We focus on issues of learning assessment from the point of view of an investigation of philosophical elements in teaching. We contend that assessment of concept possession at school based on ordinary multiple-choice tests might be ineffective because it overlooks aspects of human rationality illuminated by Robert Brandom’s inferentialism––the view that conceptual content largely coincides with the inferential role of linguistic expressions used in public discourse. More particularly, we argue that multiple-choice tests at schools might fail to (...) accurately assess the possession of a concept or the lack of it, for they only check the written outputs of the pupils who take them, without detecting the inferences actually endorsed or used by them. We suggest that school tests would acquire reliability if they enabled pupils to make the reasons of their answers or the inferences they use explicit, so as to contribute to what Brandom calls the game of giving and asking for reasons. We explore the possibility to put this suggestion into practice by deploying two-tier multiple-choice tests. (shrink)

Nominal concepts represent things as tokens of types. Recent research suggests that we represent principled connections between the type of thing something is (e.g., DOG) and some of its properties (k‐properties; e.g., having four legs for dogs) but not other properties (t‐properties; e.g., being brown for dogs). Principled connections differ from logical, statistical, and causal connections. Principled connections license (i) the expectation that tokens of the type will generally possess their k‐properties, (ii) formal explanations (i.e., explanation of the presence of (...) k‐properties in tokens of a type by reference to the type of thing it is), and (iii) normative expectations concerning the presence of k‐properties in tokens of the type. The present paper investigates the hypothesis that representing principled connections requires representing properties as aspects of being the relevant kind of thing (Aspect Hypothesis). Experiment 1 provides a direct test of the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiments 2 and 3 provide indirect tests of the Aspect Hypothesis. All three experiments provide support for the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiment 4 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the manner in which formal explanations are licensed by principled connections. Finally, Experiment 5 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the nature of the normative expectations licensed by principled connections. Together these results provide strong evidence for the idea that representing principled connections involves representing a property as being an aspect of being a given kind of thing. The results also help clarify the manner in which formal explanation differs from other modes of explanation. Finally, the results of the experiments are used to motivate a proposal concerning the formal structure of the conceptual representations implicated by principled connections. This structure provides a domain‐general way of structuring our concepts and embodies the perspective we take when we think and talk of things as being instances of a kind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Aspects of Christian Mystical Rhetoric, Philosophy, and PoetryRyan J. StarkThis is an article about poets and poetic philosophers who make spirited arguments. My purpose in particular is to clarify the nature of mystical rhetoric, which needs to be distinguished from secular rhetoric (i.e., “secular” as nonspiritual). As ways of existing in language, they are ontologically incommensurable, and we should treat them as such. Mystical rhetoric is that (...) into which Spirit enters, conveying to both writer and reader some aspect of providential kairos that cannot otherwise be attained. That is, God completes mystical inferences. God participates, illuminating the hearts of those who open themselves to grace through faith. Or, in other words, writers and readers who want to enter into numinous arguments must shelve the hermeneutics of suspicion. An overly critical stance actually diminishes the possibility of insight, even if it is well intended, much like nervous backseat driving, which—though aimed at producing safety—inevitably works against it. I am not suggesting, however, that skeptics are at a complete loss when approaching mystical rhetorical situations. Rather, they simply do not grasp the metaphysical, enchanted, or occult dimensions of the discourses at work, because they have closed themselves off to Spirit or—more commonly—have attempted to transmogrify Spirit into secular concepts, which distorts spirited language and leads to mischaracterizations of religious experience.1 In contrast, I provide a Christian approach to [End Page 260] mystical rhetoric, one that neither discounts nor sidesteps the real presence of the supernatural.Inspired Rhetoric and HermeneuticsFuror poeticus is a key element of mystical persuasion. The phrase literally means “poetical fury,” and the idea behind it in a Christian framework is that the Holy Spirit aids writers in creating imaginative texts (e.g., sonnets, sermons, essays, novels, blogs, etc.) or, in pernicious instances, demons aid writers.2 In either case, a mysterious force helps the author to compose. Moreover, furor touches readers or listeners, a point seldom emphasized but nonetheless central to this sublime practice of composition. Inspired writing requires inspired reading: furor poeticus needs furor lectoris.3 The Spirit aids readers in understanding mystical rhetoric, as long as those readers participate earnestly in the discourse. John Milton (1674, 7.31), for example, famously envisions such a “fit audience” in the third invocation to the Muse in Paradise Lost (i.e., the “great Argument”), where he calls on the reader for hermeneutical verve, a spirited reading to complement his enthusiastic writing. Søren Kierkegaard also writes to an audience capable of spiritually minded hermeneutics, allowing him to perform various edifying dissimulations through pseudonyms: the despairing aesthete, the unscrupulous seducer, the rigid moralist, and so forth. These inspired writers expect believing readers to contribute to their works, to complete their disputations, in fact, through spirited exegesis. Their methods of composition demand it, which is to say that writers touched by furor leave little room in their arguments for the sustainable disposition of the uninspired reader.Cicero explains spirited rhetoric and hermeneutics in De divinatione, where Quintus talks about how inspired readers experience the same type of furor as inspired writers, seers, and prophets: “Men capable of correctly interpreting all these signs of the future seem to approach very near the divine spirit of the gods whose will they interpret, just as scholars do when they interpret the poets” (1938, 226). Scholarship, in other words, is capable of tapping into mystical energy, making the scholars as prophetic as the vates on which they write. In the second book of On Christian Doctrine (1958, 75–78), Augustine also explains the importance of mystical exegesis as a form of prophecy, where sincere readers undergo the same type of inspiration as mystical writers. For Augustine, spirited reading begins with prayer and ends with revelation. In both accounts of furor, Cicero’s and Augustine’s, [End Page 261] the inspired audience and the inspired writer together experience rapture, a divine vision or illumination, which is precisely the type of communion that occurs during mystical discourses.4Still, the idea of seeking communion with God is potentially unsettling. The notion produces anxieties of psychosis, possession, and self-erasure. Plato famously expresses such concerns in Ion, for example... (shrink)

The political media discourse and its pragmalinguistic peculiarities are analyzed in the paper. The choice of the subject matter for the analysis is determined by the interest to media communication. It is noted that the political discourse is one of the effective means of influence on the collective consciousness. Various definitions of the concept ‘discourse‘ are given; special attention is paid to the presidential discourse. Discourse as a communicative event taking place in a social context is based on pragmatic (...) situations and is studied taking into account such factors as a communicative situation, the addresser and the addressee of speech, the content of the communication, the pragmatic meaning of language units. The author analyses compositional, stylistic, and lexico-grammatical means used to create a pragmatic effect in the annual New Year addresses of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin. The effectiveness of presidential discourse is achieved due to the choice of words with positive connotation, the use of repetition, use of personal and possessive pronouns in the first person plural, the use of parallel syntactic constructions, and the use of both formal and informal styles. The author concludes that pragmatic means are of great importance for media discourse studies and presidential public addresses play an important role in shaping the moral values of the nation. (shrink)

The conception of conscience that dominates discussions in bioethics focuses narrowly on private regulation of behaviour resulting from explicit attitudes. It neglects to mention implicit attitudes and the role of social feedback in becoming aware of one's implicit attitudes. But if conscience is a way of ensuring that a person's behaviour is in line with her moral values, it must be responsive to all aspects of the mind that influence behaviour. There is a wealth of recent psychological work demonstrating (...) the influence of implicit attitudes on behaviour. A necessary part of having a well-functioning conscience must thus be awareness and regulation of one's implicit attitudes in addition to one's explicit attitudes; this cannot be done by an individual in isolation. On my revised conception of conscience, heeding social feedback, being emotionally self-aware and engaging in self-monitoring are important for the possession of a well-functioning conscience. Health professionals may need specific training to help them develop and maintain a well-functioning conscience, which should involve cultivation of awareness of implicit attitudes, emphasis on social feedback and techniques to enable better control over them. (shrink)

The challenge of this work is to connect physics with the concept of intelligence. By intelligence we understand a capability to move from disorder to order without external resources, i.e., in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. The objective is to find such a mathematical object described by ODE that possesses such a capability. The proposed approach is based upon modification of the Madelung version of the Schrodinger equation by replacing the force following from quantum potential with non-conservative (...) forces that link to the concept of information. A mathematical formalism suggests that a hypothetical intelligent particle, besides the capability to move against the second law of thermodynamics, acquires such properties like self-image, self-awareness, self-supervision, etc. that are typical for Livings. However since this particle being a quantum-classical hybrid acquires non-Newtonian and non-quantum properties, it does not belong to the physics matter as we know it: the modern physics should be complemented with the concept of the information force that represents a bridge to intelligent particle. As a follow-up of the proposed concept, the following question is addressed: can artificial intelligence system composed only of physical components compete with a human? The answer is proven to be negative if the AI system is based only on simulations, and positive if digital devices are included. It has been demonstrated that there exists such a quantum neural net that performs simulations combined with digital punctuations. The universality of this quantum-classical hybrid is in capability to violate the second law of thermodynamics by moving from disorder to order without external resources. This advanced capability is illustrated by examples. In conclusion, a mathematical machinery of the perception that is the fundamental part of a cognition process as well as intelligence is introduced and discussed. (shrink)

It is proposed to analyze fuzzy concepts and relations between them in the frame of triplet concept modeling. Fuzzy concepts are introduced by means of the so-called fuzzification of dichotomous concepts. The cognitive and psychological aspects of concept possession are separated and studied.

Right after the presentation of Hyginus’s fable in §42 of Being and Time comes a note in which Heidegger affirms that the orientation about care as the being of Dasein (§41) arose in the context of the interpretation of Augustinian anthropology and the foundations obtained by the analysis of Aristotelian ontology. Why such a mention and why is it placed precisely after proving the pre-ontological origin of care as the being of Dasein? Assuming such problem, this paper does not aim (...) only at offering a reading key that justifies such note, but at presenting the importance of the factical and pre-ontological aspects presented, respectively, in Book X of The Confessions of Augustine and in the fable of Hyginus for Heidegger's elaboration of care as an ontological category. For this purpose, three lecture courses will be assumed, especially: Augustine and Neo-Platonism (1921), which will make it possible to perceive the always factical aspect of care, thus evidencing the historical enactment perspective of the hermeneutics of facticity; Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle (1921/1922), which will make it possible to understand the idea of “ontological category” as a first formulation of what, in Being and Time, will be the existentials; and History of the concept of time: prolegomena (1925), which will allow us to realize that care is about being and not having, therefore, that it is not a possession of Dasein, but a condition of its existence. Finally, after justifying the importance of different aspects for care as an ontological category, it will be understood why the ontological interpretation differs from both others. (shrink)

First published in 1985. In this study, Donnelly distinguishes between "having a right" and "being right" and elaborates the distinction with great subtlety to show that rights have to be understood as action and not as a possession. This is done with such clarity and good sense that he is able to cast light on all aspects of the often confusing discussions of the natures and usages of "right". He illuminates an astonishing range of issues, from the limitations (...) of Thomist and utilitarian conceptions of right to the confusions of many present-day defenders of rights, both in the West and the Third World. As importantly, Donnelly is centrally concerned with the human aspect of "human rights". He is thus able to rest his discussion of rights on a plausible philosophical anthropology as well as an appreciation of an historical dimension to human rights, and, at the end of his book, is able to open the door towards potential new developments in the discussion of human rights. Down the path he points us lies a reconciliation of the notion of individual rights with that of political community. This title will be of great interest to students of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

Kant thought that the central question of the transcendental deduction, and perhaps of the entire Critique of Pure Reason, is what he calls the quid juris of categorial concepts. The quid juris is for him the question of the legitimate right of categories, that is, of non-empirical concepts like ‘substance’ and ‘cause’, to be employed in cognition.

John Campbell; IX*—Possession of Concepts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 149–170, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

The paper begins with an argument against eliminativism with respect to the propositional attitudes. There follows an argument that concepts are sui generis ante rem entities. A nonreductionist view of concepts and propositions is then sketched. This provides the background for a theory of concept possession, which forms the bulk of the paper. The central idea is that concept possession is to be analyzed in terms of a certain kind of pattern of reliability in one’s intuitions (...) regarding the behavior of the concept. The challenge is to find an analysis that is at once noncircular and fully general. Environmentalism, anti-individualism, holism, analyticity, etc. provide additional hurdles. The paper closes with a discussion of the theory’s implications for the Wittgenstein-Kripke puzzle about rule-following and the Benacerraf problem concerning mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

This paper presents the hypothesis that concept possession is sufficient and necessary for self-consciousness. If this is true it provides a yardstick for gauging the validity of different research paradigms in which claims for self-consciousness in animals or human infants are made: a convincing demonstration of concept possession in a research subject, such as a display of inferential reasoning, may be taken as conclusive evidence of self-consciousness. Intuitively, there appears to be a correlation between intelligence in (...) animals and the existence of self-consciousness. I present three discussions to support the hypothesis: an analogy between perception and conception, where both are self-specifying; an argument that any web of concepts will always include the self-concept; and a fresh interpretation of Bermũdez showing how his theory of non-conceptual content provides strong support for the concept possession hypothesis. (shrink)

Contemporary debates about the nature of semantic reference have tended to focus on two competing approaches: theories which emphasize the importance of descriptive information associated with a referring term, and those which emphasize causal facts about the conditions under which the use of the term originated and was passed on. Recent empirical work by Machery and colleagues suggests that both causal and descriptive information can play a role in judgments about the reference of proper names, with findings of cross-cultural variation (...) in judgments that imply differences between individuals with respect to whether they favor causal or descriptive information in making reference judgments. We extend this theoretical and empirical line of inquiry to views of the reference of natural and nominal kind concepts, which face similar challenges to those concerning the reference of proper names. In two experiments, we find evidence that both descriptive and causal factors contribute to judgments of concept reference, with no reliable differences between natural and nominal kinds. Moreover, we find evidence that the same individuals’ judgments can rely on both descriptive and causal information, such that variation between individuals cannot be explained by appeal to a mixed population of “pure descriptive theorists” and “pure causal theorists.” These findings suggest that the contrast between descriptive and causal theories of reference may be inappropriate; intuitions may instead support a hybrid theory of reference that includes both causal and descriptive factors. We propose that future research should focus on the relationship between these factors, and describe several possible frameworks for pursuing these issues. Our findings have implications for theories of semantic reference, as well as for theories of conceptual structure. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism includes an ideal of political stability where justified institutions reach a kind of self-enforcing equilibrium. Such an order must be stable for the right reasons — where persons comply with the rules of the order for moral reasons, rather than out of fear or self-interest. John Rawls called a society stable in this way well-ordered. In this essay, I contend that a more sophisticated model of a well-ordered society, specifically an agent-based model, yields a richer and more (...) attractive understanding of political stability. An agent-based model helps us to distinguish between three concepts of political stability — durability, balance, and immunity. A well-ordered society is one that possesses a high degree of social trust and cooperative behavior among its citizens (durability) with low short-run variability (balance). A well-ordered society also resists destabilization caused by noncompliant agents in or entering the system (immunity). Distinguishing between these three concepts complicates the necessary reformulation of the idea of a well-ordered society. Going forward, public reason theorists must now distinguish between types of assurance, specify heretofore unknown aspects of reasonable behavior, and reconceive of the nonideal preconditions for forming a stable, ideal social order. (shrink)

Malcolm Jones; Innate Powers, Concepts and Knowledge: a critique of D. W. Hamlyn's account of concept possession, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15.

This chapter provides a philosophical analysis of the different meanings of “security” and, by so doing, identifies some key features of the concept of security. I begin by establishing a number of qualities which this chapter’s conceptual analysis should ideally possess. I then make an important distinction between security as a practice and security as a state of being, and argue that more attention should be paid to the latter if our goal is to interrogate the justifiability of using (...) security practices in the context of infectious disease emergencies. The latter half of the chapter investigates three common features of contemporary accounts of security: (1) the referent object, (2) the conditions that object must satisfy to be secure, and (3) the distinction between the objective and subjective realisation of those conditions. I argue that accounts of the meaning of “security” identify a referent object and a set of conditions which must be reliable for that referent. I conclude by suggesting that a deeper engagement by moral philosophers with the concept and value of security (as a state of being) is required if we are to get very far in evaluating the justifiability of treating infectious disease emergencies as security issues. (shrink)

The concept of property is integral to personal and societal development, yet understanding of the cognitive basis of ownership is limited. Objects are the most basic form of property, so our physical interactions with owned objects may elucidate nuanced aspects of ownership. We gave participants a coffee mug to decorate, use and keep. The experimenter also designed a mug of her own. In Experiment 1, participants performed natural lifting actions with each mug. Participants lifted the Experimenter’s mug with (...) greater care, and moved it slightly more towards the Experimenter, while they lifted their own mug more forcefully and drew it closer to their own body. In Experiment 2, participants responded to stimuli presented on the mug handles in a computer-based stimulus–response compatibility task. Overall, participants were faster to respond in trials in which the handles were facing in the same direction as the response location compared to when the handles were facing away. The compatibility effect was abolished, however, for the Experimenter’s mug – as if the action system is blind to the potential for action towards another person’s property. These findings demonstrate that knowledge of the ownership status of objects influences visuomotor processing in subtle and revealing ways. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to clarify an aspect of Descartes’s conception of mind that seriously impacts on the standard objections against Cartesian dualism. By a close reading of Descartes’s writings on imagination, I argue that the capacity to imagine does not inhere as a mode in the mind itself, but only in the embodied mind, that is, a mind that is not united to the body does not possess the faculty to imagine. As a mode considered as a (...) general property, and not as an instance of it, belongs to the essence of the substance, and as imagination (like sensation) arises from the mind-body union, then the problem arises of knowing to what extent a Cartesian embodied mind is separable from the body. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Martin Heidegger and OntologyEmmanuel Levinas (bio)The prestige of Martin Heidegger 1 and the influence of his thought on German philosophy marks both a new phase and one of the high points of the phenomenological movement. Caught unawares, the traditional establishment is obliged to clarify its position on this new teaching which casts a spell over youth and which, overstepping the bounds of permissibility, is already in vogue. For once, (...) Fame has picked one who deserves it and, for that matter, one who is still living. Anyone who has studied philosophy cannot, when confronted by Heidegger’s work, fail to recognize how the originality and force of his achievements, stemming from genius, are combined with an attentive, painstaking, and close working-out of the argument—with that craftsmanship of the patient artisan in which phenomenologists take such pride. In this study, it is important for us to understand, above all, the true intentions of our author, to illuminate what he thinks really needs to be said, and to surmise what is most critical for him.To get to the heart of Heidegger’s system, it seems fitting to begin with a problem that is generally familiar. We choose the problem of knowledge, a deeper understanding of which takes us to the very threshold of Heidegger’s thought. For this problem, central to modern philosophy, is one of the main obstacles of modern philosophy that Heidegger wishes to surmount. Neo-Kantianism, which takes knowledge as the philosophical problem of the first rank, is the movement against which Heidegger rebels with all his strength. We have, thus, every chance of gaining access to his thought by the main door, so to speak. Once inside the system we will try to trace its outlines, 2 reserving, for a second part of our work, the determination of Heidegger’s place in the history of ideas, especially in the phenomenological movement, as well as of his relations with the philosopher to whom he owes so much—Edmund Husserl. 31In its most general form, the problem of the theory of knowledge has a critical significance. It consists in delineating a domain where knowledge can be certain and in determining the criteria for the legitimate scope of knowledge. But this problem, as normal and as simple as it may appear, has deeper roots. That knowledge should need a criterion at all presupposes that truth is not identical to all that is known and that the course [End Page 11] of things can fail to correspond with the course of thought. “How does knowledge correspond to being?” is a more profound formulation of the problem of knowledge.But we are not going to touch anymore on the primordial phenomenon that generates the problem. The problem of correspondence between thing and thought presupposes a free activity of thought and its isolation in relation to the object. It is precisely this presupposition which renders their harmony and even their contact problematic. “How does the subject take leave of itself to attain the object?” is what the problem of knowledge, in the last analysis, boils down to. Its true source is thus the concept of “subject” as elaborated by modern philosophy. The cogito presided over the subject’s birth. The cogito was the affirmation of the privileged nature of the subject’s immanent sphere, of its unique place in existence; hence, the cogito was the specificity of the subject’s connection to the rest of reality, the sui generis nature which opens up the passage from immanence to transcendence, the passage from ideas contained in the thinking substance to 4 their “formal existence.”The concept of the subject, understood as a substance having a specific position in the entire domain of being, presents us with difficulties of two kinds. First, how do we understand this leave-taking from the self which the thinking substance brings about and which displays an entirely original aspect? Indeed, we could say that thought, in reaching out toward objects, does not actually take leave of itself, since its objects—considered as ideas and contents of thought—are, in a certain sense, already within it. In order to make sense of this paradox, Descartes... (shrink)

Resumen: Las reflexiones de la teoría crítica de la sociedad respecto de la diferenciación moderna de la razón le otorgan al arte -y a su experiencia- una singularidad que se presenta bajo un modo de resistencia. Un momento ejemplar de estas indagaciones se expresa en la discusión acerca del concepto de aura para dar cuenta de la diferencia artística. En este escrito nos proponemos reconstruir los aspectos de un concepto crítico de aura estética a partir de la interpretación de su (...) lugar y significación en la teoría social del arte de Theodor Adorno. Para ello revisamos la polémica que sostuvo con Benjamin en torno al carácter pasado del aura; distinguimos los aspectos de la fundamentación del concepto de aura artística en términos de negatividad estética; y, finalmente, extraemos algunas conclusiones en relación con la contribución teórica de este concepto para la crítica de las ideologías estéticas.: The reflections of Critical Theory of society about the modern differentiation of reason, assign to art -and its experience- a singularity which presents itself as a mode of resistance. A paradigmatic moment of this inquiry is the discussion about aura as a key concept to give account of what artistic difference means. In this paper we propose to reconstruct a critical concept of aesthetical aura by means of an interpretation of its place and meaning in Theodor Adorno’s social theory of art. In order to do that, we revise the controversy with Benjamin around the past character of aura; we distinguish the aspects of the foundation of the concept of artistically aura in terms of aesthetical negativity; and, finally, we extract some conclusions in relation to the theoretical contribution of this concept to the critique of aesthetical ideologies. (shrink)

In Professor Ryle's words, the aim of the book is to offer "what may with reservations be described as a theory of the mind". But it claims to give no new information about minds but rather to "rectify the logical geography of the knowl- edge which we already possess". The need for rectification comes from a fundamental error underlying the generally accepted or official doctrine about the nature and status of Mind, a doctrine which hails chiefly from Descartes. This doctrine (...) "is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category-mistake". Hence it is wrong to speak of Minds and Bodies as if they are similar kinds of things that can be coupled in the same phrase; wrong to suppose that there are mental events which are hidden and unwitnessable counterparts of bodily events; wrong to suppose that our mental activities and characters are never known to other people because private and accessible in some privileged way only to ourselves. This is the large and radical undertaking to which Professor Ryle addresses himself. After a description of the Cartesian "myth" and a statement in detail of the nature of the general error underlying it, there follows a series of attempts to grapple with particular aspects of mental life, with the aim of showing in each case why the "official" doctrine is untenable and that mental concepts must be understood in quite a different way. (shrink)

In this contribution, an aspect of the research of one of the more distinct voices in South African theology, Jaco Gericke, is contextualised and outlined. Although Old Testament Theology is an oft-enough reflected on topic by South African Bible scholars, such a theology is never written by South African scholars. However, Gericke’s work tends in this direction. His work on God-talk, theo-logy, is the more important for our time, because it often relates to the kind of ideas popularly related to (...) for instance God as creator in the Genesis texts. Gericke’s work is however also attractive to intellectuals who work from the precepts of modernism or who are engaged in interdisciplinary research or who for purposes of decoloniality explore alternatives to Western scholarship. However, it is initially not easy for many readers to understand Gericke’s contribution in combining philosophy and Old Testament studies, both practised on high levels. To this end, three instances of Gericke’s argumentation are related as examples, with explanatory and interpretative comments made to demonstrate the high heuristic value of his contributions.Contribution: Jaco Gericke’s work can be characterised as theo-logy, in that he takes seriously the implications of modernism for ‘God-talk’. He combines Philosophy and Old Testament Exegesis as academic enterprises, the intellectual productivity of which is demonstrable by means of examples. (shrink)

Eugen Bleuler, in 1911, renamed the group of mental disorders with poor prognosis which Emil Kraepel in had called ``dementia praecox'' ``group of schizophrenias'',because for him the splitting of personality was the main symptom.Biographical, scientific and methodological influences on Bleuler's concept of schizophrenia are shown with special reference to Kraepelin and Freud.Bleuler was a passionate and very experienced clinician. He lived with his patients, taking care of them and writing down his observations. Methodologically he was an empiricist and an (...) eclecticist with a wide reading knowledge.In an impaired association of ideas, in disordered affectivity, in marked ambivalence and autism Bleuler saw the main symptoms of schizophrenia. For him these so-called pathological phenomena actually seemed to be only exaggerations of normal psychic functions. So there were only a quantitative, not a qualitative difference between schizophrenia and normal psychic processes and studies on schizophrenic ``pathology'' –seen as a disturbance, not as a disease – might analogously illustrate normal psychic reactions and vice versa.In etiology as well as in therapy Bleuler took into account psychological and (neuro)physiological(somatic) mechanisms – thus combining organicism and dynamic psychiatry and coming very close to modern concepts, e.g. the one of stress and vulnerability. Bleuler's main merit is the stressing of an idiographic ``understanding'' of the patient and a plausible and subtle explanation of schizophrenia which helped to reduce the alienation of the affected persons. (shrink)

Since certain temporal aspects of the relation between duties, rights, and the interests that rights protect have not been fully theorized, a puzzle arises when we come to consider whether and how entities such as members of future generations, fetuses, deceased persons, and unconscious persons are able to possess rights. This paper evolves a unified structure for attributing the ability to possess rights to such entities. It demonstrates that while, under any cogent theory of rights-attributions, rights and duties must (...) be strictly contemporaneous, the interests that rights protect need not temporally coincide with those rights. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to investigate the philosophical and theological validity and coherence of the classical concept of a miracle within the contemporary scientific world view. The main tool in this process will be the cognitive standard model of the formation of religious beliefs operative in the cognitive science of religion. The application of this model shows why an intentional agent is assigned as responsible for the occurrence of events with no visible cause such as a miracle: (...) miracles are events that violate the intuitively expected behaviors observable in the physical reality. It will become evident that much of the conceptual content of the classical understanding of miracles can be retained despite of the ontological and epistemological challenges of the contemporary science. In particular, this concerns the semantic view of miracles in which a miracle does not occur as an objective Divine intervention but qualifies as religious interpretation of the natural course of events always in reference to a cultural and personal context that is unique to those who directly experience these events either as direct recipients or as observers. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors try to clarify the relations between Meinong’s and Russell's thoughts on the ontological ideas of existence. The Meinongian theory on non-existent objects does not in itself violate the principle of non-contradiction, since the problem that this hypothesis offers to the theory of definite descriptions is not so much a logical problem as an ontological problem. To demonstrate this we will establish what we believe are the two main theses basic to the theory of descriptions: the (...) epistemological thesis and logical thesis. (shrink)

The changes that have affected all spheres of society have also affected the existing stereotypes of gender behaviour, so the issue of the place and role of men and women in society focuses on research on the aspirations, interests and preferences of both sexes. Gender issues are studied in an interdisciplinary aspect, so recently there have been many studies in which the subject of discussion concerns different fields of science - psychology, philosophy, linguistics, journalism, sociology, political science and many others. (...) To study the gender sphere of concept of contemporary periodicals for women and men, the following scientific methods are considered: descriptive method, analysis, content analysis, questionnaire, comparative method and induction. However, an attempt has been made to analyze different approaches to the study of concepts. There are many different definitions of the concept, which indicates the complexity and ambiguity of the “concept” meaning, but there is a limit to the scientific description and understanding of the concept. The gender sphere of concept is a system of interactions of maximum concepts of man and woman, as well as their derivatives, which are called gender and social roles in society performed by man and woman. Concepts, sphere of concept include gender features, which allow a gender approach to study the gender sphere of concept of contemporary periodicals for women and men. The study of the gender sphere of concept within the framework of contemporary gender-labelled publications allows to identify and correlate metagender and gender concepts that appear in society. (shrink)

This article discusses three related aspects of know-how: skill, transversal abilities and project management abilities, which are often not distinguished within either the educational or the philosophical literature. Skill or the ability to perform tasks is distinguished from possession of technique which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for possession of a skill. The exercise of skill, contrary to much opinion, usually involves character aspects of agency. Skills usually have a social dimension and are subject (...) to normative appraisal. Transversal abilities rely on but are not reducible to the exercise of skill, but require a further degree of attention and seriousness in their exercise. Transversal abilities can be displayed in different ways using different skills, depending on context. They include: planning, communicating, evaluating—all important features of successful professional action. Project management or the putting into effect of relatively long-term sequences of action involves the articulation of different transversal abilities. It is a form of agency which is considered to be important in some European vocational and professional education systems and usually involves a strong social dimension. The article concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of these distinctions and of their interrelationships. (shrink)

This article discusses three related aspects of know‐how: skill, transversal abilities and project management abilities, which are often not distinguished within either the educational or the philosophical literature. Skill or the ability to perform tasks is distinguished from possession of technique which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for possession of a skill. The exercise of skill, contrary to much opinion, usually involves character aspects of agency. Skills usually have a social dimension and are subject (...) to normative appraisal. Transversal abilities rely on but are not reducible to the exercise of skill, but require a further degree of attention and seriousness in their exercise. Transversal abilities can be displayed in different ways using different skills, depending on context. They include: planning, communicating, evaluating—all important features of successful professional action. Project management or the putting into effect of relatively long‐term sequences of action involves the articulation of different transversal abilities. It is a form of agency which is considered to be important in some European vocational and professional education systems and usually involves a strong social dimension. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of these distinctions and of their interrelationships. (shrink)

This paper answers critical responses to the author’s “A Theory of Concepts and Concept Possession.” The paper begins with a discussion of candidate counterexamples to the proposed analysis of concept possession -- including, e.g., a discussion of its relationship to Frank Jackson’s Mary example. Second, questions concerning the author’s general methodological approach are considered. For instance, it is shown that -- contrary to the critics’ suggestions -- an analysis of concept possession cannot invoke belief (...) alone, but must also invoke intuition. Finally, a defense is given for the realist framework within which the theory of concepts, and of their possession conditions, is formulated. (shrink)

The so-called materialist conception of history is not only very popular in certain quarters, it is also embodied in much of the practice of historians. Yet, in spite of the current interest in philosophies of history, it is not often that one finds it seriously and critically discussed by philosophers, or indeed by anybody. One reason for this is, no doubt, that though claiming to be scientific it is closely connected with a militant political and economic creed. But there are (...) further and more honourable reasons, in the apparent comprehensiveness of the theory itself and in the lack of any comprehensive statement of it from its chief author. To some of its supporters it appears to be not merely a complete explanation of all history, past, present, and future, but also a psychology, a philosophy, and even a religion ; and yet Marx—who, if he did not originate it, is anyhow mainly responsible for its wide popularity—nowhere expounds it at any length, and for an adequate and authoritative discussion of it we must consult the correspondence of Engels, which is not gathered together in any one place. Thus, while opponents of materialism and determinism tend to reject or ignore a theory which is supposed to imply them both, opponents of Marxism are naturally unwilling to read through that author's very voluminous works for the purpose of reconstructing from his fragmentary remarks a theory that he nowhere fully states. (shrink)

The so-called materialist conception of history is not only very popular in certain quarters, it is also embodied in much of the practice of historians. Yet, in spite of the current interest in philosophies of history, it is not often that one finds it seriously and critically discussed by philosophers, or indeed by anybody. One reason for this is, no doubt, that though claiming to be scientific it is closely connected with a militant political and economic creed. But there are (...) further and more honourable reasons, in the apparent comprehensiveness of the theory itself and in the lack of any comprehensive statement of it from its chief author. To some of its supporters it appears to be not merely a complete explanation of all history, past, present, and future, but also a psychology, a philosophy, and even a religion ; and yet Marx—who, if he did not originate it, is anyhow mainly responsible for its wide popularity—nowhere expounds it at any length, and for an adequate and authoritative discussion of it we must consult the correspondence of Engels, which is not gathered together in any one place. Thus, while opponents of materialism and determinism tend to reject or ignore a theory which is supposed to imply them both, opponents of Marxism are naturally unwilling to read through that author's very voluminous works for the purpose of reconstructing from his fragmentary remarks a theory that he nowhere fully states. (shrink)

The so-called materialist conception of history is not only very popular in certain quarters, it is also embodied in much of the practice of historians. Yet, in spite of the current interest in philosophies of history, it is not often that one finds it seriously and critically discussed by philosophers, or indeed by anybody. One reason for this is, no doubt, that though claiming to be scientific it is closely connected with a militant political and economic creed. But there are (...) further and more honourable reasons, in the apparent comprehensiveness of the theory itself and in the lack of any comprehensive statement of it from its chief author. To some of its supporters it appears to be not merely a complete explanation of all history, past, present, and future, but also a psychology, a philosophy, and even a religion ; and yet Marx—who, if he did not originate it, is anyhow mainly responsible for its wide popularity—nowhere expounds it at any length, and for an adequate and authoritative discussion of it we must consult the correspondence of Engels, which is not gathered together in any one place. Thus, while opponents of materialism and determinism tend to reject or ignore a theory which is supposed to imply them both, opponents of Marxism are naturally unwilling to read through that author's very voluminous works for the purpose of reconstructing from his fragmentary remarks a theory that he nowhere fully states. (shrink)

In Levinas’s early works, the ‘body as subjectivity’ is the focus of research bearing significant implications for his later philosophy of the body. How this is achieved becomes the thrust of this article. We analyze how the existent, through hypostasis, emerges hic et nunc, and explores further its effort to exist is effected in its relation to existence. In delineating this, we argue that the existent does not emerge from the il y a as an idealistic subject, but rather is (...) born as a natural subject. This is arguably the most remarkable aspect of Levinas’s analysis of the dawn of the bodily subject. However, the subjectivity of the subject is to be found in the inescapable self-possession of its embodiment. The body, in turn, is a conditional possibility for being a corporeal subject. We argue that the subject as a being in the flesh is the meaning of the embodied human subject, and it bears fertile implications for the ethical signification of the body. In re-conceiving the meaning of the ‘body as subjectivity’ to ‘ethical signification of the body’ against the odds of the traditional dichotomies, we argue that Levinas tries to overcome the bio-political understanding of racist conception of the body subject. Given this ethical meaning beyond materiality we reconsider how the embodied subject is a radical passivity as a ‘here I am’. In suggesting the implication of this claim with Levinas we find how the ethical subjectivity is beyond dualistic assertions and racist conceptions. (shrink)