Charles Sanders Peirce is regarded as the founding father of pragmatism and a key figure in the development of American philosophy, yet his practical philosophy remains under-acknowledged and misinterpreted. In this book, Richard Atkins argues that Peirce did in fact have developed and systematic views on ethics, on religion, and on how to live, and that these views are both plausible and relevant. Drawing on a controversial lecture that Peirce delivered in 1898 and related works, he examines Peirce's theories of (...) sentiment and instinct, his defence of the rational acceptability of religious belief, his analysis of self-controlled action, and his pragmatic account of practical ethics, showing how he developed his views and how they interact with those of his great contemporary William James. This study will be essential for scholars of Peirce and for those interested in American philosophy, pragmatism, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of action, and ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines the contributions of Daniel S. Lehrman (1919–1972) to animal behavior studies. Though widely cited as a critic of the early ethological program presented by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, other significant aspects of Lehrman’s career and research have not received historical attention. In this paper, I offer a fuller account of Lehrman’s work by situating his debate with ethologists within the larger context of Lehrman’s early scholarly development under G. K. Noble and T. C. Schneirla, by examining (...) his scientific research on the ring-dove as well as his epistemological views about the best way to understand animal behaviour, and by presenting his leadership in institution and network-building of interdisciplinary approaches to animal behavior. This essay highlights Lehrman’s impact on the evolution of ethology, endocrinology, and developmental biology. (shrink)

Stephen Darwall notes that for Cudworth the fundamental ethical motive is love, but that the Cambridge Platonist tells us little about love’s character, aim and object. In this article I examine Cudworth’s doctrine of ‘superintellectual instinct’ as a natural love for or inclination to the good as it takes shape in two of his unpublished freewill manuscripts. I show that in these manuscripts he assumes a threefold model of how this higher love as a natural or ‘created’ grace fits (...) into the overall moral life of a person, together with human free will and special grace. I argue that although Cudworth adopts an Origenist synergistic position on the question of the relationship between grace and free will, stating that special grace is a necessary condition of salvation conjointly with free will and creation grace, in reality he struggles to show the strict necessity of special grace. (shrink)

We consider Charles Sanders Peirce’s insights regarding the dynamics he associated with the concept of habit, so that we might periscope into some realms he left under-explicit: first, culture itself, and then, addiction, the forms of which are necessarily relative to particular cultures at particular times. Peirce’s groundwork on habit includes deliberations on instinct, habituescence (the taking of habits), the habit of habit-taking, and the changing of habits, enabling us to think through individual habits that are both marked and (...) unmarked (that is, noticed or not), and how these feed into contemporary cultural practices whether deemed to be innocuous or extreme. With respect to extreme habits, we use the term “addiction” as a suitable gloss for behaviors marked by actual or perceived dysfunction, regardless of any involvement of use or abuse of substances. Finally, we propose that Peirce’s reflections on habits (perhaps colored by his own habits-unto-addictions), and particularly his phanaeroscopy (phenomenology) of thirds—moving from vagueness to generality, from belief to doubt, from habit-taking to habit-breaking—suggest paths for exploring the debate surrounding the “reversibility” or “irreversibility” of addictions, including implications for self-control, and in turn, for our increasingly domesticated 21st-century society. (shrink)

This article analyzes three approaches to resolving the classical Meno paradox, or its variant, the learning paradox, emphasizing Charles S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. Abduction provides a way of dissecting those processes where something new, or conceptually more complex than before, is discovered or learned. In its basic form, abduction is a “weak” form of inference, i.e., it gives only tentative suggestions for further investigation. But it is not too weak if various sources of clues and restrictions on the abductive (...) search are taken into account. We present three, complementary versions of abduction: (1) as a sort of guessing instinct or expert-like intuition, where unconscious clues are important; (2) as a form of inference, where a strategic point of view is essential; and (3) as a part of distributed cognition and mediated activity, where the interaction with the material, social, and cultural environment is emphasized. Our starting point is Peirce’s own notion of abduction, but we broaden the perspective, especially to the direction of distributed cognition. (shrink)

Recent conceptualizations of auditors’ professional skepticism suggest the interplay between analytical and intuitive information processing. We conduct an in-depth empirical investigation to explore this relationship, drawing on 49 interviews with auditors from the Big Four audit firms in the UK. It reveals that auditors’ skepticism often emerges intuitively in response to interpersonal contexts, manifesting as feelings of discomfort. These intuitive responses guide subsequent, more deliberative processes of collecting and analyzing audit evidence. The research demonstrates that such intuitive feelings are integral (...) to auditors’ recognition of potential issues, thereby enhancing their cognitive evaluations. Additionally, the study explores how auditors’ skeptical judgments are continuously shaped by their social environments and the intuitions of other members of their audit teams. Ultimately, the findings affirm that the fusion of intuition and reasoning plays a crucial role in auditors’ practice of PS, with past practice experiences and social interactions enriching their intuitive assessments and contributing to developing their professional expertise. (shrink)

The human species’ adaptive advantage is driven by its ability to build new material structures and artefacts. Engineering is the modern manifestation of this building instinct, and its advent has made the construction and use of technologies the central pattern of human life. In parallel, efficiency, the overarching narrative driving technology and related life practices, has pervaded most occupations as a value, forming a cultural backdrop that implicitly guides decisions and behaviour. We examine the process through which this backdrop (...) has developed, and argue that it emerged through the constant presence and use of built artefacts and structures, which function as manifestations of the engineering value of efficiency. The constant presence and use of built structures leads to the slow percolation of their building values into society, forming a cultural narrative that emphasises efficiency. This narrative then feeds back, to further reinforce efficiency-driven engineering processes. This loop creates a runaway building system that is highly resistant to change, even when faced with the prospect of the species going extinct. Any effort towards sustainability can be successful only when this all-pervading – and hence invisible – building loop is made explicit, and compensated for, through a counter-loop where building manifests sustainable engineering values. As a first step in revealing this structure, we characterise the emergence of the efficiency value as a cultural narrative, and analyse its wide-ranging environmental effects. We then present the design principle of ‘Solving for Pattern’ (SfP) as an illustrative contrast case. SfP, first articulated by Wendell Berry, focuses on interconnectedness and flourishing of all species as central design principles. We argue that these ecological principles can be extended to engineering, and can thus support the development of a robust operational-level building movement that manifests value systems oriented towards sustainability. To ground this proposal in actual practice, we outline two case studies of technology design that illustrates SfP. We also discuss three cases that illustrate SfP at a larger scale, and examine how these extend existing design approaches such as systems engineering. We conclude with a proposal to include SfP in engineering education curricula, to facilitate a faster cultural shift towards flourishing, which is required given the limited time window available to move to sustainable building practices. (shrink)

Many contributions have been made in recent psychological literature to the study of the nature of emotion, yet profound differences of opinion remain both as to the aetiology and function of emotional states. I propose in this paper to inquire whether a consistent theory can be put forward which would do justice to all the facts that recent investigations have brought to light. It would appear that the defects of most of the theories of emotion are due to the fact (...) that they exaggerate some aspect or phrase of emotion and claim for it exclusive or predominant value. (shrink)

Roger Garrison's commentary on Alan Meltzer's interpretation of Keynes and Meltzer's interpretation itself are closer to each other and further from Keynes's sense than one might imagine. Keynes's logic rests on an unsubstantiated guess, as Keynes admitted, about the tendency for consumption to stagnate in an advanced economy; and on the nonsensical proposition that the possessors of loanable funds are unilaterally able to determine the cost of those funds outside of the supply‐and‐demand financial market.

Background Neonatologists, legal experts and ethicists extensively discuss the ethical challenges of decision-making when a child is born at the limit of viability. The voices of parents are less heard in this discussion. In Norway, parents are actively shielded from the burden of decision-making responsibility. In an era of increasing patient autonomy, is this position still defendable? Research question In this article, we discuss the role of parents in neonatal decision-making, based on the following research question: Should parents decide whether (...) to provide lifesaving treatment when their child is born at the limit of viability? Research design We conducted eight interviews with 12 parents, 4 individuals and 4 couples, all having experienced prenatal counselling at the limit of viability. The interviews took place at different university locations in Norway in the years 2014–2018. Ethical considerations All study participants gave their written informed consent. The Regional Committee for Medical Research Ethics approved the study. Findings We identified six main themes in parents’ responses to the research question. Parents (1) experienced an emotional turmoil confronted with birth at the border of viability, (2) emphasized the importance of being involved in decision-making, (3) described and reflected on the need to balance the parental instinct of saving, (4) were concerned about the dilemmas involved in protecting the family, (5) were worried about the burden of overwhelming responsibility and (6) called for guideline relief. Conclusion The perceived parental instinct of saving the life of their child makes it hard for parents to step away from a call for ‘everything to be done’. Involvement of an interprofessional periviability team drawing on the experiences and viewpoints of nurses and neonatologists in decision-making is needed to protect both infants and parents against undue parental push for treatment and enable parents to make good decisions regarding their child. (shrink)

Aquinas’s conception of faith has been taken to involve believing in a way that is expressly out of keeping with the evidence. Rather than being produced by evidence, the confidence involved in faith is a product of the will’s decision. This causes Aquinas’s conception of faith to look flagrantly irrational. Herein, I offer an interpretation of Aquinas’s position on faith that has not been previously proposed. I point out that Aquinas responds to the threat of faith’s irrationality by explicitly maintaining (...) that one may reasonably believe by faith because of an instinct to believe. I go on to point out other instances in which instincts amount to legitimate epistemic grounds for Aquinas. Given that this dimension of Aquinas’s thought is not well developed, I close by introducing some extensions of it in the work of John Henry Newman as well as points of contrast. (shrink)

Social behaviour is but an expression of instinctive mechanisms whereby the aggressive instinct is of particular importance, having given rise to most of the complexity of social behaviour through processes of phylogenetic and cultural ritualisation. The role of the aggressive instinct is to dynamically maintain the ranking order in a group, and much of social interaction is concerned with this, including monetary exchange. What is certain, is that with the elimination of aggression, … the tackling of a task (...) or problem, the self-respect [in] everything that a man does from morning till evening, from the morning shave to the sublimest artistic or scientific creation, would lose all impetus; everything associated with ambition, ranking order, and countless other equally indispensable behaviour patterns would probably also disappear from human life. — Konrad Lorenz (1963/2002, p. 269) (Published Online April 5 2006). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aquinas's Ethics beyond Thomistic Virtue Ethics:The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Spiritual Instinct, and Complete Human PerfectionJohn BerkmanThis paper offers a new reading and interpretation of Aquinas's doctrine of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the contemporary Thomist literature on ethics, there is far more discussion—and a far more developed discussion—of the nature and role of a virtue-habitus than a gift-habitus. Why might there be so little (...) discussion of the gifts and their distinctive habitus? Is it because Aquinas devotes many more questions to the virtues than to the gifts? Is it because the majority of self-professed Thomist ethicists have not been taught the gifts, and are either unaware or have merely a notional awareness that the gifts have a principle of action distinct from and superior to that of the virtues?1 Regardless of the reason, this paper seeks to mitigate the current paucity of analysis of the gifts and the gift-habitus.This paper will discuss Aquinas's doctrine of the gifts of the Holy Spirit from a resolutely gift-centered perspective. I do so because discussions of the gifts often presume a virtue-centered perspective. That is, treatments of the gifts typically interpret what Aquinas says about the gifts through the lens of a pre-existing virtue framework, the gifts then being made to fit into that pre-existing framework. I will argue that we see this not only in interpretations of Aquinas on the gifts, but also in English translations of the Summa theologiae [ST] on the question of the gifts. [End Page 47]As a result, in contemporary scholarship on Aquinas's ethics, the virtues typically receive extended treatment, whereas the gifts of the Holy Spirit receive no treatment at all. And when the gifts are addressed, their treatment is brief, with the main point being that the gifts provide assistance to the virtues, like a spiritual butler. In the best-case scenario, the gifts are like Jeeves to the virtues' Bertie—undoubtedly wiser, but rarely listened to.The paper is divided into four sections. The first section compares and contrasts a gift-habitus and a vinue-habitus. The second section focuses on Aquinas's notion of instinctus. The instinct of the Holy Spirit (divine instinct) is the principle of motion Aquinas associates with the gifts of the Holy Spirit (ST I-II, q. 68, aa. 1–2). I argue that—contrary to the judgment of most commentators—instinctus is a highly appropriate term to describe the character of the work of the Holy Spirit. In this section I also show how Aquinas's doctrine of instinctus has been made "invisible" in part by various translations of the ST, including the translation of Fr. Shapcote.2In the third section, I analyze Aquinas' argument that the gifts are more perfective of human beings than the virtues (ST I-II, q. 68, a. 8). This analysis also constitutes a "case study" of the ways in which Shapcote's translation (the dominant English translation for the last hundred years) contributes to misunderstandings of Aquinas's views on the relationship between the gifts and the virtues. In comparing and contrasting the virtues and gifts, an original part of my argument is my claim that, while charity sometimes operates from a virtue-habitus, at other times it operates according to a gift-habitus. Commentators have failed to adequately account for the fact that truly perfect (simpliciter) charity cannot be attained solely by the operations of virtue. The ultimate expression of charity requires a habitus superior to a virtue-habitus.3 While the wayfarer's expression of charity is always in one [End Page 48] sense a gift from God, in that it relies on God's grace, as the wayfarer grows in charity, charity increasingly functions as a gift of the Holy Spirit, or perhaps the form of all the gifts.4The fourth and final section focuses on how the gifts and infused virtues operate in the wayfarer who is growing in spiritual maturity. I argue that, although infused virtue-habitus and gift-habitus are given at baptism, facility in either typically grows slowly. Increasing facility in... (shrink)

‘How very Lacanian’, psychoanalyst Milena Gardosh observes at onepoint in Michael Caton-Jones’ Basic Instinct 2 : a line that would become notorious.1The question is: just how Lacanian is Basic Instinct 2?

The article entitled “Ruyer and the lessons of Instinct” focuses on the problem of the anthropological difference. André Conrad first shows that for any comprehensive ethology (Fabre, von Uexküll, Buytendijk) instinct depends neither on the mechanism of “autonomous sequences” (Lorenz, Tinbergen) nor on “regulated behaviours”: it is an embryology organised and developed accordingly to a “thematic action” (Ruyer). Thus, if human being is separated from animality by the originality of the symbolic function (Cassirer and Langer), the thematic action (...) does not separate social embryology –both cultural and political– from the mystery of Life. That is this precise “Thematism” (Ruyer) that allows us to understand both the difference and community between living beings. (shrink)

The present study discusses the early theoretical development of Konrad Lorenz in the period from 1930 to 1937. In this period Lorenz developed his position on instinct in the first place, and thus his theoretical views were subject to change. Despite this change, the paper points to relatively stable features of Lorenz’s approach, which emerged relatively soon in his scientific career and guided his theoretical development in this and beyond this early phase.

I was reading the 1947 volume of Psychological Review and there is a paper by Clifford T. Morgan of Johns Hopkins entitled "The Hoarding Instinct." In the opening paragraph of the section "What causes hoarding?" he writes, "When we speak of causes, of course, we must always make a distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions, that is, between factors which must be present for something to occur at all and factors which help it occur or augment the size of (...) its occurrence. Thus, we must ask two questions. What is essential to bringing out the pattern of hoarding behaviour? And, secondly, what facilitates hoarding, or determines the form and amount of hoarding, once it has been elicited?" A sufficient factor for causing X is not something best described as helping X occur. If a factor F1 is sufficient for causing X, then whenever factor F1 is present X is caused. F1 is SUFFICIENT! "Why don't you call F1 necessary/essential then?" Some factors can be described as both necessary and sufficient, but we will not describe F1 as necessary if there is another way of causing X and we know this. We cannot (rightly) say that F1 is NECESSARY because there is this other way. For example, a certain amount of a certain poison in the human body is sufficient to cause death; but it is not necessary to cause death, because it can also be caused by a suitable gunshot, by strangling, etc. (By the way, there are other reasons for why we might not call F1 necessary, for example we wish to remain neutral on whether there is another way of causing X.) Morgan assumes that there cannot be such a thing as a factor which is sufficient to cause instinctive hoarding but not necessary, given my usage of these terms. He assumes that whatever factor (or combination of factors) elicits hoarding is necessary. But why cannot it be that inheriting disease 1 causes instinctive hoarding and also inheriting disease 2? Probably medics and psychologists can understand all this, but maybe some people cannot. I wonder whether it is they who will be incorporated into political philosophy! (shrink)

This is a further response to the paper by Clifford T. Morgan of Johns Hopkins entitled "The Hoarding Instinct." To repeat: in the opening paragraph of the section "What causes hoarding?" he writes, "When we speak of causes, of course, we must always make a distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions, that is, between factors which must be present for something to occur at all and factors which help it occur or augment the size of its occurrence. Thus, we (...) must ask two questions. What is essential to bringing out the pattern of hoarding behaviour? And, secondly, what facilitates hoarding, or determines the form and amount of hoarding, once it has been elicited?" Apart from not realizing that something which is sufficient to cause X simply will cause X (rather than helping or augmenting the occurrence of X), Morgan also does not realize this: talk of necessary and sufficient conditions is usually not talk of causal conditions, rather conditions/requirements for being a certain type of thing, for example a water molecule. A necessary condition for being a water molecule is having two hydrogen atoms as constituents. But this is not a sufficient condition because a molecule can have two hydrogen atoms as constituents and not be a water molecule. Sometimes we say that each member of a set of conditions is necessary for being a type of thing and together they are sufficient. (By the way, provisionally ignoring Hume, one can consistently talk of a certain factor as sufficient to cause X, but not necessary to cause X, because there is another way of causing X, and ALSO assert that there is a necessary connection between the factor and X. The usual thinking behind the assertion is that there must be something more to the causal link between the factor and X apart from just that the presence of the factor is always followed by the occurrence of X and this something more is a necessary connection: the presence of the factor is necessarily followed by X.). (shrink)

This article will emphasize the importance of the concept of community and its connection with individuality and immortality, which evolved throughout Unamuno’s life and work. For this purpose, we will study the concept of “instinct of community”, in order to expand an interpretative area in Unamuno’s thought that has been left behind due to the attention paid to its famous “instinct of perpetuation”. We will conclude with an anti-positivist defense of the individual and the community formed by humans (...) and nature. (shrink)

Responding to the rash of books supporting a "new atheism" in recent years, some excellent rebuttals and refutations by Berlinski, Novak, Hart, Day, and others have also been published. The present book, however, is not a continuation of these critical salvos against the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris, but engages in a fresh reexamination of several important aspects of the "God-question," along with an exploration of the theory of the "faith-instinct"---a theory that emerges from a respectably long (...) tradition, but in recent years has been largely relegated to the sidelines in theology and philosophy. In the first chapter, scientific, metaphysical, and theological approaches are utilized and integrated in relationship to the question of God's existence. The second chapter is devoted to the "problem of evil," differentiated into the special categories often lumped into that all-too-generic term---moral evils, natural evils, suffering as an evil. Chapter 3 concerns the obvious follow-up question concerning what sort of characteristics, personal or otherwise, we can attribute to God---going beyond the question of God's mere "existence," even if and when we are intellectually convinced of this existence. In the second half of the book, the various meanings of "faith" are considered; and the apparent discrepancy of many New Testament descriptions of faith with the conventional Catholic and Protestant concepts of faith is investigated. Some "family resemblances" of supernatural faith seem to emerge. Then a monograph by Tubingen theologian Max Seckler, Instinkt und Glaubenswille ("Instinct and the Will to Believe"), which comments on thought-provoking texts concerning a "faith-instinct" in the works of Thomas Aquinas, is considered; Seckler brings out the philosophical and theological basis for this concept, as well as its reverberations for modern theology. The theory of a faith-instinct, however, leads to the question of the proper and improper, real or substitute, "objects," of the proposed instinct. Finally, if this instinct is, as hypothesized, implanted in human nature itself, for all places and all times, what is the function of the various religions in "activating" or placing obstacles to, the activation of this instinct? How are "false prophets," who may be instrumental in redirecting or misdirecting this instinct, to be recognized? Is faith bolstered or hindered by miracles---do miracles have any important relationship to faith? The book ends with a final consideration of the probable mental outlook of the atheist confronted with claims by theists of varying persuasions. (shrink)

Denis Dutton’s The Art Instinct succeeds admirably in showing that it is possible to think about art from a biological point of view, and this is a significant achievement, given that resistance to the idea that cultural phenomena have biological underpinnings remains widespread in many academic disciplines. However, his account of the origins of our artistic impulses and the far-reaching conclusions he draws from that account are not persuasive. This article points out a number of problems: in particular, problems (...) with Dutton’s appeal to sexual selection, with his discussion of the adaptation/by-product distinction and its significance, and with drawing normative conclusions from evolutionary hypotheses. (shrink)

A Teaching Memoir That Crosses the Barriers Between Worlds A shaman is one who has learned to move between two worlds: our physical reality and the realm of spirits. For John Lockley, shamanic training also meant learning to cross the immense divide of race and culture in South Africa. As a medic drafted into the South African military in 1990, John Lockley had a powerful dream. "Even though I am a white man of Irish and English descent, I knew in (...) my bones that I had received my calling to become a sangoma, a traditional South African shaman," John writes. "I felt blessed by the ancient spirit of Africa, and I knew that I had started on a journey filled with magic and danger." His path took him from the hills of South Korea, where he trained as a student under Zen Master Su Bong, to the rural African landscape of the Eastern Cape and the world of the sangoma mystic healers, where he found his teacher in the medicine woman called MaMngwevu. In Leopard Warrior, John shares a gripping account of his experiences and the wisdom he learned over years of training. Here he invites you to discover: • Powerful insights into the spiritual tradition of the Xhosa lineage of South Africa—the tribe of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu • Ubuntu—a core concept for recognizing and embracing our deep interconnection with all living things • Ancestor medicine—how we can learn to honor the blood in our veins, the heritage of our soul, and our shared humanity • Recovering our forgotten knowledge about the wisdom of our dreams, the spirits of plants and animals, and the power of the unseen world In traditional African healing circles, the leopard represents intuition, instinct, and harmony with nature and the spirit world. As John Lockley writes, "A leopard warrior is a spiritual soldier who mirrors the natural world and directs their gaze inward to answer the call of their spirit." With Leopard Warrior, he brings us an inspiring call to action—showing how we can bridge the barriers that divide us, embrace the gifts of our ancestors, and reclaim our rightful place as compassionate caretakers of our world. (shrink)

Today, many pregnancy guides mention a nesting instinct. According to this, pregnant women would be seized by an urge to create the right environment for their child, for example to buy baby equipment or clean the apartment. The concept of the nesting instinct forms a specific configuration of knowledge: While it is widespread in the popular field, it occupies a marginal position in the scientific field. In this paper, I will investigate the historical epistemology of this form of (...) knowledge. In so doing, the following questions are addressed: How did the knowledge about a nesting instinct during pregnancy form? How was the nest as a specific natural-anthropogenic environment constructed? And to what extent do notions of gender and environment interact here? To answer these questions, the study takes the perspective of a history of knowledge in transit, in the longue durée from the nineteenth century to the present. The investigation reveals a gradual feminization of the concept of environment in the knowledge of the nesting instinct. Whereas in the nineteenth century it was often considered a male behavioral pattern and the nest was an analogy to the house, in the first decades of the twentieth century, the instinct transformed into a primarily female characteristic, with the nest representing the interior of the home. A decisive condition for this circulation of knowledge was that the nest became a ‘metaphorical thing’. As such, the nest did not simply lead to naturalization, but denoted a natural-social in-between space that increasingly became the goal of female care work. (shrink)

Denis Dutton’s The Art Instinct provides a useful framework for analyzing the aesthetics of the Ainu, a small-scale society in northern Japan. In a recent study at Hokkaido University, Ainu artists replicated old, museum-quality Ainu works and reported on their selection, study of the works, replication processes, and discussions with other artists. The replication illustrates the importance of intention in determining the authenticity of works of art, while the artists’ comments demonstrate the applicability of all twelve of Dutton’s “twelve (...) characteristics of art,” and reinforce his conclusion that native viewers of art bring important insights to the perception of artworks. (shrink)

In the past 20 years, the concept of instinct has been discussed in respect to various disciplines such as evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, linguistics, ethics, aesthetics, and phenomenology, etc. However, the meaning of instinct still remains unclarified in many respects. In order to overcome this situation, it is necessary to elucidate the genuine meaning of instinct so that the discussion of instinct in these disciplines can be carried out systematically. The objective of this paper is to (...) establish the genuine concept of instinct on the basis of a phenomenological criticism of A. Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction. Moreover, it seeks to show that this concept is the genetic origin of the embodied consciousness. According to Gehlen, instinct is defined as Instinkthandlung. However, this definition of instinct is problematic in the formal logical sense, since the definiendum (the instinct) is already included in the definiens (Instinkthandlung). Moreover, it faces different kinds of serious material problems. Criticizing Gehlen’s theory of instinct systematically, I will show that instinct should be redefined as “the innate living force that urges a species of living being to pursue a certain kind of object,” and I will attempt to clarify this definition of instinct in a more detailed manner by offering 11 points. Thereafter, I will argue that Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction has to be replaced by the theory of instinct-enlargement in human beings. Finally, I will point out that the genuine concept of instinct is nothing other than the genetic origin of the embodied consciousness. (shrink)

Summary We may now briefly review the ground we have covered. We began by observing that a pugnacious instinct might be conceived in two ways: 1. (a)As a need or craving of the organism. 2. (b)As an instinct to fight in response to the thwarting of an impulse, especially one with instinctive motivation. With regard to the first possibility, we found that so far as the study of young children reveals, this explanation is unsound. Consideration of both the (...) intrinsic and extrinsic factors in aggressive behaviour indicates that pugnacity need never be assumed as its own motive, for it has significance always in relation to some more primary need. This need is, in the young, primarily a need for security, and the aggressiveness of children is mainly intended to be adaptive to this end. With regard to the second possibility, which defines pugnacity as instinctive from the side of response, present evidence would indicate that the angry emotional response (which is loosely termed a pugnacious response), far from being an inborn set behaviour pattern, is itself differentiated early in life from some more general undifferentiated avoidance reaction. The general conclusion which we have drawn from the above discussion, therefore, is that the concept of the instinct of pugnacity is, defined in the first manner, definitely contrary to fact, and, defined in the second manner, made obsolete by a more exact analysis of the data to hand. “It is commonly thought that the only hope for the student of society is the acquisition of knowledge; more facts, and still more facts is the common catch-phrase. But what is really needed is more insight into what facts have been gained. The mere accumulation of knowledge in itself is of little use: what really is needed is some means of using that knowledge. The student should constantly try to group his facts into still wider generalisations, he should learn what is more and what is less essential, what is primary and what is derived; for he will only be able to acquire the necessary economy of thought by confining himself to what is really essential in the growth and development of human society.” W. J. Perry: “Children of the Sun.”. (shrink)

Philip Ball brings a cognitive-scientific perspective to the breadth of music theory in his work The Music Instinct. Whether or not music is a universal language, it is a cultural phenomenon found universally in the human population. In the debate as to whether humans evolved this tendency to make music as an essential adaptation or as non-adaptive “spandrel,” Ball maintains that music is crucial to what it means to be human. Without definitively explaining just how humans developed music, delimiting (...) that “instinct” or saying such instinct dictates what kind of music answers to it, he explains how the many different aspects of musical structure—and indeed much music theory, Western or Eastern—may have correlates in cognitive structures. The predominant step and half-step tonal progression in melodies, the role of the octave, underlying rhythm, all such appear to have cognitive explanation. The problem, Ball brings out, is that whatever the cognitive musical structures may be are far from clear. Perhaps many kinds of music do appeal to these cognitive structures, but must all music meet even a certain minimum of them? Based on current cognitive knowledge, cases against modernist Western music are hard to make soundly. (shrink)

The heart of Richard Kenneth Atkins’s Peirce and the Conduct of Life: Sentiment and Instinct in Ethics and Religion is an interpretation and defense of Peirce’s sentimental conservatism, as well as an extension of that idea to Peirce’s philosophy of religion and to the casuistic approach to practical ethics. “A Defense of Peirce’s Sentimental Conservatism” is the explicit title of the second of the book’s six chapters. But the only chapter in which Peirce’s sentimental conservatism does not itself appear (...) to play an explicit role is chapter five, “Self-Control and Moral Responsibility”, which is perhaps the chapter that reads most as a stand-alone work (even though the first chapter is the... (shrink)