The rift which has long divided the philosophical world into opposed schools-the "Continental" school owing its origins to the phenomenology of Husserl and the "analytic" school derived from Frege-is finally closing.

This work introduces a causal explanation of the passage of time, and contrasts it with rival explanations. In the causal explanation, laws of physics are shown to entail that events are in causal succession, and the passage of time is defined as their causal succession. The causal explanation is coupled with phenomenology of the passage of time, and contrasted with the project of making sense of the idea that time does not pass.

This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on key terms and ...

The key to understanding self-identity is identifying the transcendental structures that make a temporally extended, continuous, and unified experiential life possible. Self-identity is rooted in the formal, temporalizing structure of intentional experience that underlies psychological continuity. Personal identity, by contrast, is rooted in the content of the particular flow of experience, in particular and primarily, in the convictions adopted passively or actively in reflection by a self-identical subject in the light of her social and traditional inheritances. Secondarily, a person’s identity (...) is rooted in others’ characterizations of that person in the light of the social conventions and constructs of the cultures and traditions that have shaped the personal identity of the ones who make the attributions. Personal identity, on this view, is fundamentally rooted in beliefs, traits—especially character traits—sentiments, and moods, that is, in the subject’s convictions about the true, the good, and the right—and in the commitments to the pursuit of (apparently) worthwhile goods and to the practical identities rooted in those convictions. (shrink)

Following a brief summation of the phenomenological method, the paper considers three metaethical positions adopted by phenomenologists and the implications of those positions for a normative ethics. The metaethical positions combine epistemological and ontological viewpoints. They are non-intellectualism and strong value realism as represented by the axiological views of phenomenologists such as Scheler, Meinong, Reinach, Stein, Hartmann, von Hildebrand, and Steinbock; non-intellectualism and anti-realism as represented by the freedom-centered phenomenologies of Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty; and weak intellectualism and weak value (...) realism as represented by Husserl and Drummond. The paper argues that only the third metaethical view can support a normative ethics that is consistent with the essential features of the phenomenological method, that allows for freedom in an agent’s choosing from a multiplicity of first-order goods, including vocational goods, practical identities, and life plans, available in the agent’s factical circumstances, and that provides norms governing the correctness of our actions and our obligations to others. The normative dimension is introduced, first, by the requirement that the fulfillment of first-order evaluations and choices be truthful, that is, that the evaluations be appropriate and the actions right. Second, transcendental considerations revealed in the phenomenological analysis of intentional experience disclose a notion of second-order goods of agency that universally bind agents in their exercise of freedom and their dealings with others. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the issues that motivate representationalist accounts, and it describes the different versions of representationalism as responses to these issues. It argues that the representationalist views do not adequately respond to the epistemological problems that motivate them and that they engender some ontological problems. The chapter presents an alternative ‘presentationalist’ account that preserves the straightforward sense of the mind's openness to the world. While representationalism and presentationalism agree that the relation between mental events or states is direct but (...) mediated, they radically differ in their views of the nature of the mediation involved in the mind's intentional directedness to the world. This difference and the preferability of the presentationalist account are explored. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two senses of the term “ phenomenology ”: a narrow sense and a broader sense. It claims, with particular reference to the moral sphere, that the narrow meaning of moral phenomenology cannot stand alone, that is, that moral phenomenology in the narrow sense entails moral intentionality. The paper proceeds by examining different examples of the axiological and volitional experiences of both virtuous and dutiful agents, and it notes the correlation between the phenomenal and intentional differences belonging (...) to these experiences. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the focus on the broader sense of “ phenomenology ” serves to provide a more precise sense of what we might mean by “ moral phenomenology.”. (shrink)

This paper approaches the intentional structure of the emotions by considering three claims about that structure. The paper departs from the Brentanian and Husserlian ‘priority of presentation claim’. The PPC comprises two theses: intentional feelings and emotions are founded on presenting acts and intentional feelings and emotions are directed specifically to the value-attributes of the presented objects. The paper then considers two challenges to this claim: the equiprimordial claim and the priority of feeling claim. The EC asserts that the presentational (...) and affective dimensions of intentional feelings and emotions are equiprimordial. I respond to this challenge to the PPC by revising it, claiming instead that the founding relations exist between the presentational and affective senses in an experience whose presenting and affective aspects are equiprimordial. The PFC grants priority to the affective, a grant which presupposes the independence of the affective from the presentational. I argue that the PFC is mistaken, and that the revision of the PPC can handle the examples on which the PFC is based. (shrink)

This work aims to make tense logic a more robust tool for ontologists, philosophers, knowledge engineers and programmers by outlining a fusion of tense logic and ontology of time. In order to make tense logic better understandable, the central formal primitives of standard tense logic are derived as theorems from an informal and intuitive ontology of time. In order to make formulation of temporal propositions easier, temporal operators that were introduced by Georg Henrik von Wright are developed, and mapped to (...) the ontology of time. (shrink)

Contemporary theoretical physics is divided into diversified theories of different phenomena. These are characteristically frameworks for giving mathematical descriptions of perceptions, in the absence of understandable explanations or a unified worldview. This is not an optimal state of affairs, for people by nature desire to understand; this sets a major obstacle for an optimal progress rate of physics, for understandable explanations are more prolific of new predictions and applications than non-understandable explanations. Disunification in physics can be remedied only by discovering (...) an understandable ontology and applying it as the basis of unifying explanations of phenomena that were earlier explained by different theories. Due to disunified physics and the nature of traditional analysis in philosophy, there is no consensus about central concepts such as time, possibility and truth. It is suggested that philosophical analysis would be more prolific of understandable and applicable concepts, were it complemented by a method of unification. (shrink)

We can look at paintings, listen to music, dance, play instruments, and watch movies, on our own almost anytime, anywhere. That is, we have effortless, on-demand access to an abundance of private aesthetic experiences. Why, then, do we seek out aesthetic experiences together? Indeed, it is not controversial to claim that listening to music, dancing, and watching films are activities that we do together more so than we do on our own. While the significance of interpersonal aesthetic experiences, and what (...) explains that significance, is not uncharted territory, I claim that more precision regarding the kinds of relations and interactions that modulate and enable different kinds of interpersonal aesthetic experiences is warranted than is offered in extant literature. As such, an enactive approach that not only foregrounds embodiment and intersubjectivity in cognition, but duly explains how variations in them cause variations in cognition, is paramount to my explanation. Here, then, I marshal three ‘varieties’ of interpersonal aesthetic experience that I term aggregative, synchronised, and shared aesthetic experiences. In doing so, I explain what makes them particularly worthwhile, while introducing terminological and explanatory clarity to the literature as a unifying base from which future research can unfold. (shrink)

This paper explores two perspectives in Husserl's recently published writings on ethics and axiology in order to sketch anew a phenomenological account of practical reason. The paper aims a) to show that a phenomenological account of moral intentionality i) transcends the disputes between intellectualist-emotivist and intellectualist-voluntarist disputes and ii) points toward a position in which practical reason has an emotive content or, conversely, the emotions have a cognitive content, and the paper aims b) to show that a phenomenological ethics identifies (...) universal human goods that are, nevertheless, specified differently in varying cultural contexts. (shrink)

These are the proceedings of Physics and Reality 2024, International Conference on Philosophy of Physics, held at University of Helsinki, Finland, 4-6 June 2024. -/- The conference was organised by the research project Appearance and Reality in Physics and Beyond that started in June 2023. The project is located in the Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies, University of Helsinki. -/- The conference explored central themes in philosophy of physics, including interpretations of quantum theory, geometric vs. dynamic approaches to (...) relativistic phenomena, the project of unifying quantum theory and general relativity, and extending quantum theory to new domains. The conference provided a platform for representing well-informed novel ideas, which are needed as the theoretical foundations of physics are not ready. Moreover, it is to be noted that the greatest 20th century philosophers of science —Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend— reminded us that rival theories are needed to fully understand the weaknesses of a paradigmatic theory. -/- Altogether 18 articles are included in the proceedings. Their authors and titles, the members of the organizing and program committees, and the peer reviewers are listed below. -/- Helsinki, January 17, 2025 Avril Styrman, Paavo Pylkkänen and Saara Wuokko Editors -/- Cosmology and Relativistic Phenomena -/- Martín López-Corredoira. Alternative cosmologies Karen Crowther. On the Motivations for Seeking a Theory of Quantum Gravity Tuomo Suntola. The Dynamic Universe Avril Styrman. Evaluation of Theories and Methodologies: Relativistic Physics vs. the Dynamic Universe — With Remarks from Physics and Reality 2024 and Cosmology on Small Scales 2024 Conferences Tarja Kallio-Tamminen. Beyond wave-particle dualism: How Suntola's mass-wave concept unites physics and metaphysics Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila. A Neo-Aristotelian Approach to a Unified Theory of Physics Michal Křížek. Infrared measurements of the JWST suggest that our dynamic universe is spatially closed Álvaro Mozota Frauca. Quantum Cosmology and the Age of the Universe William Mark Stuckey and Michael Silberstein. Unifying Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics via Adynamical Global Constraints Michal Křížek and Václav Vavryčuk. Twin paradox in accelerated systems and the Equivalence Principle Enrico Maresca. Noncommutative Geometry and Spacetime: A Historical Reconstruction -/- Quantum Perspectives, Scientific Metaphysics, and Free Will -/- Vikram Athalye. Unifying Perspectives: All-encompassing Reality vs. All-inclusive Physics Paavo Pylkkänen. Was David Bohm a Wave Function Realist? Cristi Stoica. Structural Realism and the underdetermination of the physical meaning Maria Luisa Chiofalo. Quantum Toolbox for Neurobiology Sensory Systems Hans Liljenström. Can physics and neuroscience allow for free will? Alessandra Pulga. A Framework for Free Will within a Quantum Universe Kiran Pala and S Shalu. A Quantum Paradigm in Conscious Experience and Cognitive Process -/- Organizing committee -/- Paavo Pylkkänen, University of Helsinki (chair) Avril Styrman, University of Helsinki (vice-chair) Saara Wuokko, University of Helsinki (conference manager) -/- Program committee -/- Chris Fuchs, University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA Albert Solé, University of Barcelona, ES Marilu Chiofalo, University of Pisa, IT Bert Kappen, Radboud University, NL Paavo Pylkkänen, University of Helsinki, FI (chair) Avril Styrman, University of Helsinki, FI Saara Wuokko, University of Helsinki, FI -/- Peer reviewers -/- Vikram Athalye, Cummins College Pune, IN Jerome Busemeyer, Indiana University, USA Marilu Chiofalo, University of Pisa, IT Karen Crowther, University of Oslo, NO Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson, University of Helsinki, FI Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila, Aalto University, FI Tarja Kallio-Tamminen, Physics Foundations Society, FI Michal Křı́žek, Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ Petri Lievonen, Screen io, FI Martı́n López-Corredoira, Instituto de Astrofı́sica de Canarias, ES Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, University of California, US Prakash Mondal, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, IN Ilkka Pättiniemi, Helsinki Circle, FI Paavo Pylkkänen, University of Helsinki, FI Heikki Sipilä, Physics Foundations Society, FI Avril Styrman, University of Helsinki, FI Tuomo Suntola, Physics Foundations Society, FI Václav Vavryčuk, Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ. (shrink)

In reworking his Logical Investigations Husserl adopts two positions that were not actually incorporated into later editions of the Investigations but do appear in other writings: a new distinction between signitive and significative intentions, and the claim that even naming and perceiving acts are categorially formed. This paper investigates Husserl's notion of noematic sense and the pure grammatical ' categories ' intimated therein in order to shed light on these new positions. The paper argues that the development of the theories (...) of the noema and of pure grammar allows us to recognize how even merely perceived or named things have a certain categoriality belonging to them, but that this development also requires us to distinguish between an anticipatory categoriality and an articulated categoriality. (shrink)

This article poses a challenge to contemporary theories in psychology that portray empathy as a negative force in the moral life. Instead, drawing on alternative psychological and philosophical literature, especially Martha Nussbaum, I argue that empathy is related to the virtue of compassion and therefore crucial for moral action. Evidence for evolutionary anthropological accounts of compassion in early hominins provides additional arguments for its positive value in deep human history. I discuss this work alongside Thomistic notions of practical wisdom, compassion, (...) misericordia, and the importance of reason in the moral life. The tension between “bottom up” accounts of empathy and that according to a theological interpretation of “infused” virtues also needs to be addressed. From a secular perspective, infused virtue is a projection of the ideal moral life, but from a theological perspective, it is a way of understanding how human capacities through the action of grace can reach beyond what seem to be the limits of psychological moral identity. (shrink)

Philosophers contributing new ideas are commonly caught within a received philosophical vocabulary and will often coin new, technical terms. Husserl understood himself as advancing a new theory of intentionality, and he fashioned the new vocabulary of `noesis' and `noema'. But Husserl's own statements regarding the noema are ambiguous. Hence, it is no surprise that controversy has ensued. The articles in this book elucidate and clarify the notion of the noema; the book includes articles which phenomenologically describe and analyze the noemata (...) of various experiences as well as articles which undertake the `metaphenomenological' explication of the doctrine of the noema. These two enterprises cannot be isolated from one another. Any analysis of the noema of a particular type of experience will necessarily illustrate, at least by instantiating the general notion of noema. And any metaphenomenological account of the noema itself will guide particular researches into the noemata of particular experiences. (shrink)

Finding a way to come to terms with the disvalues in the evolutionary world is a particular challenge in the light of Neo‐Darwinian theories. In this article I trace the shift in Christopher Southgate's work from a focus on theodicy to a theologian of glory. I am critical of his rejection of the tradition of the Fall, his incorporation of disvalues into the work of divine Glory, and the specific theological weight given to scientific content. I offer a critique of (...) Holmes Rolston III's approach to the valuation of nature that I believe has influenced Southgate's theology. Constructively, I offer an alternative that seeks to recover an understanding of the origin of evil and the Adamic event that draws on the work of Paul Ricoeur. I also draw on the work of anthropologist Tim Ingold for an alternative philosophical approach to evolution which opens up a space for a recovery of the concepts of creaturely Sophia and shadow Sophia in the work of Sergius Bulgakov. (shrink)

Dennett’s contrast between auto- and hetero-phenomenology is badly drawn, primarily because Dennett identifies phenomenologists as introspective psychologists. The contrast I draw between phenomenology and hetero-phenomenology is not in terms of the difference between a first-person, introspective perspective and a third-person perspective but rather in terms of the difference between two third-person accounts – a descriptive phenomenology and an explanatory psychology – both of which take the first-person perspective into account.

When a young boy playing in a wooded area, I tripped over exposed roots extending from the trunk of a tree. I threw my arms out in front of me to break my fall and disturbed a nest of bees. As I lay on the ground, I was repeatedly stung by bees until I could regain my feet and run away. Frightened and in a great deal of pain - that is what I remember most vividly - I walked home. (...) My mother took me to the doctor, who undoubtedly gave me some sort of treatment and medication, but this has been lost to memory. The part of the visit to the doctor's office that I remember is his removing any stingers remaining in me; this too I remember for its pain. The doctor counted more than seventy stings. Although the exact number escapes memory, I believe it was seventy-one. In brief, the descriptive details of the day's experiences elude memory, but the affective dimension - the pain and fear - does not. (shrink)

John Drummond; Foucault for Students of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 34, Issue 4, 7 March 2003, Pages 709–719, https://doi.org/10.1111/.

This paper explores the emergence of the distinctions between the transcendental and the psychological and, correlatively, between phenomenology and psychology that emerge in The Idea of Phenomenology. It is argued that this first attempt to draw these distinctions reveals that the conception of transcendental phenomenology remains infected by elements of the earlier conception of descriptive psychology and that only later does Husserl move to a more adequate—but perhaps not yet fully purified—conception of the transcendental.

This article introduces finitist set theory (FST) and shows how it can be applied in modeling finite nested structures. Mereology is a straightforward foundation for transitive chains of part-whole relations between individuals but is incapable of modeling antitransitive chains. Traditional set theories are capable of modeling transitive and antitransitive chains of relations, but due to their function as foundations of mathematics they come with features that make them unnecessarily difficult in modeling finite structures. FST has been designed to function as (...) a practical tool in modeling transitive and antitransitive chains of relations without suffering from difficulties of traditional set theories, and a major portion of the functionality of discrete mereology can be incorporated in FST. This makes FST a viable collection theory in ontological modeling. (shrink)

The General Theory of Relativity (GR) and the Dynamic Universe (DU) are evaluated in how they explain frequencies of atomic clocks. DU and GR predict the frequencies with equal accuracy, but their explanations, the postulates they apply in the explanations and the word-views that come along with them are entirely different. The central argument is that if unified and under- standable physics is appreciated, then DU deserves to be taken as a viable alternative to GR. In GR different frequencies of (...) identical atomic clocks are explained by letting rates of the flow of time in their frames of reference vary as functions of the clocks’ states of motion and gravitation. The GR- based world-view is nonunderstandable because GR violates absolute simultaneity, and disunified because quantum mechanics is built on different postulates than GR. In DU different frequencies of identical atomic clocks are explained by letting their frequencies vary as functions of their states of motion and gravitation. As DU commits to absolute simultaneity and as the postulates of DU suffice as the ontological ground of quantum mechanics at least partially, DU provides an under- standable and unified scientific world-view. -/- Résumé: La théorie de la relativité générale (RG) et de l’univers dynamique (UD) sont évalués sur la fac ̧on dont ils expliquent les fréquences des horloges atomiques. La RG et l’UD prédisent les fréquences avec une précision égale, mais leurs explications, les postulats qu’ils appliquent aux explications et les visions du monde qui les accompagnent sont entie`rement différents. L’argument central est que si l’on reconnaˆıt la physique unifiée et compréhensible, alors l’UD mérite d’ être considéré comme une alternative viable à la RG. En RG, différentes fréquences d’horloges atomiques identiques sont expliquées en faisant varier les vitesses de l’écoulement du temps dans leurs cadres de référence en fonction des états de mouvement et de la gravitation des horloges. La vue du monde basée sur la RG est incompréhensible parce que la RG viole la simultanéité absolue, et est désunifiée parce que la mécanique quantique est construite sur des postulats différents de ceux de la RG. Dans l’UD, différentes fréquences d’horloges atomiques identiques sont expliquées en laissant leurs fréquences varier en fonction de leurs états de mouvement et de gravitation. Comme l’UD s’engage à la simultanéité absolue et que les postulats de l’UD suffisent, au moins en partie, comme fondements ontologiques de la mécanique quantique, l’UD fournit une vision du monde scientifique compréhensible et unifiée. (shrink)

From a position informed by the philosophical legacy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this paper examines the idea of ‘care’ in nursing theory and philosophy. Deleuze and Guattari make a distinction between, on the one hand, ‘concepts’, which are the proper domain of philosophy and, on the other, ‘functives’ which are the domain of science and all other empirical matters. At first blush, this distinction and use of the word concept appears rather odd, but Deleuze and Guattari hold it (...) to be important for reasons that go beyond the acknowledged and obvious differences between philosophy and science. In Deleuzian terms, a ‘functive’ is any proposition that makes a verifiable truth-claim about actual states of affairs, whereas a ‘concept’ is a philosophical tool that, although it is used in statements that make claims and that seek to affect our thinking on states of affairs, is not a representation of them in any verifiable (functive) sense. In this respect, philosophical concepts, and the statements in which they are used, are neither true nor false. I argue that the way in which the word ‘care’ is used in much nursing theory and philosophy conflates concept (neither true nor false) with functive (either true or false) with less than productive results. I seek to persuade that if we can gain more clarity between the use of care as a would-be functive and its use as a philosophical concept, this would strengthen the purpose of the use of the idea of care in nursing theory. This is to say that I take the view that the role of ‘care’ as a philosophical concept is to be used in statements that ‘think the event’ called nursing; that seek to be ‘worthy of the event’, but without being an actual part of the event. Finally, I show how the concept of care in nursing philosophy has been, and can continue to be, reworked to achieve the permanent task of surveying the ever-shifting planes of the event and how it is described. (shrink)