Winner of the 2015 Pierre-Antoine Bernheim Prize for the History of Religion by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-LettresAfter a century during which Confucianism was viewed by academics as a relic of the imperial past or, at best, a philosophical resource, its striking comeback in Chinese society today raises a number of questions about the role that this ancient tradition might play in a contemporary context. The Sage and the People is the first comprehensive enquiry into the "Confucian revival" that (...) began in China during the 2000s. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork carried out over eight years in various parts of the country, it explores the re-appropriation and reinvention of popular practices in fields as diverse as education, self-cultivation, religion, ritual, and politics.The book analyzes the complexity of the "Confucian revival" within the broader context of emerging challenges to such categories as religion, philosophy, and science that prevailed in modernization narratives throughout the last century. Exploring state cults both in Mainland China and Taiwan, authors Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval compare the interplay between politics and religion on the two shores of the Taiwan strait and attempt to shed light on possible future developments of Confucianism in Chinese society. (shrink)

Hoop residuation algebras are the {, 1}-subreducts of hoops; they include Hilbert algebras and the {, 1}-reducts of MV-algebras (also known as Wajsberg algebras). The paper investigates the structure and cardinality of finitely generated free algebras in varieties of k-potent hoop residuation algebras. The assumption of k-potency guarantees local finiteness of the varieties considered. It is shown that the free algebra on n generators in any of these varieties can be represented as a union of n subalgebras, each of which (...) is a copy of the {, 1}-reduct of the same finite MV-algebra, i.e., of the same finite product of linearly ordered (simple) algebras. The cardinality of the product can be determined in principle, and an inclusion-exclusion type argument yields the cardinality of the free algebra. The methods are illustrated by applying them to various cases, both known (varieties generated by a finite linearly ordered Hilbert algebra) and new (residuation reducts of MV-algebras and of hoops). (shrink)

This volume brings together a collection of essays that explore in a new way how unacknowledged moral concerns are integral to debates in the philosophy of mind.The radical suggestion of the book is that we can make sense of the internal dynamics and cultural significance of these debates only when we understand the moral forces that shape them. Drawing inspiration from a variety of traditions including Wittgenstein, Lacan, phenomenology and analytic philosophy, the authors address a wide range of topics including (...) the mind/body-problem, the problem of other minds, subjectivity and objectivity, the debates on mindreading, naturalism, reductive physicalism, representationalism and the ‘E-turn’; Dennett’s heterophenomenology, McDowell’s neo-Kantianism, Wittgenstein’s ‘private language’ considerations and his notion of an ‘attitude towards a soul’; repression, love, conscience, the difficulties of self-understanding, and the methods and aims of philosophy. Through a combination of detailed, immanent criticism and bold constructive work, the authors move the discussion to a new level, beyond humanistic or conservative critiques of naturalism and scientism. (shrink)

This paper represents two polemics. One is against suggestions (made by Harman and others) that recent psychological research counts against any claim that there is such a thing as genuine virtue (Cf. Harman, in: Byrne, Stalnaker, Wedgwood (eds.) Fact and value, pp 117–127, 2001 ). The other is against the view that virtue ethics should be seen as competing against such theories as Kantian ethics or consequentialism, particularly in the specification of decision procedures.

This paper argues that the political adage “Be ye prudent as serpents and guileless as doves” involves three different types of relation between prudence and morality, namely: unification (Vereinigung), subordination (Unterordnung), and association (Beigesellung). I maintain that these relations are set up according to the same principle that determines the relationship between mechanical and teleological causality in the third Critique. Thus, I argue that morality and prudence are much more systematically related within the system of critical philosophy than is normally (...) assumed in the literature and that this is made possible by way of an intimate relationship between prudence and teleological judgment. (shrink)

I examine the warrants we have in light of the empirical successes of a kind of model I call ‘ hybrid models ’, a kind that includes climate models among its members. I argue that these warrants ’ strengths depend on inferential virtues that are not just explanatory virtues, contrary to what would be the case if inference to the best explanation provided the warrants. I also argue that the warrants in question, unlike those IBE provides, guide inferences only to (...) model implications about which there is real uncertainty. My conclusion provides criteria of adequacy for epistemologies of climate and other hybrid models. (shrink)

Like being able to drive a car, being autonomous is a socially attributed, claimed, and contested status. Normative debates about criteria for autonomy (and what autonomy entitles one to) are best understood, not as debates about what autonomy, at core, really is, but rather as debates about the relative merits of various possible packages of thresholds, entitlements, regulations, values, and institutions. Within different “regimes” of autonomy, different criteria for (degrees of) autonomy become authoritative. Neoliberal, solidaristic, and perfectionist regimes entail conflicting (...) understandings of what gets you autonomy and what autonomy gets you—for example, in relation to policies regarding physician-assisted suicide or financial support for senior citizens. In light of this, justifying a particular understanding of autonomy is inseparable from the task of arguing for the context-specific merits of a regime of autonomy as a whole and in relation to other ethical and political commitments. (shrink)

One argument for the thirder position on the Sleeping Beauty problem rests on direct inference from objective probabilities. In this paper, I consider a particularly clear version of this argument by John Pollock and his colleagues (The Oscar Seminar 2008). I argue that such a direct inference is defeated by the fact that Beauty has an equally good reason to conclude on the basis of direct inference that the probability of heads is 1/2. Hence, neither thirders nor halfers can find (...) direct support in an appeal to objective probabilities. (shrink)

FIRST PARAGRAPH I have argued that dispositionalism is incompatible with the Principle of Least Action (PLA) (Katzav 2004). In ‘Katzav on the Limitations of Dispositionalism,’ Brian Ellis responds, arguing that while naïve dispositionalism is incompatible with the PLA, sophisticated dispositionalism is not. Naive dispositionalism, according to Ellis, is the view that the world is ultimately something like a conglomerate of objects and their dispositions, and that, therefore, dispositions are the ultimate ontological units that explain events. Sophisticated dispositionalism, according to Ellis, (...) supposes that, how things are disposed to behave depends also on what kinds of things they are, what kinds of property they have, and how these kinds of things and properties are placed in the natural kinds hierarchies to which they belong (Ellis 2005). Further, it supposes that at the top of each hierarchy of natural kinds there is a global kind. For example, ‘[t]he global natural kind in the category of substance is that of the physical system’ (Ellis 2005). Ellis continues, claiming that the PLA is of the essence of the global kind in the category of objects or substances. If this is so, then, of course, every continuing object must be Lagrangian, i.e. disposed to evolve in accordance with the principle of least action (Ellis 2005). Ellis concludes that, therefore, a sophisticated dispositionalist can accommodate the PLA and its metaphysical necessity. (shrink)

I examine, from Mayo's severe testing perspective, the case found in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fourth report for the claim that increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations caused most of the post-1950 global warming. My examination begins to provide an alternative to standard, probabilistic assessments of OUR FAULT. It also brings out some of the limitations of variety of evidence considerations in assessing this and other hypotheses about the causes of climate change, and illuminates the epistemology of optimal (...) fingerprinting studies. Finally, it shows that some features of Mayo's perspective should be kept in whatever approach is preferred for assessing hypotheses about the causes of climate change. (shrink)

Dispositionalism is the view that the world is, ultimately, just a world of objects and their irreducible dispositions, and that such dispositions are, ultimately, the sole explanatory ground for the occurrence of events. This view is motivated, partly, by arguing that it affords, while non‐necessitarian views of laws of nature do not afford, an adequate account of our intuitions about which regularities are non‐accidental. I, however, argue that dispositionalism cannot adequately account for our intuitions about which regularities are non‐accidental. Further, (...) I argue that, intuitions aside, if we suppose that our world contains objects along with their irreducible dispositions, we must suppose, on pain of logical incoherence, that it contains laws of nature that are incompatible with a dispositionalist ontology. Indeed, if we suppose a world of objects and irreducible dispositions, we will have to suppose that the most prominent views of laws of nature currently on offer are all inadequate. (shrink)

The clinical research enterprise is changing in fundamental ways. The bright line that separates research and clinical care is beginning to fade, as both “research” and “nonresearch” converge into and are embodied by the concept of the learning health care system. Here, data about care and operations are translated into practice improvement. VA has been a leader in this area, and based on its use of electronic health records and other inputs, has formed large databases and a data‐driven health care (...) system. These changes raise questions about the traditional approach to “research subject” protection. (shrink)

Among the topics discussed in Thomas Kuhn'sThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions, those of education, training, and pedagogy are apt to seem the least compelling. Certainly, the earliest debates aboutStructurefocused on other, more controversial, matters: incommensurability, meaning change, the rationality of theory choice, normal science—the list goes on. Over the past two decades, however, a growing concern among historians and sociologists of science with the nature of scientific apprenticeship has stimulated greater appreciation of the importance of questions of teaching and learning (...) to the philosophical position sketched inStructure. This paper seeks to develop further our understanding of these issues as they bear on Kuhn's theory of science. (shrink)

I argue that, on a dispositionalist account of causation and indeed on any other view of causation according to which causation is a real relation, general relativity does not give causal principles a role in explaining phenomena. In doing so, I bring out a surprisingly substantial constraint on adequate views about the explanations and ontology of GR, namely the requirement that such views show how GR can explain motion that is free of disturbing influences.

Most historical Jesus scholars agree that Jesus was regarded by his contemporaries as a great miracle worker. However, many of these same scholars deny that they can pronounce on the truth of the miracle stories as historians. There are at least two arguments for this position. One is based on an alleged empirical constraint on historical practice, which excludes divine causation. The other argument is rooted in the presumption that it is anachronistic to impose modern understandings of miracles on ancient (...) authors. I argue that both objections are unsuccessful. (shrink)

This essay argues that post-analytic philosophy finds its origins not only in an invented tradition—that of ‘analytic philosophy’—but also in an invented dilemma: namely, the response to the allegedly overweening dominance of ‘positivism’ in American philosophy. I begin by surveying the problems with the folk wisdom about positivism and analytic philosophy. This pervasive narrative locates the emergence of post-analytic philosophy after a period of hegemony for logical positivism and cognate philosophical subfields. Taking seriously evidence indicating a distinct overlap in the (...) construction of the analytic and post-analytic traditions, I return to the founding moment of American analytic philosophy in the years immediately following World War II. What we see, I suggest, is not a reaction against a clearly defined and powerful logical positivist mainstream, but the careful, piecewise co-ordination of what would become characteristic ‘analytic’ modes of argument, problematics, and tool kits. Willard Van Orman Quine played a central role in this process, and for this reason I focus on the circumstances in which his field-defining 1951 article, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ was written and received. I conclude with the claim that both analytic and post-analytic philosophers relied on a peculiar image of the failure of logical positivism, and of the opportunities that failure presented. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to “re-boot” the discussion of Harry Frankfurt’s approach to autonomy, in the service of a new diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of his satisfaction-based ontology of the will. Criticisms of Frankfurt’s work have tended to focus on a lack of normative foundations, often missing Frankfurt’s aim of shifting discussions of autonomy towards a focus on avoiding passivity in how one cares about what one cares about, while still acknowledging the central role of volitional necessity and, especially, (...) self-satisfaction in autonomous agency. Although this approach provides Frankfurt with interesting ways of deflecting criticisms that are ethical in character, the lack of attention to the hermeneutic and linguistic dimensions of our inner life, leaves his approach with insufficient grounds for identifying the passivity of those who are unable or unwilling to engage in genuine self-interpretation. (shrink)

This chapter argues that traditional philosophy of mind turns on misrepresenting the I-you-relationship as a subject-object-relationship. This leads to interminable paradox and makes accounting for interpersonal understanding, the heart of human intelligibility, impossible. Detailing the absurdity of inferentialist accounts of understanding others, I show how this understanding is an essentially moral matter, that is, in itself a form of openness to and engaged caring for the other. For example, the very perception of suffering as suffering is already a form of (...) compassion. Failures to act compassionately and, more generally, apparent failures to understand others, are forms of repressing one’s own caring-understanding, rather than mere absences of understanding. The confused subject-object-perspective in philosophy arises from and mirrors the moral-existential confusion in everyday life created through repression. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kant’s political and juridical philosophy justifies a type of normative legal positivism that implies specific notions of law and legal freedom which determine and restrict the sphere of action of judges and jurists. Finally, I defend that, according to Kant’s practical philosophy, the normative connection between justice and law is not supposed to be carried out at the juridical level, as a meta-juridical theory, but at the political one, making it a meta-political theory.

Emotions normally include elements of feeling, motivation, and also intentionality; but the argument of this essay is that there can be emotion without feeling, emotion without corresponding motivation, and emotion without an intentional relation to an object such that the emotion is (among other things) a belief about or construal of it. Many recent writers have claimed that some form of intentionality is essential to emotion, and then have created lines of defence for this thesis. Thus, what look like troublesome (...) cases of emotions can be regarded as having a global intentionality or as being “mood-like”. Alternatively surges of non-intentional joy or ecstasy can be regarded as merely feelings rather than as emotions, and what people experience in response to absolute music can be treated similarly. A clear view of how we normally talk about moods, emotions, and feelings however undermines these defences; and in particular we can understand the role of emotions in relation to absolute music once we become clear about the way in which musical content stands in for intentional objects. (shrink)

The essay has two purposes. One is to point out connections and parallels between, On one hand, The debates of metaphysical realists and anti-Realists, And on the other hand, The debates surrounding moral realism. The second is to provide the outlines of a case for a kind of position that would generally be classified as moral realism. One feature of this position is that it emerges as parallel to, And compatible with, A metaphysical position that would generally be classified as (...) anti-Realism. (shrink)

Escrito em 1963, três anos depois do seminário sobre A ética da psicanálise, o texto de Jaques Lacan, Kant com Sade, possibilita férteis discussões a respeito da prática analítica. Quais os limites desta prática? Qual é a razão que a sustenta? A prática analítica é um saber, uma ética ou uma terapêutica? Quais os pressupostos que orientam a sua ação? É evidente que não dispomos de condições necessárias e suficientes para respondermos a tais perguntas no limite de um artigo, tampouco (...) temos a pretensão de fazê-lo. Entretanto, as tomaremos como bússola em busca de pistas sobre a prática analítica lacaniana e o solo em que repousa até a década de 1960. A partir do texto Kant com Sade e do Seminário VII, A ética da psicanálise, ambos escritos por Lacan, buscaremos as semelhanças e diferenças irreconciliáveis entre a lei moral kantiana, a vontade de gozo sadeana e a ética psicanalítica, apontando que é a partir das consequências práticas, efetuadas pelo Marquês de Sade, da aplicação de uma razão pura, tal qual proposta por Kant, que Lacan buscará um novo horizonte para a prática analítica não mais baseada no desejo puro. Nesse sentido, tanto o filósofo alemão Immanuel Kant quanto o escritor francês Marquês de Sade, contemporâneos dos ares da modernidade, expõem um princípio universal pelo qual a ação é valorada. Princípio cuja execução evidencia sua dimensão ética, política e, com Lacan, clínica. Nessa pista, faremos uma discussão a propósito da perversão e da melancolia como limites à prática analítica. (shrink)

A teoria da construção de nichos ressalta o papel ativo dos organismos na modificação do seu ambiente externo. O nicho de desenvolvimento é um subconjunto dessas modificações, e refere-se aos legados ecológicos, epistêmicos, sociais e simbólicos que facilitam processos de desenvolvimento. Considerando que o desenvolvimento cognitivo ocorre em um ambiente culturalmente estruturado, questiona-se aqui se vieses culturais implícitos podem resultar em nichos de desenvolvimento mal adaptativos. Este artigo defenderá uma resposta afirmativa a esta questão. Para atingir esse objetivo, iremos conceituar (...) vieses implícitos como hábitos perceptuais corporificados e, em seguida, argumentar que esses hábitos são responsáveis por nichos de desenvolvimento mal adaptativos em crianças com síndrome de Down e autismo. Ao unir a teoria da construção de nichos e a psicologia dos vieses implícitos, este trabalho pode oferecer uma ferramenta teórica útil para diagnosticar características mal adaptativas dos nichos causadas por vieses socioculturais, contribuindo assim para ambas as áreas de pesquisa. Palavras-chave: Teoria da construção do nicho. Vieses implícitos. Nicho de desenvolvimento. Autismo. Síndrome de Down. (shrink)

This fresh and engaging work examines the epistemology of value. Focusing on emotional states, Kupperman rejects the notion that there is one primary value, arguing instead for a pluralistic understanding of value. He contends that value is strongly contextual; the value of a particular set of experiences in one's life can depend heavily on how they fit in with or provide contrast to other elements. Kupperman argues both for a realistic account of value--some things really do have a value about (...) which we can have reasonable confidence--and for skepticism about how much we can actually know about value. (shrink)

Recently in the philosophical literature there has been some effort made to understand the proper application of the theory of utilitarianism to worlds in which there are infinitely many bearers of utility. Here, we point out that one of the best, most inclusive principles proposed to date contradicts fundamental utilitarian ideas, such as the idea that adding more utility makes a better world.

For the “respectable” part of society there can be a presumption of virtuousness, rather like the presumption of innocence in the law. In both cases, the presumption can be defeated, as we learn more and get into specifics. We still might insist that to be genuinely virtuous is to be able to pass the more familiar sorts of tests of virtue, and to be reliably virtuous also in the ordinary business of life, especially in things that really matter. Something like (...) this is a necessary condition for virtue. Factors of motivation, especially those related to what a person's basic concerns are, can vary enormously. Imagine an extreme case. Someone might be inherently indifferent to what happens to other people, and have no sense of the inherent dignity or worthiness of moral principles, but also be totally convinced that God is watching his or her every move, and that the prospects of heaven or hell depend heavily on one's following accepted morality at every step. (shrink)

The informal fallacies can be conceived as enthymemes that are formally valid. But, then, what accounts for our sense of their fallaciousness? I explain this in terms of the notion of a warrant.

John Rawls’ account of our obligations towards future generations has received considerable criticism in the environmental ethics literature relative to the scant few passages in which he discusses the issue. I argue that much of this criticism is warranted because Rawls’ Heads of Family strategy for grounding obligations to future generations is not only independently problematic, but also inconsistent with his general framework. Furthermore, the oft-suggested Time Travel strategy will not work either, and for just those reasons which Rawls gave. (...) However, I contend that the less often discussed “Universalizability Principle,” which Rawls discusses most prominently in Political Liberalism, is a plausible account of our obligations to future generations and is consistent with Rawls’ general framework. I then defend this Rawlsian account of our future-oriented obligations against objections in the environmental ethics literature such as those recently advanced by the consequentialist Tim Mulgan. (shrink)

Animal size is a relevant and unappreciated consideration in moral evaluations of killing animals for food, especially for utilitarians, who must weigh the gustatory satisfaction of eating meat-the quantity of which varies greatly throughout the animal kingdom-against animal suffering in utilitarian calculations. I argue that animal size can drastically alter not only the extent but even the valence of such calculations. Then I show how the business ethics literature on vegetarianism is deficient for not taking animal size into account. Last, (...) I argue that market conditions are also relevant in moral assessments of vegetarianism. (shrink)

Este trabalho apresenta uma interpretação abrangente e sistemática do significado e da legitimidade dos conceitos de precisão, interesse, esperança e crença no interior da filosofia kantiana. A análise desses conceitos está diretamente vinculada à discussão acerca da natureza da razão prática pura, da legitimidade do conceito de sumo bem e da unidade arquitetônica da razão. Defende-se que tanto os conceitos de precisão e interesse, assim como os conceitos de crença e esperança possuem legitimidade transcendental e concordam com as bases da (...) filosofia crítica. (shrink)

El conjunto de ensayos que el lector tiene entre sus manos expresa un cuerpo sistemático de ideas provocadoras sobre la tensión entre el constitucionalismo y la democracia. Su autor, el profesor Joel Colón-Ríos, boricua, formado en las dos facultades de derecho canadienses de mayor renombre, e investigador de una de las mejores universidades de Oceanía, las ha fraguado a lo largo de más de un lustro y debatido con gran éxito ante la elite intelectual de Norteamérica. La propuesta central (...) del libro es una original reivindicación de la democracia frente al constitucionalismo. Su institucionalización consiste en un constitucionalismo débil. La piedra angular de este modelo es una constitución inacabada, permanentemente abierta al cambio, que permite y promueve la participación y la deliberación popular continua, en particular, mediante el potencial ejercicio del poder constituyente en cualquier momento. De esta manera, el pueblo tiene la posibilidad de hablar por sí mismo cuando lo juzgue pertinente. Puede cuestionar y reformular los principios básicos de la organización social. No está supeditado a las decisiones adoptadas por los ancestros que expidieron la Constitución, ni por sus representantes que, en el Congreso, ostentan el poder de reformarla. Precio: 49.000 pesos. (shrink)