This paper finds its origin in a debate between Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Octavio Paz (1914-1998) on what is central to the idea of eroticism. Bataille posits that violence and transgression are fundamental to eroticism, and without prohibition, eroticism would cease to exist. Paz, however, views violence and transgression as merely intersecting with, rather than being intrinsic to, eroticism. Paz places focus on imagination, and transforms eroticism from a transgressive, to a ritualistic act. Eroticism thus functions as an intermediary, turning (...) animal sexuality into ceremony and rite. In this paper, I argue that Paz and Bataille are not fundamentally at odds in their conceptualisation of eroticism. Instead, Paz redefines the locus of eroticism by subverting its unsettling aspects. His conception of eroticism gives precedence to the imagination, which in itself is an act of violation. Imagination transgresses normal life, but this transgression – the violation of the habitual world – also introduces a glimpse of the numinous that Paz associates with belongingness. The paper further explores eroticism, as this is perceived today, and argues that it ultimately eliminates the threshold marked by transgression. The rise of the contemporary pornographic society is marked by a loss of imagination and transcendence, which ultimately reduces the subject into a mere automaton that demands instant gratification. (shrink)

The recent failures and scandals involving many large businesses have highlighted the importance of corporate social responsibility as a fundamental factor in the soundness of the free market system. The corporate social responsiveness orientation of business executives plays an important role in corporate decision making since managers make important decisions on behalf of their corporations. This paper explores whether there is a relationship between an individual's degree of religiousness and his or her corporate social responsiveness (CSR) orientation. The results (...) of a survey of 473 business students found a significant relationship between degree of religiousness and attitudes toward the economic and ethical components of CSR. Some explanations as well as limited generalizations and implications are developed. (shrink)

This paper aims to pay tribute to Figal’s comprehensive and innovative analysis of the artwork and beauty, while challenging both his realist position on the immediacy of meaning and his monist stance that reduces sublimity to beauty. To enquire into the origin of aesthetic feelings and sense, and thus, to break the hermeneutic circle, we first trace the origin of this reduction to the reception of Burke’s concept of the sublime by Mendelssohn and Kant. We then recur to Husserl and (...) Dufrenne to trace the origin of the sense of the feeling of sublimity in the realm of affectivity or sensuousness. This genesis takes place in passive experience, where we identify an excess of sensuous sense over categorial meaning that is constitutive of the affective sense that our bodily sensations give to hyletic material. It is argued that this sensuous excess evokes a sublime experience in the phenomenological sense, involving an affective and disruptive bodily experience and an endless process of sense formation. Affective or sensuous sense is thus an event that irreversibly affects the bodily surface. To elucidate this phenomenon, we draw on the theoretical framework of Breton and Bataille, positing it as a form-transgressive ‘convulsive’ sublime, which we then illustrate in the architectural works of Tschumi and Eisenman. In short, we have retrieved the origin of aesthetic experience and redefined the feeling of the sublime as a phenomenological ‘convulsive’ sublimity. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, Volume 8, Issue 4, Page 240-249, December 2019.

Are countries especially entitled, if not obliged, to prioritize the interests or well-being of their own citizens during a global crisis, such as a global pandemic? We call this partiality for compatriots in times of crisis “crisis nationalism”. Vaccine nationalism is one vivid example of crisis nationalism during the COVID-19 pandemic; so is the case of the US government’s purchasing a 3-month supply of the global stock of the antiviral Remdesivir for domestic use. Is crisis nationalism justifiable at all, and, (...) if it is, what are its limits? We examine some plausible arguments for national partiality, and conclude that these arguments support crisis nationalism only within strict limits. The different arguments for partiality, as we will note, arrive at these limits for different reasons. But more generally, so we argue, any defensible crisis nationalism must not entail the violation of human rights or the worsening of people’s deprivation. Moreover, we propose that good faith crisis nationalism ought to be sensitive to the potential moral costs of national partiality during a global crisis and must take extra care to control or offset these costs. Thus, crisis nationalism in the form of vaccine nationalism or the hoarding of global supplies of therapeutics during a global pandemic exceeds the bounds of acceptable partiality. (shrink)

Kant’s dissertation for the Master’s degree Succinct Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire was written in Latin in 1755 as a sample (specimen) preceding a Master’s exam, but its first printing did not appear until 1838. What is the relevance of this Master’s dissertation for historical and philosophical studies? To answer this question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place of this (...) work among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish continuity between the text of On Fire and the so-called Physical Monadology, draw parallels between the ideas enunciated by Kant in his first dissertation and the interpretation of ether in the printed works that followed. Finally, I put forward the hypothesis of the heuristic potential of the On Fire treatise for the analysis of Kant’s manuscript legacy. Perhaps this dissertation will enable researchers to clear up some tangled propositions in Kant’s Opus Postumum. However, a series of further studies is needed to verify the hypothesis. (shrink)

Developing some suggestions of Ramsey (1925), elementary logic is formulated with respect to an arbitrary categorial system rather than the categorial system of Logical Atomism which is retained in standard elementary logic. Among the many types of non-standard categorial systems allowed by this formalism, it is argued that elementary logic with predicates of variable degree occupies a distinguished position, both for formal reasons and because of its potential value for application of formal logic to natural language and natural science. (...) This is illustrated by use of such a logic to construct a theory of quantity which is argued to be scientifically superior to existing theories of quantity based on standard categorial systems, since it yields real-valued scales without the need for unrealistic existence assumptions. This provides empirical evidence for the hypothesis that the categorial structure of the physical world itself is non-standard in this sense. (shrink)

With every new recursive relation R on a recursive model , we consider the images of R under all isomorphisms from to other recursive models. We call the set of Turing degrees of these images the degree spectrum of R on , and say that R is intrinsically r.e. if all the images are r.e. C. Ash and A. Nerode introduce an extra decidability condition on , expressed in terms of R. Assuming this decidability condition, they prove that R (...) is intrinsically r.e. if and only if a natural recursive-syntactic condition is satisfied. We show that, while a recursive non-intrinsically r.e. relation may have a two element degree spectrum, a non-intrinsically r.e. relation which satisfies the Ash–Nerode decidability condition has an infinite degree spectrum. We also study several related decidability conditions and their effects on the degree spectra, including some conditions which are sufficient to obtain every r.e. degree in a spectrum. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Spitzensport zu betreiben und gleichzeitig ein Hochschulstudium zu absolvieren, scheint unter den derzeitigen Umständen nahezu unmöglich. Der Artikel konstruiert dieses Phänomen der Unvereinbarkeit zweier Karrieren zunächst gesellschaftstheoretisch als Inklusionsproblem. Da eine merkliche Verbesserung der Situation der Athleten letztlich nur auf Seiten der Hochschule erwartet werden darf, werden anschließend aus organisationstheoretischer Perspektive die dortigen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen interner Strukturveränderungen reflektiert. Schließlich wird diskutiert, wie Hochschulen mit den Erwartungen des Spitzensports umgehen können und in welcher Weise sich im Rahmen von Netzwerken (...) womöglich doch Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den beteiligten Organisationen zugunsten studierender Spitzensportler aufbauen lassen. (shrink)

This research evaluates the improvements that the use of Active Teaching and Learning Methodologies entails regarding the acquisition of professional skills of future graduates of the Masters dealing with intervention in Architectural Heritage, including product and resource improvements. The objectives address students’ training, oriented toward professional activity, determining the effectiveness of innovation. The real problems were exposed to be faced at a professional level and were solved through different parts, which were developed in different phases. The results obtained allowed us (...) to conclude that teaching and performing practical tasks related to professional competencies are verified as an advance in the subject. (shrink)

The text of Kant’s first dissertation is a translation from Latin from an academic publication of a collection of Kant’s works: Kant, I. Meditationum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio... In: Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed., 1910. Kants Gesammelte Schriften. 1. Abhandling: Werke. Band I: Vorkritische Schriften I, 1747-1756. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1910, pp. 369-384. The publication is available at https://korpora.zim.uni-duisburg- essen.de/kant/aa01/ [Accessed 10 March 2019]. Pagination and illustrations are from the same publication, the page numbers are in square brackets (...) at the beginning of the page. Page footnotes, if indicated, draw on the commentaries of Lewis White Beck, the translator of the dissertation into English from the following edition: Kant, I., 2012. Natur­al Science, edited by E. Watkins, translated by L. W. Beck, J. B. Edwards, O. Reinhardt, M. Schönfeld and E. Watkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 713-714. It was important for the translator to follow the course of Kant’s thought and as far as possible preserve his style, including recurring words. Natural science terminology keeps as close as possible to the dissertation text, so instead of the term “gas”, which Kant does not use, the translator resorts to a loan-translation “elastic liquid,” harking back to the Russian term упругая жидкость which was proposed by Mikhail V. Lomonosov but did not catch on. For the same reason the translator uses the loan translation “moment” instead of the more common “motive force”. “Gradus”, however, is always translated as “degree” for the sake of uniformity. All the translator’s additions to the Kantian text are within square brackets. When the meaning of a word is translated in a form that departs from the original meaning due to context the Latin original is attached within round brackets in the grammatical form used by Kant. To facilitate understanding, long compound sentences of the Kantian text are sometimes broken up into several simple sentences. The structure of the text and title page format have been preserved. The translator would like to express sincere gratitude to Alexei N. Krouglov and Svyatopolk N. Yeschenko for their valuable advice, remarks and help and support in preparing this publication. (shrink)

This paper describes a formal measure of epistemic justification motivated by the dual goal of cognition, which is to increase true beliefs and reduce false beliefs. From this perspective the degree of epistemic justification should not be the conditional probability of the proposition given the evidence, as it is commonly thought. It should be determined instead by the combination of the conditional probability and the prior probability. This is also true of the degree of incremental confirmation, and I (...) argue that any measure of epistemic justification is also a measure of incremental confirmation. However, the degree of epistemic justification must meet an additional condition, and all known measures of incremental confirmation fail to meet it. I describe this additional condition as well as a measure that meets it. The paper then applies the measure to the conjunction fallacy and proposes an explanation of the fallacy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to define the logical system Sm4 characterised by the degree of truth-preserving consequence relation defined on the ordered set of values of Smiley’s four-element matrix MSm4. The matrix MSm4 has been of considerable importance in the development of relevant logics and it is at the origin of bilattice logics. It will be shown that Sm4 is a most interesting paraconsistent logic which encloses a sound theory of logical necessity similar to that of Anderson (...) and Belnap’s logic of entailment E. Intuitively, Sm4 can be described as a four-valued expansion of the positive fragment of Lewis’ S5 or, alternatively, as a four-valued version of S5. (shrink)

In the metaphysics of modality, one finds a distinction between two families of modalities: the so-called ‘objective’, ‘real’ or ‘circumstantial’ modalities and the ‘non-objective’, ‘non-real’ or ‘non-circumstantial’ modalities. The guiding thought is that in some intuitive sense the former modalities pertain to contingency in worldly circumstance—how things could have genuinely otherwise been—whereas the latter do not. Moreover the distinction has acquired importance through attempts to elucidate the modality of metaphysical necessity by assigning it a distinctive role within the objective modalities. (...) In this paper I use the resources of higher-order modal logic to explore how one might systematize these ideas. I present a formal tension which shows that one natural way of systematizing them is unstable. And whilst I show that there are ways of stabilizing the guiding picture, even the best of them involves deeply non-trivial departures from how that picture is ordinarily understood. I conclude by revisiting the motivation for the underlying picture of modalities. (shrink)

Moral distress is complex and has received varied definitions, and its distinctiveness is consequently often unclear when placed alongside related concepts like moral injury or moral stress. Buchbi...

A number of authors have noted that vagueness engenders degrees of belief, but that these degrees of belief do not behave like subjective probabilities. So should we countenance two different kinds of degree of belief: the kind arising from vagueness, and the familiar kind arising from uncertainty, which obey the laws of probability? I argue that we cannot coherently countenance two different kinds of degree of belief. Instead, I present a framework in which there is a single notion (...) of degree of belief, which in certain circumstances behaves like a subjective probability assignment and in other circumstances does not. The core idea is that one’s degree of belief in a proposition P is one’s expectation of P’s degree of truth. (shrink)

From 1945 on for two decades, Father William Wade was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at St. Louis University. This volume, a recovery of his own 1935 Ph.D dissertation, was originally written under the direction of Vernon J. Bourke, later himself a renowned interpreter of both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In his dissertation, Wade displays deep understanding of relationships between Greek and medieval thought as well as of the different influences of Plato and Aristotle by way of (...) Augustine and Thomas. (shrink)

The standard Hilbert-style of axiomatic system yields the assertion of axioms and, via the use of rules, the assertion of theorems. However, there has been little work done on the corresponding axiomatic rejection of non-theorems. Such Hilbert-style rejection would be achieved by the inclusion of certain rejection-axioms (r-axioms) and, by use of rejection-rules (r-rules), the establishment of rejection-theorems (r-theorems). We will call such a proof a rejection-proof (r-proof). The ideal to aim for would be for the theorems and r-theorems to (...) bemutually exclusive and exhaustive. That is, if a formula A is a theorem then it is not an r-theorem, and if A is a non-theorem then it is an r-theorem. In this paper, I present a rejecion system for the first-degree formulae of a large number of relevant logics. (shrink)

I argue here that the impairment principle requires clarification. It needs to explain what makes one impairment greater than another, otherwise we will be unable to make the comparisons it requires, the ones that enable us to determine whether b really is a greater impairment than a, and as a result, whether causing b is immoral because causing a is. I then develop two of what I think are the most natural accounts of what might make one impairment greater than (...) another. The quantitative understanding of greater impairment is problematic because it leaves the impairment principle vulnerable to counterexamples; just because impairment b impairs a larger number of abilities or the same number of abilities but for a longer period or to a higher degree does not mean that b is a greater impairment than a. The qualitative understanding of greater impairment is problematic because it does not explain examples of greater impairment used in the literature, means that an abortion is always a qualitatively more severe impairment than causing fetal alcohol syndrome regardless of how the organism is affected, and/or entails that lethal impairment is always greater than nonlethal impairment. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the class of intermediate logics between the truth-preserving Lukasiewicz logic L and its degree-preserving companion L<⁠. From a syntactical point of view, we introduce some families of inference rules (that generalize the explosion rule) that are admissible in L< and derivable in L and we characterize the corresponding intermediate logics. From a semantical point of view, we first consider the family of logics characterized by matrices defined by lattice filters in ⁠[0,1], (...) but we show there are intermediate logics falling outside this family. Finally, we study the case of finite-valued Lukasiewicz logics where we axiomatize a large family of intermediate logics defined by families of matrices (A,F) such that A is a finite MV-algebra and F is a lattice filter. (shrink)

We determine the large cardinal consistency strength of the existence of a λ-supercompact cardinal κ such that equation image fails at λ. Indeed, we show that the existence of a λ-supercompact cardinal κ such that 2λ ≥ θ is equiconsistent with the existence of a λ-supercompact cardinal that is also θ-tall. We also prove some basic facts about the large cardinal notion of tallness with closure.

Psychopathy has as its central traits socialization, sensation seeking, and impulsivity. These are combined in a supertrait: Impulsive Unsocialized Sensation Seeking (ImpUSS). Secondary types are defined by combinations of ImpUSS and neuroticism or sociability. All broad personality traits have both genetic and environmental determination, and therefore different etiologies (primary as genetic, secondary as environmental) for primary and secondary sociopathy are unlikely.