Authors:Esteban Arcos, Damien Delorme, Gérald Hess First page: 91 Abstract: Starting from the observation that there is a gap between knowledge of the environmental sciences and practical engagement, for example, in climate change or biodiversity loss, this article explores one possible explanation for this situation—namely, the process of objectification inherent in science. It then proposes to remedy the situation by defending the idea of a ‘first-person ecology’. This term refers to a field of research and practice that looks at the relationship between humans and nature from the point of view of the embodied and situated nature of lived experience. The lived experience of nature at the heart of a first-person ecology is first studied from an epistemic perspective using the concept of recognition, inspired by the Frankfurt School philosopher and sociologist Axel Honneth. It is then approached from a phenomenological perspective, using the emerging field of ecospirituality to describe the characteristics of this experience. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-21 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040091 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Cody Gilmore, Brian Kierland First page: 92 Abstract: There are possible worlds in which time is circular and finite in duration, forming a loop of, say, 12,000 years. There are also possible worlds in which time is linear and infinite in both directions and in which history is repetitive, consisting of infinitely many 12,000-year epochs, each two of which are exactly alike with respect to all intrinsic, purely qualitative properties. Could one ever have empirical evidence that one inhabits a world of the first kind rather than a world of the second kind' We argue for the affirmative answer, contra Quine, Newton-Smith, and Bergström. Our argument for that conclusion differs from an argument for the same conclusion due to Weir. Weir’s argument is probabilistic and explicitly requires having evidence against determinism. Our argument is a direct appeal to the simplicity of laws, and it involves no probabilistic component. It is modeled on Shoemaker’s argument that one could have evidence of time without change. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-25 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040092 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Eugene Halton First page: 93 Abstract: This essay approaches the “God is dead” theme by offering a new philosophical history addressing what would make belief in divinity, in God, sustainable and unsustainable. I claim that the death of nature and the death of God in the modern era are manifestations of a progressive distancing from a religious philosophy of the Earth that guided human development until the beginnings of civilization. I outline within the space limitations here a new way of looking at the rise of civilization and the modern era by re-evaluating large-scale epochal beliefs and assumptions of progress within a context of sustainable ends and what I have termed sustainable wisdom. From an original evolved outlook I call animate mind, rooted in a religious philosophy of the living Earth, succeeding contractions of anthropocentric mind and machine-centric mind have regressively disconnected from the community of life. This trajectory courses the disconnect from the livingness of things as defining cosmos, to that of machine-centric mind in the modern era, a devolutionary elevation of the feelingless machine, of deadness, of what Erich Fromm described as cultural necrophilia. I propose rebalancing these later contractions of anthropocentric and machine-centric mind with that deeper reality of animate mind, forged as the human evolutionary legacy still present in the human body-mind today. The renewed legacy of animate mind provides a key to what a sustainable God might mean. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-26 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040093 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:André Dias de Andrade First page: 94 Abstract: This paper reconstructs Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical project in terms of a phenomenology of sensible transcendence. According to this framework, (i) any given data are correlative to a subjective apprehension, (ii) but they cannot be fully captured by this same experience. Therefore, subjective apprehension must remain open to a type of absence or radical indeterminacy. This notion of transcendence must be grounded in bodily experience, and the challenge is to develop a notion of logos that can account for its sensible donation. We describe that the critical apparatus mobilized to achieve this goal, primarily through the notions of “field of presence” and “presentation”, restores a logic of consciousness in these analyses that focus on the body. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-29 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040094 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Alicia García Álvarez First page: 95 Abstract: The present paper argues that the standardised treatment of disaster research and practice perpetuates the production of systematic epistemic injustices against victims of disasters. On the one hand, disaster victims are often prevented from contributing with their opinions and knowledge to the processes of disaster mitigation and disaster conceptualisation. On the other hand, disaster victims tend to lack the hermeneutical resources to make sense of their experiences intelligibly, due to the existence of significant hermeneutical gaps in the hegemonic terminology on the matter. I argue that both forms of epistemic injustice, the testimonial and the hermeneutical, are sustained by an epistemic privilege between the Global North and the Global South in matters of disasters. The second group comprises what I categorise generally as ‘disaster victims’. I identify two forms of structural prejudice that operate against disaster victims: one is the ‘non-expert’ prejudice, and the other is the colonial prejudice. Finally, because of the intercultural nature of disaster environments, I discuss the field of ‘multicultural competencies’ as a useful form of unveiling and counteracting the epistemic injustices contained in both disaster theory and practice. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-29 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040095 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Joshua Spencer First page: 96 Abstract: I have argued against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities using a time travel-based counterexample. Kelly McCormick has responded to my counterexample by arguing that the time travel scenario must be a scenario in which a time traveler’s actions are causally determined; hence, she claims, we should be suspicious of attributing moral responsibility to anyone in such a scenario. In this paper, I respond by arguing that one might be morally responsible in an indeterministic time travel scenario. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-04 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040096 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Gustavo E. Romero First page: 97 Abstract: The ontology behind quantum mechanics has been the subject of endless debate since the theory was formulated some 100 years ago. It has been suggested, at one time or another, that the objects described by the theory may be individual particles, waves, fields, ensembles of particles, observers, and minds, among many other possibilities. I maintain that these disagreements are due in part to a lack of precision in the use of the theory’s various semantic designators. In particular, there is some confusion about the role of representation, reference, and denotation in the theory. In this article, I first analyze the role of the semantic apparatus in physical theories in general and then discuss the corresponding ontological implications for quantum mechanics. Subsequently, I consider the extension of the theory to quantum fields and then analyze the semantic changes of the designators with their ontological consequences. In addition to the classical arguments to rule out a particle ontology in the case of non-relativistic quantum field theory, I show how the existence of black holes makes the proposal of a particle ontology in general spacetimes unfeasible. I conclude by proposing a provisional pluralistic ontology of fields and spacetime and discussing some prospects for possible future ontological economies. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-04 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040097 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Cei Maslen First page: 98 Abstract: Lewis argued that although paradoxes such as the famous Grandfather Paradox can be solved, only a limited set of time travel fiction is consistent. In this paper, I discuss how to extend a Lewisian approach to a class of time travel fiction not considered by Lewis: transmigration or mental time travel fiction. To this end, Lewis’s definition of personal time needs refining, and this is the primary focus of my paper. I discuss some alternative refinements of Lewis’s definition: a Solely Mental definition and a Causal definition. I end by also applying these definitions to cases of reverse aging. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-05 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040098 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Craig Bourne, Emily Caddick Bourne First page: 99 Abstract: Nikk Effingham and Huw Price argue that in certain cases of Newcomb problems involving time travel and foreknowledge, being given information about the future makes it rational to choose as an evidential decision theorist would choose. Although the cases they consider have some intuitive pull, and so appear to aid in answering the question of what it is rational to do, we argue that their respective positions are not compelling. Newcomb problems are structured such that whichever way one chooses, one might be led by one’s preferred decision theory to miss out on some riches (riches which others obtain whilst employing their preferred decision theory). According to the novel aesthetic diagnosis we shall offer of the Newcomb dialectic, missing out in this way does not render one irrational but, rather, subject to being seen as absurd. This is a different kind of cost but not one that undermines one’s rationality. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-06 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040099 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Van Tu First page: 100 Abstract: At Plato’s insistence to become as godlike as one can, the Neoplatonists seek their salvation in union with the first principle they call the One, identifying this union as the highest end of philosophy. As with all aspirations, the transition from theoretical ideal to practical implementation remains a perennial problem: how is it possible for a person, as a mere mortal, to leave the person’s confined ontological station to unite with the divine, transcendent first principle' This paper is an attempt to reconstruct Proclus’ highly distinctive answer to this question of enormous importance through a close examination of his development of the late Neoplatonic notion of the One in the soul (τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἓν). Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-08 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040100 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Eric S. Jenkins First page: 102 Abstract: This essay forwards an intensive model of mediation contrasted with the extensive model implicit in much of media theory, which conceives of communication media as an extension of human faculties. An intensive model, instead, conceives of mediation as a phenomenological process of splitting or folding affective capacities. An extensive model results in a dualistic, essentialist theory of communication media and unresolvable normative debates about the connecting or disconnecting consequences of media. An intensive model avoids these limitations by diagramming various modes of mediation and illustrating how their consequences stem from alterations to intensive properties, thereby helping constitute subjects and media objects alike rather than presuming a media bridge between pre-existing subjects and objects. The essay employs a number of examples to illustrate the extensive model, including telephone conversations, cinema, animation, and social media. The essay concludes with the division of families over QAnon conspiracies to illustrate the analytic gain from an intensive model. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-10 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040102 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Duane Armitage First page: 103 Abstract: This paper explores the philosophical perspectives of Nietzsche and Heidegger, tracing their analyses of the death of God and its aftermath. My aim is to clarify the diagnosis of this nihilism and its underlying causes, as well as evaluate the proposed remedies put forth by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Ultimately, I argue that the seemingly ambiguous consequences of the death of God are not only hopeful, but necessary, if human beings are to rise above and transmute a meaningless, resentment-laced existence, however, not by jettisoning Judeo-Christianity and its values, but rather by reinterpreting them. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-11 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040103 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Zack Garrett First page: 104 Abstract: Much of the debate about the mathematical refutation of Zeno’s paradoxes surrounds the logical possibility of completing supertasks—tasks made up of an infinite number of subtasks. Max Black and J.F. Thomson attempt to show that supertasks entail logical contradictions, but their arguments come up short. In this paper, I take a different approach to the mathematical refutations. I argue that even if supertasks are possible, we do not have a non-question-begging reason to think that Achilles’ supertask is possible. The justification for the possibility of Achilles’ supertask lies in the possibility of him completing other supertasks of the same kind, and the justification for the possibility of him completing these other supertasks lies in the possibility of him completing yet more supertasks ad infinitum. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-11 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040104 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Eugenie Brinkema First page: 105 Abstract: This article considers the formal and critical consequences of organizing an aesthetic corpus around the philosophical concept of the fragment via a reading of Aryan Kaganof’s “Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers” (1994). This experimental video sets spoken accounts from the perspective of the likes of Ted Bundy and Charles Manson alongside grainy, ambiguous imagery. Instead of thematic meditations on violence, the monologues circle around quasi-nostalgic reflections on the past and the nature of identity. The film frustrates any language of formal analysis that would rely on accounting for what is present in the film, instead proposing a sympathy with poststructuralism’s efforts at displacing the metaphysics of appearance. Violence is not what resides ready-made within the work, nor is it reducible to the realm of the visible or the audible, but is an unstable process bound up with the act of reading itself. The fragment as a formal problem holds out the abstract, general notion of a break in ways that compel a rethinking of violence as something impersonal, rhythmic, and grammatical. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-11 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040105 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:René Rosfort First page: 106 Abstract: The nature and practice of Christianity is a major, if not the primary, topic in Kierkegaard’s authorship. What it means to live a Christian life is a persistent topic in many of his major works, and yet, he spends most of his authorship criticizing traditional ways of practicing Christianity. While his critique of institutionalized Christianity and merciless unmasking of the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed Christians is rather clear, namely that they are not actually Christian, it is more difficult to get a clear idea of Kierkegaard’s alternative. What is a true and sincere Christian life for Kierkegaard' The argument of this article is that Kierkegaard’s famous existential approach to Christianity amounts to a secularization of Christianity and as such can be seen as a critical development of and not a rejection of the Enlightenment critique of religion. The article uses Kant as an advocate of the Enlightenment critique of religion that Kierkegaard inherits and develops critically, and after having examined Kierkegaard’s existential dialectics, an outline of Kant’s transcendental approach is, presented against which Kierkegaard’s existential alternative is examined in more detail. Kierkegaard’s existential approach is radical with its insistence on “that single individual” and on the existential challenges of human freedom that Kant banned from his analysis of both morality and faith. While Kant presents us with the transcendental possibility of faith, Kierkegaard is concerned with the existential reality of faith. It is argued that Kierkegaard’s existential analysis of faith helps us to find the connection between radical individual choice and the rational morality that is not always evident in Enlightenment—and especially Kantian—accounts of morality. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-16 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040106 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Bob M. Jacobs, Jobst Heitzig First page: 107 Abstract: This article investigates reasons to participate in non-deterministic elections, where the outcomes incorporate elements of chance beyond mere tie-breaking. The background context situates this inquiry within democratic theory, specifically non-deterministic voting systems, which promise to re-evaluate fairness and power distribution among voting blocs. This study aims to explore the normative implications of such electoral systems and their impact on our moral duty to vote. We analyze instrumental reasons for voting, including prudential and act-consequentialist arguments, alongside non-instrumental reasons, assessing their validity in the context of non-deterministic systems. The results indicate that non-deterministic elections could strengthen the case for voting based on prudential and act-consequentialist grounds due to their proportional nature and the increased influence of each vote. We conclude that, while non-deterministic elections strengthen our duty to vote overall, they do not strengthen it for all the arguments in the literature. This paper contributes to the discourse on electoral systems by critically evaluating the moral obligation to vote in non-deterministic elections. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-16 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040107 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Ilkka Niiniluoto First page: 108 Abstract: Georg Henrik von Wright (1916–2003) started his studies in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki in 1934. His teacher, Professor Eino Kaila (1890–1958), was an associate of the Vienna Circle who had changed the course of Finnish philosophy with his own version of logical empiricism. Under Kaila’s supervision, von Wright wrote his early studies on probability and defended his doctoral thesis The Logical Problem of Induction in 1941. Von Wright met Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge in 1939 and 1947 and eventually became his successor there in 1948–1951. Later, von Wright characterized these two philosophers as his “father figures”: “Kaila had turned me into a logical positivist or empiricist. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, thoroughly eradicated this personality of mine.” This article studies von Wright’s changing relation to logical empiricism. The main sources include his correspondence with Kaila in 1937–1958 and his books Den logiska empirismen (in Swedish in 1943; in Finnish in 1945) and Logik, filosofi och språk (in Swedish in 1957, in Finnish in 1958). In his “Intellectual Autobiography” (1989), von Wright described the former book as “a farewell to the philosophy of my student years”. Wittgenstein’s influence can be seen in von Wright’s denial of the unity of science and his cool cultural pessimism as expressed in his critical essays. But it is also evident that logic and exact thinking continued to be central tools and ingredients of his subsequent and highly appreciated work as an analytic philosopher. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-16 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040108 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Richard Mark Hanley First page: 109 Abstract: Conventional wisdom holds that human bodies do not and cannot persist through beaming: scanning and destruction of the body, followed by transmission of the scan information and replication of the body in another location. I argue that given the minimal time travel assumption that information can be sent into the past, it is logically possible for (duplicates of) human bodies to exist in object loops. If so, then conventional wisdom is wrong, and bodies can persist through beaming. The lesson generalizes to all composite material objects that can persist through intrinsic change. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-17 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040109 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Noah Friedman-Biglin First page: 110 Abstract: Recent discussions of logical pluralism trace its origins to Rudolf Carnap’s principle of tolerance; indeed, the principle is seen as one of Carnap’s lasting philosophical contributions. In this paper, I will argue that Carnap’s reasons for adopting this principle are not purely logical, but are rather founded in the Vienna Circle’s manifesto—a programmatic document that brings the Circle’s philosophical work together with a program of social change. Building on work by Uebel, Romizi, and others, I argue that we must understand the principle in light of Carnap’s role in writing the manifesto, and thus as integrated into the larger philosophical and political goals of the Circle. This history illuminates the often-ignored relationship between Carnap’s logical pluralism and his political views. Finally, I turn to the political situation of the post-World War 2 period in the United States. During this time, the Circle’s emigres in the USA transitioned their work from active efforts to reform society to the technical work that we recognize as the foundation of American analytic philosophy today. In this final section, I argue that the reasons that Carnap distanced himself from the political foundations of his view were due in large part to McCarthy-era persecution of left-wing academics. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-23 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040110 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Paul Redding First page: 111 Abstract: In this paper, I approach Hegel’s philosophy under the banner of a “Keplerian Revolution”, the implicit reference being, of course, to Kant’s supposed Copernican philosophical revolution. Kepler had been an early supporter of the Copernican paradigm in astronomy, but went well beyond his predecessor, and so is invoked here in an attempt to capture some of the important ways in which Hegel attempted to go beyond the philosophy of Kant. To make these issues more determinate, however, Hegel’s Keplerian orientation will not be presented in its contrast to Kant’s “Copernicanism” as such, but as contrasted with that of another early follower of Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, and this Brunian orientation will be used to characterize Kant’s philosophy as seen from Hegel’s rival Keplerian point of view. Interpreting Hegel as a philosophical Keplerian will require that we broach those worrisome aspects of Kepler’s astronomy, namely his support for Plato’s cosmology and the tradition of the “music of the spheres”, but this will be shown to have connections to Hegel’s own approach to logic. This in turn will help shed light on the meaning of Hegel’s form of idealism and, in particular, on its usually unacknowledged Platonic dimensions. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-24 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040111 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Benjamim Brum Neto First page: 112 Abstract: This article delves into the theme of the death of God in Giorgio Agamben’s work from a political perspective, seeking to interpret the notion of “God” in Agamben through the concepts of “government” and “transcendence”. Although Agamben does not extensively address the theme of the death of God, my hypothesis is that by continually dealing with the ethical and political legacy of Western theology, it is possible to conceive the death of God as an unconsummated political horizon, but that it is yet to come. In this sense, the first two sections of the text provide a review of the theme of governance of men and governance of oneself in Agamben’s work, engaging in dialogue with Schmitt, Peterson, Heidegger, Foucault, and Plato, as well as the concepts of transcendence oikonomia, technology, and care. The last two sections of the text explore Agamben’s response to this diagnosis. Agamben’s philosophical proposal is presented through a dialogue with Spinoza and Stoicism, with the central concept being the idea of use of oneself, which is linked to the notions of immanence, Ungovernable, and anarchy. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-27 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040112 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Serdar Öztürk, Waseem Ahad First page: 113 Abstract: Alain Badiou in his philosophy on ethics underscores four fields of truth procedures—love, politics, art, and science—that seek to break with the existing order or conventional flow of things. These four fields indicate both collective (politics, art, and science) as well as individual (love) instances of the subject’s relationships and actions. The individual realm of ‘love’, which is the central focus of this study, however, as a generic, complex category does not clearly explicate the significance of the associated concept, friendship. Akira Kurosawa’s filmography is illustrative as it opens up a possibility for disentangling the concept of friendship from love along with making significant contributions to the ethics of truth, particularly with respect to the “friendship event”. His films vividly capture some of the essential themes of Badiou’s philosophy of truth ethics, including “break”/“encounter”, referred to as ‘event’, “keep going”/“perseverance”, and “fidelity”. Even if the philosophers Badiou and Kurosawa do not make direct references to each other’s works, this research reveals significant parallels between cinephilosophy created through “cine-images” and the written philosophy. By analyzing Kurosawa’s films in the light of Badiou’s philosophy of truth ethics, and vice versa, this study embarks on exploring the complementarities between the works of the two. The study showcases how love and friendship as truth procedures are formed in particular contexts in Kurosawa’s filmography, and how they intersect with other truth events, particularly politics. Most importantly, this study does not view Badiou’s “truth events” such as love, friendship, and politics as mutually exclusive categories; rather, they are seen as complementary in practice. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-29 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040113 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Oskari Kuusela First page: 114 Abstract: This article discusses the relationship between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Rudolf Carnap’s philosophies of logic during the time of Wittgenstein’s interactions with the Vienna Circle and up to 1934 when the German edition of Carnap’s The Logical Syntax of Language was published. Whilst Section 1 focuses on the relationship between Carnap and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, including Wittgenstein’s accusation of plagiarism against Carnap in 1932, Section 2 discusses the relationship between Carnap’s principle of tolerance and Wittgenstein’s similar principle of the arbitrariness of grammar. I argue that, although Carnap’s claim in Logical Syntax to ‘go beyond’ Wittgenstein has certain justification in relation to the Tractatus, so does Wittgenstein’s priority claim. The relationship between Carnap’s philosophy of logic and the Tractatus is thus more complicated than is often recognized. If the reference point is Wittgenstein in the early 1930s, however, Carnap cannot be described as going beyond him, and by 1934, Wittgenstein had advanced further than Carnap would ever venture. Despite evidence that Carnap knew about Wittgenstein’s principle of the arbitrariness of syntax well before his first articulations of his principle of tolerance, the extent of the influence of Wittgenstein’s principle on Carnap remains unclear. What can be established with certainty is that Wittgenstein’s principle predates Carnap’s and that Carnap resisted acknowledging him despite being urged to do so. Arguably, Wittgenstein’s account of syntax as both arbitrary and non-arbitrary is also superior in clarity to Carnap’s misleading claim about a ‘complete freedom’ implied by the principle of tolerance, because such a freedom only exists for idle syntactical systems that are not put to work. In Section 3, I discuss the relationship between Carnap’s notion of expediency and Wittgenstein’s account of the correctness or truth of logical accounts. As my discussion of Wittgenstein’s account brings out, Carnap’s rejection of truth in logic for expediency as the goal of logical clarifications does not follow from the principle of tolerance and is not justified by it. It remains unclear what justifies Carnap’s rejection of truth as the goal of logical clarification. Again, Wittgenstein’s account seems preferable, given the vacuity of the claim that expediency constitutes the basis of choice between different logical languages and clarifications. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-07-30 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040114 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Josef Mattes First page: 115 Abstract: The relationship between science and philosophy is contentious. Quine saw philosophy as continuous with science (broadly understood), but many philosophers see a dichotomy between them. The present paper discusses cases where the relevance of certain scientific findings has been denied (related to Zeno’s Dichotomy paradox and to the appeal of skeptical arguments) or overlooked (one argument related to the frame problem of artificial intelligence and Nagel’s “bat” argument). The results caution against overly quick dismissal of the import of science on philosophical questions, whether the latter be of a more theoretical or practical nature. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-01 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040115 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:M. G. Piety First page: 116 Abstract: Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as essential to Christianity. This paper examines the evidence both for and against the view that Kierkegaard was a universalist and concludes that despite Kierkegaard’s occasional references to the importance of the idea of eternal damnation to Christianity, there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, both in terms of the substance of his thought, including two unequivocal statements in his journals that he believed everyone would eventually be saved and in terms of his rhetorical style which prioritizes the effect his writings would have on the reader over the literal truth of the views they present. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-01 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040116 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Federica Negri First page: 117 Abstract: For many 20th century philosophers, the “death of God” became an opportunity to rethink the limits of the human, eliminating its claims to a transcendent foundation in order to start again, more modestly, “from below”. The new humanity, freed from the burdens of the old metaphysics, becomes able to reappropriate responsibility, rediscovering in the other an irreducible presence. The human and philosophical story of Sarah Kofman offers the possibility of following an original development in this sense, starting from the unspeakable event of the Shoah towards a new possibility for human kind. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-05 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040117 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Hong Wang First page: 118 Abstract: In this paper I attempt to trace the semiotic path of meaning experience from “nothing” into “something”. Traditional communication studies are problematic in 1. focusing on the message to the effect of ignoring the communicators; 2. choosing to overlook how yet-to-be signs acquire meanings in the communicative moments; and 3. tending to assume a “natural science” attitude toward the studied phenomenon so that embodied consciousness is either sidetracked or psychologized. Taking communicology as both the theory and methodology, I first describe the semiotic network in which blank paper, a nonconventional sign, acquires its signness in a specified communicative event. Then, I look inward to the relation of consciousness and embodiment. Finally, I argue that communication is such a life-world moment wherein non-expression is collectively constituted as a form of expression. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-05 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040118 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Jane Anna Gordon First page: 119 Abstract: This article begins with critical discussion of why parochialism is so alluring, suggesting that we need to understand its tenacious seductions if we really aim to displace, uproot, or transcend it. Arguing that parochialism as a value is not primarily a question of ignorance, but an antipathetic orientation toward incompleteness, interdependency, and entanglement, it then turns briefly to explaining what is meant by creolizing theory. The article closes by offering creolizing’s central insights as a potential antidote to parochialism since they begin with the observation that for any lifeways to meaningfully continue, especially those to which we are most attached, they must be constantly resituated, refashioned, and made new. It ends with a brief meditation on ways to manage anxieties unleashed with radical uncertainty, affirming the depth of the challenges of turning from idolatry. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-05 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040119 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Gottfried Schweiger First page: 120 Abstract: Ulrika Carlsson has argued that it its justified to harbor non-moral resentment towards a person with whom one is unrequitedly in love. Anca Gheaus has rejected this with convincing arguments. This text explores the question of whether Gheaus’ verdict changes if the person being loved has previously flirted with the loving person. For this, it is first relevant what flirting actually is and how it relates to falling in love and love. On this basis, it is argued here that in the case of flirting, the non-moral resentment of the loved person defended by Carlsson is appropriate. By flirting, he or she has contributed to the unrequited love, even if he or she cannot be held responsible for it in a moral sense. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-07 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040120 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Lucy Van First page: 121 Abstract: Theoretically, a poem can begin in any way. What does it mean that in practice, poems often begin in a particular way—that is, by returning to a fragment of some prior thing' We see this in the encore of John Milton’s opening to Lycidas (‘Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more’); differently, we see this in the widely used convention of the poetic epigraph (for instance, T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ begins with six lines from Dante’s Inferno). While there is an established model for understanding the beginning as an act that invokes poetic precedent, this paper seeks to expose the beginning’s logic of return to a broader sense of language that is beyond the remit of poetic tradition as such. With a focus on the epigraph, this paper thinks about the everyday existence of poems and about how this existence relates to ordinary language, asking, how do these different modes of language function together' How does ordinary language collude in the creation of poetry' In its enactment of the passage of language from one mode of existence to another, the beginning of a poem might offer some answers to these questions. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-08-11 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9040121 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 4 (2024)
Authors:Melissa A. Wright First page: 53 Abstract: This essay brings psychoanalytic theory on trauma together with film and television criticism on rape narrative in an analysis of Michael Coel’s 2020 series I May Destroy You. Beyond the limited carceral framework of the police procedural, which dislocates the act of violence from the survivor’s history and context, Coel’s polyvalent, looping narrative metabolizes rape television’s forms and genres in order to stage and restage both trauma and genre again and anew. Contesting common conceptions of vulnerability and susceptibility that prefigure a violent breach of autonomy, Coel’s series and her interviews about it invite an ethics of looking that embraces a curiosity in the unknowable and untreatable kernel of subjective experience and defies and resists a policing of the survivor’s thoughts and emotions. By emphasizing and exploring what psychoanalysis calls the “afterwardness” of trauma, Coel foregrounds her main character’s subjectivity prior to her victimization, widens the sphere of consequence beyond the victim and criminal justice system to the survivor’s larger community, and entreats that community to preserve a space for her to look and look again at everything, without judgment. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-23 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030053 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Manuel Heras-Escribano, Daniel Martínez Moreno First page: 54 Abstract: Radical enactivism supports radical embodied cognition (REC), which is the idea that basic or fundamental cognition (perception and action) does not need to be understood in representational, contentful terms. REC departs from the idea that the mind can be naturalized through biological functions, but rejects the idea that mental content, which is understood as having a representational nature, can be naturalized. For REC, the natural origins of content (or NOC) is a program based on the following hypothesis: first, we depart from basic cognitive processes that are target-based and guided by an Ur-intentionality or directedness toward the world, and then sociality enters in the picture when language appears into the scene, allowing for establishing full-blown semantic content in which that content is about worldly states of affairs. Here, I am going to focus on the phenomenon of directedness since there are blind spots in this picture: as many authors claim, REC takes Ur-intentionality as the starting point, but there is simply no explanation to date of how this directedness or Ur-intentionality is established. Therefore, how could we account for Ur-intentionality' How does this kind of intentionality emerge' We believe that we can answer this question if we invoke the best scientific evidence from ecological perceptual learning especially in regard to the role of the environment and the information for perceiving affordances in our learning processes. This allows us to offer an answer to the question of how the most basic form of cognition (Ur-intentionality or directedness) emerges in nature. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-25 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030054 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Franke William First page: 55 Abstract: Although declarations of the death of God seem to be provocations announcing the end of the era of theology, this announcement is actually central to the Christian revelation in its most classic forms, as well as to its reworkings in contemporary religious thought. Indeed provocative new possibilities for thinking theologically open up precisely in the wake of the death of God. Already Hegel envisaged a revolutionary new realization of divinity emerging in and with the secular world through its establishment of a total order of immanence. However, in postmodern times this comprehensive order aspired to by modern secularism implodes or cracks open towards the wholly Other. A hitherto repressed demand for the absolute difference of the religious, or for “transcendence”, returns with a vengeance. Th is difference is what could not be stated in terms of the Hegelian System, for reasons that poststructuralist writers particularly have insisted on: all representations of God are indeed dead. Yet this does not mean that they cannot still be powerful, but only that they cannot assign God any stable identity. Nietzsche’s sense of foreboding concerning the death of God is coupled with his intimations of the demise of representation and “grammar” as epistemologically bankrupt, but also with his vision of a positive potential for creating value in the wake of this collapse of all linguistically articulated culture. He points the way towards the emergence of a post-secular religious thinking of what exceeds thought and representation. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-25 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030055 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Gautam Basu Thakur First page: 56 Abstract: This essay uses Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to interpret Hassan Blasim’s short story “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes”. Blasim’s story depicts the psychological struggles of an Iraqi emigrant relating to his embattled sense of belonging in a Dutch society due to the recurrent nightmares of his “traumatic” past. It challenges his assimilationist fantasies. I develop Lacan’s idea of ontological lack as a structural susceptibility that is exacerbated by actual experiences of trauma to underline how racialized refugees from the war-torn global South are doubly vulnerable to experiencing subjective dehiscence between their efforts to forget past war traumas and the challenges of assimilating into (white) host nations. This essay uses Blasim’s story to illustrate a serious psychological issue experienced by racialized minority subjects in white/European host countries. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-26 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030056 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Ulf Zackariasson First page: 57 Abstract: This paper explores two routes along which a pragmatic philosophical approach can contribute to reflections on agnosticism. The first of these approaches is developed in dialogue with William James, and it is oriented towards the needs and obligations of individuals and the extent to which agnosticism affects our abilities to lead strenuous lives. The second is developed in dialogue with Richard Rorty. It is oriented towards how agnosticisms can be adopted within particular vocabularies vis-a-vis other vocabularies as a pragmatically helpful strategy or skill. I discuss the extent to which these can contribute to philosophical reflection on agnosticism and propose that they show that the agnosticism debate would benefit from a broadened focus where epistemic and pragmatic considerations are better integrated than presently. This would enable us to discuss different types of agnosticism that come to the fore in various contexts and whether they prevent us or allow us to better handle concrete problems in our interactions with the world. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-26 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030057 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Marcin J. Schroeder First page: 58 Abstract: In 2018, we initiated a series of three Special Issues dedicated to contemporary natural philosophy in the spirit of the goals of the journal Philosophies (See Appendix A and Appendix B) [...] Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-27 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030058 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Noa Cohen, Mirko Daniel Garasic First page: 59 Abstract: Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, appears to be steadily spreading, despite the increasing availability of information. The notion of informed ignorance herein proposed to describe the widespread position of being exposed to an abundance of information yet lacking relevant knowledge, which is tied to the exponential growth in misinformation driven by technological developments and social media. Linked to many of societies’ most looming catastrophes, from political polarization to the climate crisis, practices related to knowledge and information are deemed some of the most imminent and daunting modern threats, evidenced by the latest report of the World Economic Forum, which has named misinformation the most severe short-term global risk. This paper’s epistemic perspective links the properties of today’s information culture and the ways in which it interacts with individual capacities and limitations in current technological and socio-political contexts. Such a position is analyzed through the lens of epistemic principles as a contemporary epistemic phenotype that emerges from an environment of ill-adapted and excessive information inputs and leads to a distinctive type of social injustice that is primarily epistemic in nature. While equity and accessibility are widely discussed as important contributing factors to epistemic discrepancies, other overlooked but fundamental issues underlying epistemic injustices are considered, such as information manipulation, cognitive limitations, and epistemic degradation. To effectively face this elusive threat, we propose an inclusive viewpoint that harnesses knowledge from cognitive science, science and technology studies, and social epistemology to inform a unifying theory of its main impacts and driving forces. By adjusting a modern epistemic framework to the described phenomena, we intend to contextually outline its trajectory and possible means of containment based on a shared responsibility to maintain ethical epistemic standards. In a time of international unrest and mounting civil acts of violence, it is pertinent to emphasize the ethical principles of knowledge systems and authorities and suggest policy adaptations to maintain a social contract based on the shared values of truth and freedom. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-29 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030059 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Liv Hausken First page: 60 Abstract: In recent years, discourses on photography have undergone a transformative shift from a focus on the individual photograph’s connection to memory, pastness, loss, and death towards exploring photographic imagery as shared, networked, and continuously circulating in a ubiquitous present. The general claim for the temporal dimension in this shift is that photography is no longer seen as a mere witness or reservoir of the past but instead points to or participates in an active present. Against this claim, the article argues for broadening the perspective, drawing on resources across C.P. Snow’s “two cultures”—the arts and humanities vs. the natural sciences—to develop a better conception of time and a more varied and useful selection of photographic practices. In this connection, the article provides a reading of Paul Ricoeur’s compound concept of “the third time”, cutting across the two cultures. Drawing on insights from Patrick Maynard and Kelley Wilder, basic premises for photographic practices in the natural sciences are brought into the discussions of the discursive shift from a preoccupation with photography and the past to an interest in photography and the present. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better ground for navigating intricate questions about the relationship between photography and time. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-30 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030060 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Francesco De Micco, Roberto Scendoni First page: 61 Abstract: The meaning of justice can be defined according to a juridical, human, theological, ethical, biomedical, or social perspective. It should guarantee the protection of life and health, personal, civil, political, economic, and religious rights, as well as non-discrimination, inclusion, protection, and access to care. In this review, we deal with three theoretical concepts that define justice in all its aspects. (1) The utilitarian theory, which justifies moral statements on the basis of the evaluation of the consequences that an action produces, elaborating a pragmatic model of medical science. (2) The libertarian theory, which considers freedom as the highest political aim, thus absolutizing the rights of the individual; here, the principle of self-determination, with respect to which the principle of permission/consent is the fundamental presupposition, plays a central role in the definition of the person. (3) The iusnaturalist theory, in which man’s moral freedom is identified with the ability to act by choosing what the intellect indicates to him as good; the natural moral law that drives every conscience to do good is therefore realized in respect for the person in the fullness of his rights. In conclusion, different forms and conceptions of justice correspond to different organizations of society and different ways of addressing ethical issues in the biomedical domain. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-30 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030061 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Pedro Arcos González, Rick Kye Gan First page: 62 Abstract: Ethical dilemmas affect several essential elements of humanitarian aid, such as the adequate selection of crises to which to provide aid and a selection of beneficiaries based on needs and not political or geostrategic criteria. Other challenges encompass maintaining neutrality against aggressors, deciding whether to collaborate with governments that violate human rights, and managing the allocation and prioritization of limited resources. Additionally, issues arise concerning the safety and protection of aid recipients, the need for cultural and political sensitivity, and recognition of the importance of local knowledge, skills, and capacity. The appropriateness, sustainability, and long-term impact of actions; security risks for aid personnel; and the need for transparency and accountability are also crucial. Furthermore, humanitarian workers face the duty to report and engage in civil activism in response to human rights violations and the erosion of respect for international humanitarian law. Lastly, the rights of affected groups and local communities in the decision-making and implementation of humanitarian aid are vital. The traditional foundations and approaches of humanitarian aid appear insufficient in today’s landscape of disasters and crises, which are increasingly complex and divergent, marked by a diminished capacity and shifting roles of various actors in alleviating suffering. This article reviews the historical evolution of the conceptualization of humanitarian aid and addresses some of its ethical challenges and dilemmas. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-01 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030062 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Sophie Grace Chappell First page: 63 Abstract: Phenomenal socialism says that what we actually, directly, literally perceive is only or primarily instances of high-level phenomenal properties; this paper argues for phenomenal socialism in the weaker, primarily version. Phenomenal socialism is the philosophy of perception that goes with recognitionalism, which is the metaethics that goes with epiphanies. The first part states the recognitionalist manifesto. The second part situates this manifesto relative to some more global concerns, about naturalism, perception, the metaphysics of value, and theory vs. anti-theory in ethics. The third part rehearses two familiar views about the possible contents of perceptual experience, Phenomenal Conservativism and Phenomenal Liberalism. It notes that the usual catalogue omits two other theoretical possibilities, Phenomenal Socialism and Phenomenal Nihilism, and it defends a watered-down form of Phenomenal Socialism from four main objections. The fourth part makes some connections with the epistemology of modality and with the role of the imagination. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-02 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030063 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Rosario González-Arias, María Aránzazu Fernández-Rodríguez, Ana Gabriela Fernández-Saavedra First page: 64 Abstract: Feminist reflections on the sexual division of labour have given rise to a body of knowledge on the ethics of care from different disciplines, including philosophy, in which outstanding contributions to the topic have been formulated. This approach is applicable to the analysis of any phenomenon and particularly that of disasters. As various investigations have highlighted, the consequences on the population throughout all of a disaster’s phases (prevention, emergency, and reconstruction) require an analysis of differentiated vulnerabilities based on gender and other identity categories, such as social class, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual identity, etc. The interrelation between all these variables gives rise to differentiated impacts that cannot be ignored in catastrophic contexts, where survival and sustaining life are at stake, so care becomes a central issue. Research on the topic has also identified that, along with the analysis of social vulnerability, we must consider the capacity for agency, both individual and collective, where care is once again of vital importance. Considering the gender approach and its multiple intersections is thus a fundamental theoretical-practical proposal for the study of disasters from philosophy, as it implies an unavoidable epistemic, ontological, and ethical reflection in the face of risk reduction. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-06 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030064 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Robert Hughes First page: 65 Abstract: This essay reads a short narrative, “Savoir” by Hélène Cixous, to describe susceptibility as a problem organized around two lines of impingement: between subject and world and between consciousness and the wayward impulses of interior life. The young girl in Cixous’s text suffers a moment of disorientation and distress one misty morning and, against presumptions of inviolability and ideals of subjective consistency, this unhappy event comes to resonate with her disappointed trust in the generosity of the world, her anxious sense of betrayal with respect to those who ought to protect her and her insecurity about her own role in this complex of associations. The frame of susceptibility thus opens up a space for Cixous’s reader and this essay to think the subject in her inconsistency and self-strangeness. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-06 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030065 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:José Daniel Parra First page: 66 Abstract: This article develops a hermeneutic study of Heidegger’s text The Word of Nietzsche: “God is Dead”. We attempt to read Heidegger’s remarks in the context of the “period of transition” that, according to Nietzsche, is occurring in the history of western thought and culture. This essay unfolds in the following manner: beginning with Heidegger’s contention that Nietzsche’s philosophy is the “fulfilment” of Platonism, we go over the problem of nihilism in relation to the metaphysics of the will to power, which for Heidegger requires revising Cartesian subjectivity in search of a new ontology. Heidegger’s critique of modernity encompasses a narrative that goes from “Plato” to “Nietzsche”, leading to a reconsideration of the notions of art and truth. Finally, we attempt to interpret the meaning of the “madman’s lament” voicing the passing of God. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-08 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030066 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Amanda Briones Marrero First page: 67 Abstract: This essay aims to defend the need to help animals in any disaster situation, be it anthropogenic, natural, or hybrid. To this end, I will first establish a brief foundation of the antispeciesist principles that have been advocated by different theorists over the last decades. Then, I will describe the conflict between environmental and animal approaches as a problem for the consideration of animals in unfavorable situations. This will be followed by the ways in which animals can be harmed in such contexts. After that, I will argue that many anthropogenic disasters affect animals, but they also deserve aid in the face of natural disasters: they are sentient beings and capable of suffering just like humans, to whom help is offered unconditionally in such cases. Finally, I will propose sentience, particularly suffering, and an ecofeminist and antispeciesist approach to address the situation of animals in disaster situations in a dialogic way between environmentalist and individual-centered positions. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-12 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030067 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Rebecca Saunders First page: 68 Abstract: Analyzing two key figures in Elif Shafak’s novel The Island of Missing Trees—a schoolgirl’s scream and a narrating fig tree—this essay analyzes the intersection between susceptibility and resilience, particularly as these terms are developed in psychology, trauma studies, and ecology. I argue that the novel’s resonant scream critiques the discourse of psychological resilience on multiple counts: its inadequacy as a response to complex trauma, its focus on autonomous individuals, its assumption that responsibility for resilience rests on victims rather than perpetrators of harm, its construction of a “resistance imperative” and its disavowal of the inequalities in access to resilience-building resources. By contrast, the novel’s fig tree, I contend, exemplifies an ecological model of resilience rooted in a recognition of the interdependence of the multiple and diverse organisms that comprise an ecosystem, and of susceptibility as an advantageous suite of capacities that are crucial to resilience. These contrasting conceptions of resilience lead me to advocate for a politics of susceptibility, an eco-psychosocial politics based on the recognition that individuals cannot become resilient on their own, through their own volition, intention, or “self-efficacy”, and that focuses instead on building systemic and sustainable forms of resilience inclusive of the diverse subjects that comprise a community, society or ecosystem; that, rather than fetishizing independence, liberty and rights, fortifies interdependence and reinforces mutual responsibilities; and that rather than exploiting susceptibility as a weakness, nurtures it as the soul of resilience itself. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-14 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030068 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Noelia Bueno Gómez, Salvador Beato Bergua First page: 69 Abstract: The objectives of this article are (i) to identify the most challenging ethical dilemmas and questions arising from the experiences of communities and professionals affected by or involved in volcanic eruptions, including risk management, the dissemination of information, and tourism; and (ii) to provide arguments for intercultural ethics to address these dilemmas. Intercultural ethics provide invaluable resources to disaster ethics across all three phases of the complete disaster management cycle. In this article, intercultural ethics is viewed as an ethics grounded in ongoing dialogue, facilitating the examination and establishment of norms and a critical reflection on values and their evolution. This approach recognizes power dynamics that may influence fair participation in dialogues and aims to address them, while also integrating elements of deliberative ethics to ensure that dialogues genuinely contribute to legitimizing decisions. Intercultural sensibility helps bridge the gap between experts and non-experts in both directions (a) by emphasizing the duty of transferring scientific knowledge (for experts) and the responsibility of acquiring scientific literacy (for citizens); and (b) by highlighting the importance of a ‘knowledge dialogue’ that acknowledges the non-scientific knowledge of citizens, rooted in their cultural background and experiences of dealing with past disasters, and shaping life in volcanic territories. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-16 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030069 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Sandra Dema Moreno, María Teresa Alonso Moro, Virginia Cocina Díaz First page: 70 Abstract: Ethical issues are very relevant in the field of women’s, gender and/or feminist studies. The aim of this article is to highlight the ethical challenges faced by the authors in their research process, with specific reference to two projects on gender and disasters in which they have been involved. In general, we try to avoid sexist bias throughout the complete research process, from the definition of the objectives themselves to the methodology design, where we ensure diversity in the selection of participants in order to take into consideration the variety of voices present in society, especially those of women. Also, when developing our research, we take into account the power relationships involved, both between those who participate in the fieldwork and with the researchers themselves. To counteract the effects of such relations, we have considered people’s wellbeing and the humanization of the whole process. Finally, when it comes to the dissemination of the results and their transfer to society at large, we follow the same principles and actively integrate the people involved. Considering these issues benefits the research process and makes the resultant knowledge more ethical and socially useful, in addition to promoting more egalitarian gender relations. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-17 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030070 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Hugo Rodríguez Reséndiz, Juvenal Rodríguez Reséndiz First page: 71 Abstract: The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses challenges in the field of bioethics, especially concerning issues related to life and death. AI has permeated areas such as health and research, generating ethical dilemmas and questions about privacy, decision-making, and access to technology. Life and death have been recurring human concerns, particularly in connection with depression. AI has created systems like Thanabots or Deadbots, which digitally recreate deceased individuals and allow interactions with them. These systems rely on information generated by AI users during their lifetime, raising ethical and emotional questions about the authenticity and purpose of these recreations. AI acts as a mediator between life, death, and the human being, enabling a new form of communication with the deceased. However, this raises ethical issues such as informed consent from users and the limits of digital recreation. Companies offer services like the Digital Resurrection of deceased individuals and the generation of hyper-realistic avatars. Still, concerns arise about the authenticity of these representations and their long-term emotional impact. Interaction with Thanabots may alter perceptions of death and finitude, leading to a potential “postmortal society” where death is no longer viewed as a definitive end. Nevertheless, this raises questions about the value of life and the authenticity of human experiences. AI becomes a bridge between the living and the dead, partially replacing rituals and mystical beliefs. As technology advances, there will be a need for greater transparency in interacting with AI systems and ethical reflections on the role of these technologies in shaping perceptions of life and death. Ultimately, the question arises of whether we should allow the dead to rest in peace and how to balance the pursuit of emotional relief with authenticity and respect for the memory of the deceased. A deeper ethical consideration is needed on how AI alters traditional notions of life, death, and communication in contemporary society. In this research, an interdisciplinary approach was utilized to conduct a comprehensive systematic review of the recent academic literature, followed by a detailed analysis of two key texts. Central ideas were extracted, and recurring themes were identified. Finally, a reflective analysis of the findings was conducted, yielding significant conclusions and recommendations for future research. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-18 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030071 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Peter Adamson, Hanif Amin Beidokhti First page: 72 Abstract: The Neoplatonic notion of “emanation” implies a required progression through hierarchical stages, originating from the highest principle (the One or God) and cascading down through a series of principles. While this process is deemed necessary, it is also inherently good, even “choiceworthy”, aligning with the identification of the first principle with the Good. Plotinus, a prominent Neoplatonist, emphasizes the beauty and goodness of the sensible world, governed by divine providence. This perspective, transmitted through Arabic adaptations of Plotinus, influences Islamic philosophers too. This paper delves into the thought of the Ismāʿīlī philosopher Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. after. 349/971), exploring the interplay of necessity and goodness in his cosmology, with a focus on non-human animals. Sijistānī’s Persian Uncovering the Veiled provides a unique perspective on animals, presenting them as both necessary unfoldings of the universal intellect and inherently good beings with intrinsic value. The paper concludes with an appendix featuring an improved edition and English translation of relevant passages. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-20 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030072 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Peter G. Kirchschlaeger First page: 73 Abstract: Digital transformation and “artificial intelligence (AI)”—which can more adequately be called “data-based systems (DS)”—comprise ethical opportunities and risks. Therefore, it is necessary to identify precisely ethical opportunities and risks in order to be able to benefit sustainably from the opportunities and to master the risks. The UN General Assembly has recently adopted a resolution aiming for ‘safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems’. It is now urgent to implement and build on the UN General Assembly Resolution. Allowing humans and the planet to flourish sustainably in peace and guaranteeing globally that human dignity is respected not only offline but also online, in the digital sphere, and in the domain of DS, requires two policy measures: (1) human rights-based data-based systems (HRBDS): HRBDS means that human rights serve as the basis of digital transformation and DS. (2) International Data-Based Systems Agency (IDA): IDA should be established at the UN as a platform for cooperation in the field of digital transformation and DS, fostering human rights, security, and peaceful uses of DS, as well as a global supervisory institution and regulatory authority in digital transformation and DS. The establishment of IDA is realistic because humanity has already shown in its past that we are able to not always “blindly” pursue the technically possible but also to limit ourselves to what is technically feasible when humanity and the planet are at stake. For instance, humans researched the field of nuclear technology, developed the atomic bomb, and detonated it several times. Nonetheless, the same humans limited research and development in the field of nuclear technology to prevent even worse consequences by establishing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the UN. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-20 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030073 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Zachary Agoff, Vadim Keyser, Benjamin Gwerder First page: 74 Abstract: We argue that an epistemology of martial arts is at least as complex as advanced epistemological positions available to the philosophy of science. Part of the complexity is a product of the epistemic relation between the knower and known, or the scientist and the object of inquiry. In science, we measure things without changing them and, sometimes, complex systems can change as we measure them; but, in the epistemology of sport that we are interested in, each measurer is also an object of inquiry. As such, each martial arts practitioner has to use various epistemic tools to measure a responsive system. We proceed in three steps. First, we discuss three epistemological frameworks in the philosophy of science—perspectivism, productivism, and distributed cognition. Second, we develop an epistemology of martial arts that features components from each of those epistemic frameworks. Third, we close the paper with a brief discussion about the unique complexity available to the martial artist, focusing on the responsive measurements that occur between two systems. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-24 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030074 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Joseph Westfall First page: 75 Abstract: In this paper, I examine Johannes de Silentio’s presentation of the faith of Abraham, deriving therefrom a new way of conceiving his notion of faith as a paradoxical co-inhabiting of both the aesthetic and the ethical stages, rather than as a rejection, synthesis, or overcoming of them. Relying largely upon Silentio’s account of Abraham’s faith as anxious but not doubting, I argue that the interpretations of Fear and Trembling by Alastair Hannay and Mark C. Taylor fail to account for some essential aspects of Silentio’s depiction. I conclude that faith, as it is described in Fear and Trembling, cannot be philosophically understood as it is not an object for thought but an existential perspective one lives. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-24 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030075 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Ondřej Sikora First page: 76 Abstract: The motif of shame represents an interesting and hitherto neglected intersection in the discussion of the relationship between Nietzsche and Plato. The first part of the essay recapitulates the function of this motif in Nietzsche’s culminating texts (mainly Zarathustra and Gay Science), while the second part focuses on the motif of shame in Plato’s work, specifically the two extreme contexts of death (Apology, Crito) and love (Symposium). It turns out that for both authors, shame is a constitutive moral phenomenon that is thematized in relation to logos. Shame and logos thus stand in close and contrasting relation. Their tension is decisive for the life of the soul, for its upward movement (Plato) or gradation (Nietzsche). It is therefore not a simple subjugation of the “bad”, irrational element by the “good”, rational component of the soul that plays the central role but an interplay of irreducible, mutually demanding moments. The interpretation of their interplay has both historical and systematic importance—it sheds new light on the relationship between these seemingly opposing philosophers and contributes to answering the following question: what is there to be ashamed of' Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-24 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030076 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Melina G. Mouzala First page: 77 Abstract: This paper aims to interpret the role of the soul as ontological, intellectual or cognitive and as the moral principle within the frame of the holistic conception of human psychosomatic health that emerges from the context of Zalmoxian medicine in the proemium of Plato’s Charmides. It examines what the ontological status of the soul is in relation to the body and the body–soul complex of man considered as a psychosomatic whole. By comparing the presentation of the soul as principle in the Charmides and the Phaedrus, the paper defends the thesis that in the former dialogue, Plato develops his own anthropological ontology, which paves the way for the salvation of human existence and health. The soul is bestowed with an ontological primacy that determines the philosophical and medical presuppositions for treating human illness under a holistic view. The interpretation of the ontological relation of the soul to the body and the entire human being in the context of Zalmoxian holistic medicine is based on Hermias Alexandrinus’ exegesis of the conception of the soul as principle in the Phaedrus. This paper demonstrates that, from both the medical holistic viewpoint and the anthropological philosophical perspective, the soul is the principle and πρῶτον with regard to the body and the body–soul complex without being the whole that the corresponding medical epistemology must apprehend. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-26 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030077 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Anna Shutaleva First page: 78 Abstract: The author would like to make the following corrections to the published paper [...] Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-27 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030078 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Rafael Andrés Alemañ-Berenguer First page: 79 Abstract: It is generally assumed that compatibility with special relativity is guaranteed by the invariance of the fundamental equations of quantum physics under Lorentz transformations and the impossibility of transferring energy or information faster than the speed of light. Despite this, various contradictions persist, which make us suspect the solidity of that compatibility. This paper focuses on collapse theories—although they are not the only way of interpreting quantum theory—in order to examine what seems to be insurmountable difficulties we encounter when trying to construct a space–time picture of such typically quantum processes as state vector reduction or the non-separability of entangled systems. The inescapable nature of such difficulties suggests the need to go further in the search for new formulations that surpass our current conceptions of matter and space–time. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-05-30 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030079 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Kutoma Wakunuma, Damian Eke First page: 80 Abstract: This paper examines the impact and implications of ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies within the African context while looking at the ethical benefits and concerns that are particularly pertinent to the continent. Through a robust analysis of ChatGPT and other generative AI systems using established approaches for analysing the ethics of emerging technologies, this paper provides unique ethical benefits and concerns for these systems in the African context. This analysis combined approaches such as anticipatory technology ethics (ATE), ethical impact assessment (EIA), and ethical issues of emerging ICT applications with AI (ETICA) with specific issues from the literature. The findings show that ChatGPT and other generative AI systems raise unique ethical concerns such as bias, intergenerational justice, exploitation of labour and cultural diversity in Africa but also have significant ethical benefits. These ethical concerns and benefits are considered crucial in shaping the design and deployment of ChatGPT and similar technologies responsibly. It further explores the potential applications of ChatGPT in critical domain areas such as education, agriculture, and healthcare, thereby demonstrating the transformative possibilities that these technologies can have on Africa. This paper underscores the critical role of AI governance as Africa increasingly adopts ChatGPT and similar AI systems. It argues that a comprehensive understanding of AI governance is essential not only for maximising the benefits of generative AI systems but also for facilitating a global dialogue. This dialogue aims to foster shared knowledge and insights between the Global North and the Global South, which is important for the development and creation of inclusive and equitable AI policies and practices that can be beneficial for all regions. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-02 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030080 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Georgios Steiris First page: 81 Abstract: Cardinal Bessarion (1408–1472), in the second chapter of the first book of his influential work In calumniatorem Platonis, attempted to reply to Georgios Trapezuntios’ (1396–1474) criticism against Plato in the Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis. Bessarion investigates why the Athenian philosopher maintained, in several dialogues, that the sacred truths should not be communicated to the general public and argued in favor of the value of oral transmission of knowledge, largely based on his theory about the cognitive processes. Recently, Fr. Bessarion Kouotsis has argued that Cardinal Bessarion’s reasoning draws primarily on the “Disciplina Arcani”, i.e., the rule of secrecy, which was an established practice of the Early Christian Church, aimed at protecting and preserving the core elements of the religion from outsiders. While I find Kouotsis’ approach interesting and thought-provoking—for instance, the idea that Bessarion’s argumentation was likely influenced by Eastern Christian views on the rule of secrecy—I intend, first of all, to discuss why Bessarion did not explicitly mention it. Moreover, I would like to argue that Bessarion’s good knowledge of the long Platonic tradition and Eastern mysticism, encompassing both pagan and Christian elements, should also be considered a significant source. Furthermore, I would like to question Kouotsis’ implicit argument that Bessarion’s views were dominated by his training in Orthodox theology and discuss the possibility that Pletho’s (1355–1454) teaching was the obvious influence for Bessarion’s defense of secrecy. After all, we should bear in mind that Anastos has already pointed out Pletho’s reverence for the rule of secrecy. Finally, I would like to support that Bessarion, in the specific text, focused predominantly on the epistemological and cognitive aspects of oral teaching, resorting to the rule of secrecy only to enhance his views. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-05 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030081 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Francisco J. Alcalá First page: 82 Abstract: This article attempts to elucidate the Deleuzian philosophy of the event between The Logic of Sense and A Thousand Plateaus, where it acquires clearly political nuances. With regard to The Logic of Sense, I show that (i) it takes up the definition of the event of Difference and Repetition, identifying it with that redistribution of pre-individual singularities or individuating differences at the level of the univocal being which defines the conditions of problems; (ii) the event is henceforth also the instance that makes possible the “communication” of the heterogeneous series of bodies and propositions from which the production of sense in language follows; and (iii) the counter-effectuation should be understood in this book as an ethics of the event. With regard to A Thousand Plateaus, I emphasize (i) the “return” to The Logic of Sense that the concept of assemblage entails, (ii) the reformulation of the notion of event that takes place in the new theoretical framework, and (iii) that of the counter-effectuation, which must henceforth be understood as a politics of the event. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-06 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030082 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Keith Williams, Andrée-Anne Bédard First page: 83 Abstract: The Doctrine of Signatures (DoS) figures prominently in both contemporary and historic herbal traditions across a diversity of cultures. DoS—conceptualized beyond its conventional interpretation as “like cures like”, which relies solely on plant morphology—can be viewed as a type of ecosemiotic communication system. This nuanced form of interspecies communication relies on the presence of “signatures”, or signs, corresponding to the therapeutic quality of different plants based on their morphology but also their aroma, taste, texture, and even their context in the landscape. Despite its widespread contemporary dismissal by mainstream science as overly simplistic, childlike, primitive, and generally of limited value, we suggest that the recognition of “signatures” in plants may be considered as a form of communication between humans and plants. Drawing upon Indigenous thought, ecosemiotic theory, and lyric philosophy, we posit that understanding “signatures” metaphorically, as a reflection of the “shape of the world”, offers insights into the interconnectedness of all life forms—a profound affirmation of relational coherence between humans and the more-than-human. We advocate for another perspective on DoS: one which holds potential towards reorienting and restoring our relationships in the vibrant world of the Anthropocene. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-07 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030083 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:David J. Gouwens First page: 84 Abstract: Rethinking the powers of the imagination, Søren Kierkegaard both anticipates and challenges contemporary approaches to a descriptive philosophy of religion. In contrast to the reigning approaches to religion in his day, Kierkegaard reconceives philosophy as, first of all, descriptive of human, including specifically ethical and religious, existence. To this end, he develops conceptual tools, including a descriptive ontology of human existence, a “pluralist epistemology” exploring both cognitive and passional dimensions of religion, and a role for the poetic in philosophy, strikingly expressed in his observer figures who “imaginatively construct” “thought projects” to explore human existence. While this new descriptive account anticipates subsequent approaches to the philosophy of religion, it could be interpreted as another “objectivist” endeavor, yet Kierkegaard attempts more in this descriptive philosophy. He imaginatively deploys conceptual and rhetorical strategies maieutically to both describe and elicit self-reflection aimed at transformation, thus expanding the imagination’s uses for his readers. Comparing Kierkegaard to Pierre Hadot’s recovery of ancient Greek philosophy as “a way of life” will show how Kierkegaard also engages the particularity of “the Christian principle”, with implications for how philosophy can both describe and elicit the pathos of other religious traditions as well. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-11 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030084 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Andrew J. Latham, Kristie Miller First page: 85 Abstract: The literature on metaphysical explanation contains three widely accepted assumptions. First, that the notion of metaphysical explanation with which philosophers are interested is a notion with which the folk are familiar: it is at least continuous with the folk notion. Second, that metaphysical explanations are propositions of a certain form that are true (or false), simpliciter. Third, that it is at least the case that mostly, if x metaphysically explains y, then y does not metaphysically explain x. On the basis of the empirical investigations that we pursued, we argue that at least two of these assumptions are false. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-11 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030085 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Paolo Diego Bubbio First page: 86 Abstract: This paper explores the death of God narrative through the lens of kenosis, drawing insights from thinkers such as Marcel, Heidegger, Vattimo, and Girard. It investigates the implications of kenotic thought for contemporary religious and philosophical discourse, exploring various interpretations of kenosis, ranging from Altizer and Žižek’s apocalyptic views to Vattimo’s more hopeful perspective. Through critical engagement with these viewpoints, this paper advocates for a nuanced understanding of kenosis inspired by Hegel, one that bypasses both radical theology and excessive optimism. Methodologically, this study adopts a hermeneutic approach, analyzing key texts and engaging in philosophical dialogue. This paper concludes that rethinking kenotic thought could provide a robust framework for grappling with the death of God in the contemporary context, offering avenues for ethical reflection, social critique, and speculative renewal. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-14 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030086 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:John Charles Ryan First page: 87 Abstract: Distinctive for its pungent and oftentimes rotten odor, the thorny fruit of durian (Durio spp.) is considered a delicacy throughout Asia. Despite its burgeoning global recognition, durian remains a fruit of contradiction—desirable to some yet repulsive to others. Although regarded commonly as immobile, mute, and insentient, plants such as durian communicate within their own bodies, between the same and different species, and between themselves and other life forms. As individuals and collectives, plants develop modes of language—or phytodialects—that are specific to certain contexts. Focused on vegetal semiosis or sign processes, a phytosemiotic lens views plants as dynamic and expressive subjects positioned within lifeworlds. Absent from phytosemiotic theory, however, are the cultural sign processes that take place within and between plants—what I call cultural phytosemiotics. The framework I propose calls attention to the interlinked biological, ecological, and cultural dimensions of signification between plants and non-plants. From a phytosemiotic standpoint, this article examines historical, cinematographic, and literary narratives of durian. Reflecting the fruit’s divisive sensory effects, historical accounts of Durio by Niccolò de’ Conti, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Georg Eberhard Rumphius, and William Marsden alternate between praise and disdain. Moreover, films such as Fruit Chan’s Durian Durian (2000) and Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019) narrativize the polarities that similarly figure into historical depictions of the species. Literary narratives, including the poems “Durians” (2005) by Hsien Min Toh and “Hurling a Durian” (2013) by Sally Wen Mao, investigate the language of durian’s olfactory and gustatory sensations. Along a continuum between adoration to revulsion, durian embodies the otherness of vegetal being. In an era of rampant biodiversity loss, learning to embrace botanical difference should be a human imperative. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-18 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030087 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Curtis L. Thompson First page: 88 Abstract: This essay seeks to scrutinize Kierkegaard’s critical philosophical theology. The intent is to demonstrate how his religious thought, especially on God’s relation to the world and to the human being, can contribute to generating a cogent response to the challenges presented by our accelerating secular world. Apart from the narrative on the Dane’s passionate reflections, I employ two other narratives to facilitate this inquiry into Kierkegaard. The first of these facilitating narratives comes from highlighting the work on the concept of resonance by the social theorist Hartmut Rosa. Rosa’s rich analysis of our contemporary situation provides a persuasive case for the accelerating pace of our secular world, the complex dynamics of alienation that are at play within it, and the need for social transformation that creates space for increasing resonance within personal and social relationships and structures. The second facilitating narrative centers on the notion of dancing in God, which I believe holds promise for effectively communicating moving, bodily, rhythmic, passionate, and responsive thoughts and actions concerning God’s engagement in our contemporary world. I hope to show that these three complementary discourses together provide a provocative religious discourse and vision that can prove helpful in addressing many of the challenges of our time. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-18 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030088 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Marina Marren, Kevin C. Marren First page: 89 Abstract: This essay offers an interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo, which proceeds in two parts: (1) methodological interpretation of myth and (2) application of the method to the analysis of the soul. The paper claims that the myths in this dialogue are not limited to the explicitly mythical sections but that the entirety of the Phaedo—including the arguments that it presents—is saturated with myth. Through this interpretive lens, the soul, as it appears in the Phaedo, ceases to be characterized as a mere thing and gains an ontological dimension. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-19 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030089 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Konstantinos Laparidis First page: 90 Abstract: This article explores the soul’s capacity to see God. This is the process by which a human subject can apprehend and define the nature of God on a philosophical and theological level. Two conceptually very close philosophers, Plato and Dionysius the Areopagite (pseudo-Dionysius), highlighted this metaphysical function. The article will look into light as a concept of the mind and an expression of God’s nature. For Plato, God is the visible light, whereas for Areopagite, it is the invisible light. At the conceptual level, “God” will eventually combine the Platonic (Form of) Good(ness), or the “Good”, with the Christian God, perceived and defined as Goodness, beauty, perfection, and virtue. In attempting to know God, the soul follows an ascending or descending path, and the concept of negation will play a crucial role in this metaphysical and theological function. It will eventually be shown that the Good is the essence of God and, at the same time, what defines his unique singularity. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-06-20 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9030090 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 3 (2024)
Authors:Cathrine Victoria Felix First page: 30 Abstract: In contemporary discourse, inclusion has evolved into a core value, with inclusive societies being lauded as progressive and inherently positive. Conversely, exclusion and excluding practices are typically deemed undesirable. However, this paper questions the prevailing assumption that inclusion is always synonymous with societal progress. Could it be that exclusion, in certain contexts, serves as a more effective tool for advancing societal development' Is there a more intricate interconnection between these phenomena than conventionally acknowledged' This paper advocates moving beyond a simplistic inclusion/exclusion dichotomy and puts forth two theses. First, it posits that exclusion can, at times, be a superior metric for gauging progress. Second, it contends that inclusion and exclusion are thoroughly entwined, challenging the notion of a clear demarcation between them. The underlying premise is that, much like inclusion, there can be meaningful value associated with exclusion. Furthermore, applying a rigid inclusion/exclusion dichotomy oversimplifies the discourse on societal progress, providing an artificial representation of what constitutes advancement. Such oversimplification hampers both contemporary research in the humanities and broader political discourse. The primary objective of this paper is to introduce a fresh perspective to the discourse surrounding societal progress. By challenging the fundamental conceptual framework, it seeks to add nuance to the ongoing debate, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities inherent in measuring progress within society. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-24 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020030 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Sandra Laugier First page: 31 Abstract: New words have found their way into the public sphere: we now commonly talk about “confinement”, “barrier-gesture” or “distancing”. The very idea of public space has been transformed: with restrictions on movement and interaction in public; with the reintegration of lives (certain lives) into the home (if there is one) and private space; with the publicization of private space through internet relationships; with the cities’ space occupied, during confinement, by so-called “essential” workers; with the restriction of gatherings and political demonstrations in public space. With these and other recent changes, it is imperative to revisit the concept of public space, which continues to be used as if it were self-evident, despite its profound transformation over the past few decades, in a process of realization and “literalization”. No longer just a comfortable metaphor for reasonable debates, public space has become a concrete reality in the 21th century. This transformation in the various phenomena, such as the occupation of squares and public spaces; the demand for spaces of conversation and expression for those without a voice; the transition of private matters into the public realm through verbal expression; and the expression and circulation of public issues within popular cultures. As a result, the question of public space is increasingly intertwined with that of private spaces, such as the home or individual subjectivities, forming an internal, logical relationship. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-26 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020031 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Heiko Schulz First page: 32 Abstract: The present paper argues that, despite appearance to the contrary, Kierkegaard’s writings offer promising argumentational resources for addressing the problem of evil. According to Kierkegaard, however, in order to make use of these resources at all, one must necessarily be willing to shift the battleground, so to speak: from a third- to a genuine first-person perspective, namely the perspective of what Climacus dubs Religiousness A. All (yet also only) those who seek deliberate self-annihilation before God—a God in relation to whom they perceive themselves always in the wrong—shall discover the ideal that an unwavering and in fact unconditional thankfulness (namely, for being forgiven) is to be considered the only appropriate attitude towards God and as such both necessary and sufficient for coming to terms with evil and suffering, at least in the life of someone making that discovery. I will argue that Kierkegaard’s (non-)pseudonymous writings provide reasons, at times unwittingly, for adopting the perspective of Religiousness A; however, I will also and ultimately argue that the principle of infinite thankfulness as a corollary of that perspective flounders when it comes to making sense of (the eschatological implications of) the suffering of others. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-01 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020032 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Lenart Škof First page: 33 Abstract: This essay is an attempt to propose an outline of a new respiratory animal philosophy. Based on an analysis of the forgetting of breath in Western philosophy, it aims to gesture towards a future, breathful and compassionate world of co-sharing and co-breathing. In the first part, the basic features of forgetting of breath are explained based on David Abram’s work in respiratory ecophilosophy. This part also introduces an important contribution to modern philosophy by Ludwig Klages. The second part is dedicated to reflections on what I understand as an unfortunate transition from soul and pneuma to spirit and Geist. Based on these analyses, I proceed towards an idiosyncratic thought on the nocturnal mystery of pneuma, with references to ancient Upanishadic and 20th-century phenomenological Levinasian thought. Based on these teachings, I argue that, at the bottom of her existence, the subject is a lung partaking in an immense external lung (Merleau-Ponty). In the fourth part of the essay, I extend my reflections toward comparative animal respiratory phenomenology and argue for the immense compassion for all our fellow breathing beings. Finally, in the concluding, fifth part of this essay, I am arguing for a future biocentric and breathful environment, signifying and bringing a new compassionate-respiratory alliance into the world. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-05 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020033 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Laurent Jaffro First page: 34 Abstract: Why is contempt seen as potentially lacking in the respect for persons and therefore prima facie subject to negative moral evaluation' This paper starts by looking at a distinctive feature of contempt in the context of thick relationships, such as those of friendship, close professional collaboration, or romantic love: there is an irreversibility effect attached to the experience of contempt. Once contempt occurs in a thick relationship, it seems very difficult to return to non-contemptuous reactive attitudes. The second part argues that the irreversibility effect is due to the fact that contempt is an affective attitude which tends to invisibilize the person who is the object of contempt. The tendency to invisibilize is inscribed in the intentional structure of contempt as well as in its motivational dimension. The final part explores some consequences of this hypothesis, and in particular argues that it also explains why contempt motivated by abject wrongdoing, as opposed to resentment, anger, or hatred, tends to block any process of forgiveness. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-06 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020034 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Andrzej Słowikowski First page: 35 Abstract: There are many religions in the human world, and people manifest their religiousness in many different ways. The main problem this paper addresses concerns the possibility of sorting out this complex world of human religiousness by showing that it can be phenomenologically reduced to a few very basic existential attitudes. These attitudes express the main types of ways in which a human being relates to his or herself and the world, independently of the worldview or religion professed by the individual. I use Kierkegaard’s theories of the stages of existence and subjective truth as a model. The theory of the stages of existence provides five basic existential attitudes on the basis of which religious attitudes can develop: spiritlessness, the aesthetic, the ethical, religiousness A, and religiousness B. The theory of subjective truth shows how the concept of truth functions in an ethical and existential sense as the personal truth of an individual engaged in building their religious identity. In turn, I discuss the problem of the relation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy to phenomenology, briefly introduce his concept of subjective truth and the stages of existence, and show how existential attitudes can be transformed into religious ones. I also consider the problem of the demonic as the inverted order of this anthropological and existential model. Finally, I argue that the model developed herein may be useful for further research into the phenomenology of religious attitudes. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-08 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020035 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Tereza Capelos, Mikko Salmela, Anastaseia Talalakina, Oliver Cotena First page: 36 Abstract: This article investigates conceptions of morality within the framework of ressentimentful victimhood in the manosphere, while also exploring avenues for resistance among young individuals encountering the “hatred pipeline”. In Study 1, we use the emotional mechanism of ressentiment to examine how incels construct narratives of victimhood rooted in the notion of sexual entitlement that remains owed and unfulfilled, alongside its “black pill” variant emphasising moral and epistemic superiority. Through a linguistic corpus analysis and content examination of 4chan and Incel.is blog posts, we find evidence of ressentiment morality permeating the language and communication within the incel community, characterised by blame directed at women, and the pervasive themes of victimhood, powerlessness, and injustice. In Study 2, we delve into young individuals’ reflections on incel morality and victimhood narratives as they engage with online networks of toxic masculinity in the manosphere. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with young participants who have accessed the manosphere, we explore their perceptions of risks, attribution of blame, and experiences of empathy towards individuals navigating the “hatred pipeline”. Our analysis underscores the significance of ressentiment in elucidating alternative conceptions of morality and victimhood, while shedding light on the potential for acceptance or resistance within online environments characterised by hatred. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-13 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020036 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Ondřej Beran First page: 37 Abstract: The paper discusses ecological grief as a particular affective phenomenon. First, it offers an overview of several philosophical accounts of grief, acknowledging the heterogeneity and complexity of the experience that responds to particular personal points of importance, concern and one’s identity; the loss triggering grief represents a blow to these. I then argue that ecological grief is equally varied and personal: responding to what the grieving person understands as a loss severe enough to present intelligibly a degradation of her life and the world, to their meaningfulness or even sustainability. More specifically, both personal and ecological grief may manifest in an eroded sense of the future as a space in which one would invest oneself with plans, projects, ideas, desires, and endeavours. On the other hand, personal grief is, in some cases, conceptualised as having embedded the inherent possibility to come to closure or “move on” (e.g., by marrying again), while with ecological grief, the intelligibility of overcoming (replacing) the loss may be, depending on its scale, severely limited. I argue that this erosion of the future need not take the shape of paralysing sadness but rather of a disruption of taking some options of projecting oneself into the future seriously or as real. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-14 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020037 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Brian Scott Ballard First page: 38 Abstract: This essay raises a challenge for the perceptual theory of emotion. According to the perceptual theory, emotions are perceptual states that represent values. But if emotions represent values, something should explain why. In virtue of what do emotions represent the values they do' A psychosemantics would answer this, and that’s what the perceptual theorist owes us. To date, however, the only perceptual theorist to attempt a psychosemantics for emotion is Jesse Prinz. And Prinz’s theory, I argue, faces an important difficulty: It makes the pairing of any given emotion with its respective value entirely arbitrary. But that’s a problem. It seems—and this is a major contention of this essay—that an emotion, in virtue of how it feels, bears a natural or non-arbitrary link to the value it represents. And this datum makes it all the more difficult to provide a viable psychosemantics for the evaluative content of emotion. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-19 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020038 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Manuel Jesús López Baroni First page: 39 Abstract: We are at the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterised by the interaction of so-called disruptive technologies (biotechnology, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, neurotechnology and artificial intelligence). We believe that the challenges posed by technoscience cannot be met by the three generations of human rights that already exist. The need to create a fourth generation of human rights is, therefore, explored in this article. For that purpose, the state of the art will be analysed from a scientific and ethical perspective. We will consider the position of academic doctrines on the issues that a fourth generation of human rights should tackle. And, finally, in this fourth generation, we will propose the principles of identity and precaution as reference values, equivalent to the role played by freedom, equality and solidarity in the first three generations of human rights. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-19 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020039 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Bill Seaman First page: 40 Abstract: I will briefly discuss the history of research-related projects that Mark Burgin and I worked on together. I will then discuss our joint research related to the circle of sense and nonsense. One paper was entitled In a search for deeper meanings: navigating the circle of Sense and Nonsense and in turn articulating logical varieties as knowledge illuminators and the second was entitled In the Circle of Sense and Nonsense, Including A Mathematic Model of Meaning. This research represents a bridge between the media arts and sciences (my artwork) as a means of embodying ideas exploring a particular approach to meaning production and related computation, as well as Burgin’s concepts related to logical varieties and mathematical models of meaning. I will refer to the full papers and links because they present a very robust and full articulation of the concepts discussed here. In this paper, I will briefly touch on the areas of research, supply short definitions, and refer to the relevant historical publications. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-23 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020040 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Marta Vassallo, Davide Sattin, Eugenio Parati, Mario Picozzi First page: 41 Abstract: The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-25 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020041 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Shuaishuai Fang First page: 42 Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) ethics is proposed as an emerging and interdisciplinary field concerned with addressing the ethical issues of AI, such as the issue of moral decision-making. The conflict between our intuitive moral judgments constitutes an inevitable obstacle to decision-making in AI ethics. This article outlines the Moral Relevance Approach, which could provide a considerable moral foundation for AI ethics. Taking moral relevance as the precondition of the consequentialist principles, the Moral Relevance Approach aims to plausibly consider individual moral claims. It is not only the common ethical target shaping our moral consensus but also the inherent moral ability connecting others with us. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-26 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020042 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Filipe Ferreira First page: 43 Abstract: I suggest here ecologies of the nascent state, posing the following general questions: what is this state and what is it to live, to fabricate modes of life, in its immanence' I believe populating this state is, by right, ‘ecological’, even if what I offer here is only a sketch or glimpse, playful as it is, of the possibility of such modes of life, of dwelling. As I develop it here, the nascent is in flight of being. It is populated by lesser, minoritarian existences. If it is ‘ecological’, it is because these existences, or modes of becoming, are themselves, in their own right, ‘ecologies’, that is, modes of dwelling, of life, on the ‘other side of existence’, as Antonin Artaud put it once, in exile from Being. The power to return eternally to the nascent state is the power to live, to dwell, in the absolute forgetfulness of Being, in the interstice where philosophy supposedly ends, but where it nevertheless begins again, in oblivion itself, where being is never already the verticality of Being, its difference with beings, but always nascent, in the beginning, eternally so. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-27 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020043 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Mark Burgin First page: 44 Abstract: Agents and agent-based systems are becoming essential in the development of various fields, such as artificial intelligence, ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence, autonomous computing, and intelligent robotics. The concept of autonomous agents, inspired by the observed agency in living systems, is also central to current theories on the origin, development, and evolution of life. Therefore, it is crucial to develop an accurate understanding of agents and the concept of agency. This paper begins by discussing the role of agency in natural systems as an inspiration and motivation for agential technologies and then introduces the idea of artificial agents. A systematic approach is presented for the classification of artificial agents. This classification aids in understanding the existing state of the artificial agents and projects their potential future roles in addressing specific types of problems with dedicated agent types. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-27 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020044 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Cord Friebe First page: 45 Abstract: Both bosons and fermions satisfy a strong version of Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII), and so are ontologically on a par with respect to the PII. This holds for non-entangled, non-product states and for physically entangled states—as it has been established in previous work. In this paper, the Leibniz strategy is completed by including the (bosonic) symmetric product states. A new understanding of Pauli’s Exclusion Principle is provided, which distinguishes bosons from fermions in a peculiar ontological way. Finally, the program as a whole is defended against substantial objections. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-03-29 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020045 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Adeniyi Fasoro First page: 46 Abstract: As artificial intelligence (AI) integrates across social domains, prevailing technical paradigms often overlook human relational needs vital for cooperative resilience. Alternative pathways consciously supporting dignity and wisdom warrant consideration. Integrating seminal insights from virtue and care ethics, this article delineates the following four cardinal design principles prioritizing communal health: (1) affirming the sanctity of life; (2) nurturing healthy attachment; (3) facilitating communal wholeness; and (4) safeguarding societal resilience. Grounding my analysis in the rich traditions of moral philosophy, I argue that these principles scaffold sustainable innovation trajectories that consciously center shared welfare advancement over detached technical capabilities or efficiency benchmarks alone. Elucidating connections with pioneering initiatives demonstrates fragments of this vision taking embryonic shape, yet pervasive adoption remains largely aspirational to date. Fulfilling dignity-based artificial intelligence demands ongoing collective commitment beyond firms’ profit motives or governance proceduralism. My conclusions urge technology policies and priorities directed toward empowering the vulnerability of people rather than controlling the optimization of systems. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-01 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020046 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Madeleine Reddon First page: 47 Abstract: This article examines motifs of falling, recoiling, and turning across Chester Himes’ oeuvre as figurations of Black susceptibility to racial violence. These images reference and reconstruct an event from Himes’ early adulthood: his catastrophic fall down an elevator shaft. Taking a psychoanalytically oriented approach, I analyze the metonymic connections between these motifs, rather than reading them in their chronological order, using Jean Laplanche’s theory of après-coup. I argue that the recursive quality of these images in Himes’ work is not merely an unconscious repetition or conscious working through of a traumatic biographical event but part of an endeavor to imagine different ways to inhabit and survive the structural trauma of Jim Crow America. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-09 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020047 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Andrés Rosler First page: 48 Abstract: In this paper, I would like to tackle first Schmitt’s defence of the role of exclusion in political reasoning and his attendant rejection of extreme political pluralism. I shall then move on to explain not only why there is nothing Nazi—or even antisemitic—about Schmitt’s concept of the political, but rather the other way around: Schmitt’s concept of the political not only must have been used against National Socialism but it did not fail to have his fair share of Jewish, or at the very least Zionist, enthusiasts. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-10 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020048 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Alfonso R. Vergaray First page: 49 Abstract: This article presents a case that former President of the United States Donald Trump was a tyrant-like leader in the mold of the tyrant in Plato’s Republic. While he does not perfectly embody the tyrant as presented in the Republic, he captures its core feature. Like the tyrant, Trump is driven by unregulated desires that reflect what Plato describes as an extreme freedom that underlies and threatens democratic regimes. Extreme freedom is manifested in Trump’s disregard for social and legal norms, which mirrors the lawlessness of the tyrant. The people, in turn, interpret that posture as a mark of authenticity. Understanding Trump’s appeal in the United States helps alert friends of democracy to the possible rise of tyrant-like figures. In closing, and as a way of remedying the harm done by the tyrannical soul, the article recommends that society help temper tyrant-like passions in the people through a rededication to civic equality. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-12 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020049 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Konstantinos Koutras First page: 50 Abstract: The question of aesthetics in film-theoretical discourse today is split between, on the one hand, a film-phenomenological or “filmosophical” approach that values the putatively immanent relation between film and the mind and, on the other, the naturalizing epistemology of post-theory, which reduces the question of film aesthetics to one of poetics. What unites these otherwise disparate projects is the consideration of aesthetics divorced from the question of politics; in both cases, the social or political significance of the film–spectator relationship has been summarily purged. In this article, I will offer an alternative account of film aesthetics that draws on Jacques Rancière’s theory concerning the mutually determining relationship between aesthetics and politics. In particular, I will consider the relevance of Rancière’s thesis concerning what he calls the distribution of sensible to current accounts, as well as taking up his novel consideration of aesthetic distance and the “emancipated” spectator. With respect to film phenomenology, I will examine how its film-theoretical program rests on the flawed concept of a de-politicized spectator enchained by the film image. With respect to post-theory, I will examine how its appropriation from cognitive science of the rational agent model of meaning making inappropriately limits the political potential of film aesthetics. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-12 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020050 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:J. Asher Godley First page: 51 Abstract: Impostors, confidence artists, and artful deceivers seem to have achieved a strange kind of popularity and even prestige in our contemporary political landscape, for reasons that remain elusive, especially given how harmful and socially unwanted such behaviors ostensibly are. Herman Melville’s 1857 novel, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, helps us shift our perspective on this seemingly irrational phenomenon because it points out how being susceptible to dupery is linked to the enjoyment of fiction itself. This insight also highlights the importance of epistemological failure in the recent “return to aesthetics” in literary studies, where the positive dimension of unconsciously “willing one’s dupery” directly links aesthetic form to politics. The logic that connects aesthetics to unconscious enjoyment is then elaborated in the work of psychoanalytic thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Helene Deutsch and others to raise particular questions about how and why the enjoyment of being duped has been associated with feminine sexuality. Reading Melville’s novel while considering psychoanalytic concepts such as the “as if” personality, imposture, and interpassivity illuminates how confidence games play upon the ruses of sexuality, which have profound implications for why the public remains in thrall to the workings of known deceivers. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-15 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020051 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Agustín Lucas Prestifilippo First page: 52 Abstract: In this article I attempt to systematically reconstruct Theodor Adorno’s account of the relationship between the processes of authoritarian subject formation and the processes of political formation of the democratic common will. Undertaking a reading that brings Adorno into dialogue with contemporary philosophical perspectives, the paper asks the question of whether it is possible to think of a “democratic We” in nihilistic times. In order to achieve this aim, I will analyze in reverse the modifications that the concept of narcissism has undergone, from Adorno’s use of it to account for the symbolic obstacles to the formation of democratic subjectivities after the Holocaust, to the initial formulations of Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, I will attempt to outline an affirmative answer to the initial question, formulating the potentials and merits of what I will call a politics of negativity. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-04-22 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9020052 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Matthew Sterenberg First page: 22 Abstract: This article examines how British philosophers of the 1930s grappled with the relationship between reason, emotion, and democratic citizenship in the context of a perceived “crisis of democracy” in Europe. Focusing especially on Bertrand Russell, Susan Stebbing, and John Macmurray, it argues that philosophers working from diverse philosophical perspectives shared a sense that the crisis of democracy was simultaneously a crisis of reason and one of emotion. They tended to frame this crisis in terms of three interrelated concerns: first, as a problem of balancing or integrating reason and emotion; second, as a problem of the relationship between emotions and democratic citizenship; and third, as a problem of how to properly train or educate the emotions. Significantly, British philosophers addressed these issues most directly in writings for a non-professional audience, as they sought to translate their professional expertise into popular works that might rejuvenate democratic citizenship. This historical episode is a reminder of how philosophers were deeply engaged in the cultural politics of the interwar period and is a telling example of how personalist concerns were central to philosophy even as the “analytic revolution” was gathering steam. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-04 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010022 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Gérald Hess First page: 23 Abstract: This article examines how a non-anthropocentric virtue ethics can truly avoid an anthropocentric bias in the ethical evaluation of a situation where the environment is at stake. It argues that a non-anthropocentric virtue ethics capable of avoiding the pitfall of an anthropocentric bias can only conceive of the ultimate good—from which virtues are defined—in reference to an ecological self. Such a self implies that the natural environment is not simply a condition for human flourishing, or something that complements it by adding the proper good of animals, organisms or ecosystems. Fulfilment is not that of a human self, but that of an ecological self: the natural environment or nature is not an external but an internal good. Therefore, the virtues or character traits that such an ecological self must nurture and develop leads us ultimately to distinguish—without opposing them—three different forms of virtue ethics applied to the environment, depending on whether it is anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric and whether nature is considered extrinsically or intrinsically. Such distinctions are also crucial to determine how we conceive of the political community and the collective goals that virtuous citizens assign to it (for instance, to preserve biodiversity, to tackle climate change, and so on). Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-09 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010023 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Joseph E. Brenner First page: 24 Abstract: A recent book by Romaric Jannel on the work of the 20th Century Japanese philosopher Yamauchi Tokuryū is reviewed as a prolegomenon in this journal to more detailed studies of Oriental philosophy. Emphasis is placed on the similarities and overlaps of Eastern and Western thought. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-12 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010024 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Jess Dillard-Wright, Danisha Jenkins First page: 25 Abstract: Professionalized nursing and anarchism could not be more at odds. And yet, if nursing wishes to have a future in the precarious times in which we live and die, the discipline must take on the lessons that anarchism has on offer. Part love note to a problematic profession we love and hate, part fever dream of what could be, we set out to think about what nursing and care might look like after it all falls down, because it is all falling down. Drawing on alternate histories, alternate visions of nursing history, we imagine what nursing values would look like, embracing anarchist principles. We consider examples of community survival, mutual aid, and militant joy as strategies to achieve what nursing could be if nurses put an end to their cop shit, shrugging off their shroud of white cisheteropatriarchal femininity that manifests as professionalism and civility. We conclude with a call to action and a plan for skill-building because this can all be different. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-14 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010025 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:David Weinberger First page: 26 Abstract: Machine learning (ML) trains itself by discovering patterns of correlations that can be applied to new inputs. That is a very powerful form of generalization, but it is also very different from the sort of generalization that the west has valorized as the highest form of truth, such as universal laws in some of the sciences, or ethical principles and frameworks in moral reasoning. Machine learning’s generalizations synthesize the general and the particular in a new way, creating a multidimensional model that often retains more of the complex differentiating patterns it has uncovered in the training process than the human mind can grasp. Particulars speak louder in these models than they do in traditional generalizing frameworks. This creates an odd analogy with recent movements in moral philosophy, particularly the feminist ethics of care which rejects the application of general moral frameworks in favor of caring responses to the particular needs and interests of those affected by a moral decision. This paper suggests that our current wide-spread and justified worries about ML’s inexplicability—primarily arising from its reliance on staggeringly complex patterns of particulars—may be preparing our culture more broadly for a valorizing of particulars as at least as determinative as generalizations, and that this might help further advance the importance of particulars in ideas such as those put forward by the ethics of care. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-16 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010026 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Giovanbattista Tusa First page: 27 Abstract: Western modernity was born with a revolution of limits. Western man, who has become the creator of his own destiny, has identified freedom with a conscious and systematic violation of the given conditions, with a future that constantly transcends the present. This modern condition is thus characterised by the fact that it is limited by boundaries that are mobile and can change. From this observation arises the paradoxical situation that growth today is inconceivable if it is not linked to a scenario of scarcity, in contrast to premodern theological views based instead on the abundance of creation, the original richness of the world. Inspired by this vision of a sustainable world, ecological thinking today is immediately associated with a language of finitude. Degrowth, self-limitation, and resource efficiency, these are all terms associated with a universalist model of progress that seems to know no limits. This article argues that the world is doomed to its own inevitable end if sustainability is understood from the perspective of an economically sustainable future defined by the limits of capitalist management. If, on the other hand, we step out of this impoverished and economic perspective of the concept of limit and the condition of finitude, then we open ourselves to an ecocosmic perspective that understands the world as part of a cosmic diversity that cannot be contained within a more or less extended totality of resources. In this article, being finite is understood ecologically as being a non-self-sufficient part of the interrelated possibilities of worldmaking, not as an element of a set of individuals or things. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-16 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010027 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:G. C. Goddu First page: 28 Abstract: Many defenders of the possibility of time travel into the past also hold that such time travel places no restrictions on what said time travelers can do. Some hold that it places at least a few restrictions on what time travelers can do. In attempting to resolve this dispute, I reached a contrary conclusion. Time travelers to the past cannot do other than what they in fact do. Using a very weak notion of can, I shall argue that the correspondingly strong cannot do otherwise applies in the case of backwards time travel. I defend this result from objections. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-17 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010028 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Timothy Morton, Treena Balds First page: 29 Abstract: We explore the value of the subjunctive mood as a template for understanding ethical action and the theological ontology that undergirds it. We do this by examining the use of a strange but very precisely used word in the writing of a theologian and minister and poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "silly." We do so in the name of exploring the value of contingency, accidentality and abjection to a general theory of ecological thought. Citation: Philosophies PubDate: 2024-02-19 DOI: 10.3390/philosophies9010029 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2024)