Evident Truths Research Articles

The philosophical questions of the counselees

I propose the view that the philosophical counselling has to be “client oriented” that is, oriented by the counselees’ philosophical questions. Counselees are not always aware of the philosophical aspects of the dilemmas, confusions, conflicts etc. behind their sense of inability to deal satisfactorily with their difficulties. Unless they are already philosophers, they do not tend to conceive their personal philosophical problem as a particular instance of a general philosophical problem. Even if they do, they are not always capable to formulate philosophical questions. Yet they do have philosophical questions. They have such questions because, whatever have caused them to conceive something as a problem in their problem-situation, some ready-made, mostly inherited unexamined, taken for granted philosophical answers to possible philosophical questions are, so to speak, “called into question”. People, including philosophers, learn such answers unknowingly (of course, not as answers but as “evident truths”, “facts”, “moral imperatives” etc.), before it occurs to them that such questions can be asked. Most of our beliefs, including the philosophical ones, belong to that category of answers to unasked questions. The pretension to be able to hold only examined beliefs is, therefore, non-realistic, and it is mistaken to assume that the unexamined ideas are the cause of our difficulties. The philosophical counsellor, as a trained philosopher, should know how to help the counselees realize what is at stake, formulate explicitly their questions, examine the unsatisfactory answers and explore alternatives ones - that is what philosophers normally do when they want to help colleagues, students (or past philosophers) who “got stuck” in their philosophical projects. I deal with the implications of that conviction for philosophical counselling.

The Many and the One: A Philosophical Study of Plural Logic

<i>The Many and the One: A Philosophical Study of Plural Logic</i>

14 Evident Truths from the Organizational Genius of St. Thomas Aquinas: How “Born Again Thomism” Can Help Save the West from Cultural Suicide

14 Evident Truths from the Organizational Genius of St. Thomas Aquinas: How “Born Again Thomism” Can Help Save the West from Cultural Suicide

Radical Abolitionism through Self Revelation in American Literature

The major purpose of the article is to shed light on the contribution of literature to the American abolitionist movement .The article shall be an attempt to reveal the major roots of black radicalism as well as the background of their ideological project and radical movement in the American society .In fact, the Americans and since the Revolution, have adopted a set of principles like the necessity of applying justice, freedom, and equality that became later the major ideals of the American society and that made the Americans feel themselves exceptional in founding the true democratic society in which every individual can enjoy freedom, equality ,and justice .The abolitionist movement came out to apply the theory of the “self evident truths” on the African American people. Black writers saw in literature an appropriate tool to foster and argue for radical abolitionism. Self revelation was a window through which the reading public could feel the plight of the African Americans in the USA society.

Rupturas asignificantes: Revisiones críticas en torno al Derecho

De forma tradicional, la relación entre el cuerpo y el derecho ha sido abordada desde la instancia positiva de la ley. En esa medida, el cuerpo se convierte en una superficie en la que se sancionan las verdades que evidencian el delito. Contrario a tal perspectiva, el presente artículo busca re pensar la importancia de ampliar el diálogo del derecho con otros saberes de tal manera que inaugure una forma reflexiva de interpretar su ejercicio e instaure una manera otra de estudiar el cuerpo y las complejidades que en torno al mismo se tejen.

The Satisfaction Congruency Theory: The Case of Sexual Satisfaction

The culture of putting primacy to pleasure and satisfaction is gaining headway not only in the Philippines but in the world as well. It is slowly building a counter culture to the Catholic beliefs that the missionary friars propagated. Religion taught the people that sex is sacred, and rendered it as taboo in this culture. In this paper, the dynamics of satisfaction congruency in human behavior is delved into using the axiomatic approach to theory development. Self evident truths are explored to form the base of the theory building process. The developed theory states that congruent satisfaction is dependent on whether or not there is satisfaction in each of the three phases of an act. Congruent satisfaction occurs when the individual is satisfied in all these three phases: antecedent/planning phase, concurrent/execution phase, and the consequent/evaluation phase. Dissatisfaction in any of the phases results in incongruency. This, in turn, will influence the quality of life of the individual.

Sistema em Leibniz e Descartes

Descartes concebe que a verdadeira ordem científica é a ordem das razões, na qual se parte das verdades mais fáceis e evidentes em direção às mais difíceis e complexas. Assim, estabelece-se uma ordem única, progressiva e irreversível, onde cada membro da cadeia depende daqueles que o antecederam, de modo que cada tese possui um lugar não-intercambiável dentro da doutrina. Leibniz, ao contrário, defende que "[...] uma mesma verdade pode ter vários lugares, conforme as diferentes relações que pode possuir" (Novos Ensaios, IV, XXI, § 4). A fim de evitar as repetições, reunindo-se o máximo de verdades no mínimo de volumes, o autor propõe que a melhor ordem científica é a disposição sistemática das matérias, que consiste em uma organização do saber na qual cada lugar reenvia a outros, tornando clara a conexão entre os conhecimentos. Em contraposição ao modelo de sistema cartesiano, no modelo leibniziano, as teses se fundamentam mutuamente e a ordem das verdades estabelecidas é reversível. Ora, é devido a essas diferenças na concepção de sistema que Leibniz, ao contrário de Descartes, pode pretender tomar o que há de melhor nos sistemas legados pela tradição para constituir o seu próprio sistema, já que para ele há uma certa maleabilidade na constituição do sistema filosófico.

Impartial Attractiveness as a Moral Test

Impartial Attractiveness as a Moral Test Karol Edward Soltan (bio) How should we modify our systematic thinking about moral questions in order to achieve the following two goals? 1. Bring it in closer alignment with the modern scientific spirit, as it is understood today, not as it was understood in 17th or 18th century (no self evident moral truths as axioms, for example) and not as it was understood in 13th century either (no return to Aristotle or to Saint Thomas Aquinas). 2. Make systematic moral thinking as helpful as it can be in improving the world. Certainly it would then have to have normative force, and it would need to pay attention to the problem of motivation, and to possible supporting institutional instruments, such as the courts of law, or self-limiting social movements. This is the problem I would like to address in this essay. My suggestions are: first, help develop empirical normative ethics, (this is now done, for example, as part of the new experimental philosophy); and, second, adopt the project of "impartial attractiveness as a moral test," as part of this empirical normative ethics. I further suggest an interpretation of attractiveness that mixes emotion and cognition, so that moral judgments are not purely cognitive, and our concern is with attracting loyalties, and not simply attracting beliefs. [End Page 281] The project of impartial attractiveness as a moral test needs elaboration at a number of levels. It should consist of at least four activities. 1. We need to describe the test of impartial attractiveness in its ideal form, and contrast it with alternative methods of moral theory, such as the method of reflective equilibrium, or the test of agreement under ideal circumstances. 2. We need to describe various empirical tests and empirical procedures that can approximate this ideal test, so we can actually study impartial attractiveness. 3. We need to develop a theory of this test. Why should this be the moral test? On what grounds could we replace it with a better test? 4. We need to develop research programs, and hypotheses within those programs, using the test of impartial attractiveness. In this essay I sketch these four elements of the project. The impartial attractiveness research program is distinctive in two ways. First, it is an empirical program, although like any worthwhile empirical program it has room for conceptual elaboration, theory development, and speculative components. Second, its empirical interest lies not in studying moral judgments or moral beliefs, but rather studying a certain type of changes in moral judgments and beliefs (those caused by the impartial force of reasons for action, in one formulation). In empirical normative ethics we can identify two fundamentally different approaches: some study moral beliefs and moral judgments; others study changes in those beliefs, under the influence of a distinctive type of ideas. The first group can think of themselves as studying an aspect of the human mind. The second group studies instead an aspect of the interaction of human minds. I outline a project which belongs to this second group, and in which the test of attractiveness is formulated to make it as helpful as possible in making the world better. The empirical research program must produce normative guidance for our actions. It must be part of empirical normative ethics, with the normative emphasized. The practical effect is crucial. We do not want to interpret the world differently (or at least that is not the only thing we want to do), we want to make it better. [End Page 282] This preoccupation with practice supports the addition of two features that lead to unexpected results. First, our concern is with ideas supportive of human projects, a category broader than the more conventional concern with reasons for action. More importantly for the present essay, our concern is with motivation as well as justification, with emotion as well as cognition, with passion as well as reason. In ancient China an important debate pitted Confucians against Moists. The debate was complex, and there were many issues. But one seemed central. Moists argued for the promotion of universal love. Confucians countered that this was motivationally unrealistic, and developed an alternative based on...

Las verdades de Pero Grullo en periodismo

Perhaps Pero Grullo was a real person many years ago. Like a prophet or a prater. Francisco de Quevedo invent the word “perogrullada”, truism, in the 17th century. An italian Opera and a spanish weekly paper there was in the 18th century, when appear Grullo. A satirical newspaper and a Zarzuela, named “Pero Grullo”, there was in the 19th century. Many novelists, journalists and philologists mention the truism in the 20th century. There are three proverbs or adages: the poetical predictions, the evident truths and the lumpishness.

Infrared metaphysics: the elusive ontology of radiation. Part 1

Hardly any ontological result of modern science is more firmly established than the fact that infrared radiation differs from light only in wavelength; this is part of the modern conception of the continuous spectrum of electromagnetic radiation reaching from radio waves to gamma radiation. Yet, like many such evident truths, the light-infrared unity was an extremely difficult thing to establish. We examine the competing arguments in favour of the unified and pluralistic theories of radiation, as put forward in the first half of the nineteenth century by three of the most important early pioneers of the study of radiation: Herschel, Melloni and Draper. In this part of the paper, we conclude that there were no compelling reasons of observational adequacy to prefer the unified theory to the pluralistic theory. (Whether there were other conclusive reasons for that preference is the question addressed in Part 2 of the paper.)

Éléments pour une préhistoire de la géométrie

Elements for a Prehistory of Geometry. Geometry has a history, that much is obvious, but what is certainly less obvious is that it also has a prehistory. Geometry before Euclid (c. 300 BC) and before the great classical texts (from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Vedic India and China), far from being a clear-cut and self-contained science, should be seen as scattered fragments arising out of diverse human activities. In the creation of stone tools, or in rituals based on symbolic drawings, a series of mental reflexes were formed, self evident truths, which are the implicit foundations of the first geometric texts : the three dimensions of space, the plane as the main workplace, the basic figures (straight line, rectangle, circle) and their elements (points and lines), and comparison of magnitudes. What we offer here is a description of these fragmentary beginnings, through an analysis of the key stages first in paleolithic toolmaking, then in symbolic drawing as expressed in rock and cave art, and among traditional peoples.

The Danger of Self-Evident Truths

evident truths in public policy making. The presumption that large numbers of small governmental units serving a metropolitan area produce inadequate, inefficient, and inequitable services has been widespread throughout this century. Its converse--that big, centralized governments are more professional and offer economies of scale in the production of public goods and services--has been considered to be similarly obvious. But are these assumptions correct? For much of this century, few questioned this common-sense wisdom. Consequently, lacking systematic empirical evidence to substantiate this belief, local governments throughout the U.S. and West Europe adopted proposals to reform their structure by consolidating local governments. In general, these reforms have failed to generate predicted benefits. A second example illustrates the way in which self-evident truths can be

Phenomenology, Psychoanalysis, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion

This realisation of language, now only serving as an eff"aced coin passed from hand to hand in silence . . . indicates the pure function of language, which is to assure us that we are, and nothing more. That one is capable of speaking to no purpose is just as significant as the fact that, when one speaks, in general it is for a purpose. What is striking is that there are many instances when one speaks although one might just as well remain silent. Ah, but to keep silent just then is precisely what is most cunning. -The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 1: Freud's Papers on Technique. 1955-1954, p. 157 The disputes between the intellectual heirs of Edmund Husserl and those of Sigmund Freud are many and storied. With respect to the object as well as to the methods of their investigations, these midwives to twentieth-century philosophy appear, at first glance, to be working at cross-purposes. But from the vantage point that history affords, however, it seems far more important that, rather than how, they ef fected a significant retooling of the philosophical projects of their predecessors. When Jacques Lacan announced in 1949 that the "I" discovered by Freud necessitated a rejection of "any philosophy directly issuing from the Cogito," he was issuing a challenge not only to the International Psychoanalytic Congress, but to the discipline of philosophy as well ("The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience," Ecrits, p. 1 ).' Certainty had suddenly become much more elusive. Whereas Descartes' doubt is satisfied only by the assurance of the cogito's self awareness, Freud insisted that it is the obvious gaps in the data of consciousness that make the turn toward the unconscious "necessary and legitimate" ("The Unconscious," SE XIV, p. 166). On the other hand, phenomenology had also left Descartes' method behind by this time, but in a way which delimited a field of inquiry apparently irreducible to the analytic experience. In an explicit dialogue with Descartes, Maurice Merleau-Ponty attributes to Husserl's investigations the answer to the question of intersubjectivity as well as access to essences by demonstrating that relations between subject and world "are not strictly bilateral" (Phenomenology of Perception, p. ix). While I must be fastidiously aware of myself during the act of reflection, as the analytic situation would encourage me to be, the world that is thereby given to me has priority over that act, however painstakingly careful my interpolation of the lacunate data might be. Phenomenology is fundamentally "a matter of describing, not of explaining or analyzing" (ibid., p. viii). This disparity exists on a much broader level as well. The schools of thought that carry on the projects of their founders2 orient themselves around different philosophic goals. Indeed, it is in the wake of these founders that a more systematic and informative distinction can be divined. In his study of the legacy of Freud's thought, Paul Ricoeur differentiated the two movements by characterizing phenomenology as an exercise of faith, psychoanalysis (along with perspectivism and historical materialism, its contemporary siblings) appearing en face as an exercise of suspicion. While this divide has obviously been staked out in order to support Ricoeur's own project, it is illuminating in two important ways. First, it exposes phenomenology as an attempt to restore meaning. This implies a belief that such a thing needs to, and can be, done: "it is a rational faith, for it interprets; but it is a faith because it seeks, through interpretation, a second naivete" (Freud and Philosophy, p. 28). Clearly, a return to the things themselves that invites a more than cursory examination. And Merleau-Ponty, at least, professes to occupy a thoroughly sanctified position: We must not, therefore, wonder whether we really perceive a world, we must instead say: the world is what we perceive. In more general terms we must not wonder whether our self evident truths are real truths, or whether, through some perversity inherent in our minds, that which is self evident for us might not be illusory in relation to some truth in itself. …

Some Evident Truths About Conversations in Everyday Relationships All Communications Are Not Created Equal

This article presents a program of studies that map out daily conversations and so establish a geography of everyday communication. A new method (the Iowa Communication Record) is offered to extend research using diary methods and focus the researcher on communication in daily life. Three studies collectively show (a) consistent sex differences in the quality and nature of conversations across different types of relationships, (b) a consistent rank ordering of relationship types that differs from that intuitively included in previous models of relationship formation, and (c) a consistent difference between conversations held on different days of the week, with Wednesdays associated with greater degrees of conflictive communication. Self-disclosure is much less frequent in everyday life than assumed on the basis of laboratory work, and the predominant form of communication in intimate relationships is not only nonintimate but not simply distinguishable from communication in other relationship types. Communication quality distinguishes female from male partners, suggesting that previous findings on preference for female partners are truly founded in communication variables, which have previously been underrated. The article shows that closer attention must in future be paid to communicative variations created by daily events and circumstances, and the role of routine communication in daily life must be explored in future studies of social participation.

Reason in Law

Abstract. The problem of the relationship between “reason” and “law” has two different meanings depending on whether the first or the second of the two terms is considered to be the most important one. These two different meanings are revealed in the expressions “law of reason” and “legal reason,” respectively. In the first expression, “reason” is meant in its strong sense, that is, the faculty of grasping the essence of things, while in the second, “reason” is meant in a weak sense, the ability to reason (calculate, infer, discuss). “Law of reason” and “legal reason” correspond to two different moments of the legal universe, the creation and, respectively, the application of law. Strong reason is that which discovers the rules to be obeyed, while weak reason is that which applies rules to an actual case. The first is legislating reason, while the second is judging reason. The main topic of the debate from the Greeks to Kant was that of legislating reason. Nowadays, instead, scholars in the field are interested in judging reason. Historicism and positivism mark the end of faith in the existence of rules which are objectively just, and which may be recognized by human reason. By now we have learned to do without the eternal truths in the knowledge of the world. However painful it may be, we are forced to resign ourselves to do without evident truths in ethics, as well.

The semantical structure of fictional discourse

An attempt is made to account for the evident truths supplied by fictional discourse, and to vindicate the ordinary naive theory of fictions, within the single framework of universal semantics and the theory of objects. The theory offered is an elaboration of a contextual theory (which fits easily into universal semantics) according to which the context supplies base-shifting functions which alter the world where truth is assessed. The elaboration consists, firstly, of expansion of the theory of contexts to meet various objections, and, secondly, of deployment of the theory of objects to account for truths concerning fictional objects in non-fictional contexts (as regards the second, various options open on the contextual theory are sketched; but an important option the author now prefers is omitted). An account is given of fiction and its distinctive semantical features. A work of fiction is regarded as portraying part of a world, so a work of fiction is semantically like a theory. Since there is little restriction on the worlds of fiction, any modal theory of fiction is bound to be inadequate; there is in fact no general uniform logic of fiction. (This corresponds to the unrestricted imagination thesis, fundamental to a comprehensive theory of fiction, to the effect that there are no restrictions on what is imaginable.) Also criticised and rejected are other theories of fiction such as elliptical and dimensional theories. Not only the statements of fiction but the objects of fiction are considered. The worst logical difficulties concerning the objects of fiction are resolved, so it is argued, by adopting a neutral quantificational framework and by sharply qualifying the Leibnitz identity principle. That the same object, e.g. London, occurs in a given fictional world as in the actual world is a matter of qualified author sayso; transworld identity is here stipulative. The final points concern the incompleteness and fictionality of the theory developed.

The Logic of Mathematical Discovery Vs. the Logical Structure of Mathematics

Mathematics offers us a puzzling contrast. On the one hand it is supposed to be the paradigm of certain and final knowledge: not fixed to be sure, but a steadily accumulating coherent body of truths obtained by successive deduction from the most evident truths. By the intricate combination and recombination of elementary steps one is led incontrovertibly from what is trivial and unremarkable to what can be non-trivial and surprising.On the other hand, the actual development of mathematics reveals a history full of controversy, confusion and even error, marked by periodic reassessments and occasional upheavals. The mathematician at work relies on surprisingly vague intuitions and proceeds by fumbling fits and starts with all too frequent reversals. In this picture the actual historical and individual processes of mathematical discovery appear haphazard and illogical.The first view is of course the currently conventional one which descends from the classic work of Euclid.

On Mind and Our Knowledge of It

This paper is an attempt to clarify our talk about minds and thoughts—our own minds and the thoughts which run through them and which we know directly, as well as the minds of other people and the thoughts with which we credit them. We do so in order to be able to characterize satisfactorily our whole performance in talking about minds and thoughts, the rules according to which such talk operates and the goals it purports to reach. We also hope to evaluate, in the light of such a characterization, a number of more elaborate ways of speaking about minds and thoughts, so as to become clear as to their advantages or disadvantages in comparison with more ordinary ways of speaking. The whole investigation is well worth undertaking, since it has long been evident that our talk about mind and thought is, to a peculiar extent, liable to become the seat of certain deep perplexities, which do not arise when we deal with unusual material on the borderlines of knowledge, but which tend, rather, to obtrude themselves in commonplace situations, and to trouble our grasp of the most obvious notions and the most evident truths. Such perplexities, broadly covered by the word “philosophical,” are rendered very stubborn by their objects and their origin. For when we are dealing with things remote, strange and intricate, we have at least a firm foothold in the well-known, simple and near, and a clear set of terms to talk with; but we hardly seem to have a perch to hop to, or any intelligible language left to talk in, when the obvious itself begins to present difficulties. And it is also characteristic of most of the difficulties we are considering that in them the burning zone of perplexity seems to shift erratically from issue to issue, that each expedient adopted to meet them involves us in new problems, that men cannot ever agree as to the best expedient or the least serious difficulty, and that, in the outcome, they resemble nothing so much as a set of sleepers under inadequate coverings, some of whom prefer exposure in one place, while others prefer it in another.