Since the 1960s, many artists have incorporated ecological concerns into their work, an endeavor that has required new strategies in art-making. To explore recent American manifestations of these interests, the David and Alfred Smart Museum commissioned new projects from artists Mark Dion, Peter Fend, and Dan Peterman, each focusing on interrelationships between particular organisms—human beings-and a specific group of sites—a museum building, a river landscape, and a university campus. The results, exhibited at the Smart Museum during the summer of (...) 2000, evoke the varied scales, from the microscopic to the global, at which human actions affect the environment. This catalog documents each of the artists' projects through an array of images and words: Smart Museum Associate Curator Stephanie Smith provides an introduction and brief overviews of the three projects, each of the artists contribute statements, and photographers Susan Anderson and Tom van Eynde document—in over 100 images—the processes and projects that comprise the exhibition. (shrink)

Although physician alcohol use that leads to impairment has been extensively discussed, few statements address the issue of alcohol use of physicians who are on call. In this paper the authors review recent information on physicians’ perceptions of alcohol use by themselves and their colleagues while on call. It is argued that conflicts in physicians’ perceptions are due to the fact that the larger society has not addressed the question of whether drinking on call is public or private behaviour. The (...) authors argue that when medicine is understood as a practice defined partly in terms of standards of excellence, the present approach of the American Medical Association to prohibit practicing medicine under the influence of alcohol requires a prohibition of drinking alcohol while on call, unless studies determine a clear threshold for drinking alcohol without placing patients at risk. (shrink)

I have tried to motivate the claim that the interlude has been somewhat over-read as a “physics” and under-read as a guide to understanding Spinoza’s picture of the relationship between the mind and the body – in particular, of Spinoza’s account of how the mind represents bodies through sense perception. It does not inform us about the nature of extension or motion, and its use of those terms offers little illumination. The real argumentative and conceptual work of the interlude is (...) attribute-neutral. (shrink)

We have some of our properties purely in virtue of the way we are. (Our mass is an example.) We have other properties in virtue of the way we interact with the world. (Our weight is an example.) The former are the intrinsic properties, the latter are the extrinsic properties. This seems to be an intuitive enough distinction to grasp, and hence the intuitive distinction has made its way into many discussions in philosophy, including discussions in ethics, philosophy of mind, (...) metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of physics. Unfortunately, when we look more closely at the intuitive distinction, we find reason to suspect that it conflates a few related distinctions, and that each of these distinctions is somewhat resistant to analysis. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), well known as the founder of phenomenology and as the teacher of Heidegger, was unable to free himself from the framework of a classical metaphysics of subjectivity. Supposedly, he never abandoned the view that the world and the Other are constituted by a pure transcendental subject, and his thinking in consequence remains Cartesian, idealistic, and solipsistic. The continuing publication of Husserl’s manuscripts has made it necessary to revise such an interpretation. Drawing upon (...) both Husserl’s published works and posthumous material, Husserl’s Phenomenology incorporates the results of the most recent Husserl research. It is divided into three parts, roughly following the chronological development of Husserl’s thought, from his early analyses of logic and intentionality, through his mature transcendental-philosophical analyses of reduction and constitution, to his late analyses of intersubjectivity and lifeworld. It can consequently serve as a concise and updated introduction to his thinking. (shrink)

Recent exciting work on Cavendish’s natural philosophy highlights the important role of motion in her system. But what is motion, according to Cavendish? I argue that motion, for Cavendish, is what I call ‘compositional motion’: for a body to be in motion is just for it to divide from some matter and join with other matter. So when Cavendish claims to reduce all natural change to motion, she is really reducing all natural change to mereological change. Cavendish also uses ‘motion’ (...) to name the power that matter has to set itself in compositional motion. That power is not reducible to local motion. If motion is not local motion and if motive power is not a function of actual motion, then despite her polemics, Cavendish does not reduce natural change to local motion. Instead, she offers a unique and exciting account of natural change. (shrink)

This paper argues that Spinoza does not take extension in space to be a fundamental property of physical things. This means that when Spinoza calls either substance or a mode “an Extended thing”, he does not mean that it is a thing extended in three dimensions. The argument proceeds by showing, first, that Spinoza does not associate extension in space with substance, and second, that finite bodies, or physical things, are not understood through the intellect when they are conceived as (...) extended in space. I conclude by articulating some suggestions about where we should go from here in trying to understand Spinoza’s account of the attribute of extension and of the physical world. (shrink)

The empress of Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World dismisses pure mathematicians as a waste of her time, and declares of the applied mathematicians that “there [is] neither Truth nor Justice in their Profession”. In Cavendish’s theoretical work, she defends the Empress’ judgments. In this paper, I discuss Cavendish’s arguments against pure and applied mathematics. In Sect. 3, I develop an interpretation of some relevant parts of Cavendish’s metaphysics and epistemology, focusing on her anti-abstractionism and what I call her ’assimilation’ view (...) of knowledge. In Sects. 4 and 5, I use this to develop Cavendish’s critiques of pure and applied mathematics, respectively. These critiques center on the claims that mathematics purports to describe non-beings, that nature is infinitely and irreducibly complex, and, perhaps most originally, that mathematical thinking deforms the subject of representation, not just the object. (shrink)

... Let me start my investigation by taking a brief look at the way in which self-awareness is expressed linguistically, as in the sentences "I am tired" or ...

In this paper, I discuss Spinoza on the proper methods and content of physical science. I start by showing how Spinoza's epistemology leads him to a kind of pessimism about the prospects of empirical and mathematical methods in natural philosophy. While they are useful for life, they do not tell us about nature, as Spinoza puts it, “as it is in itself.” At the same time, Spinoza seems to allow that we have some knowledge of physical things and their behavior. (...) So I go on to outline and critique a few of the accounts of how Spinoza thinks we can do this, focusing on the role of the common notions in physics. In the third section, I discuss the possible contents of physics, for Spinoza, and argue that they are not, as is usually thought, fundamentally Cartesian. I conclude by pointing to some promising directions for future research and suggesting a few heuristics for such research. (shrink)

Argues that Wittgenstein's early ethical notion of agreement with the world pivoted to become his later therapeutic notion of agreement with living forms, which satisfies the conditions necessary for a full therapeutic philosophy.

Millikan and Her Critics offers a unique critical discussion of Ruth Millikan's highly regarded, influential, and systematic contributions to philosophy of mind and language, philosophy of biology, epistemology, and metaphysics. These newly written contributions present discussion from some of the most important philosophers in the field today and include replies from Millikan herself.

This article develops a theory of simulation as a nation building mechanism by exploring the production of national belonging in Massad, a Jewish-American summer camp that operated in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, between 1941 and 1981. Trying to inspire campers to Zionism, the camp organizers shaped Massad as a “mini Israel.” This simulation engendered national attachments by lending credence to the belief that others, in Israel, experience more authentic national belonging. Rather than tempting campers to imagine the nation as a (...) “horizontal camaraderie” (Anderson 1991), national simulations allow members to account for their distinct and often ambivalent position from within the nation. From this perspective, nation building is not simply a matter of relativizing internal differences and dramatizing differences between the groups that make up the nation and “outsiders.” Instead, nation building also is centrally a matter of creating institutional routines and practices that allow members to account for their differential position from within the nation. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: - Examine how knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination are associated with academic staff’s job satisfaction and teaching motivation - Examine whether job satisfaction mediates the relationship between knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination and teaching motivation.

_Considers the notable similarities between the thought of Confucius and Wittgenstein._.

In this entry, I tackle the phenomenon known as "faultless disagreement", considered by many authors to pose a challenge to the main views on the semantics of subjective expressions. I first present the phenomenon and the challenge, then review the main answers given by contextualist, absolutist and relativist approaches to the expressions in question. I end with signaling two issues that might shape future discussions about the role played by faultless disagreement in semantics.

This essay considers Spinoza’s responses to two questions: what is responsible for the variety in the physical world and by what mechanism do finite bodies causally interact? I begin by elucidating Spinoza’s solution to the problem of variety by considering his comments on Cartesian physics in an epistolary exchange with Tschirnhaus late in Spinoza’s life. I go on to reconstruct Spinoza’s unique account of causation among finite bodies by considering Leibniz’s attack on the Spinozist explanation of variety. It turns out (...) that Spinoza’s explanations of the variety of bodies, on the one hand, and of causation among finite bodies, on the other, generate a tension in his system that can only be resolved by taking Spinoza to employ two notions of “existence.” I conclude by offering evidence that this is in fact what Spinoza does. (shrink)

Recent interest in the Zhuangzi by Western philosophers arises from the sense that Zhuangzi offers a form of philosophical theory, such as perspectivism. A key issue for this line of interpretation is how best to resolve alleged contradictions between the central philosophical claims of the "Qiwulun" with other claims made in the text. A more radical reading of this chapter will avoid these problems if it can find some way to understand this chapter as philosophically interesting because it scrupulously avoids (...) and rejects making any philosophical claims. This reading will be developed by focusing on Zhuangzi's assertion: "The person who understands does not use the inflexible 'that's it' (wei shi), but dwells in the ordinary (yu zhu yong)." I will argue that, understood in context, this assertion takes Zhuangzi out of the philosophical game. According to this interpretation, Zhuangzi's writings have a philosophical significance similar to that of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations as expressed in his dictum "The real discovery is the one that lets me stop doing philosophy when I want to.". (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology contains thirty-seven new essays by leading scholars in the field. The essays all highlight historical influences, connections, and developments and provide an in-depth coverage of the development of phenomenology; one that allows for a better comprehension and assessment of the continuity as well as diversity of the phenomenological tradition. The handbook is divided into three distinct parts. The first part contains chapters that address the way phenomenology has been influenced by earlier periods (...) or figures in the history of philosophy. The second part contains chapters targeting prominent phenomenologists: How was their work affected by earlier figures, how did their own views change over time, and what kind of influence did they exert on subsequent thinkers? The contributions in the third part trace various core topics such as subjectivity, intersubjectivity, embodiment, spatiality, and imagination in the work of different phenomenologists, in order to explore how the notions were transformed, enriched, and expanded up through the century. The handbook will be a source of insight for philosophers, students of philosophy, and for people working in other disciplines of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, who are interested in the phenomenological tradition. It is an authoritative guide to how phenomenology started, how it developed, and where it is heading. (shrink)

If one comes to Phénoménologie de la perception after having read Sein und Zeit (or Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs) one will be in for a surprise. Both works contain a number of both implicit and explicit references to Husserl, but the presentation they give is so utterly different, that one might occasionally wonder whether they are referring to the same author. Thus nobody can overlook that Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Husserl differs significantly from Heidegger’s. It is far more charitable. In (...) fact, when evaluating the merits of respectively Husserl and Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty often goes very much against the standard view. This is not only the case in his notorious remark on the very first page of Phénoménologie de la Perception where he declares that the whole of Sein und Zeit is nothing but an explication of Husserl’s notion of Lifeworld, but also - to give just one further example - in one of his Sorbonne-lectures, where Merleau-Ponty writes that Husserl took the issue of historicity far more seriously than Heidegger. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur ‘țigan’, consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs. This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses, it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal to (...) a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise. (shrink)

As Spinoza's near‐total omission from the history of physics reflects, Spinoza never produced a physics in this narrow sense: a careful and systematic investigation of bodies, forces, and their motions of the kind found in Descartes, Regius, or Huygens. Spinoza did have things to say about extension, motion, and the causal interactions of bodies. Understanding Spinoza's physics requires reckoning with his responses to Descartes. Like Descartes, Spinoza thinks that all and only bodies share an attribute, the attribute of Extension. Spinoza's (...) commitment to the “attribute‐neutrality” of some causal facts is reflected in his physics. Attribute‐neutrality can also make sense of some changes in the DPP. Physics investigates the nature and properties of bodies, so for Spinoza as for Descartes, it will involve an analysis of the attribute of Extension. Spinoza never drew out the detailed physical implications of his metaphysics of bodies. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology presents twenty-eight essays by some of the leading figures in the field, and gives an authoritative overview of the type of work and range of topics found and discussed in contemporary phenomenology. It is the definitive guide to what is currently going on in phenomenology, and offers a rich source of insight and stimulation for philosophers, students of philosophy, and for people working in other disciplines of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, who are (...) interested in the state of phenomenology today. The essays explore a diverse range of topics, including intentionality, embodiment, perception, naturalism, temporality, self-consciousness, language, knowledge, ethics, politics, art and religion, and will make it clear that phenomenology, far from being a tradition of the past, is alive and in a position to make valuable contributions to contemporary thought. (shrink)

This chapter determines a major empirical hurdle for any future discipline of memetics. It mainly shows that one can find very similar copies of some cultural item, link these copies through a causal chain of events which faithfully reproduced those items, and nevertheless not have an example of memetic inheritance. In addition, the stability of cultural patterns is proof that fidelity in copying is high despite individual variations. It is also believed that what is offered as an explanation is precisely (...) what needs to be explained; what is offered as a solution is in fact the very problem to be solved. Moreover, the issue is whether the relative stability observed in cultural transmission is proof of replication. The example of the acquisition of language is briefly addressed. The Darwinian model of selection is informative, and in various ways, for thinking about culture. Imitation is of course well worth investigating. On the other hand, the grand project of memetics is misled. (shrink)

The world soul was often a target of attack in early modern natural philosophy, on grounds of impiety and explanatory vacuity. But it also played an important role in debates about two of the most important questions in natural philosophy: how does nature depend on God, and what explains nature’s organization? As an answer to those questions, it lived on through the early modern period, sustained especially by philosophers who argued that individuals in nature cannot be understood in isolation from (...) the whole. I argue that in this guise, it served as an alternative model of explanation in a context that increasingly emphasized explanation in terms of laws of nature, and that this reflects the fact that these two models represent two fundamentally competing approaches to natural philosophical explanation. (shrink)

What passes as Spinozism in most circles can be found in the first two parts of the Ethics, and even Spinoza scholars can be guilty of making only opportunistic use of weirder works such as the Short Treatise and Cogitata Metaphysica. The goal of The Young Spinoza, Melamed explains in the introduction, is to stimulate research on Spinoza’s early works, both because of what serious consideration of those works can tell us about the Ethics and because they contain plenty of (...) interesting philosophy.The volume opens with a story about what would have been among Spinoza’s earliest works, if it indeed existed, and closes with a nod to the future—Spinoza’s composition of the Ethics. Edwin Curley’s sparkling.. (shrink)

Discussions of “privilege” have become increasingly common, but it’s often unclear what exactly people mean by “privilege.” Even well-known writings about privilege rarely take the time to define the word and explain what it means. The confusion this creates is one reason why debates about privilege are often contentious and unproductive. This essay aims to demystify privilege, presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy. With a clear definition, it is easier to discuss some of the main debates about privilege: Is there (...) such a thing as “white privilege”? What about “male privilege”? And what’s the point of talking about privilege, anyway? (shrink)

Many times, what we say proves to be wrong. It might turn out that what we took to be a comforting remark was, in fact, making things worse. Or that a joke was inappropriate. Or that yelling out loud was rude. More importantly for this paper, there are plenty of cases in which what we said turns out to be false: we spoke without paying attention, we were misinformed or tricked, or we made a reasoning mistake. -/- A particular instance (...) of this latter phenomenon is when someone changes their perspective and doesn't find their previous assertions true anymore. For example, imagine that you used to like licorice as a child, and that you went around saying things like "Licorice is tasty." But, growing up, you find licorice too strong and quite boring; your tastes have changed. While the taste of licorice itself has not changed, you are not going around anymore uttering "Licorice is tasty." In fact, in certain cases, you might even think that what you said in your childhood was wrong - at least in light of your present preferences. -/- Sometimes we "take back" the assertions we made when we realize they are no longer true. Such speech acts of taking back can be performed in various ways: more formally, as effected in a court of law or when an official speaks to the press, or more informally in our day-by-day interactions. These acts of taking back are known as retraction. Retraction is usually achieved by employing certain linguistic markers ('I was wrong', 'I was mistaken', 'I retract', "Scratch that' etc.) that signal that the retractor takes their previous speech act to be faulty in a certain way. -/- This phenomenon has formed the basis for a popular argument used by relativists about a variety of natural language expressions (predicates of taste, epistemic modals, moral and aesthetic claims etc.) in support of their view. Recently, several considerations (mostly from contextualists about the same expressions), both from the armchair and based on empirical studies, have been offered to undercut the support retraction was thought to provide for relativism. In this paper, I consider and re-evaluate that support in light of both types of considerations, showing that neither of them decisively undermines it. However, to survive the contextualist counterattack, the relativist needs to pay a price: that is, she will be forced to make some concessions or rethink certain claims. I show what I think those concessions should be and what needs to be rethought (and how). The upshot is that, while the support retraction offers relativism is not as strong as initially believed, appeal to retraction remains a legitimate move in the debate. In section 1, I introduce the views in the debate and clarify the phenomenon of retraction and its dialectical role. Armchair data are investigated in section 2, proper experimental studies in section 3, while section 4 summarizes and concludes. (shrink)

This book aims to show the many resources at our disposal for grappling with the Holocaust as the darkest occurrence of the twentieth century. These wide-ranging studies on philosophy, history, and literature address the way the Holocaust had led to the reconceptualization of the humanities. The scholarly approaches of Pierre Klossowski, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot are examined critically, and the volume explores such poignant topics as violence, evil, and monuments.

Dan Zahavi engages with classical phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and a range of empirical disciplines to explore the nature of selfhood. He argues that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed or dependent upon others, but accepts that certain dimensions of the self and types of self-experience are other-mediated.