Rival Positions Research Articles

Helmuth Plessner’s Schellingian Reconciliation of Idealism and Realism About the Psyche

While Schelling’s anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far gone unnoticed that Schelling’s ideas also proved fruitful in the context of a distinctively philosophical theory of the psyche developed by a younger contemporary of Freud. During the 1920s Helmuth Plessner, a key figure of philosophical anthropology, outlined a complex conception of the psyche as an individualized, inner region of reality. Although Plessner did not present his philosophical psychology in a systematic form, its building blocks can be found in The Unity of the Senses, The Limits of Community, and Levels of Organic Life and the Human, among other writings. Moreover, Plessner left a clue as to how these building blocks fit together, which suggests that Plessner viewed his philosophical psychology as structurally analogous to the model of personality outlined in Schelling’s 1809 treatise on human freedom. I propose that Plessner sought to formulate an alternative to both idealism and realism about the psyche that might reconcile the insights motivating these rival positions. Schelling provided Plessner with a workable model for such a reconciliation. After reviewing textual evidence for my hypothesis, I sketch Schelling’s predecessor theory. Based on the Schellingian template, I then reconstruct Plessner’s non-reductively naturalistic theory of the psyche, which aligns the real bodily ground of the psyche with its ideal existence. Highlighting the strengths of Plessner’s philosophical psychology against the foil of Paul Ricoeur’s and John McDowell’s relevant arguments, I argue that the theory reconstructed here deserves contemporary consideration as a plausible contender.

Can the reference of a use of “That” change? Assessing non-standard approaches to the semantics of demonstratives

The debate over the semantics of demonstratives is in a stalemate between those positions attributing some referential significance to a speaker's referential intentions and those not doing so. The latter approach is supported by cases driving the non-intentional intuition in which the speakers mistakenly point at objects other than the ones they intend to refer to. The intentionalists, such as Martin Montminy, reply that once we think of potential extensions of such cases in which the speaker explains to the hearer what her referential intention was, it is the intentionalist intuition that prevails. In this paper, I develop a semantics for demonstratives whose task is to accommodate both of these seemingly contradictory intuitions within the general non-intentionalist framework. The proposed idea is that the reference of a use of a demonstrative can change over time, as the discourse develops. This idea is handled formally by the addition of a parameter of the index of evaluation that represents the referentially relevant aspects of the state of the discourse. Also, I provide reasons for preferring my view over two rival positions: one by Palle Leth, and one that I adjust to the demands of the semantics of demonstratives from the theory that Kai von Fintel and Anthony Gillies offer for epistemic modals, and from Laura Delgado's polyreferentialism for proper names.

Being a master of metaphors

Being a master of metaphors

Race and the Politics of Loss: Revisiting the Legacy of Emmett Till

This paper explores the idea that mourning can help us to bear not only personal but also political losses. It focuses, in particular, on the proposal that legacies of racial loss and violence should be collectively mourned. I argue that Mamie Till Mobley was developing such a proposal in 1955, the year her son Emmett Till was lynched and in which she brought his body before all Americans, calling on them to look at it so that they might, together, say what they had seen. Mobley’s proposal challenges what I take to be the leading rival position on the relationship of grief to political life, namely, that it is, at best, a catalyst for the achievement of political ends. But as I argue, Mobley’s proposal also raises challenges for present-day efforts to articulate a politics of loss, which are quick to assume either that such losses cannot be mourned collectively or that they have always been ours to mourn together. I will argue that these efforts have failed to take into account the insight behind Mobley’s invitation. My aim, in clarifying its significance, is to expand philosophical inquiry into the relationship between the emotions and political life and, more specifically, to contribute to an evaluation of the prospects for a mournful politics.

The Uses of Truth: Is There Room for Reconciliation of Factivist and Non-Factivist Accounts of Scientific Understanding?

ABSTRACT One of the most lively debates on scientific understanding is standardly presented as a controversy between the so-called factivists, who argue that understanding implies truth, and the non-factivists whose position is that truth is neither necessary nor sufficient for understanding. A closer look at the debate, however, reveals that the borderline between factivism and non-factivism is not as clear-cut as it looks at first glance. Some of those who claim to be quasi-factivists come suspiciously close to the position of their opponents, the non-factivist, from whom they pretend to differ. The non-factivist, in turn, acknowledges that some sort of ‘answering to the facts’ is indispensable for understanding. This paper discusses an example of convergence of the initially rival positions in the debate on understanding and truth: the use of the same substitute for truth by the quasi-factivist Kareem Khalifa and the non-factivists Henk de Regt and Victor Gijsbers. It is argued that the use of ‘effectiveness’ as a substitute for truth by both parties is not an occasional coincidence of terms, it rather speaks about a deeper similarity which have important implications for understanding the essential features of scientific understanding.

Athlete-Centric Employer Branding During Rival Leagues’ Market Entry

Abstract: New sports leagues use employer branding to promote themselves as distinctive and desirable employers so they can attract talented athletes. A multiple case analysis was used to examine the employer branding strategies of four leagues that entered markets with incumbents: the National Women’s Hockey League, BIG3, Alliance of American Football, and Premier Lacrosse League. All four leagues used athlete-centric employer branding, which uses symbolic and instrumental employment information to signal commitment and involvement to athletes. Leagues also directed their employer branding to consumers. The findings suggest adding an employment dimension to theories of league brand architecture as well as reconsidering the audience for employer branding. Athlete-centric employer branding is a strategy for entering markets from a rival position and is likely to become more popular as public pressure on leagues increases.

Introduction: Measurement at the Crossroads

Introduction: Measurement at the Crossroads

The Looping Structure of Buddhist Thought (Or, How Chan Buddhism Resolves the Quantum Measurement Problem)

Abstract Is there a world out there when nobody is looking? This is a question that medieval Buddhist scholiasts struggled with over many centuries, giving rise to a variety of competing positions. In this article, I identify a loop that runs through and structures seemingly antithetical positions—some realist, some antirealist—in these debates. My claim is that the loop is a feature of our lifeworld, and thus any serious reflection on the mind/world relationship is bound to get entangled in it. Even modern physics has come up against it, such that rival positions advanced by quantum theorists are structurally analogous to positions proffered in medieval Buddhist writings. I conclude by turning to the Chan Buddhist tradition, which is often mischaracterized as hostile to philosophical analysis. Chan is among the few Buddhist schools that recognize, foreground, and celebrate the manner in which mind and world enfold each other. As such, this paper foregrounds the decidedly philosophical insights of the Chan tradition.

Identification of Key Factors for Selection of Accounting Specialization by Students at Public Higher Education Institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The paper aims to investigate the influencing factors for the choice of accounting specialization by students at ten public higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In addition to the above, the paper also explores the gender structure of the students, the type of secondary education, the time of making the decision to choose the field of accounting, and planned future training in accounting. The research sample consisted of 253 respondents, and data collection was performed by electronic survey through distance learning platforms. To identify the key factors in choosing to study accounting, we used the multivariate method of factor analysis of major components. The results of the research point to the existence of four key influencing factors in the selection of accounting specialization: achievement, job fulfillment, the influence of authorities in the field of science and profession, and the influence of parents and friends. Over 77 percent of the students are women, and the students have mostly completed general high schools (gymnasiums) or high schools of economics (92 percent). More than 98 percent of the students plan to continue their training in the field of accounting. The results of the research have practical use in terms of preparation and presentation of accounting policies at public higher education institutions in BiH, given that the reduced number of students has resulted in rival positions among different study areas. The results of the research can also be useful to professional groups in the field of accounting in terms of achieving their strategic goals.

Does Analogy Work in Demonstration?

Thomas de Vio Cajetan produced a highly influential Thomistic treatise on analogy entitled De nominum analogia. The merits of this work have been contested since the sixteenth century. Notable twentieth-century Thomists who adopted many of the teachings of De nominum analogia include Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon. Joshua Hochschild’s The Semantics of Analogy highlighted the significance of chapter ten, where Cajetan applies his theory to resolve the problem of demonstrations that use analogous terms, with the explicit purpose of addressing a serious challenge from Scotists regarding the use of analogy in metaphysics. This paper examines the criticism of Cajetan’s way of using analogous terms in demonstrations by the seventeenth-century Franciscan Scotist Bartolomeo Mastri. It shows how the Thomist differs from the Scotist and analyzes these rival positions.

Theorising the history of violence after Pinker

ABSTRACT Pinker’s 2018 work Enlightenment Now maintains his earlier commitment to Norbert Elias’ sanguine reading of post-Enlightenment human history. It replicates the problems that historians identified with his 2011 work, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Moving past Pinker’s theory does not, however, necessitate a rejection of theoretical or meta-historical approaches to the history of violence. Other recent works concerned with the history of violence offer rival theoretical positions and insights that are central to their success as works of history. Pushing past Pinker’s claim that Elias’ work is ‘the only theory left standing’ for historians of violence, this article demonstrates how theory has been used successfully by other historians. It interrogates the characteristic theoretical claims and concerns of four major approaches: new imperial history, comparative genocide studies, histories of war and society, and the history of gendered violence, and negates Pinker’s claim that no other theoretical tradition is appropriate for the study of the history of violence.

Conciliatory metaontology, permissive ontology, and nature’s joints

According to the conciliatory view in metaontology, there are multiple possible languages corresponding to the popular positions in ontology. In each of these languages, the term ‘exists’ expresses a distinct “existence-like” property, and consequently the claims associated with each of the rival ontological positions come out true in some such language. Species of the conciliatory view can be distinguished based on claims about how the various existence-like properties are related vis-a-vis metaphysical naturalness. On some versions, all of the existence-like properties are held to be equally natural, such that there is no “metaphysically privileged” language. However on others, there is held to be a most natural existence-like property and hence a most fundamental ontological language. In this paper I defend two views, one metaontological and one ontological. I first defend a version of the conciliatory view according to which there is exactly one perfectly natural existence-like property, but the rest are still “reasonably” natural. I then argue that, assuming this metaontological view, we should accept a permissive ontological view in the fundamental language (i.e. one with a very expansive domain).

Old Topics, New Formulations: Khaṇḍadeva and Navyanyāya (Studies in Vedic Hermeneutics in Early Modern India, 1)

This article is first in a series dedicated to issues in the intellectual history of Mīmāṃsā in early modern India and part of a larger effort to broaden the basis for understanding the new formulations of central topics of the Mīmāṃsā textual-ritual complex in this period. It examines how the Varanasi scholar Khaṇḍadevamiśra makes use of Navyanyāya tools of analysis by putting under the microscope the example of his investigation and new formulation of the signification of agent and agency by the verbal affix in his ample analysis of the cognition of the meaning elements of a sentence (śābdabodha). Authors of Mīmāṃsā works in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gradually and selectively adopt the tools and techniques of cognitive analysis and the characteristic new idiom elaborated by Navyanaiyāyikas a few centuries earlier. This process of adoption arises on the sidelines of the Advaita–Dvaita Vedānta controversy in South India, then subsequently flourishes in Varanasi, as I have followed elsewhere (Diaconescu 2012a). In his analysis of the topic studied here, Khaṇḍadeva uses the new tools to revisit the Mīmāṃsā tradition in order to advance his new formulation while refuting certain Navyanyāya rival positions.

Diáspora e africanidade entre os Siddis de Karnataka

Devem os siddis de Karnataka ser entendidos como parte da diáspora africana? Partindo de uma reflexão teórica sobre algumas concepções paradigmáticas do termo diáspora, este artigo analisa não apenas posicionamentos acadêmicos opostos sobre “afrodescendentes” na Índia, mas sobretudo transformações mais recentes nas comunidades que fizeram com que africanidade e diáspora se tornassem referências importantes na luta política dos chamados siddis. Procura-se argumentar que nem africanidades nem diásporas são ideias e/ou práticas sociais a-históricas com conteúdos fixos; sua análise precisa contemplar as repercussões mútuas entre discussões teórico-conceituais e contextos históricos concretos.

Exploitation: Bridging Social and Distributive Egalitarianism

Social egalitarians have charged distributive egalitarianism with abandoning the victims of option luck, disrespecting victims of brute luck and misunderstanding the aim of egalitarian justice. Social egalitarians have tended to favour a conception of equality that is concerned with ending oppression and expressing equal respect for everyone. In this article, I argue that what has so far been missing from this debate is the fundamental connection that exists between distributive egalitarianism and a conception of exploitation. Once this connection is understood, we can see that social egalitarians are unfair in their criticisms. Importantly, the connection to exploitation reveals that social egalitarianism and distributive egalitarianism are not rival positions. When it comes to exploitation, the two positions are able to coordinate and identify two core wrong-making features that form part of an exploitative interaction.

ŞARKİYATÇILIĞIN KAYNAKLARI: BRITANYALI ZİHNİNDE OSMANLI İMPARATORLUĞUNUN İZİNİ SÜRMEK

Established on three different continents, the Ottoman Empire demonstrated unquestioned political success and constituted the representation of orientalism for the West. Both her geographical position and her cultural identity as an Eastern and a Muslim provided the structure to approach the Ottoman Empire representing the Eastern identity as constructed by the West. Hence, a stereotypical representation of Turks created in order to satisfy the oriental approach of the West. This perspective can be observed in British sources as well. Beyond her exotic qualities for the West, the rival position of the Ottoman Empire against the British Empire provoked further interest in British names. As is common in oriental texts, British sources also reshaped the Turkish identity unconsciously to fit the text’s stereotypical perspective. In addition to the fixed image of Turks and the Ottoman Empire that is depicted underlining Westernized qualities, British written sources do not hesitate to reinterpret the constructed image of Turks as a medium for their own ideologies. In this regard, tracing the British sources and their representation establishes a problematic depiction of the Ottoman Empire and the Turks that is dominated by Western ideology. Moreover, it can be further argued that the literary works also both fed upon and contributed to the stereotypical depiction of Turks as an exotic eastern. Travel writing of the time also maintained the perception of Turkish identity representing the constructed understanding of the West regarding the East. Consequently, this study aims at tracing the stereotypical image of Turks as depicted in British sources especially with emphasis of sources dating to the 19th century as the highlight of Orientalism in British Empire. Hence, the misinterpretation of the Ottoman Empire and Turks will be laid out in a chronological order underlining their common perspective.

Disorderly cities and the policy-making field: the 1981 English riots and the management of urban decline

This article develops a framework for understanding policy-making responses to the crisis of the post-industrial urban economy in Britain through an exploration of the policy event of the 1981 English riots and the policy-making field that surrounded it in which the rival positions of ‘managed decline’ and concerted urban regeneration became reconciled through a roll-out of neoliberal governance mechanisms. The value of this framework for contemporary analyses of urban policy in the context of social marginality and uneven economic development is discussed in the conclusion.

Malesky vs. Fforde

The article explores different ways of thinking about Vietnamese politics through an examination of the writing of Adam Fforde and Edmund Malesky. It argues that in order to adjudicate between different approaches to analysing Vietnamese politics, we need to come to a view about what we think politics actually is (i.e., ontology forms the basis on which we can answer questions about epistemology). This is very different from more positivist approaches to political analysis which argue that deciding between competing arguments is about weighing the data. I argue, by contrast, that adjudicating between rival positions has more to do with a series of a priori positions or beliefs that influence what we consider reliable data in the first place.

What is temporal ontology?

Temporal ontology is the part of ontology involving the rival positions of presentism, eternalism, and the growing block theory. While this much is clear, it’s surprisingly difficult to elucidate the substance of the disagreement between presentists and eternalists (to focus on the most widespread positions). Certain events happened that are not happening now; what is it to disagree about whether these events exist (simpliciter, or else tenselessly)? In spite of widespread suspicion concerning the status and methods of analytic metaphysics, skeptics’ doubts about this debate have not generally been heeded, neither by metaphysicians, nor by philosophers of physics. This paper revisits the question in the light of prominent elucidation attempts from both camps (by Ted Sider, Christian Wüthrich, and Tom Stoneham). The upshot is that skeptics were right to be puzzled. The paper then explores a possible re-interpretation of positions in temporal ontology that links it to normative views about how we should live as temporal beings.

Inventing the Menton Man. Rivière's Discovery as Reflected in the French Media

When the fossil skeleton discovered in Menton was shown in the Natural History Museum in Paris in 1872, it was the first fossil man to be presented to the public in France. Popular representations of a fossil ape-man had, however, been circulating in the press since the late 1830s. In fact, at the same time as the scientific debate that ultimately led to the recognition of the existence of prehistoric man, the new profession of science journalist emerged in the public sphere. Once exposed, Menton Man embodied and crystallized rival political positions, which played a part in the debate on the origin of man. In addition, the creation by the press of a public scientific object shaped the image of its scientific counterpart, ‘the discoverer.’ Through the press, in the context of bourgeois tourism in the Riviera, the figure of the palaeontologist of the mass society emerged.