Raymond Aron and his Dialogues in an Age of Ideologies examines the thought and rhetoric of the most interesting thinker of the twentieth century of whom no one has heard. This book investigates Raymond Aron's conversations on politics during the Cold War with several of his more well-known interlocutors including Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Hayek, and Charles de Gaulle. Through exploring these dialogues on the subjects of Marxism, freedom, and nationalism, we see the prudence of Aron's politics of understanding as well (...) as the emphasis he places on and virtue he demonstrates in public discourse. Through his dialogues, Aron shows us not only how to think politically but also how to engage in constructive public debate. He stands as a model for us to emulate in our own age of ideologies. (shrink)

Discussions of political obligation and political authority have long focused on the idea that the commands of genuine authorities constitute content-independent reasons. Despite its centrality in these debates, the notion of content-independence is unclear and controversial, with some claiming that it is incoherent, useless, or increasingly irrelevant. I clarify content-independence by focusing on how reasons can depend on features of their source or container. I then solve the long-standing puzzle of whether the fact that laws can constitute content-independent reasons is (...) consistent with the fact that some laws must fail to bind due to their egregiously unjust content. Finally I defend my understanding of content-independence against challenges and show why it retains a place of special importance for questions about the law and political obligation. Content-independence highlights that it is some feature of the law or law-making process in general that is supposed to generate moral obligations for citizens, not the merits of particular laws. (shrink)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a claim of metaphysical modality, in possession of good alethic standing, must be in want of an essentialist foundation. Or at least so say the advocates of thereductive-essence-firstview, according to which all modality is to be reductively defined in terms of essence. Here, I contest this bit of current wisdom. In particular, I offer two puzzles—one concerning the essences of non-compossible, complementary entities, and a second involving entities whose essences are modally ‘loaded’—that together (...) strongly call into question the possibility of reducing modality to essence. (shrink)

How should one define “atheism”? The first response to such a question might be: “look it up in the dictionary”. The dictionary in question is, as Rosamund Moon has cleverly put it, the “Unidentifi...

We offer an original argument for the existence of universal fictions—that is, fictions within which every possible proposition is true. Specifically, we detail a trio of such fictions, along with an easy-to-follow recipe for generating more. After exploring several consequences and dismissing some objections, we conclude that fiction, unlike reality, is unlimited when it comes to truth.

Rather infamously, Kit Fine provided a series of counter-examples which purport to show that the modalist program of analysing essence in terms of metaphysical necessity is fundamentally misguided. Several would-be modalists have since responded, attempting to save the position from this Finean Challenge. This paper evaluates and rejects a trio of such responses, from Della Rocca, Zalta, and Gorman. But I’m not here arguing for Fine’s conclusion – ultimately, this is a fight amongst friends, with Della Rocca, Zalta, Gorman, and (...) I all wanting to be modalists, but disagreeing on the details. As such, while my primary aim is to show what’s wrong with this trio, the secondary aim is demonstrating how what’s right about them in fact pushes one towards my own sparse modalist account. So while the primary conclusion of this paper is negative, the secondary, positive, conclusion is that modalists shouldn’t give up hope – plausible responses to Fine are still out there. (shrink)

The past decade and a half has seen an absolute explosion of literature discussing the structure of reality. One particular focus here has been on the fundamental. However, while there has been extensive discussion, numerous fundamental questions about fundamentality have not been touched upon. In this chapter, I focus on one such lacuna about the modal strength of fundamentality. More specifically, I am interested in exploring the contingent fundamentality thesis - that is, the idea that the fundamentalia are only contingently (...) fundamental (or, in property-terms, that the property of being fundamental is not a (weakly) necessary property). And while I think this thesis is plausible – indeed, I show here that it lurks in the unexamined shadows/assumptions of some fairly prominent positions – as far as I can tell, nothing has been said either for or against it. Here, I hope to fix this by giving the thesis a proper airing. In this way, this chapter represents a first-pass at exploring not only the modal status of fundamentality, but also offers a starting point for examining broader issues about the relationship between fundamentality and modality. (shrink)

In a recent column, “Faith, science and the abortion debate: Do abortion rights advocates follow the facts, wherever they lead?” at Religion News Service (reposted at America as “In the abortion debate, it’s the pro-lifers who have science on their side”), theologian-bioethicist Charles Camosy reports that pro-choice advocates sometimes deny scientific facts that are relevant to abortion debates. This response critiques his comments.

Bare particularism is a constituent ontology according to which substances—concrete, particular objects like people, tables, and tomatoes—are complex entities constituted by their properties and their bare particulars. Yet, aside from this description, much about bare particularism is fundamentally unclear. In this paper, I attempt to clarify this muddle by elucidating the key metaphysical commitments underpinning any plausible formulation of the position. So the aim here is primarily catechismal rather than evangelical—I don’t intend to convert anyone to bare particularism, but, by (...) looking at a series of questions, to instead specify what, if one is a bare particularist, one is committed to. Along the way, I address three major objections: a classic objection about whether bare particulars have properties, a new objection raised by Bailey, and an understanding objection that questions some of the position’s resources. (shrink)

Due to advances in military technology, there has been an outpouring of research on what are known as autonomous weapon systems (AWS). However, it is common in this literature for arguments to be made without first making clear exactly what definitions one is employing, with the detrimental effect that authors may speak past one another or even miss the targets of their arguments. In this article I examine the U.S. Department of Defense and International Committee of the Red Cross definitions (...) of AWS, showing that these definitions are far broader than some recognize, and that they therefore classify a much larger set of weapons as AWS. I then show that these broader views of AWS have implications for what moral and legal rules we might argue should be applied to such systems. I conclude by arguing there is a greater need for precision and clarity within AWS debates, in order to ensure that researchers are discussing the same weapon systems (autonomous or otherwise) when they argue for or against particular points. The purpose of this article is not to defend any specific view of AWS, nor to further any general endorsement or objection to such systems, but rather to show the importance of argumentative clarity in this debate. (shrink)

How can you steal something that doesn’t exist? This question confronts those of us who take an irrealist view of virtual objects and agree with the Supreme Court of the Netherlands that robbery took place when two boys used non-virtual violence to coerce a third boy into relinquishing his virtual amulet and mask. Here we outline this Puzzle of Virtual Theft, along with the closely related Puzzle of Virtual Value. After demonstrating how these puzzles are deeply problematic for the irrealist, (...) we go on to sketch a solution that not only circumscribes the puzzles but also offers a framework by which legal scholars can make sense within existing legal codes of the new phenomenon of virtual theft. (shrink)

Wrestling with God makes your faith stronger.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Pascal understood God and Reason to be part of a continuum, comprehensible to the understanding, and not radically opposed to one another. The paper situates Pascal in the context of seventeenth-century intellectual history and examines the concept of Dieu Caché from the perspective of seventeenth-century linguistics.

A central claim of Deleuze's reading of Bergson is that Bergson's distinction between space as an extensive multiplicity and duration as an intensive multiplicity is inspired by the distinction between discrete and continuous manifolds found in Bernhard Riemann's 1854 thesis on the foundations of geometry. Yet there is no evidence from Bergson that Riemann influences his division, and the distinction between the discrete and continuous is hardly a Riemannian invention. Claiming Riemann's influence, however, allows Deleuze to argue that quantity, in (...) the form of ‘virtual number’, still pertains to continuous multiplicities. This not only supports Deleuze's attempt to redeem Bergson's argument against Einstein in Duration and Simultaneity, but also allows Deleuze to position Bergson against Hegelian dialectics. The use of Riemann is thereby an important element of the incorporation of Bergson into Deleuze's larger early project of developing an anti-Hegelian philosophy of difference. This article first reviews the role of discrete and continuous multiplicities or manifolds in Riemann's Habilitationsschrift, and how Riemann uses them to establish the foundations of an intrinsic geometry. It then outlines how Deleuze reinterprets Riemann's thesis to make it a credible resource for Deleuze's Bergsonism. Finally, it explores the limits of this move, and how Deleuze's later move away from Bergson turns on the rejection of an assumption of Riemann's thesis, that of ‘flatness in smallest parts’, which Deleuze challenges with the idea, taken from Riemann's contemporary, Richard Dedekind, of the irrational cut. (shrink)

Rachel Carson begins her revolutionary book Silent Spring with a quote from E.B. White that reads ‘we would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively’. While White's advice can account for an instrumental relationship towards nature, I believe that the more important relationship offered in his recommendation is one of appreciation or gratitude. But how are we to understand gratitude as appreciating Nature non-instrumentally when it has traditionally always been understood (...) as a response to a benefit received? My motivation is to modify our traditional conception of gratitude alongside Simon Hailwood's account of the ‘Otherness of Nature’ to see how we can truly show gratitude for Nature rather than simply reflecting on how Nature serves human interests. (shrink)

The ArgumentOver the years national styles have been invoked or denigrated in the writing of the history of science. This paper is an attempt to give the concept of national style a degree of precision and clarity enabling scholars to understand when and how it may be invoked and when and how its use would be dubious or even forbidden. The example of the United States of America is used because the history of the sciences in the United States was (...) often written loosely in terms supposedly conducive to national style analyses. We first discuss the problem of commonalities, factors widely present within all countries in the Western tradition, which, by definition, cannot be exclusive national attributes. Here the problem is to somehow determine whether the supposed national style attribute is a case of a significantly different degree of intensity than some presumed norm in the Western tradition.The principal thesis advanced is that pre-existing historiographic assumptions largely determine whether or not a scholar finds or does not find a national style. This is discussed in terms of some examples for the U.S. case. More particularly, a number of examples are discussed from the three principal genres or schools in current writing in the history of science: the knowledge-centered; the doing-science; and the context-oriented. Based on the analysis of the examples, an attempt is made to sketch an approach to a more rigorous use of the concept of national style. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become nearly ubiquitous in modern society, from components of mobile applications to medical support systems, and everything in between. In societally impactful systems imbued with AI, there has been increasing concern related to opaque AI, that is, artificial intelligence where it is unclear how or why certain decisions are reached. This has led to a recent boom in research on “explainable AI” (XAI), or approaches to making AI more explainable and understandable to human users. In the (...) military domain, numerous bodies have argued that autonomous and AI-enabled weapon systems ought not incorporate unexplainable AI, with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United States Department of Defense both explicitly including explainability as a relevant factor in the development and use of such systems. In this article, I present a cautiously critical assessment of this view, arguing that explainability will be irrelevant for many current and near-future autonomous systems in the military (which do not incorporate any AI), that it will be trivially incorporated into most military systems which do possess AI (as these generally possess simpler AI systems), and that for those systems with genuinely opaque AI, explainability will prove to be of more limited value than one might imagine. In particular, I argue that explainability, while indeed a virtue in design, is a virtue aimed primarily at designers and troubleshooters of AI-enabled systems, but is far less relevant for users and handlers actually deploying these systems. I further argue that human–machine teaming is a far more important element of responsibly using AI for military purposes, adding that explainability may undermine efforts to improve human–machine teamings by creating aprima faciesense that the AI, due to its explainability, may be utilized with little (or less) potential for mistakes. I conclude by clarifying that the arguments are not against XAI in the military, but are instead intended as a caution against over-inflating the value of XAI in this domain, or ignoring the limitations and potential pitfalls of this approach. (shrink)

Peter Harrison's Gifford Lectures demonstrate that the modern concepts of “religion” and “science” do not correspond to any fixed sphere of life in the pre-modern world. Because these terms are incommensurate and ideological, they misconstrue the past. I examine the influence and affinities of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy on Harrison's study in order to argue that Harrison's project approaches Wittgenstein's. Harrison's book is a therapeutic history, untying a knot in scholarly language. I encourage Harrison, however, to clarify how future scholars can (...) progress in their study of phenomena once termed “scientific” or “religious” without succumbing to these same mistakes. (shrink)

Recently, Xhignesse has argued that the principle of poetic licence, which roughly states that any class of propositions is true in some possible fiction, ought to be rejected. Here, we defend PPL from Xhignesse’s objection by demonstrating that, properly understood, his purported counter-example case is either irrelevant or unproblematic. The upshot is that Xhignesse has given us no reason to reject PPL.

The aim of this chapter is broadly exploratory: we want to better understand online affective manipulation and what, if anything, is morally problematic about it. To do so, we begin by pulling apart various forms of online affective manipulation. We then proceed to discuss why online affective manipulation is properly categorized as manipulative, as well as what is wrong with (online) manipulation more generally. Building on this, we next argue that, at its most extreme, online affective manipulation constitutes a novel (...) form of affective injustice that we call affective powerlessness. To demonstrate this, we introduce the notions of affective injustice and affective powerlessness and show how several forms of online affective manipulation leave users in this state. The upshot is that this chapter gives us a better grip on the nature of online affective manipulation, as well some tools to help us understand when and why it is morally problematic. (shrink)

As Vetter says, we are at the “beginning of the debate, not the end” (2015: 300) when it comes to evaluating her potentiality-based account of metaphysical modality. This paper contributes to this developing debate by highlighting three problems for Vetter’s account. Specifically, I begin (§1) by articulating some relevant details of Vetter’s potentiality-based view. This leads to the first issue (§2), concerning unclarity in the idea of degrees of potentiality. Similarly, the second issue (§3) raises trouble for Vetter’s proposed individuation (...) conditions for potentialities. Finally, the third issue (§4) is about apparently unmanifestable intrinsic potentialities, and suggests that there might be some deeper problems with anchoring metaphysical possibilities in concrete objects. More generally, though the issues detailed here are problematic, I do not take them to be fatal. However, they do show that, at minimum, further clarification of Vetter’s potentiality view is required. As Vetter says, we are at the “beginning of the debate, not the end” (2015: 300) when it comes to evaluating her potentiality-based account of metaphysical modality. This paper contributes to this developing debate by highlighting three problems for Vetter’s account. Specifically, I begin (§1) by articulating some relevant details of Vetter’s potentiality-based view. This leads to the first issue (§2), concerning unclarity in the idea of degrees of potentiality. Similarly, the second issue (§3) raises trouble for Vetter’s proposed individuation conditions for potentialities. Finally, the third issue (§4) is about apparently unmanifestable intrinsic potentialities, and suggests that there might be some deeper problems with anchoring metaphysical possibilities in concrete objects. More generally, though the issues detailed here are problematic, I do not take them to be fatal. However, they do show that, at minimum, further clarification of Vetter’s potentiality view is required. (shrink)

Disorders of sexual differentiation lead to what is often referred to as an intersex state. This state has medical, as well as some legal, recognition. Nevertheless, the question remains whether intersex persons occupy a state in between maleness and femaleness or whether they are truly men or women. To answer this question, another important conundrum needs to be first solved: what defines sex? The answer seems rather simple to most people, yet when morphology does not coincide with haplotypes, and genetics (...) might not correlate with physiology the issue becomes more complex. This paper tackles both issues by establishing where the essence of sex is located and by superimposing that framework onto the issue of the intersex. This is achieved through giving due consideration to the biology of sexual development, as well as through the use of a teleological framework of the meaning of sex. Using a range of examples, the paper establishes that sex cannot be pinpointed to one biological variable but is rather d... (shrink)

There is an ongoing concern about workplace ethics. Many voices say that our educational system ought to do something about it, but they do not agree about how to do this. By the time students reach post‐secondary education, they will have already developed a general moral sense. The concern is whether their moral sense is sufficient for ethical situations in the workplace. If not, post‐secondary education is expected to close the gap. In order to do this, educators need information about (...) what is missing. Educators can set clear, work‐related objectives and use classroom activities to reach those objectives based on an identification of these gaps. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca dar razón de la categoría paideia como estructura fundamental del quehacer teológico de Gregorio de Nisa. En función de este propósito se hace un acercamiento a la noción de paideia propia de los griegos y, posteriormente se señala la manera como el Niseno apropió dicha categoría configurando la paideia cristiana, apelando a ejemplos de su obra De Vita Moysis. This article seeks to give reason for the category paideia as a fundamental structure of the theological enterprise (...) of Gregory of Nyssa. According to this purpose is made an approach to the concept of paideia own of the Greeks and subsequently notes how the bishop of Nyssa appropriated that category by configuring the Christian paideia, appealing to examples of his work De Vita Moysis. (shrink)

University of California, Santa Barbara.

While recent history has seen significant debate concerning the nature and extension of essence, comparatively little attention has been paid to the epistemology of essence. This is strange, as, plausibly, what answers we give to the metaphysical questions about essence will (or should) be partially constrained by our essence epistemology. Here, I aim to go some way towards filling this lacuna. In particular, I here argue that there is no plausible epistemic story available for non-modal accounts of essence. In particular, (...) existing accounts of essence epistemology cannot explain how we are able to know that something is genuinely essential, rather than merely necessary. One consequence is that modal accounts of essence – which only needs to supply an epistemology for a non-hyperintensional notion – look that much more plausible. (shrink)

This paper argues that the central notion of truth content in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory is to be understood through the way that art provides a mimesis of false consciousness. The paper is divided into three main parts: in the first part, I examine Adorno’s distinction between discursive truth and aesthetic truth. The latter rests on a theory of non-objectifying synthesis. The second part of the paper shows how art can be understood as a form of mimesis, thus distinguishing it from (...) the ontology of representation. I argue that while there are many forms of mimesis, Adorno gives specific significance to the way in which modern art imitates social rationality. In the final section, I argue that art can be true by imitating ‘false consciousness’ and thus transforming it. I explain Adorno’s notion of false consciousness through four features: there is a rigid bifurcation of enjoyment from work, there is a sadistic enjoyment of violence, there is a lack of cognitive tension between intuition and concept, and there is a false projection of one’s own desires onto others. (shrink)

The expression “ecological threat” refers to a dynamic of double intrusion: the intrusion of geological history in human history (the intrusion of Gaia) and the intrusion of human history in geological history (the Anthropocene). This double intrusion is founded on a series of major partitions (culture/nature; society/environment) that do not allow for the possibility of communication between the terms of these dichotomies unless it is in the form of reciprocal violation. In the article, the ontology of the flesh is used (...) in order to think the intrusion in a different way compared to the great partitions. Within a chiasmatic logic, the terms of each dichotomy are understood as inseparable moments of the same flesh which institutes a difference – inside/outside – through an infinite movement of folding and torsion. By thinking this common element, Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the flesh enters in dialogue with Amerindian mythocosmologies of the “first Anthropocene.” In these mythocosmologies, a humanity-flesh – understood as a transformative, pre-individual, and metastable potential – gives birth, through differentiation, to the multiple points of view that populate the cosmos. This dialogue allows us to think about the socialization of Gaia and to trace the contours of a general ecology understood as a thought that operates between – or beyond – major partitions. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

En La enfermedad mortal Anti-Climacus describe enfáticamente la desesperación como la consecuencia de la negación de la posibilidad producida por el deseo humano cuando este insiste en ser sí mismo u otro sin Dios. Esta negación genera una relación no efectiva del individuo consigo mismo y con los otros, dando lugar a la condición del pecado, entendido en su connotación religiosa. Lo anterior conduce al problema de cómo llegar a ser un verdadero cristiano en el marco de una crítica, realizada (...) frecuentemente por el pensador danés, del egoísmo moderno. En el siguiente artículo realizaré un análisis hermenéutico de la desesperación considerando el contexto de la objetividad moderna, en contraposición al concepto del amor planteado por Kierkegaard como un proyecto ético-existencial en Las obras del amor. (shrink)

Samuel Coleridge once noted that very short works of art ease the cognitive burden on poet and reader alike. Limiting the number of lines in a poem, he contends, allows the work 'to acquire, as it were, a Totality' which allows the reader's mind to 'rest satisfied'. Anyone who has strained to grasp the overall pattern of some massive novel, film, or musical work can readily appreciate Coleridge's point. And yet insofar as a film or poem is a temporal work (...) of art, the parts of which are manifested only consecutively, its Totality - be it an ever so small one - is never directly presented to us all at once, and its acquisition, as well as the satisfaction such an acquisition can provide, requires a feat of memory. A film, like a life, may have a brilliant, simple order and a deep and powerful unity, but the presentation and realization of such a totality is something that takes place in time, something that requires an experience of temporal unfolding - something that requires the work of a mind capable of thinking through and recollecting the temporal relations between the parts of the whole. So that while Marianne Olsen Ulrichsen's Come is a perfectly unified gem, a satisfying totality that presents itself to us in just four and a half minutes, we must nonetheless live through its unfolding to discover the coherence of its parts. One of this film's central themes is precisely this kind of process, namely, the constitution of personal identity and togetherness, in and through time and memory. What follows is just one story that may be told about an elusive process that no doubt takes very different forms for different viewers. (shrink)