This chapter contains sections titled: Intentions and Related States of Mind Intention's Functions and Constitution Intentions and Reasons References Further reading.

Republicans are divided on the question of whether domination is best understood in terms of capacities to act intentionally or of certain structural aspects of society. I offer a model combining each aspect derived from Frederick Douglass’s philosophy. Douglass referred to slavery in both interpersonal terms (to individuals) and structural (to the community), focussing on the unique and pervasive role played by social prejudice which distorts public reason thereby disabling the functioning of republican institutions. While Douglass’s insights constitute a significant (...) contribution to neo-republican theory in their own right, they also offer a slave’s perspective on the central republican concept of domination and shows how historic African American writers made innovative theoretical contributions to republicanism. Both of these have long been overlooked by republican scholars to the philosophical detriment of the tradition. (shrink)

The article is addressing one of the central but maybe the most ambiguous and multilayered concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl’s insisting on a form of intentionality that implies not just conscious directedness towards objects, but also a constitutive function of mental acts, led to some serious accusations of his idealism and solipsism. Justification of such accusations depends exclusively on whether we understand constitution in an ontological sense, as a creative process which brings worldly entities into being, or in an (...) epistemological sense, as a process which enables us to identify and to interpret a particular givenness as something. In early stages of phenomenology, a so-called “hylomorphic” theory of constitution prevailed, which stated that object of our experience can be present for us only if some sense-data is formed in our intentional acts by a meaning-giving component. This theory proved to be unsatisfying when Husserl turned to a phenomenological description of temporal objects, discovering that not just objects, but also intentional acts have a distinct temporal structure. However, the analysis of temporal constitution reaches even further, because the idea of the “living present”, and its triadic structure of retention-primal impression-protention, holds the key to an explanation of horizon-intentionality, and offers the answer to an essential transcendental question: How is it possible for us to be aware of the world towards which all of our intentional life is directed, and from which all of the motivation for our actions originates? (shrink)

The philosophy of mathematical practice sometimes investigates the social constitution of mathematics but does not always make explicit the philosophical-normative framework that guides the discussion. This chapter investigates some recent proposals in the philosophy of mathematical practice that compare social facts and mathematical objects, discussing similarities and differences. An attempt will be made to identify, through a comparison with three different perspectives in social ontology, the kind of objectivity attributed to mathematical knowledge, the type of representational or non-representational semantics (...) adopted, and the justificatory or coordinative role entrusted to axiomatics. After a brief introduction to key issues in social ontology, Sect. 3 of the chapter offers a survey of contributions by Feferman, Ferreirós, and Cole, highlighting a difference between approaches based on rules, practices, and intentional states, respectively. Section 4.1 also discusses results by Carter, Collin, Giardino, and Pantsar, focusing on differences between the objectivity of knowledge and objectivity of objects and showing that many authors combine a realist, structuralist, and pragmatist perspective, as well as the idea that objectivity comes in degrees. Section 4.2 focuses on the kind of semantics that is adopted in socially oriented approaches. A representational semantics is preferred by authors grounding their views on mental states, whereas a non-representational semantics best fits with views based on practices. Section 5 considers how axiomatics can be understood in a social perspective. Axiomatics generally plays a justificatory role also in theories that aim to explain the social constitution of mathematical knowledge. Yet, if one shifts from approaches based on mental states to approaches anchored on rules or habits, axiomatics can be viewed as an institution based on obligations, functions, coordination problems, and agent’s actions and roles, thus playing an organizational and coordination role. (shrink)

Husserl, as is well known, bases his study of appearing on subjective functions. He also makes appearing prior to being insofar phenomenology grants being to entities only to the point that they can appear. Both positions result in the paradox that he presents in the Crisis, where he asks: “How can human subjectivity, which is a part of the world, constitute the whole world, i.e., constitute it as its intentional product…? The subjective part of the world swallows up, so (...) to speak, the whole world including itself. What an absurdity!”. The paradox arises from Husserl’s taking being as presence and asserting that presence is established through constitution and, as such, is the work of subjectivity. In this article, I explore an alternative based on Aristotle's concept of functioning. This is a functioning that is prior to both subjects and objects, a functioning that is responsible for both being and appearing. The introduction of this concept, I argue, does not change Husserl’s description of the functioning of constitution. It does, however, add an ontological basis that prevents phenomenology from falling into this paradox.Husserl, como es bien sabido, basa su estudio del aparecer en funciones sujetivas. También presenta el aparecer como anterior al ser en tanto en cuanto la fenomenología le concede ser a las entidades sólo hasta el punto de que puedan aparecer. Ambas posiciones dan como resultado la paradoja que presenta en La crisis, donde pregunta: "¿Cómo puede la subjetividad humana, que es parte del mundo, constituir el mundo entero, es decir, constituirlo como su producto intencional...? La parte subjetiva del mundo se traga, por así decirlo, todo el mundo, incluido él mismo. ¡Qué absurdo!". La paradoja surge del hecho de que Husserl toma el ser como presencia y de que afirma que la presencia se establece a través de la constitución y que, como tal, es el trabajo de la subjetividad. En este artículo, exploro una alternativa basada en el concepto de funcionamiento de Aristóteles. Este es un funcionamiento que es anterior a ambos sujetos y objetos, un funcionamiento que es responsable de ser y aparecer. La introducción de este concepto, sostengo, no cambia la des-cripción de Husserl del funcionamiento de la constitución. Sin embargo, agrega una base ontológica que evita que la fenomenología caiga en esta paradoja. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the central role of the notion of " habit " (Gewohnheit) in Hegel's theory of " embodiment " (Verleiblichung) and to show that the philosophical outcome of the Anthropology is that habit, understood as a sensorimotor life form, is not only an enabling condition for there to be mindedness, but is more strongly an ontological constitutive condition of all its levels of manifestation. Moreover, I will argue that Hegel's approach somehow makes a (...) model of embodied cognition available which offers a unified account of the three main senses of embodiment understood as both a physiological, a functional, and a phenomenological process. In this sense Hegel's approach to habit can make a useful contribution to the contemporary debate on embodiment in philosophy of mind, the cognitive sciences, and action theory. For a long time habit in 20th century philosophy and science has been mostly read in a negative way, identified with mechanical and repetitive routine. The reconstruction of Hegel’s approach is particularly relevant here and can fruitfully contribute to this discussion, since it offers us not only a model that assigns to habit a positive constitutive role in the formation of embodied human mindedness but which also overcomes the dualism between habitual motor routine and intentional activities that is prevalent nowadays in the cognitive sciences and in action theory, and allows for some sense of natural agency as belonging to animal life. Furthermore, Hegel’s approach cuts across the great divide between associationist and holistic approaches to habit that has for a long time dominated the philosophical debate on habit and still shapes the current opposition between classical cognitive science and embodied cognitive science. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

In her landmark book, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (Millikan1984),1 Ruth Garrett Millikan utilizes the idea of a biological function to solve philosophical problems associated with the phenomena of language, thought, and meaning. Language and thought are activities of biological organisms, according to Millikan, and we should treat them as such when trying to answer related philosophical questions. Of special interest is Millikan’s treatment of intentionality. Here Millikan employs the notion of a biological function to explain what it is (...) for one thing in nature, a bee dance (43), for example, to be about another, in this case, the location of a nectar source. My concern in this paper is to understand whether Millikan’s account of intentionality adequately explains how humans achieve reference, in language or thought, to individuals and groups in their environment. In bringing her theory of intentional content to bear on human activities, Millikan focuses largely on natural language. Thus, in what follows, I begin by laying out the biology-based principles that underlie Millikan’s theory of content, then proceed with an explanation of how the theory is to apply to natural language. As it appears, Millikan’s account of how content is determined for natural language terms and sentences rests on the determinacy of intentional content at the psychological level. This leads me to take a careful look at what Millikan says about the content of mental representations, in hopes of finding a sufficient basis there for the application of Millikan’s theory of content to natural language. Ultimately, I conclude that Millikan’s theory faces a problem of vacuity. If we approach the theory as a theory of intentional content, intended to explain the nature of reference, the theory is lacking in an extremely important respect: Millikan explains how it could be one of the biological functions of a mental or natural language term to refer, without telling us precisely what in the natural order constitutes the reference relation.. (shrink)

The power to exercise control is a crucial feature of agency. Necessarily, if S cannot exercise some degree of control over anything - any state of affairs, event, process, object, or whatever - S is not an agent. If S is not an agent, S cannot act intentionally, responsibly, or rationally, nor can S possess or exercise free will. In my dissertation I reflect on the nature of control, and on the roles consciousness plays in its exercise. I first consider (...) the fragmented state of philosophical and empirical work on control. I argue that a mature philosophy of agency stands in need of a detailed personal-level account of control, and I begin by explicating a notion I call intentional control. On this explication, an agent J exercises intentional control in service of an intention X to the degree that behavior of J's for which X plays a (non-deviant) causal role approximates the representational content of X. With this explication in hand, I offer analyses of theoretically salient points along a degreed spectrum (covering, e.g., the exercise of minimal, successful, and perfect intentional control). Next, I develop an account of the degrees of intentional control's possession. This involves elucidation of ingredients of intentional control, i.e. those features of agents and environments that constitute an agent's causal potency and skill. It turns out that an agent's possession of control regarding an intention is intimately tied to her ability to repeatedly execute that intention across some specified (hypothetical) set of scenarios. Finally, I discuss a number of potentially fruitful applications of the account. In chapter three I confront a strong intuition, persistent in both philosophy and cognitive science, that consciousness is somehow intimately involved in the exercise of control. In this connection recent empirical work indicates the causal powers of consciousness remain poorly understood. I argue that Functional Agnosticism - the view that any claim regarding a function of consciousness for behavior is currently underdetermined by the data - is the wisest position on the causal powers of consciousness. Recognition of this unsatisfying state of affairs motivates reflection on what might enable progress beyond it. I argue that establishing a causal function for consciousness is facilitated by clarity on several issues. First, what is the sense of consciousness at issue? I isolate state consciousness, discuss the potential relevance of various types of conscious states, and distinguish between ambitious and modest approaches to the causal powers of state consciousness. In short, ambitious approaches seek to understand the causal contributions of a conscious mental state in virtue of the fact that the state is conscious; modest approaches seek to understand the causal contributions of conscious mental states, full stop. I argue that for various theoretical purposes, both approaches can be useful. Second, what is the sense of control at issue? I argue that for many important theoretical purposes, intentional control is the relevant sense. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness of clarity on these issues by examining recent work on the roles of conscious and unconscious vision for action. This work suggests that some important subset of our overt action is controlled by non-conscious processes. I apply insights developed earlier, noting common mistakes made in this literature, and highlighting important empirical possibilities these mistakes obscure. In later chapters I develop a novel account of conscious control. In chapter four I develop a central part of the account, which involves a view on the intentional structure of conscious trying. The leading view entails that conscious trying possesses a descriptive (or thetic) structure. Based on relevant empirical work concerning deafferented and paralyzed patients, I argue for the view that conscious trying is (at least) partially constituted by directive (or telic) structure. Finally, I argue that the exercise of conscious control is best understood as an exercise of intentional control for which the experience of trying plays a constitutive role. After presenting arguments for this view and defending the view against objections, I discuss the importance of conscious control for a mature philosophy of mind and agency. (shrink)

A division between functional belief, on the one hand, and judgmental belief, on the other, is central to Sosa’s two-tier virtue epistemology. For Sosa, mere functional belief is constituted by a first-order affirmation. In contrast, a judgmental belief is an intentional affirmation; a performance which is partially constituted by the believer’s endeavor to affirm truthfully, and reliably enough. If, qua performance, judgmental belief is like the hunter’s shot or the baseball player’s swing, mere functional belief is much more like a (...) heartbeat. This paper explores whether we should accept Sosa’s distinction between mere functional belief and judgmental belief, and, if we should, how recognizing this distinction ought to shape our epistemological theorizing. Accordingly, the first aim of this paper is expository. It is to further clarify Sosa’s contrasting categories of functional belief and judgmental belief and to attempt to characterize explicitly the role that the division between functional belief and judgmental belief plays in Sosa’s two-tier virtue epistemology. The second aim of this paper is more critical. It is to articulate and begin to evaluate a series of concerns regarding whether Sosa’s division between functional belief and judgmental belief is well-founded, and so to explore whether a virtue-theoretic performance epistemology ought to embrace the sort of two-tiered account of cognitive performance that Sosa favors. (shrink)

Fred Dretske's theory of indicatory functions (Dretske 1988 & 1994)is undoubtedly one of the more ambitious attempts to articulate a sound naturalistic foundation for an adequate theory of intentional content. In what follows I argue that, contrary to Dretske's explicit intentions, his theory fails a crucial adequacy test - that of accounting for mental content as a system-intrinsic property. Once examined in light of the first-person perspective of an embodied psy- chological agent, I argue, it becomes clear that neither (...) 'indication', nor 'function', as used by Dretske, can be consistently applied. Dre- tske's theory of indicatory functions is, thus, doubly incoherent. It is then argued that the problems identified here stretch far beyond Dretske's specific theory - covering the better part of contemporary attempts to naturalize content. I conclude by suggesting that these general problems of representation, exemplified so vividly in Dretske's theory, also testify to the inadequacy of the quest to reduce tel- eological phenomena (function and purpose) to predominantly mechanistic variables. (shrink)

Volume V of Analecta Husserliana consists of papers and discussions at the Third International Conference held by the International Husserl and Phenomenological Research Society. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, who is the President of the Society, has edited the papers and discussions of this volume and has provided a keynote inaugural lecture in which the dominant and unifying themes of the Conference are delineated. The general title, which binds the papers and discussions in the volume into a thematic unity, is "The Crisis of (...) Culture." The sub-title, "Steps to Reopen the Phenomenological Investigation of Man," provides further clarification of the direction of questioning that is illustrated throughout. Both the diagnosis and cure for the crisis of contemporary culture is sought through ruminations on the procedures and goals of phenomenological analysis. Ms. Tymieniecka, however, makes it abundantly clear in her inaugural lecture that if phenomenology is to lead us to a comprehension of the concrete modalities of human life, with their irreducible value predicates, then it will need to proceed along different lines from those laid out by Husserl in his program of transcendental, intentional analysis. What is recommended is a shift of inquiry-standpoint, enabling one to recover the initial spontaneity of concrete, lived-experience. This shift of standpoint enjoins a substitution of creativity for constitution as the guiding thematic, and a move from logos to ethos as the proper dimension in which to search for the dynamics and meaning of human action. Creativity rather than constitution points to the primordial function of consciousness, and the appeal to ethos makes possible the retrieval of lived-experiences that antedate the apriori possibilities of theoretical intentionality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transcendence and SensibilityAffection, Sensation, and Nonintentional ConsciousnessIrina Poleshchuk (bio)Over the years, the question of sensibility has largely been discussed in a variety of discourses developed in the humanities and has gained attention in psychology and the cognitive sciences. Sensibility has been seen as a constituent part of subjectivity, endowing subjectivity with meanings developed in different layers of subjective and inter-subjective life, but also as setting new horizons of ethical (...) becoming. In this context, Emmanuel Levinas represents a unique philosophical approach: sensibility reveals the core of the ethical encounter with the other person, including traumatic experience and ethical gift of this intersubjective encounter. The ethical event starts from sensibility and from the radicality on which the face-to-face relation is built, but it also results from the sensible life of subjectivity. I address here a famous line in Levinas’s Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence: “Only a subject that eats can be for-the-other” (OB 74). In its hunger, and in its constant search for the means of feeding itself, subjectivity is for the first time disclosed as a vulnerable and affected self. This vulnerability [End Page 1] is different in its nature from the vulnerability provoked by the appeal of the other. The satisfaction of needs, the ability to enjoy food, to enjoy laboring to acquire it, but also the memory of the pain caused by hunger all indicate fundamental levels of vulnerability whereby the self is exposed to the affection of the otherness. In the following sections of Otherwise than Being, Levinas moves further toward disclosing a sensible subjectivity endowed with transcendence. Sensibility becomes structured as the other-in-the-same, where the trace of the other is exactly transcendence impregnating subjectivity. Here, being affected by the other, the vulnerable and the sensible self takes its crucial forms: it is pure passivity, it is an ultimate exposure, and it is nonintentional. These modalities of sensibility are to indicate ethical mapping of subjectivity where responsibility for the other eventually becomes irreversible.To approach the novelty of sensibility as the central component of the face-to-face relation, I elucidate the function and meaning of mechanisms enabling subjectivity to be structured as the other-in-the-same. The face-to-face relation is, first of all, an experience of the affective trace left by the appeal of the other. Thus, my goal is to explicate how this affection, manifested as the address of the other, is embedded in Levinas’s reading of sensuous intuition and how the affection enlightens an ethical sensibility at the level of nonintentional consciousness and passivity. Beginning with Husserl’s view of hyletic data, I discuss the work of affection and sensation in intentional consciousness and how these feelings participate in constructing sensibility. I analyze the importance of Levinas’s innovative idea of nonintentional consciousness, leading up to the concept of passivity, which acts as the host of transcendence or, in other words, of the other-in-the-same. Finally, I turn to the phenomenon of two sensibilities and provide an interpretation of their structures and their role in building face-to-face relations.Sensation and AffectionThe first step toward unraveling sensibility is to address Urhyle. Urhyle plays an essential role in the dimension of affection, sensation, [End Page 2] and sensibility. In his earlier works, Levinas addresses hyle and, to some extent, follows Husserl’s reflections on Urhyle and affection. A discussion of Urhyle will help to elucidate Levinasian logic.For Husserl, Urhyle is “a foreign core in me” (Ichfremdekern).1 Being something foreign within consciousness, Urhyle indicates a core within consciousness, which leads to a constitutive bifurcation of the self and of the nonself. The appearance of Urhyle is indirect: it is not constitutive, it does not constitute itself, but rather Urhyle structures the constitution of the self. How can Urhyle be shown? Affected consciousness or sensible data is the first strange or alien content within the self, affecting and exciting the self as nonconsciousness (Unbewüßtsein) on the level of original hyletic (Urhyle) preconsciousness and allowing primary sensibility to grow, which apparently becomes a content of the self.2 Consciousness is, first of all... (shrink)

The ongoing epistemological debate on scientific thought experiments (TEs) revolves, in part, around the now famous Galileo’s falling bodies TE and how it could justify its conclusions. In this paper, I argue that the TE’s function is misrepresented in this a-historical debate. I retrace the history of this TE and show that it constituted the first step in two general “argumentative strategies”, excogitated by Galileo to defend two different theories of free-fall, in 1590’s and then in the 1638. I analyse (...) both argumentative strategies and argue that their function was to eliminate potential causal factors: the TE serving to eliminate absolute weight as a causal factor, while the subsequent arguments served to explore the effect of specific weight, with conflicting conclusions in 1590 and 1638. I will argue thorough the paper that the TE is best grasped when we analyse Galileo’s restriction, in the TE’s scenario and conclusion, to bodies of the same material or specific weight. Finally, I will draw out two implications for the debate on TEs. (shrink)

This article presents two of Foucault’s lesser known notions, “justice fonctionnelle" and “stratégie du pourtour”, in order to interrogate the role of legislators in regard to the policing of political dissent. This article contains three parts. First, I present the two lesser known notions referred to above. Then, I provide my understanding of the role of law for Foucault. Finally, in the third part, I explain how a consensual relationship between the police and legislators is established. I present briefly the (...) work of Avrom Sherr and outline the contents of a recent U.S. anti-protest law which gives the police greater powers to redefine the legal nature of public space and to make arrests without having to show criminal intent on the part of protesters. My aim is to further think through the paradox that Foucault mentioned in his lectures on security societies: non-judicial methods used in security processes undermine the primacy of law but also lead to the overproduction of laws. (shrink)

It is Chantal Mouffe’s contention that the central weakness of consensus-driven forms of liberalism, such as John Rawls’ political liberalism and Jurgen Habermas’ deliberative democracy, is that they refuse to acknowledge conflict and pluralism, especially at the level of the ontological. Their defence for doing so is that conflict and pluralism are the result of attempts to incorporate unreasonable and irrational claims into the public political sphere. In this context, unreasonable and irrational claims are those that cannot be translated into (...) universalizable terms. However, for Mouffe, it is this intentional exclusionary act itself that is detrimental to a well- functioning democratic polity. It is only through the inclusion of a diverse body of subject positions that a democratic polity can be said to be truly representative of the polity, and therefore constitute a functioning and inclusive democracy. -/- This paper will examine Mouffe’s account of agonistic pluralism. In doing so, it will demonstrate that instead of being a source of instability within the democratic discourse and therefore relegated into the private non-political sphere, passions and values that are constitutive of these subject positions ought to be incorporated into the public political sphere. Mouffe’s rationale for doing so is that it is precisely through their incorporation that citizens will retain their allegiance to the democratic polity. However, as part of this examination, this paper will also draw attention to an under-developed aspect of Mouffe’s account of agonistic democracy, specifically problems regarding both participation and exclusion. Whilst Mouffe does provide a robust counterpoint to both Rawls’ political liberalism and Habermas’ deliberative democracy, it is my contention that she fails to explain adequately what it is that persuades participants to act democratically and adhere to the requirements of agonal respect, nor what should happen when the ethico- political principles of liberty and equality are not accepted. (shrink)

In a previous study, our research group investigated the expression of irony in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and suggested that specific manual and non-manual markers signaled the signer’s meaning and attitude. The present research aimed at expanding those findings by analyzing whether these markers are used in irony recognition and whether they are language-specific. We designed an experiment in which we compared recognition of ironic remarks out of context considering three groups of Italians: Deaf signers, hearing signers, and hearing non-signers. (...) Our aim was to verify whether the manual and non-manual markers we associated with the expression of irony in LIS constitute a reliable cue to detect irony and whether these cues were accessible to signers more than to non-signers sharing the same cultural background. Although the ironic intent in LIS was accessible also to hearing non-signers, we found, among hearing participants, that knowledge of LIS does improve accuracy in recognizing ironic remarks in LIS. This suggests that signers’ facial expressions and bodily movements do not solve a purely affective function, but are grammaticalized, at least to some degree. (shrink)

This paper is about the question: what is it for a mental state to mean (or present) something as an intentional object? This issue is addressed from a broad perspective, against the background of Brentano’s philosophical programme in Psychology from an empirical standpoint, and the controversy between the proponents of a non-canonical interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, and the so-called orthodox interpretation advocated namely by R. Chisholm. My investigation is divided into six parts. In the first section, I explain (...) the meaning and function of the notion of phenomenon in light of Brentano’s philosophical programme, and I briefly elucidate the notion of physical phenomenon which, in Brentano’s Psychology, constitutes the primary object of consciousness. In the next two sections, I look at two aspects of Brentano’s criticism of the identity thesis that he attributes to British empiricism, namely the psychological aspect, which concerns the identification of the two classes of phenomena, and the metaphysical aspect relating to the relationship between physical phenomena and the reality of an extramental world. Once this double distinction will be established, I will turn to the relation of intentional objects to presentations and put forward the hypothesis that intentional objects are conceptually dependent upon presentations and that this dependence rests, in turn, upon the content of the mental phenomena. The next step concerns Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects, and one of the main non-orthodox arguments against the canonical interpretation, namely that the latter conflates primary and secondary objects. In this context, I examine a second hypothesis: that the secondary object, or intentional correlate of an act, is an intentional content, which is distinct both from the intentional object and from the reality to which it relates, and I maintain that the intentional content has the function of mediating the mental acts’ relation to their objects. Finally, I shall examine some objections against the hypothesis of intentional content in Brentano’s Psychology, and I will conclude with a brief commentary on the bearing of this investigation with regard to the interpretation of the genesis of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, before and after the reistic turn of his philosophy. (shrink)

Justin Garson has recently argued that proper functions are proximal activities of traits selected by phylogenetic or ontogenetic selection processes, and that traits are dysfunctional only if they cannot perform their proper functions for constitutional reasons. We partially agree with Garson, but reject the view that functions are proximal activities, as well as his account of dysfunctions. Instead, we propose our own theory that biological functions are selected dispositions and that a trait is dysfunctional in virtue (...) of not having the dispositions for which it was selected. This account can explain both defects (or dysfunctions in Garson’s sense) and dysfunctions due to environmental factors. Moreover, it offers a neat way to explain the graduality of dysfunction. (shrink)

Pollitt and Bouckaert and their neo-Weberian state (NWS) have been chosen as the subject for this essay because the book has become a standard work in the public management movement. It is frequently cited and has been re-published in multiple editions (most recently in 2017). The authors also refer explicitly to Max Weber.This contribution seeks to draw attention to three important aspects, which inevitably overlap with one another:1. There is no Weber in the neo-Weberian State (introduction, 1; section II). Pollitt (...) and Bouckaert fail to grasp that Weber’s understanding of the state [the state as an “institution” (Anstalt); and the state as an “idea of validity” (Geltungsvorstellung)] is not identical to his ideal type of modern bureaucracy; it is the features of the latter on which they draw. The ideal type is a standard measure constructed in order to establish how close any concrete, given instance of bureaucracy comes to it (introduction, 3). Meanwhile, the “neutral official” insisted upon by Weber has “taken their leave” in Germany from important positions (section III, 3). Furthermore, Weber did not address those structures and processes internal to the administration which are precisely the object of interest for the new public management reformers. Weber’s lack of interest arises from the fact the members of anAnstalt, whether it is the state or the Church (WuG, § 15, no. 2), are subject to imposed orders (oktroyierte Ordnungen) and, as such, do not enjoy the “right to have a say”. Scharpf (1973a) was the first to pay particular attention to the problems brought about by specialisation and by the division of labour within the administration that are responsible for an incremental form of politics (section III, 3); even if he later ascribes advantages to the combination of “negative” and “positive coordination” (Scharpf 1991: 18ff.).2. The “legalistic culture” that characterises Germany will be considered in a more differentiated way, drawing on empirical studies which provide information, for example, on how laws (i.e. programmes)actuallyoriginate inside the ministerial apparatus (introduction, 2; section III, 2 and 3) or how use is made of the power of authority (Weisungsrecht) in practice (introduction, 2; section III, 2 and 3), even when, formally, it claims to have validity (section III). In this way, only empirical studies (Benz 1994; Bohne 1981; Dose 1997; Dose/Voigt 1995; Treiber 2007a) prove that the administration that implements laws has often, in practice, become a “negotiative administration” (introduction, 2). Such a phenomenon as a “co-operative administration”, which negotiates rather than rules, is a “foreign concept” in Weber’s discussion of the state and modern bureaucracy. Scharpf’s (1970) comparison between constitutional governance in Germany and legal relief in America is enlightening when it comes to the meaning of the constitutional state (Rechtsstaat) (introduction, 2; section III); the same applies to his discussion of the failed federalist reforms, which sought, among other things, to mitigate, if not entirely eliminate, the opportunities for blockades provided by political entanglement (Politikverflechtung) (section III). Neither was it possible to realise long overdue proposals to reform administrative law (Verwaltungsrecht) (section III, 1), which involved weakening or removing altogether three important assumptions in the dominant administrative doctrine (the “dogmatic normality”) and which also included the ambitious intention for the law to achieve tangible impact (Hoffmann-Riem 1994). Nonetheless, while no-one would dispute that reform of the federal government and administration remained “on the agenda” (Scharpf 1991, Mayntz/ Scharpf 1973), the priorities of such a reform were, and still are, different to those of new public management reform [the key terms here arePlanung(“planning”) and the term that replaced it,Steuerung(“management”)]1.3. Pollitt and Bouckaert ascribe to the neo-Weberian state extremely varied functions without providing any (theoretical) basis for them. In this way, the notion of public management reform that they present acquires the status of a “reformist philosophy” (introduction, 3; section IV). See Scharpf (1991) for a theoretically well-founded argumentation on the State’s ability to act in our days. Scharpf’s essay will be discussed briefly (section IV).ConclusionThere is no Weber in the neo-Weberian state. According to the discussion presented here, the neo-Weberian state can only mean: how would a modern state constituted by Weber look today? (shrink)

Normative notions are central to Husserl’s account of intentionality: intending an object is a normative achievement, essentially admitting of fulfillment or disappointment. So is teleology: intentional conscious life is inseparable from a horizontal orientation toward “ideas in the Kantian sense.” How are they related? Is teleology essential for intentionality as a normative achievement? Or, in Husserl’s way of putting it, do relative truths “demand” ideal truths? This article explores some reasons for agreeing with Husserl that this is indeed the case. (...) In Sec. 2, I will identify a “normative turn” in Husserl’s account of the basic structure of perceptual intentionality and spell out the teleological character of this normative account. This sense of teleology is a minimal one. A more robust teleology, in the sense of an orientation toward infinite ideality, is then justified in Sec. 3 by virtue of its function in the constitution of genuine objectivity. In Sec. 4, I will turn to the noetic, especially the ego-oriented side of Husserl’s analysis, in order to clarify the normative force of infinite telos. All in all, I will argue that the normative and the teleological sides of the story are inextricably intertwined in Husserl’s account of intentional conscious life. (shrink)

John Searle’s distinction between regulative and constitutive rules is an enduringly important contribution to our understanding of rules, of language, and of rule-based or rule-bounded institutions. It is important to add to Searle’s account, however, by pointing out the regulative function of constitutive rules. Many human activities and goals can be pursued in multiple ways, but constituting the approved or official way of doing things, as is so common in law, has the effect of making alternatives less eligible, less available, (...) or less permitted, all of which can be seen as the regulative overhang of constitutive rules. (shrink)

John Searle has argued that one can imagine embodying a machine running any computer program without understanding the symbols, and hence that purely computational processes do not yield understanding. The disagreement this argument has generated stems, I hold, from ambiguity in talk of 'understanding'. The concept is analysed as a relation between subjects and symbols having two components: a formal and an intentional. The central question, then becomes whether a machine could possess the intentional component with or without the formal (...) component. I argue that the intentional state of a symbol's being meaningful to a subject is a functionally definable relation between the symbol and certain past and present states of the subject, and that a machine could bear this relation to a symbol. I sketch a machine which could be said to possess, in primitive form, the intentional component of understanding. Even if the machine, in lacking consciousness, lacks full understanding, it contributes to a theory of understanding and constitutes a counterexample to the Chinese Room argument. (shrink)

‘Death is bad for those who die, but good for the undertakers and the grave-diggers’. And for archaeologists and for epigraphers as well, even though epitaphs, and especially simple or formulaic ones, are probably the most understudied and unloved area of ancient epigraphy. Yet the mere fact of an inscribed epitaph indicates deliberate and intentionally enduring commemoration, and therefore embodies a social attitude; epitaphs thus constitute a matter of historical importance that can be studied for the very reason that so (...) many—in Athens over 10,000—survive. Most Athenian epitaphs which have been found have been dated, and for approximately two-thirds of them a general find-spot has been recorded. Temporal and spatial variations within the distribution of Athenian epitaphs prompt not only the question of why aspects of this habit should change over time, but why the habit of epitaphs should exist at all; the answer suggested here links the function and distribution of Athenian epitaphs to changing concepts of Athenian citizenship. For epitaphs function as more than testimonials to grief: they represent what survivors saw as defining the deceased, and the significantly greater number of epitaphs in fourth-century Athens derives from Athenians' emphatic definition of themselves as citizens at that time. Finally, the Athenians's use of tombstones has no parallel in the classical Greek world, for the Athenians' developing perceptions of their own city and of their own special relationship, as citizens, to it, were also unparalleled. (shrink)

Blame is multifarious. It can be passionate or dispassionate. It can be expressed or kept private. We blame both the living and the dead. And we blame ourselves as well as others. What’s more, we blame ourselves, not only for our moral failings, but also for our non-moral failings: for our aesthetic bad taste, gustatory self-indulgence, or poor athletic performance. And we blame ourselves both for things over which we exerted agential control (e.g., our voluntary acts) and for things over (...) which we lacked such control (e.g., our desires, beliefs, and intentions). I argue that, despite this manifest diversity in our blaming practices, it’s possible to provide comprehensive account of blame. Indeed, I propose a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that aims to specify blame’s extension in terms of its constitution as opposed to its function. And I argue that this proposal has a number of advantages beyond accounting for blame in all its disparate forms. For one, it can account for the fact that one’s having had control over whether one was to φ is a necessary condition for one’s being fittingly blamed for having φ-ed. For another, it can account for why, unlike fitting shame, fitting blame is always deserved, which in turn explains why there is something morally problematic about ridding oneself of one’s fitting self-blame (e.g., one’s fitting guilt). (shrink)

Background Bioethics and law distinguish between the practices of "physician-assisted death" and "allowing the patient to die." Discussion Advances in biotechnology have allowed medical devices to be used as destination therapy that are designed for the permanent support of cardiac function and/or respiration after irreversible loss of these spontaneous vital functions. For permanent support of cardiac function, single ventricle or biventricular mechanical assist devices and total artificial hearts are implanted in the body. Mechanical ventilators extrinsic to the body are (...) used for permanent support of respiration. Clinical studies have shown that destination therapy with ventricular assist devices improves patient survival compared to medical management, but at the cost of a substantial alteration in end-of-life trajectories. The moral and legal assessment of the appropriateness and permissibility of complying with a patient's request to electively discontinue destination therapy in a life-terminating act in non-futile situations has generated controversy. Some argue that complying with this request is ethically justified because patients have the right to request withdrawal of unwanted treatment and be allowed to die of preexisting disease. Other commentators reject the argument that acceding to an elective request for death by discontinuing destination therapy is 'allowing a patient to die' because of serious flaws in interpreting the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death. Summary Destination therapy with cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices replaces native physiological functions and successfully treats a preexisting disease. We posit that discontinuing cardiac and/or ventilatory support at the request of a patient or surrogate can be viewed as allowing the patient to die if--and only if--concurrent lethal pathophysiological conditions are present that are unrelated to those functions already supported by medical devices in destination therapy. In all other cases, compliance with a patient's request constitutes physician-assisted death because of the pathophysiology induced by the turning off of these medical devices, as well as the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death. The distinction between allowing the patient to die and physician-assisted death is pivotal to the moral and legal status of elective requests for death by discontinuing destination cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices in patients who are not imminently dying. This distinction also represents essential information that must be disclosed to patients and surrogates in advance of consent to this type of therapy. (shrink)

This paper critiques the view that consciousness is likely something extra which accompanies or is produced by neural states, something beyond the functional cognitive processes realized in the brain. Such a view creates the `explanatory gap'between function and nomenology which many suppose cannot be filled by functionalist theories of mind. Given methodological considerations of simplicity, ontological parsimony, and theoretical conservatism, an alternative hypothesis is recommended, that subjective qualitative experience is identical to certain information-bearing, behaviour-controlling functions, not something which emerges (...) from them. This hypothesis explains the isomorphism between the structure of experience and neural organization, while providing a naturalistic account of qualiait's relational properties of informational states, not a sparate ontology of phenomenal essences. On this functionalist view, the hard, empirical problem of consciousness is to discover precisely which neural functions constitute subjective experience. (shrink)

As Kent Greenwalt's second volume on aspects of legal interpretation, this book analyzes statutory and common law interpretation and compares the two. In respect to statutory interpretation, it first asks whether judges are "faithful agents" of the legislature or "independent cooperative partners." It concludes that the obvious answer is that neither simple categorization really fits-that the function of judges involves a combination of roles. The next issue addressed is whether the intent of those in authority matters for interpreting the kinds (...) of instructions contained in statutes. At the general level, the answer is "yes." This answer follows even if one thinks interpretation should concentrate on the understanding of readers, because readers themselves would treat intentions as part of the relevant context of the language of statutes. It would take some special reasons, such as constitutional structure or unreliability, to discount actual intents of legislators and use of legislative history. The book argues that none of these special reasons are convincing. On the question whether judges should focus on the language of specific provision or overall purpose, both are relevant, and purpose should become more important as time passes. In an analysis of various other features of statutory interpretation, the book claims that presidential signing statements should not have weight, that subsequent legislative actions short of new statutes should only occasionally carry importance, that "canons of interpretation," such as the rule of lenity, can provide some, limited, guidance, and that there are special reasons for courts to adhere to precedents in statutory cases, but these should not yield any absolute rule. A chapter on administrative interpretation of statutes claims that the standards agencies apply should differ to a degree from those of courts and that judicial deference to those interpretations is ordinarily warranted. The book's second part, on common law interpretation, considers the force of precedents, resisting any simple dichotomy between holding and dictum. It also defends the use of reasoning by analogy, not only in the initial stages thinking about a problem, but also in respect to some final justifications for decisions. An examination of the place of rules, principles, and policies argues that all three are relevant in common law interpretation; and shows that common law interpretation is not reducible to any formula. A final chapter compares statutory and common law interpretation, similarities and differences, how each can affect the other, and the significance of having a legal system in which they both play prominent roles. (shrink)

Within Kant’s own writings, it is complicated by the further tension between his pedagogy and his moral philosophy. When one sees Kant’s conception of character as a systematic connection between these three aspects of his philosophy, light is shed on the role and limits of the pedagogical function of the republican constitution. Thereby, too, the inherent limit of the extent to which perpetual peace, practically defined, can be a political goal effected by political means is unveiled.

In this chapter I defend a novel view of the relationships among intention for the future, self-control, and co-operation. I argue that when an agent forms an intention for the future she comes to regard herself as criticizable if she does not act in accordance with her intention and as praiseworthy if she does. In forming intentions, then, agents acquire dispositions to have reflexive evaluative attitudes. In contexts where the agent has inclinations that run contrary to her unrescinded intention, these (...) evaluative attitudes help her to resist these inclinations. Intentions have, in other words, a built-in mechanism for self-control. I go on to argue that this mechanism can also function as a mechanism for co-operative behaviour. Sometimes a common species of co-operation just is the exercise of self-controlled behaviour in a social context. If this is on the right track, agents like us are not just equipped to formulate and abide by plans for the future, we are also thereby equipped for exercising self-control and participating in co-operative ventures. (shrink)

In his Explaining Behavior, Fred Dretske uses a reliabilist theory of representation to try to vindicate the use of intentional explanation for behaviour against latter-day elitninativism. Although Dretske's indicator semantics turns on the notion of function, he himself never explicitly defines what function means. Dretske's reticence in discussing function may ultimately be an error, for, as I argue, his implicit understanding of what a function amounts to does not fit with data from op rant conditioning. Still, this need not be (...) a deep flaw in Dretske and I offer one way in which we may patch up the notion of function via the changes known to occur with learning in the brain. Ultimately, I conclude that the only facts needed to explain behaviour are (1) the conditions in the world that are paired with neuronal circuit activation (as picked out by goals in some circumstances); and (2) what motor output that condition triggers. (shrink)

The philosopher is a fundamental mode of existence of the human being, yet it is experienced only by a minority, an elite. Those constitute, among themselves, a subspecies of Homo sapiens that is sometimes dubbed Homo philosophicus. Our goal here is to investigate, in depth, the philosophical foundations of this ontological-anthropological concept. We analyze the concept of the philosopher into three basic components: the thinker, the artist, and the mathematician, arguing that the three fundamentally participate in maintaining the operation of (...) the philosopher machine. The following text can be considered a contribution to metaphilosophy, written as a structured opinion piece, encompassing a series of reflections drawn from the writer’s own experience as a philosopher. The mode of the presentation is a mixture of personal and experimental writing styles, intentionally avoiding the rigid form of overtly analytical and argumentative discussions. Although numerous philosophers will be discussed below, four key figures, Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, and Guattari, occupy a special position in our overall opinionated view on the nature of philosophy. (shrink)

People often do things together and form groups in order to get things done that they cannot do alone. In short they form a collectivity of some kind or a group, for short. But if we consider a group on the one hand and the persons that constitute the group on the other hand, how does it happen that these persons work together and finish a common task with a common goal? In the philosophy of action this problem is often (...) solved by saying that there is a kind of collective intention that the group members have in mind and that guides their actions. Does such a collective intention really exist? In this article I’ll show that the answer is “no”. In order to substantiate my view I’ll discuss the approaches of Bratman, Gilbert and Searle on collective intention. I’ll put forward four kinds of criticism that undermine the idea of collective intention. They apply mainly to Bratman and Gilbert. First, it is basically difficult to mark off smaller groups from bigger unities. Second, most groups change in membership composition over time. Third, as a rule, on the one hand groups are internally structured and on the other hand they belong to a larger structure. It makes that generally it cannot be a collective intention that moves the actions of the members of a group. Fourth, conversely, most individual actions cannot be performed without the existence of a wider context of agents who support these actions and make them possible. My critique on Searle mainly involves that in his approach his idea of collective intention is superfluous and that he is not radical enough in his idea that collective action is based on coordinated individual intentions and actions. However, it is a good starting point for showing how collective action actually functions, especially when combined with Giddens’s structuration theory. Every agent in a group executes his or her own individual intentions, relying on what the group offers to this agent and asks from him or her. In this way individual actions of the members of a group are coordinated and it makes that the group can function and that its goals can be performed. And in this way the group is produced and reproduced by fitting individual actions together. An individual agent who belongs to a group only needs to know what s/he wants and what s/he has to do in the group, even if s/he has no knowledge of the intentions and commitments of the other members. Then he or she can do things together with others in a group without supposing that there is something like a collective intention. (shrink)

The magical number three has provided the template for this comparative study of Freudian psycho-analysis and Husserlian phenomenology. "Three" should be considered the number of dialectics; the method in the study to let three distinct thematisations succeed each other should find its legitimation in dialectics. The relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology as that between two dialectic theories might well call for a dialectic interpretation. It should be difficult from a straightforward and unambiguous interpretation to give full credit to the rich (...) and equivocal meaning of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. I hope to have shown in the presentation above, that it is possible by accentuating different sides of the two scientific disciplines to reach different conclusions regarding their relationship. For a full account of this relationship these different conclusions should be placed together and viewed in their internal coherence as a dialectical unity. Thus none of the three sections of the text should be considered apart from the others. In the first section of the paper, the first thematisation, I tried to spell out the discrepancies between Freud and Husserl as clearly as possible. The point of departure here was the Freudian notion of the "psychical apparatus," and Husserl's doctrine of "intentional consciousness." The models built around these central notions can be shown to have a paradigmatic meaning for the development of Freud's and Husserl's psychological projects. Conceiving the subject as psychical apparatus, Freud thought it possible to make psychology a natural science. The subject could be treated like a mechanical apparatus, that is a machine admitting the general laws of motion. - In contrast, Husserl thought psychology should depart from natural science in its scientific selfunderstanding, and join the humanities instead. Psychology's departure from natural science, Husserl found legitimized in the subject's essential character of intentional consciousness. According to Husserl, man as a conscious being could not be reduced to a thing in the natural world. On the contrary, the aprioric basis for the world should be found in intentional consciousness, which constitutes the "world" as a meaningful coherence related to the subject. Freud's and Husserl's conceptions of psychology were traced to historical roots in respectively positivism, naturalism and mechanical materialism on the one hand, and rationalism, humanism and idealism on the other. In this first interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology seemed to be antithetical, the two theoretical projects representing opposite poles with regard to cartesian dualism. Although in some ways caricaturing the theories in this one-sided interpretation, I tried to show, that such interpretation is possible with bases in the texts of Freud and Husserl. The decided one-sidedness of the first thematisation should, however, be balanced by the competing interpretation in the second section of the paper. In the second thematisation, I tried to show, that both psycho-analysis and phenomenology in their concrete psychological projects went beyond their points of departure. Although Freud as a scientist of the 19th century naturally found his theoretical language in the successful natural sciences, from which his scientific career started, he decisively broke with this frame of reference in his descriptions of the pathological problems from his clinical praxis. In contrast to the abstract metapsychology of the psychical apparatus, Freud in his clinical psychology departed from mechanism in his attempts to interpret the meaning of the patient's neurotic symptom. The clinical attitude of Freud might resemble phenomenologists' openness towards the meaning of the phenomena, and the case-histories of Freud often read like clinical analyses stemming from existential- phenomenological psychiatrists. - Correspondingly, although Husserl started from the tradition of German philosophy of consciousness, also he can be seen to go beyond the premises of his wellsprings. Starting with a notion of intentionality as consciousness's active positing meaningful objects, Husserl later was led to consider a deeper level of intentionality, a "functioning intentionality," that would situate the subject in a "world" prior to any thematic perceptual act. With the notion of functional intentionality and its further development in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the "body-subject," phenomenology seems to have come close to the Freudian doctrine of the unconscious. From this second interpretation it seemed to follow, that a meeting between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be possible, by cutting off the mechanistic parts from psychoanalysis and the idealistic parts from phenomenology. The hindrance for such meeting should apparently be found in the divergent theoretical prejudices stemming from the ideological climates in which the theories were hatched. None of these two apparently contradictory interpretations, that of the first and second thematisation, should, however, rule out the other. To the question which interpretation is the right one, we should answer "both... and," or perhaps better "Neither... nor." Freud and Husserl in fact held contradictory views in their explicit scientific self-understanding. On the other hand, much of the controversy was caused by theoretical prejudices not essential to the central enterprise of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. And yet, the theoretical work of Freud and Husserl should be considered in its entirety, not omitting parts that do not fit the interpretative context. Freud's mechanistic theories must be read in connection with his clinical/phenomenological psychology, Husserl's doctrine of transcendental consciousness together with his concrete analyses of the world and the body. Freud sticked to his mechanistic metaphors throughout his life, not just because mechanic materialism was his scientific point of departure, but also because he found the models of the psychical apparatus useful to picture the subject-matter of psycho-analysis, the unconscious as it is discovered by the analytic method. Correspondingly, Husserl found in transcendental idealism a metaphysical horizon apparently suited for his main theoretical project, to un-cover by phenomenological reflexion man in his free and conscious being. In this way Freud's materialism and Husserl's idealism might find their limited justification, not in the absolutistic sense set forth in the first section, but in relation to their weighting different aspects of the subject/object dialectic of man. This point of view I tried to explicate in the third section of this paper. In the subject/object dialectic Freud seems to underline man's existence as object, his being ruled by the mechanic, the irrational, the infantile, the unconscious. In contrast, Husserl underlines man's existence as subject, his free and conscious openness towards the world and the future. This difference I characterized with the notions of Ricoeur as respectively an "archeology" and a "teleology" of the subject. And yet the difference between Freud and Husserl is that of a weighting different sides of the subject/object dialectic, not of an exclusive thematisation of man as either subject or object. Freudian archaeology is supplemented by an implicit teleology, Husserlian teleology by an implicit archeology. On the background of such interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be seen neither as the polarity of the first thematisation, nor as the synthesis of the second. Psycho-analysis and phenomenology both contradict and imply each other in a relationship that should be termed dialectical. With this third interpretation the paper ended. At last I noted that the problems raised by the controversy on the subject/object dialectic of man should not easily be solved. Instead, the question "what is man" should have to be answered continuously in a concrete historical reflextion or dialogue. Yet I think it safe to conclude, that any psychological consideration has to take into consideration, both man's archeological and his teleological features, thus not allowing the one perspective completely to rule out the other. (shrink)

This study attempts to situate Carl Stumpf's theory of emotions with regard to that of his teacher, Franz Brentano, and to the sensualist theory of William James. We will argue that Stumpf's theory can be considered an attempt to reconcile James's sensualism, which emphasizes the role of bodily feelings, with what we will call, for the purposes of this study, Brentano's intentionalism, which conceives of emotions as intentional states. Stumpf claims that James's sensory feelings and Brentano's affective intentional states are (...) two sides of the same coin in that they constitute two essential ingredients of a full-fledged theory of emotions. The question is whether Stumpf's ecumenism avoids the objections that he himself raises against James's and Brentano's theories. The paper is divided into four parts: the first part presents Stumpf's classification of psychical functions; the second part presents his criticism of James's theory of emotions; the third part is a summary of Stumpf's complex debate with Brentano on emotions and sensory feelings; the last part examines Stumpf's attempt to incorporate into his theory of affects the phenomenological and intentional aspects of emotions. I conclude with a note on the unity of consciousness. (shrink)

Displayed on school walls during holidays, attached to floats and triumphal arches in processions, emblems played a part in all public events organized by the Jesuits in the 17th century. These verbal-iconographic compositions, which were used to illustrate the principal themes of the ceremony, were not a mere period detail or an ornamental device but constituted a means of expression which, by virtue of the particular relations governing the association of text and image, mobilized complex rhetorical, moral, and spiritual elements (...) simultaneously. By associating an image - seen as the “body” - with a textual element (inscriptio et subscriptio) - the “soul” - the emblem-maker sought to achieve a unity of meaning in which the two forms of communication complemented each other: it is precisely the way in which the two elements are connected, and the laws that regulate their composition, that constitutes the foundation of the language of the emblem. This language, which is used in a corresponding manner in a variety of other symbolic compositions (devices, hieroglyphs, symbols, coats of arms, medals, etc.), is based on the rhetorical operations of the metaphor, applied here as a model both for the word, with its mimetic properties, and for figurative codes. However, the metaphor, as a product of human ingenuity, is not only situated at the crossroads of a system of thought crystallized in a great number of inventions, but also bears witness to an ornamental aesthetic, typical of the 17th century's aristocratic culture and social rituals. While there does exist a vast bibliography of materials on the function and role of metaphor in Baroque culture, questions nevertheless remain about the numerous cultural practices to which the Baroque gave rise and the particular processes that the 17th century brought into play. My intention here is not to resolve all such questions but rather to provide an analytical framework by focusing my observations on emblematic compositions produced in the scholastic milieu of the Society of Jesus. (shrink)

According to many philosophical accounts, health is related to the functions and capacities of biological parts. But how do we decide what constitutes the health subject (that is, the bearer of health and disease states) and its biological parts whose functions are relevant for assessing its health? Current science, especially microbiome science, complicating the boundaries between organisms and their environments undermines any straightforward answer. This article explains why this question matters, delineates a few broad options, offers arguments against (...) one option, and draws some modest implications for philosophical accounts of human health. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 237-241 [Access article in PDF] Practical, Functional, and Natural Kinds Nick Haslam Keywords: Classification, essentialism, natural kinds, practical kinds. I am grateful to the two commentators for giving my paper their serious attention, and for writing such stimulating, clarifying, and challenging responses. In a brief response I can only begin to discuss a select few issues, although both commentaries could generate a great (...) deal of profitable exchange.Zachar's commentary elaborates his practical kinds model, discusses several of the graded series of kinds proposed in my taxonomy of psychiatric categories, and disputes some aspects of my treatment of natural kinds. Zachar and I have no quarrel on his first point. I recognize his practical kinds model as a general theory of psychiatric classification rather than simply as a description of one type of category, the "practical kind." It was perhaps bad form to pilfer a term from Zachar's model and give it a more circumscribed role in my own, although by doing so I intended both to acknowledge the importance of the concept and to situate it among some of its alternatives.All the same, I stand by the account of practical kinds developed in my paper, even if it reflects a narrower sense than Zachar's. In my sense, practical kinds are pragmatically drawn distinctions imposed on continuous dimensions, whereas to Zachar all psychiatric categories are at least to some degree practical. He therefore proposes a broad "continuum" of practical kinds. The difficulty that I have with this proposal is that such a continuum implies a fundamental unity among psychiatric categories: categories are all to be understood first and foremost in pragmatic terms and differences in kind between them in internal structure are to be neglected. In my view, although the pragmatic bases of psychiatric classification are vitally important, and perhaps inadequately formulated in my paper, the neglect of internal structure and of possible breaks in the continuum of kinds are real limitations of the practical kinds model. Although Zachar is partially justified in claiming that his view is pluralistic, allowing as it does for variability in degrees of practicality, by failing to acknowledge distinctly different kinds of categories in the psychiatric domain, his view is less pluralistic than I believe it should be.One example of what I take to be this neglect of structural differences is a conflation of two sorts of practicality in Zachar's work. On the one hand, certain categories such as hypertension or obesity are defined on pragmatic grounds, a binary distinction being drawn in the absence of an internal discontinuity, because individuals identified as category members are adjudged to [End Page 237] be at significantly elevated risk. On the other hand, some categories just happen to have high practical utility. Zachar argues that schizotaxia, for example, is practical because it affords a variety of scientific and clinical inferences.It seems to me that these sorts of practicality—or perhaps these sorts of relations to practicality—are importantly different. Hypertension is defined as a category because of its practical utility—because a certain blood pressure threshold marks an inflection in actuarial risk of other illnesses—and might therefore be said to have "front-end" or constitutive practicality. Schizotaxia, which taxometric research shows to be a discrete kind (Haslam, 2003), is not defined and identified primarily on the basis of its relation to an external criterion, but on the basis of its internal structure. Its features cohere in a way that indicates a category with a determinate prevalence. It has "back-end" or consequential practicality to the degree that this category enables useful predictions. These two proposed forms of practicality are equally important: both mean that categories will be pragmatically valuable. However, they are also different, being characteristic of different kinds of categories and perhaps even negatively related. Kinds with front-end practicality, that is, may tend to have a more restricted range of practical implications, defined as they are in relation to specific external criteria. Kinds with back-end practicality, in contrast, may enable a wider array of predictions to the extent that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Inspiration and Institution in John of Rupescissa's Liber Ostensor XI1Graziana S. CiolaIntroductionThe present study proposes a philosophical analysis of John of Rupescissa's Liber Ostensor [=LO], Treatise XI. John of Rupescissa (OFM, 1310 ca. – 1366)2 is a particularly interesting, eclectic and somewhat extraordinary [End Page 7] author writing around the second third of the 14th century in the wake of the Spiritual Franciscan movement in the South of France.3 (...) In LO XI, Rupescissa theorizes and systematically articulates a complex relationship between inspired knowledge and the normative portrait of what he believes the Franciscan Order should ideally be; he does so against the background of his eschatological concerns. Per Rupescissa's style of exposition and argumentation, these different elements — i.e., inspired epistemology, eschatology, and ecclesiology — are tightly intertwined on a theoretical and foundational level that goes beyond that of mere rhetorics.These themes are both recurrent and pivotal throughout Rupescissa's extremely prolific intellectual output, which counts numerous theological, ecclesiological, eschatological and alchemical treatises.4 LO, composed in [End Page 8] 1356 during Rupescissa's own "Avignon Captivity," is in many ways a sum of Rupescissa's prophetical and eschatological thought within the framing of the author's self-apologetic aims and of his ecclesiological views, in particular concerning the future of the Franciscan Order.5 [End Page 9]Treatise XI is undoubtedly the most theoretical book in LO; with its 489 paragraphs, it is also the longest. While this extremely dense text broaches on a great variety of topics, it is first and foremost about and for Spiritual Franciscans. Overall, LO XI is both a great portrayal of the Franciscan order as it is and as it should be, as well as a handbook addressed to the elect among the Spirituals, in order to help them face the eschaton and the tribulations to come. Per Rupescissa's eschatological views, such trials would affect the Franciscan Order the hardest and for the longest — hence the need for a detailed guide. At its core, then, LO XI is a deeply ecclesiological treatise and as such it is complementary to the larger systematization established in the Sexdequiloquium.6 It is in this framework that LO XI offers a complex theory of prophecy and illuminative knowledge as they should be embodied in the practices of a true Franciscan.7Given its highly abstract nature and cardinal function within one the most complex works of Rupescissa's maturity, LO XI, combining relevant insights on Rupescissa's ecclesiological, epistemological and prophetical positions, constitutes the ideal case study in order to assess Rupescissa's most refined and articulated account on inspired knowledge, particularly insofar as true and actual prophecy is concerned. This inspired knowledge, according to Rupescissa, is an indispensable tool for the elect to be able to victoriously face the imminent end of times. In the account presented in LO XI, such knowledge is possible exclusively through a form of institutional embedding: divine inspiration, culminating in true prophecy, is in service of the Franciscan Order's soteriological role within the Church as a whole, and can only be achieved by those who are faithful to the spirit of Francis's Rule.8 [End Page 10]Here, I analyze Rupescissa's theory of evangelical poverty and its role as a necessary condition for inspired knowledge, following the internal articulation of LO XI.Overall, in Rupescissa's view, Franciscan poverty and inspiration are two inseparable sides of the same coin. On the one hand, inspired knowledge is only achievable through a rigorous practice and thorough understanding of Franciscan poverty. On the other hand, the true institutional role of the Franciscan Order and its soteriological aims can be fulfilled exclusively by the true Spiritual Franciscans, whose moral, spiritual and epistemic perfection is divinely inspired. For Rupescissa, not only is poverty the source of all virtues both for the Franciscan Order and for the rest of the Church, but it also constitutes the ideal moral and social model, tout court. But most importantly, evangelical poverty has a genuinely epistemic role; this role is essential for Rupescissa's illuminative epistemology and for his account of prophetical exegesis — or exegetical prophecy. In turn, the... (shrink)

My analysis of the constitutional foundations of judicial review has been criticized by Paul Craig; but his objections confuse the ‘constructive’ account of legislative intent I defend with the ‘literal’ conception (reflecting the views of individual legislators) I expressly repudiate. He thinks we must choose between legislative intent, literally conceived, and common law principle. This mistake exemplifies the peculiar character of Craig's ‘common law model’ of judicial review, in which the requirements of the rule of law, on one hand, and (...) the relevant statute, on the other, exist in separate mental worlds. That model is conceptually confused, rejecting the doctrine of ultra vires that (unqualified) legislative supremacy entails, and ultimately grounded in a wholly implausible view of the relationship between common law and statute. It subordinates both statutory text and purpose to common law doctrine, treated as largely self-contained and impervious to context. It ignores the interdependence of legislative and judicial power, impeding a genuine integration of statutory command and common law principle. (shrink)

Although infants’ social gaze has specific communicative functions, it remains unclear what they are. In this conceptual analysis paper, we provide a theoretical framework for the study of the functional aspects of eye gaze in early childhood. We argue that studying the communicative functions of infants’ eye gaze involves three premises: the centrality of the object, the importance of common ground on object use, and the role of parental interpretations. The ability to communicate intentionally begins when infants start (...) referring to external objects. Beyond dyadic – infant–parent – emotional sharing, infant social gaze within the infant–parent–object triad becomes an increasingly complex communicative modality. As the predominant type of communicative referents in infancy, objects are thus central to early communication. Although they have affordances, objects are used in conventional ways shared between users (i.e., common ground). Parents transmit to infants the socio-cultural use of objects, which infants progressively learn and master. Accordingly, we argue that within early triadic interactions, the communicative function of infants’ eye gaze is shaped by the knowledge that the infant and the parent share on the socio-cultural use of the referent (i.e., the object). Importantly, before young children develop their ability to convey clear communicative functions, including with eye gaze, the interpretations and responses that parents provide to infants’ early communicative acts play a major role. Relying on these premises, we argue that when referring to objects for which the infant and the parent share common ground, the function of the infant’s social gaze becomes communicatively meaningful for the parent. The knowledge on the communicative referent (i.e., the object) shared between the infant and the parent thus shapes the course of communicative behavior, constitutes and reflects the interactive function of gaze, and cues parents into tailoring their communicative response according to the infant’s developmental needs. Through this theoretical framework for the study of the communicative function of infant eye gaze, an emphasis is put on the key role that socio-materiality plays in early communicative development. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Perloff’s Wittgenstein: W(h)ither Poetic Theory?David Kellogg (bio)Though Marjorie Perloff has been one of the most powerful forces in contemporary poetry studies for some time, her work has not received the critical attention it warrants. Her latest book, Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary, provides an opportunity for reflection on a body of writing remarkable both in its consistency and its constant reinvention. Indeed, reading Perloff (...) through Wittgenstein’s Ladder throws her other work over the last twenty years into a new light, as many concepts crucial to her vocabulary—not only theory but also modernism, artifice, avant-garde—are here turned around and forced into new roles. To ask whether and to what extent Wittgenstein’s Ladder constitutes a break in her career is simultaneously to raise the question of critical and poetic theory.Theory Inside and Out“It is in this sense that grammar may be said to replace theory,” writes Marjorie Perloff in the introduction to Wittgenstein’s Ladder [18]. The sense in question is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s, or rather the sense of the late (post-1929) Wittgenstein inflected through Perloff’s post-poststructuralist sensibility. As the sentence preceding this remarkable claim puts it: “For although the later Wittgenstein was to argue that grammar is precisely the key to understanding a given proposition, that there is no essence above and beyond a specific grammatical structure, one nevertheless must ‘distrust’ grammar in the sense of interrogating it as stringently as possible” [17–18].Of course, formulations of theory as a style of distrust have been a commonplace in theoretical discourse for some time. It would not be difficult to argue that Perloff’s explicit advocacy of grammar through Wittgenstein—whose philosophy, she argues, “is indeed intentionally ‘antiphilosophical,’ its purpose being precisely to determine in what circumstances philosophy should be ‘against’ philosophy and why” [12]—is of a piece with recent attempts to think the limits of theory in theory itself. But such a reduction would seriously misread Perloff’s project. We would do well to question, for example, the obvious similarities between Perloff’s description of a duplicity in the project of grammar/theory and the model it might be taken as at once pointedly evoking and evading, Paul de Man’s now-classic essay “The Resistance to Theory.” Despite their apparent similarities, the startling claims of Wittgenstein’s Ladder have little in common with de Man’s suggestion that “resistance may be a built-in constituent of [theoretical] discourse,” and that “the polemical opposition, the systematic non-understanding and misrepresentation, the unsubstantial but eternally recurrent objections, are the displaced symptoms of a resistance inherent in the theoretical enterprise itself” [12].For one thing, de Man explicitly distances his conception of a theoretical project deeply threatening to the claims of knowledge from one rooted in concepts of grammar: [End Page 67][A]s long as it remains grounded in grammar, any theory of language, includ-ing a literary one, does not threaten what we hold to be the underlying principle of all cognitive and aesthetic linguistic systems. Grammar stands in the service of logic which, in turn, allows for the passage to the knowledge of the world. The study of grammar, the first of the artes liberales, is the necessary pre-condition for scientific and humanistic knowledge. As long as it leaves this principle intact, there is nothing threatening about literary theory. The continuity between theory and phenomenalism is asserted and preserved by the system itself. Difficulties occur only when it is no longer possible to ignore the epistemological thrust of the rhetorical dimension of discourse, that is, when it is no longer possible to keep it in its place as a mere adjunct, a mere ornament within the semantic function.[14; emphasis added]In other words, de Man places grammar opposite the project of criticism, which he identifies with rhetoric and ultimately with reading. What de Man refers to as “the latent tension between rhetoric and grammar” is resolved decidedly in favor of the former: “the grammatical decoding of a text leaves a residue of indetermination that has to be, but cannot be, resolved by grammatical means, however... (shrink)

BackgroundBioethics and law distinguish between the practices of "physician-assisted death" and "allowing the patient to die."DiscussionAdvances in biotechnology have allowed medical devices to be used as destination therapy that are designed for the permanent support of cardiac function and/or respiration after irreversible loss of these spontaneous vital functions. For permanent support of cardiac function, single ventricle or biventricular mechanical assist devices and total artificial hearts are implanted in the body. Mechanical ventilators extrinsic to the body are used for permanent (...) support of respiration. Clinical studies have shown that destination therapy with ventricular assist devices improves patient survival compared to medical management, but at the cost of a substantial alteration in end-of-life trajectories. The moral and legal assessment of the appropriateness and permissibility of complying with a patient's request to electively discontinue destination therapy in a life-terminating act in non-futile situations has generated controversy. Some argue that complying with this request is ethically justified because patients have the right to request withdrawal of unwanted treatment and be allowed to die of preexisting disease. Other commentators reject the argument that acceding to an elective request for death by discontinuing destination therapy is 'allowing a patient to die' because of serious flaws in interpreting the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death.SummaryDestination therapy with cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices replaces native physiological functions and successfully treats a preexisting disease. We posit that discontinuing cardiac and/or ventilatory support at the request of a patient or surrogate can be viewed as allowing the patient to die if--and only if--concurrent lethal pathophysiological conditions are present that are unrelated to those functions already supported by medical devices in destination therapy. In all other cases, compliance with a patient's request constitutes physician-assisted death because of the pathophysiology induced by the turning off of these medical devices, as well as the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death. The distinction between allowing the patient to die and physician-assisted death is pivotal to the moral and legal status of elective requests for death by discontinuing destination cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices in patients who are not imminently dying. This distinction also represents essential information that must be disclosed to patients and surrogates in advance of consent to this type of therapy. (shrink)

In §69.b of BT Heidegger attempts an existential genetic analysis of science, i.e. a phenomenology of the conceptual process of the constitution of the logical view of science (science seen as theory) starting from the Dasein. It attempts to do so by examining the special intentional-existential modification of (human) being-in-the-world, which is called the "mathematical projection of nature"; that is, by examining that special modification of our being, which places us in the state of experience that presents the world (...) to us as taught by, e.g., Galileo and Newton. The idea he puts forward is that modern mathematical physics and the corresponding experience of the real is the result of the mathematical projection of nature. Modern science, Heidegger says, stands out because it is mathematical. But we cannot get the answer to what this mathematicality consists in from mathematics, because mathematics is only a special manifestation of mathematicality. Here is what Heidegger means by "mathematicality" and, accordingly by "mathematical projection of nature." If one were to let two bodies of different weights fall simultaneously from the top of the tower of Pisa, Heidegger notes, both Galileo and an Aristotelian would see that the two bodies would reach the ground with as little time difference as possible, and not at exactly the same moment. Galileo, however, does something decisive: he claims that under conditions that would be impossible to ensure (if we removed absolutely all resistance to the motion of the bodies), the two bodies would reach the ground absolutely simultaneously. This is not something that he or the Aristotelian sees happening empirically. How, then, does Galileo insist so firmly on his position? How exactly does it happen that he has before him such a view of things? Heidegger's answer is that Galileo is mathematically projecting nature. In his Dialogues Galileo says "I conceive with my mind" (mente concipio) a body thrown to move on an infinitely extending horizontal plane, having eliminated from its path every possible obstacle. Finally, I argue that from the detailed interpretation of Heidegger's points of the mathematical and of the notion of mathematical projection of nature, we can arrive at the conclusions I had arrived at in my doctoral dissertation (2000) as regards the meaning and function of thought experiments in physics as seen from a Husserlian phenomenological point of view as intentional acts. In a nutshell, in thought experiments physics constitutes the special metaphysics (to use the Kantian term) of the primordial ontological region it investigates as well as attempts to make natural sense of the mathematical formalism in cases it proves necessary. (shrink)

The evolutionary theory of artefact proper function holds that an artefact’s proper function is that effect which explains the reproduction of past instances of the artefact type. This theory has many sources but received its clearest presentation in Beth Preston’s essay “Why Is a Wing Like a Spoon?”. More recently, Preston has raised an objection to the theory, based on the phenomenon of ‘phantom functions’: these are functions that an artefact type is unable to perform, but which nonetheless (...) apparently constitute its proper function. Deflecting qi energy, for example, is the proper function of feng shui mirrors, even though no feng shui mirror is able to do this. Preston concludes that the existence of phantom functions refutes the evolutionary theory of artefact proper function. In this paper, the evolutionary theory is defended, by arguing that it can adequately account for phantom function cases. (shrink)

Raymund Schwager SJ suggested a dramatic way of looking at the Christ event, as recorded in the New Testament, in order to clarify the meaning of it and provide a coherent picture. Bernard Lonergan SJ developed a theological methodology for our day. In this article, the author tries to determine how Schwager's approach relates to Lonergan's methodology. He wants to investigate the question: what functional specialty is Schwager engaged in in his main work? The answer shall be that this is (...) foundations. The author of the article proceeds by (1) introducing the most important elements of Schwager's dramatic understanding of the Christ event and (2) of Lonergan's methodology, and then by linking them with one another; (3) he will try to show how Schwager's subdivision of the Christ event into five acts brings out the contours of Jesus' struggle with his opponents as an instance of dialectic in Lonergan's sense; (4) that the Easter experience will be construed as a new, foundational, act that objectifies conversion to human authenticity; and that (5) by discerning all this in the Christ event dramatic theology defines soteriology as the horizon within which Christian doctrines and systematics have to stand and elucidates the way soteriology should be construed; that way dramatic theology determines itself as a foundational enterprise. For the author of the article, this constitutes an exemplary case of the genesis of special theological categories. /// Segundo o artigo, Raymund Schwager SJ propôs um modo dramático de encarar o acontecimento crístico, tal como o mesmo nos é relatado nos textos do Novo Testamento, em ordem a clarificar o seu sentido e a oferecer-nos uma imagem coerente do mesmo. Por seu lado, Bernard Lonergan SJ desenvolveu uma metodologia teológica adequada às exigências do nosso tempo. Assim, o autor do artigo propõe-se determinar de que modo a abordagem de Schwager está relacionada com a metodologia de Lonergan. O seu objectivo é investigar a seguinte questão: qual é a especialidade funcional com que Schwager se compromete na sua principal obra? A resposta será que se trata das fundações. Com isso, o artigo desenvolve-se da seguinte maneira: (1) introdução dos elementos mais importantes na compreensão dramática de Schwager acerca do acontecimento crístico; (2) introdução dos elementos mais importantes da metodologia lonerganiana, para depois os relacionar um ao outro; (3) mostrar de que modo a subdivisão de Schwager do acontecimento crístico em cinco actos é capaz de trazer ao de cima os contornos da luta de Jesus com os seus opositores como uma instância dialéctica no sentido de Lonergan; (4) mostrar de que modo a experiência pascal pode ser construída como um novo, e fundacional, acto que objectiva a conversão à autenticidade humana; (5) mostrar até que ponto mediante o discernimento de tudo isto no acontecimento crístico, a teologia dramática define a soteriologia como o horizonte dentro do qual as doutrinas cristãs e a sistemática teológica têm de se afirmar e elucida o modo como a sotereologia tem de ser construída. Deste modo, a teologia dramática determina-se a si mesma como um empreendimento fundacional. Para o autor do artigo, trata-se aqui de um caso exemplar no que respeita à génese de categorias teológicas especiais. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes the regularities referred to via the concept 'self.' This is important, for cognitive science traditionally models the self as a cognitive mediator between perceptual inputs and behavioral outputs. This leads to the assertion that the self causes action. Recent findings in social psychology indicate this is not the case and, as a consequence, certain cognitive scientists model the self as being epiphenomenal. In contrast, the present paper proposes an alternative approach (i.e., the event-control approach) that is (...) based on recently discovered regularities between perception and action. Specifically, these regularities indicate that perception and action planning utilize common neural resources. This leads to a coupling of perception, planning, and action in which the first two constitute aspects of a single system (i.e., the distal-event system) that is able to pre-specify and detect distal events. This distal-event system is then coupled with action (i.e., effector-control systems) in a constraining, as opposed to 'causal' manner. This model has implications for how we conceptualize the manner in which one infers the intentions of another, anticipates the intentions of another, and possibly even experiences another. In conclusion, it is argued that it may be possible to map the concept 'self' onto the regularities referred to in the event-control model, not in order to reify 'the self' as a causal mechanism, but to demonstrate its status as a useful concept that refers to regularities that are part of the natural order. (shrink)

Simon J. Evnine explores the view that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are. Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops (...) a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. He then extends this account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events. (shrink)

The typical approach to decoding speech from the brain (using brain-machine interfaces) is to decode low-level linguistic units (e.g. phonemes, syllables) from motor articulation areas (e.g. Premotor cortex) with the aim of assembling these low-level units into higher-level discourse. We propose that brain-to-speech decoding may benefit from adopting a functional view of language, which conceives of language as an instrumental tool for interacting with others' intentions in order to fulfil one's own intentions. This functional view of language motivates adopting usability (...) (i.e. the decoder's usefulness as a tool for achieving goals), in addition to decoding accuracy, as a criterion for assessing decoder performance. Decoders may achieve gains in usability by incorporating data about communicative situations and speaker intentions in order to generate and fill in speech act templates. We suggest that this intention-oriented, template-based, and functionally inspired view of brain-to-speech decoding may facilitate efforts to achieve naturalistic speech decoding. (shrink)

This article provides an analysis of the phenomenology of affectivity underlying the work of Edith Stein. Taking as point of departure two of her works, The problem of Empathy (1917) and Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities (1922), the paper focuses on the idea that emotions fulfil a cognitive function: they make us accessible the realm of values. The argument of the paper is developed in two sections. The first section offers an overview of Stein’s main theses about emotions, feelings, (...) moods and sentiments and places them within the larger framework of the early phenomenological accounts on affectivity. The second section examines the claim that emotions are responsible for grasping values concentrating on two facets of this thesis: the first regards the epistemological question according to which values are grasped by affective phenomena, while the second regards the ontological question about the nature of these grasped values. (shrink)