We introduce the CUBISM system for the analysis and deep understanding of multi-participant dialogues. CUBISM brings together two typically separate forms of discourse analysis: semantic analysis and sociolinguistic analysis. In the paper proper, we describe and illustrate major components of the CUBISM system, and discuss the challenge posed by the system’s ultimate purpose, which is to automatically detect anomalous changes in participants’ expressed or implied beliefs about the world and each other, including shifts toward or away from cultural and community (...) norms. (shrink)

We introduce the CUBISM system for the analysis and deep understanding of multi-participant dialogues. CUBISM brings together two typically separate forms of discourse analysis: semantic analysis and sociolinguistic analysis. In the paper proper, we describe and illustrate major components of the CUBISM system, and discuss the challenge posed by the system’s ultimate purpose, which is to automatically detect anomalous changes in participants’ expressed or implied beliefs about the world and each other, including shifts toward or away from cultural and community (...) norms. (shrink)

Postdisciplinary Knowledge is the first book to articulate postdisciplinarity in philosophical, theoretical and methodological terms, helping to establish it as an important intellectual movement of the 21st century. It formulates what postdisciplinarity is, and how it can be implemented in research practice. The diverse chapters present a rich collection of highly creative thought-provoking essays and methodological insights. Written by a number of pioneering intellectuals with a range of backgrounds and research foci, these chapters cover a broad spectrum of areas demonstrating (...) alternative ways of producing knowledge. Essays are interspersed with dialogue, encouraging a comprehensive and engaging discussion on this emerging movement. Not limited to a specific field or discipline, this will be of great interest to upper level students and researchers in a wide range of subject areas, including: tourism, sociology, education, psychology, physiotherapy, fine arts, architecture and design, as well as those with a general interest in epistemology and methodology. (shrink)

In Heraclitus’ time, thymos and psyche carried highly similar or even identical meanings, because both could refer to life, courage, personality, emotions, and reason. Heraclitus probably worked with all of these meanings. He may have been partly inspired by Homer and post-Homeric literature, where the two terms were likewise placed side by side and often used interchangeably. In Heraclitus, thymos and psyche are not opposites in terms of signification. Oftentimes, they can be “swapped,” and their meaning and “costs” exchanged. The (...) source and cause of this special exchange is desiring or wanting (thelein), which connects all these senses but is also the source of conflict and fighting. Desire—regardless of what it is and what is desired—is simultaneously the acquisition of the desired object or person and a way of paying for it. This struggle for the desired object is difficult not only because of its consequences (the price), but also because it is not possible to permanently stop desiring, which is why this struggle cannot be brought to an end. (shrink)

[Replies to My Friends] This is an answer to the critics of my book WHAT IT'S LIKE, OR WHAT IT'S ABOUT? THE PLACE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (2017). I proceed from the least to the most serious objections. I start with Jakub Mihálik’s defense of Russellian Monism against my claim that it is not a genuine alternative to standard dualism and materialism. In reply, I claim this is a side issue to the central aim of my book, which (...) is to undermine the concept of phenomenal consciousness assumed by Russellian Monism as much as by every other standard theory. One of these standard theories is reductive materialism, pursued by Michal Polák and Tomáš Marvan. Both Polák and Marvan are worried by Dennett’s alleged eliminativism, even though their arguments somewhat differ. Polák believes in a deflationary concept of consciousness, which I am afraid lacks a definite content. Marvan offers an “innocent” concept of consciousness, on which there is supposed to be a general consensus, but I think he just assumes that the concept of phenomenal property is part of the definition of consciousness. Curiously, while Polák and Marvan take me as to be a Dennettian, Stefanie Dach argues that I misinterpret Dennett. Conversely, I believe that she overlooks weak points in Dennett’s theory. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that our ordinary English words man and woman are “gender terms,” and gender is distinct from biological sex. That is, they believe womanhood and manhood are not defined even partly by biological sex. This sex/gender distinction is one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century on the broader culture, both popular and academic. Less well known are the reasons to think it’s true. My interest in this paper is to show that, upon investigation, the arguments (...) for the sex/gender distinction have feet of clay. In fact, they all fail. We will survey the literature and tour arguments in favor of the sex/gender distinction, and then we’ll critically evaluate those arguments. We’ll consider the argument from resisting biological determinism, the argument from biologically intersex people and vagueness, the argument from the normativity of gender, and some arguments from thought experiments. We’ll see that these arguments are not up to the task of supporting the sex/gender distinction; they simply don’t work. So, philosophers should either develop stronger arguments for the sex/gender distinction, or cultivate a variety of feminism that’s consistent with the traditional, biologically-based definitions of woman and man. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic risk (...) just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

[Précis of What It’s Like, or What It’s About? The Place of Consciousness in the Material World] The paper provides a summary of my recent Czech-language book, WHAT IT'S LIKE, OR WHAT IT'S ABOUT? THE PLACE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (2017). As suggested by the subtitle, the topic of the book is philosophy of consciousness. In the contemporary literature, most participants have in mind the so-called phenomenal characters, and the main issue debated between dualists and materialists is whether (...) these characters are material properties. Even the Russellian monists, who otherwise present themselves as an alternative to both dualism and materialism, accept the concept of phenomenal character. I express doubts about this concept in chapter six of my book; accordingly, I allot most space in the paper to the material from this chapter. Despite the majority opinion, I believe that no agreement has in fact been reached concerning the content of this concept. Similarly to Daniel Dennett, I recommend trying to develop a philosophy of consciousness without the concept of phenomenal character. As is well known, Dennett – to some extent similarly to the aforementioned materialists – proposes a reduction of consciousness in terms of representation. However, I wound up rather more skeptical than Dennett, since following up on my previous book, THE METAPHYSICS OF ANTI-INDIVIDUALISMU (2008), I claim that a naturalistic theory of representation is incoherent. (shrink)

[Filip Tvrdý on Naturalizing Philosophy] The paper distinguishes several versions of contemporary naturalism: revisionary, constructive, and non-representational. Revisionary naturalism pleads substituting the traditional philosophical inquiry into the nature of things by a genetic inquiry into the origin of our – often faulty – beliefs about the nature of things. Constructive naturalism accepts the program of traditional philosophy, yet hoping that its questions could be answered by broadly scientific methods. Non-representational naturalism is an extension of metaethical expressivism, claiming that philosophical claims (...) should not be understood as descriptive in nature. These distinctions can help us classify the most self-consciously naturalistic project in the recent Czech philosophy, Filip Tvrdý’s TROUBLES OF INTROSPECTION (2015). Tvrdý is officially pursuing a genetic, revisionary project, which does not coincide with nonrepresentational naturalism. However, there are also traces of constructive naturalism in Tvrdý’s book. (shrink)

Do the facts of evolution generate an epistemic challenge to moral realism? Some think so, and many “evolutionary debunking arguments” have been discussed in the recent literature. But they are all murky right where it counts most: exactly which epistemic principle is meant to take us from evolutionary considerations to the skeptical conclusion? Here, I will identify several distinct species of evolutionary debunking argument in the literature, each one of which relies on a distinct epistemic principle. Drawing on recent work (...) in epistemology, I will show that most of these initially plausible principles are false, spoiling the arguments that rely on them. And we will see that each argument threatens only one popular view of moral psychology: a “Representationalist” view on which our moral judgments rely crucially on a mental intermediary—e.g. a sentiment, gut reaction, or affect-laden intuition—delivered by our evolved moral faculty. In the end, only one evolutionary debunking argument remains a menace: an “ Argument from Symmetry ” that I will introduce to the literature. But we will see that it should worry only all naturalists, pressuring them into a trilemma: give up moral realism, accept a rationalism that is incongruous with naturalism, or give up naturalism. Non-naturalists are free and clear. (shrink)

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

What is a woman? The definition of this central concept of feminism has lately become especially controversial and politically charged. “Ameliorative Inquirists” have rolled up their sleeves to reengineer our ordinary concept of womanhood, with a goal of including in the definition all and only those who identify as women, both “cis” and “trans.” This has proven to be a formidable challenge. Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative (...) Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women. This is the Trans Inclusion Problem. Is there any solution? Can there be? Recently, Katharine Jenkins, pointing to the work of Mari Mikkola, suggests that the Trans Inclusion Problem can be “deflated” rather than solved. We will investigate this proposal, and show that, unfortunately, Jenkins is mistaken: Mikkola’s project will not help us answer the Trans Inclusion Problem. After that, we’ll look at Robin Dembroff’s suggestion that we “imitate” the linguistic practices of trans inclusive and queer communities, and we will evaluate whether this would help us solve the Trans Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, this strategy also fails to solve the problem. By the end, we’ll have a better appreciation of the challenges faced by Ameliorative Inquirists in their project of redefining “woman,” and clearer view of why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot, in fact, be solved. That’s primarily because, no matter what it means to be a woman, it’s one thing to be a woman, and another thing to identify as a woman. (shrink)

Předkládaná stať je obsáhlejší recenzí knihy Terezy Matějčkové Hegelova fenomenologie světa. Zdůrazňuji, že v její interpretaci hraje klíčovou roli pojem vzdělání. Nikoli toliko ve smyslu akumulace vědění, ale ve smyslu zbavování se vědění, které již neodpovídá skutečnosti. V mém čtení pak skrze opakované osvobozování se od starého vědění vstupuje vědomí do světa, nechává za sebou starý „světový řád“ a učí se současně žít na výši přítomnosti. Svět a přítomnost je to, čemu podle Matějčkové učí Hegelova Fenomenologie ducha dostát. Nejen vědomí, (...) ale i čtenář má dostát světu, neboť je rovněž vědomím. Moje základní výhrada či spíše podnět k rozvedení spočívá v tom, že aby tohoto cíle Fenomenologie dosáhla, měl by její interpret vzít v potaz dějiny dvacátého století a ukázat, jak se na nich duch vzdělal a pozvedl je k dějinám ducha. V opačném případě čtenář bude stále rámovat přítomnost pojmy převzatými z minulosti a nebude skutečně moderní. (shrink)

Přijetí teze, že některé výrazy referují bez zprostředkování identifikujícími podmínkami přímo k objektům, vede k několika problematickým důsledkům týkajícím se propozičních postojů. Jedním z těchto důsledků je ten, že bychom tudíž na základě přesvědčení Lois Lanové, že Superman je silnější než Clark Kent, byli nuceni uznat, že je též přesvědčena o existenci někoho, kdo má tu vlastnost, že je silnější, než skutečně je. Snad žádný racionálně uvažující člověk by však zřejmě přesvědčení o existenci někoho, o kom by tato nemožná vlastnost (...) měla platit, nepřijal. Klíčovým pojmem, na němž platnost vyvození tohoto přesvědčení stojí, je reflexivita – ze zjevně nereflexivního obsahu přesvědčení se vyvozuje přesvědčení reflexivní. Příspěvek se pokouší odhalit, kam je možno reflexivitu v rámci informačního obsahu věty zasadit. Zváženy jsou nejprve dvě možnosti: reflexivita je buď sémantickou vlastností vztahů, nebo anaforických zájmen. Obě možnosti budou vyvráceny prostřednictvím argumentace, že ve větách popisujících vztah mezi obsahy dvou koreferujících singulárních termínů nemůže být reflexivita součástí sémantické informace, jelikož znalost identity reference není podmínkou sémantické kompetence. Reflexivita je u těchto typů vět vázána na koordinaci znalostí mezi mluvčími. Jsou formulovány nutné podmínky, které by platnost daného vyvození teprve ospravedlnily. (shrink)

Tento článek se zabývá problémem těžké volby při srovnávání dvou velmi odlišných alternativ. Takové srovnání můžeme akceptovat jako skutečné dilema, nebo odmítnout jako chybné posouzení, protože se srovnává něco nesrovnatelného. Ale co přesně namítáme, když někoho kritizujeme, že srovnává nesrovnatelné? Co vlastně znamená, když o někom řekneme, že srovnává jablka s hruškami? Ukážeme si, že hlavním zdrojem problému není skutečnost, že se srovnávají položky různého druhu, ale spíše potřeba zohledňovat relevantní kontexty. Náročnost porovnání je úzce svázána s náročností jeho zdůvodnění. (...) Skutečnost, že se srovnává nesrovnatelné, se pak projevuje ve vadách takového zdůvodnění. Zejména v tom, že se nedostává uspokojivá odpověď na praktické otázky, proč se v daném kontextu porovnávají zrovna tyto dvě položky, proč se zde porovnávají podle tohoto a ne jiného kritéria a co z takového porovnávání pro tento kontext vlastně vyplývá. Problém srovnávání nesrovnatelného bude ilustrován na příkladech z estetiky, etiky a teorie práva. This article deals with the hard choice when comparing two very different alternatives. Such a comparison can be accepted as a true dilemma or it can be rejected as a wrong evaluation because it is compared something incomparable. But what exactly do we object to by criticizing someone for comparing the incomparable? What does it mean to say that someone compares apples with oranges? I will show that the main source of the problem is not the fact that items of different kinds are compared, but rather the need to take into account relevant contexts. The difficulty of comparison is closely linked to the hardness of its justification. The fact that it is comparing the incomparable is then reflected in the defects of such a justification. Especially in the absence of a satisfactory answer to the practical questions why just these two items are compared in the given context, why they are compared here according to this and not another criterion, and what follows from such a comparison for this context. The problem of comparing the incomparable will be illustrated by examples drawn from aesthetics, ethics and legal theory. (shrink)

According to Ted Nannicelli, ethical disputes about art today often concern not the controversial attitudes expressed by the works but the ways in which they have been created, that is, as well as interpretation-oriented ethical criticism of art, we find production-oriented ethical criticism. The main question that I explore in this article is: are the interpretation- and production-oriented approaches to ethical art criticism essentially disconnected or can there be a connection between them? I argue that in the disjunctivist view, the (...) two approaches are disconnected, for ethical flaws in the production of artworks are never conditioned by ethical flaws in the attitudes expressed by those works and vice versa. I show that disjunctivism is mistaken and defend what I call contextual conjunctivism. In this view, the two approaches can be connected since attitudinal ethical flaws in artworks can indeed cause ethical flaws in their production and vice versa depending on context. I support this view using several examples of controversies about contemporary art. (shrink)

This study deals with the failure of one of the most advanced chatbots called Tay, created by Microsoft. Many users, commentators and experts strongly anthropomorphised this chatbot in their assessment of the case around Tay. This view is so widespread that we can identify it as a certain typical cognitive distortion or bias. This study presents a summary of facts concerning the Tay case, collaborative perspectives from eminent experts: Tay did not mean anything by its morally objectionable statements because, in (...) principle, it was not able to think; the controversial content spread by this AI was interpreted incorrectly—not as a mere compilation of meaning, but as its disclosure; even though chatbots are not members of the symbolic order of spatiotemporal relations of the human world, we treat them in this way in many aspects. (shrink)

This paper addresses Arthur Danto’s claim that contemporary artworks, such as Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box, do not differ perceptually from ordinary objects, and that in order to see contemporary artworks as art the viewer has to move from mere experience to a meaning expressed by the work. I propose to supplement Danto’s thesis. I argue that, while some contemporary artworks may indeed be perceptually indistinguishable from ordinary objects, these works are distinguishable not only by means of meaning but also by (...) means of a non-perceptual aesthetic experience. I then discuss two theories that might provide a model of such an aesthetic experience. First, I focus on James Shelley’s theory of non-perceptual aesthetic experience conceived as a representation of non-perceptual aesthetic properties. Second, I discuss Jérôme Dokic’s adverbialist theory, which sees aesthetic experience as a combination of non-aesthetic attitudes. I argue that the adverbialist model is the most promising candidate for solving our problem. The model must be extended, however, if it is to account for pragmatic attitudes in response to artworks. (shrink)

In an essay recently published in this journal (“Is Safety in Danger?”), Fernando Broncano-Berrocal defends the safety condition on knowledge from a counterexample proposed by Tomas Bogardus (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012). In this paper, we will define the safety condition, briefly explain the proposed counterexample, and outline Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety condition. We will then raise four objections to Broncano-Berrocal’s defense, four implausible implications of his central claim. In the end, we conclude that Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the (...) safety condition is unsuccessful, and that the safety condition on knowledge should be rejected. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to challenge the idea that Toulmin’s main focus in The Uses of Argument is to critique formal deductive logic. I first try to challenge the argument that, on the basis of what Toulmin says about analytic arguments, it is impossible to determine exactly what they are. I will then attempt to determine the basic contours of analytic arguments. Finally, I will conclude that the concept of an analytic argument involves epistemological assumptions to which formal (...) logicians are in no way committed by the nature of their discipline. (shrink)

How can we explain the strange behavior of quantum and relativistic entities? Why do they behave in ways that defy our intuition about how physical entities should behave, considering our ordinary experience of the world around us? In this article, we address these questions by showing that the comportment of quantum and relativistic entities is not that strange after all, if we only consider what their nature might possibly be: not an objectual one, but a conceptual one. This not in (...) the sense that quantum and relativistic entities would be human concepts, but in the sense that they would share with the latter a same conceptual nature, similarly to how electromagnetic and sound waves, although very different entities, can share a same undulatory nature. When this hypothesis is adopted, i.e., when a conceptuality interpretation about the deep nature of physical entities is taken seriously, many of the interpretational difficulties disappear and our physical world is back making sense, though our view of it becomes radically different from what our classical prejudice made us believe in the first place. (shrink)

What is kitsch? What is behind its appeal? More important, what is wrong with kitsch? Though central to our modern and postmodern culture, kitsch has not been seriously and comprehensively analyzed; its aesthetic worthlessness has been generally assumed but seldom explained. _Kitsch and Art _seeks to give this phenomenon its due by exploring the basis of artistic evaluation and aesthetic value judgments. Tomas Kulka examines kitsch in the visual arts, literature, music, and architecture. To distinguish kitsch from art, Kulka (...) proposes that kitsch depicts instantly identifiable, emotionally charged objects or themes, but that it does not substantially enrich our associations relating to the depicted objects or themes. He then addresses the deceptive nature of kitsch by examining the makeup of its artistic and aesthetic worthlessness. Ultimately Kulka argues that the mass appeal of kitsch cannot be regarded as aesthetic appeal, but that its analysis can illuminate the nature of art appreciation. (shrink)

In the first half of this two-part article, we analyzed a cognitive psychology experiment where participants were asked to select pairs of directions that they considered to be the best example of Two Different Wind Directions, and showed that the data violate the CHSH version of Bell’s inequality, with same magnitude as in typical Bell-test experiments in physics. In this second part, we complete our analysis by presenting a symmetrized version of the experiment, still violating the CHSH inequality but now (...) also obeying the marginal law, for which we provide a full quantum modeling in Hilbert space, using a singlet state and suitably chosen product measurements. We also address some of the criticisms that have been recently directed at experiments of this kind, according to which they would not highlight the presence of genuine forms of entanglement. We explain that these criticisms are based on a view of entanglement that is too restrictive, thus unable to capture all possible ways physical and conceptual entities can connect and form systems behaving as a whole. We also provide an example of a mechanical model showing that the violations of the marginal law and Bell inequalities are generally to be associated with different mechanisms. (shrink)

In this paper, I hope to solve a problem that’s as old as the hills: the problem of contingency for religious belief. Paradigmatic examples of this argument begin with a counterfactual premise: had we been born at a different time or in a difference place, we easily could have held different beliefs on religious topics. Ultimately, and perhaps by additional steps, we’re meant to reach the skeptical conclusion that very many of our religious beliefs do not amount to knowledge. I (...) survey some historical examples of this argument, and I try to fill the gap between the counterfactual premise and the skeptical conclusion as forcefully as possible. I consider the following possibilities: there are no additional steps in the argument; or there are and they concern the alleged safety condition on knowledge, or the alleged non-accidentality condition on knowledge, or the unclarity produced by disagreement. On every possibility, the argument from the counterfactual premise to the conclusion of widespread skepticism is invalid. It seems, then, that there is no serious problem of contingency for religious belief. (shrink)

There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may (...) happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Forgeries and Art Evaluation:An Argument for Dualism in AestheticsTomas Kulka (bio)If a fake is so expert that even after the most thorough and trustworthy examination its authenticity is still open to doubt, is it or is it not as satisfactory a work of art as if it were unequivocally genuine? 1It is a wonderful moment in the life of a lover of art when he finds himself suddenly confronted (...) with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master, untouched, on the original canvas, and without any restoration, just as it left the painter's studio. And what a picture! Neither the beautiful signature... nor the pointillé on the bread which Christ is blessing, is necessary to convince us that we have here—I am inclined to say—the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft... quite different from all his other paintings and yet every inch a Vermeer. In no other picture by the great master of Delft do we find such sentiment, such a profound understanding of the Bible story—a sentiment so nobly human expressed through the medium of highest art.2The author of these lines is Professor Abraham Bredius, the nestor of Holland's art historians and the greatest authority on seventeenth-century Dutch painting. The source is The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, the most prestigious periodical for the history of art of the period. The year is 1937. The painting, however, is not a masterpiece of Vermeer but a fake produced by the mediocre Dutch artist Han van Meegeren.The Problem of ForgeryMany art dealers have been financially ruined, and many art historians academically discredited, because of incorrect attribution. Apart from the practical problems that worry curators and art historians, there is also a theoretical problem, which has become a subject of heated discussions since the late 1960s. The dispute gained a momentum with the publication of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art. In its third chapter titled "Art and Authenticity," [End Page 58] which put the problem of forgeries on the agenda of contemporary aesthetics, Goodman states that a "philosopher of art caught without an answer to [the] question... why there is any aesthetic difference between a deceptive forgery and an original work... is at least as badly off as a curator of paintings caught taking a Van Meegeren Vermeer for a Vermeer."3Although the literature on the problem of forgeries is extensive, the answers that have been put forward fall roughly into three categories: the formalist answer, which states that there is no aesthetic difference between an original painting and a deceptive forgery; the reductionist answer, which claims that there is such a difference and that it can be traced to the minute physical differences between originals and its copies; and the historicist answer, which also asserts that there must be an aesthetic difference but claims that it stems from the different histories of the two objects.The most prominent proponent of the formalist approach is Monroe C. Beardsley. His theory is based on the assumption that "two objects that do not differ in any observable qualities cannot differ in aesthetic value."4 Aesthetic formalism, as the name suggests, maintains that works of art should be judged according to their form. Only the visual features of the painted surface—the configuration of its lines and colors, composition, spatial relations, texture, design, etc., are relevant for its appreciation. The subject of our evaluation is the finished product, not the information pertaining to the history of its production. Who, when, and where painted the picture, just like the intentions of the painter, are irrelevant for the assessment of its aesthetic qualities. Only the "internal" properties, that is, the properties of the "work itself," count. The "external" properties, by which Beardsley means anything that "relates to something existing before the work itself, to the manner in which it was produced, or its connection to antecedent objects," have no bearing on aesthetic value. Hence the conclusion that if fakes resemble the original "in their internal characteristics, so that no one could tell them apart just by looking at them" there can be no aesthetic difference between them.5 Originality is thus excluded... (shrink)

In the last decade, a number of studies have been published relating the in media highlighted problems of the Swedish school to the cluster of reforms launched around 1990. It has been pointed out that, e.g., the municipalization of the school, the introduction of a management by objectives as well as an educational system structured by a voucher model, all carried out in the years around 1990, substantially have contributed to the current problems in Swedish schools. As has been shown (...) in a number of studies, the ideas permeating the reforms are not specific to the educational sector, but can be related to other societal reforms aiming at increasing decentralization as well as a further market orientation. (shrink)

In the standard thought experiments, dualism strikes many philosophers as true, including many non-dualists. This ‘striking’ generates prima facie justification: in the absence of defeaters, we ought to believe that things are as they seem to be, i.e. we ought to be dualists. In this paper, I examine several proposed undercutting defeaters for our dualist intuitions. I argue that each proposal fails, since each rests on a false assumption, or requires empirical evidence that it lacks, or overgenerates defeaters. By the (...) end, our prima facie justification for dualism remains undefeated. I close with one objection concerning the dialectical role of rebutting defeaters, and I argue that the prospects for a successful rebutting defeater for our dualist intuitions are dim. Since dualism emerges undefeated, we ought to believe it. (shrink)

In the recent literature on the nature of knowledge, a rivalry has emerged between modalism and explanationism. According to modalism, knowledge requires that our beliefs track the truth across some appropriate set of possible worlds. Modalists tend to focus on two modal conditions: sensitivity and safety. According to explanationism, knowledge requires only that beliefs bear the right sort of explanatory relation to the truth. In slogan form: knowledge is believing something because it’s true. In this paper, we aim to vindicate (...) explanationism from some recent objections offered by Gualtiero Piccinini, Dario Mortini, and Kenneth Boyce and Andrew Moon. Together, these authors present five purported counterexamples to the sufficiency of the explanationist analysis for knowledge. In addition, Mortini devises a clever argument that explanationism entails the violation of a plausible closure principle on knowledge. We will argue that explanationism is innocent of all these charges against it, and we hope that the strength of the defense we offer of explanationism is evidence in its favor, and a reason to investigate explanationism further as the long-elusive truth about the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

Anselm of Canterbury holds that freedom of the will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. This condition, however, turns out to be trivially fulfilled by all rational creatures at all times. In order to clarify the necessary conditions for moral responsibility, we must look more widely at his discussion of the nature of the will and of willed action. In this paper, I examine his theory of voluntariness by clarifying his account of the sin of Satan in De casu (...) diaboli. Anselm agrees with Augustine that the sinful act cannot be given a causal explanation in terms of a distinct preceding act of will or desire or choice. He thus rejects volitionalist accounts of Satan's sin and thus of voluntary action in general. He moves beyond his predecessor, however, in insisting on the necessity of an explanation in terms of reasons, and his theory of the dual nature of the rational will is designed to meet this demand. A comparison of Satan's case with the case of the miser of De casu diaboli 3,... (shrink)

The ethical criticism of art has recently begun to address the subject of immoral artists, with two questions seeming to dominate discussion. How does moral misconduct on the part of artists affect their work’s aesthetic value? How should the art world respond to cases of artists who have been accused of morally outrageous behaviour? Such value and policy debates are important, but they leave aside a pressing question towards which this article proposes a reorientation: What is the possible impact of (...) an artist’s moral ill repute on how we understand the meaning of their work? I argue in this paper that an artist’s bad moral reputation can lead (i) to participatory resistance to an art work, as viewers abstain from a response to the work’s illocutionary force, (ii) to the isolation of the work from the ‘quality context’ that normally allows propositions expressed by the work to be taken as sincere, (iii) to the reinterpretation of the work’s propositional content against the background of new knowledge about the author, and (iv) to the perception of the work as a lie. To illustrate, I look at works by Chuck Close and Jan Fabre, contemporary artists whose reputation has been affected by a scandal. (shrink)

The conception of the unconditional, irreducible, and irreversible asymmetry of the relationship between I and the Other is one of the crucial issues of Levinas’s ethical metaphysics. Since it is precisely in the name of the asymmetry that reciprocity as an ethics-founding principle is excluded from Levinas’s conceptual framework , many scholars have judged his ethics as unfeasible. This article aims to examine the key points of the debate about the Levinasian conception of asymmetry, to go, eventually, beyond Levinas, in (...) an attempt to re-address the following questions: Is there a “transcendental symmetry” as a basis of the ethical asymmetry? Can we reconcile asymmetry and reciprocity? Does the requirement of mutual recognition touch the Other’s asymmetrical transcendence, as Ricoeur suggests? Finally, the article presents a conception of “asymmetrical reciprocity” that focuses notably on the reality of friendship and of gift, a conception seen as the basis of the relationship characterized by gratitude, generosity, and desire for communion. (shrink)

This article introduces the Special Issue on cameraless photography and the translation of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s treatise on electrical figures. It summarizes previous discussions on cameraless photography, namely those by Geoffrey Batchen and suggests relating the photogram to current post-lenticular technologies such as radiography, digital scanning or machine vision. It outlines the emergence of cameraless imaging in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century scientific research, taking Lichtenberg’s figures as an emblem of automatically generated images situated between duration and instantaneity, between image (...) making and measurement, between nature and culture. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Giving without the expectation of reward is difficult to understand in organizational contexts. In opposition to a logic based on self-interest or a sense of duty, a “logic of gift” has been proposed as a way to understand the phenomenon of free, unconditional giving. However, the rationale behind, and effects of, this logic have been under-explored. This paper responds by first clarifying the three logics of action—the logic of exchange, the logic of duty, and the logic of gift—and then explains (...) how their balanced integration promises to enhance organizational life and outcomes. Having explicated the unique character and contributions of the logic of gift, the paper further suggests practical implications for management. Encouraging the logic of gift fosters more humane relationships within organizations and to enable individuals to be generous in ways that inspire trust and promote creativity. (shrink)

Is it possible to look at schools as spaces for encounters? Could schools contribute to a deliberative mode of communication in a manner better suited to our own time and to areas where different cultures meet? Inspired primarily by classical (Dewey) and modern (Habermas) pragmatists, I turn to Seyla Benhabib, posing the question whether she supports the proposition that schools can be sites for deliberative communication. I argue that a school that engages in deliberative communication, with its stress on mutual (...) communication between different moral perspectives, gives universalism a procedurally oriented meaning, serving as an arena for encounters that represents a weak public sphere. An interactive universalism of this kind attaches importance to developing an ability and willingness to reason on the basis of the views of others and to change perspectives. In that respect, the institutional arrangements of schools are potential parts of the political dimension of cosmopolitanism, as well as its moral dimension, in terms of the obligations and responsibilities we develop through our institutions and in our actions as human beings towards one another. (shrink)

A questionnaire is an integral component of methods determining the temperaments of dogs. From the range of questionnaires used for evaluation of a dog’s temperament, we selected C-BARQ. This particular type of questionnaire allowed us to determine the degree of agreement of evaluations of the same dog by individual members of one household. The evaluation included dogs in 29 households with a total of 71 members. The degree of agreement between ratings of individual members of the same household was determined (...) by Intraclass correlations coefficient . The correlations observed ranged between 0.53 and 0.9, depending on the category. This result is further supported by the results of other studies that showed similar perceptions of the same dog between family members. (shrink)

The film Nosferatu (1922) has graffiti created by the character of the madman Knock on the walls of his cell. This motif, which I call the ‘madman’s wall’, has accompanied depictions of lunatics since the beginning of the eighteenth century. This article examines the origin, transformations and functions of this motif. The popularisation of the motif originates with the longitude diagram in the last plate of A Rake’s Progress (1735) by William Hogarth, which subsequently found its way into the works (...) of Hogarth’s plagiarists and influenced illustrations of asylum interiors in the first half of the nineteenth century. The madman’s wall also appears in literature, such as the popular novel The Father and Daughter (1801) by Amelia Opie, which was plagiarised and dramatised, and the legend of the poet Charles Smart, who allegedly wrote his poem on the walls of his cell. The main prerequisite for the madman’s wall is the dungeon-like image of the asylum—presenting it as a prison. It is usually the author of the graffiti who displays the signs of madness, not the wall itself. As society distanced itself from the image of the asylum as a dungeon, the madman’s wall disappeared after the 1850s. Paradoxically, many reports about the authentic wall art of asylum patients emerged in the press after the 1850s. The madman’s wall in Nosferatu is the first example after an approximately seventy-year absence and could be a product of the period interest of avant-garde artists in the art of the mentally ill. (shrink)

This text deals with convergence and divergence in relation to the formation of images of inhumanity in Slovak Roma settlements. Slovak media, social networks, and television reports often contain negative images emphasizing the Roma’s backwardness, irrationality, superstition, and cruelty, and aiming to highlight their inhumanity. This approach has become prevalent even among official state authorities such as the police of the Slovak Republic, shaping the perception of the Roma as monsters. It represents a mobilization strategy that connects and disconnects various (...) disciplinary apparatuses, forming concrete images of monsters. By examining moments of convergence and divergence, which mainly focus on the killing and consumption of canines, the text clarifies the social and material ordering that contributes to the particular arrangement of significance used by the Slovak media and other officials. (shrink)

[What It’s Like, or What It’s About? The Place of Consciousness in the Material World] Summary: The book is both a survey of the contemporary debate and a defense of a distinctive position. Most philosophers nowadays assume that the focus of the philosophy of consciousness, its shared explanandum, is a certain property of experience variously called “phenomenal character,” “qualitative character,” “qualia” or “phenomenology,” understood in terms of what it is like to undergo the experience in question. Consciousness as defined in (...) terms of its phenomenal aspect is often called “phenomenal consciousness.” The major issue that occupies most thinkers is whether this phenomenal character happens to be a physical property, or whether it is rather sui generis. Those who believe the former are materialists; those who conclude the latter are dualists. As the currently dominant metaphysic is materialism – also sometimes called physicalism – the challenge appears to be to slot phenomenal properties among the physical properties that ultimately make up the world. David Chalmers argued powerfully that we can go very far in situating many mental properties in the physical world – namely, the properties that can be understood in functional terms – but that phenomenal properties resist such a treatment. Chalmers calls this “the hard problem” of consciousness. But there are also some quite powerful positive arguments for dualism. The two most influential ones are the modal argument, also offered by Chalmers, and the knowledge argument invented by Frank Jackson. Chalmers invites us to conceive of creatures that are exactly like human beings – physically, functionally, behaviorally – only bereft of phenomenal consciousness. If such creatures are conceivable, says Chalmers, they are metaphysically possible. And if they are metaphysically possible, materialism is false. Jackson, for his part, suggests we imagine Mary who has spent her entire life inside a black-and-white room and has seen the world through a black-and-white TV screen. But she also happens to know everything there is to know about the physics of color. And yet, Jackson suggests that once Mary is finally released from her room and sees a lawn outside, she learns something new: that this is what it is like to experience green color. The current work on consciousness is by and large characterized by attempts to answer these two dualistic arguments. I try to make sense of the positions within the domain of philosophy of consciousness by means of two major distinctions that mutually intersect. First, there is a distinction between dualism and materialism. An apparent third alternative currently on offer, the so-called Russellian monism, is unstable, collapsing into either dualism (panpsychism) or materialism (Russellian physicalism). Materialism comes in two main flavors: either the a posteriori physicalism, which detects an epistemic gap between phenomenal and physical truths, hence denying that the former could be derived from the latter; or the a priori physicalism, which does not acknowledge any such obstacle. The second major distinction is between phenomenism and representationalism. It’s true that Ned Block, who introduced this contrast, meant to distinguish between two kinds of materialism. But I believe that the distinction actually intersects the one between materialism and dualism. We thus arrive at a table with six slots, representing six main positions in the philosophy of consciousness: (1) dualist phenomenism (Chalmers, the early Jackson, and Tyler Burge); (2) dualist representationalism (René Descartes); (3) aposteriori materialist phenomenism (Block); (4) a posteriori materialist representationalism (Michael Tye, Fred Dretske, David Rosenthal); (5) a priori materialist phenomenism (David Lewis); and (6) a priori materialist representationalism (Daniel Dennett, Derk Pereboom). However, this scheme is in fact somewhat misleading. It is true that Dennett is usually classified as an apriori materialist (or, more precisely an apriori materialist representationalist), but I believe that needs to be corrected. In order to understand why, I first analyze varieties of materialist representationalism in detail, in particular various construals of phenomenal character in terms of representation, or intentionality, which includes a discussion of the identity of its content (the issue of externalism). By contrast, Dennett rejects the concept of phenomenal character. Consciousness has no intrinsic, publicly inaccessible properties. On that ground, Dennett builds an empirical, fully functionalist theory of consciousness, which he also tries to integrate within a general Darwinian framework. From that point of view, one can contrast Dennettian and representationalist views on the issue of animal consciousness. In addition to his rejection of phenomenal character, Dennett also abstains from the regular metaphysical departure point of regular materialism. He does not so much ask how an enigmatic property of consciousness fits an antecedently characterized world, but rather how far we can investigate all aspects of the world, including consciousness, using the scientific method. He is thus a methodological naturalist, rather than a metaphysical materialist. While this approach removes obstacles to the science of consciousness, it does not solve what might be called “the hardest problem” – of intentionality, not phenomenal consciousness. The hardest problem consists in the fact that our intentional discourse involves conflicting commitments that prevent a coherent metaphysic of representational states. However, it does not follow that we should give up on this discourse as a theoretical means of reduction as well as a practical tool of explanation. But it might be that intentional discourse is a somewhat pseudo one. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We exist only because we inhabit a world in common, embedded within networks of associations between humans and nonhumans. This is endlessly disclosed by our experience of the world. And yet, despite its palpability, it is clear that we have failed to mobilize a notion of the common world into something capable of guiding our modes of thought and collective forms of activity—our attitudes, our affective lives, our politics. How have we arrived here? Bruno Latour's work suggests that an (...) answer can be found in the common world's status as information—its self-evidence works to exclude it from a world of values. What, then, should be done? In his recent work on the modes of existence Latour develops a pragmatic metaphysics inspired by the speculative method of Alfred North Whitehead. Metaphysical speculation becomes a tool for moving beyond the “bifurcation of nature” through the construction of abstractions with which to interpret the pluralism of experience. Rather than thinking of the common world as either a given fact or as a totalizing universal, Latour develops a notion of a common world out of the messiness of experience and, as such, hopes to transform us into beings who would be moved to actively pursue and care for such a notion. (shrink)

Donald Davidson and John Searle famously differ, among other things, on the issue of animal thoughts. Davidson seems to be a latter-day Cartesian, denying any propositional thought to subhuman animals, while Searle seems to follow Hume in claiming that if we have thoughts, then animals do, too. Davidson’s argument centers on the idea that language is necessary for thought, which Searle rejects. The paper argues two things. Firstly, Searle eventually argues that much of a more complex thought does depend on (...) language, which reduces a distance between himself and Davidson. Secondly, some of Davidson’s suggestions are promising – in particular the idea that we may lack a vocabulary to capture the contents of animal thoughts. Based on this insight, one might, pace Davidson, grant thoughts to animals. However, this does not mean, pace Searle, that it should be possible to construe even the simplest of such thoughts as propositional. Perhaps we need to move beyond Davidson and Searle by developing a theory of nonpropositional thought for animals. (shrink)

In a discussion of Sherlock Holmes’ “science of deduction” and the related “method of exclusion,” I show that Holmes’ claim that his inferences are deductive makes sense, if we consider his theoretical presuppositions. So, it is more accurate to say that he tries to reduce abduction to deduction than that he confuses them. His theoretical framework, albeit inadequate as a theory of empirical reasoning, can be seen as a basic model of classical (symbolic) AI. The main problems of this approach (...) are surveyed, and abduction is brought into play as both a better characterization of Holmes’ inferences and a better guide for building AI systems. This is a good background for raising the question of creativity because, according to Peirce, it relates to abduction in a substantial way. Is Sherlock Holmes creative? Can machines be creative? An affirmative answer to the second question might be given by a “logic of discovery” but the problem remains that inventing such a logic already presupposes creativity. (shrink)

Pro lidské jednání je důležitý vztah volního a nevolního momentu, svobody a danosti. Ve své práci bych se chtěl zabývat vztahem volního a nevolního momentu v trilogii P. Ricoeura Filosofie vůle (především v jejím prvním dílu). Ricoeur ukazuje odkázanost a propojenost obou momentů ve třech fázích jednání, jimiž je rozhodování, čin a souhlas. Pokud nevolní moment převládne nad volním, propadá člověk zlu. Cílem člověka by mělo být dobro: ovládnutí nevolního momentu vůlí a vztah k druhému člověku. Problematičnost rozdělení světa na (...) dobro a zlo ukazují úvahy F. Nietzscheho v interpretaci P. Kouby. Pro Nietzscheho jsou dobro a zlo nejednoznačné a provázané. Jeho pohled interpretovaný P. Koubou nám ukazuje člověka zcela odkázaného na sebe sama, bez opory v jasném rozdělení světa. Pokusím se důkladněji vyložit Ricoeurův popis volního a nevolního momentu a ukázat, zda a nakolik na něj lze uplatnit Nietzscheho kritiku. Závěrem přiblížím alternativu vůči morálce na jedné straně a relativismu na druhé, kterou ve své interpretaci Nietzscheho nabízí P. Kouba. (shrink)

This book provides a current review of Medical Research Ethics on a global basis. The book contains chapters that are historically and philosophically reflective and aimed to promote a discussion about controversial and foundational aspects in the field. An elaborate group of chapters concentrates on key areas of medical research where there are core ethical issues that arise both in theory and practice: genetics, neuroscience, surgery, palliative care, diagnostics, risk and prediction, security, pandemic threats, finances, technology, and public policy.This book (...) is suitable for use from the most basic introductory courses to the highest levels of expertise in multidisciplinary contexts. The insights and research by this group of top scholars in the field of bioethics is an indispensable read for medical students in bioethics seminars and courses as well as for philosophy of bioethics classes in departments of philosophy, nursing faculties, law schools where bioethics is linked to medical law, experts in comparative law and public health, international human rights, and is equally useful for policy planning in pharmaceutical companies. (shrink)

En este trabajo me propongo desarrollar un estudio crítico de la concepción mecanicista de la explicación científica. En primer lugar, argumento que la caracterización mecanicista de los modelos fenoménicos (no explicativos) es inadecuada, pues no ofrece un análisis aceptable de los conceptos de modelo científico y similitud, que son fundamentales para la propuesta. En segundo lugar, sostengo que la caracterización de los modelos mecanicistas (explicativos) es igualmente inadecuada, pues los análisis disponibles de la relación explicativa de relevancia constitutiva implican una (...) tesis metafísica que es rechazada por los mismos mecanicistas. Concluyo que el mecanicismo no ofrece todavía una elucidación aceptable de la explicación científica. In this paper, I offer a critical assessment of the mechanicist approach to scientific explanation. Firstly, I argue that the mechanicist characterization of (non explanatory) phenomenological models is inadequate, since it does not develop an explication of the concepts of scientific model and similarity, which are indispensable to the approach. Secondly, I claim that the mechanicist conception of (explanatory) mechanicist models is inadequate as well, since all the available analices of the explanatory relation of constitutive relevance imply a metaphysical thesis that is rejected by the mechanicists themselves. I conclude that mechanicism needs to be emended if it aims to be considered as a genuinely illuminating approach to scientific explanation. (shrink)

Most philosophers, including all materialists I know of, believe that I am a complex thing?a thing with parts?and that my mental life is (or is a result of) the interaction of these parts. These philosophers often believe that I am a body or a brain, and my mental life is (or is a product of) brain activity. In this paper, I develop and defend a novel argument against this view. The argument turns on certainty, that highest epistemic status that a (...) precious few of our beliefs enjoy. For example, on the basis of introspection, I am certain that I am not in fierce pain right now. But if I am a complex thing like a body or a brain, then introspection might be a causal series of events extended in time. And any such process could go awry. So, if introspection is such a process, then I could gain good evidence that the introspective process has gone awry and that I am, contrary to appearances, feeling fierce pain right now. Therefore, the view that I am a complex thing like a body or a brain forces open the possibility that I cannot be certain that I am not feeling fierce pain right now. Since that is clearly not an open possibility, it follows that I am not a complex thing. I conclude by responding to three objections. (shrink)

In The Economics of Good and Evil, Sedlacek challenges widely-held beliefs about economics and culture by tracing the study and themes of economics throughout history.

Contrary to the received view according to which the value of works of art consists exclusively or primarily in their aesthetic value I argue that the importance of aesthetic value has been grossly overrated. In earlier publications I have shown that the assumption stipulating that the value of artworks consists exclusively in their aesthetic value is demonstrably wrong. I have suggested a conceptual distinction between the aesthetic and the artistic value arguing that when it comes to evaluation the artistic value, (...) which reflects the significance of innovations exemplified by the work, is no less important than the aesthetic value. Here I take the argument a step further by suggesting that the aesthetic value is considerably less important than the artistic value. To show this I draw attention to a neglected aspect of art evaluation, namely to the monetary value of artworks. Although there is no necessary connection between monetary value of works of art and their aesthetic value or their artistic value, it can nevertheless tell us something important not only about the overall value of works of art but also about the relative importance of the two component values. I show that the enormous differences between monetary values of different artworks cannot be accounted for by the corresponding differences in their aesthetic value but can be explained by the differences in their artistic value. (shrink)

The article is part of a longer argument, the gist of which stands in direct opposition to the claim implied by the article’s title. The ambition of that larger whole is to offer a theory of art evaluation together with a theoretical model showing how aesthetic value judgements can be inter-subjectively tested and justified. Here the author therefore plays devil’s advocate by citing, strengthening, and inventing arguments against the very possibility of justification or explanation of aesthetic judgements. The reason is (...) his conviction that such arguments have not been fully met. The article is thus intended as a challenge: any theory of art evaluation which assumes, or tries to establish, that some works of art are better than others or that aesthetic judgements are not just statements expressing personal likes and dislikes, should show how such arguments can be demolished. (shrink)