Displaying: 201-220 of 745 documents

0.142 sec

201. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Ronald de Sousa Biological Individuality
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The question What is an individual? goes back beyond Aristotle’s discussion of substance to the Ionians’ preoccupation with the paradox of change -- the fact that if anything changes it must stay the same. Mere reflection on this fact and the common-sense notion of a countable thing yields a concept of a “minimal individual”, which is particular (a logical matter) specific (a taxonomic matter), and unique (an evaluative empirical matter). Individuals occupy space, and therefore might be dislodged. Even minimal individuals, therefore (Strawsonian individual or Aristotelian substance) already contain the potential for competition or conflict. What is added by biology to this basic notion? It emerges from some recent work on the evolution of metazoan animals that individuals as we know them are minimal individuals towhich four features have been added, and which appear to be inseparable: differentiated multicellularity; sexual reproduction; segregation of germ from somatic cells; and obligatory death. Whether or not individuals are to be counted as units of selection, they are not the beneficiaries of natural selection.
202. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
J. J. MacIntosh Boyle and Locke on Observation, Testimony, Demonstration and Experience
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In Warranted Christian Beliet Alvin Plantinga claims that “The Enlightenment looked askance at testimony and tradition; Locke saw them as a preeminent source of error.” Locke, Plantinga suggests, is the “fountainhead” of this stance. This is importantly wrong about Locke and Locke”s views, and an examination of the views of Locke’s much admired friend and slightly older contemporary, Robert Boyle, reveals that the claim is mistaken about him as well, reinforcing the view that Plantinga is in general mistaken about the intellectual milieu in which Locke wrote. In this paper I consider the views of Locke and Boyle on demonstration, observation, experiment, and testimony with a view to showing what, in the case of science and religion, their views actually were. For Locke I draw mainly on the Essay, while for Boyle I draw heavily on the MSS in the Royal Society Library, as well as on the printed works.
203. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Björn Eriksson Understanding Narrative Explanation: An Eclectic Approach
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The paper describes and defends an eclectic approach to narrative explanation in history and social sciences (as well as in natural history). The view of narrative explanation defended allows combinations of several recent ideas concerning the nature of narrative explanation.The guiding idea is that the explanatory power of narratives consists in their capacity to accommodate various forms of explanations and interpretations. Narrative explanations are seen as theories abouthappenings that may consist of diverse forms of explanations, interpretations and explanation sketches. There is no single form of narrative explanation, rather narrative is seen as a form tor synthesizing various explanations.Several problems concerning explanation and narrative are discussed with relation to the proposed approach: laws in explanations, literary or fictional aspects of narratives, relativism, constructivism and noncognitivism or antirealism. Hayden White’s theory of the explanatory role of “emplotment” is discussed and criticized.The upshot is that the eclectic approach defended does not face any problems unique to it: problems faced are general epistemological problem. The literary aspects of historical narrative are interpreted as normative and rhetorical, making the relevance of these aspects tor narrative explanation depend on the question whether there are legitimate moral explanations.
204. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Michel Ghins Putnam and the God’s Eye Point of View
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper, I criticize Putnam’s argument, which contends that scientific realism implies adherence to a God’s eye point of view. I also show that some sort of God’s eye point of view in a weak sense, i.e. interest-free, is indeed accessible to humans and that a moderate version of scientific realism is philosophically defensible.
205. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Max Kistler Is Functional Reduction Logical Reduction?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The functionalist conception of mental properties, together with their multiple realizability, is often taken to entail their irreducibility. It might seem that the only way to revise that judgement is to weaken the requirements traditionally imposed on reduction. However, Jaegwon Kim has recently argued that we should, on the contrary, strengthen those requirements, and construe reduction as what I propose to call “logical reduction”, a model of reduction inspired by emergentism. Moreover, Kim claims that what he calls “functional reduction” allows one to reduce (at least some) mental properties by these new standards. I argue against both theses. First, I present a counterexample to the emergentist model of reduction: The model judges irreducible certain properties which are clearly reducible. Second, I contestthat functional reduction as construed by Kim satisfies the emergentist constraints. Functional reduction implies, over and above a functional definition of the reduced property, the indication of its realizers. But the latter information corresponding to the discovery of a (local) bridge law, is empirical and not purely logical.
206. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Nenad Miščević The Realm of Reason
207. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Morana Kušić Art as Performance
208. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Ksenija Puškarić Rey and the Projectivist Account
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The paper discusses Rey’s projectivism. It offers an argument against it and in favor of the reliability of introspection. In short, if it is fallible, then at least sometimes it has to be veridical. Therefore, introspection can’t be systematically deceptive. But then, some introspective beliefs are true and at least some phenomenal conscious states exist.
209. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Georges Rey Replies to Critics
210. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Nenad Miščević Rescuing Conceptual Analysis
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Rey’s project of rescuing conceptual analysis within a naturalistic computationalist framework, equipped with a Putnamian account of reference, is an interesting and valuable project. However, his extremepessimism about fundamental philosophical concepts, according to which they mostly tended to be empty, amounts to sacrificing philosophical analysis after having it rescued from the Quineans. An alternative is proposed, which accepts most of the naturalistic computationalist Putnamian framework, rejects the traditional view of analyticity, but secures more space for a constructive, as opposed to merely destructive, philosophical analysis.
211. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Predrag Šustar Nomological and Transcendental Criteria for Scientific Laws
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
It has become a standard view in the philosophy of science scholarship (e.g., van Fraassen [1989]) that debates on the problem of laws of nature and/or scientific laws employ pre-Kantian approaches to the subject in question. But what exactly a Kantian approach might look like and, above all, what Kant endorses on this matter are not entirely settled issues. In particular, this regards Kant’s argument on the problem of ’necessity grounding’ with respect to different types of the so-called “empirical laws of nature” (empirische Naturgesetze) in the third Critique. In order to assess the aforementioned problem, in this paper I will address the following questions:1) What is Kant’s main nomological criterion or a combination of criteria, that is, the criterion/criteria according to which we can explicate the distinction between laws of nature and accidentally true statements?2) What exactly is the role of an apriori law of nature, such as the one instantiated by the Second Analogy of Experience, in considering nature as a lawful existence of objects?3) On what grounds can a statement describing a particular causal regularity, for example, the statement “the sun warms the stone” (Prolegomena, N 301), be viewed as an empirical law of nature?4) Is Kant’s systematicity a nomological criterion in the strict and standard sense or, rather, is it a certain kind of transcendental criterion, which not only makes the whole of Kant’s nomological machinery up and running, but also has decisive influence on the final arrangement of nomological criteria?
212. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Alberto Vanzo Kant’s Treatment of the Mathematical Antinomies in the First Critique and in the Prolegomena: A Comparison
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper deals with an apparent contradiction between Kant’s account and solution of the mathematical antinomies of pure speculative reason in the Critique of Pure Reason and in the Prolegomena. In the first Critique, Kant claims that the theses are affirmative judgments, of the form ‘A is B’, and the antitheses are infinite judgments, of the form ‘A is non-B’. The theses and the antitheses are contradictorily opposed (i.e., the one true and the other false) and their proofs are valid only if a certain condition takes place, that is, if the world has a determinate magnitude. Otherwise, both are false and their proofs are wrong. Given transcendental realism, this condition takes place and the mathematical antinomies arise. Given transcendental idealism, this condition does not take place, the theses and the antithesesare false, and the mathematical antinomies disappear. At a first glance, according to the Prolegomena the theses are affirmative judgments and the antitheses are not infinite judgments, but negative judgments, of the form ‘A is not B’. Transcendental idealism granted, the subject common to theses and antitheses, namely, the concept of ‘world’, is inconsistent. Both judgments are false by the rule ‘non entis nulla sunt praedicata’ and the antinomies do not take place. These accounts seem to be incompatible with each other. Are the antitheses infinite or negative judgments? Are the antinomies solved because the world does not have a determinate magnitude, or because its notion is inconsistent?The paper argues that the contrast between the first Critique and the Prolegomena is only apparent. It depends on an error in the most natural interpretation of the paragraphs on the mathematical antinomies in the Prolegomena. The text of the Prolegomena gives the reader the impression, but it does not explicitly claim, that the antitheses are negative judgments, rather than infinite ones. In that case it is possible to hold that, for the Prolegomena, the antitheses are infinite judgments, as they are for the Critique, and they are contradictorily opposed to each other only if the world has a determinate magnitude. In addition to what is explained in the Critique, the Prolegomena make clear that both theses and antitheses have an inconsistent subject concept. On this reading, the Critique and the Prolegomena are not in contrast with each other. They rather complete each other, giving the reader a fuller comprehension of the solution of the mathematical antinomies. The theses and the antitheses are false because their subject is inconsistent, as the Prolegomena maintain. Their proofs are wrong because the world does not have a determinate magnitude, as the Critique claims.
213. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Luca Illetterati Between Science and Wisdom
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The inquiry will attempt to answer several questions about: a) the cognitive status of philosophy according to Kant; b) the possibility of distinguishing philosophy from other forms of knowledge, with particular reference to specifically named scientific cognitions; c) the consequences connected with the necessity of thinking of philosophy in its relation to an ulterior dimension with respect to that of science, which is, according to Kant, the dimension of wisdom. Philosophy, according to Kant, is a rational cognition, yet different from mathematics. Philosophy is a rational cognition from concepts, and therefore makes a discursive use of reason in accordance with concepts. Mathematics is instead a rational cognition from the construction of concepts, and therefore makes intuitive use of reason through the construction of concepts. The construction of a concept implies necessarily the capacity and the possibility of exposing in the intuition the corresponding object and to express it through a representation which is universally valid “for all possible intuitions that belong under the same concept”. It is precisely the fact that it is a cognition that proceeds along the construction of concepts which makes mathematics a stable and certain discipline, accompanied by evident proofs founded upon definitions, axioms and demonstrations that no rational cognition that proceeds with mere concepts can possess. It is for this reason that philosophy, in contrast with mathematics and whatever else is in some manner reducible to mathematics, may not be learned; for the fact that philosophy, understood as a scientific discipline in the same way in which all scientific disciplines are to be understood, really doesn’t exist. Philosophy is not a discipline in the sense in which all the other scientific disciplines are, because philosophy, for Kant, “is a mere idea of apossible science that precisely as an idea of a possible science is nowhere given in concreto”. If one may effectively speak about philosophy as a science, this does not constitute the moment in which philosophy finally reaches completion in itself. What Kant underscores is that at this level philosophy is only a science, that is, knowledge which, as much as it is fundamentally stable and certain, does not succeed in any case in obtaining that which constitutes instead, the most important and irreducible element of philosophy: “the relation of all cognition to the essential ends of human reason”. The philosopher is not for Kant simply a technician of reason, in that his aim is not solely that of ability, the completeness of knowledge and its systematic organisation. Rather, he aspires to something which goes beyond the merely cognitive dimension, and that Kant calls “wisdom”. Even knowing that science is the only available path, philosophy knows also that science cannot satisfy itself. In this sense philosophy presents itself as a science of limits and finds precisely in this determination the difference of all particular scientific disciplines, and, at one and the same time, of all pseudocognitive attitudes which are programmatically presented as independent from and alternative to science.
214. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Georges Rey Mind, Intentionality and Inexistence: an Overview of My Work
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The present article articulates the strategy of much of my work to date, which has been concerned to understand how we can possibly come to have any objective understanding of the mind. Generally, I align myself with those who think the best prospect of such an understanding lies in a causal/computational/representational theory of thought (CRTT). However, there is a tendency in recent developments of this and related philosophical views to burden the crucial property of intentionality with what I call Strong Externalism, a state’s intentional content being determined by some real external phenomenon to which the state is causally related. I argue against this tendency, drawing attention to the crucial role in cognitive scientific explanations of empty concepts, such as [angel], and the “intentional inexistents” that such concepts “represent.” This obliges me to take a brief excursion into what I hope is a minimal metaphysics, defending a methodology I call the “LEXX” strategy that treats phenomena as real only insofar as they are needed in genuine explanations. After a brief discussion of the need for greater patience generally regarding a theory of intentionality, I deploy this strategy with regard to many phenomena that are the purported objects of mental states, e.g. triangles, cones, words, sentences, colors, mental images and qualia. I argue that these phenomena do not actually exist: they are mere intentional inexistents, unreal projections of the intentional content of various mental states, and not themselves needed in any genuine explanations. In a concluding section, I summarize my suggestions about how a CRTT can explain the various illusions we have in this regard, particularly those concerning consciousness and qualia.
215. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Friderik Klampfer Contextualism and Moral Justification: A Discussion of Mark Timmons, Morality Without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In his insightful and stimulating book Morality Without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism, Mark Timmons presents a strong case for embracing contextualism as a vibrant alternative to the two rival accounts that used to dominate moral epistemology in the past, foundationalism and coherentism. His sophisticated version of contextualist moral epistemology (CME) comprises of several intriguing and mind-boggling theses: (i) moral beliefs that lack Justification altogether can nevertheless be held in an epistemically responsible way; (ii) such unjustified beliefs can provide justification for other moral beliefs; (iii) the need for a justification of our moral beliefs does not always arise; and, finally, (iv) the potential for such a Justification depends on contextual parameters and can therefore never be fixed in advance.Despite its initial appeal, CME, or so I argue, ultimately fails to convince. In the paper I raise several mutually independent objections against Timmon’s solution. My main worry is that while contextualism mayguarantee us a cheap justification for our moral beliefs, such a justification is ultimately worthless for both theoretical and practical reasons: not only does it sever ties to moral truth that justification was initialy supposed to track, it also fails to resolve (or even point in the direction of resolving) any of our traditional moral disputes. Though, admittedly, none of my objections amounts to a knock-down argument, taken together they cast serious doubt both on certain aspects of Timmons’ particular solution and the presumed practical and theoretical need for a contextualist agenda in moral epistemology.
216. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Vojko Strahovnik The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value
217. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Elvio Baccarini, Snježana Prijić-Samaržija Preface
218. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Davor Pećnjak How to Eliminate Computational Eliminativism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Concerning the question about consciousness, Georges Rey argues that it does not exist from the success of computational theory of human mind. Everything that such a theory requires can be fulfilled by machines which do not have consciousness. So, according to theoretical parsimony, we do not have to attribute consciousness even to human beings. I wish to offer reasons why we should not doubt the existence of consciousness by showing that computational explanations can be explanations of just one part of an aspect of the human mind. Consciousness is also an explanandum rather than an explanans, and the possible reference of “what it is like” expression. Epistemic situation regarding possible accesses to consciousness is also considered.
219. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
References
220. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Nenad Miščević The Future for Philosophy