Heidegger’s Transcendental Empiricism

Heidegger’s ‘serious idealism’ aims at capturing the realist impulses of our natural consciousness whilst avoiding a collapse into metaphysical realism. This idealism is best conceived as a form of transcendental empiricism. But we need to distinguish two varieties of transcendental empiricism, corresponding to Heidegger’s early and later work. The latter, transcendental empiricism₂, is superior. Here, Heidegger’s ontology of gift gives full, conceptual shape to the two-way dependency between man and world characteristic of transcendental empiricism as a whole. In exemplary forms of inspired experience, marked by the 'animation' of our conceptually-structured natural powers, things call on us in a speech that is their very own. This moves us decisively beyond not only early Heidegger’s transcendental empiricism₁ but also the picture of experience presented in McDowell’s Mind and World.     

Merleau-Ponty’s Gordian knot: Transcendental phenomenology,science, and naturalism

In this paper I explore a series of fertile ambiguities that Merleau-Ponty’s work is premised upon. These ambiguities concern some of the central methodological commitments of his work, in particular his commitment (or otherwise) to transcendental phenomenology and how he transforms that tradition, and his relationship to science and philosophical naturalism and what they suggest about his philosophical methodology. Many engagements with Merleau-Ponty’s work that are more ‘analytic’ in orientation either deflate it of its transcendental heritage, or offer a “modest” rendering of its transcendental dimensions. This is also true, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent, of the work of the more empirically-minded phenomenological philosophers who engage very seriously with Merleau-Ponty—e.g. Hubert Dreyfus, Shaun Gallagher, Evan Thompson, Alva Noë, and others. At the same time, many other scholars contest these proto-scientific and more naturalistic uses of Merleau-Ponty’s work on hermeneutical and exegetical grounds, and they likewise criticise the deflated reading of his transcendental phenomenology that tends to support them. By working through some of the key passages and ideas, this paper establishes that the former view captures something pivotal to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. I also extend these interpretations by arguing that, at least around the time of Phenomenology of Perception, his philosophy might be reasonably regarded as a form of minimal methodological naturalism.     

Does Philosophy Require a Weak Transcendental Approach?

Despite any shortcomings of Kant's transcendental philosophy, the spirit (rather than the letter) of Kant's approach is correct. In particular, Kant is correct to believe (1) an accurate account of the types of “access” humans possess to internal and empirical content should form the groundwork for epistemic and ethical investigation and (2) epistemic and ethical investigations cannot successfully circumvent this groundwork. In this context, the term “access” concerns the mental processes that render internal and external experience possible. In supporting the above claims, this article outlines and defends what can be considered a weak version of Kant's transcendental approach. This weaker approach does not require the achievement of synthetic a priori judgments, which permit deductive conclusions concerning possible experience (as opposed to a strong approach, which maintains these requirements).     

Transcendental Relationships? A Theological Reflection on Cybersex and Cyber-relationships

Abstract

Cybersex, i.e. sexual interactions through new media such as chat clients or email, is a phenomenon that combines two important developments of contemporary society: its increased mediatization through communication and information technologies (ICT), and the new importance that sexuality seems to have in many people's lives. Rather than an opposition between the offline and online world, a closer look at cybersex activities reveals a continuity between "real" and "virtual" realities. This paper proposes a theological reflection on some aspects of cybersex that have an immediate bearing on theological anthropology and its thinking about human existence in relation to a transcendent reality, God: the role of imagination, the relationship between body and mind, the transformed understanding of space and time and the dimension of play and fantasy in cybersex.     

Peirce’s ‘Prescision’ as a Transcendental Method

Abstract

In this Paper I interpret Charles S. Peirce’s method of prescision as a transcendental method. In order to do so, I argue that Peirce’s pragmatism can be interpreted in a transcendental light only if we use a non‐justificatory understanding of transcendental philosophy. I show how Peirce’s prescision is similar to some abstracting procedure that Immanuel Kant used in his Critique of Pure Reason. Prescision abstracts from experience and thought in general those elements without which such experience and thought would be unaccountable. Similarly, in the Aesthetics, Kant isolated the a priori forms of intuition by showing how they could be abstracted from experience in general, while experience in general cannot be thought without them. However, if Peirce’s and Kant’s methods are similar in this respect, they reached very different conclusions.     

‘Transcendental knowledge’ in Tibetan Mādhyamika Epistemology

At least in as much as it is accessible to ‘transcendental wisdom’, Tsong khapa and Go rampa both maintain that ultimate truth is an object of knowledge. So granting that ultimate truth is an object of knowledge and that transcendental wisdom its knowing subject, this paper attempts to address one key epistemological problem: how does transcendental wisdom know or realise ultimate truth? The responses from the Tibetan Mådhyamikas entail that transcendental wisdom knows ultimate truth in at least two different ways: firstly, ‘by way of not seeing it’ (ma gzigs pa'i tshul gyis gzigs); and, secondly, ‘by way of transcending the conceptual elaborations’ (spros bral gyis sgo nas gzigs tshul), therefore by way of the non-dual engagement (gnyis snang dral ba'i sgo nas gzigs tshul). Although the emphasis is slightly different in each of the two modes of engagement, they are nevertheless alike in that both represent epistemic pathways geared towards the same non-conceptual realisation of ultimate truth. So what does each of these epistemic modes really mean in relation to ultimate truth? This paper addresses this question at issue by means of undertaking a comparative analysis of Tsong khapa's and Go rampa's epistemological traditions regarding the matters at question.     

Phenomenology as Critique: Teleological–Historical Reflection and Husserl’s Transcendental Eidetics

Many have deemed ineluctable the tension between Husserl’s transcendental eidetics and his Crisis method of historical reflection. In this paper, I argue that this tension is an apparent one. I contend that dissolving this tension and showing not only the possibility, but also the necessity of the successful collaboration between these two apparently irreconcilable methods guarantees the very freedom of inquiry Husserl so emphatically stressed. To make this case, I draw from Husserl’s synthetic analyses of type and concept constitution as well as his later work on sedimentation and streaming-in and develop a richer modal taxonomy than the one Husserl proposed. I employ this taxonomy in an examination of the structures and conditions for the possibility of transcendental eidetic variation in order to show this method’s reliance on historically sedimented epistemic and normative resources. This reliance brings to light the necessity for a methodological critique, which is precisely what I take to be the work of teleological–historical reflection as Husserl comes to conceive it in the Crisis.     

Transcendental Phenomenology and the Way to Happiness: Husserl’s Reply to Csikszentmihalyi

It is an unprecedented task to interpret Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as a fundamental philosophy of happiness. Although happiness has been discussed in many psychologies, Csikszentmihalyi’s positive psychology defines happiness as “flow”, a psychic state of ongoing immersion guided by intrinsic motivations and rewards. In this paper, I interpret our transcendental consciousness as a radical “flow” maker and claim that in our transcendental life, happiness is what we ourselves are. Then, I propose this not only as an appeal to a change of attitude (i.e. reduction) for happiness, but also as a deep hermeneutics of the mental skills and activity designs suggested by positive psychology. In this way, worldly happiness dictums can be profoundly re-examined. Understood as such, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology leaves us the task of how to make a concrete form of qualitative or hermeneutical research on happiness out of it.     

What Does It Mean That “Space Can Be Transcendental Without the Axioms Being So”?

In 1870, Hermann von Helmholtz criticized the Kantian conception of geometrical axioms as a priori synthetic judgments grounded in spatial intuition. However, during his dispute with Albrecht Krause (Kant und Helmholtz über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Raumanschauung und der geometrischen Axiome. Lahr, Schauenburg, 1878), Helmholtz maintained that space can be transcendental without the axioms being so. In this paper, I will analyze Helmholtz’s claim in connection with his theory of measurement. Helmholtz uses a Kantian argument that can be summarized as follows: mathematical structures that can be defined independently of the objects we experience are necessary for judgments about magnitudes to be generally valid. I suggest that space is conceived by Helmholtz as one such structure. I will analyze his argument in its most detailed version, which is found in Helmholtz (Zählen und Messen, erkenntnistheoretisch betrachtet 1887. In: Schriften zur Erkenntnistheorie. Springer, Berlin, 1921, 70–97). In support of my view, I will consider alternative formulations of the same argument by Ernst Cassirer and Otto Hölder.     

Précis of Foundations of language: brain, meaning, grammar, evolution

The goal of this study is to reintegrate the theory of generative grammar into the cognitive sciences. Generative grammar was right to focus on the child's acquisition of language as its central problem, leading to the hypothesis of an innate Universal Grammar. However, generative grammar was mistaken in assuming that the syntactic component is the sole course of combinatoriality, and that everything else is "interpretive." The proper approach is a parallel architecture, in which phonology, syntax, and semantics are autonomous generative systems linked by interface components. The parallel architecture leads to an integration within linguistics, and to a far better integration with the rest of cognitive neuroscience. It fits naturally into the larger architecture of the mind/brain and permits a properly mentalistic theory of semantics. It results in a view of linguistic performance in which the rules of grammar are directly involved in processing. Finally, it leads to a natural account of the incremental evolution of the language capacity.     

Intuitionist logic — Subsystem of,extension of,or rival to,classical logic?

Strictly speaking, intuitionistic logic is not a modal logic. There are, after all, no modal operators in the language. It is a subsystem of classical logic, not [like modal logic] an extension of it. But... (thus Fitting, p. 437, trying to justify inclusion of a large chapter on intuitionist logic in a book that is largely about modal logics).     

Volume 18 – List of contents,Author index,and List of reviewers, 2012

Negative acknowledgement is an impression management technique that uses the admission of an unfavourable quality to mitigate a negative response. Although the technique has been clearly demonstrated, the underlying process is not well understood. The current research identifies a key mediator and moderator while also demonstrating that the effect extends beyond the specific acknowledged domain to the overall evaluation of a target object. The results of study 1 indicate that negative acknowledgement works through mitigating negatively valenced cognitive responses. People who are presented with a negative acknowledgement are less likely to counterargue when forming an evaluation. The results of study 2 reveal that individual differences in need for structure impact the effectiveness of the technique. People who are high in need for structure are more susceptible to the effect presumably because of their desire for easy-to-use information that aids the formation and maintenance of simple knowledge structures.     

Are measures of self-esteem,neuroticism, locus of control,and generalized self-efficacy indicators of a common core construct?

The authors present results of 4 studies that seek to determine the discriminant and incremental validity of the 3 most widely studied traits in psychology-self-esteem, neuroticism, and locus of control-along with a 4th, closely related trait-generalized self-efficacy. Meta-analytic results indicated that measures of the 4 traits were strongly related. Results also demonstrated that a single factor explained the relationships among measures of the 4 traits. The 4 trait measures display relatively poor discriminant validity, and each accounted for little incremental variance in predicting external criteria relative to the higher order construct. In light of these results, the authors suggest that measures purporting to assess self-esteem, locus of control, neuroticism, and generalized self-efficacy may be markers of the same higher order concept.     

“Love of same,love of other”

The positions in feminist theory and theology tend to be polarized between so‐called essentialists and constructionists. Yet, despite apparent anthropological dissension, both parties try to substantiate political and ecclesiastical claims through definitions: what is sexual difference, what is gender, what is a woman, what is she not. For the purpose of mending how we usually approach these questions, I claim instead that the most important theological issue in the realities of males and females is not that their bodies “work” differently, nor that their social positions usually are different and “mean” differently in different cultures, but that they take part in the constitution, recreation and representation of different human subject positions of which there are everywhere and always at least two. My tentative arguments are developed from engaging with the Swiss theologian Karl Barth and the French philosopher Luce Irigaray.     

The discovery of the principles of reinforcement,extinction, generalization,and differentiation of conditional reflexes in Pavlov’s laboratories

The discovery of reinforcement, extinction, generalization, and differentiation with the conditional reflex method in Pavlov’s laboratories is described. Modern American introductory texts show that contemporary understanding of the experimental work on conditioning in Pavlov’s laboratories is derived from a 1927 English translation of Pavlov’s lectures on the conditional reflexes. The lectures present the discoveries topically, not chronologically. In contrast, this article presents a chronological account of the contributions of S. G. Vul’fson, I. F. Tolochinov, and B. P. Babkin, which led to the conceptualization of reinforcement and extinction, and the work of V. N. Boldyrev and N. A. Kashereninova, which led to the formulation of the concepts of generalization and differentiation. This historical approach avoids giving the impression that the development of the Pavlovian paradigm was a highly systematic pursuit.     

Spirituality,the opiate of scholars of religion?

This review discusses Craig Martin’s approach to religious individualism and more widely the ways in which social scientists can make sense of individuals’ identities, beliefs and practice, as these seem more volatile and eclectic than ever. In particular, it is interested in the ‘critical’ study of religion developed in Capitalizing Religion. This review underscores the convergence between this book and other recent works regarding epistemological weaknesses affecting the contemporary study of religion (and in particular the ‘paradigm of spirituality’). It discusses Martin’s original contributions – in particular, a critical analysis of the ideological origins and biases underlying the categorisation of freely chosen spirituality vs. coercive religion. Finally, this review tries to further Capitalizing Religion’s argument by drawing on my own empirical work on the popularisation of meditation, yoga and kabbalah, sharing Martin’s critical approach and interest for the ways in which social structure and cultural norms affect individuals’ religious life.     

Comparing Knowledge of β-Thalassemia in Samples of Italians,Italian-Americans,and Non-Italian-Americans

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of β-thalassemia awareness among Italians living on the eastern side of Sicily (Bronte, Catania, and Tortorici, Messina), Italian-Americans, and Americans of other ethnic backgrounds (Other-Americans). A questionnaire was developed which asked respondents knowledge questions about both β-thalassemia and Down Syndrome. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed, and 456 were ultimately returned and analyzed (150 Italians, 156 Italian-Americans, 150 Other-Americans). Italians answered an average of 55% of the β-thalassemia correctly compared to scores of 17 and 24% for the Italian-Americans and Other-Americans, respectively. The groups did not differ in their knowledge of Down Syndrome (all answered between 58 and 60% of the questions correctly on average). Over 80% of the Italian respondents had heard of β-thalassemia compared to only 19% of the Italian-Americans. β-Thalassemia education programs in Italy appear to have dramatically increased awareness of the disorder. Similar programs need to be developed for at-risk populations in the United States.     

Well-Being, Quality of Life, and the Naïve Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is a long-enshrined tradition that has recently become the cornerstone of the American Positive Psychology movement. However, “happiness” is an over-worked and ambiguous word, which, it is argued, should be restricted and only used as the label for a brief emotional state that typically lasts a few seconds or minutes. The corollary proposal for positive psychology is that optimism is a preferable stance over pessimism or realism. Examples are presented both from psychology and economics that illustrate the dangers of optimism, and in which better outcomes can occur with a pessimistic stance. A more sophisticated approach is then presented in which, in relation to well-being and quality of life, neither optimism nor pessimism is seen as inherently better than the other, but, rather, in which psychological flexibility may contribute optimally to health and well-being.