Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Mentalism Versus Behaviourism in Economics: a Philosophy-Of-Science
Mentalism versus behaviourism in economics: aphilosophy-of-scienceperspective⇤ Franz Dietrich Christian List CNRS & University of East Anglia London School of Economics 18 November 2012 Abstract Behaviourism is the view that preferences, beliefs, and other mental states in social- scientific theories are nothing but constructs re-describing people’s behavioural dis- positions. Mentalism is the view that they capture real phenomena, no less existent than the unobservable entities and properties in the natural sciences, such as elec- trons and electromagnetic fields. While behaviourism has long gone out of fashion in psychology and linguistics, it remains influential in economics, especially in ‘re- vealed preference’ theory. We aim to (i) clear up some common confusions about the two views, (ii) situate the debate in a historical context, and (iii) defend a men- talist approach to economics. Setting aside normative concerns about behaviourism, we show that mentalism is in line with best scientific practice even if economics is treated as a purely positive science of economic behaviour. We distinguish men- talism from, and reject, the radical neuroeconomic view that behaviour should be explained in terms of people’s brain processes, as distinct from their mental states. 1 Introduction Economic theory seeks to explain the social and economic behaviour of human (and sometimes other) agents.1 It usually does so by (i) ascribing, at least in an ‘as if’ mode, ⇤This paper was presented at the LSE Choice Group workshop on ‘Rationalizability and Choice’, July 2011, the D-TEA workshop, Paris, July 2012, and the EIPE seminar, Rotterdam, September 2012. We are grateful to the participants and especially Nick Baigent, Walter Bossert, Richard Bradley, Mika¨el Cozic, Eddie Dekel, Ido Erev, Itzhak Gilboa, Conrad Heilmann, Johannes Himmelreich, Marco Mariotti, Friederike Mengel, Clemens Puppe, Larry Samuelson, David Schmeidler, Asli Selim, Daniel Stoljar, Kotaro Suzumura, and Peter Wakker for comments and discussion. -
Introduction 1 What Motivated Hegel's Philosophical Project?
Notes Introduction 1 . PH 472. 1 What Motivated Hegel’s Philosophical Project? 1 . In recent decades, several important attempts have been made to fill this lacuna – the absence of a post-Kantian schema – the most salient of which has been that of Henrich (1982, 1991, 2003), who revisits the story of the genesis of German Idealism. See too Horstmann (1991). 2 . The English-speaking world has of late experienced a resurgence of interest in German Idealism, especially Hegel, attested to by the numerous books and articles on the subject published over the past decade. Although these studies are far from monolithic, we can safely say, without fear of over-simplification, that the interpretations offered tend to see Hegel’s philosophy as the culmi- nation of Kant’s epistemological project. See Pippin (1997, 6); Pinkard (1994, 230). 3 . Let me pre-empt a possible misunderstanding. The rupture thesis does not, of course, seek to claim that German Idealism is altogether free of Kantian influ- ence, which would be absurd. The rupture thesis can also be formulated as follows: Kant is the source of the problem of Kantian dualism, and its solution requires total rejection of his philosophy, which must be supplanted by a new philosophical program. 4 . For a thorough defense of the philosophical importance of this question, see Düsing (1983); Pippin (1989); Henrich (1991); Horstmann (1991). 5 . This route is also chosen both by those who seek to show that German Idealism provides insight only into highly speculative epistemological or ontological questions, a claim that is patently indefensible, and by those who seek to show how Idealism sheds profound light on the flaws of the philosophy of subjectivity, and on how accepting the suggested remedy will render the theo- retical position espoused by German Idealism less vulnerable to critique. -
Mentalism Versus Behaviourism in Economics: a Philosophy-Of-Science Perspective
Franz Dietrich & Christian List Mentalism versus behaviourism in economics: a philosophy-of-science perspective Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Dietrich, Franz and List, Christian (2016) Mentalism versus behaviourism in economics: a philosophy-of-science perspective. Economics and Philosophy, 32 (2). pp. 249-281. ISSN 0266-2671 © 2016 Cambridge University Press This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62444/ Available in LSE Research Online: August 2016 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Mentalism versus behaviourism in economics: aphilosophy-of-scienceperspective Franz Dietrich & Christian List⇤ First version 1 April 2012, this version 17 May 2015 Abstract Behaviourism is the view that preferences, beliefs, and other mental states in social- scientific theories are nothing but constructs re-describing people’s behaviour. Mentalism is the view that they capture real phenomena, on a par with the unobserv- ables in science, such as electrons and electromagnetic fields. -
A Critique of the Learning Brain
A CRITIQUE OF THE LEARNING BRAIN JOAKIM OLSSON Department of Philosophy Master Thesis in Theoretical Philosophy (45 ECTS) Autumn 2020 Supervisor: Sharon Rider Examiner: Pauliina Remes Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 A Brief Overview ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Method, Structure and Delimitations ............................................................................... 4 2. BACKGROUND ON THE LEARNING BRAIN ............................................................. 8 2.1 The Learning Brain and Its Philosophical Foundation .................................................... 9 2.2 Cognitivism’s Three Steps: Mentalism, Mind-Brain Identity and Computer Analogy . 14 3. A CRITIQUE OF COGNITIVISM .................................................................................. 24 3.1 A Critique of Mentalism ................................................................................................ 24 3.1.1 The Exteriorization of the Mental ........................................................................... 25 3.1.2 The Intentionality of Mind Seen Through Intentional Action ................................ 32 3.2 A Critique of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory .............................................................. 54 3.3 A Critique of the Computer Analogy ............................................................................ -
Tales of Dread
Zlom1_2019_Sestava 1 5.4.19 8:01 Stránka 65 WINNER OF THE FABIAN DORSCH ESA ESSAY PRIZE TALES OF DREAD MARK WINDSOR ‘Tales of dread’ is a genre that has received scant attention in aesthetics. In this paper, I aim to elaborate an account of tales of dread which (1) effectively distinguishes these from horror stories, and (2) helps explain the close affinity between the two, accommodating borderline cases. I briefly consider two existing accounts of the genre – namely, those of Noël Carroll and of Cynthia Freeland – and show why they are inadequate for my purposes. I then develop my own account of tales of dread, drawing on two theoretical resources: Freud’s ‘The “Uncanny”’, and Tzvetan Todorov’s The Fantastic. In particular, I draw on Freud to help distinguish tales of dread from horror stories, and I draw on Todorov to help explain the fluidity between the genres. I argue that both horror stories and tales of dread feature apparent impossibilities which are threatening; but whereas in horror stories the existence of the monster (the apparent impossibility) is confirmed, tales of dread are sustained by the audience’s uncertainty pertaining to preternatural objects or events. Where horror monsters pose an immediate, concrete danger to the subject’s physical well-being, these preternatural objects or events pose a psychological threat to the subject’s grasp of reality. I In his book The Philosophy of Horror, Noël Carroll identifies a narrative genre that he calls ‘tales of dread’. Unlike horror stories, Carroll claims, tales of dread do not feature monstrous entities or beings, but rather a distinctive kind of preternatural event. -
Staging New Materialism, Posthumanism and the Ecocritical Crisis in Contemporary Performance
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2020 Acting Objects: Staging New Materialism, Posthumanism and the Ecocritical Crisis in Contemporary Performance Sarah Lucie The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3828 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] ACTING OBJECTS STAGING NEW MATERIALISM, POSTHUMANISM AND THE ECOCRITICAL CRISIS IN CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE by SARAH LUCIE A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Theatre and Performance in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 SARAH LUCIE All rights reserved ii Acting Objects: Staging New Materialism, Posthumanism and the Ecocritical Crisis in Contemporary Performance by Sarah Lucie This manuscript has been read and accepted by the Graduate Faculty in Theatre and Performance in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. __________________________________________________________________________ Date Peter Eckersall Chair of Examining Committee __________________________________________________________________________ Date Peter Eckersall Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Erika Lin Edward Miller THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Acting Objects: Staging New Materialism, Posthumanism and the Ecocritical Crisis in Contemporary Performance by Sarah Lucie Advisor: Peter Eckersall I investigate the material relationship between human and nonhuman objects in performance, asking what their shifting relations reveal about our contemporary condition. -
Neopastoral Artifacts and the Phenomenology of Environment in American Modernist Poetics
REFUSE TO RELIC: NEOPASTORAL ARTIFACTS AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ENVIRONMENT IN AMERICAN MODERNIST POETICS Douglas ii Refuse to Relic: Neopastoral Artifacts and the Phenomenology of Environment in American Modernist Poetics Thesis format: Monograph by Jeffrey Daniel Douglas, B.A., B.Ed., M.A. Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate Studies McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada © Jeffrey D. Douglas 2013 Douglas iii Abstract Building on concepts of the pastoral, the picturesque, the “vernacular ruin,” and frontierism in an American context, this thesis explores the interest in ruin and commodity- oriented refuse within rural, wilderness, and what Leo Marx in The Machine in the Garden calls “middle ground” environments. Chapter one analyzes how “nature,” as both scenery and the natural environment removed from civilization, has been conceptualized as a place where human-made objects become repurposed through the gaze of the spectator. Theories surrounding gallery and exhibition space, as well as archaeological practices related to garbage excavation, are assessed to determine how waste objects, when wrested out of context, become artifacts of cultural significance. Chapter two turns to focus on the settler experience of the frontier in order to locate a uniquely American evolution of the interest in everyday waste objects. Because the frontier wilderness in American culture can be regarded as a site of transition and malleability, it is argued that the (mis)perception of object matter within this transitional space helped to shape modernist poetics and its association with everyday objects. Chapters three and four return to the rural and the pastoral to focus on Marx’s concept of the “middle ground,” borderlands of quasi-natural space that are located “somewhere ‘between,’ yet in a transcendent relation to, the opposing forces of civilization and nature” (23). -
4 C. D. Broad (1887–1971)
4 C. D. Broad (1887–1971) JAMES VAN CLEVE Charlie Dunbar Broad was a leading contributor to analytic philosophy of the twenti- eth century, known not so much for any startlingly original doctrines he propounded as for his formidable powers of distinction, analysis, and argument. Born in London, he was educated at Dulwich College and Cambridge. He entered Cambridge in 1905, first studying physics and chemistry in the natural science tripos and then switching to philosophy in the moral science tripos. The influence of Russell and Moore at Cambridge was then very strong and shows itself in Broad’s work (see RUSSELL and MOORE). He published his dissertation as Perception, Physics, and Reality in 1914. For a period of years beginning in 1911 he served as G. F. Stout’s assistant in St. Andrews, and in 1920 he was appointed professor at the University of Bristol, where he gave the course of lectures in philosophy for natural science students that became Scientific Thought. In 1922 he delivered the Tarner Lectures, subsequently published as The Mind and Its Place in Nature, and was invited to succeed McTaggart as lecturer at Cambridge. After McTaggart’s death in 1925, he oversaw the publication of the second volume of McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence, which served as the stimulus for writing his own monumental Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy. (This is the book of choice for any metaphysician who is sentenced to exile on a desert island.) From 1933 until his retire- ment in 1953 he was Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. -
Philosophy for Children and Pragmatism Part I. the Uncanny History of Pragmatism
Philosophy for Children and Pragmatism Part I. The Uncanny History of Pragmatism Agora Philosophical Forum Handout by Soroush Marouzi 1. A Brief Overview of the Pragmatism-P4C Relation: - Pragmatism was born in 1867 in America - P4C as a social movement was initiated in the early 1970’s - Pragmatism, as a philosophical position, manifests itself in the educational method advocated by the proponents of the P4C movement - Hence, we shall start with an overview of pragmatism - The methodological sensitivities to explore pragmatist philosophies o Employing the intellectual biography approach to unfold the varieties of pragmatist notions 2. The Metaphysical Club: - The American pragmatists were struggling to build the ‘modern’ America after the Civil war. o A historical narrative of the club by Louis Menand (2001) - The objective of the club: Bring metaphysics down to earth; start with human experience - The Four Greats: Charles S. Peirce, William James, Oliver W. Holmes, and Chauncy Wright 2.1. Charles. S. Peirce (1839-1914): - Peirce was “the greatest American thinker ever” (Russell 1959, p 276). - Peirce invented pragmatism o Along with semiotics, mathematical logic, statistical economics, game-theoretic semantics, economics of science, propensity interpretation of probability, indeterministic metaphysics, falsification, abductive reasoning, etc. - Peirce’s works to be discussed in this workshop o On a New List of Categories (1867) o The Fixation of Belief (1877) o How to Make Our Ideas Clear (1878) 2.2. William James (1842-1910): - A charming man with a popular philosophy - He is known as the father of psychology in America. o In his Principles of Psychology (1890), he demarcated psychology from philosophy. -
Kant, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology Sebastian Luft Marquette University, [email protected]
Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications Philosophy, Department of 7-1-2018 Kant, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology Sebastian Luft Marquette University, [email protected] Published version. Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology (07/18). DOI. © 2018 Oxford University Press. Used with permission. Kant, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology Kant, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology Sebastian Luft The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology Edited by Dan Zahavi Print Publication Date: Jun 2018 Subject: Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, History of Western Philosophy (Post-Classical) Online Publication Date: Jul 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198755340.013.5 Abstract and Keywords This chapter offers a reassessment of the relationship between Kant, the Kantian tradi tion, and phenomenology, here focusing mainly on Husserl and Heidegger. Part of this re assessment concerns those philosophers who, during the lives of Husserl and Heidegger, sought to defend an updated version of Kant’s philosophy, the neo-Kantians. The chapter shows where the phenomenologists were able to benefit from some of the insights on the part of Kant and the neo-Kantians, but also clearly points to the differences. The aim of this chapter is to offer a fair evaluation of the relation of the main phenomenologists to Kant and to what was at the time the most powerful philosophical movement in Europe. Keywords: Immanuel Kant, neo-Kantianism, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Marburg School of neo-Kantian ism 3.1 Introduction THE relation between phenomenology, Kant, and Kantian philosophizing broadly con strued (historically and systematically), has been a mainstay in phenomenological re search.1 This mutual testing of both philosophies is hardly surprising given phenomenology’s promise to provide a wholly novel type of philosophy. -
The Uncanny Valley: Existence and Explanations
Review of General Psychology © 2015 American Psychological Association 2015, Vol. 19, No. 4, 393–407 1089-2680/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000056 The Uncanny Valley: Existence and Explanations Shensheng Wang, Scott O. Lilienfeld, and Philippe Rochat Emory University More than 40 years ago, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori (1970/2005) proposed the “uncanny valley” hypothesis, which predicted a nonlinear relation between robots’ perceived human likeness and their likability. Although some studies have corroborated this hypothesis and proposed explanations for its existence, the evidence on both fronts has been mixed and open to debate. We first review the literature to ascertain whether the uncanny valley exists. We then try to explain the uncanny phenomenon by reviewing hypotheses derived from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives within psychol- ogy and allied fields, including evolutionary, social, cognitive, and psychodynamic approaches. Next, we provide an evaluation and critique of these studies by focusing on their methodological limitations, leading us to question the accepted definition of the uncanny valley. We examine the definitions of human likeness and likability, and propose a statistical test to preliminarily quantify their nonlinear relation. We argue that the uncanny valley hypothesis is ultimately an engineering problem that bears on the possibility of building androids that may some day become indistinguishable from humans. In closing, we propose a dehumanization hypothesis to explain the uncanny phenomenon. Keywords: animacy, dehumanization, humanness, statistical test, uncanny valley Over the centuries, machines have increasingly assumed the characters (avatars), such as those in the film The Polar Express heavy duties of dangerous and mundane work from humans and (Zemeckis, 2004), reportedly elicited unease in some human ob- improved humans’ living conditions. -
Form and Relation. Materialism on an Uncanny Stage
Intellectica , 2014/1, 61, pp . 105-121 Form and Relation. Materialism on an Uncanny Stage Yuk HUI ≤ ABSTRACT . This article seeks a materialism that is largely ignored in current philosophical discussion, which originates from speculation on the materiality of forms. Following the critique of Simondon and Heidegger, this article rejects hylomorphism which gives substantiality to forms rather than matter; at the same time, this proposition also wants to distinguish itself from the current proposals of a return to matter, such as the vibrant matter of Jane Bennett or the principle of factuality of Quentin Meillassoux, by outlining a genealogy of the material conditions for the individuation of forms. The article endeavours to understand the evolution of the concept of form in different stages of technological development: crafts, machines, technological systems exemplified by the web. The article suggests that the materiality of form is not only thinkable, but also necessary for the development of a speculative metaphysics and critical theory of machines. Keywords : Materialism, digital objects, forms, Simondon, Heidegger. RÉSUMÉ . Forme et relation – L’inquiétante étrangeté de la scène du matérialisme . Cet article entend chercher un matérialisme largement ignoré dans les discussions philosophiques actuelles, qui tire son origine de spéculations sur la matérialité des formes. En suivant la critique de Simondon et de Heidegger, il rejette l'hylémorphisme en raison de la priorité qu’il accorde une forme pure et abstraite en dehors de la matière ; de même, il se distingue des propositions actuelles qui valorisent un retour à la matière, à l’image de la matière vibrante de Jane Bennett ou du principe de factualité de Quentin Meillassoux, en esquissant une généalogie des conditions matérielle de l'individuation des formes.