The Creativity Paradox: An Introductory Essay

In this introductory article to the special issue, I explore the trope of paradox to think through the idea of creativity. Traditionally, metaphor has been the favored trope to conceptualize creativity: the combination of two existing elements into something different, something new. In this special issue, we focus on the trope of paradox as a trope defined by juxtaposition and an apparently irresolvable conflict to delineate creativity. Glossing the usefulness of paradox for artistic as well as scientific creativity, I show how the idea of Janusian thinking or being in two minds holds great potential to bridge creativity research in the humanities and social sciences. This issue starts building that bridge with multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity that, first, deconstruct apparent dichotomies in creativity research and, second, approach creativity as a situated, distributed concept.     

Yablo on subject-matter

Philosophical Studies - I discuss Yablo’s approach to truthmaker semantics and compare it with my own, with special focus on the idea of a proposition being true of or being restricted to...     

Pro Patria: An Essay on Patriotism

This essay focuses on what patriotism is, as opposed to the value of patriotism. It focuses further on the basic patriotic motive: one acts with this motive if one acts on behalf of one’s country as such. I first argue that pre-theoretically the basic patriotic motive is sufficient to make an act patriotic from a motivational point of view. In particular the agent need not ascribe virtues or achievements to his country nor need he feel towards it the emotions characteristic of love. Why should one ever act on behalf of one’s country as such, if one does not particularly admire it or feel a special affection for it? In answer to this question I offer a further articulation of the basic patriotic motive, invoking a particular understanding of what it is to be the member of a political society. Building on this articulation I then consider how one might characterize a patriotic act, a patriotic person, and the relationship of patriotism and pride.     

Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?: Stephen Yablo

The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them—or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces of non-literality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology.     

Want of Care: An Essay on Wayward Action

Philosophers have taken little heed of the fact that people often act contrary to their better judgment not because they suffer a volitional infirmity like weakness of will or compulsion but instead because they care too little about what they judge best (they are unconcerned) or they care too much about something else (they are compromised). Unconcerned and compromised action, being varieties of akratic action that do not involve volitional infirmity, are phenomena worth examining not only in their own right but also for what they reveal about the better known varieties of akratic action for which they might easily be mistaken, such as weak-willed action and action (or inaction) that stems from accidie. Unconcern and compromise also are worth examining for what they reveal about a topic beyond philosophical psychology, namely, moral and legal accountability. Forgiveness, resentment, and retributive punishment each may have less to do with what an offender (morally) believes than with what he cares about.     

An Essay on Understanding the Mind

Several conjectures by A. S. Iberall on life and mind are used as a backdrop to sketch a theory of mental activity that respects both the contents of thought and the dynamics of thinking. The dynamics, in this case, refers fundamentally to animated, meaningfully coupled self-organizing processes (coordination dynamics) and exhibit multistability, switching, and, because of symmetry breaking, metastability. The interplay of 2 simultaneously acting forces underlies the metastable mind: the tendency for the coordinating elements to couple together (integration) and the tendency for the elements to express their individual autonomy (segregation). Metrics for metastability are introduced that enable these cooperative and competitive tendencies to be quantified. Whereas bistability is the basis for polarized, either/or thinking, the metastable régime—which contains neither stable nor unstable states, no states at all, in fact—gives rise to a far more fluid, complementary mode of operation in which it is possible for apparent contraries to coexist in the mind at the same time.     

Hypothesizing, Circularity, and Neutrality Revisited: An Invitation to Curiosity

This essay examines the systemic guiding principles of neutrality, hypothesizing, and circularity, historically developed by the Milan Team of Selvini-Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin, and Prata (12, 13). With the reorganization of these team members (see 11 for a summary of the distinctions between the work of the Selvini-Palazzoli and Prata research team and the Cecchin and Boscolo training team), different reconstructions of the original systemic principles have evolved. New understanding of the concepts of circularity, hypothesizing, and neutrality are now possible, given the systemic epistemology on which the early Milan model was based. It should be emphasized, however, that the ideas presented in this essay are most associated with the systemic work of the Cecchin and Boscolo team.     

The Educational Conversation: Closing the Gap. An Essay Review

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Aquinas on Biological Individuals: An Essay in Analytical Thomism

This paper presents a version of analytical Thomism that brings the principles of Aquinas into systematic and sustained contact with the sciences as opposed to contemporary philosophy. The leading idea of this version of analytical Thomism is to test the viability of scholastic principles by seeing if they provide the resources to cope with problems emerging from the natural and social sciences. If they do, then Thomism vindicates itself in the marketplace of ideas. If not, then the analytical Thomist knows where the perennial philosophy needs further development and perhaps revision. The first part of the paper sets out the rationale for this project. The remainder of the paper illustrates this approach by examining a problem emerging from evolutionary biology, namely, the provision of a theory of individuation for living entities.     

An Essay In The Aid Of Writing History: Fictions Of Historiography

In what follows I explore the question of fictionality in history writing. First, I venture into the unfamiliar genre of ego-histoire and make my own professional training in the tenets of positivist or realist historiography an object of theoretical reflection and critical analysis. Then as a way of dealing with the literary dimension of written history, I make a canonical work in history of education an object of rhetorical analysis. Finally, as another way of coming to terms with the fictions of historiography, I revisit one of my own productions and make it an object of metacritical consideration. My central theme is that historiographical realism alone will not suffice , that historians are as dependant upon literary invention as upon documents, that history cannot be written without the aid of the fictions of historiography, and that the difference between the historian and the novelist is narrower than we may have been accustomed to think. I further argue that attention to the literary or rhetorical dimension of history is long overdue in history of education, where it flourishes unacknowledged. I conclude that historical writing is not just a literary pastime and the issue remains: how to come to grips with fictionalizing and the truth claims of historiography.     

An Essay In The Aid Of Writing History: Fictions Of Historiography

In what follows I explore the question of fictionality in history writing. First, I venture into the unfamiliar genre of ego-histoire and make my own professional training in the tenets of positivist or realist historiography an object of theoretical reflection and critical analysis. Then as a way of dealing with the literary dimension of written history, I make a canonical work in history of education an object of rhetorical analysis. Finally, as another way of coming to terms with the “fictions of historiography,” I revisit one of my own productions and make it an object of metacritical consideration. My central theme is that historiographical realism alone will not suffice , that historians are as dependant upon literary invention as upon documents, that history cannot be written without the aid of the “fictions of historiography,” and that the difference between the historian and the novelist is narrower than we may have been accustomed to think. I further argue that attention to the literary or rhetorical dimension of history is long overdue in history of education, where it flourishes unacknowledged. I conclude that historical writing is not just a literary pastime and the issue remains: how to come to grips with fictionalizing and the truth claims of historiography.     

异端两千年--大事记

笔者对于异端学的兴趣源自对于"大师"爱克哈特的生平和著作的多年研究.因此,笔者是在提出应该对异端现象具有某种宽容或者说是同情的爱克哈特派观点的框架内,试图对自"异端之父"西门·马古斯"行传"到第二个千年末的"基督教的反面"做一个评述,特别是要比较深入地阐释中世纪时代.[1]