The author’s perspective in this text comes from the field of the political phenomenology. In his view, tolerance has preserved its actuality, both from a moral point of view and from a political one. After a preliminary discussion of Locke’s basic texts concern- ing tolerance, the author takes into consideration the recent thoughts of the contemporary Italian philoso- pher Norberto Bobbio, who understands the idea of tolerance as the basic principle of free and peaceful life. In addition, the author makes (...) applied commentaries at the Romanian context, pleading for the necessity of a responsible approach of the issue. (shrink)

The starting point of the following considerations is the assumption that philosophical communitarian discourse as well the juridical discourse about communitarian rights represent two sides of the same phenomenon. When the European Union was founded, the ideological basis of the liberal democracies, concerning human and individual rights, seemed to be insufficient. Therefore we need to return to the communitarian elements of culture and tradition that will ensure real autonomy.

This paper argues, first, that one can render Protagoras’s view on the teach ability of political virtue coherent by distinguishing between the affect required for achieving it and the capacity for developing these affect into fully fledged virtues. Second, the paper argues that by focusing on Books II - III of the Republic one might see an affinity between between Protagoras’s suggestion that virtuous citizens might give advice, without ruling it, in the affairs of the city and Plato’s conservative practical (...) political theory. (shrink)

This paper has two aims: to show the affinities between Schopenhauer’s and Spinoza’s ethics and ontology, and to show that Spinoza’s position, where it is in conflict with it, is superior to Schopenhauer’s. The main focus is on Schopenhauer’s attacks on the affirmation of the will-to-live. It is argued that these attacks are not even convincing in terms of what he says about “better knowledge”, namely, that they are valid only against vulgar forms of affirmations of the Will. Also, it (...) is argued that Schopenhauer’s attacks on Spinoza do not carry much weight. For, they are either the result of misunderstandings or, when they are not, they are based on assumptions rejected by Spinoza himself. In conclusion, it is claimed that Schopenhauer’s synthesis of Plato’s, Kant’s and Hindu philosophy into a “single thought” is neither as original nor as convincing as he took it to be. (shrink)

There are three major themes in the dialogue thought to be Plato’s Statesman: the nature of statesmanship, the difference between perfect and less than perfect regimes and the method of division. In this paper I focus on the first two themes. I argue, first, that the dialogue makes a plausible case for what it takes to be a wise statesman. In doing so, I play down the importance of the second theme: the difference between regimes. In fact, I consider this (...) discussion to be deeply flawed and even irrelevant to the argument of the first. My main purpose is to provide a critical analysis of the political theory articulated in the dialogue. My analysis is made plausible by abandoning the traditional view that the Statesman was written Plato in its entirety as a unified whole. In my view, a close reading of the text supports the hypothesis that it is, at best, semi-authentic; namely, that it is most likely a collage of fragments written at different times by Plato and other members of the Academy. (shrink)

New readings and perspectives on Nietzsche's work are brought together in this collection of essays by prominent scholars from North America and Europe. They question whether Nietzsche's work and the conventional interpretation of it is rhetorical and nih.

A number of two-systems accounts have been proposed to explain the apparent discrepancy between infants’ early success in nonverbal mindreading tasks, on the one hand, and the failures of children younger than four to pass verbally-mediated false-belief tasks, on the other. Many of these accounts have not been empirically fruitful. This paper focuses, in contrast, on the two-systems proposal put forward by Ian Apperly and colleagues. This has issued in a number of new findings. The present paper shows that the (...) theoretical arguments offered in support of Apperly’s account are nevertheless unconvincing, and that the data can be explained in other terms. A better view is that there is just a single mindreading system that exists throughout, but which undergoes gradual conceptual enrichment through infancy and childhood. This system can be used in ways that do, or do not, draw on executive resources and/or working memory. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a revival of a theory of conscious emotions as analogous in important ways to perceptual experiences. In the standard versions of this view emotions are construed as, potentially, perceptual disclosures of values. The model has been widely debated and criticized. In this paper I reconstruct an early, qualified version of the perceptual model to be found in the classical phenomenological approaches of Scheler and Sartre. After outlining this version of the theory, I examine its (...) prospects against objections prominent in the current debate. (shrink)

Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwinism reconfigured biological progress as a 'tree of life' (...) with multiple lines of advance not necessarily leading to humans, each driven by the rare innovations that generate entirely new functions. Popular writers such as H. G. Wells used a similar model to depict human progress, with competing technological innovations producing ever-more rapid changes in society. Bowler shows that as the idea of progress has become open-ended and unpredictable, a variety of alternative futures have been imagined. (shrink)

Phenomenal intentionality theories have recently enjoyed significant attention. According to these theories, the intentionality of a mental representation (what it is about) crucially depends on its phenomenal features. We present a new puzzle for these theories, involving a phenomenon called ‘intentional identity’, or ‘co-intentionality’. Co-intentionality is a ubiquitous intentional phenomenon that involves tracking things even when there is no concrete thing being tracked. We suggest that phenomenal intentionality theories need to either develop new uniquely phenomenal resources for handling the puzzle, (...) or restrict their explanatory ambitions. (shrink)

Protochemistry. The Program of a Methodical Foundation of Chemistry. "Protochemistry" - in analogy to protophysics - is sketched as the program of a methodical foundation of chemistry. "Foundation" means to reconstruct the methods (both linguistic and poietic) which lead from the prescientific every-day-practice of mastering properties of substances to scientific theories of modern chemistry. Four types of chemical terms are distinguished, depending on different methods of definition and different areas of reference. Consequences of the program if realized are pointed out.

images. But clearly, it only begs the deeper questions.

This book offers a discussion of practical as well as theoretical autonomy.

ABSTRACTDoes knowledge entail belief? This paper argues that the answer depends on how one interprets ‘belief’. There are two different notions of belief: belief as such and belief for knowledge. They often differ in their degrees of conviction such that one but not both might be present in a particular case. The core of the paper is dedicated to a defense of this overlooked distinction. The beginning of the paper presents the distinction. It then presents two cases which are supposed (...) to back up the claim that there is an important distinction here; I also offer some explanations concerning the structure of these cases. Finally, I add further considerations in support of the core thesis, and discuss objections. The distinction is important as such but also has interesting implications concerning the much discussed ‘entailment thesis’ according to which knowledge entails belief. It is argued here that even if knowledge entails belief-for-knowledge, it does not entail belief-as-such. This constitutes an interesting middle position and compromise in the philosophical debate about the entailment thesis. One further implication of this paper is that the discussion about the entailment thesis needs to take degrees of conviction seriously. Still another implication is that epistemic contextualists can deal very well with the relevant phenomena. (shrink)

Agricultural Enlightenment explores the economic underpinnings of the Enlightenment to argue the case that the expansion of the so-called knowledge economy in the second half of the eighteenth century powerfully influenced governments and all those who worked in agriculture, or who sought to derive profit from the productive use of the land.

The goal of the current paper is to provide an introduction to and survey of the diverse landscape of relevant alternatives theories of knowledge. Emphasis is placed throughout both on the abstractness of the relevant alternatives approach and its amenability to formalization through logical techniques. We present some of the important motivations for adopting the relevant alternatives approach; briefly explore the connections and contrasts between the relevant alternatives approach and related developments in logic, epistemology and philosophy of science; provide a (...) schema for classifying and studying relevant alternatives theories at different levels of abstraction; and present a sample of relevant alternatives theories (contrasting what we call question-first and topic-first theories) that tie our discussion to on-going debates in the philosophical literature, as well as showcasing techniques for formalizing some of the important positions in these debates. (shrink)

The early modern distinction between primary and secondary qualities continues to have a significant impact on the debate about the nature of color. An aspect of this distinction that is still influential is the idea that the mind-independence of color requires that it is a primary quality. Thus, using shape as a paradigm example of a primary quality, a longstanding strategy for determining whether color is mind-independent is to consider whether it is sufficiently similar to shape to be a primary (...) quality. However, I’ll argue that the idea that the mind-independence of color requires that it is a primary quality is mistaken, and that, to the contrary, while color is not a primary quality, it is mind-independent. I’ll propose an alternative understanding of what the mind-independence of color requires. This alternative models color perception on an information filter. According to this model, mental qualities that I’ll call media qualities are involved in color perception. The involvement of mental qualities suggests mind-independence. However, I’ll argue, their involvement is modeled after the qualities of a kind of filter that provides access to, but does not constitute, filtered qualities. (shrink)

I argue that the descriptions of perceptual experience offered by Kant and Merleau-Ponty are, contrary to what many commentators suppose, largely compatible. This is because the two are simply referring to different things when they talk about experience: Kant to empirical cognition and Merleau-Ponty to perception. Consequently, while Merleau-Ponty correctly denies that Kant accurately describes the conditions for the possibility of perception, Kant nevertheless provides a plausible account of the conditions of empirical judgment. Further, the two approach experience with different (...) standards of normativity: Kant with the standard of justification, but Merleau-Ponty with the standard of what he calls “motivation”. I exemplify this approach through an analysis of the Second Analogy of Experience. (shrink)

This is a critique of Nietzsche's theory of culture that proposes an alternative paradigm allowing a defense of the humanities against such Nietzschians as Leo Strauss and Derrida.

This piece offers an edition, translation, and analysis of a newly discovered text by Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, a leading Aristotelian of the Baghdad school in the tenth century. It briefly discusses what Aristotle meant, at the end of the Physics, by saying that the Prime Mover is “in” the outermost heaven. Ibn ʿAdī argues, in part through an exhaustive discussion of the senses of the word “in,” that God is in the sphere only in the sense that an object of (...) intellection is in an intellect. This solution is discussed against the background of ancient commentaries on the same passage. (shrink)

Immunofluorescent labelling demonstrates that human metaphase chromosomes contain hyperacetylated histone H4. With the exception of the inactive X chromosome in female cells, where the bulk of histone H4 is under‐acetylated, H4 hyperacetylation is non‐uniformly distributed along the chromosomes and clustered in cytologically resolvable chromatin domains that correspond, in general, with the R‐bands of conventional staining. The strongest immunolabelling is often found in T‐bands, the subset of intense R‐bands having the highest GC content. The majority of mapped genes also occurs in (...) R‐band regions, with the highest gene density in T‐bands. These observations are consistent with a model in which hyperacetylation of histone H4 marks the position of potentially active gene sequences on metaphase chromosomes. Since acetylation is maintained during mitosis, progeny cells receive an imprint of the histone H4 acetylation pattern that was present on the parental chromosomes before cell division. Histone acetylation could provide a mechanism for propagating cell memory, defined as the maintenance of committed states of gene expression through cell lineages. (shrink)

This paper discusses and criticizes Joseph Nye’s account of soft power. First, we set the stage and make some general remarks about the notion of social power. In the main part of this paper we offer a detailed critical discussion of Nye’s conception of soft power. We conclude that it is too unclear and confused to be of much analytical use. However, despite this failure, Nye is aiming at explaining an important but also neglected form of social power: the power (...) to influence the will and not just the behavior of other agents. In the last part of this paper we briefly discuss Steven Lukes’ alternative view of a “third dimension” of power and end with a sketch of a more promising way to account for this neglected form of power. (shrink)

Fundamental differences between current and past knowledge in the field of biotechnology mean that we now have at our disposal the means to irreversibly change what is meant by ‘human nature’. This paper explores some of the ethical issues that accompany the attempt to increase scientific control over the human genetic code in what amounts to a diminishing of difference and the reduction of human life to scientific explanations at the expense of spiritual, cultural and communal considerations. Within such a (...) limited view, the critical role of education is reduced in favour of promoting psychological efficiency, with the possibility of accelerating learning and increasing intellectual capacity through genetic manipulation. A major concern expressed in the paper is the fine line between corrective therapy and psychological enhancement: Who should be defining the normal range of human difference? And what degree of caution should be required in redesigning future generations? The unknown dangers inherent in the application of genetic technology to human life suggests that current precautions may not go far enough in recognising that education is a contestable field. (shrink)

Few things can be more confusing, or confused, than the ancient reports about Empedocles' astronomy. Attempts in the modern literature at resolving the difficulties invariably either add to the confusion, or end by urging the need to ‘acknowledge the insufficiency of our data and suspend judgment’. In fact, as we will see, it is possible not only to reconstruct Empedocles' own ideas but also to retrace the history of their subsequent misunderstanding.