Ontological Questions Research Articles

Why Care About What There Is?

Abstract There’s the question of what there is, and then there’s the question of what ultimately exists. Many contend that, once we have this distinction clearly in mind, we can see that there is no sensible debate to be had about whether there are such things as properties or tables or numbers, and that the only ontological question worth debating is whether such things are (in one or another sense) ultimate. I argue that this is a mistake. Taking debates about ordinary objects as a case study, I show that the arguments that animate these debates bear directly on the question of which objects there are and cannot plausibly be recast as arguments about what’s ultimate. I then address the objection that, because they are easily answerable, questions about what there is cannot be a proper subject of ontological debate.

Melting the Archive: The Irreconcilable Cover Song and Rock’s Recorded History

Abstract In this article, I consider a set of curious cases from the world of rock music: putative “cover versions” that differ from their corresponding canonical tracks to such an extent that it seems doubtful whether they even count as performances of the same songs. Though I address the ontological question of how or whether these tracks could be classified as actual cover songs, in this paper I am more concerned with the evaluative question of how we should attempt to appreciate them as such (as we are invited to do, I argue, according to the recordings’ metatextual cues). I will argue that these irreconcilable covers, as I call them, are best appreciated as conceptual artworks that function in a manner somewhat analogous to how Arthur Danto argues that Andy Warhol’s famed Brillo Box sculptures function; prompting us to reflect on the nature of art (and non-art). Through adopting a strategy that is, in some respects, the inverse of Warhol’s, these covers make a similar invitation to listeners to consider the nature of rock covers and covering practices, and to reflect on the stances that we—listeners and artists alike—might take in relation to rock’s past and its ever-available recorded archive.

Hypothetical Inquiry in Plato's Timaeus

This paper re-constructs Plato's ‘philosophy of geometry’ by arguing that he uses a geometrical method of hypothesis in his account of the cosmos’ generation in the Timaeus. Commentators on Plato's philosophy of mathematics often start from Aristotle's report in the Metaphysics that Plato admitted the existence of mathematical objects in-between ( metaxu) Forms and sensible particulars ( Meta. 1.6, 987b14–18). I argue, however, that Plato's interest in mathematics was centred on its methodological usefulness for philosophical inquiry, rather than on questions of mathematical ontology. My key passage of interest is Timaeus’ account of the generation of the primary bodies in the cosmos, i.e. fire, air, water and earth ( Tim. 48b–c, 53b–56c). Timaeus explains the primary bodies’ origin by hypothesising two right-angled triangles as their starting-point ( arkhê) and describing their individual geometrical constitution. This hypothetical operation recalls the hypothetical method which Socrates introduces in the Meno (86e–87b), as well as the use of hypotheses by mathematicians which is described in the Republic (510b–c). Throughout the passage, Timaeus is focussed on explicating the bodies in terms of their formal structure, without however considering the ontological status of the triangles in relation to the physical world.

시와 명상과학

This study aims to demonstrate how contemplative science and poetic language can be combined to improve learners’ awareness and achieve harmony and balance between their mind and body. A contemplative science that seeks to encompass the wholeness of human beings must incorporate a language that allows learners to raise ontological, epistemological, and semantic questions to develop their awareness of self, others, and the world in which they live and to expand individual experiences into universal values. An innovative education model is proposed in this study, which combines the representative meditation program, MBSR with poetry reading and expressive writing. After explaining why poetry can be the best language for meditation, this essay presents a few selected poetry texts, the following questions for writing exercises, and the analysis of participants’ descriptive responses in their self-checklist.

Philosophy and psychedelics: Frameworks for exceptional experience

AbstractThe intersection between philosophy and psychedelics is explored in the book “Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience”. The authors aim to develop a dialogue between the two disciplines and explore the various frameworks for understanding exceptional experiences that psychedelics have afforded human beings. The book delves into foundational, ontological, and epistemological questions, including the hard problem of consciousness, the metaphysical understanding of the self, and the aesthetic meaning of the sublime in psychedelic experience. The book provides valuable exploration of questions concerning prevailing metaphysical frameworks, epistemic belief structures, and modes of inquiry, and the effort made by the authors to bring into dialogue multiple dialectics and practices, perspectives and methods is commendable.

‘to hesitate to die to death’: Reading Augustine and the After-life in Echo’s Bones

Echo's Bones was Beckett's first attempt at delineating a post-mortem scenario and the allusive presence of St. Augustine's Confessions played a pivotal role in that endeavour. This article examines the various methodological difficulties of analysing Beckett's notetaking from Augustine and subsequent use in the story. It is argued that two key notions emerge from Beckett's allusions to Augustine in the text: a conception of death as dependent on relations with God (one is only fully alive within the grace of God) and the need for God's help to remain continent and to turn away from the demands of desire. As such, the article gives an early indication of Beckett's later concerns with ontological questions of death-in-life and life-in-death.

A Critical Realist Critique of “Measurement in Quantitative Educational Research: An Instrumental Mistake?” by Sigve Høgheim

Both Sigve Høgheim and I advance a similar critique of representationalism, operationalism and construct validity as found in psychology. Our respective critiques hinge on the way that these concepts do not adequately consider the ontological question about the reality of our constructs. Høgheim suggests that we can circumvent the problem by returning to the classic definition of measurement which avoids “coding,” but I think that avoiding coding (representation, modelling, theorising) is impossible. Instead of trying to avoid it, I suggest that we embrace it, using a number of critical realist concepts such as emergence, layered reality, retroduction, judgemental rationalism and the semiotic triangle. I also argue that the current approach to operationalism reflects a deep contradiction, known as the epistemic fallacy, in which scientists reduce questions of ontology to questions of epistemology. Nevertheless, despite their contradictory version of science, research scientists in the fields of psychology and education still manage to discover things about the world, but in order to do so, they need to break their own rules. Høgheim wants such scientists to avoid the contradiction – the breaking of the rules of science – by remaining faithful to Euclid, Newton, and Descartes. On the contrary, I suggest that the contradiction can be avoided by changing the theory of science to a more adequate, critical realist version that better reflects the scientific practice of psychologists and educators.

The "Hard Problem of Consciousness" Arises from Human Psychology.

Consciousness presents a "hard problem" to scholars. At stake is how the physical body gives rise to subjective experience. Why consciousness is "hard", however, is uncertain. One possibility is that the challenge arises from ontology-because consciousness is a special property/substance that is irreducible to the physical. Here, I show how the "hard problem" emerges from two intuitive biases that lie deep within human psychology: Essentialism and Dualism. To determine whether a subjective experience is transformative, people judge whether the experience pertains to one's essence, and per Essentialism, one's essence lies within one's body. Psychological states that seem embodied (e.g., "color vision" ∼ eyes) can thus give rise to transformative experience. Per intuitive Dualism, however, the mind is distinct from the body, and epistemic states (knowledge and beliefs) seem particularly ethereal. It follows that conscious perception (e.g., "seeing color") ought to seem more transformative than conscious knowledge (e.g., knowledge of how color vision works). Critically, the transformation arises precisely because the conscious perceptual experience seems readily embodied (rather than distinct from the physical body, as the ontological account suggests). In line with this proposal, five experiments show that, in laypeople's view (a) experience is transformative only when it seems anchored in the human body; (b) gaining a transformative experience effects a bodily change; and (c) the magnitude of the transformation correlates with both (i) the perceived embodiment of that experience, and (ii) with Dualist intuitions, generally. These results cannot solve the ontological question of whether consciousness is distinct from the physical. But they do suggest that the roots of the "hard problem" are partly psychological.

The Missing Post-Humanism: A Philosophical Posthuman Study of Don DeLillo’s Zero K and William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition

In the Anthropocene, humans have established an uninhabitable ecosystem. His insatiable desire for resources and possessions has led to this catastrophe. The posthuman studies critically examine the human-nonhuman divide through technology, biology, and culture. The inquiry raises ethical and ontological questions about human enhancement, artificial intelligence, and the social effects of new technologies. Posthumanism envisions a complex and interdependent world. Francesca Ferrando believes posthumanism threatens the anthropocentric worldview. Posthumanism reconsiders human identity, agency, and existence in light of emerging technologies and complex human-nonhuman relationships. It emphasises inclusivity, connectivity, and subtlety in human experience. She demonstrates post-humanism, post-anthropocentrism, and post-dualism in her seminal idea of ‘Philosophical Posthumanism’. This study analyses Don DeLillo and William Gibson's science fiction novels to reconsider “the human.” In this paper, Don DeLillo's Zero K and William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, Ferrando's ‘philosophical posthumanism’ and ‘posthumanism’ based on post-dualism, post-anthropocentrism and post-humanism views are compared. Ferrando's seminal work on 'Philosophical Posthumanism' expands on the above argument. This study seeks to investigate the absence of Ferrando's concept of post-humanism in selected literary works and the need for interdependence with other non-human species.

Performative Discourse in E. Grishkovets Monodramas

The purpose of the study is to determine the specifics of the compositional–speech form of E. Grishkovets' monodrama. The subject of the study is the ratio of narrative and anarrative elements in six monodramas by E. Grishkovets - "How I ate a dog", "Simultaneously", "Dreadnoughts", "+1", "Farewell to paper", "Whisper of the heart". To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved: firstly, to identify and characterize the anarrative elements in the monodramas of E. Grishkovets; secondly, to analyze the communicative situations underlying the action of the studied plays; thirdly, to determine the ratio of narrative and performative elements in the works. The theoretical basis was the work in the field of artistic discourse: the theory of the dialogical nature of art by M. M. Bakhtin, which has already become a classic, and was developed in the research of V. I. Tyupa. The main method of research was the discursive analysis of the literary text, which allows to identify and describe the invariant model of E. Grishkovets' monodrama. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the approach used: the invariant structure of E. Grishkovets' monodramas is revealed by studying the genre through discourse. The analysis of the peculiarities of the discourse of E. Grishkovets' monodramas showed that the event of each of the plays consists in the explication "here and now" before the reader/viewer of complex internal processes occurring in the minds of the characters asking ontological questions related to the self-determination of a person in the world. The human essence in one aspect or another of being becomes a communicative object, while the hero tries to clarify his status for himself and the addressee of his speech. At the same time, in the picture of the hero's world, understanding turns out to be more significant than gaining knowledge. Trying to clarify for himself and the addressee one of the general laws of existence, the hero simultaneously transforms his own consciousness, since he comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to achieve mutual understanding in its entirety.

Ontology of Technique in Bruno Latour’s Thought

Bruno Latour’s line of thinking is marked by the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which contemplates the relationships between humans, non-humans and other actors. Among the non-human elements are the technical artifacts or, in other words, technical objects. In Latour’s thought, this article aims to explain what concerns the ontology of such objects. Through the analysis of some of the texts that the author dedicated to this topic and by comparing it with Simondon’s ontology of technique, we arrive at the hypothesis that, in Bruno Latour’s line of thinking, the question of ontology does not directly apply to technical objects, but to the relations that establish them and by which they affect the other elements of the network.

War and peace as consequences of human nature?

AbstractThe issue of human nature is very complex and elusive, and mankind has been trying to unveil its elements since the beginnings of any philosophical reasoning. Whether they were questions of ontology, gnoseology, or ethics, it has been an uneasy task to uncover the complexity of the term. This article concentrates on finding ideas that support the existence of human nature and consequently searches for its possible ethical implications. I focused on the traditional issues of good vs evil, especially in terms of dichotomy between committing violent acts and waging wars in contradiction to creation of conditions for peaceful and just societies. In the article, I compare various ideas on human nature and analyse their potential in unveiling its ethical implications. I also comment on the possibility of war and peace being consequences of human nature and its connection to our disposition of being moral subjects.

Are the Realist Bundle Theorists Committed to the Principle of Constituent Identity?

Abstract One of the key questions in the contemporary analytic ontology concerns the relation between the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) and the Bundle Theory (BT). The majority of authors believe that BT implies PII. Therefore, it is widely believed that the world violating PII presented by Max Black (1952. “The Identity of Indiscernibles.” Mind 61 (242): 153–64) is also devastating for BT. However, this has been questioned by Rodriguez-Pereyra (2004. “The Bundle Theory is Compatible with Distinct but Indiscernible Particulars.” Analysis 64 (1): 72–81), who formulated an interpretation of BT with instances. Recently Robert (2019. “Can the Realist Bundle Theory Account for the Numerical Difference between Qualitavely Non-discernible Concrete Particulars?” Theorema 38 (1): 25–39) argued that this version of BT is not a constituent ontology and, therefore, Rodriguez-Pereyra’s solution comes at a price of excluding bundle theory from the domain of constituent ontologies, and, in this sense, it fails. I question Robert’s point by claiming that his account of constituent ontologies is too demanding. In particular, I show that the instance version of BT is compatible with the constrains defining constituent ontologies in general, and therefore Rodriguez-Pereyra’s argument is correct.

The stakes of abyssal geography. Response to commentaries on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

The stakes of abyssal geography. Response to commentaries on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

On the Philosophy of Unsupervised Learning

Unsupervised learning algorithms are widely used for many important statistical tasks with numerous applications in science and industry. Yet despite their prevalence, they have attracted remarkably little philosophical scrutiny to date. This stands in stark contrast to supervised and reinforcement learning algorithms, which have been widely studied and critically evaluated, often with an emphasis on ethical concerns. In this article, I analyze three canonical unsupervised learning problems: clustering, abstraction, and generative modeling. I argue that these methods raise unique epistemological and ontological questions, providing data-driven tools for discovering natural kinds and distinguishing essence from contingency. This analysis goes some way toward filling the lacuna in contemporary philosophical discourse on unsupervised learning, as well as bringing conceptual unity to a heterogeneous field more often described by what it is not (i.e., supervised or reinforcement learning) than by what it is. I submit that unsupervised learning is not just a legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry but perhaps the most fundamental branch of all AI. However, an uncritical overreliance on unsupervised methods poses major epistemic and ethical risks. I conclude by advocating for a pragmatic, error-statistical approach that embraces the opportunities and mitigates the challenges posed by this powerful class of algorithms.

Techno Emotive Pedagogy: A Strategic Enabler for Catalyzing Sustainable Learning and Living in the Post-Pandemic Educational Landscape

In this era of digitalization, the imbibition of technology in all walks of life is immensely felt. In a fast-pacing world, a desirable demand for an easy life makes it necessary for the burgeoning of technological prospects. Moreover, technology would have acclimatized the education sector one day or the other, like Scandinavian countries, for sure: but this anticipation was met rapidly during the pandemic period. As a consequence, most educationists felt the necessity for an alternative to leverage the learning loss across the globe. Technology performed the role of a Godmother to forge our country as ‘Vishwa Guru’ and save pedagogical principles from the clutches of the devastating pandemic. Educational resources began flooding from various technological tools like water flowing from the reservoir while lifting the shutters of a dam. A serious concern that knocks this scenario is ‘will this amalgamation of technology and education remain harmonious, or this synchronization will be able to resolve all the ethical or ontological questions of Homo sapiens in the post-pandemic period’? At this juncture, there is the relevance of a shift from techno-pedagogy to techno-emotive pedagogy. Techno-emotive pedagogy is potentially sound to function as a sustainable approach in the field of education by embracing life skills to adapt to the fast-changing modern society. Undoubtedly, technology would be enthroned as the ultimate dependent variable of education, but without neglecting the emotional canvas. It relies on the strong footing that humans are essentially more emotional than intellectual. A single-track system of techno dependence neglecting the organismic emotional contour of individual and social tenets of humans will result in chaos. This paper intends to present techno-emotive pedagogy as a pedagogical experimentation and innovation in the teaching and learning process by utilizing an exploratory approach to the various emotional handicap that intruded on the learning and living system due to the single strategic path adopted during the covid period by analyzing the empirics from the education stakeholders. An attempt is also made to design and develop an instructional strategy that is synchronized with this paradigm. The findings showed that techno-emotive pedagogy plays as a strategic enabler in catalyzing sustainable learning and also the derivatives of this attempt are expected to contribute to a sustained strategic system for learning and living.

The Elusive Progress of Prosodical Study: Essays in Honor of Thomas Cable

The Elusive Progress of Prosodical Study: Essays in Honor of Thomas Cable

Case-Informed Learning in Medical Education: A Call for Ontological Fidelity.

Case-informed learning is an umbrella term we use to classify pedagogical approaches that use text-based cases for learning. Examples include Problem-Based, Case-Based, and Team-Based approaches, amongst others. We contend that the cases at the heart of case-informed learning are philosophical artefacts that reveal traditional positivist orientations of medical education and medicine, more broadly, through their centering scientific knowledge and objective fact. This positivist orientation, however, leads to an absence of the human experience of medicine in most cases. One of the rationales for using cases is that they allow for learning in context, representing aspects of real-life medical practice in controlled environments. Cases are, therefore, a form of simulation. Yet issues of fidelity, widely discussed in the broader simulation literature, have yet to enter discussions of case-informed learning. We propose the concept of ontological fidelity as a way to approach ontological questions (i.e., questions regarding what we assume to be real), so that they might centre narrative and experiential elements of medicine. Ontological fidelity can help medical educators grapple with what information should be included in a case by encouraging an exploration of the philosophical questions: What is real? Which (and whose) reality do we want to simulate through cases? What are the essential elements of a case that make it feel real? What is the clinical story we want to reproduce in case format? In this Eye-Opener, we explore what it would mean to create cases from a position of ontological fidelity and provide suggestions for how to do this in everyday medical education.

Gene Drives as Interventions into Nature: the Coproduction of Ontology and Morality in the Gene Drive Debate

Gene drives are potentially ontologically and morally disruptive technologies. The potential to shape evolutionary processes and to eradicate (e.g. malaria-transmitting or invasive) populations raises ontological questions about evolution, nature, and wilderness. The transformative promises and perils of gene drives also raise pressing ethical and political concerns. The aim of this article is to arrive at a better understanding of the gene drive debate by analysing how ontological and moral assumptions are coproduced in this debate. Combining philosophical analysis with a critical reading of the gene drive literature and an ethnographic study of two leading research groups, the article explores the hypothesis that the development of and debate about gene drives are characterized by a particular intervention-oriented mode of coproduction. Based on the results of this exploration, we highlight the need for a broadening of the perspective on gene drives in which empirical, moral, and ontological concerns are addressed explicitly in their interplay rather than in (disciplinary) isolation from each other.

Kumlbúa þáttr, an Eschatological Event: The Traumatic Ontology of Being in Time in Medieval Iceland

<i>Kumlbúa þáttr</i>, an Eschatological Event: The Traumatic Ontology of Being in Time in Medieval Iceland