Philosophical Presuppositions Research Articles

"Insurgent Indigeneity": A New Threshold of Indigenous Politics

Abstract: Celebrating Indigenous zones and movements of revival and "resurgence" has become a dominant frame of sorts for Indigenous political theory. Emergent Indigenous political praxis in Hawai'i, led by certain grassroots groups and organizers, leads me to theorize a qualitatively and quantitatively different modality of Indigenous politics—what I offer as "insurgent Indigeneity." This essay traces a genealogy of resurgence paradigms, presenting a set of philosophical presuppositions that entail circumscriptions on Indigenous political horizons and praxis: namely, an inward focus and a dyadic politics of a friend-enemy distinction. Drawing from the emergent practices of Hawaiian insurgent Indigeneity, and the political schema of expanding hegemony in Antonio Gramsci's The Modern Prince , I theorize how actors build upon resurgence to strategically proliferate outward, building mass power in a complex field of forces and actors to pursue a wider horizon of change.

A New Look at the Classical Chinese Dào of the Relation between Word and World

AbstractI argue that the absence of some of the ‘greatest hits’ of Western philosophy in Classical China can be explained by a Wittgensteinian take on the role of language in philosophy. One is the ‘Idea Theory’ of meaning which anchors Western Mind-Body dualism. Its attraction is removed when the writing reminds us that a picture does not by itself ‘give life to’ our language even while it plays a role of cross-linguistic communication. Another is the centrality of a law-command theory of normativity which combines with mind-body dualism to give a natural push toward monotheistic supernaturalism. Western attempts to make the ‘God’ impulse logical (e.g., the Ontological Argument) fail because of differences in Chinese syntax. The upshot is we need not deny Chinese thinkers the status of philosophers for their failure to share our philosophical presuppositions and resultant agenda.

Philosophical presuppositions in ‘computational thinking’—old wine in new bottles?

Abstract‘Computational thinking’ (CT) is highlighted in research literature, societal debates, and educational policies alike as being of prime significance in the 21st century. It is currently being introduced into K–12 (primary and secondary education) curricula around the world. However, there is no consensus on what exactly CT consists of, which skills it involves, and how it relates to programming. This article pinpoints four competing claims as to what constitutes the defining traits of CT. For each of the four claims, inherent philosophical presuppositions are identified concerning the nature of thinking, problem-solving, and human–computer relationships. It is argued that most of these philosophical presuppositions are very similar to ones that Hubert Dreyfus and Donald Schön addressed forty to fifty years ago. Therefore, claims about the power of CT raise old discussions in a new disguise. Dreyfus and Schön argued that the presuppositions were wrong. Do their arguments hold and thus defeat contemporary claims about CT? Alternatively, has the technological development since the time of their writings proven them wrong? This article argues that it is necessary to heed the arguments of Dreyfus, Schön, and—later—Bent Flyvbjerg to ensure that CT curricula are built in accord with the value-rational nature of human practice, rather than on misconceived rationalizations of problem-solving, computer use, and computational aspects in the world. However, the pervasive integration of information technology in today's world raises new issues concerning human–machine collaborations that sidetrack the arguments of Dreyfus and Schön. A revised view of CT is required which focusses on articulating how humans can design for, partake in, and critically appraise human–machine collaborations.

The emergence of rights-desire in postmodern culture

n recent decades there has been an undeniable inflationary process of human rights that has contributed to their trivialization and consequent discrediting. It is not surprising that after the third generation of rights there is no longer agreement on the content and scope of the following generations, which include rights whose subject is not the human being (but nature, the environment or animals) or, if it is, the individual claims from the State his right to satisfy a desire that he feels is necessary for his personal development. The emergence of ″desire-rights″ is the clearest proof of this inflationary and arbitrary process of human rights, radically transforming the entire human rights system. This article studies the emergence of these desire-rights, showing their historical origins and main philosophical presuppositions, as well as their most common characteristic features.

English Teachers’ Actions in Action Research: Developing a Template for Classroom Purpose

Action research (AR) has become increasingly common in applied linguistics studies as an empirical method that may be extended to other research studies and higher education. Action research consists of taking action and analyzing how it affects student learning. Though there are two components namely ‘action’ and ‘research’ at the heart of action research, classroom teachers often prioritize action over research. The goal of ‘action’ in action research is to bring about positive change, and improvement in the participants’ social situation. Through self-reflection, analysis, methodical planning, and execution, action research fosters classroom transformation through improving teaching-learning practices. Action research is a qualitative, disciplined method of inquiry carried out by and for individuals who are carrying out the action. Action research is primarily used to support the "actor" in enhancing and/or modifying his or her activities. This paper discusses the fundamental philosophical presuppositions, paradigms, history, and theoretical bases of action research. The paper also describes the primary methodologies and techniques and tools used in action research. In addition, the paper presents an action research template which can be used by English teachers for classroom purposes.

Standing Firm in the Flux: On Whitehead's Eternal Objects

Abstract Alfred North Whitehead's first book as a professor of philosophy at Harvard University, Science and the Modern World, is not only a historical treatment of the rise and fall of scientific materialism. It also marks his turn to metaphysics in search of an alternative cosmological scheme that would replace matter in motion with organic process as that which is generic in Nature. Among the metaphysical innovations introduced in this book are the somewhat enigmatic “eternal objects.” The publication of the first and second volumes of Whitehead's Harvard Lectures on the philosophical presuppositions (HL1) and general metaphysical problems (HL2) of science provides students of his corpus with an opportunity to catch the thinker in the act of creating his concepts. In searching through student notes for glimpses of what Whitehead really meant, I have kept in mind his admonition that “no thinker thinks twice” (PR 29). Whitehead never ceased philosophizing, and surely he intended for us to continue thinking with but beyond the letter of his ideas. In this spirit and in light of HL1 and HL2, this article seeks to elucidate the role of eternal objects as a category of existence in Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism, with the goal not simply of textual exegesis, but of showing how the meaning of the fifth category of existence (as he refers to eternal objects in PR) is exemplified in the gradual ingression of the idea in Whitehead's imagination. My aim is to sustain the effort at constructive thought he began, making his speculative hypothesis as explicit as possible so as to better prepare it for critical improvement (PR xiv).

On the Roots of Romantic Irony and the Pleasure of Being (Mis)understood

Abstract The aim of this paper is twofold. In the first instance it is an attempt to offer a new perspective from which to reflect on the meaning and philosophical presuppositions of Friedrich Schlegel’s defence and use of (romantic) irony, as well other related notions: humour, wit, and other comic devices. I propose to situate this perspective within a revaluation of pleasure and joy. To do this in a new way (although not in opposition to authors such as Manfred Frank, Elizabeth Millan-Zaibert, or Gary Handwerk), I refer to one of Schlegel’s earliest texts devoted to The Aesthetic Value of Greek Comedy from 1794. In addition, this paper questions the extent to which Schlegel’s position is tenable in the aftermath of the ‘death of God’. For this, I reflect briefly on the ways in which Nietzsche’s writings and notion of life-affirmation respond to Schlegel’s vindication of romantic irony.

Idealism, Pragmatism, and the Birth of Pragmatist Educational Thought in America

This article articulates some of the historic as well as the main philosophic contributions to the transitional period in educational thought in America, 1866-1895. This is a period in which the movement away from idealism towards pragmatism as the basis for educational thought began. Contemporaneous with the development of pragmatism was a development in educational thought that stressed naturalism, functionalism, and the organic nature of mind and behaviour. As idealism laid claim to the dominant philosophy in America in the period 1866-1895, so too did it lay claim to being the dominant philosophic presupposition of educational thought. It was the first American philosophy of education: America’s first philosophy of education was not pragmatist; it was idealist, though this would change, beginning in the mid-1890’s. As pragmatism began to take hold of philosophy at the fin de siècle, so too did it begin to take hold of, and later dominate, the philosophic presuppositions of educational thought.

Embodiment and language.

The findings of cognitive linguistics demonstrate the thoroughly embodied grounding of linguistic constructions and linguistic meaning ranging from abstract thought to interactive communication. A historical survey and updated summary of work in this area illustrates the many layers of bodily meaning that we rely on when thinking and communicating as human beings. Key distinctions, definitions, and clarifications, plus an overview of key works on embodied cognition in cognitive linguistics provide necessary context for understanding specific aspects of linguistic embodiment, including schemas and iconicity, mapping and metaphor, categories and projections, embodied grammar and abstract thought, intersubjectivity, and textual meaning. Realigning philosophical presuppositions with the findings of cognitive linguistics has important consequences: Body and mind can be reunited in lived experience. Both imaginative thought and rational thought can be understood as reliant on the same movement and memory structures. Even the most habituated form-content relationships in language can be understood as growing out of vital networks of real-world experiential relations, from the personal to the interpersonal. And instead of being understood as the narrow purview of semantics and pragmatics, the study of meaning can be embraced as the purpose and function of linguistics. These consequences have potential for revolutionizing scientific inquiry and theory building across a wide array of disciplines. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Cognitive Linguistics Psychology > Language Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science.

Why Aquinas Should Have Held That One May Intentionally Tell A Falsehood to an Unjust Aggressor

Abstract Aquinas argued that one may never intentionally tell an outright falsehood, that is to say, lie, even if one is doing so to help save another person’s life. Yet his position here is very different from how he treats the nature of other moral norms such as stealing, promise-keeping, and murder. For the latter Aquinas defends exceptionless moral norms, but by carefully defining what constitutes stealing, promise-keeping, and murder, allows a limited number of disassociating circumstances wherein morally relevant situations (such as a grave necessity or the presence of an unjust aggressor) take actions out of the categories of stealing or murder strictly speaking. Aquinas furthermore allows divine disassociations from the moral law in cases of murder, stealing, and even adultery, which remove certain acts from being included in prohibited categories because of divine decree, but he does not do so for lying. As a consequence, Aquinas has to resort to various elaborations as to how what seems to be a telling of a falsehood by an Old Testament figure is not really so. I will argue here that there are reasons to think Aquinas was inconsistent in his approach, and that given his philosophical presuppositions he could have and indeed should have held that it is licit to intentionally tell a falsehood to an unjust aggressor, and that this would have rendered his thought more coherent as a whole.

Idealism, Pragmatism, And The Birth of Pragmatist Educational Thought in America

This article articulates some of the historic as well as the main philosophic contributions to the transitional period in educational thought in America, 1866-1895. This is a period in which the movement away from idealism towards pragmatism as the basis for educational thought began. Contemporaneous with the development of pragmatism was a development in educational thought that stressed naturalism, functionalism, and the organic nature of mind and behaviour. As idealism laid claim to the dominant philosophy in America in the period 1866-1895, so too did it lay claim to being the dominant philosophic presupposition of educational thought. It was the first American philosophy of education: America’s first philosophy of education was not pragmatist; it was idealist, though this would change, beginning in the mid-1890’s. As pragmatism began to take hold of philosophy at the fin de siècle, so too did it begin to take hold of, and later dominate, the philosophic presuppositions of educational thought.
 Keywords: pragmatism, idealism, American philosophy of education in the 1890s.

A Modest Proposal for a Systems Philosophy of Hermeneutics as Applied to the Composition & Transmission of the Four Gospels

This paper briefly recapitulates the history of higher criticism, and after a summary critique of its methodologies and philosophical presuppositions suggests that modern New Testament criticism is hermeneutically ‘stuck’ both as an academic and practical theological enterprise. It proposes not that criticism be abandoned, for there is simply no going back to a pre-critical time of reading the biblical text. Rather what is posited here is that by adopting a less linear way of considering any given text in favor of a nonlinear systems approach it should be possible to free biblical criticism from its ‘stuckness.’ Specifically, what is proposed is a system with at least three main components: (1) The oral tradition of The Gospels. (2) The written Gospels as rough, unfinished notes or memoranda (Greek hypomnemata or Latin commentarii), as Matthew Larsen proposes in his Gospels Before the Book. (3) The Gospels as ‘eyewitness’ testimony as presented in Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitness. Interpreting the Gospels, indeed the entire canon, in this way may make it possible to traverse the theological and philosophical desert of modern criticism to a postcritical hermeneutic of the Bible and the Jesus narratives that is ‘restorative;’ and, therefore pastorally vital and verdant rather than reductionistic–barren and sterile.

Selfhood and alterity: schizophrenic experience between Blankenburg and Tatossian.

This paper presents a critical comparison between two phenomenological accounts of schizophrenic experience: on the one side, Blankenburg's seminal work on the basal disturbance (Grundstörung) of schizophrenia as loss of natural self-evidence (Natürlichen Selbstverständlichkeit); on the other side, Tatossian's insight, briefly elaborated in a lecture presented in Heidelberg in 1994 and largely forgotten by the relevant literature. Whereas the former mainly develops an intersubjective reading of schizophrenia, the latter suggests an intrasubjective understanding. Indeed, for Blankenburg, schizophrenic experience can be broadly characterized as a progressive impoverishment of our rootedness in the social world, leading to derealization and depersonalization. In this respect, Tatossian takes schizophrenic autism not as the effect of a loss of originary sociality but as the result of a deeper disproportion. For Tatossian, schizophrenia is characterized, ultimately, by a basic self-disorder or alteration that consists in the breakdown of the twofold dimension of transcendental subjectivity, encompassing both constituting consciousness and phenomenologizing onlooker. In this sense, his interpretation of schizophrenic disorders is closer to the ipseity-disturbance model. I show that while Blankenburg and Tatossian share a dialectical understanding of schizophrenia by pointing to basic modifications of the "transcendental organization" of experience, their divergence originates from a different reading of the phenomenological epoché. Except for the clinical perspective, the point of contention between Blankenburg and Tatossian seems to concern their use of internal resources of the Husserlian phenomenology. By presenting the philosophical presuppositions of their analyses, I discuss two key figures of phenomenological psychopathology by showing how their debate on the meaning of schizophrenic experience can be reframed by looking at the relationship between transcendental subjectivity and intersubjectivity in Husserl's phenomenology.

The Liminal Nature of the “Eclipse of Darwinism” as a Critical Phase in the History of Evolutionary Biology

The term “eclipse of Darwinism” was popularized by Julian Huxley, who used it to describe the period before the emergence of the evolutionary synthesis. The idea of the “eclipse” was later criticized, because it was used to show the superiority of the synthesis over earlier evolutionary theories. This historiography was opposed by Peter Bowler and Mark Largent. According to Bowler, Darwin was not a central figure in nineteenth-century biology. Rather, most naturalists worked within a different evolutionary paradigm. Largent suggested replacing the term “eclipse” with “interphase of Darwinism”, which would better reflect its nature as a preparatory phase for the creation of the synthesis. However, the philosophical presuppositions on which these interpretations were built, while helping them to avoid the errors of their predecessors, also led to new problems. The problems with the interpretations of the “eclipse” can be explained by its “liminal” character. Liminality is an intermediate period between the old and the new. Because of its transgressivity, a liminal period is hard to integrate within a given structure and is mostly excluded from the latter. When analyzing works of historians dealing with the “eclipse” we encounter a common tendency towards excluding this period from historical narratives.

Ciencia y política del coronavirus

Based on demographic data regarding the relevance of political ideology in reluctance against COVID vaccination, this contribution analyzes the phenomenon of political instrumentalization of scientific information in the fight against the pandemic. In the first place, a negative causal influence is defended, on the vaccination campaign, by the use of the lack of scientific consensus as a political weapon. Second, the scope and nature of “coronavirus science” as a regulatory science is examined, distinguishing different types of external values with different degrees of justification in the closure of interpretive flexibility. It is then concluded, in the third place, the lack of foundation for a discretionary political use of the scientific information generated by the science of the coronavirus. Subsequently, fourthly, the philosophical presuppositions of the effective political use made of scientific information are identified, namely, the erroneous presupposition of an academic science that speaks with one voice. On this basis, it is finally argued in favor of the explicit recognition of the regulatory nature of the science of the coronavirus, with its strengths and limitations, as a basis for a more responsible political use of scientific information and the opening of its evaluative aspects to public debate and moral deliberation.

„Rasse“ und Naturteleologie bei Kant

AbstractImmanuel Kant is, famously, not only the major philosopher of European enlightenment, but also one of the first philosophers to develop a philosophical theory of “human races”. How do these two sides of Kant relate to each other? What is the significance of race in Kant’s philosophy? In this article, we aim to discuss these questions by taking (1st) a close look into the conceptual and philosophical presuppositions underlying Kant’s understanding of race; relating them (2nd) to the concept of teleology as developed by Kant in theCritique of Judgementand to the idea of natural history that can be derived from there. In the last two chapters (3rdand 4th), we intertwine both perspectives in such a way that, on the one hand, we can determine the philosophical significance of race for Kant, and, on the other hand, show how a race-sensible perspective gives new and critical insight into Kant’s concept of reason.

Competitive Team Sport Without External Referees: The Case of the Flying Disc Sport Ultimate

ABSTRACT Ultimate is a competitive team sport that is played, even at the highest level of competition, without external referees. The key to Ultimate as a self-refereed sport is the so-called ‘Spirit of the Game’. As this paper aims to show, the Spirit of the Game closely resembles Habermas’s theory of communicative action. This suggests that Habermas’s theory might be used to spell out the philosophical presuppositions of the Spirit of the Game. Most importantly, the requirements for players to serve as referees of their own game specified in the ‘Rules of Ultimate’ turn out to be reformulation of the four validity claims of communicative action. Moreover, the Spirit of the Game can be interpreted as aiming towards facilitating real-life decision-making procedures that resemble as much as possible Habermas’s concept of an ideal speech situation. On the other hand, Ultimate might serve as a case study for exploring how Habermas’s idea of rational deliberation works in the practice of a competitive sporting environment. Most importantly, it makes manifest that self-refereeing is a trust-based system. This suggests that communicative rationality can only unfold its power—the unforced force of the better argument—within a context in which participants trust that everyone participates in good faith towards the common goal of finding the best decision. Hence, investigating the case of Ultimate allows us to draw broader conclusions about the requirements for rational deliberation to work in practice.

Benjamin W. Betts and his computable approach towards morphogenesis

Morphological theories in architecture are more popular than ever partly due to the rapid developments in computational techniques. This rapid development, however, is more fruitful when it is informed of the philosophical and ethical bases of such techniques. The neglected historical case of Benjamin W. Betts, an architect of the late Victorian Britain, is an early example of the effects of philosophical presuppositions on computable theories of morphogenesis in arts and architecture. The aims of this study are to shed light on his motivations and sources of inspiration, and also to present an algorithm for his procedure. We used the only book available on the Betts' works in addition to archival materials to conduct the research. Betts was under heavy influence of Idealism and Oriental thought in his symbology and the morphogenetic procedure he designed. The Python/Grasshopper algorithm for Rhino presented in this paper produces two dimensional Betts' diagrams that can be used as an educational tool or an opportunity of enjoying the beauty of mathematical forms, and the immense variety they offer thanks to parameterization.

The concepts of the sublime and the saturated phenomenon in Immanuel Kant and Jean-Luc Marion: a systematic comparison based on their philosophical origins

ABSTRACT This paper is a systematic comparison between two well–known and theologically relevant concepts – the sublime as developed in Kant’s third Critique, and Marion’s saturated phenomenon. Although it discusses the significant and apparent similarities between them, it also criticizes Marion’s identification of the sublime as a possible example of a saturated phenomenon. This is primarily because of the different origins and philosophical presuppositions guiding the elaboration of these two ideas. Kant’s aim is to confine the reception of the phenomenon to the conditions of experience, so that both in the case of judg-ments of beauty and judg-ments of the sublime, the subject achieves pleasure through self-centred appreciation of its rational capacities. Marion’s saturated phenomenon, on the other hand, aims at dispensing with the ‘metaphysical’ horizon of either the object, or the transcendental subject, in favour of passive appropriation of givenness. Although both are meant to describe what happens when the limits of understanding are breached, in the sublime this breach only serves to reinforce the capacity of the rational subject, whereas in the saturated phenomenon it points to the possibility of apprehension of the totally Other as purely given.

Masters or Slaves? AI and the Future of Humanity

Masters or Slaves? AI and the Future of Humanity