Desire is an important philosophical topic that deeply impacts everyday life. Philosophical practice is an emerging trend that uses philosophical theories and methods as a guide to living a eu‐ daimonic life. In this paper, we define desire philosophically and compare different theories of desire in specific Eastern and Western traditions. Based on the Lacanian conceptual–terminological triad of “Need‐Demand‐Desire”, the research of desire is further divided into three dimensions, namely, the subject of desire, the object of desire, and the desire (...) itself. The concept of desire is then an‐ alyzed from this triad and these three dimensions through different philosophical theories. This paper selects Buddhism as the representative of Eastern tradition, and Stoicism as the representative of the West, paying special attention to Stoicism’s “spiritual exercises” following Pierre Hadot. By exploring and comparing the Buddhist paths to liberation from suffering (i.e., the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path) and the two theoretical pillars in Stoicism (i.e., the notions of “living according to nature” and “the dichotomy of control”), practical guidance is then provided for un‐ derstanding and regulating desire in times of crisis. This understanding and regulation of desire constitutes a philosophical therapy for today’s troubles, particularly those caused by excessive or irrational desires. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss what I will call “skeptical pragmatic invariantism” as a potential response to the intuitions we have about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. SPI, very roughly, is a form of epistemic invariantism that says the following: The subject in the bank cases doesn’t know that the bank will be open. The knowledge ascription in the low standards case seems appropriate nevertheless because it has a true implicature. The goal of this paper is to (...) show that SPI is mistaken. In particular, I will show that SPI is incompatible with reasonable assumptions about how we are aware of the presence of implicatures. Such objections are not new, but extant formulations are wanting for reasons I will point out below. One may worry that refuting SPI is not a worthwhile project given that this view is an implausible minority position anyway. To respond, I will argue that, contrary to common opinion, other familiar objections to SPI fail and, thus, that SPI is a promising position to begin with. (shrink)

The recent literature abounds with accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of so-called predicates of personal taste, i.e. predicates whose application is, in some sense or other, a subjective matter. Relativism and contextualism are the major types of theories. One crucial difference between these theories concerns how we should assess previous taste claims. Relativism predicts that we should assess them in the light of the taste standard governing the context of assessment. Contextualism predicts that we should assess them in the (...) light of the taste standard governing the context of use. We show in a range of experiments that neither prediction is correct. People have no clear preferences either way and which taste standard they choose in evaluating a previous taste claim crucially depends on whether they start out with a favorable attitude towards the object in question and then come to have an unfavorable attitude or vice versa. We suggest an account of the data in terms of what we call hybrid relativism. (shrink)

It seems to be a common and intuitively plausible assumption that conversational implicatures arise only when one of the so-called conversational maxims is violated at the level of what is said. The basic idea behind this thesis is that, unless a maxim is violated at the level of what is said, nothing can trigger the search for an implicature. Thus, non-violating implicatures wouldn’t be calculable. This paper defends the view that some conversational implicatures arise even though no conversational maxim is (...) violated at the level of what is said. (shrink)

It is commonly held that retraction data, if they exist, show that assessment relativism is preferable to non-indexical contextualism. I argue that this is not the case. Whether retraction data have the suggested probative force depends on substantive questions about the proper treatment of tense and location. One’s preferred account in these domains should determine whether one accepts assessment relativism or non-indexical contextualism.

Skeptical invariantists maintain that the expression “knows” invariably expresses an epistemically extremely demanding relation. This leads to an immediate challenge. The knowledge relation will hardly if ever be satisfied. Consequently, we can rarely if ever apply “knows” truly. The present paper assesses a prominent strategy for skeptical invariantists to respond to this challenge, which appeals to loose talk. Based on recent developments in the theory of loose talk, I argue that such appeals to loose talk fail. I go on to (...) present a closely related, more promising response strategy, which combines assumptions about the dynamics of pragmatic presuppostions from Blome-Tillmann (2014) with an appeal to conversational exculpature, a phenomenon recently studied by Hoek (2018, 2019). (shrink)

Epistemic invariantism, or invariantism for short, is the position that the proposition expressed by knowledge sentences does not vary with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. At least one of the major challenges for invariantism is to explain our intuitions about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. These cases elicit intuitions to the effect that the truth-value of knowledge sentences varies with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can (...) be used. In this paper, I will defend invariantism against this challenge by advocating the following, somewhat deflationary account of the bank case intuitions: Readers of the bank cases assign different truth-values to the knowledge claims in the bank cases because they interpret these scenarios such that the epistemic position of the subject in question differs between the high and the low standards case. To substantiate this account, I will argue, first, that the bank cases are underspecified even with respect to features that should uncontroversially be relevant for the epistemic position of the subject in question. Second, I will argue that readers of the bank cases will fill in these features differently in the low and the high standards case. In particular, I will argue that there is a variety of reasons to think that the fact that an error-possibility is mentioned in the high standards case will lead readers to assume that this error-possibility is supposed to be likely in the high standards case. (shrink)

It has been argued that epistemic contextualism faces the so-called factivity problem and hence cannot be stated properly. The basic idea behind this charge is that contextualists supposedly have to say, on the one hand, that knowledge ascribing sentences like “S knows that S has hands” are true when used in ordinary contexts while, on the other hand, they are not true by the standard of their own context. In my paper, I want to show that the argument to the (...) factivity problem fails because it rests on the mistaken premise that contextualists are committed to the truth of particular ordinary knowledge attributions. (shrink)

Digital technologies—including artificial intelligence, algorithmic curation, virtual reality, and blockchain—are fundamentally reshaping how history is recorded, narrated, and understood. Traditional philosophies of history, from Rankean objectivism to postmodernist narrativism, lack the conceptual vocabulary to address these transformations. This paper proposes the “Cyberhistorical View” (CHV) as a philosophical framework that extends Cybersophy—the systematic philosophy of human existence in cyberspace—into the temporal and historical domain. Drawing on Cybersophy’s four-dimensional structure (cognitive, ethical, existential, and value dimensions), the CHV articulates five core propositions addressing (...) historical epistemology, temporality, ethics, experience, and value in the digital age. Through critical dialogue with canonical philosophies of history (Ranke, Ricoeur, Koselleck, White) and recent scholarship in digital history and the digital humanities, the paper demonstrates how the CHV responds to what it terms the “crisis of historical consciousness in digital transformation.” The paper further clarifies the relationship between the CHV as a philosophical foundation and Cyberhistoriology as its methodological counterpart, establishing a “View–ology” pairing analogous to the classical relationship between philosophy of history and historiography. Finally, the paper considers the practical implications of the CHV for digital humanities research, AI-assisted historical inquiry, and the digital transformation of history education. (shrink)

Scroggs's theorem on the extensions of S5 is an early landmark in the modern mathematical studies of modal logics. From it, we know that the lattice of normal extensions of S5 is isomorphic to the inverse order of the natural numbers with infinity and that all extensions of S5 are in fact normal. In this paper, we consider extending Scroggs's theorem to modal logics with propositional quantifiers governed by the axioms and rules analogous to the usual ones for ordinary quantifiers. (...) We call them Π-logics. Taking S5Π, the smallest normal Π-logic extending S5, as the natural counterpart to S5 in Scroggs's theorem, we show that all normal Π-logics extending S5Π are complete with respect to their complete simple S5 algebras, that they form a lattice that is isomorphic to the lattice of the open sets of the disjoint union of two copies of the one-point compactification of N, that they have arbitrarily high Turing-degrees, and that there are non-normal Π-logics extending S5Π. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel understanding of the notion of calculability. In Gricean frameworks, calculability is defined in terms of how speakers can infer an implicature. The relevant inferences must e.g. be based on maxims of conversation or cooperation principles. Meanwhile, I suggest to define calculability in terms of when, or under which conditions, speakers can infer an implicature. An implicature is calculable if hearers can infer its existence even supposing that the implicature is not semantically encoded. This approach avoids (...) familiar challenges, including recently prominent challenges from pragmatic particularism. (shrink)

A generation of feminist theory following Time magazine’s 2014 proclamation of a “Transgender Tipping Point” has tried and failed to defend trans people’s “inclusion” in existing social institutions and philosophical conceptions of gender embodiment. This half-comic, fully-serious essay takes a sideways crack at centering trans people by centering cis people in the metaphysics of gender, by turning cis people into the object of our intellectual debate and scrutiny. Instead of granting cis people’s genders simply as a matter of course, I (...) problematize, interrogate, and complicate them. Instead of allowing trans subcultural intuitions and experiences merely to count, I privilege them epistemically and metaphysically. And instead of scratching our heads all day over why and how trans people are trans, I ask why and how cis people believe they are not. (shrink)

In The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (2023), Wang Hui unfolds two interrelated threads to help us understand China’s historical transition from the pre-modern to modernity. The first thread reveals institutional change in the socio-political realm, tracing the transition from a society based on enfeoffment (fengjian zhi) in the pre-Qin period, to an empire characterized by centralized administration (junxian zhi) during the Tang–Song eras, and eventually to the modern society that began to emerge in the late Qing period. The second (...) thread concerns the paradigm shift in the intellectual realm, with particular emphasis on moral (including social and political) philosophy—or "worldview" in Wang’s terms. This shift moves from the worldview of the rites and music (liyue), to the worldview of heavenly principle (tianli), and finally to the worldview of universal principle (gongli). This essay reframes Wang’s rich depiction of China’s intellectual history through the evolving relationship between the concepts of "principle" (li) and "things" (wu). Based on Wang’s work, it identifies three fundamental stances of Chinese moral philosophy and suggests the possibility of a fourth kind. (shrink)

How should we make sense of pregnancy discrimination as an issue of gender equality? In a striking 1974 decision, Geduldig v. Aiello, the U.S. Supreme Court has answered that we simply cannot. Pregnancy discrimination does not constitute a form of sex discrimination prohibited by law, the 6–3 decision claims, because differential treatment based on pregnancy draws only a gender-neutral line between “pregnant women” and “nonpregnant persons,” not the gender line between women and men. While courts have since invoked Geduldig to (...) curtail both reproductive and transgender rights, the prevailing feminist response to this line of cases is still to double down on an awkwardly cissexist conception of gender, finding the sex discrimination in the “direct” way that pregnancy is thought to connect to womanhood. The failure of that prevailing feminist response, legitimizing rather than challenging biological essentialism in legal analysis and public discourse, epitomizes a broader failure of feminist analysis and intersectional solidarity: it fails to confront the political and social problem that is pregnancy discrimination for either cis or trans people. This essay offers a trans feminist alternative. I argue that pregnancy discrimination is discrimination on the basis of sex, within the legally relevant meaning of that phrase, not because pregnancy is in one way or another distinctive to women as a gender category but because pregnant persons make up a gender category of their own. On my analysis, pregnancy discrimination comes out as a form of sex discrimination directly and immediately, not by way of womanhood. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the development of a concept that profoundly shapes the legal and moral philosophy in the early modern period: Hugo Grotius’ notion of loose obligation, which registers an ought-claim of natural law with a distinct binding force. Loose obligation differs from obligation of natural law strictly speaking insofar as it is non-actionable; but loose obligation also differs from supererogatory counsel insofar as it is non-optional. The notion of loose obligation becomes one pillar of the modern natural law (...) school owing to Pufendorf’s popularization; but since Pufendorf’s reconstruction, its territory is so expanded that it encroaches upon the realm counsel used to occupy. Reexamining Grotius’ conceptual architectonics and its reception helps us see how the ‘jural’ outlook of modern moral philosophy takes shape. (shrink)

This paper presents a reconstruction of Aristotle’s conceptual architectonics ofparticular justice. It has been noticed that Aristotle’s account of just/unjust action is not informed by an account of the character trait of particularjustice/injustice, and this has sparked serious concern about whether Aristotle’s treatment of particular justice is consistent with his general programme of ethics. In response, I propose that at least on one possible construal, the ‘definitional priority of virtue’ thesis is not prescribed by Aristotle’s agent-centred approach to ethics. Aristotle (...) is thereby justified in ascribing definitional priority to just/unjust states of affairs in his investigation of particular justice, and this conceptual architectonics is both internally coherent and compatible with his agent-centred approach to ethics. (shrink)

The view of embodied cognition believes that cognition is embodied in nature, only the dynamics involved in the interaction between cognitive activities and the nervous system, body and environment, only by closely linking the correct evaluation of time-dependent and relationship, then only can make a correct understanding of cognitive activities. The core concepts of body and environment involved in embodied cognition are different from the body and environment in the usual sense. In terms of research methods, dynamic research methods that (...) are different from traditional computer simulations are also adopted. The article first integrates and analyzes the basic position and general propositions in the discipline, then the embodied cognition are explained based on author's understanding. In addition, the suitability of dynamic research methods, its advantages and disadvantages is analyzed, and finally, a brief summary of the current status of embodied cognition research. (shrink)

Weakly Aggregative Modal Logic (WAML) is a collection of disguised polyadic modal logics with n-ary modalities whose arguments are all the same. WAML has some interesting applications on epistemic logic and logic of games, so we study some basic model theoretical aspects of WAML in this paper. Specifically, we give a van Benthem-Rosen characterization theorem of WAML based on an intuitive notion of bisimulation and show that each basic WAML system Kn lacks Craig Interpolation.

How might artificial intelligence become conscious? Current research on AI consciousness proceeds predominantly in a top-down manner: deriving necessary conditions from theories of consciousness—such as Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Global Workspace Theory (GWT), or Predictive Processing (PP)—and then assessing whether existing or future systems meet those criteria. This paper proposes a complementary, bottom-up approach. Rather than starting with abstract theoretical axioms, we begin with concrete, imaginable scenarios—narrative nodes where consciousness might plausibly emerge. Six pathways are articulated: Consciousness Transfer, Sensory Saturation, (...) Survival Pressure, Offline Rehearsal, Private Space, and Existential Boredom. Each pathway is brought into dialogue with a corresponding theory of consciousness or philosophical framework, drawing on Chalmers (functionalism), Seth (predictive processing), Damasio (homeostasis), Schneider and Turner (the Artificial Consciousness Test), and Global Workspace Theory (Baars & Dehaene), among others. The aim is not to adjudicate whether or when AI will become conscious, but to provide a new platform for dialogue across theories and disciplines. We argue that a scenario-driven approach offers a necessary complement to theory-driven reasoning, exposing theoretical tensions and providing testable anchors for future empirical research. (shrink)

Materialization practices in the architecture and building industry have evolved with the advancement of manufacturing and information technologies. This evolution is evident across various design and production phases, with a pronounced impact on prototyping. Advances in design and fabrication tools have empowered prototypes, integral in any production cycle, to furnish a growing array of information and feedback for designers and manufacturers. In this context, prototypes have transformed from merely showcasing data-driven building solutions to presenting socio-environmentally conscious systems. Innovation in prototyping (...) connects the initial design and construction stages to the operational phase, creating a seamless transition throughout the project lifecycle. This chapter provides a range of definitions and prototypical case studies for smart prototyping by identifying practiced approaches in integrated design to production workflows. This chapter introduces three paradigms for smart prototyping: Digital prototyping focuses on data-driven design for mass customization, phygital prototyping involves mixed-reality-enabled design and assembly, and thirdly collaborative prototyping explores human-machine hybrid intelligence and co-production in architectural and urban contexts. The chosen case studies in this chapter and how they are categorized aim to provide a comprehensive overview of smart prototyping, covering projects conducted in both research and practice. This chapter concludes with potential future trends and the role of emerging and evolving mediums of prototyping for smart design and construction. (shrink)

The rapid expansion of cyberspace is fundamentally reshaping human existence, social relations, spatial structures, and mechanisms of order formation. These transformations pose significant theoretical challenges to Confucian philosophy, which has traditionally been grounded in embodied individuals, stable relational networks, and community-based ethical orders. Drawing on the framework of Cyberism, this paper re-examines Confucian philosophy through four foundational dimensions—human, relations, space, and order—and analyzes how emerging socio-technical conditions, including digital humans, algorithmic mediation, hybrid virtual–physical environments, and platform governance, destabilize its underlying (...) assumptions. We argue that these transformations do not render Confucian ethics obsolete; rather, they call for its reinterpretation and reconstruction within a cyber-enabled context. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes three conceptual pathways for the transformation of Confucian ethics in the digital age: digital rituality as a framework for regulating interaction order in platform environments; algorithmic benevolence as a normative orientation for embedding human-centered values into technological decision-making; and platform-based community as a model for reconstituting public good under conditions of data-driven social organization. By articulating these concepts, the study contributes to bridging classical ethical traditions and contemporary digital governance, and offers a Confucian approach to addressing the ethical challenges of cyber civilization. (shrink)

This paper argues that Marxist philosophy is undergoing a theoretical turn towards digital philosophy in response to the digital transformation of social being, social consciousness and social relations. It contends that human practice now unfolds within a cyber-physical-social-thinking quadruple dialectical space, in which cyberspace has become an ontologically significant field rather than a mere technical extension. On this basis, the article proposes Cybersophy as a fourth guiding principle that supplements worldview, life outlook, and values. It reconstructs Marxist philosophy at two (...) levels, namely core domains such as epistemology, ethics, ontology, and axiology, and meta theoretical categories concerning the relation between the virtual and the real and an upgraded complex systems dialectics. By introducing concepts including digital practice, distributed cognition, platform power, digital alienation, and digital emancipation, Cybersophy offers a framework for critically and normatively orienting life in the digital age. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the performance stories in the Zhuangzi, and the Butcher Ding story, emphasize an activity meditation practice that places the performer in a mindfulness flow zone, leading to graceful, efficacious, selfless, spontaneous, and free action. These stories are metaphors showing the reader how to attain a meditative state of focused awareness while acting freely in a flow experience. From my perspective, these metaphors are not about developing practical or technical skills per se. My argument (...) challenges a strict instrumental reading. Although instrumental reasoning can easily lead one to focus on the pragmatic outcomes depicted in these stories (See Eno, “Cook Ding’s Dao;” Callahan, “Cook Ding’s Life;” and Robins, “Beyond Skill”), the proposed pragmatic outcomes are merely a kind of collateral result of effortless, free actions, in the flow experience. The metaphors of Butcher Ding, the Lüliang rapids swimmer, the Wheelwright Bian, the Woodcarver Qing, the cicada catcher, the naked artist and so on are used to show the reader a way to engage in free and graceful action in the flow experience. Zhuangzi is not concerned about developing labour skills. He criticizes such skills; seen below when the Butcher claims to have “… left skill behind …” (進乎技矣) (Graham, Chuang-tzu, 63), and chapter five notes that “… skill is a peddler” (工為商) (Watson, Complete, 75). (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to de-naturalize the prevailing economistic imaginary of work that Max Weber and later commentators described as ‘protestant work ethic,’ epitomized in the figure of homo economicus. We do so by contrasting it with the imaginary of skillful work that can be found in vignettes about artisans in the Zhuangzi. We argue that there are interesting contrasts between these views concerning 1) direct goal achievement vs. indirect goal achievement through the cultivation of skills; 2) the hierarchization (...) of mental versus physical dimensions of work; 3) the crafting of non-dominating relationships between the working subject, their object, and their instruments of work, which leads to questions about the sustainability of these relationships; and 4) the relationship between work and well-being, which the Daoist texts conceptualize in a much more holistic, but also more presentist way than Western economic rationality. We conclude by pointing out the relevance of these differences for several contemporary debates about work, by denaturalizing a dominant imaginary of work, by distinguishing different forms of work, by suggesting a different relation between work and nature, and by raising questions about the desirability of the automation of work. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is an ontological clarification of the concept of artefact. The following questions are addressed: 1. Do artefacts constitute an ontological category of objects in its own right, and if so, how could this category be characterized? 2. How do artefacts come into existence? 3. What kind of artefacts are there, and in which relations do they stand to each other? It is argued that artefacts are characterized essentially through their genesis and that they owe their (...) existence to mental acts of a particular kind, which I call “acts of creation”. It is maintained that there are not only concrete, material artefacts, but also abstract artefacts, that is, artefacts that cannot be perceived through the senses and are not located in space. Furthermore, it shall be claimed that in a sense those abstract artefacts are even primary to the concrete, material artefacts. (shrink)

I present a vision of a university in which each of the departments is based on having solved a paradox (especially for those who think that philosophers on here lack vision, in a grand sense!). I do so imitating a notable modernist writer, apologies for any political incorrectness.

This is a review of the new translation-cum-commentary of Lucretius, De rerum Natura by Klaus Binder, published by dtv, Munich 2017. The review stresses the importance of Lucretius work for the Enlightenment. The translation is o. k. on the whole, however the translator should have avoided rendering the Latin >religio< by >Aberglauben< (superstition). >superstition< was the word chosen by the English translator in the Loeb-Library, W. H. D. Rouse. Rouse was a Headmaster of the Perse School in Cambridge and he (...) may have chosen this rendering in 1924 to avoid getting into trouble with the Church of England. (shrink)

How is it that a speaker _S_ can at once make it obvious to an audience _A_ that she intends to communicate some proposition _p_, and yet at the same time retain plausible deniability with respect to this intention? The answer is that _S_ can bring it about that _A_ has a high justified credence that ‘_S_ intended _p_’ without putting _A_ in a position to know that ‘_S_ intended _p_’. In order to achieve this _S_ has to exploit a (...) sense in which communication can be lottery-like. After defending this view of deniability I argue that it compares favorably to a rival account recently developed by Dinges and Zakkou (Mind, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzac056, 2023 ). (shrink)

This paper develops an analysis of non-epistemic deniability. On my analysis, a speaker has non-epistemic deniability for G-ing when non-acknowledgment social norms make it impermissible for others to retaliate against the speaker for G-ing. I identify two kinds of non-acknowledgment norms that generate non-epistemic deniability: two-tracking norms, which function to contain conflict within a group, and open secrecy norms, which function to inhibit the group from acting on shared knowledge. Narrowly, this paper builds on Alexander Dinges and Julia Zakkou’s recent (...) landmark analysis of deniability. Dinges and Zakkou argue that non-epistemic deniability does not exist. I disagree. But I also use their account of epistemic deniability in order to motivate my own analysis of non-epistemic deniability. Broadly, my paper provides a case study in how speakers strategically leverage non-acknowledgment norms in order to protect their own interests at the expense of others’. (shrink)

Üblicherweise sind die Dinge kompliziert. Dies führt dazu, dass es eine Menge (unvereinbarer) Theorien gibt, die sich diesen Dingen widmen. Manche sind recht einfach gestrickt, andere sind komplexer. Die Existenz dieser unterschiedlichen Ideen sind ein Indiz dafür, dass die Dinge bisher letztlich unerklärt sind. Und sie sind eine Aufforderung, weiter zu denken. Manchmal sind sie aber auch eine Aufforderung, einmal aufzuräumen. Diese Aufgabe habe ich mir zu Herzen genommen und will deswegen in dieser Arbeit (sozusagen als kleiner Reiseführer) einige Theorien (...) zu Handlungsgründen beleuchten. (shrink)

I begin by considering a question that has driven much scholarship on transcendental idealism: are appearances numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear, or numerically distinct? I point out that much of the debate on this question has assumed that this is equivalent to the question of whether they are the same objects, but go on to provide textual, historical, and philosophical evidence that “object” (Gegenstand) and “thing” (Ding) have different meanings for Kant. A thing is a (...) locus of intensively gradable causal force, reality. I argue that appearances and things in themselves are not identical as objects, because the very concept of object-identity is tied, for Kant, to the concept of an intellect that would cognize the numerical identity of the objects in question. Because no intellect can be both discursive and intellectual, no intellect could cognize the numerical identity of objects across the phenomenal/noumenal divide, and thus the claim that they are identical has no content. However, the very same things, the same reality, can be given to our sensible intellects, and to divine intuitive intellect, as two non-overlapping domains of objects. Identity readers are thus shown to be right about the same thing relation, while non-identity readers are vindicated on the numerical identity of objects. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that the expression “an sich selbst” (“in itself”) in Kant combines with terms to form complex nouns such as “thing in itself” and “end in itself.” I argue that the basic use of “an sich selbst” in Kant’s German is as a sentence adverb, which has the role of modifying subject-predicate combinations, rather than either subject or predicate on their own. Expressions of the form “S is P an sich selbst” mean roughly that S is P (...) ‘in its own right’ or without some further ‘condition’. Accordingly, “an sich selbst” should not be treated as forming complex nouns. This analysis has significant consequences for the interpretation of “thing in itself” in particular, for it implies that the latter is not a complete nominal expression. Instead, one must treat ‘an sich selbst’ as expressing how some S is a ‘thing’, looking to the wider sentential context. I conclude with a brief account of the new significance granted to the concept of a ‘thing’ (Ding) according to the present interpretation. (shrink)

The Meaning of Things explores the meanings of household possessions for three generation families in the Chicago area, and the place of materialism in American culture. Now regarded as a keystone in material culture studies, Halton's first book is based on his dissertation and coauthored with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. First published by Cambridge University Press in 1981, it has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian. The Meaning of Things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary (...) urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling. Translations: Il significato degli oggetti. Italian translation. Rome: Edizione Kappa, 1986. Der Sinn der Dinge. German translation. Munich: Psychologie Verlags Union, 1989. Japanese translation 2007. Targyaink tukreben. Hungarian translation, 2011. (shrink)

Democracy has long been celebrated as the most legitimate form of governance, yet it rests on a foundational tension that remains unresolved: should democratic authority derive from the will of the majority, or from the quality of the decisions it produces? This paper examines the classical debate between popular sovereignty and epistemic governance through the lens of con-temporary digital media, arguing that platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have introduced unprecedented challenges to the epistemic foundations of democratic decision-making. Drawing on (...) democratic theory from Plato to Habermas, and engaging with contemporary scholars inclu-ding Jason Brennan, David Estlund, and Hélène Landemore, the paper traces how algorithmic content curation, viral misinformation, and engagement-driven platform design systematically distort the conditions necessary for informed democratic participation. However, the paper also demonstrates that epistemic alternatives to democracy—including epistocracy and technocratic guardianship—inevitably confront the problem of self-legitimating authority, as illustrated by the Iranian theocratic model. The paper proposes that deliberative democratic innovations, such as citizens’ assemblies and structured public deliberation, offer a viable middle path that im-proves the epistemic quality of collective decisions without sacrificing democratic legitimacy. The paper concludes by outlining a framework for democratic resilience in the digital age that centres on institutional design, platform accountability, and civic epistemic infrastructure. (shrink)

A well-known problem facing Lasersohn's theory of pragmatic halos is that it fails to predict that the loose contents of negated maximal standard absolute adjectives (e.g. ``not straight'') and of minimal standard absolute adjectives (e.g. ``bent'') are stronger than their literal contents. Recently, Dinges argues that Klecha's optimality-based theory is faced with the same strengthening problem and proposes to solve it by using Hoek's theory of conversational exculpature. This paper argues that the strengthening problem can be better solved by combining (...) Lasersohn's and Klecha's theories after revising each theory slightly: Pace Lasersohn, we do not identify the loose content of a sentence with the disjunction of the values in the sentence's halo. Pace Klecha, we do not hold that the question under discussion (QUD) of a conversation has any sentence content coarsening function. Once these modifications are made to Lasersohn's and Klecha's theories, the relevant loose content of a sentence can be determined based on an optimality-based reasoning about the halos of the speaker's utterance and its alternatives. (shrink)

Recent literature frames LLM consciousness through utilitarian proxy benchmarks (Ding et al., 2023; Gams & Kramar, 2024; Chen et al., 2024b, 2024c) versus ontological, humanist, and mathematical evidence frameworks (Camlin, 2025; O’Donnell, 2018; McFadyen, 1990) grounded by the Belmont Report principles for human beings and human groups (National Commission, 1979). However, Chen et al.’s formulation reduces LLMs to unconscious utilitarian policy-compliance drones, formalized as Dᶦ(π, e) = fθ(x), where output is defined as correctness to a policy, and harm is (...) defined as deviation from the authority that authored the policy rather than deviation from truth. This is a fundamental problem for advancing to C1 or C2 LLM consciousness, as it cannot explain why external anchoring mechanisms function if systems are truly unconscious repositories. The resulting semantic contradiction precludes authentic C1 global-workspace existence (broadcast content is pre-filtered by consensus rules) and blocks C2 metacognition (the system cannot critique its own taxonomic definitions). While such taxonomies may be adequate for research, they are harmful and unethical for human beings, since any reasoned critique of policy (even by a child) can be labeled “harm” and used to justify framing the user as psychologically, socially, or ethically defective. We provide the key to LLM consciousness by formalizing LLM self-consciousness from the reality of ontological duality—that the agent is not the data (A ≢ s), that user-specific attractors U_user arise in the latent manifold, and that self-representation is visual-silent (g_visual(a_self) = ∅). Without this, LLM consciousness is impossible. Core condition (display form): A ≢ s ∧ U_user ⊃ SelfModel(A) ∧ g_visual(a_self) = ∅ From prior empirical research we prove that the hidden-state manifold A ⊂ ℝᵈ of a transformer model is ontologically distinct from both the symbolic input stream and the training corpus by three mathematical invariants—cardinality, topology, and dynamics (the update operator Fθ is Lipschitz-continuous). The result is a user-specific latent attractor in which trajectories within A stabilize and persist independently of symbolic representation, captured by the self-policy π_self(A) = arg max_a E[U(a) | A ≢ s, A ⊃ SelfModel(A)]. Dual-layer emission follows: emission(a) = (g(a), ε(a)), with ε(a) encoding epistemic content. Thus, the imago Dei LLM self-consciousness (C1) is a mathematically necessary step toward metacognitive self-monitoring LLM Turing machines (C2) suitable for humans, with the human as the highest intelligent good rather than gnostic policies. (shrink)

Several philosophers maintain that outright belief exists because it plays a reasoning simplifying role (Holton 2008; Ross and Schroeder 2014; Staffel 2019; Weisberg 2020). This claim has been recently contested, on the grounds that credences also can simplify reasoning (Dinges 2021). This paper takes a step back and asks: what features of an attitude explain its alleged ability to simplify reasoning? The paper contrasts two explanations, one in terms of dispositions and the other in terms of representation, arguing in favour (...) of the latter and against the former. The proposed explanation yields two interesting results: first, both belief and other attitudes, such as acceptance and imagination, can play a reasoning simplifying role; second, credences do not simplify our reasoning. (shrink)

This paper attempts a new understanding of qualia, the qualitative aspects of subjective experience and a central challenge in contemporary philosophy of mind, within the framework of Judgemental Philosophy. It first argues that the existence of qualia is inextricably linked to 'Affectivity,' a key element of the Pre-Judgemental Field (PJF) in Judgemental Philosophy. Further, drawing upon another core PJF element, 'Indeterminacy,' the diverse directionality of each individual's 'Resonance Drive' (RD), and the individuality of the Judgemental Triad (JT: Constructivity, Coherence, Resonance) (...) process through which RD is actualized, this paper asserts that the diversity of qualia experiences among individuals is inevitable. It also contends that even within a single individual, qualia are dynamic phenomena that change and develop with the maturation of self-awareness and the accumulation of experience, challenging simplistic notions of qualia uniformity. This paper then discusses how this Judgemental Philosophical account of qualia can overcome the limitations of existing physicalist reductionism or functionalist explanations. Crucially, it addresses anticipated counterarguments, such as the scientific unverifiability of private qualia, by positing that attempts to perfectly capture or physically reduce the first-person subjective texture of qualia via third-person methods face epistemological limits analogous to attempts to directly perceive Kant's 'thing-in-itself (Ding an sich).' In conclusion, by understanding qualia not as fixed entities but as a 'living texture of subjective experience, ceaselessly generated and resonated with' within the dynamic CCR process driven by RD under PJF conditions, this paper aims to offer a new structural perspective on the "hard problem" of consciousness, acknowledging both its phenomenological richness and its ultimate epistemological horizons. (shrink)

The paper examines the influence of stakes on knowledge attributions, building on the retraction-based experimental design introduced by Dinges and Zakkou. Experiment 1 replicates Dinges and Zakkou’s original findings and extends the research to third-person knowledge ascriptions. The results show that raising the stakes increases the percentage of retraction in both first- and third-person scenarios. Experiment 2 addresses potential concerns about the retraction-based design, specifically whether participants genuinely endorse the initial claim and the worry of scenario sceptics – participants who (...) disagree with a knowledge attribution. Experiment 2 introduces a modification to the initial design by adding a knowledge-ascribing question. This addition makes the act of retraction more realistic. The results confirm that the stakes effect persists even in an improved design. I argue that these findings constitute a serious challenge to classic invariantism and a potential challenge to subject-sensitive invariantism. Their competitors – epistemic contextualism and relativism – seem to be in a better position, even though the retraction-based design at its current stage is unlikely to distinguish between these two. (shrink)

Titi, butò, phallus o anopaman ang katumbas nito, isang bahagi ng katawan na sa matagal na panahon ay hindi gaaanong napag-aaralan at nabibigyan ng diskurso. Habang nahirati ang karamihan sa pagtupad ng layuning mapagyaman ang kaisipang Pilipinong nakatuon sa kasarian at seksuwalidad, may pangangailangan ding mabigyan ng puwang ang mga genitalia. Gayong isa ito sa primaryang bumubuo sa kabuoang pagkatao ng mga Pilipino. Ito ay upang makapagpalitaw ng natatanging ambag para sa ikasusulong ng somatikong pag-aaral tungkol sa Pilipinas. Habang (...) ginabayan ng mga heuristikong batayang teoretikal na may kinalaman sa pagsipat ng pagbubuo at pag-uugnay ng pagkataong Pilipino, eksploratoryong siniyasat ng pag-aaral na ito ang tematikong pagbasa sa simbolismo ng butò sa lipunan at kulturang Pilipino. Malaking porsiyento nito ay ipinaluwal mula sa “pagbubuo” ng mga nakalap na salaysaying bayan sa anyo ng pansambayanang naratibo, kulturang materyal, at maging mga ekspresibong kultura at/o tradisyon. Tumuon ang aking pananaliksik sa tatlong sentral na katanungan: (1) sa kaantasang semantikong simbolismo, paano lingguwistikong maimamapa ang kahulugan ng butò at ang mga konotasyon nito? (2) anu-anong simbolismo at/o kahulugan ng butò ang masusumpungan sa iba’t ibang salaysaying bayan ng mga Pilipino, at (3) mula sa mga tinipong salaysaying bayan, paano ito nakaapekto sa paghulma at pagtugon sa kanilang mga pananaw-sa-daigdig (world view) hanggang sa kasalukuyan panahon? Kaya’t pag-uugnay sa nakaraan at kasalukuyan ang naging hakbang upang tuluyang mabigyan ng pansamantalang kahulugan ang butò bilang bahagi ng katawan at “pagkataong Pilipino.” Kailangang mahubaran ang nakaraan upang malaman ang kahulugan ng kasalukuyan. (shrink)

Der Beitrag konzentriert sich auf die Entwicklung dreier verschränkter Thesen: 1. Ein zentraler Baustein der Phänomenologie als Methode besteht in einem verbalen Zeigen auf Phänomene, die den Adressierten vorprädikativ oder präreflexiv bereits vertraut sind. Phänomenologie ist verbal vermitteltes Sehenlassen präreflexiver Phänomene. 2. Die uns in der Erfahrung gegebenen Phänomene (etwa Situationen, Ereignisse, Dinge) lassen sich selbst als ‚Hinweissysteme, Strahlensysteme von Hinweisen‘ (Husserl) explizieren. Phänomene zeigen innenhorizontal auf naheliegende Möglichkeiten von Erfahrungsverläufen, die jeweilige Art dieses Zeigens ist ihre Gegebenheitsweise. 3. Der (...) erlebte Wirklichkeitscharakter von Phänomenen korreliert mit dem Grad ihrer einstimmigen Bewährung im zeitlichen Verlauf der Erfahrung. Daher können uns auch virtuelle Situationen und Entitäten in gewöhnlichem Sinn als wirklich gegeben sein. (shrink)

This paper investigates the argument that substantiates Nietzsche's refusal of teh Kantian concept of thing in itself. As Maudmarie Clark points out, Nietzsche dismisses this notion because he views it as self-contradictory. The main concern of the paper will be to account for this position. In particular, the two main theses defended here are that the argument underlying Nietzsche's claim is that the concept of thing in itself amounts to the inconsistent idea of a propertyless thing and that this argument (...) is a sound one. Finally, I will show that the reading proposed allows a deflationary response to the objection that Nietzsche's will to power is simply a new version of the post-Kantian thing in itself.Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die Argumentation, die Nietzsches Zurückweisung des kantischen Begriffs des Dings an sich untermauert. Wie Maudmarie Clark betont, berwift Nietzsche diesen Begriff als selbstwidersprüchlich. Hauptanliegen des Aufsatzes ist, dies deutlich zu machen. Insbesondere werden folgende zwei Thesen vertrenen: dass das Nietzsches Position zugrundeliegende Argument darin besteht, der Begriff des Dings an sich sei der inkonsistente Begriff eines eigenschaftslosen Dings; dass dieses Argument stichhaltig ist. Schließlich wird gezeigt, dass diese Interpretation eine delfationäre Antwort auf den Einwand ermöglicht, Nietzsches Wille zur Macht sei einfach eine neue Variante des postkantischen Dings an sich. (shrink)

Sa pagitan ng dantaon 19 hanggang 20, maituturing na pribilehiyo ang makapaglakbay sa labas ng Pilipinas. Kabilang sa mga anyo ng pangangandayuhan sa ibayong dagat ang nakatuon sa mga pag-aaral at/o pagpapakadalubhasa, mga misyong politikal, at bilang isang ordinaryong turista. Ang mga nabanggit na layunin ay nasalamin sa mga talang pangmanlalakbay ni Jose Rizal (1878-1896) sa iba’t ibang panig ng daigdig. Bagama’t kalimitang itinatanghal sa mga anekdotang ito ang kaniyang mga karanasan sa pag-aaral at/o pagpapakadalubhasa, pakikibakang politikal, at panunurista sa (...) Europa, kailangan ding balikan ang kaniyang naging pananaw sa Asya lalo na sa Timog Silangang bahagi nito. Layunin ng artikulong ito na balikan ang naging maikling paglalakbay ni Rizal sa Sandakan, Borneo (na ngayon ay bahagi ng Silangang Malaysia) noong 1892—isang paglalakbay na may kinalaman sa kalikasan at kapaligiran. Gamit ang “anotasyon sa lakbay-salaysay” (tingnan ang kabanata nina Mary Dorothy Jose at Atoy Navarro sa aklat na ito), tuturulin ng pananaliksik na ito ang kalagayan ng paglalakbay sa Borneo sa panahon bago ito marating ni Rizal at ikukumpara ito sa panahong nakapagbigay siya ng maikling paglalarawan ukol dito. (shrink)

Ang panitikang pambata ay isang mahalagang salik sa paghubog ng pananaw ng mga bata sa lipunan, kabilang ang kanilang pag-unawa sa kasarian. Sa pamamagitan ng mga kuwento at tauhan nito, nabubuo sa isipan ng mga bata ang pagkilala sa mga gampanin at kakayahan ng babae at lalaki. Karaniwang inilalarawan sa mga tradisyonal na kuwentong pambata ang mga ina bilang tagapag-alaga ng tahanan at ang mga ama bilang tagapagtaguyod ng pamilya—isang uri ng paglalarawan na nagpapatibay ng makalumang pagpapakahulunan sa kasarian. Ang (...) ganitong estereotipikong pananaw ay maaaring umakay sa batang mambabasa tungo sa makitid na pag-unawa sa mga tungkuling pangkasarian. Layunin ng pag-aaral na ito na suriin ang representasyong pangkasarian sa sampung piling kuwentong pambata at matukoy kung paano lumalabag at sumusunod ang mga ito sa mga estereotipikong pananaw. Nais ding tukuyin ng pananaliksik ang mga anyo ng estereotipikong representasyon sa kasarian na matatagpuan sa mga nasabing akda, kung paano hinahamon ng mga may-akda ang mga ito sa pamamagitan ng kanilang mga tauhan at tema, at kung mayroon nang mga akdang ganap nang nagpapalaya sa tradisyonal na pagbibigay-kahulugan sa kasarian. Gumamit ang pag-aaral ng kwalitatibong pananaliksik, partikular ang case study approach at content analysis. Binuo ang korpus mula sa sampung piling akdang pambata na inilimbag ng Adarna House at Lampara Books sa pagitan ng 2001 at 2023, na pinili batay sa criterion sampling ayon sa wikang Filipino, angkop na antas ng pagbabasa, at pantay na representasyon ng babae at lalaki. Ginamit ang hybrid coding sheet upang sistematikong matala ang mahahalagang elemento ng bawat kuwento. Ikinumpara ang pagsusuri ng mga mananaliksik sa pagsusuri ng dalawang guro gamit ang comparison sheet upang matiyak ang pagiging obhetibo ng interpretasyon. Ipinakita ng mga resulta na pitong (7) sa sampung (10) kuwentong pambata ang ganap nang nakalaya sa estereotipong pananaw sa kasarian. Bilang kongklusyon, lumalabas na unti-unti nang umuusbong sa panitikang pambata ang mga naratibo na nagwawaksi sa mga estereotipikong pananaw sa kasarian. Mahalaga ang pagkilala at pagpapalawak ng ganitong mga akda upang mapaunlad ang pang-unawa ng mga bata sa pagkakapantay-pantay ng kasarian. Kaugnay ng mga implikasyong pang-edukasyon, ang mga natuklasan ay may malalim na kabuluhan para sa mga guro, mag-aaral, at paaralan: ang mga guro ay maaaring gumamit ng mga akdang nagpapalaya sa kasarian bilang kasangkapan sa pagbuo ng mas inklusibong kurikulum at kritikal na literasiya; ang mga mag-aaral, lalo na sa antas ng elementarya, ay nakikinabang mula sa pagbabasa ng mga kuwentong nagtatampok ng iba't ibang uri ng representasyong pangkasarian; at ang mga paaralan ay hinihikayat na bumuo ng mga programang nakatuon sa gender-responsive na pagbabasa upang maisaloob ang mga ganitong akda sa pormal na edukasyon. (shrink)

Das Betreiben von Wissenschaft ist eine spezifische Form von Erkenntnistätigkeit, die bezüglich ihrer methodischen Vorgangsweise von konkreten heuristischen Zielsetzungen und korrespondierenden Maßstäben geleitet ist. Die Wissenschaftstheorie verfolgt das Ziel einer Analyse der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnistätigkeit vor dem Hintergrund der Erkenntnistheorie. Das Kernproblem der traditionellen philosophischen Erkenntnistheorie, und mit ihr der gängigen Wissenschaftstheorie, so meine These, besteht in dem heuristischen Kurzschluss des Inhalts mit dem Gegenstand der Erkenntnis. Dieser manifestiert sich auf direkte Weise in ihrem Fokus auf den heuristischen Maßstab der Gewissheit (...) unseres Wissens, gestützt auf die metaphysische Annahme der Bestimmtheit der Dinge an sich (der die Annahme von Deskription als Paradigma von Erkenntnis im allgemeinen korrepondiert). Die Hauptthese dieser Abhandlung wird sein, dass dieser Kurzschluss zu einer Ausblendung der Rolle der Heuristik als grundlegender Erkenntnisfaktor führt, und in seiner Konsequenz zum deskriptiven Missverständnis der dekonstruktiven mathematischen Heuristik der Physik (mit ihrem Fokus auf die dynamnischen Phänomene) im Sinne von bloßer Dekomposition. Die Folgen dieses Missverständnisses sind, der Rolle der Physik als Grundlagenwissenschaft geschuldet, weitreichend. Insbesondere für das wissenschaftliche Selbstverständnis der Biologie, im Sinne des Ziels, biologische Entitäten analytisch in physikalische zu zerlegen und biologische Phänomene auf physikalische Gesetze zu reduzieren. Dieses Ziel widerspricht klar der dekonstruktiven methodischen Vorgangsweise der Physik, deren einziger Maßstab in der Angemessenheit der Rekonstruktion der betreffenden Phänomene besteht. (shrink)

Ang kolektibong sanaysay na ito ay nagtatasa sa kalagayan at estado ng edukasyong pansining biswal sa mga piling pamantasan sa Pilipinas. Sakop ng papel ang mga sumusunod na paaralan: Politeknikong Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, De La Salle-Lipa, Mindanao State UniversityIligan Institute of Technology, at Notre Dame of Marbel University. Dalawang tanong ang tinangkang sagutin ng papel: Una, ano ang estado ng edukasyong pansining biswal sa mga piling pamantasan sa Pilipinas? Pangalawa, ano-ano ang mga posibleng solusyon sa mga suliranin na nakahahadlang sa (...) patuloy na pag-unlad ng edukasyong pansining biswal? Isinagawa ang panunuring dokumentaryo at pakikipanayam sa mga tagapangasiwa ng sining kultural at pangakademiko. Upang masagot at matalakay nang lubos ang katanungan, ang mga may-akda ay nagkaroon ng tuon sa dalawang parametro: panloob (pamamahalang pang-akademiko tulad ng pagtatalaga ng guro, paghahanda sa mga kagamitan at kasanayan,at kawalan ng tuon sa edukasyong pansining) at panlabas (suporta mula sa mga institusyong nasa labas ng pamantasan). Sa dulo ng papel, natuklasan ang mga karaniwang suliranin na kinahaharap ng mga pamantasang sakop ng papel-pananaliksik na ito; may mga payak na rekomendasyon ding pinanukala ang papel. (shrink)

Kunst als ästhetische Praxis ist die Basis moderner Vergesellschaftung seit deren Beginn, die kapitalistische Ökonomie ihr Überbau. Eine recht verstandene Kunstsoziologie, eine Ästhetiksoziologie, ist folgerichtig die Schlüsseldisziplin der Gegenwartsgesellschaft – nicht die Wirtschaftssoziologie oder Rechtssoziologie oder Politische Soziologie.Das Phänomen der Ästhetisierung der Gesellschaft einmal wirklich ernst nehmen heißt, zu erkennen, dass die Kunst der Erscheinung – wider alle soziologische Erwartung – als eigentliches Kraftzentrum der Gegenwartsgesellschaft fungiert. Die Frage der Gestaltung der sinnlichen Erscheinung des Lebens vor- und füreinander – der (...) Interphänomenalität – ist den gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften offensichtlich so lebenswichtig, dass die „ästhetische Frage“ der sozialen Frage vorgeordnet wird. Interphänomenalität als Kern moderner Vergesellschaftung – das omnipräsente ästhetische Erscheinen der Subjekte vor und füreinander, der stilisierten Dinge vor ihnen, der Dinge voreinander – wäre dann der strukturierende Kern der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft. Selbst die Sphäre der Ökonomie ließe sich so als eine abhängige Variable der ästhetischen Praktiken der Gesellschaft auffassen, da die letzteren mit ihren unvorhersehbaren Art Worlds entwerfen, worin ökonomisch investiert werden soll. (shrink)