On On what there is

All sides in the recent debates over the Quine-Putnam Indispensability thesis presuppose Quine's criterion for determining what a discourse is ontologically committed to. I subject the criterion to scrutiny, especially in regard to the available competitor-criteria, asking what means of evaluation there are for comparing alternative criteria against each other. Finding none, the paper concludes that ontological questions, in a certain sense , are philosophically indeterminate.     

On being attached

We often use the term “attachment” to describe our emotional connectedness to objects in the world. We become attached to our careers, to our homes, to certain ideas, and perhaps most importantly, to other people. Interestingly, despite its import and ubiquity in our everyday lives, the topic of attachment per se has been largely ignored in the philosophy literature. I address this lacuna by identifying (a type of) attachment as a rich “mode of mattering” that can help to inform certain aspects of agency and emotion. First, drawing on insights from Ancient stoicism and developmental and clinical psychology, I suggest that the relevant form of attachment involves a felt need for its object and a particular relationship between the object and the attached agent’s sense of security. I then argue that these features serve to distinguish the attitude from the more philosophically familiar notion of caring. Finally, I show that recognizing this form of attachment as a distinct mode of mattering has important implications for understanding grief.     

On being motivated

Merleau-Ponty’s notion of being motivated or solicited to act has recently been the focus of extensive investigation, yet work on this topic has tended to take the general notion of being motivated for granted. In this paper, I shall outline an account of what it is to be motivated. In particular, I shall focus on the relation between the affective character of states of being motivated and their intentional content, i.e. how things appear to the agent. Drawing on Husserl’s discussion of perceptual awareness, I suggest that the intentional content of states of being motivated has a horizonal structure, in which both affective and perceptual features are implied. In states of being motivated, the agent becomes aware of certain possibilities for action, towards which they feel drawn. This structure is what Merleau-Ponty refers to as the “intentional arc” (1962, 136).     

On the idea of a global ethic

Two different kinds of rules are needed in the regulation of human conduct in the sphere of global interaction. There is a need for global ethics and also a need for a global ethic. The first exists but needs reinforcement. The second also exists but not sufficiently widely and therefore needs a fashioning out in some contexts. Because ethics and an ethic are grammatically cognate and are both concerned with behavior, it is easy to conflate the two. Accordingly, clarity will be sought below about the distinction between them. The hope is that such clarity might help in directing efforts in search of harmony and other good things on our planet.     

On being stuck in time

It is sometimes claimed that non-human animals (and perhaps also young children) live their lives entirely in the present and are cognitively ‘stuck in time’. Adult humans, by contrast, are said to be able to engage in ‘mental time travel’. One possible way of making sense of this distinction is in terms of the idea that animals and young children cannot engage in tensed thought, which might seem a preposterous idea in the light of certain findings in comparative and developmental psychology. I try to make this idea less preposterous by looking into some of the cognitive requirements for tensed thought. In particular, I suggest that tensed thought requires a specific form of causal understanding, which animals and young children may not possess.

On the virtues of being a psychologist

Some changes that have taken place in psychology are discussed in the light of the presently urgent need for a new science of psychology that addresses the important social issues of our times. Substantial development of the experimental analysis of behavior is urged, through its formulation of research problems related to every aspect of contemporary life, extending from political negotiation and economic decision making to the study of personality and individual differences.     

德沃金的共同体观念

罗纳德·德沃金(Ronald Dworkin,1931-)是一位活跃在哲学和法学领域里的当代重要的自由主义者.德沃金从自由主义的立场上,对四种与自由主义相关的共同体概念进行了分析讨论.民主多数的共同体观念、家长主义的共同体、有自身利益的实体性共同体,人格化共同体.德沃金对四种共同体的讨论与批判,是对共同体这一概念从自由主义的立场上进行清晰的清理.德沃金在对多种共同体观念进行批判的前提下,提出了自由主义对共同体概念的理解和解释.他提出,宽容共同体才是真正自由主义的共同体.