Review of Claire Rydell Arcenas’s America’s Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2023).

A review of John Colman’s recent book Everyone Orthodox to Themselves: John Locke and His American Students on Religion and Liberal Society (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2023).

Sedlakova and Trachsel (2023) discuss the ethical concerns associated with employing what they term conversational artificial intelligence as therapist substitutes. Given their apprehensions, they...

Religion was an important subject of Dilthey's philosophical reflections. In this essay, I examine this largely untouched thematic area, focusing in particular on one period in his career. My thesis is that the core of Dilthey's philosophy of religion is what I call the "immanence thesis." This is a claim that Dilthey employs in interpreting various phenomena of religious life. Dilthey's view is that religious myths and symbols are ways of articulating the immanent "meaning" or "sense" of historical life. This (...) thesis ties various strands in Dilthey's philosophy of religion into a coherent whole. (shrink)

The term qittīer designates the act of burning the food offerings, the 'iššîm, within the ritual sequence of all three types of sacrifice, the zébach, the ōlāh, and the minchāh. Incense is not an 'iššeh substance and is never associated with this piel conjugation. Qittēr appears to have been limited to intransitive use, while the synonyms hiqtîr and heelāh were used predominantly in transitive constructions. By the exilic or post-exilic period, hiqtîr seems to have become the preferred form for intransitive (...) use as well, supplanting qittēr completely. The term has no overtones of illegitimacy, as commonly presumed. (shrink)

Some proponents of mechanistic explanation downplay the significance of how-possibly explanations. We argue that developing accounts of mechanisms that could explain a phenomenon is an important aspect of scientific reasoning, one that involves imagination. Although appeals to imagination may seem to obscure the process of reasoning, we illustrate how, by examining diagrams we can gain insights into the construction of mechanistic explanations.

Bloch's Teppich : an initial approach -- On the genealogy of the Teppich metaphor before Bloch -- The conceptual constellation of Bloch's musical philosophy -- Entering Bloch's musical system -- Wagner's animal lyricism -- Bloch's vision of the armored men, or the limits of enlightenment -- The achievement of symphonic authenticity -- Epilogue : an atheism of presence and absence.

The article scrutinises the semantics of canonical property designators of the forms ‘the property of being F’ and ‘F-ness’. First it is argued that, as their form suggests, the former are definite definitions, albeit of a special sort. Secondly, the prima facie plausible classification of the latter as proper names (which is often met in philosophical writings) is rejected. The semantics of such terms is developed and it is shown how its proper understanding yields important consequences about the concepts expressed (...) by these terms. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Berkeley's American Sojourn".

Bioconvergence is a growing area within the evolving bioeconomy that seeks out synergistic opportunities at the intersection of engineering and the life sciences (Greenbaum 2023). One example is th...

Le Manifeste du rio Negro (in Journal du rio Negro, 1978-2014) est l’un des premiers textes majeurs publiés en France au sujet de l’art écologique. Quoique d’un impact limité lors de sa diffusion, il est désormais repris et commenté par les acteurs de l’art contemporain. Dans ce texte, Pierre Restany s’inquiète de la relation art-nature, une fois n’est pas coutume. À partir de notre lecture de son journal, nous interrogeons les gestes des successeurs de Restany. Depuis l’émergence de l’art écologique, (...) plusieurs éléments constitutifs participent à définir la critique de cet art. Quels sont les modes d’appréciation privilégiés par les critiques? Sur quels critères fondent-ils leurs évaluations des œuvres? (shrink)

Challenging the assumption that that the capitalist transformation includes a radical break with the past, this edited volume traces how historically older forms of social inequality are transformed but persist in the present to shape the social structure of contemporary societies in the global South. Each society comprises an interpretation of itself - including the meaning of life, the concept of a human being and the notion of a collective. This volume studies the interpretation that various societies have of themselves. (...) This interpretation is referred to as social ontology. All chapters of the edited volume focus on the relation between social ontology and structures of inequality. They argue that each society comprises several historical layers of social ontology that correspond to layers of inequality, which are referred to as sociocultures. Thereby, the volume explains why and how structures of inequality differ between contemporary collectives in the global South, even though all of them seem to have similar structures, institutions, and economies. The volume is aimed at academics, students and the interested public looking for a novel theorization of social inequality pertaining to collectives in the global South. (shrink)

Any comprehensive theory of smell must account for (1) the distal nature of smells, (2) how smells are represented within odorous experiences, and (3) the olfactory quality of smells. Molecular Structure Theory (MST) and more recent developments arguably provide an account of these questions. It has been argued that we can account for (3) olfactory quality in light of the molecular structure of chemical compounds that compose the odorant plumes which we perceive as (1) distal mereological complex perduring objects within (...) smellscapes. Additionally it has been argued that olfactory perceptual and cognitive processing implements (2) a non-conceptual representational system that is incompatible with the compositional format employed by semantic processing systems. The theory I have been developing generates a comprehensive account of smell by treating these as nested issues inherent in for the nature of smell (Young, 2016, 2019a-d, 2020). However, the chapter assesses the adequacy of my theory by addressing recent criticisms of MST’s account of olfactory quality (Barwich 2014, 2015; Keller 2015, 2017), the need for positing odor objects (Barwich 2019), and a possible incompatibility between my account of synchronic odor perception in MST and more recent developments focusing on the diachronic experiences of smellscapes. (shrink)

Advirtiendo la relevancia del concepto de salud psíquica, se propone una definición formal del mismo, fundamentada en la filosofía de santo Tomás de Aquino. Se comprende, así, como una disposición aptitudinal ordenada del apetito sensitivo, como parte en cuanto parte de la operación voluntaria. Tal definición permite comprender la salud psíquica en su especificidad, como perfección de la dimensión sensible superior, distinguiéndola, por un lado, de la salud corpórea y, por otro, de la virtud. A la vez, ella permite establecer (...) un diálogo fecundo con tales realidades en orden a alcanzar la madurez humana. (shrink)

This book, originally published in 1965, discusses the political implication of the spread of science in antiquity. It reveals how the real Greek spirit of scientific research was crushed by Plato and Aristotle, long thought-of as searchers for truth. Historian such as Polybius and Livey and the poets Pinder and Virgil are seen in a new light when set against this background of social struggle.

Readers of Ethics, Place & Environment will notice at least one major change in this inaugural 2011 issue. Namely, we are no longer operating under the same name. At the Eastern Division American P...

This article analyzes the decentralization/participation program implemented by the Frente Amplio in the municipal government of Montevideo. Based on original surveys, interviews, and direct observation, the article argues that the DP program contributed to improvements in city services by providing the government with better information about citizens' needs and preferences, but failed to boost civic engagement among city residents because the channels of participation offered did not convince average citizens that their input in public forums would have a significant impact (...) on governmental decisions. (shrink)

This article aims to stimulate dispute about the justification of Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic reading of John Rawls. Offering a close, methodically point-for-point textual engagement, I shall propose that Ricœur’s misreading of certain hermeneutic circularities in Rawls is owed to some confusion about the role of the procedural nature of Rawls’ theory. Generally speaking, the problems with Ricœur’s interpretations center on the question of whether there is something “pre-understood” within the formal theoretical understanding of the procedural theory of justice and the (...) substantive convictions and judgments that figure within the reflective equilibrium of deliberations about the terms of justice. Arguably, Ricœur has not made a satisfactory case that the difference and liberty principles are considered convictions that anticipate their discovery and establishment. Ultimately, Ricœur has not demonstrated that there is a single presuppositional form that renders Rawls’ procedure self-defeating. Instead, he has proposed to us several potential forms of damaging presupposition, each of which is based on a questionable reading of Rawls’ text. (shrink)

Deirdre McCloskey is rightly one of the most recognizable names in economics. She views economics as a language that uses all the rhetorical devices of everyday conversation and therefore it should be judged by aesthetic and literary standards and not the criteria of mathematical rigor that is espoused by the mainstream. This controversial standpoint has been hugely influential and this examination of the methodological and philosophical consequences of her work is overdue, and very welcome.

in peirce and religion: Knowledge, Transformation, and the Reality of God, Roger Ward argues that the founder of American pragmatism was a rather traditional Trinitarian Christian throughout his entire life. Such an argument is notable because scholarship on Peirce often underplays the philosopher’s comments about religion while emphasizing his work on logic, mathematics, and other non-religious philosophical topics. Those who take his views on religion seriously tend to interpret Peirce more radically than Ward, placing Peirce’s philosophy of religion and personal (...) theological beliefs in line with modern trends that are critical of traditional forms of Christianity. The argument in Ward’s book stands out against... (shrink)