Sometime, at your leisure—if you want to know what philosophy is—go into a large bookstore and browse. Check a variety of books in psychology, anthropology, physics, chemistry, archeology, astronomy, and other nonfiction fields. Look at the last chapter in each book. In a surprising number of cases, you will find that the author has chosen to round out his work with a final summation of what the book is all about. That is, having written a whole book on a (...) specialized subject in which he is probably an authority, he finds that he also has ideas about the larger meaning of the facts that he has written about. The final chapter may be called “Conclusions,” “Epilogue,” “Postscript,” “My Personal View,” “Implications,” “Comments," ,“ “Speculations,” or (as in one case) “So What?” But in every instance, the author is trying to elucidate the larger implications of his subject matter and to clarify how he thinks it relates to other fields or to life. He has an urge to tell us the meaning of all his facts taken together. He wants to share with us the philosophic implications of what he has written. When he does this, the author has moved beyond the role of a field specialist. He is a philosopher. (shrink)

The general aim of this paper is to propose a reductionist strategy to higher-level property types. Starting from a common ground in the philosophy of science, I shall elaborate on possible realizer differences of higher-level property types. Because of the realizer types' causal heterogeneity, an introduction of functional sub-types of higher-level properties will be suggested. Each higher-level functional sub-type corresponds to one realizer type. This means that there is the theoretical possibility to reach some kind of type-identity and this (...) opens up the way for theory reduction in a more complete manner. This kind of type-identity will go beyond the common ground of the identity of tokens and their reductive explanation. In the second part of the paper, this reductionist strategy will be applied to a specific debate in the philosophy of biology — the reductionist approach to classical genetics from a molecular point of view. (shrink)

One of the main issues in philosophy is the refl ection on sciences. In order to conciliate the unity and plurality of sciences, this paper sets out a new strategy for theory reduction by means of functional sub-concepts. This strategy is intended to get around the multiple realization objection that leads to a dilemma for the scientifi c quality of the special sciences. Taking Kim’s argument for token identity as starting point, I shall show a strategy to establish a (...) systematic link between concepts of the special sciences with physical concepts. By this means, a conservative theory reduction is in principle possible despite multiple realization. (shrink)

Au début du XXe siècle une idée semble prééminente chez deux philosophes aussi différents que Husserl et Peirce : le projet d’une philosophie purement descriptive appelée phénoménologie , une science sans présuppositions. Dans les années 1920-1940, deux autres philosophes importants, Dewey et Wittgenstein revendiquent l’idée que la philosophie est une description de l’ordinaire. Wittgenstein entend décrire des faits bien connus qui nous échappent à cause de leur familiarité. Ainsi la philosophie doit être descriptive, mais le peut-elle ? Et qu’est-ce que (...) cela signifie ? Cet article cherche à montrer que la description ne suffit pas à ces auteurs et qu’en fin de compte ils trahissent leur projet descriptif.At the beginning of the 20th century an idea seems to get prominent among two philosophers as different as Husserl and Peirce : the project of a purely descriptive philosophy called phenomenology , a science without presuppositions. Along the 1920-1940s, two other important philosophers, Dewey and Wittgenstein claim that philosophy must be the description of the ordinary. Wittgenstein intends to describe well known facts which we fail to see because of their familiarity. So philosophy must be descriptive, but can it ? And what does it means ? This paper tries to show that description is not enough for these authors and that they ultimately betray their descriptive project. (shrink)

Hegel's Philosophy of History can be characterized as Eurocentric and one finds in it many problematic passages, and even racist statements, as well as a legitimization of colonialism which is presented as a means of education (Bildung). Nevertheless, this article argues that it is possible to reject such judgements and at the same time hold on to the basic intention of Hegel's theories of freedom and Bildung. While the concept of freedom as self-determination is certainly applied in a Eurocentric (...) manner by Hegel in his Philosophy of History, this concept is not Eurocentric at its core. To understand this ‘core’, one has to go back to Hegel's logic of the concept, which finally leads me to a concept of ‘concrete Bildung’. The struggles for self-determination of the colonized peoples must be understood in terms of a further development of the realization of the concept of freedom. If one wants to think Hegel's Philosophy of History meaningfully beyond Hegel's own time, one is inevitably led to the necessity of a liberation of the colonized, for there is a need for a further extension of the consciousness of freedom that actually is inclusive. This demand is contained in Hegel's thought itself, but it still remains abstract with him and must therefore be developed beyond him. (shrink)

We cannot talk about the role of philosophy of education in teachers' training programs without examining the relationship between philosophy and educational theories. Even when theoreticians like Kieran Egan, for example, claim that education is a normative discourse that cannot be inferred from "local" empirical psychological research, the role of philosophy seems of utmost importance because philosophy has essentially to do with norms and values. Another way of looking at the "sciences" of education that renews our (...) comprehension of their relationship is by analysing a new cognitive psychological approach named "metacognition" which rests on one's ability to understand one's own cognitive strategies and mechanisms of regulation. The well-known psychologist Adrien Pinard in Quebec has been working on those concepts lately, inspired by Flavell's model of cognitive regulation. This approach is remarkably similar both to Wilson's definition of procedural criteria which he claims educational theory is all about and to the very specific method of philosophy, that of analytical and reflective thought. Philosophy or reflective thought cannot be separated from practice in teacher training since education is not only a matter of pedagogical means but also of attitudes to and relationship with another person. Thus, besides theory and practice, a third parameter should be taken into account in the elaboration of a teacher training program: the meta-practice and theory parameter, or the reflection on one's own practice, which is essentially philosophical. (shrink)

(2002). Emotive meaning and Christian mysteries in Berkeley’s Alciphron. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 401-411. doi: 10.1080/09608780210143218.

Before crystallizing into works, music as a field of sensible organization of sound poses a problem: how is it possible that something audible is set apart from the acoustic world to constitute a distinct sphere of sense, holding people′s attention in an unparalleled way? To deal with this question, the text proceeds in three steps: using a concept from art theory, Boehm′s “iconic difference”, music is conceptualized as an ongoing differentiation within the audible; the means that accomplish this differentiation, namely (...) musical tone and the tonal system, are investigated; and finally the gestural element in music is introduced as the form these means take on in the musical process. Throughout, the text draws on classical philosophical resources such as Hegelian dialectics, current research in parallel fields like language development, psychological insights into the structure of perception in early infancy, and various examples from contemporary music and art. (shrink)

More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case of a physical theory predestined to be interpreted in structuralist terms. It is shown how employing structuralism lends itself to a natural interpretation of the physical meaning of causal set theory. Conversely, the conceptually exceptionally clear case of causal sets is used as a foil to illustrate how (...) a mathematically informed rigorous conceptualization of structure serves to identify structures in physical theories. Furthermore, a number of technical issues infesting structuralist interpretations of physical theories such as difficulties with grounding the identity of the places of highly symmetrical physical structures in their relational profile and what may resolve these difficulties can be vividly illustrated with causal sets. (shrink)

Many theories of social justice maintain that concern for the social bases of self-respect grounds demanding requirements of political and economic equality, as self-respect is supposed to be dependent on continuous just recognition by others. This paper argues that such views miss an important feature of self-respect, which accounts for much of its value: self-respect is a capacity for self-orientation that is robust under adversity. This does not mean that there are no social bases of self-respect that such theories ought (...) to incorporate. It means that they are different: they consist of the motivational and epistemic resources needed to develop and maintain such robustness. (shrink)

'Consciousness' has been called the 'final frontier' for science, philosophy's 'hard problem', and the greatest mystery in mysticism. It is a central focus in philosophy of mind. Yet confusion abounds about what 'consciousness' means -- even among philosophers, scientists, and mystics who have built careers exploring the mind. Different scholars and different disciplines use the same word to mean very different things. Debates and dialogues on consciousness often run aground because scholars conflate two radically different uses of the (...) term. This paper addresses the problem by elucidating a fundamental distinction between the philosophical and psychological uses of 'consciousness'. (shrink)

The decisive occasion for the following paper was the discovery, during the editorial work, of the expression “symbolische Ideation” (symbolic ideation) in theposthumous manuscript of Ernst Cassirer, “Prägnanz, symbolische Ideation”. The occurrence of this expression raises one more time the question of the relation between Cassirer and the system of concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology. The present research gets to the conclusion that Cassirer uses the concept of “symbolische Ideation” (symbolic ideation) in a sense which basically expresses his own philosophical position, (...) rather than Husserl’s, who links the “symbolische Ideation” with the term “Ideation”, meaning the unmediated self-giveness of the General, of the Identical. But still, one can also discover some common points between Cassirer and Husserl. (shrink)

The paper sets out a new strategy for theory reduction by means of functional sub-types. This strategy is intended to get around the multiple realization objection. We use Kim's argument for token identity (ontological reductionism) based on the causal exclusion problem as starting point. We then extend ontological reductionism to epistemological reductionism (theory reduction). We show how one can distinguish within any functional type between functional sub-types. Each of these sub-types is coextensive with one type of realizer. By this means, (...) a conservative theory reduction is in principle possible, despite multiple realization. We link this account with Nagelian reduction, as well as with Kim's functional reduction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Does It Mean to "Speak Truth to Power"?Christian UhlPolitical Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity. By Christopher S. Goto-Jones. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Pp. 192.Ever since the end of the "Great East Asian War" in Japan a debate has been smoldering over the contamination of philosophy by politics. This debate was sparked by a series of writings through which the "father (...) of Japanese philosophy," Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945), and some thinkers affiliated with him—the so-called Kyoto School—became involved in the politics connected with the war to establish a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." The debate over Nishida and the Kyoto School has repeatedly been overshadowed by the debate over Heidegger. Aside from the strategic considerations of those engaged in the prosecution of the Kyoto School, one reason for the "Heidegger factor"1 may have something to do with the fact that philosophical parallels can indeed be drawn between Nishida and Heidegger, and that there are also direct links between Nishida and some of his disciples who studied in Germany. Questions concerning Heidegger's political engagement are still explosive, even twenty years after Farias' attempt to prove Heidegger's entanglement with National Socialism. The publication of Emmanuel Faye's book Heidegger—L'introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie has fired up the debate in French philosophical circles.2 And in the debate concerning Nishida and the Kyoto School there is also recent news: the publication of Christopher S. Goto-Jones' ambitious study Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co Prosperity."Every inquiry," Heidegger says, "is a seeking [Suchen]. Every seeking gets guided beforehand by what is sought for."3 Goto-Jones' inquiry seeks to explain the nature of Nishida's political engagement in the 1930s and 1940s, and his inquiry is guided by the conviction that Nishida should be exonerated from the charges regarding his alleged complicity with a Japanese wartime regime that was at least militarist if not "fascist." However, the declared intention of Goto-Jones' study is not just another exoneration of Nishida. Goto-Jones contends that Nishida, influenced "particularly [by] Kant" (p. 7), has left behind a still relevant political philosophy that, as some other authors have argued,4 is not only not tainted by any form of narrow-minded nationalism but also provides a philosophical framework for a theory of a globalizing, multicentered, intercultural world:Hence, for Nishida, the nation should not be a rigid institutional structure or an artificially... constructed culture, but rather a moral personality formed through the mutual self-determination [End Page 469] determination of its constituents and in a dynamic relationship with other nations. International relations should be characterized by the development of greater levels of unity, as nations creatively interact with each other, producing public goods and increasing the similarities in their personalities, thus decreasing the salience of their national boundaries. In this model, nationalism, like egoism, becomes a nonsense.(p. 134 n)This political model is what Goto-Jones seeks to recover in Nishida, and this recovery is "what is really intended" (Heidegger) by his book.5Nishida's political philosophy needs to be recovered, because it is buried under false accusations and misunderstandings, produced primarily by Nishida's detractors, whose criticism, as Goto-Jones suggests, is in most cases at best based on a rough selection of citations, torn out of the coherence of their original context. Nishida's defenders, on the other hand, have attempted to safeguard the philosopher against the arguments of his critics by simply calling him a "liberal," a seemingly agreeable but in fact rather misleading label. Furthermore, Nishida's defenders have based their arguments only on biographical material, diary entries, letters, and so on. While the apologists "are right to observe a contradiction between... [Nishida's] private condemnation of the regime and his apparent public complicity, this is not in itself enough to conclude that his public writings meant the opposite of what they seem to say" (p. 4).In fact, this conclusion by Nishida's apologists does raise certain questions. Why did Nishida never give vent to his divergent opinions? Should he not rather have remained... (shrink)

This article reflects on the relevance of Herbert Marcuse’s philosophy of technology in the age social media. Although Marcuse did not experience the rise of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and “social media” as major means of communication, his insights about technological rationality, technology, and the role of technology in the context of labor allow us today to reflect on the relevance of Marcuse’s philosophy of technology for a critical theory of digital and social media.

In 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030 people would work only fifteen hours per week and enjoy more free time and leisure, that we would return to “principles of religion and traditional virtue,” declaring “love of money morbid, semi-criminal, and semi-pathological,” and that “we shall once more value ends above means.” But today, we do not see that this prophesy has proven true. Something must have gone wrong. We do not sufficiently know the distinction between (...) needs and wants, absolute values and relative values, what a good life is, and how to live it. In this essay, I will present and discuss ideas from Confucius, Aristotle, Zhuangzi, and the Stoics that I think are deep and meaningful and can help us free ourselves from evolutionary programming and blind belief in economic and technological growth. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to develop a consistent framework for a phenomenological discourse analysis of political debates. The political sphere arises through the questioning of taken-for-granted definitions of reality: a crisis. During a crisis meaning has to be restored, and different interest groups will try to push their definition of reality, which is advantageous for them. For the analysis of such a political discourse phenomenology provides several tools that can help us to understand the background of the (...) discourse, the severity of the crisis, the level of expertise of the participants, the source of the information, discourse strategies and what arguments the audience accepts. These tools allow a unique phenomenological approach towards political discourse analysis. (shrink)

This article assesses John Rawls's case against the welfare state as a means for implementing socio-economic justice, and for a ‘property-owning democracy’, from both a normative and a methodological point of view. It points out several flaws of Rawls's critique of the welfare state, through a focus on an existing variety of it — a Swedish-style universal welfare state — which can be said to be relatively successful, both in terms of normative merits and in terms of institutional stability and (...) capacity for self-perpetuation. On this basis, the article argues that a universal welfare state should constitute the institutional bedrock of Rawlsian social justice, even though it cannot completely fulfil all its requirements. It also develops some reasons to think that, in order to adequately and stably implement those requirements of Rawlsian justice that cannot be fulfilled even by a universal welfare state, the latter should be supplemented by democratic socialism, not by a ‘property-owning democracy’. (shrink)

Within moral and political philosophy and the social sciences, recent conceptual developments in the concept of recognition cannot be dissociated from an opposition to those theories inspired by what is commonly called rational action theory or the economic model of action. The paradigm of recognition represents the heart of those theories that are both alternative and complementary to the theory of individual action. Nonetheless, this conceptual development calls out for an alliance between political philosophy and the social sciences. (...) We argue that the paradigm of recognition can only be developed to its full potential if it is interpreted in the wake of what Marcel Mauss and the Revue du MAUSS, has called the paradigm of the gift. The gift only takes on its full sense when understood as a means, performer, and symbol of public and/or private recognition. (shrink)

In Topoi/Graphein Christian Abrahamsson maps the paradoxical limit of the in-between to revealthat to be human is to know how tolive with the difference between the known and the unknown. Using filmic case studies, including CodeInconnu, Lord of the Flies, and Apocalypse Now,and focusing on key concerns developed in the works of the philosophers Deleuze, Olsson, and Wittgenstein, Abrahamsson starts within the notion of fixed spatiality, in whichhuman thought and action are anchored in the given of identity. He then movesthrough (...) a social world in which spatiotemporal transformations are neitherfixed nor taken for granted. Finally he edges into the pure temporality that liesbeyond the maps of fixed points and social relations. Each chapter is organized into two subjects: topoi, orexcerpts from the films, and graphein, the author's interpretation ofpresented theoriesto mirror the displacements,transpositions, juxtapositions, fluctuations, and transformations between delimited categories. A landmark work in the study of human geography, Abrahamsson's book proposes that academic and intellectual attention should focus on the spatialization between meaning and its materialization in everyday life. (shrink)

The meaning and validity of Kant’s Kant’s doctrine of schematism remains contested until today. In neo-Kantianism and post-War transcendental philosophy, Kant’s schematism of the pure concepts of understanding is transformed drastically. Kant’s thesis of heterogeneity is overcome by taking it back into the internal relationships of the structure of cognition. The spontaneity of thought, performing schematizations, is retained, but Kant’s project of conceiving of the foundations of knowledge in the fashion of a theory of apperception of the I (...) as well as the externality of the given and the determination of the given that goes along with it is sublated by an objective order of validity-noematic constitution and regulation. Kant’s doctrine of schematism, then, shows to be methodology. (shrink)

This article explores Paul Ricœur’s early writings in the 1930s on Christian philosophy. It seeks to contextualize both his published and unpublished works from that period within the robust historical, philosophical and theological debates in Paris between the leading intellectuals of the time: Bréhier, Gilson, Blondel, Brunschvicg, Marcel, Maury, de Lubac, and Barth. The article proceeds to examine Ricœur’s own position within these debates.

In this essay, I offer thoughts on the constitution of images in art, especially as they are constituted in painting and in photography. Utilizing ideas from Gadamer, Derrida and Adorno, I shall argue that representation should be conceived as a performative concept and as an act of formation; i.e., as a process rather thanas something "fixed." My reflections will be carried out in connection with a careful analysis of Gerhard Richter's painting Reader, which is a painting of a photograph that (...) depicts a female who is reading. I demonstrate how a close analysis of this fascinating painting leads us deeper into the problem of painted images, insofar as it enacts what it is about, namely, the constitution of itself as an innige by means of a complex and enigmatic relationship between seeing, reading, memory, inner, outer, gaze and blindness. (shrink)

What are some of the distinctive virtues of the confluence approach that sets it apart from other attempts to do philosophy across cultural boundaries? First, unlike comparing and contrasting, the confluence approach remains faithful to the dominant conception of philosophy as an intellectual enterprise centered on dialogue and argumentation, in which philosophers pursue unresolved problems by building on the achievements of their acknowledged forbears. Second, confluence philosophy implements a syncretic and creative approach to doing philosophy by (...) drawing on non-Western philosophical sources while using the tools and conceptual resources of analytic philosophy. Third and last, the confluence approach highlights possible tensions when the traditions of thought brought into dialogue are on a diverging path on certain matters. Contemporary philosophy, at least in the Anglophone world and its satellites, is an avowedly secular enterprise, deferring to the sciences for its account of what can be said to exist at the most fundamental level and for its understanding of the processes that realize cognition. Buddhism at its core is often understood as a soteriological project manly concerned with overcoming suffering, which sometimes is taken to entail an insight into the emptiness of all the constitutive elements of existence and/or experience. Confluence philosophy thus makes it possible to ask whether defending a theoretical framework which affirms this truth of emptiness means that one must engage in the very sort of activity, namely, rational self-assertion, that hinders enlightenment. (shrink)

One of the most persistent problems of marketing has been the question of what is meant by ‘marketing’. In the fifties and sixties discussion focused on the alleged scientific character of marketing. “Is marketing an art or a science?” was the principal question of the day [14], [5], [28]. This preoccupation with the procedures and the conceptual framework of marketing was followed by an eager interest in the contributions which clarification of marketing concepts could make to attaining the objectives of (...) marketing managers. Managerial marketing and management science in marketing are the results of this identification of marketing with the objectives of its managerial users [16], [25]. More recently the emphasis has switched from procedures, conceptual framework, and objectives to the problem of the proper boundaries of marketing [19], [23], [18]. (shrink)

São muitas e, até hoje, muito controvertidas as opiniões referentes à função e ao lugar sistemático da filosofia da história de Kant no todo do seu projeto crítico-transcendental; nem há consenso quanto à importância ou relevância filosófica dos diversos escritos em que Kant aborda e defende os seus teoremas histórico- políticos. – No presente trabalho, pretende-se interpretar a “doutrina” histórico-filosófica kantiana – não obstante o seu caráter fragmentário e até aparentemente nem sempre coerente – na perspectiva da sua possível homogeneidade (...) e compatibilidade com os elementos centrais da própria teoria-base transcendental. Isso significa, antes de mais nada, ler os respectivos teoremas não como resultados de um raciocínio dogmático baseado num saber do processo histórico, mas como um conjunto de teses e postulados baseados no mero suposto subjetivo-racional de um progresso, ou seja, na idéia não só da possibilidade mas da necessidade (subjetiva) da razão de implantar princípios racionais na história. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Kant. Filosofia transcendental. Sistema. Filosofia da história. ABSTRACT There are many different and controversial opinions about the function and the systematic place of Kant’s philosophy of history in the context of his critical-transcendental project on the whole, as well as about the philosophic relevance of his historical-political writings. – This paper aims to interpret Kant’s historical-philosophical “doctrine” – in despite of its fragmentary character and of some apparent incoherences – in the horizon of its possible homogeneity and compatibility with the central elements of the basic transcendental theory. That means, above all: read the theorems in question not as results of a dogmatic thought based on the knowledge of historical processes, but as a set of thesis and postulates based on the mere subjective- rational supposition of progress, that is, on the idea that it is not only possible, but a (subjective) need of reason to implant rational principles in history. KEY WORDS – Kant. Transcendental philosophy. System. Philosophy of history. (shrink)

This contribution discusses the problem of translating Heidegger. Heidegger’s „reiterative destruction“, the core of his phenomenological method in the 20s, is operating as an over-interpretative translation of a traditional text to reveal what is unwritten and unsaid in it. What does it mean, therefore, to translate Heidegger, i.e. to translate a translation? In the second part we briefly present a survey of French translations from Heidegger’s works in the last twenty years and discuss the problematic editorial situation in France.

RESUMEN Este ensayo presenta una reflexión sobre las limitaciones del medio digital para la enseñanza de disciplinas teóricas como la filosofía. Se quiere contrarrestar, hasta cierto punto, el entusiasmo prematuro que despierta la virtualidad en algunos estamentos universitarios. El texto se nutre de mi experiencia pedagógica en la pandemia y traza una mirada fenomenológica sobre lo que implica la pérdida del entorno de la presencia para la enseñanza filosófica. Al reflexionar sobre dicha pérdida, el ensayo también esboza algunas reflexiones dispersas (...) sobre lo que significa aprender y enseñar filosofía. ABSTRACT This essay presents a reflection on the limitations of the digital medium for the teaching of theoretical disciplines like philosophy. The aim is to counteract in part the premature enthusiasm that virtuality has awaken in some university circles. The text draws on my pedagogical experience during the pandemic and takes a phenomenological look at what the loss of the environment of presence implies for philosophical teaching. By reflecting on this loss, the essay also outlines some scattered reflections on what it means to learn and teach philosophy. (shrink)

Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity in that world? Additively separable axiologies (like total utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and critical level views) say 'yes', but non-additive axiologies (like average utilitarianism, rank-discounted utilitarianism, and variable value views) say 'no'. This distinction appears to be practically important: among other things, additive axiologies generally assign great importance to large changes in population size, and therefore tend to strongly prioritize the long-term survival of humanity over (...) the interests of the present generation. Non-additive axiologies, on the other hand, need not assign great importance to large changes in population size. We show, however, that when there is a large enough `background population' unaffected by our choices, a wide range of non-additive axiologies converge in their implications with additive axiologies—for instance, average utilitarianism converges with critical-level utilitarianism and various egalitarian theories converge with prioritarianism. We further argue that real-world background populations may be large enough to make these limit results practically significant. This means that arguments from the scale of potential future populations for the astronomical importance of avoiding existential catastrophe, and other arguments in practical ethics that seem to presuppose additive separability, may succeed in practice whether or not we accept additive separability as a basic axiological principle. (shrink)

The Bavarian and the Indian constitutions were developed in almost the same period of time. Because of historic experiences the prospect of legal certainty was the determining factor for the representatives of the people in India and Bavaria. They elaborated functioning constitutions and integrated their fundamental ideological principles quite naturally. The Indian and the Bavarian constitution are characterized by their aspirations to balance social injustice, particularly by striking a balance between individual liberty and social need.The history of political economy demonstrates (...) a broad variety of interpretations regarding the meaning and function of value concepts. When we review all these value concepts we identify two poles of the value-concept that still lack compatibility with each other in economical and philosophical schools to this day. Value systems have to be applied situation-sensitive and are in need of a frequent critical reflection; they need to be refused or changed if necessary.Examining some examples of the Bavarian Constitution, we indicate some concordances with regard to contents of the Indian Constitutional Law. The equivalences in the Bavarian and the Indian Constitution incorporate entitlements which should protect citizens against an unjustified economical assault upon their existence. The social value conflicts that occur more and more because of the hiatus to the constitutionally warranted values, and that cannot be solved simply by law or political adjustment, are therefore up for discussion. We then examine the disparity between entitlements and reality and discuss the hierarchy of our values. (shrink)

Philosophers have been known to sometimes conjure up world-views which seem dazzlingly at odds with our everyday take on the world. Among the more, if not most drastic ???-isms??? to be found in the history of philosophy, then, is the standpoint of solipsism, derived from the Latin words ???solus??? and ???ipse??? . What is that supposed to mean? It adopts a position that only acknowledges the existence of one's very own mind and opposes that there is anything beyond the (...) realm of my mind that could be known. What a drastic contradiction to the way we normally view the world, indeed. Allow me to emphasize some implications that would arise were one really to take the solipsist view for granted. The aim is to briefly adumbrate how a solipsist view would cut us off from the social world and from the existential dimension of our own death. (shrink)

This introductory text is a critical theory toolkit on how to how to make use of Karl Marx's ideas in media, communication and cultural studies. Karl Marx's ideas remain of crucial relevance, and in this short, student-friendly book, leading expert Christian Fuchs introduces Marx to the reader by discussing fifteen of his key concepts and showing how they matter for understanding the digital and communicative capitalism that shapes human life in 21st century society. Key concepts covered include: the dialectic, materialism, (...) commodities, capital, capitalism, labour, surplus-value, the working class, alienation, means of communication, the general intellect, ideology, socialism, communism, and class struggles. Students taking courses in Media, Culture and Society; Communication Theory; Media Economics; Political Communication and Cultural Studies will find Fuchs' concise introduction an essential guide to Marx. (shrink)

Schelling demandait: 'Pourquoi y a-t-il du sens, non du non-sens au lieu du sens?' Dans cette question, la notion n'est pas un signe renvoyant à quelque chose, pas plus que lorsque l'on dit communément non pas d'un énoncé, mais d'une chose, d'un état de fait, qu'ils 'ont un sens' ou non. Comment aborder philosophiquement cette version du sens? Notre ouvrage part d'une conviction : la structure philosophique sous-tendant l'idée du sens s'ouvre avec Kant, dans la mesure où on peut le (...) définir, pour commencer, comme le renvoi d'une réalité donnée à l'horizon d'une réalité (ou d'une idéalité) simplement postulée, que l'on peut certes nommer, mais pas directement connaître. Ainsi par exemple de Dieu. On cherche ainsi à cerner comment le sens est devenu une catégorie directrice de la philosophie, constamment au travail dans les variations de l'idéalisme, l'émergence de la phénoménologie, des philosophies de la vie, de l'existence, de la culture, de la psychanalyse."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Besides “personalism“, and “solidarity“, the “principle of subsidiarity” is the third layer of Christian Social Philosophy. It requires that in a good society political competences should be allocated at the lowest possible level if possible. What the single citizens can achieve should not be taken away from them by higher ranking political authorities. The same rule has to be applied inside a political community among the various levels of the government. In other words, the principle favors Federalism as the (...) organizing structure of the social order.The most important political document in which the principle of subsidiarity plays an important role is the EU-Treaty of Maastricht. Here, however, the principle is misunderstood as a pure procedural process to settle conflicts between the European Commission and the Member States in areas of shared competences. Instead it should be a means to revise the whole existing legal structure of the European Union.Subsidiarity is a constitutional norm. Here, every person in a free society must be respected by the political authorities. This implies that in a civil society political power must be limited, decentralised, and controlled by the citizens.À côté du “personalisme” et de la “solidarité”, le “principe de subsidiarité” est le troisième volet de la philosophie sociale chrétienne. Il requiert que dans une bonne société les compétences politiques soient allouées au niveau le plus inférieur possible. Ce que les simples citoyens peuvent accomplir ne doit pas être réalisé par les autorités politiques d’un rang supérieur. La même règle doit être appliquée à l’intérieur d’une communauté politique aux différents niveaux du gouvernement. En d’autres termes, le principe favorise le fédéralisme en tant que structure d’organisation de l’ordre social.Le document politique le plus important dans lequel le principe de subsidiarité joue un rôle important est le traité Européen de Maastricht. Dans ce cas précis, cependant, le principe est mal compris, car réduit à un simple processus purement procédural pour régler les conflits entre la Commission Européenne et les Etats Membres dans le domaine des compétences partagées. Au contraire il devrait être un moyen de réviser l’ensemble de la structure juridique de l’Union Européenne.La subsidiarité est une norme constitutionnelle. Ici, chaque personne dans une société libre doit être respectée par les autorités politiques. Cela implique que dans une société civile le pouvoir politique doit être limité, décentralisé, et contrôlé par les citoyens. (shrink)

It is from the experience of not understanding that we will develop the outline of a reflection on what it is understanding. This experience reveals to us the desire to understand that is extended into the dialectic between the will to understand and the desire to be understood. Insofar talk is mainly to communicate with others, dialogue will serve here as a guide: it not only enables us to recall the conditions of possibility of understanding, but it highlight the nature (...) of the duty to understand. In a second step, we will leave this pragmatic and ethical dimension of the act of understanding and its implications and we will show that the reflection about the intersubjective nature of understanding, finds its meaning in political reflection. Indeed, if it is true that language is essentially understood from the background knowledge shared by individuals, groups or communities of interpretation in a society, then the simple coexistence of a plurality of these interpretive communities requires the consideration of the claims of recognition of each of them claim in a politically structured space. There too the dialogue will be central to the experience of negativity that inhabits the act of understanding. (shrink)

The classic programme of conceptual engineering (Cappelen, Herman. 2018. Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Eklund, Matti. 2021. “Conceptual Engineering.” In The Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language, edited by Justin Khoo, and Rachel Sterken, 15–30. London: Routledge) envisages a two-stage ameliorating process. First, we assess ‘F’ and determine what the term should express. Second, we bring it about that ‘F’ expresses what it should express. The second stage gives rise to (...) a practical challenge: the implementation challenge. Engineering advocates need to explain by what means they can implement specific conceptual changes in the natural language shared by a community – a feat Herman Cappelen (2018. Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020; “Conceptual Engineering: The Master Argument.” In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen, and David Plunkett, 132–151. Oxford: Oxford University Press) argues to be beyond our understanding and control both on an externalist and on an internalist meta-semantics. I devise a new answer to the implementation challenge. Enlisting the influential theory of social norms by Cristina Bicchieri, I argue that engineering social norms in Bicchieri’s technical sense amounts to an effective, specific, and feasible means to implement specific conceptual change, at least on internalist premises. I also argue that Bicchieri’s social norms are an essential addition to the more familiar conventions and moral norms when it comes to conceptual engineering. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between Marti Kheel’s ecofeminism, particularly as articulated in her recent book Nature Ethics, and holistic eco-philosophy. It begins by arguing that while Kheel’s view shares some common ground with holistic thinkers, her position is best understood as one that re-conceives the meaning of holism. Next, her comments on species preservation are discussed both to show her individualism, and to highlight a weakness in her approach to issues involving at-risk species. It is then suggested (...) that one could develop a more holistic answer to questions about species that is consonant with Kheel’s overall philosophical approach. (shrink)

The view to be defended in this paper is intended to be a novel and compelling model of instrumental practical reasoning, reasoning aimed at determining how to act in order to achieve a given end in a certain set of circumstances. On standard views of instrumental reasoning, the end in question is the object of a particular desire that the agent has, a desire which, when combined with the agent’s beliefs about what means are available to him or her in (...) order to satisfy that desire, can cause the formation of an independent desire or intention to engage in the relevant means. One of the main goals in what follows is to show that such views provide an inadequate understanding of instrumental practical reasoning when it comes to the practical lives of agents. We shall proceed as follows. After some background assumptions are outlined in the next section, two important and largely neglected challenges will be raised to any view of instrumental practical reasoning (hereafter IP reasoning) which only countenances the role of end-directed desires and means-end beliefs in the mental economy of agents. In my view, neither of these challenges can be met, or at least not in any straightforward way. Hence the remainder of the paper is devoted to articulating and defending a new approach to understanding the structure of instrumental practical reasoning. The heart of this positive view will involve the addition of a normative belief concerning the desirability of the agent’s end. (shrink)

Nudge is a popular public policy tool that harnesses well-known biases in human judgement to subtly guide people’s decisions, often to improve their choices or to achieve some socially desirable outcome. Thanks to recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) methods new possibilities emerge of how and when our decisions can be nudged. On the one hand, algorithmically personalized nudges have the potential to vastly improve human daily lives. On the other hand, blindly outsourcing the development and implementation of nudges to (...) “black box” AI systems means that the ultimate reasons for why such nudges work, that is, the underlying human cognitive processes that they harness, will often be unknown. In this paper, we unpack this concern by considering a series of examples and case studies that demonstrate how AI systems can learn to harness biases in human judgment to reach a specified goal. Drawing on an analogy in a philosophical debate concerning the methodology of economics, we call for the need of an interdisciplinary oversight of AI systems that are tasked and deployed to nudge human behaviours. (shrink)

The use of evidence in medicine is something we should continuously seek to improve. This book seeks to develop our understanding of evidence of mechanism in evaluating evidence in medicine, public health, and social care; and also offers tools to help implement improved assessment of evidence of mechanism in practice. In this way, the book offers a bridge between more theoretical and conceptual insights and worries about evidence of mechanism and practical means to fit the results into evidence assessment procedures.

In this paper, I discuss a well-known challenge against phenomenology as a viable form of social criticism. According to this challenge—the Mediation Argument—phenomenology falls short of the requirement that any kind of critique needs a suitable medium of representation because the phenomenological account of experience prioritizes immediacy or directness. I aim to show through a reconstruction of Adorno’s version of the Mediation Argument against Husserl that this challenge fails: it distorts the phenomenological account of meaning by misattributing problematic ontological (...) commitments as well as an overly simplistic idea of normativity to phenomenology; and it systematically underplays critical aspects of the transcendental methodology of phenomenology by ignoring crucial contrasts between phenomenology and commonsense philosophy. Contrary to what the Mediation Argument suggests, I conclude, phenomenology is well-placed to confront the ontological commitments and normative assumptions that commonly lend ideological support to the status quo. (shrink)

Quine and Davidson employ proxy functions to demonstrate that the use of language (behaviouristically conceived) is compatible with indefinitely many radically different reference relations. They also believe that the use of language (behaviouristically conceived) is all that determines reference. From this they infer that reference is indeterminate, i.e. that there are no facts of the matter as to what singular terms designate and what predicates apply to. Yet referential indeterminacy yields rather dire consequences. One thus does wonder whether one can (...) hold on to a Quine--Davidson stance in semantics-cum-metaphysics and still avoid embracing referential indeterminacy. I argue that one can. Anyone adhering to the behaviouristic account pivotal to the Quine--Davidson stance is bound to acknowledge certain facts about verbal behaviour -- that some utterances are tied to situations, that some utterances are tied to segments in situations, that some predicates have non-contextualised conditions of application, and that use involves causal dependencies. The restrictions from these facts ensure that only reference relations generated by means of rather exceptional proxy functions are compatible with verbal behaviour. I conclude that this allows one to rebuff the Quine--Davidson argument for the indeterminacy of reference, as it were, from within. I moreover tentatively conclude that the line of thought laid out provides good reason for just about anyone to hold that there are facts about reference after all. (shrink)

_Conservative Reductionism_ sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed to conceive an opposition between functional and physical properties and to build an anti-reductionist argument on multiple realization. By contrast, all properties that there are in the world, including the physical ones, are functional properties in the sense of being causal properties, and all true descriptions that the special sciences propose can in principle (...) be reduced to physical descriptions by means of functional reduction, despite multiple realization. The book develops arguments for from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics. These arguments lead to a conservative ontological reductionism. It then develops functional reduction into a fully-fledged, conservative theory reduction by means of introducing functional sub-types that are coextensive with physical types, illustrating that conservative reductionism by means of case studies from biology. (shrink)

The East has seen totality in a far more consistent and systematic way than the West; and India more so than any other civilisation in the East. When the Swami Siddheswarananda came to France to lecture on Vedic philosophy, he entitled his address, Outline of a Philosophy of Totality’. The expression could have been applied to the philosophies of India as a whole. But the world of thought, coextensive with culture, is far broader than philosophy. It is (...) no exaggeration to assert that India is the land of totality par excellence. Is it not even, according to one dictum, bigger than the world …? The notion of totality, implicit or conscious, poetic or theoretical, original or final, is present throughout Indian culture, both in its religion and in its arts, both in its customs as in its language. The Mahabharata, the largest epic poem ever conceived, proclaims: everything in the Mahabharata can be found elsewhere, but what is not in the Mahabharata cannot be found anywhere. Whilst the absolute beginning of a piece of Western music is in keeping with a dramatic time analogous to that of the Creation, Indian music seems to come from the eternity of a universe without transcendence. The body takes on a cosmic meaning through dance. By performing the tandava, the cosmic dance, Shiva Nataraja (‘Lord of the dance’) endlessly creates and destroys worlds. Indian art is an art of proliferation: both the reiteration of motifs sculpted in architecture and the litanies and metaphors spun out in epic poetry are symbolic attempts to capture the totality of the world. Every single element, being, movement or thing within this continuous space and time points towards all the others. The texts describe the sky of Indra with its web of pearls arranged in such a way that when one looks into one, one sees all the others reflecting in it; in the same way, each object of this world is not merely itself but comprises every one of the others and actually is all the others. The culture of India is one of plenitude, presence and continuity. At the opposite extreme, Japan developed a culture based upon the values of emptiness, absence and the interval. When a guru speaks, Valmiki and Vyasa know that it will take them many scores of verses. A Zen master's reply to his disciple takes up a single-line anecdote, or a word, or even a silence. At the other extreme, hundreds of statues line the gopuram of the temple at Madurai: not all of the thirty-three million gods ‘recognized’ in the writings are there, of course, but at least their unbelievable abundance gives us a plausible image of them. (shrink)

It is not asserted that an actual occasion excludes other occasions in the sense that it is completely independent of or isolated from them. This is an element in the 'traditional' doctrine of substance which Whitehead regards as fundamentally false. Nor will exclusiveness be asserted in any sense which is incompatible with what I understand to be Whitehead's doctrine of objectification, which is his theory of how one actual entity is 'present in' another. Nothing could be clearer from Whitehead's writings (...) than the fact that he means to say that actual occasions are 'present in' or included by other actual occasions. There is no intention of denying this obvious fact. (shrink)

This paper aims at exploring a particular dimension of the affinity between Gilles Deleuze and pragmatism: his ontology of the virtual, which results in a metaphysics of power. In Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza, the essence of an entity is identical to its power: what can it do? substitutes the Socratic ti esti? as the leading philosophical question. This shift, operated by Spinoza and given a new and adequate ontology by Deleuze, is very close to Peirce’s pragmatic revolution: if Deleuze’s virtual (...) ideas are identical to the range of variations in power and affects that a body may go through, Peirce defines meaning in terms of the whole range of possible effects that an idea would produce if taken to be true. Contradictory as it may sound, the concept of the virtual entails something like a pragmaticism of the singular, which informs every aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy: his doctrine of faculties and his theory of praxis will be used as instances of this pervasiveness. This pragmatist reading of Deleuze could possibly shape an alternative path for contemporary pragmatism: instead of valorising its “edifying” (linguistic, historicistic, humanistic) tendency, Deleuze allows to highlight the vitality of the second vein of pragmatism, the “constructive,” empiricist, speculative, even metaphysical one. (shrink)