Descartes' Dualism and Contemporary Dualism

After drawing a distinction between two kinds of dualism—numerical dualism (defined in terms of identity) and modal dualism (defined in terms of supervenience)—we argue that Descartes is a numerical dualist, but not a modal dualist. Since most contemporary dualists advocate modal dualism, the relation of Descartes' views to the contemporary philosophy of mind are more complex than is commonly assumed.     

Hear No Evil,See No Evil,Think No Evil: Ethics and the Appeal to Experience

This essay distinguishes three types of appeals to experience in ethics, identifies problems with appealing to experience, and argues that appeals to experience must be open to critical assessment, if experientially-based arguments are to be useful. Unless competing and potentially irreconcilable experiences can be assessed and adjudicated, experientially-based arguments will be problematic. The paper recommends thinking of the appeal to experience as a kind of story telling to be evaluated as other stories are.     

I—From Property Dualism to Substance Dualism

Property dualism is enjoying a slight resurgence in popularity, these days; substance dualism, not so much. But it is not as easy as one might think to be a property dualist and a substance materialist. The reasons for being a property dualist support the idea that some phenomenal properties (or qualia ) are as fundamental as the most basic physical properties; but what material objects could be the bearers of the qualia? If even some qualia require an adverbial construal (if they are modifications of the thing that is conscious because of them, not properties of something else to which the subject of consciousness is related), then the property dualist can be driven to speculative forms of materialism none of which, at this point, looks more likely to be true than the more modest versions of emergent dualism defended by contemporary substance dualists.     

WOMEN AND POWER Definition, Dualism, and Difference

This article reviews the discussions of power and of women and power in United States psychology. Although the field has had difficulty dealing with power, feminist psychology has focused attention on the topic and has advanced the discussion significantly. There are three problems in the literature: definition; person/society dualism; and the need to deal with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and other social differences besides gender. This article describes components needed for a good definition, criticizes the reduction of power to two modes, and discusses issues involved in improving the analysis of social differences and moving towards resolving person/society dualism. Several nondualistic concepts and potentially useful directions are proposed.     

Women, Evil, and Grey Zones

Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenges for feminist theorists, who have long struggled with how resistance is possible under coercive institutions. Building on Primo Levi's reflections on the gray zone in Nazi death camps and ghettos, this essay argues that resistance is sometimes possible, although outsiders are rarely, if ever, in a position to judge when. It also raises questions about the adequacy of ordinary moral concepts to mark the distinctions that would be helpful for thinking about how to respond in a gray zone.     

Transcendence, Symbolic Immortality and Evil

Ernest Becker’s work addresses the implications that arise from being aware of our own mortality. Like Sartre, Becker recognises that human beings have the potential to transcend and look beyond their immediate situation, but his work also confronts the darker aspects of human existence that arise from our self-awareness. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of Becker’s work and to show the potential of Becker’s theory of evil to inform a number of contemporary debates in the social sciences. Although Becker’s work directly examines why human beings can act so inhumanly towards one another, his theory is not altogether pessimistic. The paper concludes by arguing that Becker’s theory intended to create new possibilities for living in more creative and humane world.     

Dualism in medicine,Christian theology,and the aging

Distinguishing a person's soul or mind from a person's body describes dualism, the philosophical premise that fails to integrate the person as one, but instead leaves the person as two, usually as souland body or as mindand body. In dualism, one tends to think of the soul or the mind as the person and the body as an appendage. I argue that 1) dualism is rampant in medicine; 2) that Christian theology has fundamentally opposed it, and 3) that cultural dualism today threatens the aging in particular. To deal with this threat, I argue that the moral task of being human is to become one in mind and body. That is, I argue that the unity of the person which is the unity of the mind and body is not really a metaphysical given, but rather the goal or end of being human.     

Theism, Dualism, and the Scientific Image of Humanity

Recently, some philosophers of religion have suggested that a reduction of the classical image of humanity may jeopardize classical theism. To obstruct reductionism, some theologians have argued for dualism on the basis of the argument of consciousness. In this essay, I argue that even consciousness must be considered a brain-based phenomenon. This does not commit one to reductionism, however. Nonreductive physicalism appears to offer a promising alternative to either dualism or reductionism, without necessarily compromising more traditional views of humanity. I do suggest that a modification of the classical image of God may be inevitable.     

Ecofeminism and Nonhumans: Continuity,Difference, Dualism,and Domination

The dualistic structures permeating western culture emphasize radical discontinuity between humans and nonhumans, but receptive attention to nonhuman others discloses both continuity and difference prevailing between other forms of life and our own. Recognizing that agency and subjectivity abound within nature alerts us to our potential for dominating and oppressing nonhuman others, as individuals and as groups. Reciprocally, seeing ourselves as biological beings may facilitate reconstructing our social reality to undo such destructive relationships.     

Compatibilism,Evil, and the Free-Will Defense

It is widely believed that (1) if theological determinism were true, in virtue of God’s role in determining created agents to perform evil actions, created agents would be neither free nor morally responsible for their evil actions and God would not be perfectly good; (2) if metaphysical compatibilism were true, the free-will defense against the deductive problem of evil would fail; and (3) on the assumption of metaphysical compatibilism, God could have actualized just any one of those myriad possible worlds that are populated only by compatibilist free creatures. The primary thesis of this essay is that none of these propositions is true. This thesis is defended by appealing to a recently proposed novel, acausal, composite, unified theory of free action – the Theory of Middle Freedom – that evades the central problems plaguing traditional theories of metaphysical compatibilism.

邪恶的两张面孔:根本的邪恶和平庸的邪恶——汉娜·阿伦特对极权主义制度下的邪恶现象的批判

汉娜.阿伦特对极权主义制度下的邪恶现象有两种表述方式,即“根本的邪恶”和“平庸的邪恶”。前者的根本特征表现为破坏了人类发展和和进步的概念,致力于把人变成多余的人的事业,以及消灭了人的法律人格、道德人格以及作为个体的人;后者的特征体现为无思想和肤浅性。阿伦特为思考极权主义专制制度下邪恶现象产生的根源以及个人应该担负何种道德责任提供了一种全新的视角,从而为建立一种以思想为核心的个人责任伦理提供了理论上的可能。     

Arendt,Augustine And Evil

The publication of Hannah Arendt's doctoral these Love and Saint Augustine forces reappraisal of the view that Arendt's concept of evil originates in her experience of totalitarianism and coverage of the Eichmann trial. Augustine's account of the original nature of evil in the contexts of ontology, society and divine providence in fact provides the basis for Arendt's analysis of the banality of evil in the individual, the social, and the political spheres. Augustine's internal and external mental triads moreover contribute to Arendt's own thinking‐willing‐judging triad and allow a clearer understanding of its dynamics. The fact that Arendt's analysis derives much of its power from her appropriation of Augustinian theological concepts suggests a need for the increased diffusion of theological concepts in political thought.