The thinkers presented in these lectures by Bergman represent a radical departure from objectivism and subjectivism.

... A. Zvie BAR-ON The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Shmuel Hugo Bergman, one of the most prominent Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, ...

Also published as Vol. 24 in _Grazer Philosophische Studien_.

Bergman's account of Cusanus's view of the relationship between God and the world leaves room for reservations. Bergman maintains that Cusanus is either a pantheist or a panentheist. This view, at variance with Cusanus's explicit theism, is hardly tenable in the light of a suitable interpretation of his apparently pantheistic or panentheistic formulations. Bergman's treatment of enfolding and unfolding, and especially of the arithmetical illustration of those relations, is deficient. His ascription of manifest Platonism to Cusanus's theory of enfolding is (...) objectionable, since, for Cusanus, the enfolding entities are not universals and need not even be existents. The way in which Bergman compares Cusanus with Goethe and with Rudolf Otto is misleading. So is his account of Cusanus's principle of the coincidence of opposites. (shrink)

Bergman's account of Cusanus's view of the relationship between God and the world leaves room for reservations. Bergman maintains that Cusanus is either a pantheist or a panentheist. This view, at variance with Cusanus's explicit theism, is hardly tenable in the light of a suitable interpretation of his apparently pantheistic or panentheistic formulations. Bergman's treatment of enfolding and unfolding, and especially of the arithmetical illustration of those relations, is deficient. His ascription of manifest Platonism to Cusanus's theory of enfolding is (...) objectionable, since, for Cusanus, the enfolding entities are not universals and need not even be existents. The way in which Bergman compares Cusanus with Goethe and with Rudolf Otto is misleading. So is his account of Cusanus's principle of the coincidence of opposites. (shrink)

The general topic of this book is the theory of categories, its sources, meaning and development. The inquiry can be seen to proceed on two levels. On one, the history of the theory is traced from its alleged genesis in Aristotle, through its main subsequent stages of Kant and Hegel, up to a kind of consummation in two of its prominent twentieth century adherents, Alfred North White head and Nicolai Hartmann. Special attention has been paid to that aspect of the (...) Hegelian conception of the categorial analysis from which the principle of coherence emerged. On the second, deeper level, however, everything starts with Whitehead's metaphysical system, the central part of which con sists of a fascinating, though highly intricate, web of categorial notions and propositions. The historical perspective becomes a means for untangling that web. I am indebted to a number of people for advice, comment and criticism of various parts of this book. My greatest thanks go to my teachers and colleagues Nathan Rotenstreich, Nathan Spiegel, Yaakov Fleischman, as well as to the late Shmuel Hugo Bergman and Pepita Haezrachi. of this book was published in 1967 by An earlier, Hebrew version the Bialik Institute of Jerusalem. I am grateful to Mr Yehoshua Perel, Mr Arnold Schwartz and to my wife Varda for their cooperation in rendering the extensively revised text of the book into readable English. I also owe great appreciation to Miss Liat Dawe for an accurate and painstaking word-processing of the text. (shrink)

The persistence of multiple educational pathways into the nursing profession continues to occupy scholars internationally. In the Netherlands, various groups within the Dutch healthcare sector have tried to differentiate nursing practice on the basis of educational backgrounds for over 50 years. Proponents argue that such reforms are needed to retain bachelor‐trained nurses, improve quality of care and strengthen nurses' position in the sector. Opponents have actively resisted reforms because they would mainly benefit bachelor‐trained nurses and neglect practical experience and technical (...) skills. This historical case study aims to provide insight in this apparent stalemate. Our analysis of this debate is informed by literature on institutional work and current debates within the historiography of nursing. This study contributes to a better understanding of this contemporary debate by examining a broader timeframe than is usually studied, and by highlighting nurses' roles in complex processes of change. We argue that, rather than being stuck in their professional development, different groups of nurses have forged their own path forward in their professional development, albeit via different strategies. (shrink)

Friedrich Hölderlin argued that consciousness requires division and unity. Consciousness emerges through the fundamental distancing of the subject from its surroundings, without which the subject-object distinction would collapse and both objectivity and consciousness would be lost. Nevertheless, insofar as conscious knowledge is unitary, division demands a ground for unity. Hölderlin calls this ground ‘Being [Seyn].’ However, once Being is affirmed, the question of how it is accessed arises. Hölderlin’s scholars disagreed on this issue. This disagreement gave rise to two camps: (...) those who deny that Hölderlin accepts the idea of direct access to Being and believe that he proves Being through an act of reflection (Henrich); and those who argue that for Hölderlin, ‘Being’ is directly accessed. Those who hold the latter position can be further divided into those who conceive of this direct access as knowledge (Frank) and those who argue that this access does not have a cognoscitive character, but rather an aesthetic one (Waibel). This article considers these positions and shows that the direct apprehension of ‘Being’ is part of Hölderlin’s argument aimed at solving a fundamental problem; an argument that differs both from the postulate of access to Being as knowledge of transcendence and from the affirmation of a purely aesthetic mode of access. (shrink)

Because reasoning allows us to justify our beliefs and evaluate these justifications it is central to folk epistemology. Following Sperber, and contrary to classical views, it will be argued that reasoning evolved not to complement individual cognition but as an argumentative device. This hypothesis is more consistent with the prevalence of the confirmation and disconfirmation biases. It will be suggested that these biases render the individual use of reasoning hazardous, but that when reasoning is used in its natural, argumentative, context (...) they can represent a smart way to divide labor without loosing epistemic value. (shrink)

The ethics of physical restraint in the Emergency Department has always been an emotive and controversial issue. Recently a vanguard of advocacy groups and regulatory agencies have...

This article is an attempt at understanding the use that Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri Śaiva philosopher and scholar of poetics, makes of a few concepts and theories stemming from the tradition of Vedic ritual exegesis. Its starting point is the detailed analysis of a key passage in Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the “aphorism on rasa” of the Nāṭyaśāstra, where the learned commentator draws an analogy between the operation of the non-prescriptive portions of the Veda in the ritual and the “generalisation” taking place, (...) according to him, in the appreciation of a work of art. Arguing against the tendency of modern historiography to explain this analogy exclusively in terms of Kumārila’s theory of effectuation in its two modalities, the article endeavours to show how Abhinavagupta relies on a variety of other textual sources he knew extensively and presumably first-hand. Some of them belong to the great Mīmāṃsaka tradition ; others, to different trends of medieval Brahmanism claiming exegetical heritage, as in the case of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamañjarī The nature of Abhinavagupta’s debt to Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka and his concept of bhāvanā is also reconsidered in light of these new findings. This investigation finally leads to identify, in the Abhinavabhāratī, an original theory of scriptural narratives and their efficacy, irreducible to any of its exegetical sources. According to this theory, mythological passages of the Veda directly prompt action, through the same capacity of abstraction or “de-temporalisation” that is at work in our appraisal of literature and theatre. (shrink)

We elaborate on the approach to syllogistic reasoning based on “case identification” (Stenning & Oberlander, 1995; Stenning & Yule, 1997). It is shown that this can be viewed as the formalisation of a method of proof that dates back to Aristotle, namely proof by exposition ( ecthesis ), and that there are traces of this method in the strategies described by a number of psychologists, from St rring (1908) to the present day. We hypothesised that by rendering individual cases explicit (...) in the premises, the chance that reasoners would engage in a proof by exposition would be enhanced, and thus performance improved. To do so, we used syllogisms with singular premises (e.g., this X is Y ). This resulted in a uniform increase in performance as compared to performance on the associated standard syllogisms. These results cannot be explained by the main theories of syllogistic reasoning in their current state. (shrink)

This paper discusses the state-of-the-art dispute over the ontological question of rock music: what is the work of art, or the central work-kind, of rock music, if any? And, is the work of rock music ontologically distinct from the work of classical music, which is the only musical tradition whose ontology is vastly studied? First, I distinguish between two levels of inquiry in musical ontology: the fundamental level and the higher-order level, in which comparative ontology – the project in which (...) someone engages by considering that there is ontological variety among works of distinct musical traditions – falls. After addressing two general questions about rock music, I turn to Theodore Gracyk’s ontological account of rock music, according to which the primary focus of critical attention in rock music are recordings, or recorded tracks. This view has the consequence that ‘recordings’ is a fundamental concept of philosophy of music, necessary for us to understand rock music. Stephen Davies objected that Gracyk’s account fails to assign appropriate value to a valuable practice with which rock audiences are committed, live performance, and argued that the works of rock music are of the ontological kind for studio performance. Finally, Andrew Kania synthetized both views: rock recorded tracks are at the centre of rock as an art form, thus being the rock works. For, different reasons, none of these views is deemed satisfactory. (shrink)

Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence (...) in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. Poor performance in standard reasoning tasks is explained by the lack of argumentative context. When the same problems are placed in a proper argumentative setting, people turn out to be skilled arguers. Skilled arguers, however, are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing, but also when they are reasoning proactively from the perspective of having to defend their opinions. Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow erroneous beliefs to persist. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device: Look for arguments that support a given conclusion, and, ceteris paribus, favor conclusions for which arguments can be found. (shrink)

The article approaches Salomon Maimon’s reinterpretation of the notions of the thing in itself and the given within the framework of criticism. For Maimon they do not refer to a transcendence that is directly unattainable by knowledge. In this attempt, he tries to explain the given on the basis of the action of constitutive understanding. With this, he triggers the passage from transcendental Kantian philosophy to the idealism of Fichte. Nonetheless, his position faces the subsequent problem of explaining how the (...) constitution of the given from understanding (infinite) can become compatible with the criticism it takes on. On affirming that an uncognoscible item is the basis of knowledge, namely, infinite understanding, he set aside the explanation of knowledge in terms of what is revealed in it and in doing so would be resorting to external uncognoscible conditions. (shrink)

As the title “Doing without Concepts” suggests Edouard Machery argues that psychologists should stop using the notion of concept because: (1) the only interesting generalizations about concepts can be drawn at the level of types of concepts (prototypes, exemplars and theories) and not the level of concept in general; and (2) competences such as categorization or induction can rely on these different types of concepts (there is not a one to one correspondence between type of concept and competence). I try (...) to make the point that these two elements are not wholly compatible. If several types of concepts are used to perform a given competence (point (2)), then they have to be well regulated (e.g. which type is activated when, which type wins in case of conflict). These regulatory mechanisms can then be the basis for interesting generalizations (against point (1)). On the other hand, it is possible that point (1) applies to competences as well: that there are no interesting generalizations to be drawn about categorization in general. In which case different types of categorization are likely to be underlain by different types of concepts (against point (2)). Even though the arguments laid out in the book are forceful and well supported by empirical evidence, a more positive thesis might have been both more successful rhetorically and more interesting scientifically. (shrink)

This article questions the place of the child in the metaphysics and imaginary of Western colonization, racialization, and decolonization. In the last chapter of The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, children appear not only as victims but also as a problem for which Fanon struggles to account as a theorist of decolonization as much as a psychiatric practitioner. Through a reading of one of the cases, this article interrogates the ways in which colonization attempts to infantilize colonized populations (...) while erasing childhood, and the ways in which decolonization meets colonization by regarding childhood in the end as a misfortune. The work of decolonization, to proceed, thus would demand us to rethink childhood, and in doing so break free of Western metaphysics. (shrink)

The possibility of artificial intelligence is usually discussed by philosophers as a problem about artificial thought: can an artificial system think? The production of intelligence in an artificial system would, however, give rise to an intelligent artificial being: an artificial thinker. As such, there is another, less explored way of discussing the possibility of artificial intelligence: can there be an artificial thinker? This is the problem of artificial thinkers (Olson 2018). In this essay, I discuss this problem. To do so, (...) first, I present the problem of artificial thinkers and discuss how best to interpret it (section §1). Then, I discuss the three main views on the metaphysical nature of artificial thinkers: the hardware view, according to which artificial thinkers are intelligent artificial systems; the software view, according to which artificial thinkers are types or copies of programs for artificial intelligence; and finally, the CPU perspective, according to which artificial thinkers are intelligent spatial parts of artificial systems (section §2). All of these views have problems regarding their conception of the persistence conditions of artificial thinkers. Even so, I conclude, artificial thinkers are best conceived as functional artificial systems. (shrink)

The five modes of suspension of judgment outlined by Sextus Empiricus (HP XV 164-188) coordinate a complex argumentative strategy to prompt the general suspension of judgment. But modes (τρόπος) are general argument forms that can be deployed individually against the dogmatist, who is willing to accept that a certain answer to a question establishes how things really are. In this case, the aim of the modes is not the general suspension of judgment but the continuation of the investigation. I present (...) a deductive version of the mode of undecidable dissension that pinpoints some principles and assumptions the skeptics requires to run their arguments. (shrink)

Friedrich Schleiermacher is among the philosophers who influenced Karoline von Günderrode's thought. Although this influence is relevant, it has received little attention. Both authors agree on distinguishing “spirit” and “body” or “the inner and the outer” in similar terms. However, there was a significant difference between them. In Schleiermacher's works that Günderrode considered (On Religion and Soliloquies), he conceives of the relationship as one in which the world or outer depends on the spirit or inner. For Günderrode, this relationship is (...) polar, as “spirit” and “world” form part of an original totality. This difference from the philosopher influences the issue that both raised of access to the “primordial ground.” For Schleiermacher, the world depends on spirit; the issue of access to that foundation is circumscribed to access to the spiritual dimension. In contrast, for Günderrode, “spirit” and “body” are poles of a previous original totality. Hence, access to the primordial ground does not coincide with the spirit's access to itself. Instead, access to unity is both spiritual and corporeal. Günderrode's differences from Schleiermacher are based on an argument we attempt to elucidate and evaluate in this article. (shrink)

1. Of all the great natural or human rights, none has been so neglected by scholars and theorists as the right to life. Today, the salient fact about this right is the considerable disagreement over its scope, form and status. Everyone has noticed the general inflationary effect of talk about ‘human’ rights in our time, in contrast to the tidy list of ‘natural’ rights drawn up by Locke and others. Nowhere is this ballooning more noticeable than in the right to (...) life itself. For Jefferson, his predecessors and contemporaries, the right to life was simple enough; it meant “the right not to be deprived of life, … a life that God gave and nature supported.” On this basis, it is natural to see the right to life classically as having reference mainly to questions affecting the termination of life. Without much imagination, one could find this right also relevant to another class of questions, those affecting the prevention of human life. However, when one historian cautiously remarked during the Great Depression that “the right to life could be interpreted as giving the individual at least an emergency claim on society for sustenance …,” we have a significant increase in the scope of protections allegedly afforded by this right. How far this ‘emergency claim’ might reach was indicated some years later in an essay addressed to U.N.E.S.C.O. The “right of living,” it was argued. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics Reconsidered: Theory and Method in a Post-Christian, Post-Modern AgeH. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. (bio)A candid assessment of the moral significance of our post-Christian, post-modern era calls for a reconsideration of the very project of bioethics. For many bioethicists, concerns for theory and method are secondary. 1 These scholars presuppose a common morality and a reasonable, overlapping consensus regarding [End Page 336] an appropriate polity. They assume as well that (...) we, as humans, possess middle-level principles, casuistic capacities, and guiding intuitions that enable us, inter alia, to identify which allocations of health care are unfair, whether the purchase of organs from the poor is exploitative, and if physicians may require as a condition for treatment agreement on a professional standard for the disclosure of information in the acquisition of consent. In this account of bioethics, we are taken to share a content-full moral understanding. Theory may illuminate that understanding and method may resolve particular controversies, but neither is necessary to disclose the nature of the moral life in the domain of health care. The account presents us as bound by a content-full morality, about which we have pretheoretical knowledge and in terms of which we are able to reach appropriate decisions, even if we have competing theoretical understandings of that morality.This dominant account of bioethics has interesting similarities with Roman Catholic moral theology in assuming (1) the existence of a common canonical morality grounded in our nature, our sentiments, and/or our reason, as well as (2) the ability of reason, reflection, or analysis to disclose the substance of that morality. The difficulty is that there are diverse moral sentiments, sympathies, and visions. The depth of our disagreements can be gauged in our substantive disputes regarding abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and health care reform. Furthermore, no appeal to middle-level principles or to casuistry can bridge such differences when people really disagree. Such appeals only underscore what separates.Consider how an appeal to the principle of autonomy or justice in mediating disputes regarding the licensing of for-profit euthanatization services or the enactment of a health care proposal like that produced by the Clinton administration in 1993 (White House 1993) will only disclose how deep the disagreements are, if the disputants are a Rawlsian and a Nozickian (Rawls 1971, Nozick 1974). Or, consider an appeal to casuistry for the resolution of health care policy debates among parties, some of whom consider dumping and skimming to be morally exemplar acts of autonomy, frankness, and appropriate stewardship of resources (Engelhardt and Rie 1988), while the other parties regard them as exemplar acts of injustice. Such disputants will agree neither about the proper descriptions of the cases, nor about how to derive moral guidance from them, because they bring to the cases disparate moral senses and different understandings of moral rationality. In a world in which there are as many different accounts of fairness and justice as there are major religions, and where many may hold that exploiters are those who do not allow the poor to sell their organs to the rich, the presumption of a moral consensus or background morality (Bayertz 1994) serves more as an ideology than as a general authoritative moral disclosure. [End Page 337]In addition, it is not possible to choose among many 2 of the competing visions or accounts of justice, fairness, and appropriate behavior on the basis of sound rational argument. To choose authoritatively among competing content-full moralities or moral accounts, one must already have background moral guidance. If one is to choose the account that maximizes benefits over harms, one must be able to compare competing benefits. For example, in terms of consequences, one cannot compare liberty and equality outcomes without already knowing how to rank liberty and equality. One must already know the answer about which morality—e.g., the one that gives priority to liberty over equality, or the one that gives priority to equality over liberty—is authoritative. Nor will an appeal to preference satisfaction solve the difficulty of determining how to establish the canonical ethics and bioethics. One must first know how one should correct preferences, compare impassioned versus considered... (shrink)

En un libro reciente, Maurizio Viroli sostiene que en El Príncipe Maquiavelo delinea la imagen del fundador que la teoría política republicana necesita, la que recibe su encarnación paradigmática en Moisés y sus acciones. Aquí propongo que para una comprensión adecuada del Moisés de Maquiavelo resulta clave la interpretación que éste ofrece del incidente del becerro de oro (Discursos III, 30), al que interpreta como una revuelta contra Moisés motivada por la envidia. Este episodio, sugiero, ejemplifica las acciones necesarias para (...) asegurar las instituciones de un estado libre recién constituido en el contexto del conflicto permanente entre grandes y pueblo. (shrink)

ResumenBasado en elementos de la filosofía clásica, el common sense británico y la Escuela de Frankfurt, el autor postula un sentido común guiado críticamente, que serviría para evaluar las tendencias históricas y los modelos de modernización en el Tercer Mundo. Evitando extremos, este teorema rechazaría tanto las pretensiones de verdad de muchos enfoques racionalistas como el relativismo epistemológico y ético. La existencia de leyes y etapas obligatorias de la historia es uno de esos extremos; otro es la opción teórica que (...) afirma que los modelos culturales son incomparables e inconmensurables entre sí. La existencia de un solo paradigma normativo-positivo de desarrollo es insostenible, pero igualmente la posición que decreta la diversidad e incomparabilidad totales de los regímenes civilizatorios. Es conveniente adoptar una línea intermedia entre universalismo y particularismo y alcanzar una síntesis fructífera de ambos.Palabras claveEscuela de Frankfurt, Habermas, Kant, particularismo, sentido común, universalismoAbstractBased on elements of classical philosophy, the British common sense and the Frankfurt School, the author proposes a critically guided common sense, which could be used to evaluate historical tendencies and specially the modernization efforts in the Third World. Avoiding extremes, this theorem rejects the pretensions of truth of rationalist theories and also the epistemic and ethic relativism. The existence of obligatory laws and periods of historical development is one of these extremes; the other one is the position which states that cultural models are incomparable and immeasurable. It is reasonable, for instance, to take a middle way between universalism and particularism and also to reach a fruitful synthesis between both currents.KeywordsCommon sense, Frankfurt School, Habermas, Kant, particularism, universalism. (shrink)

Decolonizing aesthetics requires a philosophical reexamination of art and cultural representation to address ethical conflicts and the legacy of colonial biases. This study explores the suppression and marginalization perpetuated by colonial aesthetics, with a focus on gender, race, and cultural diversity. Drawing on postcolonial theories, the research highlights the disparities and systemic exclusions within artistic traditions, advocating for decolonized practices that restore and celebrate suppressed cultural expressions. Case studies such as Indigenous Futurism and exhibitions promoting the art of formerly colonized (...) communities illustrate the practical application of decolonization efforts. Using primary data analyzed through Smart PLS software, the study examines correlations and causal relationships between decolonization initiatives and shifts in aesthetic valuation. The findings reveal both challenges and opportunities in dismantling colonial legacies, emphasizing the role of art education, public workshops, and community engagement in fostering awareness and inclusivity. Artists and institutions play a pivotal role in promoting decolonized aesthetics by addressing historical biases and amplifying marginalized voices. Decolonization emerges as an ongoing ethical and cultural practice aimed at dismantling colonial power structures in art and aesthetics, ensuring a more equitable representation of global artistic traditions. (shrink)

This note presents some new results from [1] about the Suszko operator and truth‐equational logics, following the works of Czelakowski [11] and Raftery [17]. It is proved that the Suszko operator relative to a truth‐equational logic preserves suprema and commutes with endomorphisms. Together with injectivity, proved by Raftery in [17], the Suszko operator relative to a truth‐equational logic is a structural representation, as defined in [15]. Furthermore, if is a quasivariety, then the Suszko operator relative to a truth‐equational logic is (...) continuous. Finally, it is proved that truth is equationally definable in the class if and only if is a ‐algebraic semantics for and the Suszko operator preserves suprema and commutes with substitutions. (shrink)

L’expérimentation animale consiste à tester chez l›animal des questions que l›on se pose chez l’Homme. En recherches appliquées, ces expérimentations nous fournissent des données essentielles dans la lutte contre les maladies humaines ainsi qu’en médecine vétérinaire. Em recherches fondamentales, ces expérimentations qui permettent de mieux connaitre l’Homme et l’Animal nous montrent que le fossé que certains voient entre l’espèce humaine et les animaux n’a probablement pas l’importance qu’on lui donne. Ces recherches nous montrent que certains animaux ont quelquefois des capacités (...) cognitives telles qu’ils n’ont rien à envier aux hommes et que ces animaux sont des êtres sensibles capables de souffrir. Toutes ces recherches nous informent sur notre nature, nos relations avec l’animal et notre place dans le monde animal. Ce constat sur la nature et la proximité de l’Homme et de l’Animal a mené à la création des comités d’éthique. Nous avons besoin de ces animaux mais ils méritent notre respect et les expérimentations nécessaires doivent être faites en obéissant à une certaine éthique. Ces comités s’assurent que les expérimentations animales respectent les règles éthiques dont la plus connue est celle des « 3 R » (Remplacement, Réduction et Raffinement). (shrink)