The mark of the dispositional: Broad, Ramsey and Wittgenstein

In The Concept of Mind, Ryle discusses dispositions in some detail both in the chapter on emotions, especially in relation to the concept of motive, and, of course, in the chapter entitled ‘Dispositions and Occurrences’. These discussions show that he regarded dispositional concepts as central to a proper understanding of the mind and of behaviour. He held that ‘many of the cardinal concepts in terms of which we describe specifically human behaviour are dispositional concepts’ (1949, p. 117) and he also thought that ‘the vogue of the para-mechanical legend has led many people to ignore the ways in which these concepts actually behave and to construe them instead as items in the description of occult causes and effects’ (ibid.). In other words, Ryle thought that ‘the official doctrine’ about the mind (see his 1949, 11ff.) tends to treat these psychological terms as ‘episodic words’ denoting occurrences, or as terms used to report ‘particular but unwitnessable matters of fact’ (117),1 when in fact they express dispositional concepts. Moreover, according to the official doctrine, these occurrences are causes of behaviour, albeit ones that are not accessible for public inspection — hence the ‘para-mechanical’ label. Much of the discussion in the two chapters mentioned above is devoted to bringing out the logico-grammatical features of these mental dispositional concepts in order to show how ill-suited they are to play the role of cause in the production of behaviour that the official doctrine traditionally ascribes to them.KeywordsCharacter TraitCausal ExplanationCausal ConditionDispositional PropertyRelevant CircumstanceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The eighteenth‐century French philosopher Voltaire once asked how it was that the great Newtonian heavens conform to the commands of physical law, but there remains in the universe “a little creature five feet tall, acting just as he pleases, solely according to his own caprice?” (Robinson, 1980). The question was rhetorical, of course. A century earlier, Voltaire's compatriot Rene Descartes had famously offered humans an exemption from the natural order, by suggesting that causal principles applied to all intelligent behaviour in animals and all automatic behaviour in humans—such as snatching one's hand out of a flame—but that humans alone possessed a pure thinking substance, a conscious, wilful and rational soul created by God. This soul, Descartes said, directed all voluntary movements of the body, through the so‐called animal spirits. Such thinking could no longer stand, Voltaire insisted. The time had come for humans to discover and acquiesce to their place in the natural scheme of things, regardless of the outcome. Consequences aside, what would it mean, pragmatically, to put humans in their place in nature? From the beginning, the answer seemed clear: there must be no more exceptionalism. The human mind—the consciousness in each of us that peers through telescopes, scribbles calculations, falls in love, practices charity and ponders infinity—must be shown to be a product of the same impersonal forces that command the movements of the planets. This, in turn, meant that the new sciences must explain the functional relationship between human conscious experience and the small lump of living matter housed within the human skull, whose affinity for all things mental had been acknowledged even by Descartes: the human brain. More than two centuries later, Voltaire's challenge still resonates. Today, we have high‐tech brain‐imaging machines, a general theory of the origin of life, a map of the …

It has been widely believed since the nineteenth century that modern science provides a serious challenge to religion, but less agreement as to the reason. One main complication is that whenever there has been broad consensus for a scientific theory that challenges traditional religious doctrines, one finds religious believers endorsing the theory or even formulating it. As a result, atheists who argue for the incompatibility of science and religion often go beyond the religious implications of individual scientific theories, arguing that the sciences taken together provide a comprehensive challenge to religious belief. Scientific theories, on this view, can be integrated to form a general vision of humans and our place in nature, one that excludes the existence of supernatural phenomena to which many religious traditions refer. The most common name given to this general vision is the scientific worldview. The purpose of my paper is to argue that the relation of a worldview to science is more complex and ambiguous than this position allows, drawing upon recent work in the history and philosophy of science. While there are other ways to complicate the picture, this paper will focus on differing views that scientists and philosophers have on the proper scope and limits of scientific inquiry. I will identify two different types of science – Baconian and Cartesian – that have different ambitions with respect to scientific theories, and thus different answers about the possibility of a scientific worldview. The paper will conclude by showing how their differing intuitions about scientific inquiry are evident in contemporary debates about reductionism, drawing upon the work of two physicists, Steven Weinberg and John Polkinghorne. History is more complex than this simple schema allows, of course, but these types provide a useful first approximation into the ambiguities of modern science.

Foreword

What does human evolutionary theory reveal about the origins of human nature and the constraints it imposes on human cognition, behavior, and society? ‘‘The whole field of human evolution is pregnant with philosophical questions of great interest’’, Michael Ruse concludes in the final passage of The Philosophy of Human Evolution. This engaging and eminently readable romp through the philosophical landscape of human evolution fills a significant niche in the existing literature. There are numerous scientific texts surveying historical and contemporary problems in the field of human evolution, and there are many philosophical texts exploring conceptual and methodological problems in evolutionary theory. Ruse interweaves scientific and philosophical work on human evolution with the latest work in biological theory to produce a unique and timely book, one that addresses a range of important topics that rarely find their way into works of this genre. With a relentless lucidity and charming, folksy familiarity, Ruse guides a general readership through the thicket of historical, scientific, philosophical, social, and religious issues arising out of human evolutionary theory, navigating both well-worn and under-explored philosophical territory alike in eight chapters of seamless, page-turning pros. Ruse makes adept use of quotations from eminent evolutionists wherever the original words have greater resonance than any encapsulated rendering the author could provide. A careful attention to history is perhaps the greatest strength of the book. Ruse’s general rhetorical strategy is highly effective: He introduces contemporary philosophical debates in human evolution by first considering Darwin’s perennially prescient thoughts on the topic at hand, some of which, as the reader comes to see, have been vindicated, some modified, and some rebuked. Equally effective is Ruse’s use of clear, instructive figures illustrating key points in biogeography, comparative anatomy, taxonomy, development, genetics, and

Reviewed by: Nature Speaks: Medieval Literature and Aristotelian Philosophy by Kellie Robertson Taylor Cowdery Kellie Robertson. Nature Speaks: Medieval Literature and Aristotelian Philosophy. The Middle Ages Series, ed. Ruth Mazo Karras. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. Pp. x, 446, 10 illus. $69.95. A. O. Lovejoy once wrote that the task of the historian of ideas is to "trace connectedly" the "working of a given conception, of an explicit or tacit presupposition, of a type of mental habit, or of a specific thesis or argument" across a range of discourses and historical periods—all in the attempt to "put gates through the fences" that separate these discourses and periods from each other.7 In Nature Speaks, Kellie Robertson has given medievalists an ambitious and often dazzling work of premodern intellectual history cast in precisely this mold. Over the course of eight chapters, Robertson broadly outlines different models of nature in both contemporary theory and medieval literature and philosophy by [End Page 378] tracking the fortunes of a single idea. This is the Aristotelian concept of inclinatio, or "inclination," which sought to explain how and why each natural creature was inclined, both temporally and physically, toward a certain end. As Robertson observes, inclinatio was a hot topic in both philosophy and poetry during the Middle Ages, because its power to explain certain human behaviors (such as sexual desire) often ran at cross purposes to certain orthodoxies in medieval Christianity (such as the freedom of the human will). By telling the story of inclinatio from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, Robertson casts valuable light on the way that medieval culture thought about humanity's place in nature. In the process, she also makes a persuasive case for why scholars of medieval literature ought to pay better attention to natural philosophy, which both poets and philosophers inevitably drew upon whenever they sought, as she puts it, "to transform the world into words" (1). Nature Speaks begins with three chapters that lay out its theoretical stakes and introduce two broad claims that recur through the book. The first claim is that there were two primary models for nature during the Middle Ages: "a 'transcendent' one, associated with Neoplatonic and Augustinian writers who saw nature as inscrutable and to varying degrees detached from the human world, and an 'immanent' one, associated with Aristotelian and Thomist writers who believed that the regular teleological processes observable in nature could not only reveal aspects of the divine plan but also teach us something about ourselves" (3). The second is that this dichotomy makes itself particularly felt in debates over the influence of inclinatio upon the will during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—something that Robertson demonstrates with a deft reading of the role that "kyndely enclyning" plays in Chaucer's House of Fame. Chapters 1 ("Figuring Physis") and 2 ("Aristotle's Nature") prosecute both of these claims in greater depth, by considering how nature was conceptualized, figured, and debated by both Augustinians and Aristotelians during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Chapter 1 focuses mostly on four common figurations of Nature and her activity (ladder, book, artisan, or ax) in a wide range of texts including Gautier de Metz's L'image du monde, the Prick of Conscience, and Bartholomeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum. Chapter 2 assesses the significance of a key event: Bishop Etienne Tempier's 1277 condemnation, at the University of Paris, of more than 219 propositions that pertained to Aristotelian natural philosophy. Robertson argues [End Page 379] that, while the 1277 condemnation was broadly concerned with epistemology in general and "the limits of natural reason" (93), it also interrogated the particular legacy of Aristotle himself—a legacy that was often debated, as she observes, in accounts of whether or not the philosopher died a Christian death. By reading various accounts of Aristotle's end, such as the spurious De pomo, or select passages in Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon, Robertson makes it clear that the epistemological value of Aristotle's thought was hardly a settled matter during the fourteenth century. With this theoretical groundwork laid, Robertson next turns her attention to literary representations of Nature in the work of four late...

‘Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.’ On topics ranging from intelligent design and climate change to the politics of gender and race, the evolutionary writings of Charles Darwin occupy a pivotal position in contemporary public debate. This volume brings together the key chapters of his most important and accessible books, including the Journal of Researches on the Beagle voyage (1845), the Origin of Species (1871), and the Descent of Man, along with the full text of his delightful autobiography. They are accompanied by generous selections of responses from Darwin’s nineteenth-century readers from across the world. More than anything, they give a keen sense of the controversial nature of Darwin’s ideas, and his position within Victorian debates about man’s place in nature. The wide-ranging introduction by James A. Secord, Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, explores the global impact and origins of Darwin’s work and the reasons for its unparalleled significance today.

When all citizens vote, the influence of radical parties decreases. Despite this being a central justification for compulsory voting in the past, it has been absent from contemporary debates. I examine the normative and empirical premises of the ‘moderation thesis’ in relation to radical right-wing populist parties today and suggest that, under certain conditions, compulsory voting can limit these parties’ appeal. First, it replaces the excessive mobilisation of discontented voters with a more universal mobilisation. Second, it addresses the problem of underrepresentation offering a more pluralist type of representation than the populist one. And third, it reverses socioeconomic inequalities that drive support for populism through the egalitarian effects that compulsory voting has on policymaking. My central thesis is this: because compulsory voting embodies inclusivist, pluralist and egalitarian values, it addresses some of the grievances that drive support for right-wing populist parties without carrying the same normative costs as populism.

Although there are various ways to express actions and behaviors in natural languages, it is found in cognitive informatics that human and system behaviors may be classified into three basic categories: to be, to have, and to do. All mathematical means and forms, in general, are an abstract description of these three categories of system behaviors and their common rules. Taking this view, mathematical logic may be perceived as the abstract means for describing ‘to be,’ set theory for describing 'to have,' and algebras, particularly the process algebra, for describing ‘to do.’ This is a fundamental view toward the formal description and modeling of human and system behaviors in general, and software behaviors in particular, because a software system can be perceived as a virtual agent of human beings, and it is created to do something repeatable, to extend human capability, reachability, and/or memory capacity. The author found that both human and software behaviors can be described by a three-dimensional representative model comprising action, time, and space. For software system behaviors, the three dimensions are known as mathematical operations, event/process timing, and memory manipulation. This paper introduces the real-time process algebra (RTPA) that serves as an expressive notation system for describing thoughts and notions of dynamic software behaviors. Experimental case studies on applications of RTPA in describing the equivalent software and human behaviors as a series of actions and cognitive processes are demonstrated with real-world examples.

This article examines the concept of disposition in Spinoza's Ethics as a fundamental contribution to the mind-body problem, offering an alternative to the Cartesian notion of causal interaction. It argues that Spinoza proposes a simultaneity between body and mind, grounded in a direct correspondence between their powers, without implying causal interaction. The study focuses on Proposition 14 of Part Two, where the formula afficitur disponiturque organizes the relationship between bodily affections and the mind’s aptitude. Additionally, it explores the influence of Robert Boyle's mechanism and its impact on Spinoza’s redefinition of the body as an active and relational structure. This approach underscores the significance of the concept of disposition within Spinoza's system and its relevance to contemporary debates in ontology and philosophy of mind.

This paper argues that the problem of the apparent conflict between freedom of action and natural causal determinism has not been properly framed, because the key premiss—the thesis of universal causal determinism—is, in the domain of human behaviour, an unjustified conjecture based on over‐simplified, under‐informed explanatory models. Kant's semantics of singular cognitive reference (explained herein), which stands independently of his Transcendental Idealism, justifies and emphasises a quadruple distinction between causal description, causal ascription (predication), (approximately) true causal ascription (accurate predication) and cognitively justified causal ascription. Contemporary causal theories of mind, of action or of meaning do not suffice for causal ascription, and so cannot suffice for causal predication, and hence cannot justify causal determinism about human behaviour. More generally, the principle of universal causal determinism is a regulative principle governing causal inquiry and was so formulated by LaPlace. Only successful, sufficient causal explanation of particular events provides for causal knowledge of those events. Such knowledge we lack in the domain of human behaviour. Rational belief, including scientific belief, requires apportioning belief to justifying evidence; all else is conjecture or speculation, which do not justify premises of sound proofs. Causal determinism about human behaviour remains unjustified speculation, for sound Critical reasons Kant provided us in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In these regards, contemporary debates about these issues remain decidedly pre‐Critical.

The anatomical similarity observed in chimpanzees and humans has been recognized since Linnaeus. The debates on the attribution of the human condition to non-Western people date back to the 15th century. However, only in the 20th century did Social and Cultural Anthropology demonstrate through ethnography that the Enlightenment project of defining an universal and unique humankind has a consistent and real face as a result of research and reformulation of ideas. Only since the 1960s has the cumulative knowledge on wild chimpanzee behavior informed us about their ability to produce and use tools, for social learning, and to produce unique patterns of collective behavior. Ever since, primatological and human evolutionary research has contributed to an understanding of a surprising and uncomfortable similarity of human and non-human behaviors as well as to their deep differences. The practice of studying similarities and differences lead us to the same dead end: nature (on the genetic, biological and ecological level) is highly influential in determining that chimpanzees and humans live as social or sociocultural beings. Furthermore, considering these discoveries we need to reflect on the new meanings and the new places of nature in our knowledge when considering the social life of chimpanzees and humans. Taking into account how the influence of nature is deeply associated with the way of life of chimpanzees and humans, we must ask to what extent nature influences the social or cultural processes and to what extent they are autonomous. Even though considering my previous propositions that only humans produce culture, which is an essentially symbolic phenomenon, wild chimpanzees also have an intense and complex social life. In other words, this text proposes reflecting on the degrees of autonomy of social and cultural phenomena in relation to chimpanzee and human evolutionary predisposition to social life and to symbolic production as well as on the adaptive and non-adaptive aspects of these phenomena. This analysis adopted Rousseau's theory on the “State of Nature” and “State of Society” considering modern primatology from an anthropological point of view resulting in the invention of two concepts: “nature social primate” “primate social nature” and “human cultural nature”.

In the modern world, man has more and more responsibilities. Integration of thought, attitude, and activities providing “wisdom of life”, which guarantees careful activities in everyday life, is not enough. In nowadays era of fast changes, it is not enough to be a mature man in a sense of human cultural behavior, the needs are greater, anticipated thought and the ability to communicate with another man is necessary. Survival of man and overcoming the ecological crisis becomes a complex problem, which should be regarded as a system, a synthesis of theory and practice in many disciplines of science. A man prepared for service to the environment is called "Survival man". The "survival man" is a term, which refers to an integrally formed personality, that has a mature personality, prepared to coexist with other creatures. The "survival man" can integrate with others, make personal contacts "beyond boundaries" and also has the feeling of their vocation and their own place in nature. In order for these necessary dispositions of modern man, to become permanent behavior that is deeply motivated, the need for long-lasting bridging up process, after which follows later shaping in order for a man to achieve readiness to serve and act in a certain area. If a man is to serve, both to himself and others, first he has to reach to the deepest layers of the inner self - from sincerity to truth, in the bring in gup process. In order to reach full awareness of his role in the world.

Preface Declaration Protection of Life and our Civilization Part I Life as a Space Phenomenon. The Spread of Life Throughout the Cosmos, Chandra Wickramasinghe. Our Understanding of the Evolution of the Sun and its Death, Nami Mowlavi. Planetary Cosmogony: Creation of Homeland for Life and Civilization, Alexander V. Bagrov. Impact Phenomena: In the Laboratory, on the Earth, and in the Solar System, Jacek Leliwa-Kopystynski. Part II The Origin of Life. The Structural Regularities of Encoding of the Genetic Information in DNA Chromosomes, Anatolyj Gupal. The Origin of Life on the Earth: As a Natural Bioreactor Might Arise, Mark Nussinov and Veniamin Maron. Volcanoes and Life: Life Arises Everywhere Volcanoes Appear, Oleksandr S. Potashko. Lessons of Life, Christian de Duve. Human Evolution: Retrodictions and Predictions, David R. Begun. Man s Place in Nature: Human and Chimpanzee Behavior are Compared, Toshisada Nishida. Creative Processes in Natural and Artificial Systems (Third Signal System of Man), Abraham Goldberg. Part III Conservation of Life. Human Alteration of Evolutionary Processes, John Cairns, Jr. The Danger of Ruling Models in a World of Natural Changes and Shifts, Nils-Axel Morner. Ecological Limits of the Growth of Civilization, Kim S. Losev. The Potential of Conversion of Environmental Threats into Socioeconomic Opportunities by Applying an Ecohydrology Paradigm, Maciej Zalewski. Advances in Space Meteorology Modeling and Predicting - the Key Factor of Life Evolution, Mauro Messerotti. Ocean Circulations and Climate Dynamics, Mojib Latif. How We Are Far from Bifurcation Point of the Global Warming? Oleg Ivaschenko. Mankind Can Strive Against the Global Warming, Michel E. Gertsenstein, Boris N. Shvilkin. Can Advanced Civilization Preserve Biodiversity in Marine Systems? Menachem Goren. Can We Personally Influence the Future with Our Present Resources? Claudius Gros, Kay Hamacher, Wolfgang Meyer. World Energy Development Prospects, AnatolyDmitrievsky. Energy in the Universe and its Availability to Mankind, Josip Kleczek. Deuterium Explosion Power, N.P. Voloshin, A.S. Ganiev, G.A. Ivanov, F.P. Krupin, S.Yu. Kuzminykh, B.V. Litvinov, Leonid Shibarshov, A.I. Svalukhin. Accelerating Changes in our Epoch and the Role of Time-Horizons, Kay Hamacher. Mathematical and Spiritual Models: Scope and Challenges, Jose-Korakutty Kanichukattu. Future of our Civilization: Benefits and Perils of Advanced Science and Technology, Ting-Kueh Soon. Dark Energy and Life s Ultimate Future, Ruediger Vaas. Digital Aspects of Nature and Ultimate Fate of Life, Hoi-Lai Yu. Spirals of Complexity - Dynamics of Change, Don-Edward Beck. Part IV How Can We Improve our Life?. Nutrition, Immunity and Health, Ranjit Chandra. Human Races and Evolutionary Medicine, Bernard Swynghedauw. Bacteria in Human Health and Disease: From Commensalism to Pathogenicity, Helena Tlaskalova-Hogenova. Is there a Solution to the Cancer Problem?, Jarle Breivik. Are Embryonic Stem Cells Research and Human Cloning by our Future?, Lyubov Kurilo. Defeat of Aging - Utopia or Foreseeable Scientific Reality, Aubrey de Grey. Cardiology in XXI Century, Sergei Konorskiy. Cancer Problem in the Eyes of the Skin Multiparameter Electrophysiological Imaging, Yuriy F. Babich. Perspective of Quantum Medicine, Volodymyr K. Magas. There are 6 Million Tons of Brain Matter in the World, Why do We Use it so Unwisely, Boris N. Zakhariev. Conservation of Biological Diversity, John Skinner. Dialogue among Civilizations as a New Approach for International Relations, Mohammad R. Hafeznia. New Proposals to Conserve Life and Civilization, Vladimir Burdyuzha, Oleg Dobrovol skiy, Dmitriy Igumnov. Part V What is our Future. Eco-Ethics Must be the Main Science of the Future, Brian Marcotte. The Vital Tripod: Science, Religion and Humanism for Sustainable Civilization, Bidare V. Subbarayappa. HIV/AIDS and the Future of the Poor, Illiterate and Marginalized Populations, Rajan Gupta. Ocean S

Man's Place in Nature: Human and Chimpanzee Behavior are Compared