An important module in the Belief-Desire-Intention architecture for artificial agents (which builds on Michael Bratman’s work in the philosophy of action) focuses on the task of intention reconsideration. The theoretical task is to formulate principles governing when an agent ought to undo a prior committed intention and reopen deliberation. Extant proposals for such a principle, if sufficiently detailed, are either too task-specific or too computationally demanding. I propose that an agent ought to reconsider an intention whenever some incompatible prospect (...) is sufficiently valuable along some dimension that can be assessed at zero or near-zero computational cost. (shrink)

Against a backcloth of philosophical debates on science and technology, and in particular the viewpoints of Karl Marx, this three-volume set proposes to reconsider science and technology and explores how the philosophy of science and technology responds to scientific and technological evolutions and an ever-changing world. The first volume analyses Marx's reconsideration of science and technology in five parts: its positioning, its historical practice, alienation of science and technology, and its relationship with productivity and human liberty. In the second (...) volume, viewpoints and problems of scientism and anti-scientism are discussed, covering topics such as instrumental reason, scientific optimism and pessimism, irrationalism and the deconstruction of scientism. The final volume discusses complementary value choices, the loss and awakening of scientific culture and reveals a vison for a liberal and open world of science and technology. The volumes will appeal to scholars and students interested in Marxist philosophy, the philosophy of science and technology and topics related to scientific culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reconsiderations on History and Antiquarianism: Arnaldo Momigliano and the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century BritainMark Salber PhillipsQuando mia figlia era molto piccola si divertiva a entrare nel mio studio e a chiedermi con finta gravità: “Signore papà che cosa hai concluso?” La sua domanda mi è tornata in mente molte volte più tardi, e mi ritorna nella mente anche oggi. Concludere non è facile, in qualsiasi lingua. E io per natura (...) preferisco proporre problemi.—A. Momigliano, “Epilogo senza conclusione”The question is: can we save for ourselves and for our successors this immemorial tradition, this long-standing delight, of talking to past historians as if they were our senior colleagues?—A. Momigliano, “Polybius Between the English and the Turks”More than any other historian of this century, Arnaldo Momigliano shaped our understanding of the evolution of Western historiography from the ancient to the modern world. Fundamental to this continuity, as Momigliano saw it, was the revival in the Renaissance of the classical division of history into two distinct genres. The first (often called, without further qualification, “history”) is the narrative of public events organized in linear [End Page 297] and causal fashion; the second, antiquities, is a more diverse body of writing that neglects political narrative for philosophical, literary, topographical, and other concerns. After the Reformation antiquarianism took on new tasks in response to the religious controversies of the age, but it remained distinct from the narrative tradition. Only in the eighteenth century did a convergence begin that has finally been completed in the historical methods of our own time. 1This identification of the eighteenth century as the time when historical narrative and antiquarian research converged gives Momigliano’s views their particular interest to students of this period. His terms, however, are always far wider than any single century. In fact his argument constitutes a genealogy of modern historical method, since the merging of the two traditions—first witnessed in the erudite historiography of Edward Gibbon—was a precondition of modern practice. On these foundations, a modern historical discipline has grown up in which systematic research has become indivisible from the task of representing the past in narrative, with the consequence that the ancient separation of history and antiquities has at last been transcended.This essay is intended as a sketch of an alternative approach to the study of historical thought and writing in eighteenth-century Britain. In my view an essential point of departure is the interest of eighteenth-century writers in the structures and experiences of private life, their desire to explore the inward lives of individuals and the everyday life of societies. This revaluation of private life challenged the classical conception of history in fundamental ways, resulting in a fruitful tension between the social and sentimental interests of the age and its inherited view of history. At stake, in the very [End Page 298] broadest terms, was the need to find forms of historical narrative that met the needs of a commercial society and recognized the values and activities of a non-aristocratic audience.In the eighteenth century antiquarian erudition was far from the only genre bordering on the territory of political narrative. Conjectural history, religious history, history of manners, history of sciences and of literature, biography, memoir, and novel all defined themselves in relation to a traditional conception of history and claimed the attention of readers for their own rival narrative spaces. More particularly, these related genres ranged themselves against history’s strict identification with public life, with all the assumptions about audience, gender, and intellectual authority that accompanied the public domain. Without ever displacing the national narrative in the hierarchy of literatures, these other genres offered a variety of alternative histories whose common ground was their resistance to the assumed priority of politics. 2For a generation Momigliano’s dialectic of history and antiquarianism has served as an organizing principle for a good deal of teaching and writing on early modern historiography. 3 It is time, I believe, for a revaluation of this conceptual scheme. The wider consideration of genres I am urging would greatly enlarge the framework of discussion and give us a sharper sense of the interests of eighteenth-century historians and their... (shrink)

What do exclusionary reasons exclude? This is the main issue I address in this article. Raz appears to endorse what I label the “motivational” model of exclusionary reasons. He stresses that within the context of his theory of practical reasoning, exclusionary reasons are reasons not to be motivated by certain first-order reasons (namely, the first-order reasons which conflict with the first-order reasons that the exclusionary reasons protect). Some of his critics take him to be committed to another model of exclusionary (...) reasons which I label the “consideration” model. According to this model exclusionary reasons are reasons not to consider or think of the conflicting first-order reasons. I argue that Raz's account of the exclusionary function of decisions suggests a third model of exclusionary reasons which I label the “reconsideration” model. In the reconsideration model, exclusionary reasons are reasons not to reconsider the balance of first-order reasons. In this article I show how the reconsideration model differs from both the motivational and the consideration model and how it can account for the exclusionary function not only of decisions but also of personal rules and authoritative directives. (shrink)

Against a backcloth of philosophical debates on science and technology, and in particular the viewpoints of Karl Marx, this three-volume set proposes to reconsider science and technology and explores how the philosophy of science and technology responds to scientific and technological evolutions and an ever-changing world. The first volume analyses Marx's reconsideration of science and technology in five parts: its positioning, its historical practice, alienation of science and technology, and its relationship with productivity and human liberty. In the second (...) volume, viewpoints and problems of scientism and anti-scientism are discussed, covering topics such as instrumental reason, scientific optimism and pessimism, irrationalism and the deconstruction of scientism. The final volume discusses complementary value choices, the loss and awakening of scientific culture and reveals a vison for a liberal and open world of science and technology. The volumes will appeal to scholars and students interested in Marxist philosophy, the philosophy of science and technology and topics related to scientific culture. (shrink)

In this paper, I present some preliminary reconsiderations on the interconnection between Nishida Kitarō’s later logic and his political philosophy. These reconsiderations will form the core of an essay in which I intend to use Karatani Kōjin’s remarks concerning a certain “Leibniz-syndrome” in twentieth-century political thought as a starting point for a more in-depth inquiry into Nishida’s philosophy, as an expression of the contradictions and aporias of global capitalist modernity.

Harsanyi claimed that his Aggregation and Impartial Observer Theorems provide a justification for utilitarianism. This claim has been strongly resisted, notably by Sen and Weymark, who argue that while Harsanyi has perhaps shown that overall good is a linear sum of individuals’ von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities, he has done nothing to establish any con- nection between the notion of von Neumann-Morgenstern utility and that of well-being, and hence that utilitarianism does not follow. The present article defends Harsanyi against the Sen-Weymark cri- (...) tique. I argue that, far from being a term with precise and independent quantitative content whose relationship to von Neumann-Morgenstern utility is then a substantive question, terms such as ‘well-being’ suffer (or suffered) from indeterminacy regarding precisely which quantity they refer to. If so, then (on the issue that this article focuses on) Harsanyi has gone as far towards defending ‘utilitarianism in the original sense’ as could coherently be asked. (shrink)

Understanding more about how the brain functionsshouldhelp us understand economic behaviour. But some would have us believe that it has done this already, and that insights from neuroscience have already provided insights in economics that we would not otherwise have. Much of this is just academic marketing hype, and to get down to substantive issues we need to identify that fluff for what it is. After we clear away the distractions, what is left? The answer is that a lot is (...) left, but it is still all potential. That is not a bad thing, or a reason to stop the effort, but it does point to the need for a serious reconsideration of what neuroeconomics is and what passes for explanation in this literature. I argue that neuroeconomics can be a valuable field, but not the way it is being developed and “sold” now. The same is true more generally of behavioural economics, which shares many of the methodological flaws of neuroeconomics. (shrink)

According to indirect duty views, human beings lack direct moral duties to non-human organisms, but our direct duties to ourselves and other humans give rise to indirect duties regarding non-humans. On the orthodox interpretation of Kant’s account of indirect duties, one should abstain from treating organisms in ways that render one more likely to violate direct duties to humans. This indirect duty view is subject to several damaging objections, such as that it misidentifies the moral reasons we have to treat (...) non-humans in certain ways and that it sanctions only weak obligations vis-à-vis organisms. I develop an alternative indirect duty view: given a direct duty to oneself to cultivate virtuous dispositions, one has an indirect duty to abstain from treating organisms in ways that erode one’s virtues or develop vices. I argue that this indirect duty view strictly proscribes knowingly causing unnecessary harm to organisms, and I show that it is not subject to the damaging objections directed against the indirect duty view attributed to Kant by the orthodox interpretation. This suggests that indirect duty views are more worthy of consideration than is often supposed. (shrink)

For much of its brief history, the field of environmental ethics has been critical of anthropocentrism. I here undertake a pragmatic reconsideration of anthropocentrism. In the first part of this essay, I explain what a pragmatic reconsideration of anthropocentrism means. I differentiate two distinct pragmatic strategies, one substantive and one methodological, and I adopt methodological pragmatism as my guiding principle. In the second part of this essay, I examine a case study of environmental policy—the problem of beach replenishment (...) on Fire Island, New York—as a pragmatic test of anthropocentrism. I conclude that the debate between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism needs to be expressed in non-absolutist terms, i.e., in a language that permits compromise, flexibility, and a pluralism of values. Thechoice between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism as the basis of both environmental policy and environmental ethics is highly contextual and thus requires a subtle examination of the concrete policy situation. (shrink)

Home births continue to constitute only a small percentage of all deliveries in the United States, in part because of concerns about their safety. While the literature is decidedly mixed in regard to the degree of risk, there are several studies that report that home birth may at times entail a small absolute increase in perinatal risks in circumstances that cannot always be anticipated prior to the onset of labor. While the definition of “small” will vary between individuals, and publications (...) vary in the level of risk they ascribe to birth at home, studies with the least methodological flaws and with adequate power often cite an excess death rate in the range of one per thousand.Home birth is, in that regard, but one example of patients’ choices and plans that sometimes carry increased risk or include alternatives that individual physicians feel uncomfortable supporting or recommending. Our intention in this opinion piece is not to advocate for or against home birth. Rather, we recognize that home birth is but one example of a patient choice that might differ from what a provider feels is in a woman’s best interests.In this article we will discuss ethical considerations in such circumstances using home birth as an example. We consider in this article how the ethical principles of respect for autonomy and non-maleficence can be balanced using, among other examples, the choice by some for a home birth. We discuss how absolute rather than relative risk should guide individuals’ evaluation of patient choices. We also consider how in some circumstances, the value and safety added by a physician’s participation may outweigh a potentially small increment in absolute risk that might result from a patient’s decision to deliver at home because of a perceived physician endorsement.We recognize, however, that doctors and midwives participating in choices they have not recommended, or may even believe will lead to or increase risk for adverse outcomes, presents dilemmas and raises important questions. When does respect for patient choice and autonomy become support for poor decision making? When is participation not respectful but enabling? Finally we discuss the role and responsibility of organized medicine in making all births as safe as possible. (shrink)

Reconsideration-proofness is a solution concept proposed by Kocherlakota :33–54, 1996) for infinite horizon single-player problems in which time inconsistency is important. Kocherlakota’s definition has a limitation: it is not applicable to environments with state variables. The limitation is important because many time-inconsistent problems have state variables. This paper displays a natural generalization of reconsideration-proofness to environments with state variables, and shows that it leads to nonexistence in three examples. Such nonexistence contrasts with the general existence theorem obtained in (...) environments without state variables in Kocherlakota. In the first two examples, existence can be recovered with a modification in the solution concept. In the last example, nonexistence occurs even with the modified solution concept. Insights about further research are derived from these nonexistence results. (shrink)

Attitudes towards the fourth way differ from incredulity and embarrassment to seeing it as a profound demonstration of God’s existence. Aside from general treatments on all the five ways, the fourth way has received little by way of direct commentary in comparison to the other better known (and arguably better appreciated) ways. In this article I seek to present Aquinas’s fourth way as a way to God which makes use of his general and more familiar metaphysical reasoning. This serves to (...) give the reading of the fourth way as a profound argument for God’s existence, and also to integrate it with the other four ways given the common metaphysical backdrop. (shrink)

Up to the introduction of the term and concept of incommensurability by T. S. Kuhn and P. K. Feyerabend in the early 1960s, scientific texts were supposed to pose no problem as regards their translation, unlike literature, which was thought very difficult to translate. After the introduction of the term, translation of scientific language became equally problematic because, due to conceptual and perceptual incommensurability, there was no common observation basis to ground linguistic equivalences between languages of incommensurable paradigms. This article (...) highlights the presuppositions that link incommensurability to dramatic consequences (impossibility of communication, translation, and comparative evaluation of paradigms) and tries to sketch an alternative way of understanding incommensurability and translation drawing on Kuhn’s work. From this perspective, translation is not an all-or-nothing affair for either science or literature and becomes a problem to be solved for each particular set of circumstances. (shrink)

인간이 물리적 존재이면서도 자율성을 가진 존재라는 주제는 현대 철학에서도 중요한 의의를 지닌다. 중국 고대 철학자 중에서 순자는 마음의 자율성에 대해 가장 적극적인 언급을 하고 있다. 『순자』 「해폐(解蔽)」에서 마음은 육체의 군주이면서 또한 고차원적인 인지 능력의 주인으로 묘사된다. 마음은 어느 누구로부터 명령을 받지 않으며, 다른 기관에 명령을 내리는 존재이다. 본 논문에서는 순자의 마음의 자율성에 대해 이장희의 기존 연구를 수용하면서, 좀 더 현대적인 재해석을 덧붙이고자 한다. 이장희는 순자의 자율성을 “신체적 존재라는 사실을 받아들이면서도 발휘되는 자율성”으로 정의한다. 현대적인 시각에서 마음의 자율, 또는 자유의지를 논의하기 위해 (...) 우선 염두에 두어야 할 것은 마음이 신체화되어 있다는 사실이며, 동시에 결정론과 자유의지의 이분법을 넘어서는 것이다. 본 논문에서는 이와 같은 최근 논쟁을 고려하면서 동시에 결정론과 자유의지를 극복하면서 새로운 자유 개념을 제시하고 있는 메를로 퐁티의 입장과 순자의 이론을 비교함으로써 순자의 마음의 자율에 대한 새로운 시각을 제시하고자 한다. 순자는 인간이 단순히 신체적인 욕망을 극복할 뿐만 아니라 스스로 만들어낸 의미에 따라 행동할 수 있기 때문에 자율적인 존재가 될 수 있다고 보았다. 그런 능력은 인간에게만 있는 특별한 것이며, 인간이 타인과 공동체를 만들고 협력할 수 있는 근거가 된다. 그런데 순자는 인간의 의미 창조 과정에서 마음과 언어의 기능을 과신하는 듯한 인상을 준다. 메를로 퐁티의 주장을 받아들인다면, 의미 부여는 자유를 확장하는 동시에 자유의 제한을 가져온다. 왜냐하면 의미 부여의 ‘원심적-구심적 현상’ 때문이다. 내 삶에 의미와 미래를 부여하는 것은 나이다. 그러나 동시에 나의 삶의 의미와 미래는 나의 현재와 과거의 공존 양식에서 비롯된다. 우리의 선택과 결정은 우리가 만들어낸 의미뿐만이 아니라 우리가 처한 상황에 의해서도 제약을 받는다. 순자가 어느 정도 의미의 구심성을 메를로 퐁티만큼 의식하고 있었는지 정확히 가늠하기 힘들다. 다만, 「정명」, 「해폐」 등의 내용을 고려한다면 순자는 의미 부여에서 인간의 의식과 언어의 기능을 신뢰하는 듯하다. (shrink)

By analyzing Zhu Xi and Zhang Zai’s three representative explanatory paradigms—that of Feng Youlan, Mou Zongsan and Zhang Dainian, the paper tries to show that studying Chinese philosophy in a Western way and emphasizing logical consistency will unavoidably lead to the defects of simplicity and partiality. In addition to Buddhism and Daoism, Song-Ming philosophy had also absorbed thoughts from the Pre-Qin, Han, Wei and Jin dynasties. The existence of multiple philosophical thoughts and their new synthesis lead to internal contradictions in (...) Song-Ming philosophy and Li Xue 理学 (Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming dynasties). The contradiction between the doctrine of tiandao 天道 (the way in which the world runs) and that of xinxing 心性 (mind and human nature) was even sharper. Li Xue and Xin Xue also overlapped one another. The transition from the doctrine of tiandao to that of xinxing was a long journey. It was begun by Zhu Xi in his later years, and was finally completed by Wang Yangming. Unveiling the complexity and special characteristics of Song-Ming philosophy is a task for scholars on the history of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

I look at the debates of the status of Newton's laws, whether they can each, or all together be considered emprical or a priori.

이 논문은 고대 『주역』 연구의 일환으로서 『주역』 경문에 보이는 ‘중’자의 원의를 규명하고 그것이 『역전』의 성립에 의해 어떻게 해설되고 또한 변용을 이루며 전개되어갔는가를 사상사의 특 속에서 밝히려는 것이다. 그리고 이를 통해 『주역』의 유교경전화과정의 한 측면을 새롭게 고찰하고자 하는 것이다. 전국시대의 『주역』은 점서를 위한 서책이었으며, 그 ‘중’도 사상성이 없는 ‘중간’ ‘도중’의 의미만을 지닌 것이었지만, 전국시대 말기가 되자 『역전』이 성립하고 『주역』의 경전화가 진행됨에 따라 그 의미에도 사상성이 포함되었고, 마침내 천하를 통치하는 최고 덕목의 하나로 완성되었다. 「단전」「상전」은 ‘중’의 개념 속에 인도(人道) 뿐만 아니라 천도(天道), 지도(地道), (...) 신도(神道)의 성격을 포함시켜 『주역』의 성인을 인간계와 자연계를 아우르는 존재로 부각시켰다. 이러한 ‘중’의 의미는 원래의 유가에는 없었던 사상으로 그 의미의 변화는 『역전』의 성립과 밀접한 관련을 맺는다. ‘중’을 통해 『역전』의 성립과정도 추측 가능하게 되었는데 즉 산재하였던 역설(易說)을 수집하여 전국시대 말기에서 전한초기에 이르는 시기에 종합적인 『역전』(마왕퇴백서 『역전』)이 성립되었고, 그 후 「계사」편을 중심으로 백서 『역전』을 재구성하여 현행본 「계사전」이 성립되었으며, 차례차례로 「문언전」⋅「단전」⋅「상전」도 성립하기에 이르렀다고 생각된다. 이러한 『역전』의 성립과정은 유가가 『주역』을 자신의 것으로 하는 과정이기도 하였다. 이렇게 유가는 원래 가지고 있던 사회윤리사상 위에 『주역』의 주술성도 겸비하게 되어 이 주술성의 겸비가 유교국교화의 중요 요인의 하나가 되었다고 생각된다. (shrink)

As Stanley Cavell has critiqued Christianity for displacing authority from the individual to somewhere beyond critical assessment, so several Christian theologians have also turned to Wittgenstein to justify just such displacement. This article suggests that both offer theologically impoverished and historically inattentive accounts of authority. It aims instead to sketch five moments in the Christian tradition to suggest five ways of naming the intimacy of religious authority with individual critical assessment. Such intimacy is then theologically described through the doctrinal loci (...) of creation and incarnation, which generate a picture of authority surprisingly near to one Cavell might want to celebrate. (shrink)

This article explores the background of the document ‘Christian witness in a multi-religious world’ to ask how the significance of the death of Jesus Christ can be communicated in the context of religious plurality in India. Traditional approaches to the death of Christ are presented as well as dialogical approaches testing them against the recommendation of the document that Christian witness in a pluralistic world includes engaging in dialogue with people of different religions and cultures.