In this book Tibor R. Machan analyses the state of the debate on libertarianism post Nozick. Going far beyond the often cursory treatment of libertarianism in major books and other publications he examines closely the alternative non-Nozickian defences of libertarianism that have been advanced and, by applying these arguments to innumerable policy areas in the field, Machan achieves a new visibility and prominence for libertarianism.

S’il n’existe qu’un seul problème intellectuel et culturel vraiment sérieux concernant le capitalisme, c’est celui du manque d’une défense morale soutenue et largement connue, pour ne pas dire acceptée, de l’institution des droits de propriété privée.Il n’y a pas de doute, dans le monde actuel, qu’une société dotée d’une infrastructure légale où cette institution fait défaut connaisse un grave désordre économique. Le fait de ne pas respecter et protéger légalement l’institution de la propriété privée — et ses corollaires, comme la (...) liberté de contracter et de poser les termes par les parties en affaire — a provoqué les faiblesses économiques à travers le monde.Sans une défense morale, l’institution de la propriété privée, qui est la source de beaucoup d’ avantages pour nous tous, restera pour toujours vulnérable aux critiques, du style de celle de Karl Marx qui disait que “le droit de l’homme à la propriété est le droit de jouir de ses possessions et d’en disposer arbitrairement, sans souci des autres hommes, indépendamment de la société, le droit de l’égoïsme”.Cet essai proclame que contrairement aux sentiments et impressions répandus, l’institution des droits de propriété privée est en accord avec la conception pratique de la moralité humaine.If there is one really serious intellectual and cultural problem with capitalism it stems from the lack of a sustained and widely known, let alone accepted, moral defense of the institution of private property rights.Few doubt, in today’s world, that a society with a legal infrastructure that lacks this institution is in serious economic trouble. The failure to respect and legally protect the institution of private property — and its corollaries, such as freedom of contract and of setting the terms by the parties to trade — has produced economic weakness across the globe.Without a moral defense, however, the institution of private property, which is the source of a great many benefits to us all, will forever remain vulnerable to the critics, such as Karl Marx who said that “the right of man to property is the right to enjoy his possessions and dispose of the same arbitrarily, without regard for other men, independently from society, the right of selfishness.”This essay argues that contrary to such widespread sentiments and impressions, the institution of private property rights fully accords with a sensible conception of human morality. (shrink)

We investigate properties of accessible categories with directed colimits and their relationship with categories arising from ShelahʼsElementary Classes. We also investigate ranks of objects in accessible categories, and the effect of accessible functors on ranks.

This highly readable theory of life and its origins offers a non-technical discussion of a chemical perspective on the fundamental organisation of living systems. Essays on the biological and philosophical significance of Ganti's work of thirty years indicate not only its enduring theoretical significance, but also the continuing relevance and heuristic power of Ganti's insights.

I address the problem of caring for our body-mind through neuropragmatism, cybernetics, and Larry Hickman’s work on John Dewey and the philosophy of technology. The problems of body-mind health are related to Emma Dowling’s The Care Crisis. I address this crisis by drawing on Jay Schulkin’s conception of viability as the creative tension between stability and precarity. From this, I extend body-mind health to questions of democracy, leading to the proposal of body-mind-world as an elaboration of neuropragmatism’s evolutionary and ecological (...) conception of experience as Œ and Hickman’s distinction between the merely valued nature-as-nature and the valuable nature-as-culture. I conclude with a reimagination of creative democracy as a moral ideal for dealing with the care crisis. (shrink)

Some consequences of direct realism and William James’s philosophy of mind are considered in terms of American naturalism as seen in the debate between John Dewey and Roy Wood Sellars. Sellars’s critical realism and evolutionary naturalism is compared and contrasted with Dewey’s pragmatic realism and emphatically evolutionary naturalism. Though these naturalisms are similar, there are significant differences between methodology, their critiques of James’s reflex arc concept in his Principles of Psychology, and the mind-body problem. Sellars’s critical realism and naturalism retains (...) a priori commitments to fixed categories and concepts, whereas Dewey’s emphatically evolutionary pragmatic naturalism is empirical and sees continuities where Sellars insists on discontinuities. One significant difference is Sellars’s maintaining a place for introspection as methodologically appropriate and Dewey’s’ rejection of it. These differences are illustrated through Sellars’s modification of the reflex arc to include an organic but interpretative step, and Dewey’s radical criticism of approaches like James’s and Sellars’s as recapitulating the Cartesian dualism that such views intended to overcome. These differences are finally contrasted in Sellars’s maintaining a privacy of mind by constraining it to the brain in a dual-aspect theory, while Dewey advocates mind as sociocultural, expanding mind into body and world. (shrink)

We articulate a conception of resilience via allostasis and the free energy principle to augment Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s conception of antifragility. Creative resilience is resilience 3.0, after robustness (1.0) and antifragility (2.0), because creative resilience is the deliberate effort to construct ecological niches toward a more caring and thus more viable world for more people – what Dewey proffered as the moral ideal of creative democracy. Viability is understood as the healthy tension between stability and precarity. Viability is related to (...) regulatory mechanisms of homeostasis and allostasis. Along with discussion of the free energy principle, we situate these processes of the internal milieu within the external milieu. Ecological niche construction and ecological psychological affordances are related to human practices as means of generating culture. Culture is both a product and producer of the process of valuation, which originates in evolution but is further developed by the free energy principle and social allostasis. The collective languishing exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic can be ameliorated through creative resilience so conceived as social allostasis writ large. (shrink)

There is no room for pragmatic expectations about communicative interactions in core cognition. Spelke takes the combinatorial power of the human language faculty to overcome the limits of core cognition. The question is: Why should the combinatorial power of the human language faculty support infants' pragmatic expectations not merely about speech, but also about nonverbal communicative interactions?

Neuropragmatism offers a non-dualistic conception of experience from which scientific inquiries can provide resources for sociocultural critique. This reconstructive effort addresses what Emma Dowling calls the care crisis without succumbing to what Mike W. Martin calls therapeutic tyranny. This tyranny relies on problematic dualisms, between mind/body, mind/world, and fact/value, that are also found in neuropsychoanalysis. While pragmatism and psychoanalysis more generally share an evolutionary perspective and can overlap in therapeutic approaches, neuropsychoanalysis diverges from this effort in its dual-aspect monism and (...) positivistic conception of science. Where neuropsychoanalysis seeks to reconcile the first-person subjectivity of lived experience with the third-person objectivity of science, neuropragmatism offers reconstruction. In taking the neuropragmatic turn, neuropsychoanalysts can better utilize Freudian therapies in conjunction with active inference principles, such as the free-energy principle and allostasis. Along with neuropragmatism’s conception of experience as organism-environment dynamic engagement, neuropsychoanalysis can benefit from allostatic approaches to experience and inquiry without reducing experience to brute mechanism or denying the utility of such mechanisms for prediction and intervention. Understanding the value-ladenness of experience, primary and secondary, in everyday waking life and in reflective inquiry, empowers people to better care for themselves without succumbing to merely coping with neoliberal oppression. (shrink)

Are we able to make objective moral judgments? This perennial philosophical topic needs often to be revisited because it is central to human life. Judging how people conduct themselves, the institutions they devise, whether, in short, they are doing what's right or what's wrong, is ubiquitous. In this essay I defend the objectivity of ethical judgments by deploying a neo-Aristotelian naturalism by which to keep the “is-ought” gap at bay and place morality on an objective footing. I do this with (...) the aid of the ideas of Ayn Rand as well as, but only by implication and association, those of Martha Nussbaum and Philippa Foot. (shrink)

In Classical Individualism , Tibor R. Machan argues that individualism is far from being dead. Machan identifies, develops and defends what he calls classical individualism - an individualism humanised by classical philosophy, rooted in Aristotle rather than Hobbes. This book does not reject the social nature of human beings, but finds that every one has a self-directed agent who is responsible for what he or she does. Machan rejects all types of collectivism, including communitarianism, ethnic solidarity, racial unity, and (...) gender identity. The ideas expressed here have important social and political implications, and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the notion of individuality and individual responsibility. (shrink)

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, EarlyView.

The issue of whether logic has an ontological base—rests, ultimately, on the principles or nature of reality—is constantly with us. In this paper I revisit it, drawing on a piece I wrote back in 1969, for the early incarnation of Reason magazine. I conclude that the Aristotelian idea that logic tracks reality is sound and those opposed—conventionalists, pragmatists, conceptualists, Kantians, et al.—have it wrong.

This chapter contains sections titled: Classical individualism Classical individualism and corporate responsibility Is business morally legitimate? Classical individualism and business ethics Professional versus social responsibilities Ethics and choice Business ethics: some issues in focus Conclusion.

Abstract The Joyless Economy focused on the boredom of the idle rich and neglected the boredom of the idle and idled poor. However, their boredom is much more serious than what the book dealt with, because it is chronic and often incurable. It usually begins with the neglect of destitute children who never learn how to concentrate on learning in school, become unruly and often end up unemployable, and have no better way than violence to release their energies.

Roy Scranton argues for a new philosophical humanism as the best response to the existential crisis of the Anthropocene, the new geological epoch for which human industrial activity is responsible. This threat from climate change, Scranton argues, is better met through what he calls photohumanism than by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) alone. This new humanism shares many affinities with pluralistic humanism. A key concern is political action, which is problematized by what Tschaepe calls dopamine democracy. Scranton shares this (...) concern, but his approach puts too great an emphasis on binaries, such as culture and nature, mind and body, and life and death. I offer the philosophical method of reconstruction, as situated within pluralistic humanism and the philosophy of John Dewey. In introducing the need for reconstruction as a method for doing philosophy in a new but ancient sense of learning to die, I reconstruct photohumanism and offer the Deweyan ideal of democracy for overcoming the problem of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the dynamics of ethical perspectives that embody the Golden Rule of Morality. Based on critical analysis of this rule in various cultural and religious contexts, but also from the perspective of humanism, the author presents its paradoxical character, the essence of which is interpreted here in terms of a pointer to metaphysical reality. It turns out that social conditionality, as well as the self-referential concept as a starting point of any ethical reasoning, are serious epistemological challenges (...) for the application of the Golden Rule in the position of universal normativity that this study addresses. On the other hand, Judeo-Christian cosmology and the related basis for ethical foundations is presented here as an inspirational space of ethical reasoning in which the paradoxical character of the Golden Rule becomes rather an indicator of a deeper metaethical interpretation of one's own particular ethical attitudes and outcomes than a practical guide to the discovery of ethical universals. (shrink)

When this classic work was first published in 1976, its central tenet--more is not necessarily better--placed it in direct conflict with mainstream thought in economics. Within a few years, however, this apparently paradoxical claim was gaining wide acceptance. Scitovsky's ground-breaking book was the first to apply theories of behaviorist psychology to questions of consumer behavior and to do so in clear, non-technical language. Setting out to analyze the failures of our consumerist lifestyle, Scitovsky concluded that people's need for stimulation is (...) so vital that it can lead to violence if not satisfied by novelty--whether in challenging work, art, fashion, gadgets, late-model cars, or scandal. Though much of the book stands as a record of American post-war prosperity and its accompanying problems, the revised edition also takes into account recent social and economic changes. A new preface and a foreword by economist Robert Frank introduce some of the issues created by those changes and two revised chapters develop them, discussing among others the assimilation of counter-cultural ideas throughout American society, especially ideas concerning quality of life. Scitovsky draws fascinating connections between the new elite of college-educated consumers and the emergence of a growing underclass plagued by drugs and violence, perceptively tracing the reactions of these disparate groups to the problems of leisure and boredom. In the wake of the so-called "decade of greed" and amidst calls for a "kindler, gentler" society, The Joyless Economy seems more timely than ever. (shrink)

The philosophical problem of pictorial conversational implicatures can be summarized as follows: We have three propositions that are independently plausible and jointly inconsistent. -/- (Non-P) Anti-propositionalism: pictures do not have context-independent, conventionally encoded propositional content (propositional function). -/- (C) Only those representations can be used to convey conversational implicatures which have associated with them a context-independent, conventionally encoded propositional content (function). -/- (I) Pictures can be used to convey conversational implicatures. -/- There are three ways of responding to the problem: (...) affirm (Non-P) and (C) while denying (I); affirm (C) and (I) while denying (Non-P); or affirm (Non-P) and (I) while denying (C). (shrink)

Recent work in neurophilosophy has either made reference to the work of John Dewey or independently developed positions similar to it. I review these developments in order first to show that Dewey was indeed doing neurophilosophy well before the Churchlands and others, thereby preceding many other mid-twentieth century European philosophers’ views on cognition to whom many present day philosophers refer (e.g., Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty). I also show that Dewey’s work provides useful tools for evading or overcoming many issues in contemporary neurophilosophy (...) and philosophy of mind. In this introductory review, I distinguish between three waves among neurophilosophers that revolve around the import of evolution and the degree of brain-centrism. Throughout, I emphasize and elaborate upon Dewey’s dynamic view of mind and consciousness. I conclude by introducing the consciousness-as-cooking metaphor as an alternative to both the consciousness-as-digestion and consciousness-as-dancing metaphors. Neurophilosophical pragmatism—or neuropragmatism—recognizes the import of evolutionary and cognitive neurobiology for developing a science of mind and consciousness. However, as the cooking metaphor illustrates, a science of mind and consciousness cannot rely on the brain alone—just as explaining cooking entails more than understanding the gut—and therefore must establish continuity with cultural activities and their respective fields of inquiry. Neuropragmatism advances a new and promising perspective on how to reconcile the scientific and manifest images of humanity as well as how to reconstruct the relationship between science and the humanities. (shrink)

Tibor R. Machan explores how to present Rand's ethics in an introductory college course on moral philosophy. Despite their inclusion in some textbooks, Rand's ideas often get misrepresented. For example, James Rachels' work treats her as a subjective egoist, ignoring Rand's own focus on human nature and the individual's identity in the formulation of guidelines to personal conduct. In teaching Rand's ethical egoism, Machan examines several metaethical topics, including the nature of ethical knowledge, the challenges to such knowledge posed (...) by Hume's and Moore's arguments, and a comparative analysis with conventionalism, naturalism, intuitionism, subjectivism, and rationalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper argues that generosity as a moral virtue is only consistently and fully possible to practise in the kind of polity that upholds natural individual human rights, including the basic negative right to private property. The paper sketches a characterisation of generosity and explains the sense in which it can be a moral virtue. Some of the assumptions underlying the concept of moral virtue are considered and it is argued that contrary to some recent claims, it is possible (...) to conceptualise as well as to practise moral virtues in our age. Yet it is also shown that certain political prerequisites are necessary for practising generosity. Furthermore, it is shown that there cannot be any generosity involved in a polity in which one is forced to share one's wealth with those who might be the beneficiaries of generous conduct. Finally, it is argued that even in a polity with a very limited government some acts of official generosity are possible. (shrink)

Cognitive science and its philosophy have been far too long consumed with representation. This concern is indicative of a creeping Cartesianism that many scientists and philosophers wish to evade. However, their naturalism is often insufficiently evolutionary to fully appreciate the lessons of pragmatism. If cognitive neuroscience and pragmatism are to be mutually beneficial, the representational-friendly scientists and the anti-representational pragmatists need an alternative to representation that still accounts for what many find so attractive about representation, namely intentionality. I propose that (...) instead of representations we philosophers and scientists begin thinking in terms of cultural affordances. Like Gibsonian affordances, cultural affordances are opportunities for action. However, unlike Gibsonian affordances, which are merely biological and available for immediate action in the immediately present environment, cultural affordances also present opportunities for thinking about the past and acting into the future—tasks typically attributed to representations. (shrink)

The result of the author's extensive practical experience: a decade in computer process control using large scale systems, another decade in machine pattern-recognition for vision systems, and nearly a decade dealing with artificial intelligence and expert systems. These real-life projects have taught Vámos a critical appreciation of, and respect for, both abstract theory and the practical methodology that grows out of—and, in turn, shapes—those theories.Machine representation means a level of formalization that can be expressed by the instruments of mathematics, whereas (...) programming is not more and not less than a special linguistic translation of these mathematical formulae. How these all are related and controlled is a most practical philosophical and computation professional task. Wide experience in the practical fields of computer science, and the research of the underlying theoretical issues have led Vámos to the development of the attitude and activity of constructive skepticism. (shrink)

This paper explores the interrelated concepts of beauty, creation, and kitsch, which collectively form a comprehensive framework for understanding one’s relationship to the world and one’s place in it. The hermeneutic of the text Kohelet 3:11, which defines beauty as a characteristic feature of all being in the context of creation theology, is utilised to focus on the typical tension between beauty as an immanent feature of the real world and the human desire to fully understand and capture it. In (...) this context, beauty is posited as a spiritual value that, on the one hand, reflects God’s essence and serves as a source of inspiration for humanity, and, on the other hand, remains an unattainable reality for humanity’s ambitions. This paradox forms the basis for understanding kitsch, which is not merely an aesthetic category, but also encompasses the broader cultural and value dimensions of humanity. Within the context of a narcissistic culture, kitsch is conceptualised as a manifestation of humanity’s creative endeavour to articulate beauty, characterised by a simplification of beauty that does not edify humanity and society, but rather leads to superficiality, mediocrity, and the loss of the transcendent dimension of beauty. The exploration of these three concepts in unison underscores their interconnectedness and the potential for serving as a conduit of understanding across diverse cultures, value systems, and individuals. A theology of beauty in relation to kitsch thus offers not only the possibility of reflecting on the state of the modern world, but also an important integrating element in a polarised society that can foster a deeper understanding of interpersonal relationships and the spiritual dimension of the human person. (shrink)

For those who absorb Ayn Rand's ground-breaking ideas, would find, like scores before them, that Rand has the capacity to awaken the hero inside each of us. To live life to its fullest capacity, to realize the capacity inside oneself, to act according to one's ideals and convictions. it is, indeed, what man is born for.

_The Liberty Option_ advances the idea that for compelling moral as well as practical reasons it is the free society -- with the rule of law founded on the principles of private property rights, its complete respect for individual sovereignty and properly limited legal authorities -- not one or another version of statism that serves justice best, is most prosperous and encourages the greatest measure of individual virtue on the part of the citizenry. The work shows why this is so (...) and lays out some of the most crucial implications of the idea. While the book presents a principled approach to politics, it is firmly grounded in the best and most up to date understanding of human community life and history as well as many of its complications, challenges, adversities and prospects. (shrink)

This work focuses on the topic of freedom. The author starts with the old issue of free will — do we as individual human beings choose our conduct, at least partly independently, freely? He comes down on the side of libertarians who answer Yes, and scorns the compatibilism of philosophers like Daniel Dennett, who try to rescue some kind of freedom from a physically determined universe. From here he moves on to apply his belief in radical freedom to areas of (...) life such as religion, politics, and morality, tackling subjects as diverse as taxation, private property, justice and the welfare state. (shrink)