Some of philosophy's most central concepts, including art, friendship, and happiness, have been argued to be dual character concepts. Their main characteristic is that they encode not only a descriptive dimension but also an independent normative dimension for categorization. This article introduces the class of dual character concepts and discusses various accounts of their content and structure. A specific focus will be placed on their relation to two other classes of concepts, thick concepts and natural kind (...) concepts. The study of dual character concepts not only demonstrates that a wide range of concepts is inherently normative, but it also reveals new possibilities for investigating gender biases, generics, and social roles. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a novel account of the ordinary concept ART. At the core of our account is the idea that a puzzle surrounding our thought and talk about art is best understood as just one instance of a far broader phenomenon. In particular, we claim that one can make progress on this puzzle by drawing on research from cognitive science on dual character concepts. Thus, we suggest that the very same sort of (...) phenomenon that is associated with ART can also be found in a broad class of other dual character concepts, including SCIENTIST, CHRISTIAN, GANGSTER, and many others. Instead of focusing narrowly on the case of ART, we try to offer a more general account of these concepts and the puzzles to which they give rise. Then, drawing on the general theory, we introduce a series of hypotheses about art concepts, and put those hypotheses to the test in three experimental studies. (shrink)

There has been growing excitement in recent years about “dual‐character” concepts. Philosophers have argued that such concepts can help us make progress on a range of philosophical issues, from aesthetics to law to metaphysics. Dual‐character concepts are thought to have a distinctive internal structure, which relates a set of descriptive features to an abstract value, and which allows people to use either the descriptive features or the abstract value for determining the extension of the concept. Here, (...) we skeptically investigate the central argument in favor of their existence. Across three new empirical studies, we systematically demonstrate that the linguistic patterns that dual‐character concepts were originally posited to explain are likely better explained by much more general features of language use. (shrink)

Seminal work by Knobe, Prasada, and Newman (2013) distinguished a set of concepts, which they named “dual‐character concepts.” Unlike traditional concepts, they require two distinct criteria for determining category membership. For example, the prototypical dual‐character concept “artist” has both a concrete dimension of artistic skills, and an abstract dimension of aesthetic sensibility and values. Therefore, someone can be a good artist on the concrete dimension but not truly an artist on the abstract dimension. Does this analysis (...) capture people's understanding of cornerstone social categories, such as gender, around which society and everyday life have traditionally been organized? Gender, too, may be conceived as having not only a concrete dimension but also a distinct dimension of abstract norms and values. As with dual‐character concepts, violations of abstract norms and values may result in someone being judged as not truly a man/woman. Here, we provide the first empirical assessment of applying the dual‐character framework to people's conception of gender. We found that, on some measures that primarily relied on metalinguistic cues, gender concepts did indeed resemble dual‐character concepts. However, on other measures that depicted transgressions of traditional gender norms, neither “man” nor “woman” appeared dual‐character‐like, in that participants did not disqualify people from being truly a man or truly a woman. In a series of follow‐up studies, we examined whether moral norms have come to replace gender role norms for the abstract dimension. Implications for the evolution of concepts and categories are explored. (shrink)

How do we teach chemistry as a different science from physics? This paper looks into a fundamental distinguishing property of chemistry as a science. It is characterized in this paper that chemistry, unlike many other sciences that are largely descriptive, is primarily creative. In this sense, the various fields of chemistry may seek to create as an end goal, and not merely to create as a means to an end as commonly seen in allied sciences. This (...) distinction is important as it elevates the importance of chemical synthesis above being a small detail of the field. I argue in this paper that synthesis is a largely defining character of chemistry as a structured science, and must be given importance to when attempting to define chemistry as a separate study from similar fields. Awareness of the importance of synthesis can elucidate on the manner and trends of normal chemical research as well as predict possible circumstances that will arise for the field of chemistry. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have come forth with approaches to chemistry based on its actual practice, imparting to it a proper aim and character of its own. These approaches add to the currently growing movement of pluralist philosophies of science. We draw on recent pluralist accounts from chemistry and analyse three notions from modern chemical practice and theory in terms of these accounts, in order to complement the so far more general pluralist approaches with specific evidence. Our survey reveals (...) that the concept of element indicates conceptual pluralisms in chemistry. that electronegativity illustrates methodological pluralism in determining one and the same concept, and that acidity is an instance of plurality hidden behind ‘one notion’. (shrink)

Recent proposals for a “critical character epistemology” attend to the ways in which environments, institutions, social practices, and relationships promote the development of epistemic vice whilst acknowledging that the contexts of differently situated agents demand different epistemic character traits. I argue that a tension arises between two features of critical character epistemology: the classification as “epistemically corrupting” of environments, institutions, or structures which promote the development of epistemic vice; and commitment to normative contextualism—the doctrine that the normative (...) status (the status of a trait as a virtue or as a vice) of some or all epistemic character traits is context-dependent. I show how these two features lead to the claim that certain traits both are epistemic virtues and hinder the development of epistemic virtues. To make such an evaluation consistent, I propose a modified form of normative contextualism: dual-level normative contextualism. (shrink)

Recent proposals for a “critical character epistemology” attend to the ways in which environments, institutions, social practices, and relationships promote the development of epistemic vice whilst acknowledging that the contexts of differently situated agents demand different epistemic character traits. I argue that a tension arises between two features of critical character epistemology: the classification as “epistemically corrupting” of environments, institutions, or structures which promote the development of epistemic vice; and commitment to normative contextualism—the doctrine that the normative (...) status (the status of a trait as a virtue or as a vice) of some or all epistemic character traits is context-dependent. I show how these two features lead to the claim that certain traits both are epistemic virtues and hinder the development of epistemic virtues. To make such an evaluation consistent, I propose a modified form of normative contextualism: dual-level normative contextualism. (shrink)

Chemistry deals with substances and their transformations. School chemistry provides a picture of this in terms of small balls called atoms and ball-and-stick structures called molecules which, despite its crudity, has been taken to justifiably reflect a reductionist conception of macroscopic concepts like the chemical substances and chemical reactions. But with the recent interest in chemistry within the philosophy of science, an extensive and determined criticism has developed of the idea that the macroscopic world has been, or (...) is likely to be, reduced to microscopic theory. From this perspective, it is of interest to see macroscopic ontology treated autonomously. I try to take a first few steps towards spelling this out. It involves recognising entities falling into two broad categories: continuants-things which can have different properties at different times — and processes — things whose temporal parts may have different features, but which themselves stand in contrast to continuants in this respect. The character of each and their interrelations depends on their mereological structure of parts, the exploration of which is one of the prime purposes of the paper. (shrink)

In modern German ‘Anschauung’ is translated as intuition. But in Kant’s technical philosophical context, it means an intuition derived from previous visualizations of physical processes in the world of perceptions. The nineteenth century chemists’ predilection for Kantian Anschauung led them to develop an intuitive representation of what exists beyond the bounds of the senses. Molecular structure is one of the illuminating outcomes. (Ochiai 2021, pp. 1–51) This mental habit seems to be dominant among chemists even in the twentieth century, as (...) is illustrated by the electronic theory of organic chemistry and the frontier orbital theory as well. The former assumes that (1) bonds are paired electrons shared by bonded atoms—in fact, electrons in molecules are not localized in bonds; (2) the difference of electronegativities between bonded atoms causes electron drifts—expressed by the curly arrow—that result in bond formation or bond cleavage. The latter focuses on the orbitals that make the greatest contribution to the energy of a system undergoing electron delocalization, while the LCAO method says, as is suggested by the word Linear Combination of Atomic Orbitals, molecular orbitals should be constructed from all of the atomic orbitals that have the appropriate symmetry. In other words, every molecular orbital contributes to some extent to the electronic state of a molecule. The curly arrow in the electronic theory and the orbital lobe in the frontier orbital theory illustrate an intuitive character of these theories. Although both theories rely on such simple and qualitative models rather than mathematically rigid quantum mechanical calculations, they are successful in explaining, predicting, and designing chemical reactions. What makes these prima facie intuitive theories so successful? In this study we address this problem from a historical and philosophical as well as scientific point of view. The key to solve this problem is that they are concerned with only bond formation or bond cleavage, in which the localized-bond principle holds. (shrink)

Continuous environmental concerns regarding construction industry have been driving general constructors of mega infrastructure projects to incorporate green contractors. Although conventional multiple attributes decision-making methodologies have provided feasible ways to select contractor, high complexity in scenarios of megaprojects still challenges existing MADM methods in concurrently accommodating three key issues of decision hesitancy, attributes interdependency, and group attitudinal character. To elicit decision-makers’ hesitant fuzzy assessments more objectively and comprehensively, we define an expression tool called interval-valued dual hesitant fuzzy uncertain (...) unbalanced linguistic set and develop aggregation operators through its operations. To exploit attributes interdependency, we establish a synthesized attributes’ weighting model to fuse an attributes interdependency-based weighting vector and an argument-dependent weighting vector, which are, respectively, derived through Decision-Making and Trial Evaluation Laboratory technique and maximizing deviation method. To effectively utilize decision-makers’ group attitudinal characters, we also develop a TOPSIS-based method to rationally transform group ideal attitudes into order-inducing vectors. On the strength of the above methods, an integrated MADM approach is then constructed. Finally, illustrative case study and experiments are conducted to validate our approach. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

인간에게 교육이 문제시 될 수밖에 없는 것은 인간의 자연적 욕구 때문이다. 인간의 자 연적 욕구가 인간으로 하여금 알고도 행하지 않게 하는 요인이기에 교육은 인간에게 매우 중요한 문제이다. 하지만 우리는 시대적 요구에 따라 상당 기간 인성교육을 실시해왔음에 도 그 교육적 효과를 제대로 보이지 못했다. 이런 맥락에서 볼 때, 인간 인식 활동과 관련 하여 자신의 이성적 능력에 대해서 스스로 엄정하게 비판하고, 이를 통해 도덕의 세계로 나아가는 칸트의 철학은 우리의 인성교육에 있어서 매우 중요하다. 사실 칸트는 순수이 성비판 에서 인간의 인식 활동과 관련하여 이론이성의 (...) 한계를 명확히 하고자 하였으며, 이를 통해 실천이성의 길로 나아가고자 하였다. 이는 소크라테스가 문답법을 통하여 아포 리아에 이름으로써 무지(無知)를 자각하게 하는 길이기도 하다. 인간에게 무지의 자각은 단순한 자신의 인식의 한계만을 알려주는 것이 아니라 양심의 길로 향하도록 만든다. 본 연구는, 소크라테스의 문답법에 주목한 칸트의 입장과 더불어, 답을 찾는 교육이 아니라 질문하는 교육을 통한 인성교육이 학생들로 하여금 단지 무엇이 옳고 그른지를 확인하는 차원에 머무르지 않고 오히려 인간이 극복할 수 없는 유한성의 자각과 양심에 어떻게 도 달할 수 있는지를 확인하고자 한다. 나아가 마음과 마음의 소통을 위한 문답식의 교육적 접근이 어떻게 도덕적 실천과 연계될 수 있는지에 대해서도 살펴볼 것이다. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently argued that traditional discussions of virtue and character presuppose an account of behaviour that experimental psychology has shown to be false. Behaviour does not issue from global traits such as prudence, temperance, courage or fairness, they claim, but from local traits such as sailing-in-rough-weather-with-friends-courage and office-party-temperance. The data employed provides evidence for this view only if we understand it in the light of a behaviourist construal of traits in terms of stimulus and response, rather than in (...) the light of the more traditional construal in terms of inner events such as inclinations. More recent experiments have shown this traditional conception to have greater explanatory and predictive power than its behaviourist rival. So we should retain the traditional conception, and hence reject the proposed alteration to our understanding of behaviour. This discussion has further implications for future philosophical investigations of character and virtue. Key Words: character traits • situationism • social psychology • virtue ethics. (shrink)

구봉 송익필(1534-1599)은 조선 중기를 대표하는 성리학자요 예학자이다. 그는 율곡 이이, 우계 성혼 등과 도의지교를 맺었을 뿐만 아니라 그들과 필적할만한 학문적 능력을 갖추었던 인물이다. 그런데 구봉집에는 유교지식인들에게는 특이하게 비쳐질 수밖에 없는 도가적 사유의 스펙트럼을 통해 해석된 세계와 인간에 대한 다수의 시선들이 확인된다.BR 특히 구봉은 『장자』의 내편, 외편, 잡편의 전편에 걸쳐있는 주요 철학개념들을 자유롭게 원용하여 자신의 삶의 지평을 이상적으로 설계해보고자 한 특징이 확인된다. 그는 논문의 형식보다는 자유로운 형식의 문학 장르의 하나인 시의 양식을 통해 자신과 세계에 대한 내면적 심상을 피력하는 모습을 보여준다. 이는 (...) 장자가 성리학이나 예학의 범주로부터 독립된 문학적 지식인임을 은연중 드러냄으로써 문학적 장르에 어느 정도 허용되고 있던 자유로운 삶의 이념에 대한 문제의식을 피력해보고자 한 이유와 무관하지 않다.BR 이 글은 구봉의 도가철학적인 사유방식에 주목하면서, 구봉이 본 이상적 인격과 삶의 지평에 대한 문제를 구체적으로 조명해본 것이다. 이 글은 다음과 같은 세 가지 주제를 논의의 대상으로 삼는다. 첫째, 구봉의 도가사상에 나타난 성인의 이상적 인격과 무정의 미학적 의의가 무엇인지를 확인한다. 둘째, 빈 배의 은유와 물아상망의 이상적 삶의 지평의 문제에 대해 검토한다. 셋째, 장자가 주목하는 안시처순(安時處順, 태어나는 것과 죽는 때를 편안하게 여기는 태도) 또는 자족안분의 이상적 삶의 형태가 구봉에게서 어떻게 이해되고 있는지를 확인한다.BR 이 글은 이와 같은 논의를 통해 구봉이 도가철학적인 사유방식을 통해 기존의 이분법적 세계인식과 사적 욕망의 굴레로부터 벗어나 개체인격을 해방시키자 한 인간학적 의의를 확보할 수 있었음을 확인하였다. 그리고 우리는 결론적으로 이 글의 논의를 통해 조선중기 유교지식인의 내면세계에 조응된 도가철학의 풍경 하나를 새롭게 발견하여 해석할 수 있는 연구사적 계기를 확보한 의의가 있다. (shrink)

Chemistry laboratories, as buildings, have been surprisingly little studied by historians of science; interest has been focused on them more as sites of specific scientific activity, with particular emphasis on the personalities who worked within them. This has overshadowed aspects of laboratories such as their specification, design, construction, fitting-out, adaptation, replacement, status as civic and academic structures, and so on. Systematic study of them would be aided by an agreed taxonomy of laboratory types, according to their purpose, and a (...) scheme is proposed here. Practically no pre-1800 chemical laboratories survive, and there are very few dating from earlier than 1900, at least in their original state. Encouragingly, there have been several recent archaeological excavations which have turned up interesting evidence of early examples from various cultures. Little interest has been shown in the preservation of laboratories as significant architectural or historical structures, certainly when compared with other building types. The paper closes by considering those English laboratories which enjoy some level of legal protection but questioning the criteria adopted in deciding the programme of preservation. (shrink)

Are there circumstances under which scientists and engineers doing their ordinary jobs can be thought of as participants in a social movement? The technoscientists analyzed in this article are at the forefront of a new way of doing chemistry; they are attempting to redesign chemical products and synthesis pathways to significantly reduce health effects and environmental damage from industrial chemicals. Green chemistry practitioners and entrepreneurs now constitute a small minority of chemists and chemical engineers in the university, government, (...) and corporate sectors, but the innovators gradually are institutionalizing their efforts and winning converts. Drawing on concepts from social movement theory, the authors argue that examining green chemistry as a social movement sheds light on the intentional social organization of emerging scientific and engineering disciplines, advances thinking about the role of expertise in social change, and uncovers a possible pathway toward reconstructing chemical technologies on a more environmentally sustainable basis. The article closes with questions about potential coalitions among green chemists and engineers, regulators, and activist sectors of civil society. (shrink)

Differing views on reduction are briefly reviewed and a suggestion is made for a working definition of 'approximate reduction'. Ab initio studies in quantum chemistry are then considered, including the issues of convergence and error bounds. This includes an examination of the classic studies on CH2 and the recent work on the Si2C molecule. I conclude that chemistry has not even been approximately reduced.