The first pathway toward a new conceptualist answer to the existence of universals begins with Descartes. The article is guided by a Cartesian method of starting anew in metaphysics and our knowledge of mind-dependent universals. Relevant examples and learning experiments defend and validate the pragmatic utility of conceptualism. It is past time for analytic ontology to set aside its assumptions, reevaluate its methodology and simplify itself. I raise novel objections through metaphor and analogy against standard and Platonic realism. Independent universals (...) of realism are speculative and are neither necessary nor sufficient. This rejection of metaphysical realism defends the validity of scientific empiricist realism. Historical arguments such as William James’ empirical conceptualism and J.S. Mill’s criticisms strengthen this position. Nominalist methods are also considered. My theory is confirmed and useful for a preliminary epistemic-ontology which evaluates concepts and universals of mineral species. This appendix is consistent with Descartes’ theory of attributes and provides a new important approach to this field of study. The article, long dormant, is made possible by the work of Rene Descartes. (shrink)

Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical to future research. Culture influences what kinds of science are supported and where science can be conducted through ethical frameworks and evaluations of risk. Neuroscientists and philosophers alike have found themselves together encountering perennial questions; these questions are (...) engaged by the field of neuroethics, related to the nature of understanding the self and identity, the existence and meaning of free will, defining the role of reason in human behavior, and more. With this Perspective article, we aim to prioritize and advance to the foreground a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists operating in the context of these international brain initiatives. (shrink)

The author of this text argues that the methodological issues in bioethics mirrors the experience of moral pluralism in a secular society. The different methods that have been used in the field reflect the different moral views found in a pluralistic society.

In Wollstonecraft’s early writings, she articulates the foundational theological and philosophical principles that would underpin her work throughout her career. One difference between her early and later work lies in the way that the values to which she refers are combined. Whereas Wollstonecraft at first appeals to the separate ideals of independence, equality, and virtue, from the 1790s onwards she integrates these into a characteristic republican framework that was in common use amongst dissenting theorists at the time. The set of (...) values on which Wollstonecraft draws, and the version of the republican framework that she develops, closely resemble those of Richard Price with whose work she was familiar. Examining the structural similarities between their respective models, I argue, gives us an insight into the systematic manner of aspects of Wollstonecraft’s own thought. It also allows us to see how Wollstonecraft goes beyond the republicanism of Price and others as she develops her own feminist solutions to the problems of structural domination. (shrink)

Collingwood argues that art is a remedy for what he calls a “corrupt consciousness.” Consciousness becomes corrupted when agents do not admit that they are starting to experience an emotion. Instead of becoming conscious of the emerging emotion, which is usually a difficult one, agents become conscious of an emotion that is easier to handle. Collingwood sees the corruption of consciousness as epistemically and morally problematic mainly because it is a form of dishonesty that infects the activity of the imagination (...) and the intellect. While highlighting the importance of Collingwood’s notion of the corruption of consciousness, this paper argues that this notion would benefit from being situated in an explicitly top-down model of attention and emotion as opposed to the bottom-up model that Collingwood proposes. This shift preserves the central insights of Collingwood’s aesthetics – most especially his emphasis on the specificity involved in the expression of emotion – while ironing out some of the implausibility in his underlying analysis. (shrink)

Metaphysicians go on busily doing metaphysical thinking all over the world, and apparently with a modicum of self-assurance that they are not talking nonsense or pursuing an illusory will-of-the-wisp. Yet other philosophers of empirical, analytical, phenomenological, or other turns of mind seem to have more and more difficulty in understanding just how metaphysicians give meaning and positive content to the vast abstract concepts by which they seek to describe and explain the entire spectrum of reality extending far beyond present or (...) perhaps even possible human experience. Since there is no way of gaining direct insight into dimensions of reality beyond human experience, and since in order to be applied to the whole range of reality these concepts must abstract from purely human experience, it is hard for them to see—and it is a serious problem in itself—how these all-embracing terms can be anything more than empty, formal, verbal symbols or conceptual constructions, with no positive existential content describing reality itself across its whole spectrum. Even the metaphysician himself, though when left alone he may have a sure sense of how to do metaphysical thinking fruitfully, when questioned to explain and justify what he is doing, and is convinced is worth doing, can feel embarrassed and struck dumb as to how to articulate and justify the principles behind the procedures he is following. (shrink)

In 1917 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote an essay that proposes union as a way to observe how the process of evolution takes place. He spent the remainder of his life broadening and sharpening the vision, which was based on union in nature. We propose that this vision and the historical development of thermodynamics and classical statistical mechanics offer insight into union and even into the divine life that many Christians believe to be triadic. We briefly situate union in the (...) triune divine life in early Christian tradition as it was believed and practiced. We then interpret three stages of development in the sciences of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics that support the theme of union in nature. Next we describe the development of Teilhard's thought during his scientific career and his tests of the theme of union, principally in his private journals, now being edited. We offer examples of Teilhard's application of union to his own spiritual life and compare his understanding of union with those of Paul the Apostle and John of the Cross. Finally, although the Christian God's triadic life was not a particular concern of Teilhard, we propose union in nature as a vestige of the divine life. (shrink)

Introdução a Levinas a partir da discussão sobre a problemática da subjetividade.

The advent of moral pluralism in the post-modern age leads to a set of issues about how pluralistic societies can function. The questions of biomedical ethics frequently highlight the larger issues of moral pluralism and social cooperation. Reflection on these issues has focused on the decision making roles of the health care professionals, the patient, and the patient's family. One species of actor that has been neglected has been those institutions which are part of the public, secular realm and which (...) have a particular moral heritage. Keywords: approval, compromise, condemnation, integrity, toleration CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Anyone interested in the relationship between culture and the intellectual life, has no doubt turned to the works of Christopher Dawson. This collection of ten essays from a recent conference at Oxford acts as an excellent commentary on Dawson’s main academic concerns: recovering history as a philosophical-theological category, and the reintegration of the disciplines so as to provide future generations with an understanding of culture in the truest sense of the term. As John Morrill points out in his introductory essay, (...) Dawson’s “passionate commitment to metahistory and his proclamation of the deeply moral purpose of the historian” —although out of favor in some academic circles—marks his as a unique voice in the search for truth. Dawson’s daughter, Christina Scott, offers the reader some otherwise inaccessible insights into her father’s life, especially regarding his early interest in Augustine’s De civitate Dei and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. Aidan Nichols, OP provides a bigger picture. His essay, “Christopher Dawson’s Catholic Setting,” highlights the “theology of culture” affecting all parts of English life during the earlier part of this century: the literature, art, architecture, and philosophy that brought “a Catholic sensibility to bear on cultural life”. The Chelsea set, a vibrantly orthodox Catholic salon to which Dawson belonged, centered their thought around the Neo-Thomism of Gilson and Maritain, the literature of Fumet and Julian Green, as well as the social thought of Emmanuel Mounier. (shrink)