What Is Dissent?

Res Publica - Dissent is a word we come across frequently these days. We read it in the newspapers, use it in discussions with friends and colleagues—perhaps even engage in the...     

What Is Ineffable?

In this essay, I argue, via a revision of Freud's notions of primary and secondary process, that experiences of resonant form lie at the root of many serious ineffability claims. I suggest further that Western European culture's resistance to the perception of resonant form underlies some of its present crises.     

What Is Love?

SUMMARY

A theory to explain the phenomena of love is suggested. The construct of love is dissected into physiological and psychodynamic components. Love is explained first via its adaptive function, then by its physiological arousal which is interpreted as either anxiety or excitement, which is activated via goodness-of-fit of each individual's internal love model. The leap to love is contingent on the complex constellation of the above-mentioned idiosyncratic components finding synthesis within individuals and between mates. Intimacy can be nurtured, but love, similar to humans and life itself, appears to be greater than the sum of its parts.     

What Is Terrorism?

ABSTRACT My aim in this paper is not to try to formulate the meaning the word ‘terrorism’has in ordinary use; the word is used in so many different, even incompatible ways, that such an enterprise would quickly prove futile. My aim is rather to try for a definition that captures the trait, or traits, of terrorism which cause most of us to view it with moral repugnance. I discuss the following questions: Is the historical connection of terrorism with terror to be preserved on the conceptual level, or relegated to the psychology and sociology of terrorism? Does mere infliction of terror qualify as terrorism, so that we can speak of non-violent terrorism? If terrorism is a type of violence, does it have to be against persons, or should violence against property also count? In what sense can terrorism be described as indiscriminate violence? Should we use the word only in a political context? In such a context, can we speak of ‘state terrorism’, or should the word be restricted to actions not sanctioned by law? Is the terrorist necessarily oblivious to moral considerations, as those who define terrorism in terms of antinomianism imply? My answers to these questions lead up to the following definition: terrorism is the deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people, with the aim of intimidating them, or other people, into a course of action they otherwise would not take.     

What Is Buddhist Transhumanism?

Abstract

The meeting of ancient Buddhism from Asia with modern orientation towards science and technology in the Western world has led to a burgeoning movement that combines these in new and innovative ways. Lacking much institutional structure, but with many shared goals among its adherents, this movement seeks to attain the traditional Buddhist goals of reducing suffering and realizing Awakening, but with the assistance of scientific knowledge and technological means.     

What Is Social Construction?

In this paper I discuss the question of what it means to say that a property is socially constructed. I focus on an influential project that many social constructivists are engaged in, namely, arguing against the inevitability of a trait, and I examine several recent characterizations of social construction, with the aim of assessing which one is more suited to the task.     

What Is Wrong Indeed?

This is a critical response to Dr. Tamara Dobler's paper “What Is Wrong with Hacker's Wittgenstein? On Grammar, Context and Sense‐Determination.” It demonstrates that Dr. Dobler has no idea of what Wittgenstein meant by “grammar” or “rule of grammar.” She does not know what Wittgenstein meant by “grammatical proposition,” nor does she know what a compositional account of meaning or a category mistake is. She labours under the illusion that to say, as Wittgenstein did, that a rule of grammar excludes a form of words from use is incompatible with the claim that whether an utterance makes sense may be a context‐dependent issue. Unlike Dr. Dobler, Wittgenstein did not.     

What Is a Parergon?

Despite important recent work, the rehabilitation of parergon as a critical concept in the history of art has yet to be fully broached. From the time Jacques Derrida introduced the term into contemporary critical theory in The Truth in Painting, its character and function have been largely understood as referencing a threshold or boundary—in particular, that of the border of the artwork. Yet a review of the term's long history suggests a meaning that differs in significant ways from its current near‐univocal characterization as a synonym for a frame. In particular, premodern art theory and criticism identifies a parergon with matters such as the background action in a history painting, the inclusion in a landscape of picturesque embellishments, or, following Kant, the addition of ornament to a painting, a statue, or a building. This article therefore proposes we ask again: What is a parergon?     

What Is an Antique?

Antiques are undoubtedly objects worthy of aesthetic appreciation, but do they have a distinctive aesthetic value in virtue of being antiques? In this article we give an account of what it is to be an antique that gives the thesis that they do have a distinctive aesthetic value a chance of being true and suggests what that distinctive value consists in. After introducing our topic in Section I, in Section II we develop and defend the Adjectival Thesis: the thesis that the concept of being an antique is an adjectival concept. This provides us with the means to formulate our definition, which we do in Section III. In Section IV we further explicate and defend our definition. In Section V we conclude by briefly saying where we think our definition could be improved, by making a few comments about the aesthetics of antiques and by stating an interesting consequence of our definition: that it is not analytic that antiques are old.     

What Is Graded Membership?

It has seemed natural to model phenomena related to vagueness in terms of graded membership. However, so far no satisfactory answer has been given to the question of what graded membership is nor has any attempt been made to describe in detail a procedure for determining degrees of membership. We seek to remedy these lacunae by building on recent work on typicality and graded membership in cognitive science and combining some of the results obtained there with a version of the conceptual spaces framework.     

What Is Philosophical Education?

1 Clarification in Vocabulary By "education," we generally mean education in schools and colleges.Education in schools,as we know,focuses on teaching knowledge and training capacities in science,technology and other fields in which students will need to grow well.There is,however,another implication of education on which I concentrate here,that we have to consider seriously in our discussion on education.     

What Is Trans Philosophy?

In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler’s notion of philosophy’s Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker’s distinction between the mere study of trans phenomena and trans studies as the coming to academic voice of trans people. Finally, it requires thinking about the types of questions that emerge when philosophy is placed within a multidisciplinary context: (1) What does philosophy have to offer? (2) Given that philosophy typically does not use data, what grounds philosophical claims about the world? (3) What is the relation between philosophy and “the literature”? In attempting to answer these questions, I examine the notion of philosophical perplexity and the relation of philosophy to “the everyday.” Rather than guiding us to perplexity, I argue, trans philosophy attempts to illuminate trans experiences in an everyday that is confusing and hostile. Alternative socialities are required, I argue, in order to make trans philosophy possible.     

What Is Integral Theory?

Integral theory is a way of knowing that helps foster the recognition that disparate aspects of reality—such as biological constitution, cultural world‐views, felt‐sense of selfhood, and social systems—are all critically important to any knowledge quest. Integral theory provides an “all quadrants, all levels” (K. Wilber, 2006, p. 26) metatheoretical framework that simultaneously honors the important contributions of a broad spectrum of epistemological outlooks while also acknowledging the parochial limits and misconceptions of those perspectives. In other words, integral theory affords a perspective that allows counselors to situate diverse knowledge approaches in such a way that they synergistically complement, rather than contradict, one another.     

What Is Legal Philosophy?

This article delineates some of the main issues that are debated by philosophers of law. It explores the connections between legal philosophy and other areas of philosophy, while also seeking to specify the distinctiveness of many of the concerns that have preoccupied philosophers of law. It illustrates its abstract points with examples focused on the separability of law and morality, the nature of the rule of law, the nature of rights, justifications for the imposition of punishment, and the identification of basic legal entitlements.