There is a traditional conception of sensory experience on which the experiences one has looking at, say, a cat could be had by someone merely hallucinating a cat. Disjunctivists take issue with this conception on the grounds that it does not enable us to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. In particular, they think, it does not explain how it can be that experiences gained in perception enable us to be in ‘cognitive contact’ with objects and facts. I develop this (...) chal- lenge to the traditional conception and then show that it is possible to accommo- date an adequate account of cognitive contact in keeping with the traditional conception. One upshot of the discussion is that experiences do not bear the explanatory burden placed upon them by disjunctivists. (shrink)

A growing body of evidence suggests that cognition is embodied and grounded. Abstract concepts, though, remain a significant theoretical chal- lenge. A number of researchers have proposed that language makes an important contribution to our capacity to acquire and employ concepts, particularly abstract ones. In this essay, I critically examine this suggestion and ultimately defend a version of it. I argue that a successful account of how language augments cognition should emphasize its symbolic properties and incorporate a view of embodiment (...) that recognizes the flexible, multi- modal and task-related nature of action, emotion and perception systems. On this view, language is an ontogenetically disruptive cognitive technology that expands our conceptual reach. (shrink)

The relationship between perceptual experience and memory can seem to pose a chal- lenge for conceptualism, the thesis that perceptual experiences require the actualization of conceptual capacities. Since subjects can recall features of past experiences for which they lacked corresponding concepts at the time of the original experience, it would seem that a subject’s conceptual capacities do not impose a limit on what he or she can experience perceptually. But this conclusion ignores the fact that concepts can be composed of (...) other simpler concepts that a subject possessed earlier, and that de- monstrative capacities can explain how a subject can experience a particular feature of her environment, even when she lacks a fully general concept for that feature. Using these resources, conceptualism can explain the relation between perceptual experience and memory. Nevertheless, a puzzle remains for the defender of conceptualism. A cer- tain view about the relation between perceptual experience and mental imagery in epi- sodic memory – that imagery in recall matches the experience retained in it – can make it difficult to understand how conceptualism could be true. For if a subject’s conceptual capacities determine what the phenomenology of an experience (or memory of it) is like, then one would expect a perceptual experience and its recall in memory to differ in phenomenology if they involve different concepts. In this essay, I solve this puzzle for conceptualism by undermining the assumption that there is a match between im- agery in episodic memory and the phenomenal character of experience. (shrink)

Epistemicists claim that vague predicates have precise but unknow- able cutoffs. I argue against against the standard, Williamsonian, answer, that appeals to metalinguistic safety: we can know that p even if our true belief that p is metalinguistically lucky. I then propose that epistemicists should be diagonalized epistemicists and show how this alternative formulation of the view avoids the chal- lenge. However, in an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist, I then argue we should not be diagonalized epistemicists either.

: Liberal rights theory can be used either to challenge or to support social hierarchies of power. Focusing on Ronald Dworkin's theory of rights and Catharine MacKinnon's feminist critique of liberalism, I identify a number of problems with the way that liberal theorists conceptualize rights. I argue that rights can be used to chal-lenge oppressive practices and structures only if they are defined and employed with an awareness and critique of social relations of power.

The theoretical model of landscape that is still widespread is that of a spectacle-image that offers itself to a contemplative, detached and disembodied gaze. Rethinking landscape means investigating the role of the “aesthetic”, i.e. of bodily experience, characterized by sensitivity and movement. This experience, which is fundamentally interactive, has a formative and performative nature: the aisthesis is closely linked to praxis, to the concrete ways in which we re-late to the environment and which become interactive strategies. These strategies can become (...) experiential habits that, if repeated in a mechanical way, can jeopardize the very interaction with the phenomenal world in which we are immersed. We tend to grasp only certain aspects of the phenomena that present themselves to us, over-looking not only the richness and plurality of the phenomenal world, but also its fundamental systemic and relational unity. The possibilities of formative and performative interaction can be grasped if the ordinary and daily level of experience is chal-lenged by sudden and unexpected encounters, which can initially provoke a sense of bewilderment and disorientation. What becomes “present” is the rhythmic unity of the phenomenal world, understood as an energetic momentum that holds together in a dynamic way the different elements of the world we inhabit. Through the con-cept of rhythm elaborated by Henri Maldiney we could advance a new aesthetic model of landscape understood as an actual cosmogenesis. (shrink)

_This study probes into a comparative multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) of two influential Pakistani rap music videos ‘The Sibbi Song’ by Abid Brohi and ‘Karachi Chal’ performed by Young Stunners, a rap duo consisting of Talha Anjum and Talhah Yunus to explore their portrayal of societal hierarchies and individual identity. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of MDA the analysis has discovered the linguistic, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural elements of each video. The first video portrays the protagonist’s journey from innocence (...) to success, while the other highlights urban working-class struggles through nuanced examination. Major findings reveal themes of resilience, social change, and identity negotiation of urban life and cultural expression in Pakistan’s diverse societal fabric which individuals from distinct cultural backgrounds often use to express their norms and values through various forms of visual arts and entertainment. Furthermore, the global phenomenon of rap music has gained significant traction, offering a platform for contemporary rap music artists in Pakistan to articulate their unique identities, confrontations, and triumphs as a cultural shift towards self-expression._. (shrink)

Developing a way to address troublesome issues in areas such as urban planning is a chal-lenging undertaking. It includes making decisions that involve humans, nonhumans, future generations, and historical and cultural artifacts. All of these groups deserve consideration, but not equally. Figuring out how to approach this topic involves overcoming the problem of moral prioritization. The structure of weak anthropocentrism can help with this problem, suggesting that future research on the environmental aspects of metropolitan regions should make use of its (...) applicability. Despite its strengths, weak anthropocentrism must be expanded to address complicated urban issues. A multitiered weak-anthropocentric measure, a “complex moral assessment,” is needed to address these concerns. (shrink)

This work investigates the early encounters of French philosophers and religious thinkers with the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl. Following an introductory chapter addressing context and methodology, Chapter 2 argues that Henri Bergson's insights into lived duration and intuition and Maurice Blondel's genetic description of action functioned as essential precursors to the French reception of phenomenology. Chapter 3 details the presentations of Husserl and his followers by three successive pairs of French academic philosophers: Léon Noël and Victor Delbos, Lev Shestov (...) and Jean Hering, and Bernard Groethuysen and Georges Gurvitch. Chapter 4 then explores the appropriation of Bergsonian and Blondelian phenomenological insights by Catholic theologians Édouard Le Roy and Pierre Rousselot. Chapter 5 examines applications and critiques of phenomenology by French religious philosophers, including Jean Hering, Joseph Maréchal, and neo-Thomists like Jacques Maritain. A concluding chapter expounds the principal finding that philosophical and theological receptions of phenomenology in France prior to 1939 proceeded independently due to differences in how Bergson and Blondel were perceived by French philosophers and religious thinkers and their respective orientations to the Cartesian and Aristotelian/Thomist intellectual traditions. (shrink)

This case (Wilfond, Duenas, and Johnson 2023) asks us to consider the ongoing obligations, if any, for researchers who have enrolled people into clinical trials. This issue can be particularly chal...

Refugee and poverty migration is one of the key challenges developed Western societies are facing. Due to the unstable political situation in many parts of the world and the lasting high differences in development between the economies, these migratory movements will continue to increase in the future. In order to channel immigrants, the authors suggest that migrants must pay an entry premium to obtain a permanent right of residence. We criticize this proposal from both an ethical and an economic perspective. (...) We argue that a pricing system is neither ethically legitimate nor economically sensible. In order to meet the chal- lenges of migration, a fundamental change in economic cooperation between developed and less developed economies is more appropriate. (shrink)

This article tries to explain the foundational entrapment of the logic of modernism, which imprisons interpreters in only one truth. It elucidates a clash between foundationalism and hermeneutics, and offers an alternative to overcome it. This study concludes that foundational textualism (bayani), intuisionism (`irfani), and empericism (burhani) in the history of Islamic thought, claim their own truth. Contemporary chal- lenges presented by post-modernism have shocked social and cultural conventions, systems of belief, statism and foundationalism of thinking, cultures and outlooks, which (...) have been sacralized by Moslem society for long time. In order to look for a way out from this crisis of Islamic thinking, which eventually affects its social praxis, multicultural interpretation should become an alternative for Moslems in promoting Islam as a uni- versal grace for the whole creation. Keywords: Fondasionalisme (foundationalism), hermeneutika (hermeneu- tics), pemikiran Islam (Islamic thought), multikulturalisme (multicul- turalism), interpretasi (interpretation). (shrink)

Mémoire sur Diderot.--Mémoire sur d'Alembert.--Mémoire sur Helvétius.--Mémoire sur le marquis d'Argens.--Mémoire sur Saint-Lambert.--Mémoire sur Naigeon et accessoirement sur Sylvain Maréchal et Delalande.

Is something like a true "philosophy of war"—understood as a coherent system of ideas, or a clearly articulated theoretical posture adequate to fully addressing the enduring chal-lenges of war on a properly philosophical register—at all possible? What follows is an attempt to outline, in four problems, the parameters of any future critique of a philosophy of war: the problem of categories, the problem of representation, the problem of violence, and finally the problem of peace. It is argued that within each (...) horizon delimited by these four problems philosophy encounters a potential limit, one that raises fundamental doubts regarding the cogency of any philosophy of war considered as a systematic enterprise. (shrink)

The main goal of the paper is to investigate the relation between indicative conditionals and rationality. We wil l do this by consider- ing several interpretations of a very wel l-known example of reasoning involving conditionals, that is the Wason selection task, and showing how those interpretations have different bearings on the notion of ra- tionality. In particular, in the first part of the paper, after having briefly presented the selection task, we wil l take a look at two prag- (...) matic responses to the chal lenge posed by the task, through Wason ’s notion of confirmation bias and Grice’s theory of conversational im- plicature. The second part wil l introduce Adams’ probabilistic view of indicative conditionals and wil l give reasons for preferring his account to those aforementioned. The conclusion wil l evaluate the question of human rationality in the light of the new standpoint acquired. -/-. (shrink)

Gaston Fessard (1897-1978) fait partie des penseurs politiques qui se sont livrés à une actualisation de l'antique notion de bien commun. Cette actualisation, qui s'opère au croisement de la philosophie hégélienne et de la théologie chrétienne, confère à la notion de bien commun une fonction à la fois de compréhension historique et de discernement politique. Fessard montre par exemple en quoi la dialectique des catégories du bien commun explique la destinée des sociétés depuis la Révolution française jusqu'au conflit des idéologies (...) qui traversent le XXe siècle.0Il expose également la manière dont la dialectique de ses contenus fournit des critères pour juger du gouvernement de Vichy et fonder une résistance en conscience au pouvoir du maréchal Pétain. Cet ouvrage présente la pensée du bien commun de Fessard à travers ses sources (Thomas d'Aquin, Hegel et Marx) et concepts, son application durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les controverses dans lesquelles elle fut impliquée (avec Kojève et Mounier) ou par rapport auxquelles elle mérite d'être située (querelle du personnalisme).0Il propose aussi une actualisation critique de cette pensée politique, quant au rôle international de l'Eglise ou encore aux exigences de la démocratie. Car Fessard n'invite pas seulement à jeter un regard rétrospectif sur de "sombres temps", mais également à examiner notre propre actualité historique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The winds of change sweeping across our globalised world have inspired a wide range of studies, new research paradigms, and new concepts that seek to characterise their nature and effects, the chal...

methods to improve reinforcement learning are identi ed and discussed in some detail Each demonstrates to some extent the advantages of combining RL and symbolic meth ods These methods point to the potentials and the chal lenges of this line of research..

Contemporary Europe is facing this chal- lenge when redefining its own identity and socializing institutions. This paper focuses on how current discus- sions on the adequacy of a reference to Judeo- Christian heritage in the new European Constitution or on the teaching of religions at schools show the resilience of old-age notions and stereotypes with respect to cultural diversity. In order to explain this resilience, the paper explores how hierarchical percep- tions of otherness (mainly of Muslims) are flourishing within a (...) dichotomized system of representing other- ness. This system is analyzed from the neo- Durkeimian perspective of cultural sociology and placed in connection with the spiritual leadership of fundamentalist conservatism after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the old trend of Orientalism underlying pervading dominant Western discourses. (shrink)

Historical research has ~ecently made it dear that, prior to Austin and. his followers, there was but one author who developed a full-fledged theory of the given sort: the phenomenologist Adolf Reinach (1884-1917).' In his The A Priori I'oundutions of the Ciui/ I aIO, pubhshed. in 1918„' Reinach developed a theory of — 'as he termed them — "social acts*' which is not only on a par with the later speech act theories but in fact surpasses them in.

La meva intenció en les pàgines següents és analitzar la teoria del llenguatge que es troba en el Cràtil de Plató. D'una banda, s'analitza la concepció del significat de les paraules quePlató sembla defensar en aquest diàleg; de l'altra, s'ocupa del problema dels orígens delllenguatge. Aquestes qüestions s'estudien en relació amb la perspectiva ontològica i epistemològicade Plató: essencialisme, teoria de la reminiscència i les tesis dels sofistes sobre laimpossibilitat de parlar amb falsedat. La conclusió és que en el Cràtil podem (...) trobar ja la preparació de la teoria del llenguatge que Plató necessitarà per a la seva ulterior teoria de les idees. (shrink)

Introduction to Sexology [Vvedenie v seksologiiu] by I. S. Kon has finally been published after having made the rounds of publishing houses for many years. This is the first Soviet publication devoted to a description and an analysis of the genesis, development, and state of a new branch of scientific knowledge about man-sexology-which affects every one of us. To be sure, General Sexual Pathology [Obshchaia seksopatologiia], a textbook for physicians edited by G. S. Vasil'chenko, which came out in 1977, has (...) an extensive introductory chapter on sexology, but it is limited to medical problems. Kon's book is an example of an interdisciplinary approach that provides an idea of the most essential components of sexology; it is thus addressed not only to the medical profession, but also to sociologists, philosophers of culture, psychologists, pedagogues, etc. The book takes into account the latest publications in this area of science. (shrink)

Авторами монографии разрабатывается принципиально новый подход к осмыслению природы человеческой телесности с учетом ее свойств как сложного системного феномена и как одной из составляющих самоорганизующейся целостности "человек - мир".