The study examines how truth-tellers and truth-telling can be cultivated in the context of post-truth politics in the U.S. Following Foucault, it is not concerned with examining the problem of truth, with the philosophical question of how truth is determined, but with the problem of truth-tellers or truth-telling as a practical activity of self-improvement. To this end, the study traces the emergence and nature of post-truth politics in the U.S. and analyzes its relation to patterns of fascist propaganda and the (...) psychological appeal of authoritarian leaders through a psycho-social perspective. To counter the nature and ubiquity of post-truth politics, the unrelenting flow of lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories disseminated by the far-right news and information ecosystem, the author argues that educators can help students recognize truth-tellers and become truth-tellers themselves by employing certain pedagogical strategies, informed by Foucault’s analysis of parrhesia, that can equip them to criticize and resist post-truth propaganda and demagogues. (shrink)

The verb 'imagine' admits of perspectival modification: we can imagine things from above, from a distant point of view, or from the point of view of a Russian. But in such cases, there need be no person, either real or imagined, who is above or distant from what is imagined, or who has the point of view of a Russian. We call this the puzzle of perspectival displacement. This paper sets out the puzzle, shows how it does not just concern (...) language, but also states of imagining themselves, and then presents a solution. The solution draws on the idea that many reports of imagining conceal a distinctive kind of question, and such concealed questions have an extra argument place for (what we will call) an experiencer from whose perspective things are imagined. This solution has a range of advantages over other proposals in the literature, and helps to advance two debates concerning perspectival engagement with fiction. (shrink)

Multidimensional adjectives are ubiquitous in natural language. An adjective F is multidimensional just in case whether F applies to an object or pair of objects depends on how those objects stand with respect to multiple underlying dimensions of F-ness. Developing a semantics for multidimensional adjectives requires us to address the problem of dimensional aggregation: how do the application conditions of an adjective F in its positive and comparative forms depend on its underlying dimensions? Here we develop a semantics for multidimensional (...) adjectives that incorporates aggregation functions. We then explore an analogy between dimensional aggregation and preference aggregation, bringing results from social choice theory to bear on the number and kind of aggregation functions that are admissible in a context. These results suggest that, for any given adjective, there will often be multiple aggregation functions admissible, meaning that multidimensional comparatives are often vague. (shrink)

This volume explores the roles and uses of abstraction in scientific and artistic practice. Conceived as an interdisciplinary dialogue between experts across histories and philosophies of art and science, this collection of essays draws on the shared premise that abstraction is a rich and generative process, not reducible to the mere omission of details in a representation. When scientists attempt to make sense of complex natural phenomena, they often produce highly abstract models of them. In the history and philosophy of (...) art, there is a long tradition of debate on the function of abstraction, and - more recently - its relation with theories of depiction. Adopting a process-oriented perspective, the chapters in this volume explore the epistemic potential of a diversity of practices of abstracting. The systematic analysis of a wide range of historical cases, from early twentieth-century abstractionist painting to contemporary abstract photography, and from nineteenth-century physics to recent research in biology and neurosciences, invites the reader to reflect on the material lives of abstraction through concrete artefacts, experimental practices and theoretical and aesthetic achievements. Abstraction in Science and Art: Philosophical Perspectives will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of science, and epistemology, as well as to historians of science and art, and to practicing artists and scientists interested in exploring foundational questions at the heart of the creative practice of abstracting. (shrink)

Popper is commonly considered as an analytical philosopher who focuses on epistemological and methodological aspects of scientific development, disregarding any social, cultural or political consideration. Against this popular image of Popper’s philosophy, I argue in this paper that Popper’s acco..

Por que la vida?, para que nuestra vida? A esta necesidad de interrogarnos y respondernos sobre el modo de ser para encontrarle sentido a la vida responde la parte mas antigua y esencial de la filosofia: la metafisica, que es el fundamento de nuestro comportamiento, de nuestra vida etica. Reconociendo otros aspectos filosoficos estrechamente vinculados con ella: el metodo, la teoria del conocimiento, la moral, Xirau propone entender la filosofia como una cuestion que trasciende la vida misma: convivir con (...) el pensamiento de los tiempos pasados, pues siempre los hombres se han planteado esas preguntas, tal como lo hacen cada uno de los filosofos que se explican en esta obra a traves de su presentacion historica en tres periodos: grecorromano, cristiano-medieval y renacentista-moderno. (shrink)

Despite the wide use of "Neo-Daoism" to refer to Wei-Jin Xuanxue 玄學, scholars who research this philosophy often describe the movement as generally being much more than a "continuation of Daoism."1 Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, who introduced the term "Neo-Daoism," gives the second section of his chapter on "Neo-Taoism: The Rationalists" the title "A Reinterpretation of Confucius". Feng explains that "some of the important Confucian Classics were accepted by the Neo-Taoists, though in the process they were reinterpreted according to the spirit (...) of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu". Similarly, Wing-tsit Chan notes of Xuanxue thinkers that, "[w]hile they are Taoistic in their... (shrink)

Ramón Xirau expone brevemente algunas de las ideas principales de Temor y Temblor, tales como la de individuo, generalidad, estética, ética, religiosidad, etc., y las contrasta, apoyándose en los diarios de Kierkegaard y otras de sus obras, como O lo Uno o lo Otro, con la filosofía sistemática de Hegel para resaltar el objetivo del filósofo danés: preferir la individualidad frente a la sistematicidad, rechazar la mediación o síntesis para moverse en la elección de o lo uno o lo (...) otro, o la tesis o la antítesis. Otro tema que se vincula con el de la religiosidad y el individuo, que se analiza brevemente en paralelo con la noción de persona, es el tema del amor y las obras del amor. (shrink)

In recent years Michael Sandel’s communitarian criticism of John Rawls’s theory of justice has gained much attention in philosophical circles. Specifically, he takes issue with the conception of the self—implicit in Rawls’s “veil of ignorance”: an extraction of the individual from their social environment, which creates an “unencumbered self” that is then used to theorize about justice. Sandel believes that some social ties are so deeply embedded in the human experience that even hypothetical isolation of the individual is likely to (...) lead ethical thinking astray. Additionally, he thinks that human emotions and other circumstantial considerations need to be taken into account. His emphasis on the situated self has... (shrink)

Stories in the Zhuangzi detailing expert artisans and other extraordinary people are often read as celebrations of “skills” or “knacks.” In this paper, I will argue that they would be more accurately understood as “coping” stories. Taken as a celebration of one’s “skill” or “knack” they transform the Zhuangzi into an implicit advocate of conforming to, or even identifying with, one’s social roles. I will argue that the stories of artisans and extraordinarily skilled people are less about cultivating one’s talents (...) so as to “find one’s calling,” better fulfill social expectations, or achieve oneness with Dao, than they are concerned with developing strategies for coping with natural and social contingencies. Read in this way, there is much to learn from the Zhuangzi when reflecting on contemporary social and political issues, especially those related to meritocratic hubris. (shrink)

Vendler’s :161–173, 1979) puzzle about imagination is that the sentences ‘Imagine swimming in that water’ and ‘Imagine yourself swimming in that water’ seem at once semantically different and semantically the same. They seem semantically different, since the first requires you to imagine ’from the inside’, while the second allows you to imagine ’from the outside.’ They seem semantically the same, since despite superficial dissimilarity, there is good reason to think that they are syntactically and lexically identical. This paper sets out (...) the puzzle and offers a novel solution. Our proposal is that, just as there is knowledge-wh, there is also imagining-wh and that the inside/outside distinction Vendler points to is properly understood as a distinction within imagining-wh. In particular, to imagine swimming from the inside is to imagine what it feels like to swim, while to imagine swimming from the outside is to imagine what it looks like to swim. We show that this proposal is well grounded in both the semantics and syntax of ‘imagine.’ We also argue it makes better sense than its rivals of the data Vendler found so puzzling. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 2, February 2022.

This essay is meant to shed light on a discourse that spans centuries and includes different voices. To be aware of such trans-textual resonances can add a level of historical understanding to the reading of philosophical texts. Specifically, we intend to demonstrate how the notion of the ineffable Dao 道, prominently expressed in the Daodejing 道德經, informs a long discourse on incongruent names in distinction to a mainstream paradigm that demands congruity between names and what they designate. Thereby, we trace (...) the development of the idea of the ineffable Dao quite differently from modern mystical interpretations. We show how, in an early Chinese context, it first gives rise to a sociopolitical critique of the incongruity underlying socially constructed names in the Zhuangzi 莊子, then to a discourse on the incongruity between moral virtues and names in Xuanxue 玄學 philosophy, and eventually to Sengzhao’s 僧肇 claim that a perceived congruence of names with things does not entail actual congruence between names and reality. (shrink)

_Much of academic philosophy is narrow. There are several ways to understand what narrow means in this context. One aspect has to do with the focus of academic publications and presentations, which are often exceedingly limited, in terms of both the scope of scholarship included in the discussion as well the ideas considered. Relatedly, the main orientation in academic philosophy is on picking things apart and considering concepts, relationships, and the world according to smaller and smaller parts. In this paper (...) we would like to draw attention to another type of philosophizing, which is also practiced but is less welcomed in many academic settings, we call this “open philosophy.” Open philosophy invites new ways of thinking about the world, and generally brings more things into its scope. Rather than striving for simplicity and minimizing, open philosophizing appreciates complexity and introduces approaches for people to consider themselves, as opposed to stating propositions, solutions, standards, or calculations. In particular we will explore how more research on Chinese Philosophy that is open could contribute to comparative and post-comparative perspectives._. (shrink)

There is good reason to think that, in every case of perceptual consciousness, there is something of which we are conscious; but there is also good reason to think that, in some cases of perceptual consciousness—for instance, hallucinations—there is nothing of which we are conscious. This paper resolves this inconsistency—which we call the presentation problem—by (a) arguing that ‘conscious of’ and related expressions function as intensional transitive verbs and (b) defending a particular semantic approach to such verbs, on which they (...) have readings that lack direct objects or themes. The paper further argues that this approach serves not only as a linguistic proposal about the semantics of ‘conscious of’, but also as a proposal about the metaphysics of conscious states. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop and defend a new adverbial theory of perception. I first present a semantics for direct-object perceptual reports that treats their object positions as supplying adverbial modifiers, and I show how this semantics definitively solves the many-property problem for adverbialism. My solution is distinctive in that it articulates adverbialism from within a well-established formal semantic framework and ties adverbialism to a plausible semantics for perceptual reports in English. I then go on to present adverbialism as a (...) theory of the metaphysics of perception. The metaphysics I develop treats adverbial perception as a directed activity: it is an activity with success conditions. When perception is successful, the agent bears a relation to a concrete particular, but perception need not be successful; this allows perception to be fundamentally non-relational. The result is a novel formulation of adverbialism that eliminates the need for representational contents, but also treats successful and unsuccessful perceptual events as having a fundamental common factor. (shrink)

This article is a continuation of Part I, which looked at the relationship between Confucianism and Daoism by first introducing general approaches, before moving on to (1) perspectives on names and actualities; (2) cultivation, learning, the natural; and (3) conceptions of the person. Continuing with the theme‐based comparison of Confucianism and Daoism by looking specifically at the Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius), Daodejing 道德經 (Classic of the Way and Virtuosity) or Laozi 老子 (Book of Master Lao), and the Zhuangzi 莊子 (...) (Book of Master Zhuang), this article looks at (1) politics, nonaction (wuwei 無為), and virtuosity (de 德); (2) morality, virtues, and human nature (xing 性); and finally (3) Dao 道, or “the way.” It references Part I, and while it can be read independently, it is best taken as a continuation of Part I. The conclusion included herein summarizes both Part II and Part I. (shrink)

Los cuatro filósofos que aquí se discuten parecen mostrar cuatro caminos de búsqueda que si no siempre conducen a un Dios vivo, por lo menos son un intento por alcanzarlo o una nostalgia de loa alcanzable y, por lo mismo, presente. ¿Es necesario que la ciencia se oponga a la religión? Teilhard de Chardin, en una experiencia cristiana nunca puesta en duda, trata de reunir y unificar ciencia y conciencia o, si se requiere, en términos tan viejos como vigentes, razón (...) (ciencia) y fe (la cristiana). ¿Existe la posibilidad de conocer a los "celestes", e incluso a Dios? A la pregunta contestará dubitativamente pero no sin esperanza Martín Heidegger. ¿Es importante la vida religiosa para quien, acongojadamente, descree? Lo es para alguien que, como Wittgenstein, ha perdido la fe y, sin embargo, anda en busca de lo indecible, de lo "místico". ¿Tienen todavía vigencia tratar de reunir la Grecia clásica y el universo cristiano, por vías místicas? La respuesta será afirmativa en esta obrera de la gracia y el amor que fue Simone Weil. (shrink)

L’on montre dans quelles circonstances et pourquoi le problème des valeurs s’est posé dans la philosophie moderne. Jusqu’à la Renaissance et à Descartes, être et valeur sont identiques parce que l’être est défini par sa fonction et cette fonction par son rapport au tout. Dès que l’on admet, au contraire, l’univocité de l’être, il en résulte cette indifférence de l’être aux valeurs, qui se marque dans le principe d’inertie ou dans la relativité. Dans une pareille conception de l’être, les valeurs (...) ne peuvent être qu’autonomes par rapport à l’être, et c’est la recherche de cette autonomie qui caractérise la théorie moderne des valeurs. (shrink)

Ramsification is a well-known method of defining theoretical terms that figures centrally in a wide range of debates in metaphysics. Prior's puzzle is the puzzle of why, given the assumption that that-clauses denote propositions, substitution of "the proposition that P" for "that P" within the complements of many propositional attitude verbs sometimes fails to preserve truth, and other times fails to preserve grammaticality. On the surface, Ramsification and Prior's puzzle appear to have little to do with each other. But Prior's (...) puzzle is much more general than is ordinarily appreciated, and Ramsification requires a solution to the generalized form of Prior's puzzle. Without such a solution, a wide range of theories will either fail to imply their Ramsey sentences, or have Ramsey sentences that are ill-formed. As a consequence, definitions of theoretical terms given using the Ramsey sentence will be either incorrect or nonsensical. I present a partial solution to the puzzle that requires making use of a neo-Davidsonian language for scientific theorizing, but the would-be Ramsifier still faces serious challenges. (shrink)

Abstract:The Analects and the Mencius are among the most influential early Confucian texts. They emphasize the importance of moral self-cultivation. The individual is expected to identify what is good, and freely choose it regardless of their internal predispositions or external conditions. Curiously, in their philosophical frameworks they do not posit anything outside of contingencies. This means there is no non-contingency-based notion of "good" or "agency." This paper contributes to the current discourse by explaining how morality and agency can be possible (...) in a completely contingent system. Instead of positing a pregiven principle, self, will, or even capacity for agency, I will argue that Confucian texts assume that morality and agency emerge out of contingencies. As such, morality and agency are categorically distinct from contingencies, and are thereby able to reflect on them, without being ultimately sourced from any power outside of contingencies. (shrink)