Naturalism is perhaps the most pervasive “-ism” in contemporary philosophy. Different variations of naturalism can be found in virtually all corners of theoretical and practical philosophy. Critics have rightfully noted that it is (a) often not clear what “naturalism” means exactly and, subsequently, (b) whether those who consider themselves naturalists in the same philosophical debate actually hold compatible, let alone the same, beliefs. -/- Among the different forms of naturalism that hold currency today, scientific naturalism seems to be the most (...) widespread and therefore articulated. It can be summarized as the ontological thesis that what exists are solely the entities posited by the natural sciences and the methodological thesis that philosophical inquiry should take the results of the natural sciences as authoritative. The paradigm of scientific naturalism has received a growing amount of critical attention from within and outside of analytic philosophy in the last few decades. The main thrust of a host of these critiques is to “soften” the claim of scientific naturalism by rejecting its reductionist or even eliminativist implications, yet retaining a commitment to naturalism under a new description. This has led to a proliferation of new forms of naturalism that seek to broaden the criteria which determine what belongs to the natural world, usually self-titled as a “liberal” or “relaxed” naturalism. Within the analytic tradition, naturalism has been thus critiqued since the 1990s by thinkers like Hornsby, Strawson, Nagel, Stroud, Putnam, McDowell or more recently Baker, De Caro, Macarthur, Beale & Kidd, Cahill & Raleigh. Such critiques are commonly motivated by Neo-Aristotelian and/or Wittgensteinian intuitions. From outside the analytic tradition, phenomenologists in the Husserlian tradition as well as thinkers in the Idealist tradition have been steadfastly critical of scientific naturalism as well, albeit for different reasons. However, these new proposals all have to contend with scientific naturalism and its more restrictive criteria for what counts as natural (although these are debated in their own right). (shrink)

Anlässlich des 75. Todestages von Rudolf Otto veranstaltete die Philipps-Universität Marburg einen Internationalen Kongress. Ottos Religionsbegriff basiert auf der Erfahrung des Heiligen. Das stellt für die gegenwärtigen Debatten in der Theologie, der Religionsphilosophie, der Religionsästhetik und schließlich auch wieder in der Religionswissenschaft ein beachtliches Anregungspotenzial bereit. Der Band dokumentiert die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der gegenwärtigen Beschäftigung mit Otto in internationaler Perspektive.

Beginning in September of 1924, Alfred North Whitehead presented a regular course of 85 lectures which concluded in May of 1925. These represent the first ever philosophy lectures he gave and capture him working out the philosophical implications of the remarkable turns physics had taken in his lifetime. This volume finally recreates these lectures by transcribing notes by W.P. Bell, W.E. Hocking and Louise Heath taken at the time - many of which have only recently been discovered and including (...) hundreds of sketches of Whitehead's blackboard diagrams. This is a unique insight into the evolution of Whitehead's thought during the months when he was drafting his seminal work, Science and the Modern World. (shrink)

Philospher, mathematician, and general man of science, Alfred North Whitehead was a polymath whose interests and generous sympathies encompassed entire worlds.

BackgroundMany discretionary foods contribute both to individual health risks and to global issues, in particular through high carbon footprints and water scarcity. Snacking is influenced by the presence of snacking cues such as food availability, observing others eating, and negative affect. However, less is known about the mechanisms underlying the effects of negative affect. This study examines whether the individual odds of consuming high-calorie snacks as a consequence to being exposed to known snacking cues were moderated by experiencing higher or (...) lower total negative affect per day or higher or lower negative affect variability per day.MethodsSecondary analysis of an ecological momentary assessment study of 60 participants over 14 days with food logs and randomly timed assessments of known snacking cues. High total daily negative affect levels and negative affect variability were examined as moderators to predict high-calorie snacking in three-level hierarchical random effects logistic regressions.ResultsConsistent with previous studies, the odds of snacking increased when food was available, when others were eating, and when participants experienced more negative affect. Associations for food availability and others eating were significantly moderated by negative affect variability such that associations between cues and high-calorie snacking were weaker on days with higher negative affect variability, but not negative affect levels.ConclusionThe relationship between cues to high-calorie snacking and snacking behavior varies with variability in negative affect, suggesting a complex relationship between affect and high-calorie snacking. Clearer conceptualizations on the relation between affect and eating are needed. (shrink)

Autonomous Agents addresses the related topics of self-control and individual autonomy. "Self-control" is defined as the opposite of akrasia-weakness of will. The study of self-control seeks to understand the concept of its own terms, followed by an examination of its bearing on one's actions, beliefs, emotions, and personal values. It goes on to consider how a proper understanding of self-control and its manifestations can shed light on personal autonomy and autonomous behaviour. Perspicuous, objective, and incisive throughout, Alfred Mele makes (...) a convincing case for the value of individual autonomy. (shrink)

In this book, his major work, Alfred Schutz attempts to provide a sound philosophical basis for the sociological theories of Max Weber. Using a Husserlian phenomenology, Schutz provides a complete and original analysis of human action and its "intended meaning.".

My topic lies on conceptual terrain that is quite familiar to philosophers. For others, a bit of background may be in order. In light of what has filtered down from quantum mechanics, few philosophers today believe that the universe is causally deterministic. That is, to use Peter van Inwagen's succinct definition of “determinism,” few philosophers believe that “there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.” Even so, partly for obvious historical reasons, philosophers continue to argue about whether free (...) will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. Compatibilists argue for compatibility, and incompatibilists argue against it. Some incompatibilists maintain that free will and moral responsibility are illusions. But most are libertarians, libertarianism being the conjunction of incompatibilism and the thesis that at least some human beings are possessed of free will and moral responsibility. (shrink)

Self-deception raises complex questions about the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind. In this book, Alfred Mele addresses four of the most critical of these questions: What is it to deceive oneself? How do we deceive ourselves? Why do we deceive ourselves? Is self-deception really possible? -/- Drawing on cutting-edge empirical research on everyday reasoning and biases, Mele takes issue with commonplace attempts to equate the processes of self-deception with those of stereotypical interpersonal deception. Such (...) attempts, he demonstrates, are fundamentally misguided, particularly in the assumption that self-deception is intentional. In their place, Mele proposes a compelling, empirically informed account of the motivational causes of biased beliefs. At the heart of this theory is an appreciation of how emotion and motivation may, without our knowing it, bias our assessment of evidence for beliefs. Highlighting motivation and emotion, Mele develops a pair of approaches for explaining the two forms of self-deception: the "straight" form, in which we believe what we want to be true, and the "twisted" form, in which we believe what we wish to be false. -/- Underlying Mele's work is an abiding interest in understanding and explaining the behavior of real human beings. The result is a comprehensive, elegant, empirically grounded theory of everyday self-deception that should engage philosophers and social scientists alike. (shrink)

The Structures of the Life-World is the final focus of twenty-seven years of Alfred Schutz's labor, encompassing the fruits of his work between 1932 and his death in 1959. This book represents Schutz's seminal attempt to achieve a comprehensive grasp of the nature of social reality. Here he integrates his theory of relevance with his analysis of social structures. Thomas Luckmann, a former student of Schutz's, completed the manuscript for publication after Schutz's untimely death.

In Manipulated Agents, Alfred R. Mele examines the role one's history plays in whether or not one is morally responsible for one's actions. Mele develops a "history-sensitive" theory of moral responsibility through reflection on a wide range of thought experiments which feature agents who have been manipulated or designed in ways that directly affect their actions.

Each of the following claims has been defended in the scientific literature on free will and consciousness: your brain routinely decides what you will do before you become conscious of its decision; there is only a 100 millisecond window of opportunity for free will, and all it can do is veto conscious decisions, intentions, or urges; intentions never play a role in producing corresponding actions; and free will is an illusion. In Effective Intentions Alfred Mele shows that the evidence (...) offered to support these claims is sorely deficient. He also shows that there is strong empirical support for the thesis that some conscious decisions and intentions have a genuine place in causal explanations of corresponding actions. In short, there is weighty evidence of the existence of effective conscious intentions or the power of conscious will. Mele examines the accuracy of subjects' reports about when they first became aware of decisions or intentions in laboratory settings and develops some implications of warranted skepticism about the accuracy of these reports. In addition, he explores such questions as whether we must be conscious of all of our intentions and why scientists disagree about this. Mele's final chapter closes with a discussion of imaginary scientific findings that would warrant bold claims about free will and consciousness of the sort he examines in this book. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead's SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD, originally published in 1925, redefines the concept of modern science.

Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency, and he explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions--European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian. Art and (...) Agency was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation. (shrink)

The mathematical background and content of Greek philosophy, by F. S. C. Northrop.--The one and the many in Plato, by R. Demos.--An introduction to the De modis significandi of Thomas of Erfurt, by S. Buchanan.--Truth by convention, by W. V. Quine.--Logical positivism and speculative philosophy, by H. S. Leonard.--The nature and status of time and passage, by P. Weiss.--Causality, by S. Kerby--iller.--The compound individual, by C. Hartshorne.--The good, by O. H. Lee.

Following the thematic divisions of the first three volumes of Alfred Schutz's Collected Papers into The Problem of Social Reality, Studies in Social Theory and Phenomenological Philosophy, this fourth volume contains drafts of unfinished writings, drafts of published writings, translations of essays previously published in German, and some largely unpublished correspondence. The drafts of published writings contain important material omitted from the published versions, and the unfinished writings offer important insights into Schutz's otherwise unpublished ideas about economic and political (...) theory as well as the theory of law and the state. In addition, a large group contains Schutz's reflections on problems in phenomenological philosophy, including music, which both supplement and add new dimensions to his published thought. All together, the writings in this volume cover Schutz's last 15 years in Europe as well as manuscripts written after his arrival in the USA in 1939. Audience: Students and scholars of phenomenology, social theory and the human sciences in general. (shrink)

In this book, the author of "Language, Truth and Logic" tackles one of the central issues of philosophy - how we can know anything - by setting out all the sceptic's arguments and trying to counter them one by one.

This is a book symposium on Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan, by Alfred Archer and Jake Wojtowicz, with contributions from Adam Kadlac, Joe Slater, Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt, and Nina Windgätter. The discussion covers a range of topics, including the form of love involved in fandom, the epistemic status of fans, fictionalism, and the role of communities in fandom.

Almost thirty years ago, in an attempt to undermine what he termed "the principle of alternate possibilities" (the thesis that people are morally responsible for what they have done only if they could have done otherwise), Harry Frankfurt offered an ingenious thought-experiment that has played a major role in subsequent work on moral responsibility and free will. Several philosophers, including David Widerker and Robert Kane, argued recently that this thought-experiment and others like it are fundamentally flawed. This paper develops a (...) new Frankfurt-style example that is immune to their objections. [Reprinted in Laura Waddell Ekstrom, ed., Agency and Responsibility: Essays on the Metaphysics of Freedom (Westview Press, 2001), pp. 241-54; and in John Martin Fischer, ed., Free Will, Vol. III (Routledge, 2005), pp. 330-42.]. (shrink)

This is a book symposium on Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan, by Alfred Archer and Jake Wojtowicz, with contributions from Adam Kadlac, Joe Slater, Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt, and Nina Windgätter. The discussion covers a range of topics, including the form of love involved in fandom, the epistemic status of fans, fictionalism, and the role of communities in fandom.

Diese Festschrift versammelt Texte zu den vielfältigen Forschungsinteressen von Alfred Schmidt, emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Soziologie an der Universität Frankfurt am Main. Die philosophiehistorischen Betrachtungen versuchen jeweils, das Konzept eines realen Humanismus ins Bewusstsein gegenwärtiger praktischer Philosophie zu rufen. Verbindendes Motiv der Beiträge ist dabei ein kritisch verstandener Materialismus, der ohne weltanschauliche Versicherungen auskommt und den leibhaftigen Menschen in den Fokus der Betrachtung rückt. So verstandene Gesellschaftskritik orientiert sich an Gewährsmännern Kritischer Theorie wie etwa Hegel und Marx sowie (...) Schopenhauer, Nietzsche und Freud. Charakteristisch für die hier versammelten Texte ist unter anderem, dass sie eine subjektgerechte Einrichtung der Welt einfordern. (shrink)

Does free will exist? The question has fueled heated debates spanning from philosophy to psychology and religion. The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we are accountable for what we do, and if we aren't free, we're off the hook.There are neuroscientists who claim that our decisions are made unconsciously and are therefore outside of (...) our control and social psychologists who argue that myriad imperceptible factors influence even our minor decisions to the extent that there is no room for free will. According to philosopher Alfred R. Mele, what they point to as hard and fast evidence that free will cannot exist actually leaves much room for doubt. If we look more closely at the major experiments that free will deniers cite, we can see large gaps where the light of possibility shines through.In Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will, Mele lays out his opponents' experiments simply and clearly, and proceeds to debunk their supposed findings, one by one, explaining how the experiments don't provide the solid evidence for which they have been touted. There is powerful evidence that conscious decisions play an important role in our lives, and knowledge about situational influences can allow people to respond to those influences rationally rather than with blind obedience.Mele also explores the meaning and ramifications of free will. What, exactly, does it mean to have free will -- is it a state of our soul, or an undefinable openness to alternative decisions? Is it something natural and practical that is closely tied to moral responsibility? Since evidence suggests that denying the existence of free will actually encourages bad behavior, we have a duty to give it a fair chance. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead was a prominent English mathematician and philosopher who co-authored the highly influential Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell. Originally published in 1919, and first republished in 1925 as this Second Edition, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge ranks among Whitehead's most important works; forming a perspective on scientific observation that incorporated a complex view of experience, rather than prioritising the position of 'pure' sense data. Alongside companion volumes The Concept of Nature and The Principle of (...) Relativity, it created a framework for Whitehead's later metaphysical speculations. This is an important book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in the relationship between science and philosophy. (shrink)

We provide for the first time an exact translation into English of the Polish version of Alfred Tarski's classic 1936 paper, whose title we translate as ?On the Concept of Following Logically?. We also provide in footnotes an exact translation of all respects in which the German version, used as the basis of the previously published and rather inexact English translation, differs from the Polish. Although the two versions are basically identical, to an extent that is even uncanny, we (...) note more than 400 differences. Several dozen of these are substantive differences due to revisions by Tarski to the Polish version which he did not incorporate in the German version. With respect to these revisions the Polish version should be regarded as more authoritative than the German. Hence scholars limited to an English translation should use ours. (shrink)

The latest offering in the highly successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, The Philosophy of Action features contributions from twelve leading figures in the field, including: Robert Audi, Michael Bratman, Donald Davidson, Wayne Davis, Harry Frankfurt, Carl Ginet, Gilbert Harman, Jennifer Hornsby, Jaegwon Kim, Hugh McCann, Paul Moser, and Brian O'Shaughnessy. Alfred Mele provides an introductory essay on the topics chosen and the questions they deal with. Topics addressed include intention, reasons for action, and the nature and explanation of (...) internal action. A selective bibliography is included as a guide to further reading. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this collection provides an accessible and stimulating introduction for readers interested in the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy. (shrink)

The principle of patient autonomy dominates the contemporary debate over medical ethics. In this examination of the doctor-patient relationship, physician and philosopher Alfred Tauber argues that the idea of patient autonomy -- which was inspired by other rights-based movements of the 1960s -- was an extrapolation from political and social philosophy that fails to ground medicine's moral philosophy. He proposes instead a reconfiguration of personal autonomy and a renewed commitment to an ethics of care. In this formulation, physician beneficence (...) and responsibility become powerful means for supporting the autonomy and dignity of patients. Beneficence, Tauber argues, should not be confused with the medical paternalism that fueled the patient rights movement. Rather, beneficence and responsibility are moral principles that not only are compatible with patient autonomy but strengthen it. Coordinating the rights of patients with the responsibilities of their caregivers will result in a more humane and robust medicine.Tauber examines the historical and philosophical competition between facts and values in medicine. He analyzes the shifting conceptions of personhood underlying the doctor-patient relationship, offers a "topology" of autonomy, from Locke and Kant to Hume and Mill, and explores both philosophical and practical strategies for reconfiguring trust and autonomy. Framing the practicalities of the clinical encounter with moral reflections, Tauber calls for an ethical medicine in which facts and values are integrated and humane values are deliberately included in the program of care. (shrink)

In what way might public statues wrong people? In recent years, philosophers have drawn on speech act theory to answer this question by arguing that statues constitute harmful or disrespectful forms of speech. My aim in this paper will be add a different theoretical perspective to this discussion. I will argue that while the speech act approach provides a useful starting point for thinking about what is wrong with public statues, we can get a fuller understanding of these wrongs by (...) drawing on resources from recent work in situated affectivity. I will argue that public statues can be understood as affective artifacts and that this can both help us understand both the deep affective wrongs caused by public statues and offer a possible explanation as to why some people are so strongly opposed to their removal. (shrink)

My question here is whether there are intentional mental actions that generate special, significant threats to causalism (i.e., threats of a kind not generated by intentional overt actions), or that generate, more poi- gnantly, problems for causalism that some intentional overt actions allegedly generate, as well.

In Immunity, Alfred Tauber sets forth a new theory of immunology that rejects the common principle of self and non-self, and the immune system's role as a protector of the self from external threats. Rather than serving to defend an independent entity, he argues, immunity participates in a large, complex eco-system of porous and flexible boundaries. Tauber's new approach to immunology necessitates a new biology in which symbiosis is the rule, not the exception.

The central importance of Marx's concept of nature in the formulation of historical materialism has been largely neglected in the extensive literature on Marx. Alfred Schmidt, philosophical successor to Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in Frankfurt, seeks to elucidate it in this original study.

Values and the scope of scientific inquiry, by M. Farber.--The phenomenology of epistemic claims: and its bearing on the essence of philosophy, by R. M. Zaner.--Problems of the Life-World, by A. Gurwitsch.--The Life-World and the particular sub-worlds, by W. Marx.--On the boundaries of the social world, by T. Luckmann.--Alfred Schutz on social reality and social science, by M. Natanson.--Homo oeconomicus and his class mates, by F. Machlup.--Toward a science of political economics, by A. Lowe.--Some notes on reality-orientation in contemporary (...) societies, by A. Brodersen.--The eclipse of reality, by E. Voegelin.--Alienation in Marx's Political economy and philosophy, by P. Merlan.--The problem of multiple realities: Alfred Schutz and Robert Musil, by P. L. Berger.--Phenomenology, history, myth, by F. Kersten.--The role of music in Leonardo's Paragone, by E. Winternitz.--Alfred Schutz bibliography (p. [297]-306). (shrink)

One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy. Whitehead’s master work in philsophy, Process and Reality propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the (...) seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant. The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds. (shrink)

Freud began university intending to study both medicine and philosophy. But he was ambivalent about philosophy, regarding it as metaphysical, too limited to the conscious mind, and ignorant of empirical knowledge. Yet his private correspondence and his writings on culture and history reveal that he never forsook his original philosophical ambitions. Indeed, while Freud remained firmly committed to positivist ideals, his thought was permeated with other aspects of German philosophy. Placed in dialogue with his intellectual contemporaries, Freud appears as a (...) reluctant philosopher who failed to recognize his own metaphysical commitments, thereby crippling the defense of his theory and misrepresenting his true achievement. Recasting Freud as an inspired humanist and reconceiving psychoanalysis as a form of moral inquiry, Alfred Tauber argues that Freudianism still offers a rich approach to self-inquiry, one that reaffirms the enduring task of philosophy and many of the abiding ethical values of Western civilization. (shrink)

Alfred A. Robb. THEOREM 54 If P1 and P2 be a pair of parallel inertia planes while an inertia plane Q1 has parallel general lines a and b in common with P1 and P2 respectively and if Q2 be an inertia plane parallel to Q1 through some ...

Do sports fans really care about their team winning? According to several philosophers, the answer is no. Sports fans engage in fictional caring during the match, which involves a game of make-believe that the result is important. We will argue that this account does not provide a full account of the way in which fans relate to the teams they support. For many fans, the team they support forms a core part of their identity. The success or failure of their (...) team impacts the community they are a part of and around which they build a central part of their identity. For these fans, it really does matter whether their team wins or loses. We will finish by articulating a more limited role that fictional caring may play in sports fandom. (shrink)

I will begin by considering how the social world appears to the scientific observer and ask the question of whether the world of scientific research, with all its categories of meaning interpretation and with all its conceptual schemes of action, is identical with the world in which the observed actor acts. Anticipating the result, I may state immediately that with the shift from one level to the other, all the conceptual schemes and all the terms of interpretation must be modified.Proceeding (...) in this direction, I encounter several problems overlapping with the problem of rational action and the “rational act unit” in Professor ParsonsParsons, Talcott’ sense. First: The conceptual scheme of rational action presupposes a more or less definite knowledge of, or orientation within, the world in which this action is performed. In this sense the term, “rationality”, is not specific to the conceptual scheme of action; it embraces the conceptual scheme of the world in general and is only one element in it. Therefore, we also must examine the problem of orientation in this world. Second: We ought to keep in mind that all interpretation of the social world has to start from the actor’s subjective point of view. Therefore, we cannot accept the term, “unit act”, as such, without trying to reduce it to its subjective meaning. Here I have to discuss in general terms why I insist on the subjective point of view. This is more than the whim of a few social scientists; social science cannot be built up except by taking cognizance of the subjective meaning the actor connects with his acting. Finally, I have to discuss the fact that there are social sciences operating on high theoretical levels that, like economics, apparently prefer to deal with statistical curves and mathematical formulae rather than with actions of human beings in the social world, yet they use the term, “rational action”, as an indispensable element of their systems. I will have to show what modification this term undergoes in these types of social sciences..). (shrink)