Philosophical Tensions Research Articles

The Beethoven Syndrome: Hearing Music as Autobiography, by Mark Evan Bonds

<i>The Beethoven Syndrome: Hearing Music as Autobiography</i>, by Mark Evan Bonds

Hidden Delegations: The Assignment of Contractual Rights and Consumer Debt

Investigating consumer debt assignment exposes a submerged but significant philosophical tension in contract law's treatment of rights transfers. On the one hand, contract law adopts a highly permissive stance toward rights‐transfers (assignments) undertaken on the unilateral initiative of the rights‐holder. On the other hand, it reasonably takes a restrictive posture toward duty‐transfers (delegations), requiring greater input from the duty's beneficiary about the identity of the duty‐holder. Where, however, an assignment integrally, albeit covertly, involves a duty‐transfer, then the more restrictive rules of delegation should apply. Debt assignments represent a significant, but not isolated, case of such hidden delegation because, in addition to rights to repayment, creditors have an array of moral and legal duties toward debtors. Recognition of this doctrinal tension should alter our legal treatment of significant cases of assignment and sensitise us, philosophically, to the relational components of economic behaviors often treated as purely transactional.

Towards a characterization of metaphysics of biology: metaphysics for and metaphysics in biology

Since the last decades of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, the use of metaphysics by philosophers when approaching conceptual problems in biology has increased. Some philosophers call this tendency in philosophy of biology ‘Metaphysics of Biology’ (Guay and Pradeu in Synthese 1–20, 2017). In this paper, I aim at characterizing Metaphysics of Biology by paying attention to the diverse ways philosophers use metaphysics when addressing conceptual problems in biology. I will claim that there are two different modes of doing Metaphysics of Biology, namely Metaphysics for Biology and Metaphysics in Biology.

Critical Realism, Social Constructivism, and the Trinity

ABSTRACT Science is a socially conditioned enterprise that strives for maximum rationality and objectivity in its explanation of the world. However, since the relativity of its social conditioning opposes its drive for objectivity, there is a philosophical tension at the very heart of science. Given this tension, why does science even work? More precisely, why does science converge to the truth rather than diverging from it? This article provides a philosophical description of this tension and a theological explanation of its happy resolution.

A Theoretical Overview of Biographic Writing from an Ontological and Epistemological Perspective

Biyografi, insan hayatını yazma esasına dayanan bir tür olmakla birlikte biyografik anlatıların işlevi sadece bireyin yaşamını kaydederek bir hayat örüntüsünü gelecek nesillere ulaştırmayla sınırlı değildir. Yapılan çalışmalar, biyografinin en eski çağlardan beri insanın kimlik edinmesinde ve varlığı anlamlandırmasında bir vasıta olarak kullanıldığını gösterir. Bireylerin kimlik ve anlam ihtiyacını şekillendiren felsefi zemin değiştikçe biyografinin de biçim ve içerik açısından farklılaştığı görülür. Bu nedenle yaşamöyküsü yazımı, her dönemin koşul ve ihtiyaçlarına göre kendini yenileyen dinamik bir yapıya sahiptir. Felsefe, psikoloji ve sinirbilimin verileri, benliğin biyografik öykülerle anlatılaştırılarak inşa edildiğini gösterir. Felsefe tarihi boyunca bilgi felsefesinde yaşanan gelişmeler hem biyografi yazıcılığının metodunu hem de yazılan eserlerin kurgulanma biçimini etkiler. Bu çalışmada, insanlığın düşünsel gelişim sürecinde ontoloji ve epistemolojide meydana gelen kırılmaların biyografi yazıcılığını nasıl etkilediği ele alınmış ve biyografi türünün tarihsel süreçteki yolculuğu felsefi eğilimlerle ilişkilendirilmeye çalışılmıştır. Ontoloji ve epistemolojideki gelişmelerin biyografi yazıcılığını etkilemesi, bir yaşamı yazma güdüsünün düşünsel bir zemine dayandığını ve felsefedeki gelişmelerle etkileşim hâlinde olduğunu gösterir.

DALYs and the Minimally Good Life

Abstract Nicole Hassoun’s book Global Health Impact: Extending Access to Essential Medicines has three parts. Part 1 is about the right to health, Part 2 offers a concrete proposal for how to promote the ability of people in the developing world to live minimally good lives and Part 3 is concerned with consumer responsibility as it relates to global health. I argue that there is a philosophical tension between the respective projects of Parts 1 and 2. The project of Part 1 reflects a sufficientarian ideal, namely ensuring that each person in our global community has the ability to live a minimally good life. But, the concrete proposal offered in Part 2 reflects a different ideal, namely maximizing global health benefit. While these two ideals may often converge on a set of feasible health outcomes that we should aim to bring about, they can also diverge. The extent to which they diverge depends on our specification of the minimally good life. It is therefore crucial that we have a criterion for distinguishing lives that are at least minimally good from those that are not. Unfortunately, Hassoun’s proposed criterion is problematic in that no life satisfies it.

Improving Accessibility for All: Best Practices from Universal Design for Learning

Students with disabilities are a growing population contributing to the diversity of our campuses. Access to higher education is a foundation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the disability rights movement. However, students with disabilities experience a number of challenges in accessing course content. Universities and faculty can do more to support this population through curriculum design and adoption of Universal Design for Learning. Based on cognitive neuroscience and education theories, it prioritizes accessibility by promoting multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression so that students with a range of skills and limitations can participate equally. Management educators who adopt these practices are signaling disability awareness and modelling inclusion in their classrooms. Our business students will go on to manage and lead in organizations, shaping organizational frameworks and policies; the training we provide can contribute to broader positive social change. This article outlines the accommodation barriers experienced by students with disabilities, identifying philosophical tensions between accommodation and accessibility mindsets. It offers guidance for faculty to adopt a Universal Design for Learning philosophy in their classrooms, and for universities to develop a more accessible and welcoming environment for students with disabilities.

Being otherwise: On the possibility of a non-dualistic approach in feminist phenomenology

This article reflects on the current philosophical tendency to construct non-dualistic subjectivity models in response to the criticism of the traditional authoritarian human subject. Following thinkers such as Emmanuel Lévinas, Michel Foucault or Jacques Derrida, the literature has largely identified traditional metaphysics based on dualistic hierarchies as the major source of violence. Perceiving phenomenology as a method that focuses on the concepts of the lived experience and situatedness, I combine this approach with the feminist calls for dismantling the hierarchical relationship of subjectivity to the world. I draw on the concepts of Sonia Kruks, Linda Martin Alcoff, Sara Heinämaa, Judith Butler, Bonnie Mann and Johanna Oksala to inquire how dualism-overcoming phenomenology can be applied to feminist thought. I focus in particular on the approach that Oksala outlines in her book, Feminist Experiences: Foucauldian and Phenomenological Investigations, where she proposes a transcendental view on feminist experience. Intriguingly, she understands transcendental as situated – historically, culturally and politically. Consequently, my final question concerns the possibility of combining the two usually conflicted approaches: transcendental and historical regarding the fundamental phenomenological distinction between the empirical and the transcendental.

Clive Barker’s rhetorical dialectics: Stretching the intellectual imagination

This article examines Clive Barker’s early work, specifically: The Damnation Game (1985) and The Hellbound Heart (1986), and assorted short stories from his Books of Blood collections. After outlining the appropriateness of rhetorically minded classical dialectics, the article illustrates the layered complexity of Barker’s dialectics that are woven throughout his literature. These dialectics cross over one another at nexuses between worldly tensions as well as physical/metaphysical tensions. This article suggests that these nexuses of horizontal (worldly) and vertical (physical–metaphysical) axes provide a unique framework that invites readers to rhetorically participate in the philosophical tensions within horror fiction itself. Ultimately, this investigation demonstrates how horror literature can uniquely stretch the imagination of both the artist and audience to make the narrative intellectually engaging.

On the Inevitable Failure of Social Constructionism: The Transcendental Self-Contradiction of an Empty Concept

The question of how sociality is related to the scientific conception of physical reality brings up a philosophical tension between the conception of science as an autonomous enterprise and the conception of science as one of the various cultural products of society. Basically, there have been two approaches in sociology of science to resolve this tension. On the one side, we encounter classical sociology of science, which defends the autonomy of science while denying any constitutive role to sociality in the formation of the content of scientific theories. On the other side, there is social constructionism, which criticizes traditional sociology of science and reduces the content of scientific theories simply to a function of social structures; to something which is caused, produced or realized directly by social phenomena. This paper aims to show that although social constructionism has a point in its critique of the classical conception of science, this point is never formulated and expressed in a sufficient conceptual rigor and clarity. It will be demonstrated that the basic concept of “social construction” as encountered in the key texts from social constructionism is actually an empty concept because it is transcendentally self-contradictory. Consequently, as the paper argues, the emptiness of the concept of construction leads to an inability in making a distinction between real cases of social construction –if there are any- and cases of politically coercive, brute social interference with science.

The notion of philosophical tendencies and philosophical fiction in contemporary american literature

At the conference with representatives of the country's creative intelligentsia on August 3, 2017, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev made a presentation, where he highlighted important facts: “In our country, along with all spheres and industries, great attention is paid to the development of culture, art, literature and the media”. Nowadays, it is necessary to know the literature of the world, thus to broaden the horizon of humanity. The object of research is to identify specific features of the unique genre of philosophical prose on the basis of famous Modern American novels and to explain the notion “philosophical tendency”. Philosophical prose is also a holistic exploration of the world; but the prism through which the artist looks at the world is not a fact, not a phenomenon of literature or arts, but the dynamics of social consciousness, recreated in its individual contradictory forms. Throughout the research work the author displays the major tasks: (1) to study the literary development of American philosophically oriented literature; (2) to study the major concepts of philosophical prose; (3) to reveal the notion philosophical tendencies illustrated in the prominent works of contemporary American writers. The investigation was carried out basing on descriptive and analytical methods, formalistic conceptual and empirical method. According to research findings, the author discloses the idea that Contemporary American literature with philosophical tendencies is a genre under the domination of the society, progress and technology. In addition, the research also categorizes the essential topics and concepts of philosophical novels and defines their distinctive features. The results and conclusions of the research make a sufficient contribution to the development of “Theory of Modern American Literature ”. It allows to be acquainted with variety of definitions and major concepts of contemporary philosophical genre in Literature suggested by different scholars and literary critics. The results of the research can be applicable for writing scientific articles, qualification papers and course works. Partially, the results are expected to be used for the lectures and seminars on the philosophical tendencies of contemporary American literature.

An analysis of policy-oriented jurisprudence at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY): A lemniscate of natural law, legal positivism and two liberalisms?

Policy-oriented jurisprudence was used to substantively support certain arguments rendered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in two cases, namely those against Dražen Erdemović and Pavle Strugar. Based on its limited use, the policy-oriented approach was clearly not a popular source of justification for arguments at the ICTY. However, its inclusion in structures of argument reveals at least some support for it. In the process of suggesting possible reasons why this particular theoretical approach was utilised in the justification of argument, this article aims to briefly discuss the broader philosophical tensions visible in the reliance on policy-oriented jurisprudence at the ICTY, viz, natural law/legal positivism, on the one hand, and the ‘two liberalisms’, identified by Darryl Robinson as inherent to international criminal law (ICL), on the other hand. Given that policy-oriented jurisprudence’s inclusion in ICL judgments makes its future invocation in ICL literature and judgments possible, the purpose of delving into the broader theoretical paradigms involved is important for the emergence of a coherent jurisprudence.

Jewish Economic Ethics in the Neoliberal Era, 1980–2016

ABSTRACT This essay surveys the emergence, over the last four decades, of a distinct genre of Jewish ethical writing about economics and speculates that its sunset may have already occurred. Unlike much previous Jewish economic writing, which was often brief, scattered, or secular in orientation, this genre consists of book-length works that reach deeply into Jewish sources to ground their interpretations and constructive recommendations. However, this strategy creates new problems and tensions: philosophical tension with halakhic literature, which prefers case law to political-economic theory; political tension within the genre, between the conservative subgenre of business ethics and its progressive counterpart, social justice literature; and methodological tension between normative, constructive exegesis and historical criticism. Welcoming the increased attention to economy among constructive Jewish ethicists and theologians, the essay nonetheless offers methodological critique, arguing that the necessary incorporation of political economy and history should transform the genre for the future.

Qui capite ipse sua in statuit uestigia sese. Lucrezio e lo scetticismo nel libro IV delDe rerum natura

AbstractIn his refutation of skepticism in book IV ofDe rerum natura(469–521), Lucretius uses argumentative methods typical of Epicurus: the περιτροπή is in many ways similar to that used by the philosopher in book XXV of Περὶ φύσεως, the same book where, in a passage dedicated to the criticism against determinists, can be found a reference to the criterion of the πρόληψις, that Lucretius exploits in his refutation. Moreover, Lucretius develops a strong demonstration concerning the irrefutability of αἴσθησις as a criterion of truth, which finds significant points of contact with a large fragment, transmitted by Diogenes Laertius (X 31–32) and generally traced back to theCanonof Epicurus. The last argument used by the poet is a pragmatic one: for the skeptic it would be impossible to live. The argument is similar to the praxis-based argument used by Epicurus in the Περὶ φύσεως against the partisans of determinism. But the pragmatic argument goes back to a very ancient layer of anti-skeptical polemics, even prior to Epicurus and already present in book Γ of Aristotle’sMetaphysics. Although later influences cannot be excluded, Lucretius appears to be a faithful witness of Epicurus. Probably in a lost section of the Περὶ φύσεως, the philosopher of Samos showed positions going against skeptical or proto-skeptical attitude, contemporary or earlier to the time of the philosopher, probably developed in a Democritean or a Socratic context. Epicurus’ad hominemstrategy is very close to that of the philosopher in thePrincipal DoctrinesXXIII–XXV, and certainly follows Aristotle’ strategy in book Γ ofMetaphysicsagainst those who deny the principle of non-contradiction. In a similar way, Epicurus does not have one figure as the objective of his refutation but constructs a hypothetical dialectical opponent capable of embodying a series of philosophical tendencies judged by the founder ofKeposto be extremely dangerous not only for the correct exercise of thought but for the human being’s life itself.

German Idealism and the Origins of Pure Mathematics: Riemann, Dedekind, Cantor

When it comes to the relation of modern mathematics and philosophy, most people tend to think of the three major schools of thought—i.e. logicism, formalism, and intuitionism—that emerged as profound researches on the foundations and nature of mathematics in the beginning of the 20th century and have shaped the dominant discourse of an autonomous discipline of analytic philosophy, generally known under the rubric of “philosophy of mathematics” since then. What has been completely disregarded by these philosophical attitudes, these foundational researches which seek to provide pure mathematics with a philosophically plausible justification by founding it on firm logico-philosophical bases, is that the genuine self-foundation of pure mathematics had been done before, namely during the 19th century, when it was developing into an entirely new and independent discipline as a concomitant of the continuous dissociation of mathematics from the physical world. This self-foundation of the 19th-century pure mathematics, however, was more akin to the German-idealist interpretations of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, than the post-factum, retrospective 20th-century researches on the foundations of mathematics. This article aims to demonstrate this neglected historical fact via delving into the philosophical inclinations of the three major founders of the 19th-century pure mathematics, Riemann, Dedekind and Cantor. Consequently, pure mathematics, with respect to its idealist origins, proves to be a formalization and idealization of certain activities specific to a self-conscious transcendental subjectivity.

Group Knowledge and Mathematical Collaboration: A Philosophical Examination of the Classification of Finite Simple Groups

AbstractIn this paper we apply social epistemology to mathematical proofs and their role in mathematical knowledge. The most famous modern collaborative mathematical proof effort is the Classification of Finite Simple Groups. The history and sociology of this proof have been well-documented by Alma Steingart (2012), who highlights a number of surprising and unusual features of this collaborative endeavour that set it apart from smaller-scale pieces of mathematics. These features raise a number of interesting philosophical issues, but have received very little attention. In this paper, we will consider the philosophical tensions that Steingart uncovers, and use them to argue that the best account of the epistemic status of the Classification Theorem will be essentially and ineliminably social. This forms part of the broader argument that in order to understand mathematical proofs, we must appreciate their social aspects.

The personal and the political: how a feminist standpoint theory epistemology guided an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Given the call for increased emphasis on multicultural and social justice orientations in the field of counselling psychology, this manuscript explores how the union of different knowledge traditions might offer further means of incorporating culturally sensitive and social justice perspectives into traditional knowledge discovery. We propose that afeminist standpoint theory (FST) epistemology may be a helpful guiding framework for a research method such as an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) that can potentially enrich the exploration of personal experiences and the systemic dynamics that influence them. This manuscript arose out growing awareness and understanding of the benefits and challenges faced when engaging in research that used a pluralistic approach. To illustrate one adaptive way of combining these approaches we present examples from a research study that engaged a FST epistemology with an IPA methodological approach. These examples will be used to support a discussion of the important philosophical tensions that exist between FST and IPA, and to examine the challenges and benefits that integration might bring to enhance a researcher’s ability to explore the complex nature of human experience and social relationships.

Stepping into the mainstream: exploring Steiner streams in publicly funded schools in Australia, 1990–2011

ABSTRACT This paper traces the introduction of Steiner programmes in publicly funded school settings in Victoria, Australia, through a recent history covering approximately 1990–2011. Three programmes are examined through interviews with Steiner educators focusing on some of the challenges of working with these alternative educational ideas in these settings. While the first two of these programmes proved successful, the third was discontinued amid some controversy in 2011. The educational change these programmes presented is framed in terms of their contribution to epistemological diversity within the public-education domain in Australia, as reflected in the educational values associated with these programmes, and the educational sensibilities through which these were mediated in terms of the Steiner educators interviewed. Biographical Sociology is drawn on to foreground the felt experience of the Steiner educators involved, and to highlight some of the ideological and philosophical tensions that were at play, and how they were managed. These tensions, it is argued, were at times exacerbated through the co-location of these programmes within existing mainstream schools in Australia, in contrast to the more common stand-alone, publicly funded Steiner schools established internationally. In exploring the spilling over of these tensions into polemical public debate in relation to the third programme, the move of Steiner education into publicly funded school settings internationally is taken into account, and questions of the successful mitigation of these tensions more generally examined, placing these local experiences into a wider context.

Motivating Emotions: Emotionism and the Internalist Connection

I outline a theory of moral motivation which is compatible with the metaphysical claims of strong emotionism—a sentimentalist account of morality first outlined by Jesse Prinz (The emotional construction of morals, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) and supported by myself (Bartlett in Axiomathes, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-020-09524-5 ) which construes moral concepts and properties as a subset of emotion-dispositional properties. Given these claims, it follows that sincere moral judgements are necessarily motivating in virtue of their emotional constitution. I defend an indefeasible version of judgement motivational internalism which takes into consideration both positively and negatively valenced affective states and how they promote both approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. On this view, in making sincere moral judgements agents are antecedently motivated by standing Desires to avoid or approach the stimuli picked out by their judgements. I also defend internalism against the objections from defeating circumstances and amoralists. As regards the former, I claim that the tendency of philosophers to frame the motivation debate in terms of positive moral judgements makes the argument from defeating circumstances appear more plausible than it is; as regards the latter, I claim the amoralist argument only has force if it is empirically well supported and that psychological data has hitherto been unconvincing.

Reflections of Society in Art: Contributions of Michael Soi’s Politics Paintings to Socio-Political Debates in Africa

The purpose of this study is to extend scholarly reading of the contributions of Michael Soi’s politics paintings to social debates as a means of deepening our understanding of the complex relationship between art and politics. Thus, this study assesses relevant variables indicating how Soi’s selected paintings are effectively his means of projecting his views about his experiences, expectations, dreams, fears and reservations concerning his society’s socio-political realities. In an attempt at analyzing the functionality and aesthetic significances of Soi’s paintings, this study discusses relevant perspectives from individuals on politics paintings particularly how they can propel meaningful debates. Therefore, to gather relevant information on people’s responses to this kind of painting, we utilized viewer response approach and follow-up interviews. More so, we applied interpretive analysis in assessing the paintings (as metaphors depicting social realities), the collated responses (as means of espousing more on the concepts of cognitive process mechanisms), and relevant literature (as a means of assessing the trajectories of scholarly views on this subject). In the end, we observe that Soi’s politics paintings are efficacious medium of communication and that each individual viewer of these paintings produces responses that are similar or dissimilar but not exact because their subsisting ideological, political and philosophical inclinations are not exactly the same.