ON THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN FREEDOM

Abstract. The age–old dilemma of free will and determinism is attacked by proving that both sides are flawed with contingencies, that the notion of eternal law is a theologically tainted projection rather than a reality of the real world that is understood to be evolutionary. Determinism is dissolved into conditionalism. This excludes materialistic scientific explanation of the deterministic style. As it brings forth freedom, evolutionary reality transcends essentially the explanatory possibilities of statistically structured natural laws. The dilemma of determinism and free will based on a logic of contradiction is replaced by an ontology of polarity.     

图形同一性对视觉似动的影响

该研究以单字母为刺激材料考察了图形同一性对视觉似动的影响。按照图形同一性、字母顺序及图形位移方向的不同,字母图形分成４类。另外还比较了聚焦和不聚焦条件下的实验结果。实验中要求被试对字母作左向、右向或来回运动的判断。结果表明似动现象不仅受到刺激间的空间关系的影响,而且也受到刺激间的图形同一性的影响。     

GRADES OF FREEDOM: AUGUSTINE AND DESCARTES

Abstract: While Augustine distinguishes free choice from true liberty, his account of human freedom implies further distinctions which Augustine himself does not make explicit. More importantly, Augustine regards these distinct types of freedom as qualitatively different; some are clearly superior to others. Descartes also distinguishes qualitatively different types of freedom, and does so in a way that parallels Augustine's view. I here argue that Augustine divides freedom into four qualitatively distinct grades, and then demonstrate that Descartes’ account of freedom is a rationalist adaptation of the theory of free choice found in Augustine.     

FREEDOM OF THE HEART

Philosophical accounts of freedom typically fail to capture an important kind of freedom—freedom to change what one cares about—that is central to our understanding of what it is to be a person. This paper articulates this kind of freedom more clearly, distinguishing it from freedom of action and freedom of the will, and gives an account of how it is possible. Central to this account is an understanding of the role of emotions in determining what we value, thus motivating a rethinking of the importance of emotions in the mental lives of persons.     

BRUTE FACTS,THE NECESSITY OF IDENTITY,AND THE IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES

In ‘Two Spheres, Twenty Spheres, and the Identity of Indiscernibles,’ Della Rocca argues that any counterexample to the PII would involve ‘a brute fact of non‐identity [. . .] not grounded in any qualitative difference.’ I respond that Adams's so‐called Continuity Argument against the PII does not postulate qualitatively inexplicable brute facts of identity or non‐identity if understood in the context of Kripkean modality. One upshot is that if the PII is understood to quantify over modal as well as non‐modal properties, the qualitative explicability of numerical distinctness requires not the PII but a principle of the identity of necessary indiscernibles.