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Conceptual engineering takes a distinctively normative and reconstructive approach to our conceptual repertoire. This approach is congenial to the ideas defended by philosophers belonging to the multifaceted tradition of American and Cambridge Pragmatism. This special issue is devoted to the investigation and development of these connections. Our introduction maps some of the historical and theoretical entanglements between the two fields and gives a short overview of the contributions to the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatists are interested primarily not in representing a purportedly unchanging Reality but in articulating prophetic future possibilities on the basis of the values most venerated by a culture/society in the present. This makes pragmatism sound a little like 'Conceptual Engineering'. Conceptual engineers too are interested in transforming our ways of talking, which implies some notion of how such improvements are to be evaluated. Nevertheless, this paper argues that accounts of conceptual engineering that regard it as key to the project of elucidating an externalist semantics find it difficult to accommodate on their own terms the problem-phenomena taken to be of shared interest: regions of discourse where the demand for change are at their most pressing culturally. This difficulty takes the form of what I call the Conceptual Engineering Dilemma (CED), an inability to accommodate simultaneously the ethical and ameliorative dimensions of contestation. I argue that acknowledging the formalist commitments that undergird CED should make pragmatism more appealing to the practically-orientated analytic philosopher and conclude with a brief survey of some of the tools that it makes available for the pressing work of changing minds for the better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In strom. V.9.1 and strom. V.14.103–106, Clement of Alexandria presents opinions (doxai) of Greek philosophers regarding 'eschatology'. By making use of so-called doxographies (i.e. the collection of philosophical opinions on a particular topic), Clement employs a popular method in contemporary philosophical debate. In this article, I will show how Clement reinterprets philosophers' opinions and modifies them to construct a philosophical proof for (Christian) eschatology. It allows him to make controversial topics such as 'final judgement' and 'resurrection' more plausible to his philosophically educated readers, as according to him, these ideas have already been discussed and confirmed by several well-known philosophers (Heraclitus, Empedocles, Plato and the Stoics). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can large language models produce expert‐quality philosophical texts? To investigate this, we fine‐tuned GPT‐3 with the works of philosopher Daniel Dennett. To evaluate the model, we asked the real Dennett 10 philosophical questions and then posed the same questions to the language model, collecting four responses for each question without cherry‐picking. Experts on Dennett's work succeeded at distinguishing the Dennett‐generated and machine‐generated answers above chance but substantially short of our expectations. Philosophy blog readers performed similarly to the experts, while ordinary research participants were near chance distinguishing GPT‐3's responses from those of an "actual human philosopher". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential philosophers have suggested that interdisciplinarity is crucial for ecosystem management and scientific practice, and for education to democracy. However, a historical review of the rise of disciplines points at their compartmentalization in schools. An analysis of core construct categories of three disciplines, shows that this compartmentalization may decrease when dialogic argumentation is enacted. This background led us to launch an interdisciplinary program in schools. In previous publications, we identified multiple constraints in its implementation and listed design principles for affording interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation. We adopt a narrative approach to analyze classroom talk, and ask whether and how interdisciplinary processes emerge in this talk. Students maintain dialogic argumentation around Interdisciplinary Social Dilemmas, but guidance is necessary for integrating knowledge from different disciplines. When the teacher is attentive to student's unarticulated references to disciplinary ideas, she may subtly guide the emergence of interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation. Often, the teacher misses those opportunities and declaims the integration of knowledge in a non-dialogic talk. Dialogic Education is crucial for the success of interdisciplinary programs in schools, but the actual emergence of interdisciplinary processes depends on the handling of organizational and institutional constraints, on huge design efforts, and on subtle guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay an engineer and a philosopher, after many conversations, develop an argument for why the Aristotelian version of virtue ethics is the most promising way to develop what we call artificial moral, social agents, i.e. robots. This, evidently, applies to humans as well. There are several claims: first, that humans are not born moral, they are socialized into morality; second, that morality involves affect, emotion, feeling, before it engages reason; third, that how a moral being feels is related to some narrative, whether moral or not; and finally, that narrativity is what builds a sense of a "moral" I, namely an authorial moral self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes as its starting point the central place given to contradiction by Hermann Goldschmidt in his book Contradiction Set Free, and it compares his approach with that of the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch. At the same time as Goldschmidt, Jankélévitch also assigned a central role to contradiction in thought, so much so that he often referred to his own philosophical method as "paradoxology." For him, as for Goldschmidt, paradox is the driving force behind thought that is always on the move. This article presents the main features of Jankélévitch's paradoxology and illustrates it with two themes: forgiveness and Jewish identity. By highlighting this proximity between Goldschmidt's approach and that of Jankélévitch, I suggest that they are both part of a more general movement in continental philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century, one of whose main challenges was to rethink philosophical rationality in depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present an overview of the life and work of Donald MacCrimmon Mackay, a distinguished Christian polymath who made significant contributions across a number of domains in science and philosophy in the middle part of the 20th Century, and the centenary of whose birth was in 2022. After a brief biographical sketch, we will review his contribution to theology & science, the main ones of these being: complementarity, an innovative concept relating information and matter, and mind and brain; and logical indeterminism, a proposed solution to the problem of free will and determinism. I hope that this overview will stimulate interest in, and further exploration of, his ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will demonstrate that the best descriptor of Qohelet is divine hedonist, not absurdist, skeptic, pessimist, realist, nihilist or "Preacher of Joy." This will be done by examining the relationship between Qohelet's hebel -judgments and his carpe diem ethic and comparing Qohelet's strategy with that of philosopher David Hume. Qohelet's hebel -judgments serve to deconstruct the traditional formulation of the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang , opening space for legitimating his preferred ethic: the carpe diem. In other words, Qohelet rhetorically paints a dark and dreary world in order to buttress his main ethic, the carpe diem, an ethic that is both hedonistic (using philosophical classification) in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain (reflected in his God-fearing motif), and divine in that this ethic must align with God's mysterious decrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an important and timely book, Anneli Jefferson outlines a view according to which a given mental disorder is a brain disorder if it is a (harmful) mental dysfunction realised by a brain dysfunction. Prima facie, Jefferson's book is a study in the metaphysics of dysfunction: how does mental dysfunction relate to brain dysfunction, and what does this imply for the status of mental disorders and brain disorders? In what follows, I shall argue that Jefferson's contribution to this debate is better understood as a conceptual explication of how psychiatrists, some philosophers, scientists and clinicians in the field (broadly construed) think of the label 'brain disorder'. I infer this on the basis that Jefferson's thesis would not follow from any serious, well-worked out theory of proper function. Despite initial appearances, Jefferson's book about brain dysfunction is not about function at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the grounding theory of powers, fundamental physical properties should be thought of as qualities that ground dispositions. Although this view has recently been defended by many different philosophers, there is no consensus for how the view should be developed within a broader metaphysics of properties. Recently, Tugby has argued that the view should be developed in the context of a Platonic theory of properties, where properties are abstract universals. I will argue that the view should not be developed within such a framework. Either the view should be developed with an ontology of Aristotelian properties, or it should be developed in a Nominalist framework that contains no properties at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For philosophers, rights against the world are equivalent to rights in rem. Contrary to what Hart thought, however, this does not make them equivalent to general rights. Rights in rem contrast with rights in personam , whereas general rights contrast with special rights. As I explain, rights against the world can be either general rights or special rights. My explanation follows Waldron's strategy of exhibiting property rights as justified by Locke's theory of property as a case of rights in rem that are also special rights. Moreover, despite what ' in rem ' means in Latin, rights against the world include more than property rights. For example, they also include moral human rights. With moral human rights and property rights alike, the correlative duties are borne by 'everyone', understood in a dynamic sense I undertake to specify. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on defending the concept of genealogy as conceptual reverse-engineering, as presented in Matthieu Queloz's book. Topics include the tension between the retrospective focus on origins and the forward-looking nature of reverse-engineering, the relationship between history and naturalism in conceptual analysis, and the distinction between conceptual engineering and reverse-engineering.

When reasoning about dependence relations, philosophers often rely on gradualist assumptions, according to which abrupt changes in a phenomenon of interest can result only from abrupt changes in the low-level phenomena on which it depends. These assumptions, while strictly correct if the dependence relation in question can be expressed by continuous dynamical equations, should be handled with care: very often the descriptively relevant property of a dynamical system connecting high- and low-level phenomena is not its instantaneous behaviour but its stable fixed points (those in the vicinity of which it spends most of the time, after comparatively short transitory periods), and stable fixed points can change abruptly as a result of infinitesimal changes of the low-level phenomenon. We illustrate this potential gradualist trap by showing that Chalmers' fading qualia argument falls into it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the issue of standards in conceptual engineering. Topics include the historical development of the analytic philosophy approach to concepts, which views them as abstract entities or eternal essences, and the contrasting pragmatic view that concepts should be understood in relation to their practical consequences and use in specific circumstances.

The article offers information on the concept of "Pragmatic Genealogy" as a counter-tradition to abstract philosophical approaches. Topics include the philosophical project of understanding concepts like knowledge, truth, and justice through the Pragmatic Question of their purpose, rather than the Socratic Question of their nature.

This article aims to narrow down how literary reading can catalyze education through experience. To this end, it uses as a theoretical-methodological tool the problematization based on the studies of Michel Foucault (2006). Article writing is developed in three moments. In the first moment, based on the writings of Jorge Larrosa (2009, 2011, 2016), it approaches the concept of experience and pays attention to what can prevent it. In the second moment, it focuses on studies undertaken by Michel Foucault (2009, 2010, 2013) to tension the experience as that which can both constitute the subject and de-subjectivize it. Finally, a dialogue is established with works produced by the two philosophers mentioned, paying attention to the power that literary reading has to catalyze experiences in those who read. The exercise of thought that this article proposes is strengthened by the interlocutions that are established in it between philosophical references and literary works of different genres and times. It is hoped that the writing of this article will find other teachers and researchers in the educational field, provoking them to ally themselves with philosophy and literature in the invention of other ways of thinking and experiencing education that are not only scientific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because moral understanding involves a distinctly first-personal grasp of moral matters, there is a temptation to think of its value primarily in terms of achievements that reflect well on its possessor: the moral worth of one's action or the virtue of one's character. These explanations, I argue, do not do full justice to the importance of moral understanding in our moral lives. Of equal importance is the value of moral understanding in our relations with other moral agents. In particular, I argue that an understanding of moral matters is of central importance within relations of solidarity. In addition to highlighting an overlooked aspect of moral understanding's value, this view also has important implications for what solidarity requires of those who stand in that relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers struggle to explain why human beings with deep cognitive impairments have a higher moral status than certain non-human animals. Modal personism promises to solve this problem. It claims that humans who lack the capacities of "personhood" and the potential to develop them nonetheless could have been persons. I argue that modal personism has poor prospects because it's hard to see how we could offer a plausible account of modal personhood. I search for an adequate understanding of modal personhood by considering existing accounts and sketching new ones. But each account fails, either because it objectionably excludes some deeply cognitively impaired humans from the class of modal persons or because it makes modal personhood doubtfully relevant to moral status. And the modal personist cannot solve this problem by appealing to the misfortune suffered by modal persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There seems to be an emerging consensus among many philosophers of science that non-epistemic values ought to play a role in the process of scientific reasoning itself. Recently, a number of philosophers have focused on the role of values in scientific classification or taxonomy. Their claim is that a choice of ontology or taxonomic scheme can only be made, or should only be made, by appealing to non-epistemic or social values. In this paper, I take on this "argument from ontological choice," claiming that it equivocates on the notion of choice. An ontological choice can be understood either in terms of determining which taxonomic scheme is valid, or in terms of deciding which taxonomic scheme to deploy in a given context. I try to show that while the latter can be determined in part by social values, the former ought not to be so determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several philosophers have proposed an "algebraic" view of universals according to which there are operations from universals to universals. It is not obvious, nevertheless, how those operations should be interpreted, and what impact they have for the conditions of identity of universals. There are two main interpretations of the algebra of universals. On one hand, it has been interpreted as ways to "construct" complex universals. On the other hand, it has been interpreted as "morphisms" or "mappings", but not as something that "builds" complex universals from others more basic. In this paper, the comparative advantages of both conceptions are assessed and reasons are offered to prefer the second conception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Gareth B. Matthews' book, "The Child's Philosopher," which explores the Philosophy for Children movement. The book covers various themes, including philosophical communication with children, the relationship between Philosophy for Children and the history of philosophy, and the movement's engagement with cultural diversity. The article focuses on two main themes: developmental psychology and gender issues in Philosophy for Children. Matthews critiques stage theory and emphasizes valuing children's intellect and moral agency. The article raises concerns about potential oppression of children in philosophical discussions and the gendered experiences of adults and children. It also explores the dangers of gender bias in education, particularly in Philosophy for Children classes, and suggests countering it through story-based teaching and philosophical whimsy. The text concludes by emphasizing the importance of addressing gender bias in education and promoting inclusivity and equity. [Extracted from the article]

This article aims to serve as an introductory discussion of the European Continental tradition of pedagogics, specifically from a North American perspective. It begins with an overview of the Continental tradition and its main figures. Here, we find a philosophical and, thus, language‐sensitive attitude toward the human, the child; and a specific pedagogical terminology, i.e., descriptions and interpretations about the reality of education, such as educational practices, goals, norms, and organizational forms of educational institutions. John Dewey's educational theories exemplify the North American perspective on Continental pedagogics and its study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. Dewey's writings diverge notably from this tradition, as he integrated into his work American pragmatism and an interest in the scientific method, an interest that plays a role in today's policy trends in the United States and elsewhere. Then again, Dewey took a critical stand toward instrumentalizing pedagogics for political aims. On this point, the German‐born political philosopher Hannah Arendt agreed with him. As Arendt can be seen as an example of a Continental perspective on philosophy that includes a strong warning to separate politics and education, she relates to Dewey's argument against instrumentalization. Thus, this article also features some of her work. The overall intention is to contribute to a renewal of a language for pedagogics by delineating a historical‐philosophical perspective on this specific field of professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary debate on free will, most philosophers assume that the defense of libertarianism implies the defense of the notion of alternative possibilities. This article discusses this presupposition by showing that it is possible to build a libertarianism without alternative possibilities, apparently more robust than libertarianism with alternative possibilities. Inspired by Bergson, this nonclassical libertarianism challenges the idea that all causation implies the actualization of a predetermined possibility (an idea shared by determinism and classical libertarianism). Moreover, it challenges the idea that free will is a mere choice between prefixed possibilities: for this libertarianism, free will is the result of a creative process of the mind—an entirely causal process whose outcome is not, however, predetermined. This nonclassical libertarianism describes the process of forming a will in a more realistic way than classical libertarianism does. Furthermore, it is not threatened by the problem of chance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That there is a "crisis of peer review" at the moment is not in dispute, but sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the normative potential that lies in current calls for reform. In contrast to approaches to "fixing" the problems in peer review, which tend to maintain the status quo in terms of professionalising opportunities, this paper addresses the needs of philosophers and how peer‐review reform can be an opportunity to improve the academic discipline of philosophy, whereby progress is understood as making the discipline more fair to the global academic community and more conducive to the flourishing of academic philosophers. The paper evaluates recent categories of relevant norms and correlating reforms. In conclusion, it recommends that philosophy pursue the norms of transparency and democracy explicitly when proposing peer‐review reform and suggest that proposals for forum‐based models of peer review are most likely to support those norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unbridled individualism and the neoliberalism that has been its biggest booster in the last four decades has propagated the conviction, only recently challenged, that hypertechnology is the pinnacle of humankind's aspirations and represents its future. This brief talk is a philosophical reflection about what it means to be human today, in an attempt to question the supposed infallibility of the technological project. The reflection draws on the cultural matrices of the original or autochthonous peoples of Mesoamerica, within the framework of the 19th-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's thinking, which prefigured existentialism, and the technological scenario envisioned by the European philosopher Günther Anders (1902-1992). With these pieces we attempt to cobble together a modest body of ideas to contribute to the debate among thinkers and researchers from a wide range of disciplines (including ethnologists, historians, sociologists and psychologists) about the hypertechnological future of humanity. Our reflection aims to shed light on modern society's blind, headlong rush into the technological project and the pressing need to recalibrate human existence at more natural scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Finnis's central role in Brexit was only the latest intervention in a long life of practical action that recommends a closer examination of the genesis of his distinctive philosophy. He always insisted that it was intended 'primarily to assist the practical reflections of those concerned to act, whether as judges or as statesmen or as citizens.' In this article, I argue that Finnis crafted his philosophy as a practical guide for conservative actors in the disenchanted Cold War world of the 1960–70s. My first aim is to excavate the theoretical foundations of his Thomist theory of natural law. While his turn to practical rather than speculative reason is well known, few if any appreciate how Finnis radically refounded Thomist natural law on an implicit theory of history. By accepting that the world was historically contingent and changing, he needed to show how we could know the timeless truth of practical reasonableness and the basic goods. In the final chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights, Finnis introduced an 'abysmal' philosophy of history that explained how a spoudaios (wise man) could reason his way out of the historical contingency of the human world to access the timeless moral truths that transcended it. My second aim is to show how Finnis used his Thomist theory of natural law as a practical guide for action in our contingent world. He followed Eric Voegelin in describing humanity as two 'hostile camps' – the 'transcendental' Christians and their secular allies versus the 'immanentist' liberals, communists, and fascists all committed to 'consequentialist' ideologies. In this eternal battle of good versus evil, Finnis saw his philosophy as a practical guide for this 'creative minority' of transcendentalists for collective action against the heretical faith of immanentist movements aiming to perfect mankind and build heavens on earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-Efficacy from Being-Touched What is self-efficacy? I would like to discuss this question using a clinical example. While using the case vignette, I first examine the life movements of the preverbal phase and distinguish receptivity from passivity. From an Adlerian perspective I distinguish the life movement of selfefficacy from ego activity. Being moved and touched is considered from the perspective of life phenomenology. From this philosophical perspective I study self-efficacy in the therapeutic approach of the Italian psychoanalyst Gianni Nebbiosi and develop a definition from it. The final point is a contemplation of the »Event«, a term of the philosopher John D. Caputo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pierre Hadot is best known as a historian of ancient philosophy and for advocating the relevance of ancient thinking for contemporary lives. What is less well known is that he was one of the first French philosophers to take a serious interest in the work of Wittgenstein, publishing between 1959 and 1962 two essays on the Tractatus and two on the Philosophical Investigations, since republished as Wittgenstein et les limites de langage (Paris: J. Vrin, 2010). Only two of these essays are available (and not widely) in English translation. Part of my goal is to argue that they deserve the attention of anglophone readers. My focus here is on Hadot's remarks about the Philosophical Investigations. Hadot argues that this work produces a self‐defeating paradox because it claims that we can speak intelligibly only within a language‐game, but Wittgenstein, like the philosophers he criticises, tries to transcend language‐games in the presentation of his views. Despite this criticism, Hadot is inspired by Wittgenstein's discussion of the multiplicity of language‐games to argue that the texts of ancient philosophy are not part of the same language‐game as those of modern philosophy and must be approached as 'spiritual exercises', rather than as bodies of doctrine or theory. Wittgenstein is thus a key inspiration for Hadot's historiographical method. I argue that Hadot is too impressed by a faulty analogy between the Tractatus and the Investigations and that he gives a problematically reductive interpretation of Wittgenstein's talk of language‐games and implausibly attributes to Wittgenstein a reverence for 'the ordinary' that supposedly takes the place of his earlier wonder at the existence of the world. Many commentators since Hadot have made similar errors, so his case remains instructive. I conclude by suggesting, nonetheless, that something like Hadot's proposals about historiographical method may be justified by a better reading of the Investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the historical reception of China by European thinkers from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, challenging the traditional dichotomy of "sinophilia" and "sinophobia." It focuses on the perspectives of Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, proposing a nuanced understanding that transcends simplistic categorizations.

The article describes the places visited by Pausanias, such as Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum in Athens, Ephesus, Samos, Clazomenae, Elea, Miletus, and Corinth. Three ways of understanding and instituting life are mentioned as alternatives to the repetition that leads to absurdity and suicide: the Athenian philosophical way, the Spartan military way, and the cunning Corinthian way. The influence of Pausanias on philosophers like Albert Camus is highlighted through anthropological authors like Frazer and essayists like Chateaubriand. Additionally, several places related to Greek philosophy are mentioned, such as Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum in Athens, Ephesus, Samos, Clazomenae, Elea, and Miletus. Different versions of the myth of Sisyphus and his punishment by the gods are also presented. [Extracted from the article]

This paper aims to consider the ontological status of fictional objects by confronting two traditions: the Philosophy of language and New Realism. According to a widespread philosophical tradition, intentional objects do not exist; however, negative existential statements pose many challenges to logic, most of them condensed in the expression: Plato's beard, so efforts are required to understand the problem. To conduct this consideration, we begin by mentioning Pegasus, as an example of a fictional object, and we show the ordinary difficulties raised by asking about its existence, even more, by denying its existence. Subsequently, we indicate how the problem acquired a philosophical dimension. Next, some works of two philosophers belonging to the analytic current are explored: Quine and Searle, who respond to the problem of the non-existence of fictional objects or discourse; in turn, in the following section, two perspectives coming from the New Realism are presented, represented by Benoist and Gabriel, who place the discussion in the ontological terrain and confront the problem without eluding it in questions about language. The main result of this work consists in rethinking the concept of existence and extending its consequences to epistemological and ontological discussions in the human sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore some enlightening alternative economic theories in Plato's Republic which help to cast doubt on standard models of rationality in economics. Starting from Socrates' suggestion that things work best if everyone says 'mine' about the same things, I discuss a kind of 'belonging' which merits more attention in political and economic theory. This kind of belonging is not about owning property, but it can (better) explain the desire to do things for others and for the collective good. But did Socrates forget to invoke it when addressing the puzzle about why the philosopher would willingly return to the cave? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teología is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina 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.)

The purpose of this study was to find out whether the violent behavior of human beings is the product of their nature, or it is the nurture or atmosphere that forces them to engage in evil acts. Earlier on, this contrast had been touched by psychologists, philosophers, and researchers, but no one has explored this concept in Golding’s use of diction in “Lord of the Flies." Through qualitative research methods, I have tried to explore the diction used by William Golding in his novel Lord of the Flies, in which he depicts that evil is in the nature of man, but civilization has masked it. When free from societal constraints, humans' natural impulse towards evil emerges, causing them to behave like beasts. These findings may help future researchers to delve deeper into understanding how different aspects of nurture, such as upbringing and social environment, impact the inherent evil nature of individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Church in the World / Crkva u Svijetu is the property of University of Split, Catholic Faculty of Theology 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.)

The present study aims to find out the existential elements in the Selected Characters of The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Further, the study analyzes the existential themes of freedom, choices, and bad faith as presented by the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The Selected characters are Friar, The Summoner, The Wife of Bath, and The Knight. Chaucer's The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales though written in the fourteenth century, has universal appeal. The themes, dilemmas, and conflicts presented through the fourteenth-century characters are for all ages. These characters have traces of being existential characters. Existentialism as a theory or philosophy emphasizes the importance of freedom and choices made by man. Chaucer's character which comprises of different classes, professions, and gender assert their sense of freedom in many ways and hence falls either into the category of being-in-itself or being-for-itself. Existentialism is used as a methodological framework for the textual analysis of the Prologue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to understand the difference between Expressionist Theory and Objectivist Theory of Art and critically evaluate the importance of both of them. There have been many theories in Art. The Expressionist Theory can be considered as the most popular one. Croce and Collingwood are two major representatives of this theory. According to this theory, Art is basically the self-expression of the artist shared by others. In 20th Century Karl R. Popper raised some serious objections against the Expressionist Theory and presented his own theory of Art called the Objectivist Theory. The study is fundamentally theoretical and qualitative in nature and the original writings of Collingwood, Kant and Popper are used. Finally, it has been concluded that this theory is outstanding from the point of view of an artist but has certain limitations, if we analyze it from the point of view of a philosopher and a metaphysician. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Philosophy, Culture & Political Science is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University 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 essay examines the ways in which French director Céline Sciamma subverts the hierarchical trope of the artist and the muse through a queering of power dynamics in her 2019 historical-drama film Portrait de la jeune fille en feu. Drawing on the work of philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Byung-Chul Han to analyse the functions of "otherness" and "sameness" in dynamics of erotic desire and aesthetic pleasure in viewing, this essay posits that Portrait, through its purposefully ambiguous ending and radical reworking of the hierarchies of viewing, disrupts dominant assumptions of both gender and subjectivity to call instead for fluidity and potential in power dynamics between artists and muses, and viewer and screen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like most issues within the philosophical realm there are controversies surrounding the nature and subject matter of philosophical logic and philosophy of logic. While some philosophers on the one hand see philosophical logic as using logic as a tool to deal with philosophical problems and take philosophy of logic as a self-check method whereby the tools of logic itself are critically analysed, others on the other hand see no distinction between both. For instance, Susan Haack supports the latter position that there is no clear distinction between both fields while A.C. Grayling and Dale Jacquette are adherents of the former position. This paper attempts an expository analysis of the characteristics of both philosophical logic and philosophy of logic. It argues that though there are basic distinctions in their features, there are points of intersection which makes them co-relevant in the development of logic, philosophy and other related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pursuit of scientific truth has long engaged philosophers of science. Miriam Solomon’s work in Social Empiricism introduces "Whig realism," which proposes that empirical success in science reflects some underlying truths within theories. This paper examines Solomon’s argument and discusses its response to a traditional scientific realism argument. I then critique Solomon’s treatment of decision vectors and their usage in determining when dissent is normatively appropriate. I conclude that, while Solomon’s framework provides some insights into the dynamics of scientific progress, concerns arise regarding its application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Babylon Center for Humanities Studies is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) 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 is a book review of "Dansul măștilor. Nietzsche și filosofia interpretării" (The Dance of Masks. Nietzsche and the Philosophy of Interpretation) by George Bondor. The reviewer discusses how Bondor explores the concept of interpretation in Nietzsche's philosophy, arguing that interpretation is the act as such of the will to power. The reviewer highlights Bondor's emphasis on the non-metaphysical nature of the will to power and its role in constructing reality. The review concludes by acknowledging the complexity of Bondor's work and its significance in understanding Nietzsche's thought. [Extracted from the article]

Critics often suggest that Socrates' portrait of the philosopher's inspired madness in his second speech in Plato's Phaedrus is incompatible with the other types of divine madness outlined in the same speech, namely poetic, prophetic, and purificatory madness. This incompatibility is frequently taken to show that Socrates' characterisation of philosophers as mad is disingenuous or misleading in some way. While philosophical madness and the other types of divine madness are distinguished by the non-philosophical crowd's different interpretations of them, I aim to show that they are not, in fact, presented as incompatible. Socrates' pair of speeches demonstrates that madness can be divided into harmful and beneficial kinds, and in Socrates' key discussion of philosophical madness (249c4-e4), I argue that the crowd correctly recognises that the philosopher is mad on the basis of his eccentricity, but wrongly assumes that the philosopher's madness is of the harmful type because it fails to realise that the philosopher is enthused. Socrates' second speech provides information about human souls and gods which shows that philosophical madness belongs to the beneficial type and so falls under the heading of divine enthusiasm after all. Importantly, human souls and gods are shown in the speech to be roughly isomorphic. Both philosophical and other kinds of divine madness involve having something divine inside a human body (entheos): in the former a human soul has become godlike; in the latter a human soul has been displaced by a god. Because of this, I propose that philosophy is presented as a genuine form of divine madness alongside the other more conventional examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on privileged image of the philosopher. Topics include first-person ascesis of Cartesian doubt through Kant's depredication of existence, to Nietzsche's imputation of grammatical structures underpinning the hypostases of metaphysics, and beyond; and disregard of negation in its expression of contraries, as well as for its overlooked ubiquity in almost every exchange.

The role of associations in political life is a long-standing interest for American political theorists. Typically, a vibrant associational life is understood to support democratic institutions and guard against tyranny. Another function, one that has received increased philosophical attention, is the space associations provide for marginalized groups to furnish distinct concepts and vocabularies capable of capturing their members' experiences of oppression. However, in this article, I draw on James Baldwin's reflections regarding the rising popularity of the Nation of Islam, to argue that philosophers should not overlook either the deleterious effects of injustice on people's capacities, even when aggregated into associations, to effectively capture the realities of their oppression or the complex ways in which even morally repugnant hermeneutical resources can usefully serve an association's practical causes. It is therefore necessary to develop additional, more ambivalent evaluative standards to capture the complex knot of epistemic and political functions associations perform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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