Mere Appearances Research Articles

Kant's nutshell argument for idealism

AbstractThe significance or vacuity of the statement, “Everything has just doubled in size,” attracted considerable attention last century from scientists and philosophers. Presenting his conventionalism in geometry, Poincaré insisted on the emptiness of a hypothesis that all objects have doubled in size overnight. Such expansion could have meaning, he argued, “only for those who reason as if space were absolute … it would be better to say that space being relative, nothing at all has happened.” The logical empiricists concurred, viewing the universal doubling hypothesis as illustrating the intrinsic metrical amorphousness of continuous manifolds. It is striking, therefore, to find Kant invoking a universal contraction in space and time to support his famous doctrine of transcendental idealism. In one of several completely neglected passages, he writes: “The proof that the things in space and time are mere appearances can also be grounded on the fact that the whole world could be contained in a nutshell and the entirety of elapsed time in a second without the least difference being met with.” Kant's “also” may suggest an idealist argument distinct from any proposed in published works. Here I ask: What is the meaning of Kant's Nutshell Argument for Idealism?

An empirical model for branding oriented by the environmental sustainability of the Amazon Rainforest: a hybrid structural equation modeling with fsQCA approach

Utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior, a meaningful connection between an organization and its consumers can be established, transcending mere appearances and delving into emotions, relationships, and brand experiences. In line with these principles, this study aims to present an empirical model grounded in factual evidence derived from the perspectives of entrepreneurs and consumers of environmentally sustainable brands in the Brazilian Amazon. The proposed model adopts a mixed-modeling approach, utilizing data analysis techniques such as fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Two independent data sets were collected: one from 8 companies operating in the Amazon rainforest and another from 535 potential consumers. By analyzing these datasets, consumer motivations for the consumption of sustainable brands, entrepreneurial practices, and the role of traditional communities and the forest environment in shaping brand perceptions were identified. The results reveal that, from the consumer’s perspective, the key factors influencing a positive inclination to purchase sustainable brands include the brand’s engagement with traditional com munities, perceived product quality, brand innovation, and a transparently communicated positioning strategy. These constructs form the core components of the main solution. This article provides valuable information for entrepreneurs operating sustainable brands in tropical forests as well as for policymakers in community-based entrepreneurship. It is also of interest to researchers and individuals involved in brand management as a strategy for empowering small businesses engaged in sustainable practices and community collaboration. The study’s findings and recommendations have the potential to foster more sustainable and socially responsible business practices, thereby enhancing local economies and contributing to environmental preservation.

Reinach on the essence of colours

This paper aims to present and evaluate the (unduly neglected) account of the essence of colours developed by the early phenomenologist Adolf Reinach. Reinach claims that colours, as regards their nature or essence, are physical entities. He is opposed to the idea that colours are “subjective” or “psychic”. It might be the case that the colours we see in the world do not exist but are mere appearances. However, their non-existence would not entail any change in their essence: that is, they would not be psychic, but would just be non-existent physical entities. In Reinach’s view, we can be “ontic-neutral essentialists” about colours: we can remain neutral as to the existence of colours but still make claims about their essence. In the first part of the paper, I present Reinach’s take on the essence of colours. In the second part, I address his existential neutrality about colours; in particular, I argue that Reinach’s ontic-neutral essentialism brings to the fore a seldom noted but crucial distinction to be made in the discussion of colours, that between empirical and metaphysical non-realism about colours.

Dzieci podczas ulicznych protestów – szczeble i granice partycypacji

This article delves into the participation of children in street protests, an area of study that has received limited attention but is becoming increasingly significant. It examines their involvement in protests connected to local concerns such as school closures, air pollution, and violence, as well as their participation in broader movements like feminism and environmentalism. The article seeks to synthesize the limited existing knowledge regarding children’s participation in protests. While schools may sometimes turn protests into mere appearances, educators have the potential to mentor young protesters in understanding social change. The extent to which children are prepared for public participation and engaged in post-protest activities will ultimately determine the educational value derived from street protests.

Wisdom lies in applying critical clinical judgment that delves deeper than mere appearances. Apropos of a case of ventricular hypertrophy

Wisdom lies in applying critical clinical judgment that delves deeper than mere appearances. Apropos of a case of ventricular hypertrophy

Dissociation Across Cultures: A Transdiagnostic Guide for Clinical Assessment and Management.

The clinical heterogeneity of dissociation constitutes a challenge to the culture-sensitive clinician. Variability in experiencing dissociation, the interplay between acute and chronic conditions, and the predominance of a nosologically interface-type of clinical surface conceal core dissociative symptoms. While the latter (amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusion, and identity alteration) usually remain underreported, the clinical surface may be dominated by acute (functional neurological symptoms, brief psychosis, an experience of possession, or acute dissociative reaction to a stressful event) or chronic (mood and personality disorders) secondary syndromes. However, these syndromes also constitute gateways in pursuing the clues of core dissociation. Given that culture influences communication between clinician and patient, accurate expression of mental content requires the idiomatic armamentarium describing the experience. The latter is problematic in dealing with phenomena of core dissociation while the secondary representations have a relatively universal character for both clinicians and patients. Nevertheless, this approach requires a transdiagnostic understanding in conceiving this clinical interface. This interface reflects, in fact, complications of dissociative disorders which require to be addressed in the first line. This is either due to the medical and psychiatric urgency (e.g., functional neurological symptoms, brief psychosis) or due to resistance to treatment (e.g., antidepressant pharmacotherapy) which seem to be indicated for the particular condition. This transdiagnostic schema is based on a combined utilization of etic and emic principles in the cultural understanding of psychiatric disorders. Namely, universal medical-psychiatric categories are conceived as tools of communication and mutual understanding rather than being mere appearances or primary disturbances.

The role of the Spanish Mediterranean Fisher's Guilds in Maritime Sustainability

The fisheries sector is making significant changes by specifically addressing coastal management and tackling the socio-environmental crisis it is currently facing. Notably, a fundamental change in the attitude and behavior of fishers and their institutions is observed, where sustainability of the environment and marine resources is becoming a priority issue.Focusing on the Fisher's Guilds of the Spanish Mediterranean, this work analyses the scope of these changes in the management of natural resources through their concrete actions, the factors that enhance or limit such actions, as well as any lingering resistance. For this, we have combined quantitative techniques, through a closed questionnaire, and qualitative techniques, through semi-structured interviews.We can confirm that the guilds play a growing and active role in the environmental management of their territory of influence. However, it is necessary to equip them with greater human and material resources, to support a strong, determined leadership committed to the environment and, above all, to build a framework of joint collaboration in decision-making that goes beyond mere appearances.

"Volver a un origen desnudo". Refracciones de incompletitud ontológica en la obra pictórica de Ramón Gaya

Este análisis de los escritos y la obra plástica de Ramón Gaya se divide en dos partes principales. Se comienza con una reflexión sobre la conocida aversión del murciano a la crítica artística, a lo largo de la cual se descubre una estrategia epistemológica dual como elemento central y estructurante de su pensamiento. Tal dualidad deja su impronta también sobre el concepto de arte de Gaya, un arte que, de siempre, se comprometió con la búsqueda de una verdad pictórica más allá de las apariencias, según lo ha constatado –apréciese la ironía– un buen número de sus intérpretes. Inspirado en las aportaciones de ese conjunto de críticos, el presente ensayo propone un nuevo acceso a las creaciones pictóricas de Gaya: entender las mismas como expresión y reflejo de la incompletitud ontológica de lo existente, según la desarrolló el pensador esloveno Slavoj Žižek. The present analysis of Ramón Gaya’s writings and visual art is divided into two main parts. It begins with a reflection on the famously hostile attitude the Spanish painter displayed toward art criticism, revealing a strategy of epistemological duality as a key structuring element of his thought. This duality has also left its mark on Gaya’s concept of art, an art that was always committed to discovering a pictorial truth beyond mere appearances, as, somewhat ironically, many of his commentators have pointed out. Drawing on these previous explorations as a source of inspiration, the present essay proposes a new access to Gaya’s works: understanding them, in accordance with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s theories, as a reflection and an expression of the fundamental ontological incompleteness of existence itself.

Kant and Fichte on Belief and Knowledge

One of the most venerable distinctions in philosophy is the one between knowledge and belief. Knowledge has been typically associated with genuine or scientific cognition that can provide truth whereas belief has been thought to present mere appearances or subjective opinion, usually founded on sense perceptions. In this paper, I will argue that for both Kant and Fichte, this standard view is mistaken and that they present belief (Glaube) as more important than knowledge. Even though Kant admits that knowledge is prior, and superior, to belief as well as opinion in their purely epistemic dimension, he nevertheless ends up holding that belief in the more significant sense of a ‘postulate,’ is more important than knowledge. I will also argue that this is the fundamental point of his well-known doctrine of the primacy of practical reason over theoretical reason. The standard view is also challenged by Fichte’s thoroughgoing transformation of our epistemic enterprise. According to Fichte, belief (Glaube) is prior to knowledge (Wissen), since it has something to do with “a resolution of the will” to admit the validity of knowledge. Belief here is equated with the practical act of the self that expresses its true nature as Tathandlung. In the course of the paper, I will also show that Kant and Fichte seem to argue for their view in a different way. For Kant, the superiority of belief is presented as part of his architectonic concern, i.e., as an answer to the question “what may I hope” in the context of his elaborate theory of postulates. For Fichte, the doctrine is presented as part of his transcendental-ontological project of securing the reality of the self and the world from our moral vocation.

The appearance standard: Criteria and remedies for when a mere appearance of unethical behavior is morally unacceptable

AbstractWhile there are companies whose codes of ethics state that mere appearance of unethical behavior by employees is morally unacceptable, this so‐called appearance standard has hardly received any attention in the business ethics literature. Using corporate integrity theory, this article explores the criteria that may explain how mere appearances of unethical behavior can arise (i.e., the presence of conflicts of interests, the entanglement of these interests, a reputation for lack of integrity, and deviant outcomes) and those that may make such appearances morally unacceptable (i.e., foreseeability, avoidability, and seriousness). The article proposes remedies for preventing and resolving instances when mere appearance of unethical behavior is morally unacceptable.

Mentalism Vs. Physicalism?

Reviews 355 c:\users\ken\documents\type3702\red\rj 3702 064 red.docx 2018-01-25 6:31 AM MENTALISM VS. PHYSICALISM? Chad Trainer 2045b Raleigh Road Hummelstown, pa 17036, usa stratoflampsacus@aol.com Torin Alter andYujin Nagasawa, eds. Consciousness in the PhysicalWorld: Perspectives on Russellian Monism. NewYork: Oxford U. P., 2015. Pp. x, 462. isbn: 978-0-19-992735-7 (hb). us$62.00. n his autobiography, Bertrand Russell recalls the decreasing degrees of sympathy he felt with most people during his adolescence, especially outside the realm of politics. During these years, upon his grandmother’s discovery of his interest in metaphysics, she thought an adequately reflective dismissal of his interests was “What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.” Russell notes: “At the fifteenth or sixteenth repetition of this remark, it ceased to amuse me” (Auto. 1: 45). Yet the mind/matter dichotomy persisted as a subject of the utmost interest to Russell for the rest of his long life. By his own account, up until 1912’s Problems of Philosophy, Russell “had accepted matter as it appears in physics. But this left an uncomfortable gulf between physics and perception, or, in other language, between mind and matter” (MPD, p. 78). Later, in the early 1920s, Russell depicted the plight as one wherein “many psychologists, especially those of the behaviourist school, … make psychology increasingly dependent on physiology and external observation, and tend to think of matter as something much more solid and indubitable than mind. Meanwhile the physicists, especially Einstein and other exponents of the theory of relativity, have been making ‘matter’ less and less material” (AMi, p. 5). Such paradoxical reflections prompted Russell to adopt the position of “neutral monism” according to which he forsook the mind/matter dichotomy and understood mind and matter, instead, as different ways of organizing and describing the same “stuff”. From this perspective, Russell noted, “As regards the world in general, both physical and mental, everything that we know of its intrinsic character is derived from the mental side, and almost everything we know of its causal laws is derived from the physical side” (AMa, p. 402). Unsurprisingly, the intrinsic character of the world physically and mentally, as well as its causal laws, abide to this day as areas still ripe for significant speculation. Billed as being the “first book-length treatment” of Russellian monism, Torin Alter and Yujin Nagasawa are the editors of Consciousness in the Physical World: Perspectives on Russellian Monism (abbreviated “CPW ”). The regard in which they hold Russellian monism is high. However, they argue that f= 356 Reviews c:\users\ken\documents\type3702\red\rj 3702 064 red.docx 2018-01-25 6:31 AM Russellian monism “will not become a mature, complete account until a theory of (proto)phenomenal1 composition that yields a plausible solution to the combination problem2 is devised” (CPW, p. 447). Three philosophers they consider to have “arguably anticipated Russellian monism or aspects of the view” (p. 3) are Leibniz, Kant, and James. Relevant, brief excerpts from their works make up the beginning of this volume. Also at the beginning of the volume are excerpts from Russell’s works. They feature his thought on the differences between neutral monism and both materialism and idealism, the knowability of mental events without inference versus the knowability of physical events only with respect to their space-time structure, how “the difference between mind and brain is not a difference of quality but a difference of arrangement”, his philosophy’s main points, and the stages of his philosophical development. Leibniz had argued that perception “cannot be explained by mechanical reasons” and that we must seek its nature in the “simple substance”, which is not constituted by extension alone. For Kant, the “faculty of sensibility’s” origin abides too obscurely for us who cognize our minds via only “inner sense”, thereby dooming us to discover mere appearances, much as we long to comprehend things in themselves. Then, for James, the constitution of “higher” mental states cannot be explained simply as a sum of “lower” ones. He decries the “mind-stuff theory” as unintelligible, arguing instead that states of mind encompassing the knowledge of many...

Law, Stigma, and Meaning: Implications for Obesity and HIV Prevention

Public health law has focused primarily on combatting stigma through laws targeting discrimination based on attributes (de jure), when the reach of stigma extends far beyond mere appearances. By exploring the lived experience of stigmatized individuals, policy makers might more deeply understand public health problems, more appropriately create health policies, and more effectively promote positive health behaviors. Efforts to address stigma must focus on all aspects of stigma to be effective.

On some philosophical foundations of the disappointing performances of the African soccer teams in world competitions

For decades, African senior club and national soccer teams, involved in world competitions (FIFA World Cup and FIFA Club World Cup), have failed to perform beyond mere honorable appearances. In this paper, we explore two of the fundamental causes underlying these disappointing performances. First, we examine the dilemma which forces almost all the African federations to overlook the Africa-based players in favor of those based outside the continent. Second, we show that the roots of the poor performances of the African teams go far beyond this crippling dilemma. Indeed, we argue, the persistent underperformances of African teams appear to be rather consistent with the fate of postcolonial Africa itself, a continent marred in an acute identity crisis. In fact, this crisis essentially stems from the relentless brain drain inflicted on the African soccer world which has so far dispersed its best talents all across Europe and beyond through the naturalization of its soccer diaspora. In addition, Africa has shown no ability to offer any type of attractive alternatives to the talented sons and daughters of its diaspora as well as to any other world class players. This ineptitude, coupled with Africa’s inability to leave behind its nostalgic Senghorian soccer essentialism, condemns the continent to perpetual poor performances. Therefore, we suggest that the African national federations and their respective governments move away from their deeply held soccer essentialism in order to begin to move toward some kind of soccer existentialism alongside such European countries as France, Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands which appear to acknowledge, perhaps reluctantly, the invaluable contributions made by the African (and other world) diaspora to the success of not only their local and national leagues but also their national teams.

Ideation and Photography: A critique of François Laruelle’s concept of abstraction

In Concept of Non-Photography (2011) and Photo-Fiction (2012), François Laruelle, outlines a theory of photographic abstraction that breaks completely with the debate on realism in photographic theory. Refusing to see photographic representation as involving any concession to resemblance (photographs have more in common with other photographs than with the objects they depict, he declares), he inflates the notion of the photograph as a symbolic entity into a transcendental theoretical domain. This is the result of his radical (non-philosophical) separation of appearances from truth (nothing stands ‘behind’ photographs he asserts). If this inflates photographs-as-abstractions as a form of rich ‘unlimited theoretical’ production, it also deflates them as social discursive entities, that ‘give and ask for reasons’. The result is a post-dialectical flattening of photographic appearances, in which images run in one-dimensional ‘parallel’ with the world. Laruelle’s attempt to release photography from mere appearances, produces a socially deracinated account of abstraction.

Robustness and reality

Robustness is often presented as a guideline for distinguishing the true or real from mere appearances or artifacts. Most of recent discussions of robustness have focused on the kind of derivational robustness analysis introduced by Levins, while the related but distinct idea of robustness as multiple accessibility, defended by Wimsatt, has received less attention. In this paper, I argue that the latter kind of robustness, when properly understood, can provide justification for ontological commitments. The idea is that we are justified in believing that things studied by science are real insofar as we have robust evidence for them. I develop and analyze this idea in detail, and based on concrete examples show that it plays an important role in science. Finally, I demonstrate how robustness can be used to clarify the debate on scientific realism and to formulate new arguments.

Perspectival Variance and Worldly Fragmentation

Objects often manifest themselves in incompatible ways across perspectives that are epistemically on a par. The standard response to such cases is to deny that the properties that things appear to have from different perspectives are properties that things really have out there. This type of response seems worrying: too many properties admit of perspectival variance and there are good theoretical reasons to think that such properties are genuinely instantiated. So, we have reason to explore views on which things can have the incompatible properties they appear to have across perspectives. This paper explores the view that things can have incompatible properties if the world is not a metaphysically unified place but is instead fragmented. There is a sensible notion of co-obtainment, on which two facts can each obtain without co-obtaining. Using this notion, we can step back from our embedded perspectives on the world without deeming the contents of those perspectives to be mere appearances. This renders the sheer pervasiveness of perspectival variance a serious pressure on the standard response, as well as a serious reason to think that the world is indeed fragmented.

Phenomenology as first philosophy

The paper interprets phenomenology as a mode of inquiry that addresses fundamental questions of first philosophy, beyond the limitation of the practice by its leading theorists to the study of mere appearances. I draw on Adorno's critique of phenomenology to show that it has typically functioned as a mode of first philosophy, but I part with Adorno to argue that it ought to be practiced as such, to address consciously a sceptical worry about the gap between appearance and reality that Husserl modestly claimed to have bracketed. Noting Husserl's and Adorno's shared worries about the project of first philosophy, to know the world beyond appearances, I draw on Nietzsche to argue phenomenology ought nonetheless to address real matters of concern.

Reducing the risk of insurance fraud by appearances of online surveillance

The efforts to tackle the growing problem of insurance fraud have focused primarily on examining suspicious claims and claimants after the accident has happened, ignoring a risk-reduction opportunity that exists even before the policy is purchased. The current paper aims to address this gap. In Study 1, a group of 40 participants were asked to input their personal details on a simulated comparison site. It showed that the numbers of obtained online quotes (i.e., how many times participants obtained them) and time spent to produce them by completing all the relevant information were positively correlated with misrepresentation of personal details for financial gain. In Study 2, a separate group of 120 participants took part in navigating a different simulated comparison site. The results suggest that equipping the site with mere appearances of online surveillance reduced the time that they took to input their details and minimized their manipulation for financial gain. Elaborating on the important theoretical and practical implications, the paper identifies a relatively easy and effective method of discouraging prospective policyholders from misrepresenting their details online.

The Flame of Eternity: An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thought (review)

Reviewed by: The Flame of Eternity: An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thought Scott Jenkins Krzysztof Michalski. The Flame of Eternity: An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thought. Translation from the Polish by Benjamin Paloff. Princeton, NJ-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv + 231. Cloth, $39.50. The subtitle of this book is potentially misleading. The book is not a typical interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought, but rather a series of reflections on time and human existence that take Nietzsche as their starting point. Throughout The Flame of Eternity, the nine chapters are referred to as essays, which seems appropriate since they are diverse, somewhat self-contained, sometimes personal, and arguably inconsistent. The subtitle of the original Polish edition (2007) also describes the contents of the book as essays, and it is unfortunate that this terminology was not retained. I cannot comment on the merits of the English translation more generally, though I can say that Paloff’s English is clear, lively, and a pleasure to read. Michalski presents Nietzsche as a philosopher whose writings express deep truths about our existence. One of those truths is, paradoxically, that our concepts cannot express deep truths about our existence. On Michalski’s reading, Nietzsche is not engaged in the traditional philosophical activity of using concepts to construct potentially true theories about this or that, theories that might be contrasted with other, false theories. Instead, Nietzsche aims to make us aware of the limitations of theoretical activity and the knowledge it creates. These limitations are both epistemic and practical—we cannot articulate the deep truths about our lives, and no conceptual activity satisfies the fundamental needs of human life. This approach to Nietzsche raises all sorts of methodological questions that Michalski would likely answer through appeal to our lived experience. While Michalski does not describe his approach as phenomenological, he often appeals to distinctive human experiences to ground his investigations. The appeal to experience is supplemented by Michalski’s view that Nietzschean terms such as ‘overman,’ ‘will to power,’ ‘eternal recurrence,’ ‘life,’ and ‘courage’ are not concepts but “meta-concepts” that refer to aspects of “the limit of knowledge,” or perhaps entities beyond this limit (197). This notion of a metaconcept is hazy, but the idea seems to be that Nietzsche’s writings possess a distinctive power to direct our attention to aspects of our existence that cannot become objects of philosophical theory. Elsewhere Michalski states more straightforwardly that he regards metaphor as essential to Nietzsche’s project (122). At times this emphasis on lived experience sheds light on Nietzsche’s thought. Michalski’s account of “On the Vision and the Riddle” from Thus Spoke Zarathustra succeeds in showing that Nietzsche takes some features of time to be manifest only from a standpoint within a [End Page 140] human life (181–84). Sometimes Michalski’s approach results in implausible readings, as when he reads Nietzsche’s remark that life is will to power as concerning only the quality of our lived experience, and not at all the nature of living things generally. In pursuing this reading Michalski also misuses passages from Nietzsche’s writings. For example, a late discussion of nihilism begins with the claim that life, for Nietzsche, is a will to the thinkability of all beings, while Zarathustra actually uses this formula to characterize the will to truth, not life itself (191). Unsurprisingly, The Flame of Eternity is at its best when it focuses on the most poetic elements of Nietzsche’s writings, such as life portrayed as the feminine object of Zarathustra’s love. Michalski illuminates Nietzsche’s characterization of life as a series of masks (146) or mere appearances (173) that shimmer and gleam (187), though again, the connection with will to power is strained. Less enlightening is Michalski’s novel account of eternal recurrence as a “meta-concept” concerned with the quality of time, not with its quantity or shape (189). These interpretations of will to power and eternal recurrence combine in Michalski’s image of our existence as flickering and ungraspable, but somehow complete at every moment—a flame of eternity. This, Michalski claims, is the content of Zarathustra’s wisdom, something nonconceptual that is manifest in Zarathustra...

The Dual Aspects Theory of Truth

Consider the following ‘principles’:(Norm of Belief Schema) Necessarily, a belief of <p> is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only ifp(at that scenario) — where ‘p’ has the aforementioned content <p>.(Generalized Norm of Belief) Necessarily, for all propositions <p>, a belief ofp> is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if <p> is true (at that scenario).Both ‘principles’ appear to capture the aim(s) of belief. (NBS) particularizes the aims to beliefs of distinct content-types. (GNB) generalizes these aims of beliefs as truth. Properly understood, the instances of (NBS) appear to be at least approximately true as does (GNB). Of course, one might harbor concerns about whether these are mere appearances or whether these ‘principles’ are properly formulated. Putting such concerns aside, one might naturally wonder how these two ‘principles’ (or their proper reformulations) are fundamentally related. More specifically, are the instances of (NBS) explanatorily basic if they are true?