Why did Hume drop sympathy as a key concept of his moral philosophy, and why—on the other hand—did Smith make it into the ‘didactic principle’ of his Theory of Moral Sentiments? These questions confront us with the basic issue of ethical theory concerning human nature. My point in dealing with these questions is to show what views of human nature their respective choices involved. And my procedure will be to take a close look at the revisions they made to their (...) ethical theories to bring out the contrasting aspects of their views of human nature. (shrink)

A Buddhist philosopher on monotheism; text, translation with critical introduction of Nāgārjuna's Īśvarakartṛtva-nirākṛtiḥ-viṣṇoḥ-ekakartṛtva-nirākaraṇa.--History of materialism in India.--Theory of poetry in India.--Scientific achievements of ancient India.--Establishment of the existence of other minds; free translation of Dharmakīrti's Santānāntara-siddhi with Vinītadeva's Santānāntara-siddhi-ṭīkā.

Upshot: In this response, I address the points raised in the commentaries, in particular those related to the scalability and robustness of the mechanism CALM, to its relation with the CAES architecture, and to the transition from sensorimotor to symbolic.

Open peer commentary on the article “Ontology, Reality and Construction in Niklas Luhmann’s Theory” by Krzysztof C. Matuszek. Upshot: The question of whether contingency can be limited concerns the foundations of sociological systems theory as a theory of cognition. This commentary argues that while such limits may seem plausible and apparent at first, they would consequentially give rise to an ontological notion of society within society. Rather, the commentary proposes to understand the limits identified in the target article as social (...) functions structuring expectations in situations of double contingency. (shrink)