Since its original publication in 1979, The Possibility of Naturalism has been one of the most influential works in contemporary philosophy of science and social science. It is a cornerstone of the critical realist position, which is now widely seen as offering a viable alternative to move positivism and postmodernism. This revised edition includes a new foreword.

It has been argued that affordances are not meaningful and are thus not useful to be applied in contexts where specifically meaningfulness of experience is at stake (e.g. clinical contexts or discussions of autonomous agency). This paper aims to reconceptualize affordances such as to make them relevant and applicable in such contexts. It starts by investigating the ‘ambiguity’ of (possibilities for) action. In both philosophy of action and affordance research, this ambiguity is typically resolved by adhering to the agents intentions (...) and concerns. I discuss some recent accounts of affordances that highlight these concerns but argue that they tend to adopt an ‘atomistic’ approach where there is no acknowledgement of how these concerns are embedded in the agents wider concerns, values, projects and commitments. An holistic approach that does acknowledge this can be found in psychological research on agents having a sense of what they’re doing. I will discuss this research in the second part of the paper and argue that agents can analogously have a sense of what is afforded. This is deemed the entry point for understanding the meaningfulness of affordances. In the final part of the paper I apply this analysis to recent attempts which seek to make sense of authentic and autonomous agency in terms of affordances. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes research on free will. Progress has been made by discarding outmoded philosophical notions in favor of exploring how ordinary people understand and use the notion of free will. The concept of responsible autonomy captures many aspects of layperson concepts of free will, including acting on one's own (i.e., not driven by external forces), choosing, using reasons and personal values, conscious reflection, and knowing and accepting consequences and moral implications. Free will can thus be understood as form of (...) volition (action control) that evolved to enable people to live in cultural societies. Much work has shown that belief in free will (as opposed to disbelief) is associated with actions that are conducive to functioning well in culture, including helpfulness, restraint of aggression, learning via counterfactual analysis, thinking for oneself, effective job performance, and appropriate gratitude. Belief in free will increases in response to misdeeds by others, thus emphasizing the link to personal responsibility. Research on volition indicates that self-regulation, intelligent reasoning, decision making, and initiative all deplete a (common) limited energy source, akin to the folk notion of willpower and linked to the body's glucose supplies. Free will is thus not an absolute or constant property of persons but a variable, fluctuating capability—one that is nonetheless highly adaptive for individuals and society. -/- The notion that people have free will has been invoked in multiple contexts. Legally and morally, it explains why people can be held responsible for their actions. Theologically, it was used to explain why a supposedly kind and omniscient god would send most of the people he created to hell (Walker, 1964). Yet, for such an important concept, there remains wide-ranging disagreement and confusion over its existence and its nature. For example, philosophers still debate whether humans truly have free will and, if so, under what conditions human volition deserves to be considered free (Kane, 2011). In psychology, most theorists believe that humans engage in self-control, rational choice, planning, initiative, and related acts of volition. The debate is not whether these things occur but merely whether these should be called free will. -/- This chapter will provide an overview of recent psychology experiments concerned with free will. There are three main and quite distinct sets of problems, each with associated lines of research. The first is concerned with how people understand the idea of free will. The second concerns the causes and consequences of believing in free will. The third focuses on the actual volitional processes that guide human action. (shrink)

Some actions are freer than others, and the difference is palpably important in terms of inner process, subjective perception, and social consequences. Psychology can study the difference between freer and less free actions without making dubious metaphysical commitments. Human evolution seems to have created a relatively new, more complex form of action control that corresponds to popular notions of free will. It is marked by self-control and rational choice, both of which are highly adaptive, especially for functioning within culture. The (...) processes that create these forms of free will may be biologically costly and therefore are only used occasionally, so that people are likely to remain only incompletely self-disciplined, virtuous, and rational. (shrink)

Some people believe more than others in free will, and researchers have both measured and manipulated those beliefs. Disbelief in free will has been shown to cause dishonest, selfish, aggressive, and conforming behavior, and to reduce helpfulness, learning from one’s misdeeds, thinking for oneself, recycling, expectations for occupational success, and actual quality of performance on the job. Belief in free will has been shown to have only modest or negligible correlations with other variables, indicating that it is a distinct trait. (...) Belief in free will has correlated positively with life satisfaction and finding life meaningful, with self‐efficacy and self‐control, with low levels of stress, and (though not entirely consistently) with internal locus of control. High belief in free will has been linked to a punitive attitude toward wrongdoers and lower forgiveness toward them. The belief seems to involve a sense of agency and expecting others to behave in morally responsible fashion. (shrink)

My thesis is that you can lie with ‘ P therefore Q ’ without P or Q being lies. For you can lie by virtue of not believing that P supports Q. My thesis is reconciled with the principle that all lies are assertions through H. P. Grice’s account of conventional implicatures. These semantic cousins of conversational implicatures are secondary assertions that clarify the speaker’s attitude toward his primary assertions. The meaning of ‘therefore’ commits the speaker to an entailment thesis (...) even though the speaker does not enter that commitment into the text. Insincere conventional implicatures are akin to insincerely asserted footnotes. An absence of lies in the text is compatible with the presence of lies in the meta-text. (shrink)

There is thought to be a rich connection between the self and the phenomenology of episodic memory. Despite the emphasis on this link, the precise relation between the two has been underexplored. In fact, even though it is increasingly acknowledged that there are various facets of the self, this notion of the multifaceted self has played very little role in theorizing about the phenomenology of episodic memory. Getting clear about the complex phenomenology of episodic memory involves getting clear about various (...) components that contribute to the sense of self. Inspired by work on 4E cognition, and focusing on the phenomenological feature of felt connections, we show that the phenomenology of episodic memory can be modulated by focusing on different facets — embodied, extended, embedded, and ecological — of the self. (shrink)

In recent years, the sharing economy has attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular, relating to its capacity to enforce or undermine extant economic conventions. However, the process through which technological developments can effectively have this outcome of altering extant conventions on what is morally acceptable or desirable is still unclear. In this paper, we draw on the work of Boltanski and Thévenot and the notion of agencement to investigate the moral and performative dimension of controversies related to the SE. (...) The research stems from a qualitative case-based study of the controversy following Uber’s implementation in Montréal’s taxi market. We contribute to the literature on the SE through an empirical study of the moral debates entailed in the unfolding in situ of a SE device. We also add to the literature using the ‘Orders of Worth’ framework by showing how a compromise is solidified. We find that beyond discursive strategies, it is the concrete recomposition of laws, conventions, devices, persons, etc. that harmonised different definitions of the common good. Finally, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between technology, ethics, and social change by capturing the specific values that legitimise Uber, and by following their unfolding throughout a controversy. (shrink)

As in other areas of medical practice, relatives accompany patients to genetic consultations. However, unlike in other areas, the consultations may be relevant to the relatives’ health because they may be at risk of developing the same genetic condition as the patient. The presence of relatives in genetic consultation may affect the decision‐making process and it raises questions about the perception of patient autonomy and the way it is practiced in genetics. However, these issues have not been examined in previous (...) empirical studies. This article aims to fill this gap by reporting findings from a qualitative study with clinicians working in the area of inherited breast cancer. The findings indicate that family presence has an impact on the patient's decisions to undergo genetic testing and preventative operations when she is diagnosed as a carrier. The findings further indicate that, unlike in other areas of medical practice, blood relatives who are present in consultations are perceived by clinicians as patients or potential patients, and this in turn increases their involvement in discussions in the consultation room. Finally, the findings indicate that in genetics, a relational approach to autonomy is applied. Decisions are made in a social context, where the relatives’ views are heard and taken into account. The findings suggest that the conventional bioethical approach to autonomy, which perceives the decision‐making unit as comprising a clinician and an individual patient, is challenged in genetics. The findings thus suggest that bioethicists, lawyers and policy‐makers should consider whether this individualistic approach is still valid and applicable. (shrink)

A class of states obtained by extremizing the energy of a system under certain conditions is introduced and their properties are compared with those of the coherent states. Conditions under which these states move without change of shape and follow the classical path are investigated.

The use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in environmental decision-making and the contingent valuation (CV) technique as input into traditional CBA to elicit environmental values in monetary terms has stimulated an extensive debate. Critics have questioned the appropriateness of both the method and the technique. Some alternative suggestions for the elicitation of environmental values are based on a social process of deliberation. However, just like traditional economic theory, these alternative approaches may be questioned on their implicit value judgements regarding the legitimacy (...) of the social-political organisation of the process of value elicitation. Instead of making assumptions a priori, research efforts should be focused on the processes by which actual public attitudes and preferences towards the environment can best be elicited and fed into environmental or other public policy decision-making. In the study presented in this paper, support was found for both the individual WTP based approach and a participatory social deliberation approach to inform the environmental decision-making process, suggesting that a combination of both approaches is most appropriate. (shrink)

En este artículo se intenta una fundamentación de los derechos humanos desde la perspectivade Bernard Lonergan. La universalidad de éstos está cimentada en la naturalezahumana, que es dinámica, operante e histórica. La intencionalidad humana busca laobjetividad, desplegando su poder en cuatro niveles: la experiencia, la comprensión, eljuicio y la acción. De este dinamismo se desprenden cuatro preceptos: sé atento, séinteligente, sé razonable y sé responsable. El descubrimiento del valor de estos imperativosfundamenta y salvaguarda los derechos humanos. Su desconocimiento engendra ladistorsión (...) del ser humano. Para corregir las desviaciones debe haber conversiones intelectuales,morales y religiosas, las cuales suponen la fe, ya que ésta permite reconocer conmás claridad los valores. (shrink)

In today's world the need for cultivating non-violence is becoming more pronounced. Gandhi extrapolated an ideal society based on truth and nonviolence. The Bombay Chronicle in its issue of 5th April, 1930, reported "...For the first time a nation is asked by its leader to win freedom by itself accepting all the suffering and sacrifice involved. Mahatma Gandhi's success does not, therefore, merely mean the freedom of India. It will also constitute the most important contribution that any country yet made (...) towards the elimination of force as an arbiter between one nation and another..." For him, two cardinal principles of life, non-violence and truth, were the essence of sociopolitical good. "Satyagraha" was Gandhi's gift to the world. The word was coined by him in South Africa. In the West it was known as passive resistance. Satyagraha signified pure soul-force. Truth or Love is the very substance of the soul. To quote Gandhi in this context: "Non-violence as supreme dharma is the proof of this power of Love. Nonviolence is a dormant state. In the working state, it is Love, ruled by Love, the world goes on.... we are alive solely because of Love....we are all ourselves the proof of this..." In a centrifugal world, Gandhi's views expressed on non-violence and love are guidance to the world today more than at any other time. (shrink)

Les femmes engagées dans l'Église constituent les piliers de la vie ecclésiale mais restent des sujettes mineures dans cette institution qui ne leur reconnaît pas, dans les faits, un statut d'égalité avec les hommes. Depuis plus de vingt ans, elles revendiquent des transformations : elles veulent participer à la rédaction des discours officiels, obtenir de meilleurs conditions de travail, mettre de l'avant l'usage du langage inclusif dans les liturgies. Ces femmes, qui détiennent dans une proportion déplus en plus importante une (...) formation en théologie, s'efforcent de conscientiser le clergé à la nécessité de développer avec elles des rapports égalitaires qui impliquent un véritable partage des pouvoirs et des responsabilités. Compte tenu du haut niveau de résistance au changement, il faudrait sans doute que ces femmes acceptent de désobéir à l'ordre clérical et qu'elles osent transgresser les règles de fonctionnement sexiste si elles veulent parvenir à mettre en place une ecclésia égalitaire.Although women constitute the pillars in the ongoing life of the Church, their status is not equal to that of men and they play a secondary role in the institution. For at least the last twenty years, women have been demanding changes such as : the participation in the elaboration of official statements, the betterment of working conditions and the use of inclusive language in liturgical celebrations. Many women, who have a theological formation, endeavour to make the clergy realize the necessity of developing relationhips of real equality. This implies a concrete division of power and responsability. Given the degree of resistance in the institutional Church, women may have to accept disobedience to clerical power, thus breaking the rules of a sexist functioning in order to establish an Ecclesia of equality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Arnaud Dandieu (1897–1933), a Personalist transdisciplinary thinker, joined up with Claude Chevalley (1909–84), cofounder of the Bourbaki group of mathematicians, to conduct a phenomenological study of the scientist’s activity over several articles. It shows the current development of “carnal hermeneutics” already present among the earliest manifestations of French phenomenology, in a tactile approach to the sense of depth as key to the search for knowledge, from the sorcerer to the scientist, building on the phenomenological psychology of Eugène Minkowski (1885–1972). (...) Dandieu and Chevalley’s “rational act of exclusion” takes the irrational concrete as the fulcrum of a heroic psychological breakthrough to purely logical abstraction, inseparable from its existential ground in embodied personhood. The present article will use their little-known articles to document the conscious emergence of a distinctly French school of phenomenology, eschewing from the start, twenty years before Merleau-Ponty, the neglect of multisensory experience in the flesh decried by critics of its German tradition. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This volume is a 'stand alone' follow up and companion to the forthcoming volume Metatheory for the 21st-Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue. Whereas Vol. I is primarily theoretical in its focus, this volume (Vol. II) will build on many of the theoretical foundations laid in Vol. I while applying them more concretely and practically to addressing the complex planetary crises of a new era that many scholars now refer to as 'the Anthropocene.' We live in a time (...) when humanity's powers have become so powerful and ubiquitous that our impact on nature has literally reached tectonic proportions. Welcome to the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002): a new epoch marked by the profound and far-reaching causal power of human, social life in shaping the trajectory of Earth system processes, including the climate system. The state of the world is thus profoundly influenced by the shortcomings of our dominant philosophies and metatheories and the collective self-understanding(s) they have produced. A key aim of this volume is thus to develop metatheoretical applications that serve emancipatory praxis toward a flourishing world. This volume will be of interest to upper-undergraduate and post-graduate students of philosophy, sociology and critical realism. (shrink)

This chapter opens with a discussion on the mechanics of canon in the Star Wars universe. The practice of dividing a fiction into canonical and noncanonical parts is not merely an exercise in fanboy/girl esoterica. Once a fiction is massive enough, and the Star Wars fiction is certainly quite massive, the canon/noncanon divide can play a practical role in pointing to which portions of the story are required knowledge for understanding and interpreting the overall universe. Canon/noncanon distinctions make massive fictions (...) like Star Wars accessible. A particular work will not be eternally canonical or eternally noncanonical. The canon/noncanon divide does not merely tell us that some stories count as genuine parts of the Star Wars fiction while others do not. It also dictates which version of a particular story counts as genuine when there are multiple versions from which to choose. (shrink)