Human dignity and technology: A study and commentary∗

Several contradictory definitions were provided for evolution. It was viewed as progress or as local adaptation, as widening or as exploiting of transformation perspectives, as emergence of non‐historical patterns or as history of Life.

The conflicting views of evolution can be reconciled by taking the rival terms as different moments, or phases, of a single process. The first phase is form creation, the second is form selection. Progress and adaptation, widening and reduction of perspectives, emergence and history orderly mark the two successive phases.

Dynamic Structuralism and Darwinism differ in the preferential emphasis they put, respectively, in the first or in the second phase. According to structuralists, mere history does not depict a process: nothing can happen outside a frame, without a grid of meanings. A chance event, a non‐intelligible event is not a fact. A set of generative principles, of rules of form, is required both to produce evolution and to make it understandable.

By entrusting innovation to chance the Darwinian historical view is essentially pessimistic. Any small step forward can only be achieved at a price of innumerable sacrifices, and only the very few survive. In the dynamic structuralist view, forms (e.g. the mild “splash” by D'Arcy Thompson) emerge spontaneously and immediately, with no need of countless failures. They express concealed potentialities, explore the varied inventory of Nature, and do not result from the meaningless trouble of history.     

Romanticism and modernity∗

ABSTRACT

The five commentators on my paper ‘Gettier Cases in Epistemic Logic’ (GCEL) demonstrate how fruitful the topic can be. Especially in Brian Weatherson's contribution, and to some extent in those of Jennifer Nagel and Jeremy Goodman, much of the material constitutes valuable development and refinement of ideas in GCEL, rather than criticism. In response, I draw some threads together, and answer objections, mainly those in the papers by Stewart Cohen and Juan Comesaña and by Goodman.     

Goodbye and farewell: Siegel vs. Feyerabend∗

The discussion between Searle and the Churchlands over whether or not symbolmanipulating computers generate semantics will be confronted both with the rulesceptical considerations of Kripke/Wittgenstein and with Wittgenstein's privatelanguage argument in order to show that the discussion focuses on the wrong place: meaning does not emerge in the brain. That a symbol means something should rather be conceived as a social fact, depending on a mutual imputation of linguistic competence of the participants of a linguistic practice to one another. The alternative picture will finally be applied to small children, animals, and computers as well.     

Tact: Sense,sensitivity, and virtue∗

The concept of tact has so far received only little theoretical attention. The present article suggests three levels on which the idea of tact may be approached: (1) The epistemological problem: the etymology of the term ‘tact’ is taken seriously, namely its relation to the sense of touch and tactility. An analysis of the position of touch in the ranking of the five senses according to various parameters is shown to be highly relevant to the understanding of the idea of tact. (2) The logical problem: tact is described as a skill which cannot be exhausted in the knowledge of principles or general rules. Like ‘judgment’ it is concerned with the particular, with sensitivity (analogical to that of the sense of touch) to the uniqueness of a human situation. (3) The ethical problem: tact is shown to lie between ethics and etiquette, that is to say it is more than just a rule of politeness or good manners, but it is ‘less’ than a fully fledged moral duty or principle. Its position between the obligatory and the merely conventional opens the way to characterize it as supererogatory.     

Saving which differences? Creeping minimalism and disagreement

Philosophical Studies - Much thought has been devoted to how metaethical disagreement between moral realism and expressivism can be saved once minimalism starts creeping. Very little thought has...     

Secular human rights: Challenge and opportunity to Christians and Muslims∗

The principle that all human beings should enjoy equal rights of freedom and participation is a specifically modem idea which initially met with resistance from both Christians and Muslims. Even today Christians and Muslims often have difficulties with recognizing the secularistic features of human rights. The profession of the inalienable dignity of every human person, however, can facilitate a critical reconciliation between the emancipatory ethics of human rights on the one hand and the humanitarian traditions of Christianity and Islam on the other.     

Saving One’s Soul or Founding a State: Morality and Politics

In his essay, ‘The Question of Machiavelli’, Isaiah Berlin notes the depth of Machiavelli's pluralism. Taking my cue from Berlin, I argue that much modern liberal political philosophy neglects this deep pluralism and, as a result, misunderstands modern political problems such as the phenomenon of religiously-motivated terrorism.The present paper was read at the Isaiah Berlin Lecture 2005, held at the University of Haifa, Center for Democratic Studies on 23 November 2005.     

Japanese social structure and white collar crime: Recruit cosmos and beyond∗

While Japan is today an advanced industrial society, much like the advanced industrial societies of Europe and North America, there are significant cultural and social structural differences found in modem Japan. In this respect, as the first advanced industrial society in Asia, Japan provides us with an interesting test of many sociological theories and concepts which have been formed from the experiences of Western industrial societies. Beginning with the recent example of the Recruit stock scandal in Japan, the present paper will outline some of the important aspects of Japanese social structure, such as extensive group unity and vertical organization, which influence the nature of white collar crime in Japan's current political‐economy. From such an examination as this social scientists can better understand not only white collar crime in Japan, but also the nature of white collar crime in the United States.     

School in our memory: do we remember our time in middle and high school differently?

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated autobiographical memories of school. While previous works have shown that most memories relating to school are social as opposed to academic, there are still strong theoretical arguments for the presumed prevalence of educationally oriented memories from at least some parts of the school period. The goal of the study was to replicate previous studies while addressing some of their limitations. In our study, only memories of high school were more socially and less educationally oriented. Also, memories of high school were more positive and emotionally intense. We discuss the further implications of these effects.     

The Fate of Phenomenology in Deconstruction: Derrida and Husserl∗

This paper begins by presenting Lawlor's Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problems of Philosophy, an account of how deconstruction emerges as Derrida discusses Husserl's phenomenology (I.). It then determines the genre of Lawlor's intellectual history. Lawlor writes a continuist narrative history of ideas and concepts (II.). In the subsequent main section the paper uses Lawlor's material to take a position in the debate between Husserl and Derrida (III.). This is done in three parts. The first part reconstructs Derrida's version of Husserlian time consciousness (III. 1). The second part proposes an alternative and revisionist reading of Husserl's theory of internal temporality. On this reading Husserl is a process theoretician of consciousness (III. 2). The third part juxtaposes Husserl and Derrida's critical views (III. 3), arguing that Husserl's fluxive theory of time consciousness does not suffer from the problems Derrida finds in his Husserl. The final section (IV.) points to relativizing consequences for deconstruction and identifies programmatic consequences for phenomenology.