I argue that naturalistic pictures provide a guide and a justification for our concept of colour. The crucial relation between pictures and colours is to be brought out, not by reference to the ‘internal’ relations between colours (for example, what differentiates green from red), but by considering how colours are differentiated from the wider range of visually discriminable qualities. Naturalistic pictures effect such a differentiation by simulating colour-like qualities such as gold, amber, and blond, while requiring nothing beyond the three-dimensional (...) manifold of colour space. The seeming simplicity and salience of colour in our visual experience should be recognized as depending on our familiarity with this reductive power of naturalistic pictures. While some sense of these issues has been given expression by many thinkers, the idea is significantly articulated in remarks of Wittgenstein's that were prompted by his reading of a letter the painter Runge wrote to Goethe. (shrink)

This book argues that Kierkegaard, influenced by Kant's critique of metaphysics, did not attempt to integrate human and divine agencies in any speculative theory. Instead, Kierkegaard deploys them to encourage different passions and dispositions that can be integrated in a coherent human life.

Throughout history, humans have always indulged in certain irrationalities and held some fairly wrong-headed beliefs. But in his newest book, philosopher Lee McIntyre shows how we've now reached a watershed moment for ignorance in the modern era, due to the volume of misinformation, the speed with which it can be digitally disseminated, and the savvy exploitation of our cognitive weaknesses by those who wish to advance their ideological agendas. In _Respecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age_, McIntyre issues a (...) call to fight back against this slide into the witless abyss. In the tradition of Galileo, the author champions the importance of using tested scientific methods for arriving at true beliefs, and shows how our future survival is dependent on a more widespread, reasonable world. (shrink)

What aspects of philosophical style really count? What aspects of philosophical writing count only as matters of style? Some features of philosophical writing and talking do seem to be of merely ornamental significance, worthy subjects only of gossip or banter. We are familiar with the academic sneer with which poor Professor Kluck is charged with having “somehow managed to confuse” one thing with another. A more serious stylistic matter, of course, would be Professor Kluck’s own willingness to use the apparatus (...) of modal logic in his pathetic endeavors. Or is that a matter of style? If so, does the same concept apply to such amusing and affective phenomena as accent and cadence? We have heard Professor Chisholm’s rising terminal voice inflection, if only because it is so widely imitated. One thinks of Professor Earle’s favorite condemnation “boring” pronounced with an “o” which seems to touch base on every vowel sound known to man. We are impressed by Goodman’s pithiness, and we register his penchant for alliterative triples. We compare Bergmann’s Laocöonian baroque prose with Quine’s soothing urbanity. It is an interesting fact that these are the features which come to mind when we begin to consider the whole question of philosophical style. Have we so internalized the parts that really count that they seem “white,” neutral, style-free? There might well be historical factors which encourage such blindness. Varying degrees of lingering transcendentalism about philosophical method would not be easily reconciled with the awful idea that one is merely speaking a local dialect. Of course the transcendentalism itself is rarely owned up to as such, as if it is assumed that it is Reason which speaks but that it is in poor taste to say so. Alternative methods, when confronted, generate distaste, horror, or the head-shaking sort of wonderment of the Eighteenth Century Parisian who wondered how on earth anyone could be a Persian. (shrink)

Hospitalized patients lacking the mental capacity to consent to treatment may demand to be discharged from the hospital against medical advice. Forced custody of these patients, including the use of restraints, may be required if the plan is to proceed with treatment. This raises ethical concerns with regard to depriving people of their liberty. The determination of the wishes and values of the patient and her best interests may sometimes vary, depending on the assessor or the clinical team entrusted to (...) perform the evaluation. We therefore propose the following triad for clinicians when determining the best interests for this group of patients to ensure ethical and legal soundness as well as in providing consistency in approach. Firstly, the treatment should serve as a rescue response. Secondly, any restraint deployed must be proportionate with a foreseeable end. Her liberty and autonomy interests should be enhanced by the treatment. Thirdly, the patient’s family must be supportive. This paper analyzes the use of the triad approach on two clinical cases, both assessed as lacking in mental capacity to decide on treatment and insisting to be discharged. Using this approach, we could justify how the contrasting outcomes, one in which the voluntary discharge was acquiesced versus the other, which was not acquiesced, were reached. We also examine the compatibility of the triad approach with the obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). (shrink)

The most famous korean Poet Jiha Kim had turned toward the thoughts for life in the beginning of eighties in Korea. I will here introduce the causes and the basis of his thoughts. It has been recognized already that Korean traditional philosophy of DongHak (the learning in the East Asia) and the western philosophies, ie the theology of liberation, the philosophy of Bergson or Deleuze had influenced much to his thoughts for life. But the most determinate basis of his thoughts, (...) I think is the experiences in the movements for democracy in Korea. His thoughts represent the dear believes which the mass have won since the seventies.These believes resides in the not exhausting life powers of the Minjung (Peoples repressed and alienated). His thoughts has succeed to the modern philosophy of democratic resistance but also criticised the severe problems of modern philosophies. After the democratic movement in Korea there has taken place the cultural revolution movements in Korea by new generations, which can not be adjoined to the previous democratic movements without the thoughts for life of Jiha Kim. (shrink)

The structure and the energies are mutually relevant, in that each makes the other determinate. Without the social energies, the political forms of democracy are abstract and indeterminate; they lose their reference to the individual society, and there is left a structure which might be exemplified in any number of states, in any number of different ways. But in relation to the energies, the determinable structures become individualized, determinate forms. Conversely, apart from structure, the energies are indeterminate. Thus we say (...) of a man that his originality or ambition took a certain form. His creative powers found an outlet in science or in art; his ambition was channelled in a political career, or he became a business executive. Because of the mutual determination of structure and energies, the existent is an individual, and acts as a unit. (shrink)

Kant's transcendental deduction yields twelve and only twelve categories, but behind the argument lie two assumptions: 1) newtonian physics gives unalterable and certain knowledge of phenomena; 2) the subject-predicate logic is the correct tool for the analysis of knowledge. this article examines the place of both assumptions in kant's doctrine and the relevance of each today. both assumptions must be discarded, and with them goes the rigidity of the categories; but the article shows how kant's important insights into the place (...) of the categories in knowledge can be salvaged. (shrink)

Education and the support for creativity are some of the functions of the new medias. The users utilize a lot of e-tools to create products with varying art quality. Because of this new ability to create they, fallaciously, consider themselves – from their new positions of becoming artists - having also become art critics but they fail to understand the complexity of creative process. We intend to exemplify with the art of the American painter Cy Twombly, that some works of (...) art which seem to be easy to copy and therefore not worth enough are in fact a result of the author´s erudition, talent, diligence and clear intention. Twombly´s works are connected with topics such as sigh, ability to decipher, Apollonian and Dionysian principles and the dichotomy Eros/Thanatos. We will present the artist's original non-copiable way of taking inspiration from classical mytological stories and some interpretative approaches. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The Don W. Davis Program in Ethical Leadership is seeking manuscripts for the “Challenges to Digital Media Flourishing” symposium. Submission deadline is 15 April 2024.[Exact Symposium dates to be...

In this article, I describe my experience of preparing and delivering a brand new computing undergraduate course in a new university and in doing so, share how the special institutional push of the active learning pedagogy of the university changed the way I prepared and delivered the course, and ended up transforming my own view of teaching. I was faced with an unusual cohort of students who were already familiar with active learning styles in classes, were proactive, vocal, and argumentative, (...) were not afraid of making mistakes and of challenging the authorities, were extremely articulate expressing themselves and who had worked in a project- and team-based setting throughout the programme. As such, a very different method of teaching needed to be in place, not for the purpose of improving the in-class engagement, but out of necessity. In the process of creating and running this course, I witnessed a major shift in the allocation of my time, efforts and other resources: from general to specific, from teaching to advising to observing, from elaborate preclass preparations to impromptu, in-class discussions, thus bringing all my design skills and experiences to the table. (shrink)

An interdisciplinary study of postmodern ethics and literary criticism from the perspective of Chan/Seon/Zen Buddhism, this book combines the tradition of Western metaphysics and its contact with Asian thought, contemporary Western thought, Buddhism, Taoism, and literary criticism.