When we compare Henry and Levinas, we stumble upon a difficulty. Henry tries to reduce transcendence to immanence; Levinas, on the contrary, strives to call immance into question and to lend a new dignity to transcendence. Hence, the two thinkers seem to be diametrically opposed to one another. Yet, if one does not limit oneself to such an overall view, one finds some similarities between them. There is an affinity between the two approaches which results from the fact that both (...) thinkers establish a narrow relationship between originally passive affectivity and the selfhood of the self. Henry and Levinas are, despite all their differences, united in their efforts to ground selfhood on passivity and affectivity. Assuredly, it remains a question whether or not an originally passive affectivity is really capable of founding selfhood. Some doubt arises here from the observation that affectivity tends to anonymity. However, the observation that affectivity is marked by a tendency to anonymity has not only a negative and critical significance; it also characterizes affective states and arousals in a positive way, since one can maintain that the self could not be a ?self? unless it were constantly confronted with a tendency to anonymity. (shrink)

This paper is a critical review of the most relevant studies about the Levinasian concept of passivity. The purpose is to follow the way in which Levinas’s scholars have dealt with the following aspects: the relation between ethical passivity and the possibility of effective ethical agency, the origin of passivity, and the validity of ethical passivity in the public sphere. As a starting point for future research, I finally argue that the best way to read Levinas’s (...) passive ethics is through the dynamism between maximums and minimums present within it. This means that without sacrificing the omni comprehensive view of divine revelation and Jewish tradition, Levinas presents ethics as rationally understandable by everyone and philosophically defensible. Despite being biblically based, Levinas does not appeal to authority in supporting his view, he is confident in arguing rationally. This account could place Levinas in the way of public ethics, which consists in an ethos shared by all members of democratic societies. These minimums of justice could be the way to universalize Levinas’s ethics. (shrink)

Undoubtedly, Edmund Husserl's work is one of the most important contributions to the philosophy of the Twentieth Century to the field of culture, specifically influence on the formation of a new psychiatric - psychological paradigm embodied in the phenomenological psychology and psychiatry - existential. Thispaper aims to draw a brief introduction to the issues concerning the constitution originating from the life of the subject as the psychological level of objectivity and intersubjectivity, with emphasis on aspects related to the synthetic processes (...) taking place in the Genesis passive. Highlight how interesting from the notion ofintentionality of consciousness phenomenological analysis husserliano realizes the formation of the conscience of the time, the embodiment of the spatiality and intersubjectivity whose origin lies in the synthetic processes taking place since preyoica instinctive affection in intrauterine life. (shrink)

L’emploi du syntagme creatio passive accepta dans le Commentaire des Sentences de saint Thomas d’Aquin s’inscrit dans un riche débat théologique dont les origines remontent aux années 1220-1230. Après avoir présenté la genèse de ce débat, cet article envisage la manière dont Bonaventure et Albert le Grand y prennent part. Enfin, la définition de la création passive forgée par le jeune Thomas dans son Commentaire des Sentences est analysée dans une perspective à la fois historique et doctrinale.

Both Schelling and Husserl reveal that any attempt to ground objective cognition in subjectivity would encounter the problem of constitution of original experience. They also endorse similar solutions to this very problem. The constitution of original experience is depicted as passive synthesis, i. e., it is the pre-conscious activity of the original ‘I’ (Ur-Ich). However, unlike Schelling’s interpretation of passive synthesis, understood as a theory of quasi-conscious willing (Wollen), Husserl relocates passive synthesis in the transition from instinct (...) to habituality. The constitution of original experience, as well as the activity of the original ‘I’, uncovers the dynamic structure of Being. Owing to this, transcendental philosophy must become a transcendental ontology. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two goals. First, I present a distinct interpretation of the inception of the phenomenology of feelings. I show that Husserl’s first substantial discussion of intentional and non-intentional feelings is not from his 1901 Logical Investigations, but rather his 1893 manuscript, “Notes towards a Theory of Attention and Interest”. Husserl there describes intentional feelings as active and non-intentional feelings as passive. Second, I show that Husserl presents a somewhat unique account of feelings in “Notes”, which is partly different (...) from his later theories of feelings found in Lectures on Ethics and Value Theory and Studies Concerning the Structures of Consciousness. In contrast to those mature writings, in “Notes”, Husserl describes intentional feelings while avoiding cognitivism and he analyses non-intentional feelings without employing the content-apprehension schema. On this basis, I argue that “Notes” is an important untapped resource for constructing original phenomenologies of feelings. (shrink)

This article investigates the contribution of Spinoza and authors of his circle (Antistius Constans, Van den Enden and Koerbagh) on the modern conception of tolerance. In his Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670), Spinoza launches the libertas philosophandi-question integrating two kinds of freedom between which there is a tension: freedom of thought and speech and freedom of religious conscience. As freedom means living and acting in society in light of one’s own interests, tolerance becomes a political issue that depends from political perspectives and (...) priorities. This insight leads Spinoza to bringing together the control of political authority on religious affairs and a political regime of religious plurality and toleration. These ideas seem to be reminiscent of texts published in his immediate circle: the anonymus De jure ecclesiasticorum (1665); the political pamphlets Kort verhael (1662) and Vrye Politijke Stellingen (1665) of his teacher Van den Enden; the subversive dictionary Een Bloemhof (1668) and the systematic philosophical Een Ligt (1668) of Koerbagh. In these texts the question of religion and religious authority shifts to the question of the nature and origin of political authority. The authors all criticize the abuse of power in light of the idea that there is no freedom without equality and no equality without freedom. Together with Spinoza’s Tractatus politicus (1677), they thereby form an anomaly within the anomaly of the Calvinist Low Countries that regards specifically this radical democratic view. They are not so much talking about tolerance but about everyone’s active participation in political life which is necessary for the rescue of the republic. (shrink)

It is an intimate experience for us to think, to understand and to perceive things as being identical to themselves, and to suppose, consequently, that things are truly “what” they are. Something is always conceived as itself. The given is given full of itself in all its modifications. For instance, I can think or perceive partially some lips, I can see them almost in their whole or in some of their aspects, or just see them disappear. But it does not (...) seem to be possible to think or to perceive a given as almost itself, as an aspect or as part of itself. It is the aim of this work to study the assumptions and conditions for the original position of sameness in experience, just as it occurs in the synthesis of the datum singular and distinct. The polarization of single tone (einstimmig) intentional rays in an αvτó already contains the aporiae peculiar to the experience of the identical, whose revelation shall lead us, on the one hand, to one of the nuclei of the analysis of passive synthesis, and, on the other hand, to point up how critical revision of the numerical or extensional model of self-identity is for the unity of meaning. Then, it will be a question of pointing out the reasons why in a phenomenology of identity, the renunciation of the phenomenological legitimacy of the αvτó as a guarantee for the different positions of identity must be observed. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-3464-4_13 . (shrink)

This paper considers the move from passivity to a generative passivity in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology. In The Visible and the Invisible Merleau-Ponty calls this generative passivity a “secondary passivity” and in his passivity lectures he describes it as “passivity without passivism.” The paper argues that this secondary passivity must be understood in terms of an écart within the phenomena. That is, in terms of a separation and distance which is matrixed and configured within what (...) appears. This is the basis for Merleau-Ponty’s statement in his passivity lectures that “the touchstone of a theory of passivity,” is a “notion of oneiric symbolism,” and why for him passivity is intimately connected to a “primordial symbol.” If the symbolic is so associated with passivity, the symbolic also does not concern origins but is both the ontological limit and divergence in phenomena. This association forces Merleau-Ponty to consider what it means for phenomenological reflection retrace its steps back to an initial event of expression and even whether phenomenology is ultimately served by description. Finally, this paper considers Merleau-Ponty’s attitude toward the literary usages of language as a means of doing a phenomenology of the secondary passivity. (shrink)

Challenging recent work that contends that seventeenth-century English discourses privilege the notion of a self-enclosed, self-sufficient individual, The Power of the Passive Self in English Literature recovers a counter-tradition that imagines selves as more passively prompted than actively choosing. This tradition - which Scott Paul Gordon locates in seventeenth-century religious discourse, in early eighteenth-century moral philosophy, in mid eighteenth-century acting theory, and in the emergent novel - resists autonomy and defers agency from the individual to an external 'prompter'. Gordon argues (...) that the trope of passivity aims to guarantee a disinterested self in a culture that was increasingly convinced that every deliberate action involves calculating one's own interest. Gordon traces the origins of such ideas from their roots in the non-conformist religious tradition to their flowering in one of the central texts of eighteenth-century literature, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. (shrink)

Hierarchical cognitive mechanisms underlie sophisticated behaviors, including language, music, mathematics, tool-use, and theory of mind. The origins of hierarchical logical reasoning have long been, and continue to be, an important puzzle for cognitive science. Prior approaches to hierarchical logical reasoning have often failed to distinguish between observable hierarchical behavior and unobservable hierarchical cognitive mechanisms. Furthermore, past research has been largely methodologically restricted to passive recognition tasks as compared to active generation tasks that are stronger tests of hierarchical rules. We argue (...) that it is necessary to implement learning studies in humans, non-human species, and machines that are analyzed with formal models comparing the contribution of different cognitive mechanisms implicated in the generation of hierarchical behavior. These studies are critical to advance theories in the domains of recursion, rule-learning, symbolic reasoning, and the potentially uniquely human cognitive origins of hierarchical logical reasoning. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two tasks. First, I unpack Husserl’s analysis of interest from his 1893 manuscript, “Notes Towards a Theory of Attention and Interest” to demonstrate that it comprises his first rigorous genetic analysis of attention. Specifically, I explore Husserl’s observations about how attentive interest is passively guided by affections, moods, habits, and cognitive tensions. In doing so, I reveal that the early Husserl described attention as always pulled forward to new discoveries via the rhythmic recurrence of tension and pleasure. (...) Second, I demonstrate that “Notes” is the germ of Husserl’s mature genetic phenomenology of attention. The 1893 analysis provides Husserl with all of the philosophical reasons and tools for the construction of his genetic account of attention in his late works. I then discuss how the disclosure of this novel subterranean link can prompt a rethinking of the development of phenomenology. (shrink)

This article argues that mirror neurons originate in sensorimotor associative learning and therefore a new approach is needed to investigate their functions. Mirror neurons were discovered about 20 years ago in the monkey brain, and there is now evidence that they are also present in the human brain. The intriguing feature of many mirror neurons is that they fire not only when the animal is performing an action, such as grasping an object using a power grip, but also when the (...) animal passively observes a similar action performed by another agent. It is widely believed that mirror neurons are a genetic adaptation for action understanding; that they were designed by evolution to fulfill a specific socio-cognitive function. In contrast, we argue that mirror neurons are forged by domain-general processes of associative learning in the course of individual development, and, although they may have psychological functions, they do not necessarily have a specific evolutionary purpose or adaptive function. The evidence supporting this view shows that mirror neurons do not consistently encode action “goals”; the contingency- and context-sensitive nature of associative learning explains the full range of mirror neuron properties; human infants receive enough sensorimotor experience to support associative learning of mirror neurons ; and mirror neurons can be changed in radical ways by sensorimotor training. The associative account implies that reliable information about the function of mirror neurons can be obtained only by research based on developmental history, system-level theory, and careful experimentation. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty, la passivité et la scienceJe soutiens qu’il y a plus en jeu dans l’intérêt de Merleau-Ponty pour la science qu’une simple dialectique entre disciplines. C’est parce que son évolutionméthodologique le conduit à trouver dans la science un moyen spécifique d’approfondir ses recherches ontologiques, que celle-ci hante de plus en plus sa philosophie. En effet, dans le chapitre « champ phénoménal » de la Phénoménologie de la perception, il est possible de rapprocher certains aspects de son défi méthodologique et l’idée (...) selon laquelle la philosophie tient son origine d’une conscience réflexive, active et autonome dans son ensemble. Je lie cela aux problèmes de la passivité de telle sorte que la science apparaisse comme une façon de saisir la réflexion non pas comme autonome, mais comme une opération du champ phénomenal, comme réflexion radicale. Grâce à l’analyse critique des recherches récentes sur le génome, je montre ensuite commentl’embryologie peut nous aider à conceptualiser la vie comme un champ phénoménal, c’est-à-dire comme un champ qui engendre ce même genre d’opérations qui caractérisent aussi la phénoménalité. Cela nous conduit à voir la phénomenologie non plus comme une réflexion de survol sur les phénomènes, mais plutôt comme une réflexion radicale qui se realise à travers un phénoménalité plus « ancienne », qui appartient à la vie ellemême. Cela ouvre également des perspectives sur quelques problèmes difficiles de la dernière philosophie de Merleau-Ponty; ceux-ci sont abordés d’une manière nouvelle, grâce au rapprochement de sa première philosophie et de la science actuelle.Merleau-Ponty, la passività e la scienzaRitengo che, nell’interesse che Merleau-Ponty rivolge alla scienza, vi sia in gioco qualcosa di più del semplice confronto dialettico con un’altra disciplina. Il motivo è che il suo impegno metodologico finisce per individuare nella scienza una speciale risorsa per l’indagine di quelle profonde questioni ontologiche che investono in modo crescente la sua filosofia. Intendo argomentare tale ipotesi, connettendo dei passi del capitolo di Fenomenologia della percezione “Il campo fenomenico” con la sua sfida metodologica all’idea che la filosofia abbia inizio da una coscienza riflessiva autonoma e interamente attiva. Collego questo alle questioni della passività in un modo che rivela la scienza come una potenziale risorsa per comprendere la riflessione non come autonoma, bensì in quanto operazione di e nel campo fenomenico – come riflessione radicale. Poi, attraverso un’analisi critica dei risultati recenti riguardanti il DNA regolatore, mostrocome l’attuale embriologia può aiutarci a concettualizzare la vita come un campo fenomenico che implicitamente produce i tipi di operazioni rivelatrici distintive della fenomenalità. Questo ci permette di collocare la fenomenologia non semplicemente come una riflessione dall’alto sui fenomeni, ma come una riflessione radicale che opera grazie ad una “più antica” fenomenalità della vita. Questo ci fornisce degli spunti su alcune difficili questioni nella filosofia dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty, suggerendo un nuovo percorso che giunga a queste combinando il primo periodo della sua filosofia con la scienza recente. (shrink)

In The Birth of Sense, Don Beith proposes a new concept of generative passivity, the idea that our organic, psychological, and social activities take time to develop into sense. More than being a limit, passivity marks out the way in which organisms, persons, and interbodily systems take time in order to manifest a coherent sense. Beith situates his argument within contemporary debates about evolution, developmental biology, scientific causal explanations, psychology, postmodernism, social constructivism, and critical race theory. Drawing on (...) empirical studies and phenomenological reflections, Beith argues that in nature, novel meaning emerges prior to any type of constituting activity or deterministic plan. The Birth of Sense is an original phenomenological investigation in the style of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and it demonstrates that the French philosopher's works cohere around the notion that life is radically expressive. While Merleau-Ponty's early works are widely interpreted as arguing for the primacy of human consciousness, Beith argues that a pivotal redefinition of passivity is already under way here, and extends throughout Merleau-Ponty's corpus. This work introduces new concepts in contemporary philosophy to interrogate how organic development involves spontaneous expression, how personhood emerges from this bodily growth, and how our interpersonal human life remains rooted in, and often thwarted by, domains of bodily expressivity. (shrink)

In a series of works Hubert Dreyfus argues that phenomenological considerations can show the falsity of John McDowell’s claim that ours actions are permeated with rationality. Dreyfus changes the details of his objections several times in this debate, but I shall argue that there is an implicit false assumption lurking in his thinking throughout his exchanges with McDowell. Originally Dreyfus proposed a distinction between “detached rule-following” and “situation-specific way of coping,” and later he replaces it with the distinction between “subjectivity” (...) and “absorbed coping.” He then uses this framework to interpret some examples, attempting to show that they cannot be accommodated by McDowell’s position. I shall argue that in doing so Dreyfus presupposes too narrow conceptions of “rationality” and “mindedness,” and if these notions are understood appropriately, we can see that phenomenological considerations can be good supplements, rather than objections, to McDowell’s claim that our mindedness is pervasive in actions. (shrink)

In The Birth of Sense, Don Beith proposes a new concept of generative passivity, the idea that our organic, psychological, and social activities take time to develop into sense. More than being a limit, passivity marks out the way in which organisms, persons, and interbodily systems take time in order to manifest a coherent sense. Beith situates his argument within contemporary debates about evolution, developmental biology, scientific causal explanations, psychology, postmodernism, social constructivism, and critical race theory. Drawing on (...) empirical studies and phenomenological reflections, Beith argues that in nature, novel meaning emerges prior to any type of constituting activity or deterministic plan. The Birth of Sense is an original phenomenological investigation in the style of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and it demonstrates that the French philosopher’s works cohere around the notion that life is radically expressive. While Merleau-Ponty’s early works are widely interpreted as arguing for the primacy of human consciousness, Beith argues that a pivotal redefinition of passivity is already under way here, and extends throughout Merleau-Ponty’s corpus. This work introduces new concepts in contemporary philosophy to interrogate how organic development involves spontaneous expression, how personhood emerges from this bodily growth, and how our interpersonal human life remains rooted in, and often thwarted by, domains of bodily expressivity. (shrink)

Deacon develops a minimal model of a nonparasitic virus to explore how nucleotide sequences came to be characterized by a code-like informational at the origin of life. The model serves to problematize the concept of biological normativity because it highlights two common yet typically implicit assumptions: that life could consist as an inert form, were it not for extrinsic sources of physical instability, and that life could have originated as a singular self-contained individual. I propose that the origin of life, (...) the genetic code, and biological normativity more generally, lead us to reject this passive individualism. (shrink)

This essay compares Greek and Chinese conceptions of the origin of the world based on the concept of cosmo-metaphysics, by which I mean a philosophical scheme that addresses at once the law of the universe and the primary cause of substance or being. In regarding God or the first mover as both the cosmic and substantial principle of unity, Aristotle spells out a cosmo-metaphysics in his On the Universe and the Metaphysics. Aristotle’s cosmo-metaphysics, I propose, finds a close parallel in (...) the metaphysical system represented in the Laozi 老子, the Daoist classic, and “The Great Commentary” on the Yijing 易經. Both texts articulate a cosmo-metaphysics that integrates the cosmic and substantial principles of unity through the two concepts of the Dao 道 and being versus nonbeing, the Chinese counterparts of Aristotle’s prime mover and being qua being. Chinese and Western metaphysics share not only a fundamental assumption about the origin of the world but also the hypothesis of an ineffable and inactive first mover. Where Aristotle resorts to analogy and metaphor to name and characterize this elusive and passive mover, Chinese philosophers prefer to leave it unnamed and use natural images to illustrate its nature. Despite the different approaches, however, the fundamental assumption about the prime mover as both a substantial and cosmic principle lies at the root of both Chinese and Western metaphysics. The comparative lens centered on the concept of cosmo-metaphysics thus uncovers a distinctive Chinese metaphysics that corresponds closely to that in the West, a correspondence that calls into question some prevailing presumptions about Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to carry out a genetic study on the Husserlian concept of noema based in the givenness of the real body in the passive experience of pain. The development focuses, either, on the delimitation of the painful body given in its physical sphere in attention to its material properties, and in the eventual integration of this passively given body in the so-called noetic-noematic structure regarding the intentional revelation that pain implies. To do this, pain will (...) first be briefly examined in light of "original" passivity. Secondly, the way in which the body is given in its real disposition and its understanding as a bodily ego in experiencing pain will be contemplated. Thirdly, considering the “original” constitution of the body in pain in a broad sense, emphasis will be placed on its correspondence with intentionality, a matter that only confirms that pain is a form of perception. Finally, the deployment of the genetically viewed noema is given on the basis of the determination of the real body as a noematic object. (shrink)

This is the story of a seductive idea and its sobering consequences. The twentieth century brought a new cultural confidence in the social powers of invention – but also saw the advance of consumerism, world wars, globalisation and human-generated climate change. Techno-Fixers traces how passive optimism and active manipulations were linked to our growing trust in technological innovation. It pursues the evolving idea through engineering hubris, radical utopian movements, science fiction fanzines, policy-maker soundbites, corporate marketing, and consumer culture. It explores (...) how evangelists of technological fixes have proselytised their faith, and critically examines the examples and products of their followers. The new technological confidence mixed together beliefs that were simultaneously compelling and unsettling. As motor vehicles, electricity supplies and radio became part of modern life in the early decades of the century, it was hard to argue against the transformative effects and inevitability of such transitions. Like it or not, social consequences seemed to come inexorably with the Machine Age, the Space Age and the Information Age. This deterministic vision implied an ever more technological future with unavoidable social consequences. For many, innovative technologies promised appealing new lifestyles and powers. But for a narrower band of proponents – the first generation of technological fixers – wise engineering invention was touted as a guaranteed route to positive human benefits and societal progress. Socially-engaged engineers and designers argued that such improvements could be directed, hastened and amplified. These engineering adventurers argued that modern societies could be guided only by rational designers. They contended that adroit technological solutions could solve contemporary problems better than any traditional method, including economic initiatives, citizen education, political ideology, lifestyle changes, legal frameworks and moral guidance. Their seductive claims were tamed by more mainstream American enthusiasts, and eventually boiled down to the concept of the technological fix. Their shared confidence infused policy-makers, broadcasters and science popularisers. Trust in technological fixes shaped a new generation of managers and law-makers, engineers and educators, futurists and citizens – and continues to drive a new generation of techno-fixers today. This cultural wave, its promoters and detractors, have championed the promise and voiced concerns that we have inherited, still unresolved. This book tracks the hubristic influencers and weighs up the confidences and concerns associated with them: the dramatic potential for novel technologies to work alongside longer human traditions to meet our enduring ambitions – or to reshape society for the worse. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to carry out a genetic study on the Husserlian concept of noema based in the givenness of the real body in the passive experience of pain. The development focuses, either, on the delimitation of the painful body given in its physical sphere in attention to its material properties, and in the eventual integration of this passively given body in the so-called noetic-noematic structure regarding the intentional revelation that pain implies. To do this, pain will (...) first be briefly examined in light of "original" passivity. Secondly, the way in which the body is given in its real disposition and its understanding as a bodily ego in experiencing pain will be contemplated. Thirdly, considering the “original” constitution of the body in pain in a broad sense, emphasis will be placed on its correspondence with intentionality, a matter that only confirms that pain is a form of perception. Finally, the deployment of the genetically viewed noema is given on the basis of the determination of the real body as a noematic object. (shrink)

Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, an (...) important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of “musilanguage” in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language. (shrink)

What is the origin of ethical responsibility? What gives us our ability to respond? An ethical response involves responding to myself: I answer the call of my conscience. It also involves answering to the Other: I respond to the appeal of my neighbor. Is one form of response prior to the other? Contemporary thinking about these questions has been largely taken up by the debate between Levinas and Heidegger. Responsibility, according to Heidegger, begins with our concern for our being.1 The (...) “call of conscience” originates in our responsibility for what we are. By contrast, Levinas sees this “call” as beginning, not with ourselves, but with our neighbor. Its origin is “the face of the other.” So framed, the debate can be expressed in the opposition: self-responsibility against responsibility for the other.2 My purpose in what follows is to establish two claims. The first is that behind this opposition, there is a fundamental agreement concerning the origin of our ethical obligations. Both philosophers hold that ethical responsibility ultimately springs from our encounter with death. Their real quarrel concerns its location. Where do we first confront death? Is the “first death” our own or that of the other person? Do I confront death in the anxiety I have over my own demise or does it make its primary appearance in what Levinas calls “the face as the very mortality of the other person”?3 My second claim is that, whichever we choose, we cannot really base ethical responsibility on this encounter. This is because death for both philosophers is nontransferable and, hence, ultimately isolating. Furthermore, to face it is a traumatic experience. A traumatised self, however, cannot act. It can only flee. Given this, the response death actually provokes is avoidance. To adequately ground ethical responsibility, we must, I conclude, turn from seeking its basis in death understood in terms of absence and passivity. We must rethink this ground in terms of life taken as presence and affectivity. §1.. (shrink)

This article reevaluates the origins of the First Romano-Parthian War to better understand the different perspectives, policies, and objectives of the various Parthian and Roman leaders in the early and middle 50 s that helped forge the great rivalry that emerged between Parthia and Rome. This article breaks from the dominate Rome-centric, anti-Crassus traditions concerning the investigation of the origins of this conflict. Centuries of anti-Crassus propaganda have led most scholars to discount or overlook the critical agency of the Parthians (...) in the conflict and the serious implications of Gabinius’ actions in 56–55, while blaming Crassus for indefensible Roman aggression and greed. The propensity of modern scholarship to villainize and criticize Crassus follows ancient propaganda and stems in part from a lack of understanding of the geopolitical realities that Parthia and Rome faced in the middle 50 s. Further, this article challenges the misguided traditions that, first, describe the Parthians as feeble, passive, and duplicitous in their interactions with foreign powers and, second, that blame the incompetence or weakness of the Parthians’ enemies to explain their actions and successes. Indeed, the Parthians were important, active, and powerful agents in these events, something often obscured or overlooked because of the inherent Roman focus and bias of the Graeco-Roman literary tradition and modern scholarship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’s Critique by Stephen R. OgdenLuis Xavier López-FarjeatStephen R. Ogden. Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’s Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 296. Hardback, $90.00.Stephen Ogden’s book is a remarkable contribution to one of the most controversial topics within the tradition of interpreters of Aristotle’s De anima. As is well known, Aristotle defines the intellect (nous) as “the (...) part of the soul by which it knows and thinks” (DA III.4, 429a9– 10). This doctrine of the intellect becomes rather obscure in DA III.5, where Aristotle states that there is a passive intellect that needs to be actualized through an active intellect. This passage contains, perhaps, the most debated statement in Aristotelian psychology. Aristotle argues that the passive or potential intellect is the part of the soul that, in a sense, becomes all things as it knows them. The intellect, however, has another aspect: in a sense, it makes all things. This is what Aristotle calls the “active” or “agent” intellect. This characterization is fairly ambiguous: it is separable (chôristos), separated (chôristheis), not passive (apathês), unmixed (amigês), and it is essentially an activity (têi ousiai energeia); furthermore, it is immortal (athanaton), eternal (aidion), and always thinking.According to Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation, Aristotle holds that since the human intellect is in potency, its actualization needs the intervention of an intellect that is always thinking, namely, the active intellect. Alexander associates the active or agent intellect (poiêtikos nous) with the divine intellect and divine intellection as it appears in Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII.9, 1074b33–35, another famous passage where Aristotle describes the first mover as thought thinking itself. A long tradition of interpreters and commentators, both ancient and medieval, discussed whether Aristotle held that the actualization of the potential intellect came from an external intellect—be it God (as Alexander thought) or another kind of separate intellect (as was the case for Islamic philosophers such as al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes), or whether Aristotle was referring to two aspects within a single human intellect (as Thomas Aquinas held, for instance).As its title indicates, Ogden’s book focuses on Averroes, a Muslim philosopher who proposed one of the most puzzling interpretations of the Aristotelian doctrine of the intellect. It is puzzling, perhaps false, and even absurd, because it holds that “the intellect that understands intelligible concepts is a single, separate, eternal substance shared by [End Page 659] all humanity”(1). Strange as it may seem, this position—which Ogden calls the “unicity thesis” (1)—was among the most debated in the Jewish and Christian traditions throughout the medieval period and the Renaissance. But beyond detailing the mere reception and historical assimilation of Averroes’s doctrine, Ogden takes on the task of arguing for its philosophical coherence. It is not a simple task. One might think that, rather than helping to clarify Aristotle’s theory, Averroes made it more complicated. If it is already difficult to understand the Aristotelian definition of the active intellect and to decide whether it is a separate intellect or part of the soul, Averroes seems to make things worse by arguing that the active or agent intellect (in Latin, intellectus agens or intelligentia agens; in Arabic, ‘aql al-fa“āl) and the so-called material or possible intellect (intellectus materialis; ‘aql hayūlānī) are both single, separate, and eternal intellects.As is well known, and as Ogden himself explains, Thomas Aquinas criticized the idea of two separate intellects (passive and active) and provided an account that is in principle satisfactory, according to which the two intellects are intellectual powers of each person’s soul. There is an enormous amount of scholarly literature evaluating the merits of Thomas Aquinas’s refutation of Averroes and his followers. But as Ogden notices, few scholars— among them, Richard C. Taylor, Jean-Baptiste Brenet, Deborah Black, and Josep Puig—have pointed out that the two philosophers begin their discussions with different assumptions. In my view, one of the greatest merits of Ogden’s book is that, as far as I... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.4 (2004) 489-490 [Access article in PDF] Ian M. Crystal. Self-Intellection and its Epistemological Origins in Ancient Greek Thought. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. Pp. x + 220. Cloth, $79.95. In this excellent re-working of his King's College Ph.D. thesis, Ian Crystal presents an account of the problem of self-intellection in Greek philosophy from Parmenides through Plotinus. The problem, at least as it (...) appears in ancient Greek philosophy, is connected to the way in which a faculty of soul relates to its proper object. For example, the proper object of the visual faculty is light, that of the auditory faculty sound, and it is the difference in kind between these proper objects that requires different faculties of soul in any account of how it is that we come to grasp the two different kinds of sensory data. Reason is itself a faculty of soul that is supposed to correspond to objects of cognition, but since it is possible to grasp, cognitively, the structure of this faculty the question arises: May this faculty function as its own object? The question is famously answered in the affirmative in Aristotle's treatise De anima at 430a2-5 on the grounds that any immaterial object of cognition is identical to thought itself (epi men gar tôn aneu hulês to auto esti to nooun kai to nooumenon).While this may seem like a peculiarly Aristotelian analysis of cognition (relying, as it does, on Aristotle's distinction between matter and form and his rather cryptic claim that the faculties of soul are actually what their proper objects are potentially), Crystal traces the idea both backwards and forwards in time, rooting the problem in Parmenides' general account of faculties of soul and tracing it through Plotinus's sophisticated account of noetic intellect, with visits along the way not only with Aristotle but Plato and the Stoics as well.The book is divided into three parts. In the first ("The Epistemological Origins") Crystal examines the evolution of the philosophical analysis of cognition from Parmenides through Plato. Parmenides, on this account, was the first to offer anything like a philosophical treatment of intellect (Greek nous). In particular, Parmenides distinguishes between a faculty of intellection and an object of that faculty. Plato, consciously working in the Parmenidean tradition, further analyses mind into its faculties and their proper objects but also gives a more detailed analysis of the epistemological subject. Specifically, Plato's treatment of the faculty in the Theaetetus provides an account of the structure of our cognitive faculty and how that structure relates to the metaphysics of the external world. It is here that Crystal recognizes the emergence of a linguistic component in the epistemic subject's cognitive activity (101; cf. Theaetetus189e6-190a6).Part II ("The Emergence of Self-Intellection") consists of a single chapter in which Crystal reads Aristotle's treatment of self-intellection in the De anima as "Aristotle's epistemological response to Plato." Since self-intellection per se really only emerges for the first time in the De anima, this chapter is in some sense the meatiest part of the book. We are given first a careful treatment of Aristotle's account of perception in DA3.2, affection in DA2.5 and De generatione et corruptione1.7, and the central problem of self-consciousness in DA3.2. The argument moves quickly here but Crystal's analysis is precise and clear. Next comes the analysis of the cognitive structure of intellect itself in DA3.4 and Crystal's account of how Aristotle's two aporiai (How can intellect be both a passive affection and something simple and impassive; and Is intellect itself an intelligible object) are responses to Plato's account of cognition at Theaetetus197c1-200d4 (the Aviary passage) on the one hand and to the general lack of an account of intelligible objects in the Theaetetus on the [End Page 489] other. On Crystal's account, Aristotle improves on Plato in the sense... (shrink)

Leibniz looked upon space as an order of co-existing, independent things which differ from each other. Starting from this approach, we may ask whether two specific differences among given things - e.g. one between A and B, the other between C and D - in their turn differ from one another. Steiner, inspired by Leibniz’s approach, showed that on this second level of abstraction they indeed do. However, if we proceed to a third level of abstraction, comparing differences observed on (...) the second stage of abstraction, we shall no longer detect any material, “palpable” difference. In short: Setting off from the co-existence of different things and analysing whether qualitative, material differences are still evident on a second and a third level of abstraction, we are led to conceive space as a system comprising three qualitatively discernible dimensions. - Concerning time, Leibniz and Steiner looked upon it as an arrangement of items succeeding one another. To understand this requires - if we follow Leibniz − to be able to perceive motion. Now, most moving items are passively driven into motion, depending on an external source which imparts the movement. In contrast to that, an actively moving thing generates within itself the impulse to modify its location in relation to other items. Within the world of sensory perceptions, “organic bodies” ( i.e. organisms) are capable of self-motion to a certain extent. Nonetheless, a true primary self-motion can only be postulated of a completely independent being. Herewith, Leibniz’s approach to the origin of motion and the therein implied up-welling of time reveals itself to be intimately related to lines of thought developed by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus - albeit employing completely different terms. (shrink)

This article explores the early biogeographical debates that shaped the beginning of limnology, focusing on the differences of opinion concerning the origins of pelagic fauna between two pioneering scientists: Pietro Pavesi and François-Alphonse Forel. The study examines how Pavesi’s hypothesis of a marine origin for pelagic fauna contrasts with Forel’s theory of passive distribution, situating their arguments within a broader Darwinian framework. The first part of the paper provides a historical overview of Italian limnology, highlighting Pavesi’s contributions and interpreting Forel’s (...) writings to underscore the significance of discovering pelagic fauna in conceptualizing lakes as microcosms. The second part compares Pavesi’s and Forel’s hypotheses, emphasizing their impact on the scientific understanding of freshwater ecosystems. The importance of this discovery, in both historical and scientific contexts, lies in recognizing the presence of plankton in lakes as a crucial element for the mature formulation of ecological concepts, such as the ecosystem. (shrink)

This paper is a systematic comparison between two well–known and theologically relevant concepts – the sublime as developed in Kant’s third Critique, and Marion’s saturated phenomenon. Although it discusses the significant and apparent similarities between them, it also criticizes Marion’s identification of the sublime as a possible example of a saturated phenomenon. This is primarily because of the different origins and philosophical presuppositions guiding the elaboration of these two ideas. Kant’s aim is to confine the reception of the phenomenon to (...) the conditions of experience, so that both in the case of judg-ments of beauty and judg-ments of the sublime, the subject achieves pleasure through self-centred appreciation of its rational capacities. Marion’s saturated phenomenon, on the other hand, aims at dispensing with the ‘metaphysical’ horizon of either the object, or the transcendental subject, in favour of passive appropriation of givenness. Although both are meant to describe what happens when the limits of understanding are breached, in the sublime this breach only serves to reinforce the capacity of the rational subject, whereas in the saturated phenomenon it points to the possibility of apprehension of the totally Other as purely given. (shrink)

U tekstu se polazi od problemske konstatacije prema kojoj je kapitalizam kao način života toliko postao dominantan da sustavno prožima cjelokupno vrijeme pojedinca, i radno i slobodno vrijeme. Dakle, sustav je čovjekovo vrijeme u totalu stavio u zavjetrinu ekonomije. I njime upravlja i vlada .Dalje se u tekstu postavlja pitanje koliko će još proći »vremena da se deblokiraju potencijali čovjekove prirode zapreteni u ekonomiji slobodnog vremena« . U suprotnom »svaki napredak u proizvodnji s pasivnom proizvođačkom klasom može samo pospješiti izdvajanje (...) i jačanje nove gornje klase« . Tako nastaje dublja problemska situacija u kojoj se pojedinci pretvaraju u pasivne grupe i društvene zajednice i time cijelo društvo čine pasivnim i osrednjim.Rješenje se, prema Supeku, nalazi u izoštravanju »samosvijesti građanina« kojom bi se uspješno otklanjala pasivnost i nekritičnost čovjekove svijesti. Cijeli bi se taj proces mogao razvijati iz temeljne »usamljenosti« građanina, koja pretpostavlja sigurnu distancu od tržišnog konzumerizma. Samosvijest nastala usred vlastite usamljenosti, tj. usred kritičkog odmaka od svakodnevice, bila bi osnažena i kritički otvorena prema sebi i prema sredini u kojoj živi. I tada bi mogla »djelovati kako hoće«, a ne kako je diktirano odozgor.Ta temeljna i kritički distancirana usamljenost građanina razumijevala bi se kao kvalitetno novo iskustvo vremena u neovisnom i autonomnom prostoru slobode u kojem se konačno može ostvariti vlastito slobodno vrijeme bitno drugačije od pasivne besposlice.The initial concept of this text is the problem conclusion which claims that capitalism as a way of life has become so dominant that it systematically permeates the individual’s complete time, their working hours as well as their free time. In other words, man’s free time has been overtaken by the system and completely subjected to economy. And it is run by the government .Further in the text a question arises: How long “will it take to deliver the potentials of human nature which are entwined in the economy of free time” . Otherwise “every progress that is made in production using passive production classes can only help facilitate the separation and strengthening of the new upper class” . This leads to a deeper problem situation in which individuals are being turned into passive groups and social communities, which makes the entire society passive and mediocre.According to Supek, the solution is in sharpening the “citizens’ self-consciousness”, which could bring success in removing passivity and non-critical human consciousness. The entire process could be developed from the foundational “loneliness” of the citizen, which implies a safe distance from market consumerism. Self-consciousness, caused by personal loneliness, i.e., critical detachment from everyday life, would be strengthened and critically open toward itself and the society in which the person lives. And then it would be able to “do as it pleased”, and not as it has been ordered from a higher instance.This foundational and critically detached loneliness of citizens could be understood as a good and fresh experience of time in an independent and autonomous space of freedom, where a person could finally be able to achieve their own free time in a way that is largely different than just mere passive doing nothing. (shrink)

Comparing the experiences of mystics and victims of delusion we find very similar states of conditions: an experience of abnormal significance, pseudohallucinations, the sense of mission, the suspension of time, extremes of mood, and the sudden and passive appearance. Only the subsequent course of life of those having the experiences makes it possible to distinguish between belief and delusion. The criteria are simple: we find hope and doubt only in relation to mystical experience whereas in delusion we find a paralyzed (...) belief; human freedom increases in belief but is lost in delusion; and belief allows the interaction between the person and society while the person who is deluded has no effectiveness in society. (shrink)

Rhythmic entrainment is the formation of regular, predictable patterns in time and/or space through interactions within or between systems that manifest potential symmetries. We contend that this process is a major source of symmetries in specific systems, whether passive physical systems or active adaptive and/or voluntary/intentional systems, except that active systems have more control over accepting or avoiding rhythmic entrainment. The result of rhythmic entrainment is a simplification of the entrained system, in the sense that the information required to describe (...) it is reduced. Entrainment can be communicated, passing information from one system to another. The paradigm is a group of jazz percussionists agreeing on a complex musical progression. The process of rhythmic entrainment is complementary to that of symmetry breaking, which produces information. The two processes account for much, if not all, of the complexity and organization in the universe. Rhythmic entrainment can be more or less spontaneous, with the completely spontaneous form being uncontrollable. A balance between the two forms can produce a more robust system, requiring less energy to maintain, whether in physical, biological or social systems. We outline some applications in physics, chemistry, biology, measurement and communication, ending with the especially interesting case of social and economic order. First though, we must introduce some basic principles. (shrink)

From his earliest work in The Structure of Behavior, Maurice Merleau-Ponty abrogates accounts of organic form that posit the organism as either passively ordered by the environment which precedes it, or as actively constituting its environment. I argue that Merleau-Ponty first develops what I term a genetic concept of form, in which the organism-environment relationship unfolds developmentally. This account of genetic form, however, requires a further concept of generative form to overcome the conceptual distinction between constituting activity and constituted (...) class='Hi'>passivity. I contend that rather than pre-existing its own development ideally, in a genetic or developmental blueprint, or environmentally, in given causes, that instead form emerges expressively and dynamically. To develop the concept of generative form I turn to Merleau-Ponty’s lecture courses Institution and Nature, while drawing from examples in animal motorperceptual development and inter-bodily communication. In doing so, I contend that this idea of generativity requires for us to think of organisms as passive, though not as passively constituted by a nature in-itself, but rather as passively instituted by a natural sense that orients the possibilities of organic development without itself existing asan already realized form of life. I argue that the notion of generative form offers an approach to thinking of species differences not as essential differences in kind, but as elaborations of a natural generativity that precedes and grounds individual animate forms. (shrink)

In a famous fragment of the Pensées, Pascal explains that it is through the heart that we know first principles. But what is the meaning of this knowledge? The editors of Port-Royal took the radical decision to replace the occurrences of “heart” in this fragment with the expression “feeling and intelligence [sentiment et intelligence]”, thus marking the equivalence of these two notions. However, given that Pascal contrasts the heart with reason, and that intelligence is, for both Pascal and Descartes, synonymous (...) with reason, how are we to understand this modification? Some commentators have seen it as an absurdity, proving that it could not have been made by interpreters like Arnauld and Nicole. In this article, I first show, on the contrary, that it is precisely a chapter of the second edition of The Logic of Port-Royal that offers the key to the difficulty. While Arnauld and Nicole are faithful to the Cartesian synonymy of intelligence and reason everywhere else, in this chapter they distinguish between these two notions, taking Descartes’ distinction between intuitus and reason from the Rules for the Direction of the Mind. Secondly, I contest this interpretation of the Pascalian heart: the heart, as an originally passive capacity of feeling, differs from the Cartesian intuitus. (shrink)

The theory of intentionality is the most important core of the theoretical inheritance of E. Husserl’s phenomenology. Starting from this awareness, Levinas carries out a deep research within the phenomenology in order to see whether «intentionality exhausts modalities in which the thought is meaningful». This paper will try to show how the French-Lituan philosopher, going over the genetic phenomenology research which comes to a precategorial issue, can point out the «pre-intentional», or better the «non-intentional», the original «passivity» of (...) conscience which is not the negation of subjectivity, but instead the possibility of «giving» of transcendency. This «would not be a missed immanency», but would have in sociality – responsibility of the neighbour – the own spiritual excellency, which is the perfection of God. (shrink)

The concept of alienation, as put forward in the 1844 Manuscripts, is a particularly complex one. Marx tentatively outlines a conception of alienation that is proper to him, that is not merely the transfer of the Feuerbachian conception from the religious sphere to social and economic life. Marx's innovation is to have gone beyond a conception in which alienation is regarded as the loss of a subjective content in the object, or as the experience of the loss of the object (...) that is intrinsically alienating, insofar as the worker is deemed to have invested his subjectivity in the object that has been produced. Marx thus puts forward the idea that objectification is not in itself alienating. This is the case with work, an activity that is naturally objectifying, or with a being that is itself natural and objective, such as the worker. What is alienating, for an objective being (and not for a “subject”), is the suppression of the objectivity that is proper to it : that is, the negation of its naturalness, and of the originally passive and "affected", acted upon, dimension of its being. (shrink)

The originality of Maine de Biran’s philosophy is his discovery of the apperceptive intuition of effort as the basis for the constitution of the conscious (my)self. Yet, although Biran routinely associates this effort with the exercise of force, his late philosophy is often characterized as a philosophy of the renunciation of power for a quietist embrace of passivity. Biran’s life-long struggle with physical debilitation perhaps speaks in support of a philosophy of weakness over strength. However, this paper takes the (...) opposite view and sees in Biran’s personal experience of sickness, not weakness but ‘phenomenology’ of a will to triumphing power. Further, it argues that in this desire for strength is a Biranian theological opening to a power, which impossible to give myself, is the ground for a transcending aspiration into the power of God. The experience of weakness is the experience of a deeper longing for the transformation of effort. (shrink)

Originally published in German in 1935, this monograph anticipated solutions to problems of scientific progress, the truth of scientific fact and the role of error in science now associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and others. Arguing that every scientific concept and theory—including his own—is culturally conditioned, Fleck was appreciably ahead of his time. And as Kuhn observes in his foreword, "Though much has occurred since its publication, it remains a brilliant and largely unexploited resource." "To many scientists just (...) as to many historians and philosophers of science facts are things that simply are the case: they are discovered through properly passive observation of natural reality. To such views Fleck replies that facts are invented, not discovered. Moreover, the appearance of scientific facts as discovered things is itself a social construction, a _made_ thing. A work of transparent brilliance, one of the most significant contributions toward a thoroughly sociological account of scientific knowledge."—Steven Shapin, _Science_. (shrink)

The earth is the archetypal image of the origin of humanity, but throughout the history of Western culture it has given way to other, more heavenly allegories. Enlightenment as a paradigm of knowledge consolidated itself in Western philosophical thought in a very convincing way as a production of meanings. Through this rereading of the first Greek metaphysics, thought gradually distanced itself from its materiality, from its humanity, from the possibility of admiring the concrete world, getting closer and closer to the (...) need to create abstract objects, which, as ethical limits, political, aesthetic and epistemological, we end up meeting again in our lives. Visibility seems to be the basis of a Western mental habitus: recognition, officiality, legitimacy and certainty become visible signs with which we compare and validate our own experiences. The earth, as a less transparent element, with greater ability to hide, occult, encrypt represents, however, an image that is better suited to the discussion plan proposed in this text. The relationship with reality, in terms of visibility and invisibility, requires a new perception of the world: the underlying structure no longer assumes a transcendent level, but is understood as a plane of immanence, in which meaning is interior, produced by compositions; an amalgam of networks that intertwine in an imperceptible, invisible underground plane. What we propose here is not a vertical perspective, but a horizontal one like the ground. It is from this earthly thought that we want to reflect on what happens in philosophy and childhood; in philosophy with childhood and in the childhood of philosophy. In the present attempt of an ecophilosophy of education, the discussion plan requires a deviation from the guiding images with which we learn to do research. The intention of the following investigation is to look for another type of map: a kind of subterranean cartography, which pays attention not to what we can see, which has well-defined names and categories, but to what is hidden and inhabits a plane that is muddy, earthly, indistinguishable and absolutely alive. According to the Lipmanian model of Philosophy for Children, the subterranean and rhizomatic processes of the research community will be examined, comparing them to other collective movements that characterize the vegetable communities of plants that inhabit the natural world. Finally, three concepts considered relevant to escape the limits found in some contemporary pedagogical postures will be illustrated, suggesting other paths in the relationship between philosophy, childhood and education: reciprocity, passivity and invisibility. (shrink)

This article clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s enigmatic, later concept of reversibility by showing how it is connected to the theme of the genesis of sense. The article first traces reversibility through “Eye and Mind” and The Visible and the Invisible , in ways that link reversibility to a theme of the earlier philosophy, namely an interrelation in which activity and passivity reverse to one another. This linkage is deepened through a detailed study of a passage on touch in the Phenomenology ’s (...) chapter on “Sensing,” which shows how reversibility is important to the genesis of sense, not from some already given origin, but through a creative operation within being, beyond the perceiver, wherein the field of perception internally diverges into active and passive moments. The article connects this point about the genesis of sense to themes in Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on institution and passivity. Altogether the article shows how reversibility is a sign of a divergence and thence of a sort of gap or excess in being that allows for a genesis of sense within being itself. (shrink)

Systems Biology and the Modern Synthesis are recent versions of two classical biological paradigms that are known as structuralism and functionalism, or internalism and externalism. According to functionalism (or externalism), living matter is a fundamentally passive entity that owes its organization to external forces (functions that shape organs) or to an external organizing agent (natural selection). Structuralism (or internalism), is the view that living matter is an intrinsically active entity that is capable of organizing itself from within, with purely internal (...) processes that are based on mathematical principles and physical laws. At the molecular level, the basic mechanism of the Modern Synthesis is molecular copying, the process that leads in the short run to heredity and in the long run to natural selection. The basic mechanism of Systems Biology, instead, is self-assembly, the process by which many supramolecular structures are formed by the spontaneous aggregation of their components. In addition to molecular copying and self-assembly, however, molecular biology has uncovered also a third great mechanism at the heart of life. The existence of the genetic code and of many other organic codes in Nature tells us that molecular coding is a biological reality and we need therefore a framework that accounts for it. This framework is Code biology, the study of the codes of life, a new field of research that brings to light an entirely new dimension of the living world and gives us a completely new understanding of the origin and the evolution of life. (shrink)

The change from static to genetic perspective involves an enlargement of the phenomenological field. The main subject is not anymore the description of the essential notes of a phenomenon but rather the search for its origins. New levels of objects and consciousness arise as consequence of this new approach. The structures of subjectivity revealed by the genetic inquiry constitute the field of passivity.

This conceptual contribution is based on the observation that digital inequalities literature has not sufficiently considered digital footprints as an important social differentiator. The purpose of the paper is to inspire current digital inequality frameworks to include this new dimension.,Literature on digital inequalities is combined with research on privacy, big data and algorithms. The focus on current findings from an interdisciplinary point of view allows for a synthesis of different perspectives and conceptual development of digital footprints as a new dimension (...) of digital inequality.,Digital footprints originate from active content creation, passive participation and platform-generated data. The literature review shows how different social groups may experience systematic advantages or disadvantages based on their digital footprints. A special emphasis should be on those at the margins, for example, users of low socioeconomic background.,By combining largely independent research fields, the contribution opens new avenues for studying digital inequalities, including innovative methodologies to do so. (shrink)

_The purpose _of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of (...) anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). _Originality._ For the first time in the research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. _Conclusions._ According to Husserl, the structure of human time-consciousness is instantiated in three spheres of passivity: prerefleсtive cogito, embodiment, and intersubjectivity. Within the framework of the problem of phase differentiation of phenomenological time, an analysis of the potencies of consciousness in constituting the phases of time-consciousness, namely protentional and retentional potencies, has been proposed. In the context of the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time, several aspects of Husserl’s model of time-consciousness have been interpreted, including the paradoxical reconciliation of two quasi-incompatible ideas: the idea of the vagueness of the boundaries between temporal modes and the thesis of the formal capacity of preserving temporal units within their respective temporal phases. The property of multilevel complexity in the system of human temporality accounts for the diversity in the relationship of unique temporal units based on formal and content-related criteria ('temporal matryoshka'). (shrink)

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of (...) indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’. (shrink)

Deacon speculates on the origin of interpretation of signs using autocatalytic origin of life models and Peircean terminology. I explain why interpretation evolved only later as a triadic intervention between symbols and actions. In all organisms the passive one-dimensional genetic informational symbol sequences are converted to active functional proteins or nucleic acids by three-dimensional folding. This symbol grounding is a direct symbol-to-action conversion. It is universal throughout all evolution. Folding is entirely a lawful physical process, leaving neither freedom nor necessity (...) for interpretation. Similarly, the initial converse action-to-symbol conversion of sensory inputs also leaves no freedom for interpretation until after the action-to-symbol conversion. (shrink)

Considering that Husserl identifies passivity as the general principle of genetic dynamics and as given prior to any intentional activity, the original condition of possibility of such passivity must be clarified. Phenomenological analysis can successfully attest the presence of a drive-habituality operating prior to the level of the I, an instinct-character, thus, that raises the question about life as auto-affective capability. In the framework of a universal monadology the latter’s teleological orientation must be questioned in order to (...) avoid that both the limes constituted by the unconscious as well as affective being remain indeterminate and anonymous, which would not do justice to the transcendental rootedness of drive and instinct through the form of ipseity. (shrink)

Comment: This translation contains a correction of an argument in the original English edition, a correction that was subsequently made in the 1999 English Paperback edition, The correction is described below in the final paragraph. Differences in language can seriously restrict one's access to, and knowledge of, the philosophical work that's being done in other countries, and before the publication in 1997 of my book Time, Tense, and Causation, I was not aware of the depth of interest, in Italy, (...) in analytical philosophy in general, and metaphysics in particular. Since that time, however, I've had the opportunity of talking to, and corresponding with, Italian philosophers who are currently working very intensely on problems in the philosophy of time. I very much enjoyed those discussions, and so I'm very pleased indeed that my book has now been translated into Italian. -/- The introduction to the book will provide readers with quite a detailed overview of my approach to the philosophy of time, and of the main theses that I am defending. But perhaps it will be helpful here if I try to sketch, very briefly, the big picture. -/- The central issue in the philosophy of time concerns the choice between tensed and tenseless accounts of the nature of time – or, as I prefer to express it, between dynamic and static conceptions of reality. According to tensed (or dynamic) accounts, there are significant ontological differences between the past, the present, and the future – either because the world contains intrinsic tensed properties of passiveness, presentness, and futurity, or else because the past, the present, and the future are not all equally real. In contrast, according to tenseless (or static) views of the nature of time, there are no intrinsic tensed properties, and the past, the present, and the future are all equally real. In this book, I defend a dynamic view of time dash specifically, one according to which, while the past and the present are now real, the future is not. This view has, of course, a very long history, with a version of it having been defended by Aristotle in his famous discussion of the sea battle tomorrow, in which he argued that, although it is now true – indeed necessarily so – that either there will be a sea battle tomorrow or there will not be one, it is not now true that there will be a sea battle tomorrow, and not now true that there will not be one. Only when tomorrow comes will the world contain states of affairs that make one of these propositions true, and the other false. -/- But while this general view of the nature of time has a very long and distinguished history – and also seems, intuitively, quite appealing – it has become clear, especially in this century, that it is exposed to very strong objections – objections moreover, that come not merely from philosophy, but also from contemporary physics, and especially from Einstein's special theory of relativity. One of the main challenges accordingly, for any defense of a tensed or dynamic view of time, is to show that those objections can be answered. -/- In grappling with those objections, however, one thing that emerged very clearly was that some theses that defenders of tensed approaches to time have traditionally viewed as absolutely essential must be abandoned as unsound. The result is that. I was led to a view of the nature of time that is, in many respects, intermediate between tenseless views of time and traditional tensed approaches. In particular, advocates of traditional tensed views almost always maintain that the simplest temporal facts are themselves inherently tensed: they consist of facts such as, for example, that is certain apple is now red. But I maintain that, on the contrary, the simplest temporal facts, rather than being intrinsically tensed, are facts to the effect, for example, that a certain apple is now red at time t. On this fundamental issue, then, I agree with those who accept a tenseless or static view of time, since they too hold that the simplest tensed facts ¬– and indeed all tensed facts – are not tensed facts. How, then, does my approach to the nature time differ from a tenseless or static approach? The answer is that I also maintain that, although basic tensed facts are not inherently tensed, the world is nevertheless a dynamic one, since every present moment is a point at which things come into existence. Events, therefore, are not merely actual or nonactual – as is maintained by advocates of tenseless approaches to time. Rather an event is actual as of some time, and not actual as of other times. One needs, therefore, a temporally indexed notion of actuality, according to which an event is not actual until the time at which it occurs, and given that notion, one can explain, in a straightforward fashion, what it is for events to lie in the past, the present, and the future, and in the way that entails that the past and the present are real, but the future is not. -/- One task, as I have said, is to show that the many objections that have been advanced against dynamic conceptions of the world dash by philosophers – such as McTaggart, Quine, Smart, Putnam, and Mellor – can be answered. But even if, as I claim, this can be done, one is still left, of course, with the question of what positive reason there is, if any, for accepting a tensed or dynamic view of the world. -/- The argument that I develop in response to this question centers upon the concept of causation, and here I argue, first, that there are decisive objections to reductionist approaches to causation; secondly, that it is possible to set out a very plausible realistic account of the nature of causation; and, thirdly, that the crucial postulates that are involved in that account can only be satisfied in a dynamic world – indeed only in a dynamic world in which the past and the present are real, but the future is not. -/- This way of defending the view that our world is a dynamic one also has implications for some other issues – in particular, issues connected with the subtle and very difficult metaphysical question of the relation between time and causation. Thus, after setting out the above argument, I attempt to show that if causation can exist only in a dynamic world, then one can both demonstrate that backward causation is logically impossible and defend the view that the direction of time is to be defined in terms of the direction of causation, rather than vice versa. -/- Finally, a comment on the text. It involves one major change from the original English edition – namely in sections 4. 6.2 and 4.7. The change in those sections involves the crucial part in my argument both for the claim that our world is one where the past and present are real, but the future is not, and for the claim that backward causation is logically impossible. It was pointed out to me by Kenji Murota, a graduate student of philosophy at Keio University, that there was a problem in my original formulation of that argument. I'm grateful to him for his incisive criticism, and I'm pleased that I've had the opportunity of correcting that argument in the present edition. (shrink)