Property Dualism,Epistemic Normativity and the Limits of Naturalism*

This paper examines some consequences of the (quasi‐)epiphenomenalism implied by a property dualistic view of phenomenal consciousness. The focus is upon the variation of phenomenal content over time. A thought‐experiment is constructed to support two claims. The weaker claim exhibits an incompatibility which arises in certain logically possible situations between a conscious subject’s epistemic norms and the requirement that one be aware of one’s conscious experience. This could be interpreted as providing some epistemic grounds for the postulation of bridging laws between the physical/functional and phenomenal domains. The stronger claim has it that the ontology of property dualism is not properly able to account for the certainty I have of being phenomenally conscious. The problem is viewed as resulting from the neglect of the intensional context involved in a proper representation of the argument for property dualism. It is argued that only a transcendental move can do justice to this certainty I have.     

Heidegger and Nietzsche; the Question of Value and Nihilism in relation to Education

This paper is a philosophical analysis ofHeidegger and Nietzsche's approach tometaphysics and the associated problem ofnihilism. Heidegger sums up the history ofWestern metaphysics in a way which challengescommon sense approaches to values education.Through close attention to language, Heideggerargues that Nietzsche inverts thePlatonic-Christian tradition but retains theanthropocentric imposition of values. Ihave used Nietzsche's theory to suggest aslightly different definition of metaphysicsand nihilism which draws attention to theontological parameters of human truths as astruggle between competing sets of conflictingor contradictory values (perspectives) thatopens space for rethinking and re-educatinghuman possibilities. How this openness willshow up in educational theory and practice isonly beginning to be evoked. The twophilosophers indicate an approach to issues ofmorality, decision making and knowledgeproduction which may surprise and disconcerttraditional views. As the forefathers ofpost-structuralist thinking, Nietzsche andHeidegger offer a critique of Humanism whileretaining the Renaissance tradition ofpositioning education as the well spring ofvalues in society. It is through the generationof new knowledges, the development of critiqueand the nurturing of character that societyreformulates itself in relation to the earth.The ethical evaluation of these new forms ofknowledge is crucial to the creative and caringregeneration of the human environment, asopposed to the corrosive adoption ofconsumerism and usury.     

自然主义：道家生命伦理的核心价值论证

自然主义是道家哲学最基本的立场,也是道家生命伦理的核心价值基础。它以自然理念为导向,以生死观、技术观、养生观和自由观为基本内容,提供了一套有关生命价值的系统性理论学说。对自然主义和人性自然观展开了充分的阐释和论证,充分挖掘了道家如何看待生命的独特生死自然观,并在此基础上对儒家和道家的生命伦理思想进行了对比分析。认为儒家的价值取向是人文,核心主题是社会伦理道德;而道家的价值取向是自然,核心主题是个体生命。这构成了道家区别于其他哲学流派的标志性特征。

     

Deleuze and Naturalism

Abstract

Against the tendency to regard Deleuze as a materialist and a naturalistic thinker, I argue that his core philosophical writings involve commitments that are incompatible with contemporary scientific naturalism. He defends different versions of a distinction between philosophy and natural science that is inconsistent with methodological naturalism and with the scientific image of the world as a single causally interconnected system. He defends the existence of a virtual realm of entities that is irreconcilable with ontological naturalism. The difficulty of reconciling Deleuze’s philosophy with ontological naturalism is especially apparent in his recurrent conception of pure events that are irreducible to their incarnation in bodies and states of affairs. In the last section of this essay, I canvass some of the ways in which Deleuze’s thought might be reconciled with a more liberal, pluralist and ethical naturalism that he identified in an early essay on Lucretius.     

克尔凯郭尔与尼采

当代哲学中两个富有特征的基本概念,“生存”和“存在”,最初是由尼采和克尔凯郭尔创造的。尼采的哲学思考始终围绕着“生存”的现象,克尔凯郭尔的思考活动不断深入“存在”的问题。因此,他们二人的兴趣都首先而且几乎只是指向人,指向人的生存和人的存在的。所以,他们的哲学不是一个以封闭方式包括人类学的形而上学体系,相反,其哲学活动的内在系统的基础完全在于将一切问题都概括为这样一个基本问题：“人是什么?”和人成为了什么。这样,二者的哲学都是在一种实验“心理学”的名义下的哲学人类学。     

Naturalism and Normativity

Synthetic naturalism is a form of moral realism which holds that we can discover a posteriori that moral properties exist and are natural properties. On this view moral discourse earns the right to be construed realistically because it meets the conditions that license realism about any discourse, that properties it represents as existing pull their weight in empirical explanations of our observations of the world. I argue that naturalism is an inadequate metaphysics of moral value, because parallel arguments to those used by the naturalist to establish the reality of 'moral' properties and their normativity for persons of sympathetic temperament can be constructed, which would equally demonstrate the reality of normatively antagonistic value properties, and their normativity for differently psychologically constituted agents. Since moral discourse implicitly denies that there are such diverse and competing normative truths the strategy fails to establish moral realism.