with Raw Perception:A Response to Chakrabarti's Attack on Nyāya's Nirvikalpaka PratyakṣaStephen H. PhillipsIn the lead article of the fiftieth anniversary issue of Philosophy East and West (January 2000), Arindam Chakrabarti elaborates seven reasons why Nyāya should jettison "indeterminate perception" and view all perception as determinate, that is to say, as having an entity (a) as qualified by a qualifier (F) as object (Fa). In his notes, (...) Chakrabarti invites a reply "so that," as he says, "I may know why immaculate perception is needed by Nyāya after all." The following is a response that shows not so much why indeterminate perception is needed by Nyāya but why it is identified as a causal factor necessary to the arising of some (not all) determinate perception defined as "perception of an entity as qualified." Here I follow Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya, the fourteenth-century founder (with the help of a few less well known predecessors and contemporaries) of "New Logic," Navya Nyāya. Gaṅgeśa devotes an entire section (about one eighteenth) of the perception chapter of his monumental Tattvacintāmaṇi (Jewel of Reflection about Epistemology) to nirvikalpaka pratyaksṣa,1 and he is a chief target of Chakrabarti's chastisement.2Now, first of all, I want to follow Gaṅgeśa's ground rules. The Naiyāyika is not concerned with strategies about how to look good in debates (with Buddhists or anyone else). His attitude is truth-seeking, not eristic, and thus no reply will be given to Chakrabarti's agonizing about how best to show ourselves in controversies with (in particular, Buddhist) adversaries (and Wilfrid Sellars). Gaṅgeśa's reflections are vāda—and the section is rightly titled nirvikalpaka-vāda, vāda being "inquiries among friends"—directed to uncovering real causal factors, not to winning a debate or countering sophisms. Deception, or counter-deception, is sometimes appropriate—for instance, to protect a student or other judge from fallacies advanced by people of bad character. But not here. So I will lay out Gaṅgeśa's argument for identifying nirvikalpaka pratyaksṣa, and then run through Chakrabarti's list of reasons for rejecting it with an eye to the objection's salience to Gaṅgeśa's project. In other words, Chakrabarti's objections will be taken up with an eye to the truth as it appears to a Naiyāyika, not with an eye to how our team should best present itself to outsiders. I have little to say about Chakrabarti's complaints about appearances—in fact, I find them delightful. Don't let him fool you. There's no greater Naiyāyika enthusiast than Chakrabarti himself, and he knows how to distill a controversy to show the wisdom [End Page 104] of Nyāya in contrast to revealing a deficiency, as he appears to be doing here. He does this to make us think broadly about Nyāya in a contemporary context. And at the end I join him in making some very general comments about Nyāya's realism. First, Gaṅgeśa's argument and a rebuttal of Chakrabarti's seven reasons from Gaṅgeśa's point of view.There is no direct, apperceptive evidence for nirvikalpaka pratyaksṣa; rather, it is posited by force of the following inference as the first step of a two-step argument. "The perceptual cognition, 'A cow' (for example), is generated by a cognition of the qualifier, since it is a cognition of an entity as qualified (by that qualifier appearing), like an inference." The second step takes a person's first perception of an individual (Bessie, let us say) as a cow (i.e., as having some such property) as the perceptual cognition figuring as the inference's subject (or pakṣa) such that the cognizer's memory not informed by previous cow experience could not possibly provide the qualifier, cowhood. The qualifier has to be available, and the best candidate seems to be its perception in the raw, a qualifier (cowhood), that is to say, not (as some are wont to misinterpret the point... (shrink)

The present work is a translation of The Perception Chapter of Jewel of Reflection on the Truth, a foundational text by the great fourteenth-century Indian logician Gangesa Upadhyaya. The authors' introduction and running commentary to the translation provide essential theoretical and historical background, contextualization, analysis, and comparison of Nyaya and Western traditions. Includes a detailed glossary and index. Published by American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS).

Berkeley's doctrine of archetypes explains how God perceives and can have the same ideas as finite minds. His appeal of Christian neo-Platonism opens up a way to understand how the relation of mind, ideas, and their union is modeled on the Cappadocian church fathers' account of the persons of the trinity. This way of understanding Berkeley indicates why he, in contrast to Descartes or Locke, thinks that mind (spiritual substance) and ideas (the object of mind) cannot exist or be thought (...) of apart from one another. It also hints at why Gregory of Nyssa's immaterialism sounds so much like Berkeley's. (shrink)

While classical interpretations of hermeneutics have often identified themselves with Montaigne, others have contested not only whether Montaigne is committed to an account of a hermeneutic self, but whether a hermeneutics of traditional or self-identity is either possible or desirable. This article will investigate the continuing viability of hermeneutics through contested interpretations of Montaigne undertaken from the varying standpoints of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. These interpretations have shed significant light on Montaigne's work and have in turn been further illuminated (...) by it; they reveal not only something about the hermeneutics of Montaigne's work, but about consciousness, and the timeliness of hermeneutics itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.4 (2003) iv [Access article in PDF] Editors' Remarks I am pleased to announce that Gerard Hauser will assume the editorship of Philosophy and Rhetoric. Professor Hauser has been closely associated with the journal for decades, and I can think of no one better suited to realizing its distinctive mission. I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the many authors and reviewers who have contributed (...) to the achievement of this journal. Henry, be assured, would have been pleased. Stephen H. Browne * * *Assuming the editorship of Philosophy and Rhetoric is a joyous return to a prior calling. My association with the journal as its book review editor, as Donald Verene's associate editor, and as Henry Johnstone's co-editor marked active engagement in the first quarter-century of its contribution to the ancient dialogue reflected in its name. I am honored to have been asked to succeed Stephen Browne, who has provided a decade of leadership in sustaining the journal's high standards. As editor, my intention is to continue Philosophy and Rhetoric's tradition of advancing deep scholarship and new thought in the areas reflected in its statement of purpose. Gerard A. Hauser... (shrink)

The emergence of nanotechnology, with all its promises of economic, social, and medical benefits, along with dire predictions of environmental, health, and safety threats, has occasioned an active debate in the Science and Technology Studies field, in which we have seen five distinct conversations that frame the discussion. The topical threads include ethics, regulation, opportunities and threats including utopian/dystopian visions of the future, public perception, public participation. These conversational distinctions are not absolutes with firm borders as they clearly overlap at (...) many points. Nonetheless, common to all is a strong sense that control and consequence are significant problems that have yet to be addressed adequately by the promoters of nanotechnology. A final section addresses articles on nanotechnology that exemplify the social construction theory of technology. We include herein a selective summary of this recent body of science, technology, and society (STS) journal literature focused on the social and ethical interactions of nanotechnology (SEIN) that has emerged in the last few years. The intent is not to be encyclopedic in coverage, but rather to seek to understand, in a general way, the key issues and concepts STS scholars are discussing. It is clear that STS-oriented scholars are well poised to grapple explicitly with the cultural, socio-political, and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. Drawing on understandings of earlier socio-technical areas of interest and concern—nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, the human genome—such scholars have moved well beyond the questions of whether and where nanotechnology intersects society. More important is their effort to seek an understanding in depth of exactly how they are socio-politically, culturally, and ethically interconnected. In doing so, SEIN studies have at the same time become increasingly diverse and more sophisticated and mature over the course of the past decade. Scholars have quite rightly recognized the inadequacies of blanket ideas of moratoria versus non-regulatory environments, utopian versus dystopian futures, and whether or not the public has a role to play in nanotechnology decision making. Rather, a more sophisticated, often case specific, flexible understanding of the societal context of a given issue or concern is called for. (shrink)

For Berkeley, minds are not Cartesian spiritual substances because they cannot be said to exist (even if only conceptually) abstracted from their activities. Similarly, Berkeley's notion of mind differs from Locke's in that, for Berkeley, minds are not abstract substrata in which ideas inhere. Instead, Berkeley redefines what it means for the mind to be a substance in a way consistent with the Stoic logic of 17th century Ramists on which Leibniz and Jonathan Edwards draw. This view of mind, I (...) conclude, is definitely not the bundle theory that some critics have portrayed it as being. (shrink)