Action, Causality, and Teleological Explanation

If, as Melden claims, causal explanations are "wholly irrelevant to the understanding we seek" of human actions then we are without an analysis of the "because" in "he did it because…," where we go on to name a reason.     

Gadamer and Scholz on Solidarity: Disclosing,Avowing, and Performing Solidaristic Ties with Human and Natural Others

ABSTRACT

This essay is concerned with Gadamer’s reflections on solidarity and practice as found in several of his later writings. While Gadamer offers a robust explanation of practice, practical reason, and how both are operative in solidarities, his investigations of solidarity are in no way systematic. He does, however, distinguish two aspects of solidarity, viz. what one might call “natural solidarity” and “avowed solidarity”. In contrast to natural solidarities, avowed solidarities require an intentional decision and commitment to act with others for a common cause. Since Gadamer’s writings on solidarity are more sketches than detailed treatises, we will bring his work into dialogue with feminist and political philosopher Sally Scholz. Scholz has devoted significant research to the concept of political solidarity. Like Gadamer, Scholz too is concerned with how we engage natural others and how our present practices harm and exploit them. By bringing Scholz’s and Gadamer’s work into dialogue, we gain a better understanding of different facets and types of solidarity, how they interrelate and influence one other, and how their interrelations might help to effect positive social and political changes for all who inhabit this world.     

Introduction: Some Remarks on History,Philosophy, and Education

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Another View of G. H. von Wright

This Note is a response to Thomas Wallgren’s “Georg Henrik von Wright: a Memorial Notice” (Philosophical Investigations, January, 2005). I contend that Wallgren gave an account of von Wright’s work that is sometimes erroneous and generally off‐key. I offer a more accurate account and defend it against those who view his work with suspicion: analytical philosophers, Wittgensteinians and intellectuals who hoped for a more engaged participation in public life. Wallgren also wrote that von Wright probably had no close friends, which I show to be absurd.     

Distress in Clients and Significant Others: The Question of Causality

Previous research documenting the association between the level of client disturbance and distress in a significant other has generated two competing causal models. Investigators measuring the level of family burden have suggested that it is the discharged patient who causes distress in the family. Investigators of family factors in patient relapse have suggested that it is the family who disturbs the patient. In this study the relative strengths of these two causal models are compared in a sample of outpatients over a six-month period of time. The data indicate that the significant other is causally predominant in the exacerbation of client disturbance.     

Empathy,Awareness of Others,and Action: How Feeling Empathy for One-Among-Others Motivates Helping the Others

Feeling empathy for a member of the group may result in either favoring this individual at the expense of the group or helping the entire group. We explain these intriguing findings by proposing that the combined influence of feeling empathy for one individual and awareness of others enhances willingness to help both the individual and the others (taken as individuals). The results of three experiments showed that inducing empathy for one individual promotes favoring him or her at the expense of the group, whereas inducing empathy for one-among-others leads to helping these others individually, instead of as a group. Furthermore, the awareness of others mediated the proposed one-among-others effect.     

The Causality Distinction,Kenosis, and a Middle Way: Aquinas and Polkinghorne on Divine Action

This article evaluates and considers two important philosophical contributions to the discussion considering divine action in the work of Thomas Aquinas and John Polkinghorne. Aquinas argues that God employs both primary and secondary causality, in that God causes some events directly by divine power and others by means of secondary causes. Polkinghorne argues that this approach makes God the author of evil and opts instead for a “kenotic approach” to divine action, wherein God chooses to “empty” God's self of complete divine control. We think that these views can complement each other and need not represent mutually exclusive alternatives.     

Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung

Hegel argues that Bildung (cultivation or education) involves an ability to reflect on one's habitual beliefs in a detached, uncommitted way. According to Hegel, the educated (gebildete) individual is able to consider a manifold of standpoints on a given issue through awareness of the historical and cultural variability of beliefs. Hans‐Georg Gadamer invokes Hegel's account of Bildung in arguing that historical study permits current presuppositions (Vorurteile) to become reflected through the awareness of cognitive plurality and change that such study brings about. The paper mainly tries to show three things: (i) that Hegel is a source of inspiration for Gadamer in this regard but that there are also important differences between their accounts of Bildung; (ii) that these accounts are not unambiguous; and (iii) that Gadamer, in particular, makes somewhat elusive claims on the power of Bildung.     

Dale S. Wright,Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Some Remarks on Exploring the History of Women in Philosophy

A discussion of the status of work on the history of women in philosophy and an introduction to the special issue of HYPATIA on the history of women in philosophy.     

Wright,Okasha and Chandler on transmission failure

Crispin Wright has given an explanation of how a first time warrant can fall short of transmitting across a known entailment. Formal epistemologists have struggled to turn Wright’s informal explanation into cogent Bayesian reasoning. In this paper, I analyse two Bayesian models of Wright’s account respectively proposed by Samir Okasha and Jake Chandler. I argue that both formalizations are unsatisfactory for different reasons, and I lay down a third Bayesian model that appears to me to capture the valid kernel of Wright’s explanation. After this, I consider a recent development in Wright’s account of transmission failure. Wright suggests that his condition sufficient for transmission failure of first time warrant also suffices for transmission failure of supplementary warrant. I propose an interpretation of Wright’s suggestion that shields it from objections. I then lay down a fourth Bayesian framework that provides a simplified model of the unified explanation of transmission failure envisaged by Wright.     

Against Boghossian, Wright and Broome on inference

I argue that the accounts of inference recently presented (in this journal) by Paul Boghossian, John Broome, and Crispin Wright are unsatisfactory. I proceed in two steps: First, in Sects. 1 and 2, I argue that we should not accept what Boghossian calls the “Taking Condition on inference” as a condition of adequacy for accounts of inference. I present a different condition of adequacy and argue that it is superior to the one offered by Boghossian. More precisely, I point out that there is an analog of Moore’s Paradox for inference; and I suggest that explaining this phenomenon is a condition of adequacy for accounts of inference. Boghossian’s Taking Condition derives its plausibility from the fact that it apparently explains the analog of Moore’s Paradox. Second, in Sect. 3, I show that neither Boghossian’s, nor Broome’s, nor Wright’s account of inference meets my condition of adequacy. I distinguish two kinds of mistake one is likely to make if one does not focus on my condition of adequacy; and I argue that all three—Boghossian, Broome, and Wright—make at least one of these mistakes.     

盖棺评说伽达默--来自德国的综合报道

2002年3月14日,德国哲学泰斗汉斯·格奥尔格·伽达默,终于像一盏发光过久的灯,耗尽了自己生命的能量,安然地离开了人世.他生于1900年2月11日,所以德国人说他活在三个世纪里.在伽达默逝世的当晚,许多电视台就有不少的专访节目,第二天德国各大报纸均在副刊上以整版的篇幅,刊登专文纪念他.     

Gadamer,Heidegger, play,art and the appropriation of tradition

Abstract

The present paper is an investigation into the links between Gadamer’s conception of the mode of being of art in terms of ‘play’, and related models in the thought of some of his philosophical precursors, notably Kant and Heidegger. Due attention is given to the shift, in Gadamer’s work, to a less subject-oriented approach to art, compared to those of Kant and Schiller, and the extent to which his own views were shaped by Heidegger’s move away from subjectivism is emphasized. The place of the concept of ‘tradition’ in Gadamer’s work is also examined with a view to casting light on his own appropriation of the (art-)philosophical tradition. Lastly, an interpretation of a specific instance of innovative art practice (the multi-installation, Body II - Sublimation, which was exhibited at this year’s KKNK at Oudtshoom, South Africa) is attempted in light of what the investigation into ‘art as play’ and the role of tradition has yielded.