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A prevalent assumption in metaethics is that people believe in moral objectivity. If this assumption were true then people should believe in the possibility of objective moral progress, objective moral knowledge, and objective moral error. We developed surveys to investigate whether these predictions hold. Our results suggest that, neither abstractly nor concretely, people dominantly believe in the possibility of objective moral progress, knowledge and error. They attribute less objectivity to these phenomena than in the case of science and no more, or only slightly more, than in the cases of social conventions and personal preferences. This finding was obtained for a regular sample as well as for a sample of people who are particularly likely to be reflective and informed (philosophers and philosophy students). Our paper hence contributes to recent empirical challenges to the thesis that people believe in moral objectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herd behavior is a very well-known concept that was introduced by the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were among the first to condemn what they called "the crowd" and "herd morality" and the "herd instinct" in human civilization. Herd behavior in humans has been established by contemporary psychology and economic studies to explain the phenomena of many individuals responding in the same way simultaneously. The term "herd behavior" was made famous by British physician Wilfred Trotter in his 1914 book, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. Many years ago, till now scholars were using this term in many fields related to economics, finance, and marketing to study the behavior of individuals. In my research, I will focus on a literature review to show what the schoolers found related to herd behavior and I will focus mainly on herd behavior that related to herd behavior was included massively in behavioral economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rhetorik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Trans/Form/Ação is the property of Trans/Form/Acao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Shmuel Nili's Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory is a thought-provoking book, calling philosophers to arms in the effort of containing the spread of 'unreasonable' views characterising many contemporary societies. Nili argues that philosophers can play a distinctive role by arguing from premises they reject to show how those presumptions do not lead to upholding the 'repugnant' policies their interlocutors back up. This paper focuses on a distinction that is key to Nili's argument, i.e. that between 'repugnant' and 'non-repugnant' unreasonable policies. According to Nili, philosophers should be under no obligation to engage discursively in the way he envisions when their interlocutors support policies that are repugnant, i.e. they clearly violate universal human equality. The paper argues that it does not make sense to treat repugnant unreasonable views as normatively different from non-repugnant premises. The repugnant/non-repugnant distinction is untenable and too subject to 'reasonable' disagreement to offer concrete normative guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Análisis Filosófico is the property of Sociedad Argentina de Analisis Filosofico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper deals with the debates over kālamṛtyu ("timely death" or human death at the end of the life span) and akālamṛtyu ("untimely death" or premature death that occurs when the life span still remains). In cultural areas like ancient India, where the karman doctrine or the law of karman is firmly rooted, such "timely death" and "untimely death" have seemed to be the catalysts for the philosophical and ethical debates. Assuming that a person's life itself would be affected by the person's past karmans, each life span and death of individual persons would have been predetermined by their past karmans, and consequently, any efforts for preserving or prolonging life span in this world would have no meaning. If it were so, in the first place, does the karman doctrine leave room for "untimely death"? This paper discusses how Buddhist literature, especially the Questions of King Milinda (Milindapañha), and the Āyurvedic literature approach the above issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article's question is whether Spinoza understands the highest human perfection – which he equates with both our highest good and the love of God – as a theoretical state, consisting in having knowledge and the perfection of beliefs, or as a practical state, consisting in having virtue and the perfection of action. Consequently, the article is also partly about how Spinoza understands moral education, that is, whether the education necessary for achieving the highest human perfection is fundamentally theoretical or practical in nature. The article answers this question by considering Spinoza's view of the highest good in the context of Maimonides and Crescas. The article argues that Spinoza adopts elements of both philosopher's views, including Crescas's view that the highest good must also be a practical state of virtue, which means that Spinoza must understand moral education as resulting in the perfection of action as well as knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Sciences Studies is the property of Social Sciences Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Hundreds of books have been written about Deleuze, but although many prominent philosophers and schools of philosophy have inherited from him, no single philosopher has emerged as the primary inheritor of Deleuze's project. The Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers could serve as one conceptual persona among others playing such a role. Stengers refers to Deleuze in all but one of her fourteen books which have so far been translated into English, especially in The Invention of Modern Science, Cosmopolitics and Thinking with Whitehead, and this article 'thinks with' Stengers as she thinks with Deleuze through most of her references to his work over four decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista SAAP is the property of Sociedad Argentina de Analisis Politico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article reconstructs the influence of Jesuit missionary writings focusing on China on the emergence of a distinctive conception of toleration. The article highlights the often neglected contributions of Pierre Bayle. After a brief reconstruction of key elements of the Sino‐European encounter, such as the Kangxi Emperor's edict of toleration, the paper describes how Bayle's interpretation of the China Mission contributed to a critique of religious persecution in France and enabled him to develop a defense of a rationalist approach to toleration. The article demonstrates that Bayle's knowledge of China and his methodology of intercultural changes in perspective contributed to the development of an original conception of reciprocal toleration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the significance of engaging in intercultural reversals of perspectives by reconstructing Voltaire's reflections on the relationship between China and Europe. It highlights the ensuing ethics of universal religious tolerance in this civilizational comparison. Voltaire employed China as a heuristic model primarily to criticize the intolerance and fanaticism of French Catholics. He also used the methodology of intercultural reversals of perspectives to articulate his arguments for universal religious toleration. This paper's focus on the philosophical reception of China reveals the emergence of what we call "intercultural self‐critique" and an important conception of religious toleration during the European Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset not only emphasized the importance of the Greek tradition as it applies to modern philosophy; he also insisted on demonstrating how it inspired his own philosophical project. He believed the pre-Socratic philosophers, Parmenides and Heraclitus, were the first to develop a rational basis for the thinking process and attempted to show a dynamic continuum of this tradition up to the present. His concern was to protect this heritage from the challenges of scientific positivism and postmodernism. This article will examine five key works by Ortega that deal with the Spanish philosopher's early concept of la razón vital (vital reason), the development of la razón histórica (historical reason), historical methodology, dialectical thinking, and his understanding of the emergence of philosophy in ancient Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian realists argue for the unique claim that universals are perceptible. The possibility of allowing perceptual access to universals puts pressure on the Nyāya theory of perception. The Nyāya philosophers introduced the notion of nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa (non-conceptual perception) to accommodate the perceptibility of universals. Since there is no direct introspective evidence for non-conceptual perception, it is difficult, if not impossible, to specify the content of nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa or non-conceptual perception. This paper addresses this concern by turning to Ned Block's work in contemporary philosophy of perception. Using Block's arguments, I propose that we have an independent empirical route to specify the content of a non-conceptual perception which is not subject to the ‘myth of the given’ objection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to many philosophers, “the meaning of life” refers to our cosmic purpose, the activity that we were created by God or a purposive universe to perform. If there is no God or teleology, there is no such thing as the meaning of life. But this need not be the last word on the matter. In this paper, I ask what the benefits provided by a cosmic purpose are, and go on to argue that thinking of our lives in a particular way—in terms of a unified life narrative—can supply us with many of those benefits. We might lose little if there is no such thing as the meaning of life, since there is still something that can provide much of what is valuable about it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT War is bad for the environment, yet the environmental ramifications of warfare have not been widely addressed by just war theorists and revisionist philosophers of war. The law and legal scholars have paid more attention to protecting nature during armed conflict. But because the law focuses invariably on rules mitigating the conduct of hostilities rather than on objective justice of cause, environmental jus ad bellum has been explored even less extensively than environmental ethics in war. Setting out with the presumption against the use of force and its exceptions, this article considers whether environmental harm can trigger a new justification for war, at whose behest, and what might be a proportionate response to aggressive or negligent harm to nature. Force is clearly justified against military attacks. Where environmental harm is not caused by military aggression, proportionality points towards a response short of war. Full‐scale warfare will likely be counterproductive in protecting nature. This is less true if war is fought by drones destroying specific targets, or by cyber‐war, or by alternatives (or supplements) to war such as boycotts, ‘lawfare’, and ‘information/media warfare’. Responding in ways that minimize harm to nature also helps demonstrate ‘right intention’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the problem of how to elucidate the concept of nonsense. Viewed from a general philosophical standpoint this matters because the concept is used by certain philosophers in their criticism of philosophical questions and theses. I start with a presentation of examples of utterances considered nonsense, along with Baier's classification of kinds of nonsense. I then present various approaches, pointing out that none of them are completely satisfactory. I subsequently propose an approach that is a modification of the austere conception: while consistent with the latter in that it treats nonsense as a lack of something, it differs by holding that a determination of the nature of various instances of nonsense can only be accomplished by examining how we show that some given utterance is nonsense. This approach places the emphasis on distinguishing the question of the meaninglessness of an utterance from the question of the incorrectness of linguistic expressions. The advantage of my conception is that on the one hand, it does not deny that there is an important non-psychological difference between philosophical nonsense and gibberish, while on the other it avoids the absurdity that philosophical utterances are nonsense because what they say is nonsensical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophical tradition holds that sounds, like colors, are sensible properties. Recently, however, there is a growing consensus in favor of the view that sounds are particulars, not properties. This article bucks the trend: it argues for the Event-Property View of Sounds – a widely overlooked and intuitively plausible version of the traditional view that not only avoids the difficulties that have led philosophers to opt for particularist alternatives, but does justice to the best insights of recent philosophical and empirical work on audition. In other words, it saves the truth in tradition by transforming it in light of new insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT According to the Theory of the Second Best, in non‐ideal circumstances, approximating ideals might be suboptimal (with respect to a specific interpretation of what “approximating an ideal” means). In this paper, I argue that the formal model underlying the Theory can apply to problems in epistemology. Two applications are discussed: First, in some circumstances, second‐best problems arise in Bayesian settings. Second, the division of epistemic labor can be subject to second‐best problems. These results matter. They allow us to evaluate the claim, made by many philosophers, that second‐best problems have import in epistemology (and the specific conditions under which the Theory finds applications). They also allow us to see that talk of “approximating an ideal” is ambiguous, and to clarify the conditions in which approximating an epistemic ideal might be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits Keynes’s essay titled ‘The economic possibilities for our grandchildren’, featuring Keynes both as a growth theorist and a moral and social philosopher of capitalism. We discuss the three broader trends identified by Keynes that he expected would come to characterize the socio-economic evolution of advanced countries under capitalism: first, continued technological progress and capital accumulation as the main drivers of exponential growth in economic possibilities; second, a gradual general rebalancing of life choices away from work; and third, a change in the code of morals in societies approaching an envisioned stationary state of zero net capital accumulation in which mankind has solved its economic problem and enjoys a lifestyle predominantly framed by leisure rather than disutility-yielding work. We assess actual outcomes by 2024 and attempt to peek into the future economic possibilities for this generation’s grandchildren. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Uriah Kriegel's recent work on the varieties of consciousness, I consider the question of how many irreducible and fundamental kinds of consciousness there are. This is the project of a fundamental classification of consciousness (C‐taxonomy), which will be approached with reference to two figures from the (early) phenomenological tradition, i.e., Franz Brentano and Alexander Pfänder. Both philosophers advocate tripartite taxonomies, thereby opposing the still widely held view that only algedonic and sensory phenomenology exist. After explaining the project of C‐taxonomy, I discuss Brentano's and Pfänder's trialisms. My main aim is to show that Pfänder's view, according to which consciousness is exhausted by “object‐consciousness”, feeling, and striving, when supplemented by Husserlian ideas, is to be preferred to Brentano's classification, according to which the basic mental kinds are mere presentations, judgments, and “phenomena of love and hate”. I criticize Brentano's separation of doxastically neutral presentations from “positing” judgments, as well as his unification of feelings, emotions, desires, strivings, decisions, and volitions into one basic class. Finally, I reflect on the deeper reasons for Brentano's and Pfänder's divergent taxonomies, which are rooted in their different views of the “mark of the mental” and their different approaches to the active/passive distinction within the mental realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the history of Western philosophy, debates about truth and error have continued to develop, reflecting diverse views that have emerged over time. The question of human nature became the center of intellectual attention, expanding philosophical study from speculation to fundamental thinking. Amid this context, Immanuel Kant emerged as a key figure who brought a new approach to philosophical inquiry. Although he spent his life in Koningsberg, his ideas in epistemology, anthropology, ethics, and education gained global recognition and made him one of the most influential philosophers of the modern era. However, his views have also drawn criticism, especially for the inconsistencies that are perceived to support dogmatism, although he originally intended to criticize it. This research analyzes Kant's thought, especially about the limits of human knowledge, metaphysics, and criticism of dogmatism. The method used is qualitative text analysis, which examines Kant's main work, "Critique of Pure Reason," as well as the views of other philosophers. Primary and secondary literature is reviewed to identify inconsistencies in Kant's arguments. The results show that although Kant's philosophical system has made an outstanding contribution, there are significant areas for improvement in the handling of metaphysical concepts and the limits of knowledge, which ultimately has the potential to fall into dogmatism. This study concludes that Kant's thought remains relevant and essential, but it needs to be reread critically to fully understand its impact on modern philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing narrative in the history of science maintains that the ancient Greeks did not have a concept of a 'law of nature'. This paper overturns that narrative and shows that some ancient Greek philosophers did have an idea of laws of nature and, moreover, they referred to them as 'laws of nature'. This paper analyzes specific examples of laws of nature in texts by Plato, Aristotle, Philo of Alexandria, Nicomachus of Gerasa, and Galen. These examples emerged out of the closely intertwined Platonic and Pythagorean traditions, and these philosophers' texts make reference to laws of nature when describing arithmetical methods, arithmological doctrines, or medical theories. Nicomachus' laws of nature are especially noteworthy, because they have features that historians look for in the search for the origin of the modern concept of laws of nature. Nicomachus' laws of nature are mathematical, universal, and necessary. This paper raises the possibility that the ancient Platonic and Pythagorean traditions influenced the subsequent development of the idea of laws of nature in medieval and early modern Europe, including the conception of laws of nature deployed by Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should we, as philosophers, respond to the pure moral testimony of people in marginalized positions? Some philosophers argue that marginalized people have an epistemic advantage concerning their experiences of marginalization, such that, if we are non‐marginalized, then we should defer to their moral testimony concerning these experiences. We might accept this as a requirement for ordinary conversation but doubt that any such requirement obtains when we do philosophy, since philosophy requires a critical stance. This paper argues that philosophers should also defer in such cases. It concludes that non‐marginalized philosophers can only properly address certain moral propositions concerning the experiences of marginalized people if they engage in ongoing philosophical discussions with such people, starting from a position of trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtuous leadership is the focus of a growing body of academic literature but is little discussed by contemporary philosophers. Current treatments tend to over‐generalisation: assimilating diverse features to a few broad categories and applying simplified ethical theories. This essay argues that virtue and character education need to be keyed to specific activities, that "virtuous leadership" is in danger of being confused with extrinsic activism, and that the history of ethics in health care provides an instructive example of thinking ethically about practice. Questions commonly posed in the literature—What specific virtues are required for leadership? How may these be formed?—are unduly simple and often rest on faulty assumptions about the nature of leadership and of the structure of virtuous action. Philosophers engaged in advising professionals about the virtues of leadership would do well to consider how the relevant points apply to their own practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses John Betz's book Christ, The Logos of Creation: An Essay in Analogical Metaphysics, published in 2024. It focuses on Betz's exploration of the analogia entis, or analogy of being, within Christian theology, particularly drawing on the work of Jesuit theologian Erich Przywara and integrating insights from other influential philosophers and theologians such as Ferdinand Ulrich, William Desmond, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Two central questions concerning the role that persistent disagreements about philosophical, ethical, and religious issues in liberal societies are raised in this paper: (i) whether the state's authority may be justified on the basis of controversial views and (ii) whether the state may rely on controversial views when exercising authority. Many assume whatever motivates philosophers to respect disagreement in justifying the state--answering "no" to (i)--seems to also require the state to respect disagreement when it acts--answering "no" to (ii). Here I defend the consistency of answering "no" to (i) and "yes" to (ii), a position I call "political perfectionism." I argue, first, that one prominent reason for answering "no" to (i)--that citizens should be able to endorse the authority of the state--is consistent with answering "yes" to (ii) and, second, that the intuitions underlying why political liberals want citizens to be able to endorse the authority of the state can motivate answering "yes" to (ii). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disability as a human condition has aroused the interest of philosophers and theologians from ancient times, through the Middle Ages, to the present day. The article attempts to demonstrate the development and continuity of Christian views on the phenomenon of disability by examining the philosophical and theological thoughts of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. The hermeneutical analyses conducted in this article suggest that contrary to the position of theologian Brian Brock, Saint Augustine's thought concerning disabilities did not focus solely on the category of wonders. Moreover, Augustine's original openness to disability was not forgotten in the Middle Ages. There is a development in the understanding of disability in the texts of Augustine and Aquinas. It is possible to interpret in this way medieval theological texts referring to disability, as well as texts of Aristotle, which at that time returned to intellectual circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important activity in conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering involves proposing to associate a new semantics with an existing word. Many philosophers think that one important way to evaluate such a proposal concerns whether it preserves the "topic" picked out by the existing word, and several have offered competing proposals concerning what is required to preserve topic. Our paper is focused on the conceptual ethics question of how conceptual engineers should use the term 'topic continuity'. We provide and defend a context-sensitive answer to this question. Our answer is motivated by the idea that there are several distinct considerations that we can reasonably care about (and which many conceptual engineers already do care about) in thinking about "topic continuity", and, moreover, that how best to weigh them against each other can vary from context to context. On our proposal, 'topic continuity' can function as a useful representational device that enables coordination by inquirers with respect to these concerns. We conclude by locating our account in a broader way of thinking about topic continuity across a range of inquiries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meaning attributed to progress in Western thought has also led to debates on whether progress will end after a point. On this subject, different philosophers have put forward various theories that end and even freeze history. Francis Fukuyama was one of those who thought that the "end of history" had come and the "last man" model had emerged. This thesis has caused long-term discussions in social sciences. Fukuyama has made studies supporting the "end of history and the last man" thesis in his various works. Fukuyama's thesis of "the end of history and the last human" has gained a different dimension with approaches on "post-human/post-human", especially with the technological developments at the beginning of the 21st century. Transhumanism is the most well-known of these approaches, which have the ideal of transforming human beings into a technological being. Fukuyama, who was not indifferent to this situation, made studies that rejected and had to reject the most important approach of his scientific life. Fukuyama is now concerned about the development of natural sciences and technology, which he praised in his "last man" thesis. Because the scientific and technological developments, which he thought created the "last human" model, turned towards the ideal of bringing the end of the known human being. This causes Fukuyama to shift to an approach that rejects his thesis, and even worries about the point where the main arguments of his previous thesis have come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conversation, Beat Dietschy—Swiss philosopher, theologian, and collaborator of philosopher Ernst Bloch at Tübingen University—and Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, UK-based Argentinean scholar-activist, open Marxist, and critical feminist theorist—reflect on the potential of Bloch's analyses of fascism and Nazism to comprehend the present daring political moment of authoritarian expansion by the Far Right in different contexts and degrees, on one hand, and the strengthening of territorial, social, rural, urban, feminist, and indigenous movements to stop the worsening ecological crisis by creating new practices moved by hope, on the other hand. Their dialogue explores Bloch's notions of non-contemporaneity, non-simultaneity, multiversum, and multiple dialectics, elaborating on the plural contradictions of present social relations and class struggles (in a broad sense) against and beyond global capitalism. Finally, they enquire what kind of Marxism is required to decolonize current critical praxis and theory while navigating the pessimism of the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy," by James Garrison, is presented. It examines readings of texts by European philosophers featured in the book, the book as a critical response to Judith Butler's account of the psychodynamics of power, and Garrison's use of Confucian insights.

The authors examine the origins of the catuskoti and scholars' attribution of the catuskoti and catuskoti vinirmukta to the pre-Buddhist thinker Sañjaya Belatthiputta. Topics discussed include a description of catuskoti, the influence of the Sañjaya hypotheses on modern writing, and an introduction to Sañjaya as he appears in the Buddhist canon.

The purpose of this article is to analyze Dilthey's philosophical project. Our basic problem is why Dilthey wanted to constitute a theory of knowledge. Dilthey aimed to determine field of human sciences in terms of method by constituting a theory of knowledge. That is known as his philosophical project. He also criticized existing theories with a view to determining his own position. In this article, we will evaluate Dilthey's project in detail. German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey has made significant contributions in human sciences in the 19th Century, for this reason, he is considered the prominent representative of the human sciences. Dilthey aimed to separate the human sciences from the natural sciences and to determine the autonomous field of the humanities and social sciences. Dilthey emphasizes this purpose in detail in his work titled The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences, in which he attempts to ground the human sciences in terms of subject-matter and method. According to Dilthey, human beings have a life in which they become aware of their own existence. Hence, they participate in life with a view to understanding their existence. Dilthey thinks that inner experience can be understood historically, so he resorts to history in his theory of knowledge. He distinguishes between "Explanation" and "Understanding". According to him, while the concept of explanation belongs to natural sciences, the concept of understanding belongs to human sciences. Dilthey argues that there is the highest form of understanding. The highest form is to understand the whole itself which includes individual experiences by starting from individual experiences. According to him, best example of this form is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics enables human beings to understand themselves in structure to which they belong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I interpret the rich conceptual insights and empirical findings of the special issue Childhood, Migration and the Pursuit of Happiness in Middle‐Class East Asia through the lens of understanding migration as a journey of narrative quests. Drawing from moral philosopher McIntyre's theory of narrative self and the pursuit of a good life, I highlight the dialectic and dialogic aspects of 'narrative quests' across multiple cases of East Asian educational migration (educational migration broadly construed). I highlight key features, central themes and tensions of narrative quests among these migrant families. I also pose questions for expanding further inquiry under this theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this extension to Scribbling Towards Utopia, I concentrate on two authors who make their own utopian strivings key features of their work: William Morris, the English socialist, and John Dewey, the American philosopher and liberal educator. I also borrow ideas from Jasmine Ulmer's Writing Slow Ontology to suggest that our utopian hopes will, if ever, only be attained slowly and not quickly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I argue that Gilbert Ryle's 1949 The Concept of Mind owes much to the little-known work of Margaret Macdonald. In 1937, Macdonald presented to Ryle her expansion of the pragmatist ideas she found in C. S. Peirce and F. P. Ramsey: (1) beliefs are dispositions; (2) there is a distinction between knowledge how and knowledge that ; and (3) laws are inference tickets or rules with which we meet the future. It is my contention that Ryle drew on, without acknowledgment, Macdonald's presentation of these pillars of the pragmatist position. This argument will not only bring the superb analytic philosopher Margaret Macdonald back into the light where she belongs, but will also elaborate the important insights of pragmatism about generalizations, hypotheses, and causal laws, all of which remain influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthetic non-naturalism is the view that there are objective aesthetic truths that hold in virtue of sui generis facts. This view is seldom explicitly endorsed in philosophical aesthetics. I argue that many aestheticians should treat it as the view to beat, since (a) their commitments favour aesthetic realism, (b) non-naturalistic forms of aesthetic realism are particularly promising and (c) non-naturalists have reasonable answers to four important objections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the phenomenon of retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, in which the truth-value of a proposition in an established fictional work is changed later. The primary aim of this paper is to provide the most compelling explanation for retroactive continuity. I first defend the metaphysical view about fiction, according to which when retconning occurs, a fictional work changes its property of containing a proposition while preserving its identity. I then argue that this view is theoretically preferable to all other competing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I investigate statements in fiction that 'break the fourth wall' (i.e. statements through which a fictional character somehow acknowledges the fictionality of their world) and suggest that they are a mirror image of 'parafictional statements'—that is, reports on what is true in some fiction. I explore two possible analyses, according to which statements that break the fourth wall are either a type of fictional statement, or are a type of metafictional statement, and propose a synthesis of these two analyses. I discuss how the proposed analysis relates to different interpretative strategies for dealing with inconsistency in fiction and discuss several potential counterexamples to the proposed analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional hardcore and other music genres featuring screamed vocals are puzzling for the appreciator. The typical fan attaches appreciative value to musical screams of emotional pain, all the while acknowledging it would be inappropriate to hold similar attitudes towards their sonically similar everyday counterpart: actual human screaming. Call this the screamed vocals problem. To solve the problem, I argue we must attend to the anti-sublimating aims that get expressed in the emotional hardcore vocalist's choice to scream the lyrics. Screamed vocals help us see the value in rejecting (a) restrictive social norms of emotional expressiveness and (b) restrictive artistic norms about how one ought to express or represent pain in art—namely that if one is going to do so, one must ensure the pain has been 'beautified'. In developing this second point, I argue that emotional hardcore is well-suited (although not individually so) for putting pressure on longstanding views in the history of aesthetics about the formal relationship between art and human pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualism in natural aesthetics takes knowledge of natural objects to be necessary for their appropriate appreciation. Concentrating on animals, I explore a particular version of conceptualism – functionalism – in light of debates about the effects of cognition on perception - so-called 'cognitive penetration of perception.' I establish the claims about cognitive penetration to which functionalism is committed, and assess the implications of its assumptions for the normative claim that functional appreciation is most appropriate to nature. I argue that functionalism has not yet provided strong reasons for thinking that knowledge affects perception in the relevant ways, and in ways required by its normative claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his essay 'Of the Standard of Taste', Hume identifies two standards of taste: the general rules of art and the joint verdict of true judges. From this the following questions arise: Why did Hume present two standards? And, how should we understand the relation between them? We must first get a firmer grasp on each of the standards that Hume presents. Hence, this paper has two main goals. The first is to understand the general rules of art in the light of Hume's philosophical method, which is consonant with Newtonian methods of analysis and synthesis. The second is to provide a new interpretation of what Hume takes to be the joint verdict of true judges. In my interpretation, the joint verdict of true judges constitutes the standard of taste, not because their verdicts converge, but because their verdicts encompass blameless differences. With this new foundation for understanding the two standards, I will present my own reading of the relation between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a now-standard theory, 'Juliet is the sun' is supposed to be a 'pregnant' metaphor, ready at any moment to beget a sprawling heap of adorable semantic puppies. Its two parts—'Juliet' and 'the sun'—ostensibly meet at a virtually endless number of points, and it's allegedly illuminating, enjoyable, or at least interesting to sit there all day spelling them out. But what if none of that is true? What if, instead, a successful creative comparison tends to offer exactly two points of contact, the first of which makes it adequate, while the second gives it power? To put it metaphorically (as is only appropriate): such an image is neither an iceberg (à la Cavell) nor a simple triangle (à la Aristotle) but a tetrahedron, a muscle, a covalent bond. And the telos of such images isn't to transmit additional information but intensify, or disorient, or even—surprisingly—make us feel at home in this miserable world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay details that which is arguably the essential nature of a ubiquitous kind of visual display prominently involved in a great many phenomena that people have in mind when they think and talk about the cinema. My argument begins with a summary and critique of an important precedent, Noël Carroll's essentialist definition of the detached moving image display. The remainder of my discussion concentrates on the structure and dynamics of a particular sort of luminescent display. This display is essential to what I call the cinematic display. As I understand it, the cinematic display is neither the or a medium of cinema nor perforce a vehicle for artistic content. It is, rather, a luminescent display in service of someone's presentational intentions. I conclude with thoughts about the ontological relation between cinematic displays and works, the latter tentatively defined as a display of expressive or artistic agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is it for art-critical conversation to be productively and appropriately responsive to a work of fine art? Broadly, contemporary work on the nature and purpose of aesthetic discourse tends to prioritize one of two poles: the need for agreement in judgement and/or sensibility, and the flourishing of individuality through aesthetic response. I propose that these alternatives each express the legacy of Kantian and Schillerian thought, respectively. Furthermore, I argue that a favourable approach is available if we look to Friedrich Hölderlin's way of characterizing the kind of communication that can occur between friends. This is a framework that binds together a plurality of perspectives and voices with what it is for one's individuality to flourish in and through aesthetic response. Drawing on Hölderlin's thought, I submit Diversity-in-Unity as a norm on art-critical conversation. In art criticism, individual perspectives need to be reciprocally shaped in new and surprising ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyse the phenomenon of eeriness as a kind of strange aesthetic experience. Beginning with Fisher's insight (The Weird and the Eerie , 2017) that we can distinguish weirdness and eeriness from uncanniness, I offer an original account of eeriness. I argue that eeriness is the appearance of an underdetermination in the spatio-temporal location of objects of experience, relative to experiencing agent; this underdetermination results in a destabilisation of the "horizon of object-ivity" within which we make sense of the objects of appearance. This has the existential consequence of destabilising the subject's sense of being-in-the world. I ground the analysis in examples from both fictional and non-fictional contexts to indicate the generality of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marginalized people have used body aesthetic practices, such as clothing and hairstyles, to communicate their worth to the mainstream. One such example is respectability politics, a set of practices developed in post-Reconstruction black communities to prevent sexual assault and convey moral standing to the white mainstream. Respectability politics is an ambivalent strategy. It requires assimilation to white bourgeois aesthetic and ethical standards, and so guides practitioners toward blandness and bodily erasure. Yet, it is an aesthetic practice that cultivates moral agency and helps communities avoid violence and meet social and economic goals. I contrast respectability politics with the anti-assimilationist body aesthetics of Chike Jeffers and Janell Hobson. Because these accounts do not seek to neutralize or erase the body, they fundamentally value black people. As such, they more effectively convey personhood than assimilationist strategies do and also demonstrate the positive role that body aesthetics can play in everyday ethical projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]