This paper aims to show that the K-O Apel's Project of Anthropology of Knowledge belongs to the tradition of hermeneutics logic, developed by the Logic of Göttigen. This statement can be proved by the fact that Apel conceives the relationship between das Leibapriori and das Erkenntnisapriori. In two text of sixties Apel shapes the relationship between human body and knowledge as a polarization of opposite strengths. The logic of exclusive disjunction rules this polarization. Forty years later he changes his (...) perspective and presents them as tensive relation of rivalry. In this way Apel takes in his own argumentation a central topic of the hermeneutics logic, namely, the life conception as a mediation between strength and meaning. (shrink)

What are the leading forces and ideas that are shaping our age? In the West, a decade of financial disruption, austerity, and stagnant wages has produced a popular rejection of market fundamentalism that prevailed for over forty years. Mass immigration and multiculturalism have contributed to rapid changes in both family and community life that leave many people feeling dispossessed or even humiliated. Unresponsive government is exacerbating people’s sense of powerlessness and anger. The revolt against the status quo is fuelling (...) a political insurgency against the establishment that replaces the old opposition of left versus right with a similarly simplistic dichotomy pitting the people against the elites. We are witnessing the failure of dualistic thinking and this will not be resolved by substituting one binary for another. Our contemporary conjuncture is such a period of interregnum and a war of position between the hitherto hegemonic ideology of liberalism and its populist rivals. The popular revolt against liberalism, which is driving the political insurgency across the West, highlights the collapse of the authority of the professional political class dominated by liberals. In what follows I shall argue that the emergent ideologies which are vying for hegemony are hyper-liberalism, nationalist traditionalism, and tech utopianism. All of them are variously anti-humanist, to which one can oppose updated versions of one-nation conservatism and ethical socialism. Before setting out the unfolding ‘war of position,’ I will first explore the new anti-humanism that underpins the main ideological movements. (shrink)

BackgroundWe conducted a survey to identify what types of health/medical research could be exempt from research ethics reviews in Australia.MethodsWe surveyed Australian health/medical researchers and Human Research Ethics Committee members. The survey asked whether respondents had previously changed or abandoned a project anticipating difficulties obtaining ethics approval, and presented eight research scenarios, asking whether these scenarios should or should not be exempt from ethics review, and to provide comments. Qualitative data were analysed thematically; quantitative data in R.ResultsWe received 514 responses. (...) Forty-three per cent of respondents to whom the question applied, reported changing projects in anticipation of obstacles from the ethics review process; 25% reported abandoning projects for this reason. Research scenarios asking professional staff to provide views in their area of expertise were most commonly exempted from ethics review ; scenarios involving surplus samples and N-of-1 studies were most commonly required to undergo ethics review. HREC members were 26% more likely than researchers to require ethics review. Need for independent oversight, and low risk, were most frequently cited in support of decisions to require or exempt from ethics review, respectively.ConclusionsConsiderable differences exist between researchers and HREC members, about when to exempt from review the research that ultimately serves the interests of patients and the public. It is widely accepted that evaluative research should be used to reduce clinical uncertainties—the same principle should apply to ethics reviews. (shrink)

It ‘seems altogether inconceivable', says Hume, that this ‘new relation' ought ‘can be a deduction' from others ‘which are entirely different from it' The idea that you can't derive an Ought from an Is, moral conclusions from non-moral premises, has proved enormously influential. But what did Hume mean by this famous dictum? Was he correct? How does it fit in with the rest of his philosophy? And what does this suggest about the nature of moral judgements? This collection, the first (...) on this topic for forty years, assembles a distinguished cast of international scholars to discuss these questions. The book combines, historical scholarship, meta-ethics and cutting-edge research in philosophical logic. It includes three distinct attempts to reformulate and prove No-Ought-From-Is in the face of Prior's famous counterexamples. -/- Contributors: A.N. Prior, Gerhard Schurz, Charles Pigden, J.M.Shorter, Annette.C.Baier, Wade Robison, Adrian Heathcote, Alan Musgrave, Norva Y.S. Lo, Gillian Russell, Hakan Salwén, Greg Restall, Peter Vranas, Edwin Mares, Stephen Maitzen. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

Dialogue has its origins in joint activities, which it serves to coordinate. Joint activities, in turn, usually emerge in hierarchically nested projects and subprojects. We propose that participants use dialogue to coordinate two kinds of transitions in these joint projects: vertical transitions, or entering and exiting joint projects; and horizontal transitions, or continuing within joint projects. The participants help signal these transitions with project markers, words such as uh-huh, m-hm, yeah, okay, or all right. These words have been studied mainly (...) as signals of listener feedback (back-channel signals) or turn-taking devices (acknowledgment tokens). We present evidence from several types of well-defined tasks that they are also part of a system of contrasts specialized for navigating joint projects. Uh-huh, m-hm and yeah are used for horizontal transitions, and okay and all right for vertical transitions. (shrink)

Adrian Kuzminski argues that Pyrrhonism, an ancient Greek philosophy, can best be understood as a Western form of Buddhism. Not only is its founder, Pyrrho, reported to have traveled to India and been influenced by contacts with Indian sages, but a close comparison of ancient Buddhist and Pyrrhonian texts suggests a common philosophical practice, seeking liberation through suspension of judgment with regard to beliefs about non-evident things.

Recording devices are generally taken to present problems for the standard Kaplanian semantics for indexicals. In this paper, I argue that the remote utterance view offers the best way for the Kaplanian semantics to handle the recalcitrant data that comes from the use of recording devices. Following Sidelle I argue that recording devices allow agents to perform utterances at a distance. Using the essential, but widely ignored, distinction between tokens and utterances, I develop the view beyond the initial sketch given (...) by Sidelle, and I answer the main objections raised against the view. The paper is structured as follows. Section 1 gives a succinct presentation of Kaplanian semantics and of the problem raised by the use recording devices, Section 2 presents the remote utterance view and Section 3 answers the objections put forward against the view and further develops it. I conclude that the remote utterance view can handle the data that comes from the use of recording devices with only modest modifications of the Kaplanian semantics. (shrink)

There has been considerable discussion in the literature of one kind of identity problem that mathematical structuralism faces: the automorphism problem, in which the structure is unable to individuate the mathematical entities in its domain. Shapiro (Philos Math 16(3):285–309, 2008) has partly responded to these concerns. But I argue here that the theory faces an even more serious kind of identity problem, which the theory can’t overcome staying within its remit. I give two examples to make the point.

Beginning with Zagzebski (The Philosophical Quarterly 44:65–73, 1994), some philosophers have argued that there can be no solution to the Gettier counterexamples within the framework of a fallibilist theory of knowledge. If true, this would be devastating, since it is believed on good grounds that infallibilism leads to scepticism. But I argue here that these purported proofs are mistaken and that the truthmaker solution to the Gettier problems is both cogent and fallibilist in nature. To show this I develop the (...) notion of evidence of a state of affairs, a crucial concept in the truthmaker theory. I also argue that a common principle of the transmission of evidence through entailment is false, and the cause of much of the trouble. (shrink)

Two eye-tracking experiments investigated how and when pointing gestures and location descriptions affect target identification. The experiments investigated the effect of gestures and referring expressions on the time course of fixations to the target, using videos of human gestures and human voice, and animated gestures and synthesized speech. Ambiguous, yet informative pointing gestures elicited attention and facilitated target identification, akin to verbal location descriptions. Moreover, target identification was superior when both pointing gestures and verbal location descriptions were used. These findings (...) suggest that gesture not only operates as a context to verbal descriptions, or that verbal descriptions operate as a context to gesture, but that they complement one another in reference resolution. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIntellectual historians often make empirical claims, but can never know for certain if these claims are right. Uncertainty is thus inevitable for intellectual historians. But accepting uncertainty is not enough: we should also act on it, by trying to reduce and report it. We can reduce uncertainty by amassing valid data from different sources to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of competing explanations, rather than trying to “prove” an empirical claim by looking for evidence that fits it. Then we should (...) report our degree of certainty in our claims. When we answer empirical questions in intellectual history, we are not telling our readers what happened: we are telling them how strong we think our evidence is—a crucial shift of emphasis. For intellectual historians, then, uncertainty is subjective, as discussed by Keynes and Collingwood; the paper thus explores three differences between subjective and objective uncertainty. Having outlined the theoretical basis of uncertainty, the paper then offers examples from actual research: Noel Malcolm's work shows how to reduce and report uncertainty about composition, and David Wootton's work shows how to reduce and report uncertainty about beliefs. (shrink)

The empiricist needs to explain the origin, in perception, of the idea of time. Kant believed the only answer was a kind of idealism about time. This essay examines Hume’s extensionalism as a possible answer to Kant. Extensionalism allegedly accounts for the experience of time via the manner of presentation of experiences, rather than the content of experience.

ABSTRACTWe can easily misread historical texts if we take ideas and passages out of their textual contexts. The resulting errors are widespread, possibly even more so than errors through reading ideas and passages out of their historical contexts. Yet the methodological literature stresses the latter and says little about the former. This paper thus theorises the idea of textual context, distinguishes three types of textual context, and asks how we uncover the right textual contexts. I distinguish four kinds of textual-context (...) error, and offer practical tips for avoiding these errors. However, the beating heart of this paper is the history–philosophy debate: in contrast to the prevailing assumption that historical and philosophical analysis are fundamentally different, I show that a commitment to textual context, which should be entirely uncontroversial, also commits one to think philosophically. (shrink)

The purpose of this discussion is twofold. First, I want to shed some light on Kant's concept of personhood as rational agency, by situating it in the context of the first Critique's conception of the self as defined by its rational dispositions. I hope to suggest that this concept of personhood cannot be simply grafted onto an essentially Humean conception of the self that is inherently inimical to it, as I believe Rawls, Gewirth, and others have tried to do. Instead (...) I will try to show how deeply embedded this concept of personhood is in Kant's conception of the self as rationally unified consciousness. Second, I want to deploy this embedded concept of personhood as the basis for an analysis of the phenomenon of xenophobia. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is one of Alain Badiou’s principle philosophical enemies. Kant’s critical philosophy is anathema to Badiou not only because of the latter’s openly aired hatred of the motif of finitude so omnipresent in post-Kantian European intellectual traditions—Badiou blames Kant for inventing this motif—but also because of its idealism. For Badiou-the-materialist, as for any serious philosophical materialist writing in Kant’s wake, transcendental idealism must be dismantled and overcome. In his most recent works, Badiou attempts to invent a non-Kantian notion of (...) the transcendental, a notion compatible with the basic tenets of materialism. However, from 1988’s Being and Event up through the present, Badiou’s oeuvre contains indications that he hasn’t managed fully to purge the traces of Kantian transcendental idealism that arguably continue to haunt his system—with these traces clustering around a concept Badiou christens “counting-for-one”. The result is that, in the end, Kant’s shadow still falls over Badiouian philosophy—this is despite Badiou’s admirable, sophisticated, and instructive attempts to step out from under it—thus calling into question this philosophy’s self-proclaimed status as materialist through and through. (shrink)

Historical and intellectual context -- The hidden root of being in the early writings -- Thematic approach: from the being of factual life to the meaning of being in general.

În anul 1942 Pr. D. Stăniloae publica cartea Poziţia Domnului Blaga faţă de Creştinism şi Ortodoxie, o „reacţie” la ideile pe care filozoful Lucian Blaga le formulase în cărţile sale, mai ales în Trilogii. Atitudinea Pr. Stăniloae nu este singulară, dar este cea care a stârnit controverse dintre cele mai interesante. Ideile de bază ale acestei cărţi, ca şi ale articolelor ce s-au scris după, au în centrul lor definirea religiei şi caracteristicile fenomenului religios, poziţiile fiind diferite: teologică şi filozofică. (...) Deşi discuţiile nu au fost „prietenoase”, de multe ori ironia punându-şi pecetea pe scrisul celor antrenaţi în disputa de idei, consecinţele acestei controverse au avut o valoare pozitivă, punând faţă în faţă doi dintre cei mai mari gânditori români ce au creat în domenii diferite: teologic şi filozofic. (shrink)

I wish to defend the claim that given the content and structure of any moral theory we are likely to find palatable, there is no way of uniquely breaking down that theory into either consequentialist or deontological elements. Indeed, once we examine the actual structure of any such theory more closely, we see that it can be classified in either way arbitrarily. Hence if we ignore the metaethical pronouncements often made by adherents of the consequentialist-deontological distinction, we are quickly led (...) to the conclusion that this distinction contributes nothing of consequence to an understanding of moral theory. I will try to show that there are basically two reasons for this. First, what we mean by the terms endemic to the consequentialist-deontological distinction have no unique references to particular states of affairs in actual cases of moral decision making. Hence we may justify any such concrete moral decision by reference to typically consequentialist or deontological reasoning indifferently. Second, scrutiny of actual and viable moral theories reveals a much finer-grained structure than the consequentialist-deontological taxonomy can capture. And it is this structure, rather than simple attention to consequences or principles, that determines practical moral decision making. We would thus do better to develop the richer vocabulary of causes and constituents, goals and effects, states and events (mental, social, or physical). So in the end, the consequentialist-deontological distinction is irrelevant at the normative level of actual moral reasoning, whereas at the metaethical level it crudely schematizes two opposing types of dummy theory, neither of which is convincing, upon reflection, to any practicing moral philosopher. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of results from an Australian Research Council-funded project "Sentiments and Risks: The Changing Nature of Human-Animal Relations in Australia." The data discussed come from a survey of 2000 representative Australians at the capital city, state, and rural regional level. It provides both a snapshot of the state of involvement of Australians with nonhuman animals and their views on critical issues: ethics, rights, animals as food, risk from animals, native versus introduced animals, hunting, fishing, and companionate (...) relations with animals. Its data point to key trends and change. The changing position of animals in Australian society is critical to understand, given its historic export markets in meat and livestock, emerging tourism industry with its strong wildlife focus, native animals' place in discourses of nation, and the centrality of animal foods in the national diet. New anxieties about risk from animal-sourced foods and the endangerment of native animals from development and introduced species, together with tensions between animals' rights and the privileging of native species, contribute to the growth of a strongly contested animal politics in Australia. © 2007 Brill Academic Publishers. (shrink)

The theorist who denies the objective reality of non-relational temporal properties, or ‘A-series’ determinations, must explain our experience of the passage of time. D.H. Mellor, a prominent denier of the objective reality of temporal passage, draws, in part, on Kant in offering a theory according to which the experience of temporal passage is the result of the projection of change in belief. But Mellor has missed some important points Kant has to make about time-awareness. It turns out that Kant's theory (...) of time-awareness also involves projection – but for him, the projection of temporal passage is necessary to any coherent experience at all, and for this reason events in the world cannot be represented except as exhibiting real tensed change. Consequently we cannot intelligibly suppose the world we know to be without the passage of time. This fact would permit a modest transcendental argument the conclusion of which is that we are entitled to describe the world in terms of temporal passage. (shrink)

The authors comments on several articles on addiction. Research suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior. The authors maintain that a proper study of addiction must include a neurobiological model of addiction to draw the attention of bioethicists and addiction neurobiologists. They also state that more addiction neuroscientists like S. E. Hyman are needed as they understand the limits of their research. Accession Number: 24077921; Authors: Carter, Adrian 1; Email Address: adrian[email protected] Hall, Wayne (...) 1; Affiliations: 1: The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; Subject: EDITORIALS; Subject: ADDICTIONS; Subject: BEHAVIOR; Subject: HYMAN, S. E.; Subject: NEUROBIOLOGISTS; Subject: NEUROSCIENTISTS; Number of Pages: 3p. (shrink)

The Syncretism, specific of old and new religious currents, is a phenomenon closely linked to millenarian movements and the emergence of so-called prophets that say that transmit divine messages being dependent at the same time, important social changes, economic political and, not least, religious. In the history of religions, syncretism is determined by several factors, among which are the changes in social, political, economic, and new philosophical and religious synthesis, the term acquiring a cosmopolitan sense. Syncretism occurs when two or (...) more social groups with different religions, contact, assimilating their members and various other religious characteristics specific groups and, for the most part, are foreign to their own beliefs. Religious syncretism has grown particularly intense during the first four centuries of the Christian era, but its traces can envision more or less pronounced in all religious history of humanity, with respect to the merger of two or more deities or acceptance of new forms and often contradictory in different parts of religious worship of pagan deities specifically different. (shrink)

According to our understanding, when we discuss about the religious life in Romania, one must take into account, first of all, the characteristics of this people, its culture and traditions that are over two millennia old. The similarities and differences with the organization and functioning of other religious systems in Europe and around the world cannot and must not exclude the defining elements of a people that has asserted its origins and defended its spiritual integrity over the centuries. In our (...) country there is a close connection between the history, culture, spirituality and education of this people of Latin origin and mostly of Orthodox faith. Starting from these realities, the Romanian Orthodox Church had an important role in preserving the values and national identity in the face of the frequent stepsons of history. Regarding interreligious education in Romania, it is done in public schools, with the discipline of Religion, where, especially in high school, there are classes in the History of Religions in which one learns about religious traditions around the world and how to interact with people belonging to other denominations, religions and ideologies. The phenomenon of migration increases in our country from one year to another producing important changes in terms of economic, cultural, social and religious realities. Taking into account all these realities, the state must promote policies that protect migrant populations and defend human rights for these communities. At the same time, they must be actively involved in protecting families where one or more members are working abroad and in the process of educating children who remain in the care of relatives. (shrink)

Precarious work is a growing and alarming phenomenon. This paper analyses two of its distinctive normative features. First, precarity increases the risks workers face, blurring their capacity for prospection and lessening their security in accessing the opportunities associated with their jobs. Second, precarious work challenges workers’ collective action capacity. I will argue that both features threaten workers’ republican freedom. I develop the second point by presenting a conception of solidarity between workers and then showing how precarious work erodes it. On (...) the one hand, when the labour market is dualised, precarity is distributed unevenly and the risks undergone by groups of workers are different. Thus, dual labour markets create a potential conflict of interest between the preferences of different groups, insiders and outsiders. On the other hand, various economic changes hinder workers from acting based on shared purposes due to increased coordination costs. To the extent that workers’ power depends on their bonds and collective action, primarily through unions, the eclipse of their solidarity leaves them powerless and thus increases their domination. Finally, I consider various scenarios that could boost workers’ collective power. (shrink)

Notice board of current events, such as conferences, publications and media broadcasts linked to Sartre's life, work and intellectual legacy.

This study looked at personality trait and personality disorder correlates of self-rated altruism. In two studies over 4,000 adult British managers completed a battery of tests including a ‘bright side’ personality trait measure ; a ‘dark side’/disorders measure, and a measure of their Motives and Values which included Altruism. The two studies showed similar results revealing that those who were low on Adjustment but high on Interpersonal Sensitivity, Prudence and Inquisitiveness were more likely to value Altruism and be motivated to (...) commit altruistic acts which concerns helping others and creating an environment that places emphasis on customer service. Those more interested in “Getting Along” with others were more Altruistic than those more interested in “Getting Ahead” of others. Implications for the selection and management of altruistic people in a business are considered. Limitations and future directions of this research are also noted. (shrink)

The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes’ initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume’s elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, (...) Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work? (shrink)

In an earlier discussion, I argued that Kant's moral theory satisfies some of the basic criteria for being a genuine theory: it includes testable hypotheses, nomological higher-and lower-level laws, theoretical constructs, internal principles, and bridge principles. I tried to show that Kant's moral theory is an ideal, descriptive deductive-nomological theory that explains the behavior of a fully rational being and generates testable hypotheses about the moral behavior of actual agents whom we initially assume to conform to its theoretical constructs. I (...) argued that the moral "ought" is best understood as the "ought" of tentative prediction expressed in the range of uses of the German sollen; and that the degree to which such a theory is well-confirmed is a function of the degree to which we actually judge individual human agents, on a case-by-case basis, to be motivated by rationality, stupidity, or moral corruption in their actions. I assume that a similar case could be made for other major contenders, such as Utilitarianism or Aristotelianism. But there still remains unanswered the question of which of these theories is the best among the available alternatives. To answer this question, further criteria of selection must be invoked. Among these are structural elegance and explanatory simplicity, but even these do not exhaust the desiderata for an adequate moral theory. More pressing in the case of moral theory is the requirement that the theory enable us to understand all the available data of moral experience; that the theory be sufficiently inclusive that in the formulation of its descriptive laws and practical principles, it be capable of identifying as morally significant all the behavior to which moral praise, condemnation, or acquittal is a relevant and appropriate response. (shrink)

The issue of time-awareness presents a critical challenge for empiricism: if temporal properties are not directly perceived, how do we become aware of them? A unique empiricist account of time-awareness suggested by Hume's comments on time in the Treatise avoids the problems characteristic of other empiricist accounts. Hume's theory, however, has some counter-intuitive consequences. The failure of empiricists to come up with a defensible theory of time-awareness lends prima facie support to a non-empiricist theory of ideas.

Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?

Nuestro objetivo es examinar el tratamiento que ofreció Ludwig Wittgenstein en Sobre la certeza al problema escéptico del mundo externo, el cual consiste en la imposibilidad de conocer el mundo empírico. Reconstruiremos este problema a partir del argumento del sueño de René Descartes. Wittgenstein responde que la existencia de un mundo circundante al observador forma parte de las asunciones de los juegos del lenguaje, de modo que el problema es inadmisible. Evaluaremos el abordaje wittgensteiniano y lo entenderemos como una propuesta (...) contextualista que disuelve el problema mediante una reconsideración de sus presupuestos. La lectura contextualista que ofreceremos defiende que los estándares de atribución de verdad, significado y sentido son sensitivos a un contexto de enunciación, que en la obra wittgensteiniana toma el nombre de juego de lenguaje. (shrink)

En este trabajo nos propondremos desarrollar tres tesis fundamentales: a) Mostrar que Heidegger concibe al mundo como una trama semántica de corte pragmático, anterior a la fijación en cualquier material fonético codificado culturalmente; b) Señalar que el fenómeno que Winnicott indica con el término transicionalidad puede ser equiparado al mundo de Heidegger; y c) En la medida en que ese espacio potencial se constituye como un mecanismo de frontera que posibilita el tránsito de lo exterior a lo interior, puede ser (...) comprendido como una estructura intencional. Así, el carácter de mediación del mundo se considera desde el punto de vista del correlato objetivo, es decir, desde el útil y la obra de arte. Ambos tipos de “objetos” son dispositivos que se sitúan en la frontera del sentido y posibilitan la transición de aquello que está por fuera del espacio semántico. (shrink)