The neighbor and the infinite: Marion and Levinas on the encounter between self,human other,and God

In this article I examine Jean-Luc Marion's two-fold criticism of Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of other and self, namely that Levinas remains unable to overcome ontological difference in Totality and Infinity and does so successfully only with the notion of the appeal in Otherwise than Being and that his account of alterity is ambiguous in failing to distinguish clearly between human and divine other. I outline Levinas’ response to this criticism and then critically examine Marion's own account of subjectivity that attempts to go beyond Levinas in its emphasis on a pure or anonymous appeal. I criticize this move as rather problematic and turn instead back to Levinas for a more convincing account of the relations between self, human other, and God. In this context, I also show that Levinas in fact draws quite careful distinctions between human and divine others.     

Thinking Without Words: An Overview for Animal Ethics

In Thinking without Words I develop a philosophical framework for treating some animals and human infants as genuine thinkers. This paper outlines the aspects of this account that are most relevant to those working in animal ethics. There is a range of different levels of cognitive sophistication in different animal species, in addition to limits to the types of thought available to non-linguistic creatures, and it may be important for animal ethicists to take this into account in exploring issues of moral significance and the obligations that we might or might not have to non-human animals. I am grateful for comments on an earlier version from Robert Francescotti and Clare Palmer.     

Academic optimistic bias: Implications for college student performance and well-being

Although optimism has several benefits, there are potential drawbacks associated with “too much of a good thing”. Within an academic context, a possible determinant of the adaptiveness of optimistic bias is whether students have a sense of control over academic outcomes: optimistically-biased (OB) achievement expectations paired with perceptions of academic control may enhance performance and well-being; optimistic bias in the absence of perceived control may result in disappointment, poor performance, and diminished well-being. The current longitudinal study examined academic control cognitions (ACC) among OB college students (n = 319) versus non-optimistically biased (non-OB) students (n = 321). We also examined the effects of academic optimistic bias on composite measures of college performance (perceived success, final psychology course grades, cumulative GPA, course attrition) and well-being (positive and negative emotions, health behaviors, future optimism) 6 months later; and determined whether ACC accounted for those associations. Significant MANCOVAs showed OB students had greater ACC, better subsequent well-being, and outperformed their non-OB counterparts. These well-being and performance differences remained significant after statistically accounting for initial aptitude and ACC. Overall, academic optimistic bias was accompanied by perceived controllability over scholastic outcomes, yet beyond the effects of ACC, optimistic bias was associated with better year-end performance and well-being. Findings have implications for maximizing the successful transition of first-year college students.     

The kinematics of belief and desire

Richard Jeffrey regarded the version of Bayesian decision theory he floated in ‘The Logic of Decision’ and the idea of a probability kinematics—a generalisation of Bayesian conditioning to contexts in which the evidence is ‘uncertain’—as his two most important contributions to philosophy. This paper aims to connect them by developing kinematical models for the study of preference change and practical deliberation. Preference change is treated in a manner analogous to Jeffrey’s handling of belief change: not as mechanical outputs of combinations of intrinsic desires plus information, but as a matter of judgement and of making up one’s mind. In the first section Jeffrey’s probability kinematics is motivated and extended to the treatment of changes in conditional belief. In the second, analogous kinematical models are developed for preference change and in particular belief-induced change that depends on an invariance condition for conditional preference. The two are the brought together in the last section in a tentative model of pratical deliberation. This paper is one of a pair dedicated to Richard Jeffrey and prepared for a workshop held in his memory at the 26th International Wittgenstein Symposium. My thanks to the organisers of, and the participants in, this workshop and to two anonymous referees for their comments.     

Fictions,feelings, and emotions

Many philosophers suggest (1) that our emotional engagement with fiction involves participation in a game of make-believe, and (2) that what distinguishes an emotional game from a dispassionate game is the fact that the former activity alone involves sensations of physiological and visceral disturbances caused by our participation in the game. In this paper I argue that philosophers who accept (1) should reject (2). I then illustrate how this conclusion illuminates various puzzles in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind.     

Gestures of work: Levinas and Hegel

What is Levinas's relation to Hegel, the thinker who seems to summarize everything which Levinas's philosophy opposes, yet with whom Levinas never enters a sustained philosophical engagement? An answer can be found through an analysis of the concept of work, understood both as activity of labor and product thereof. The concept of work reveals that, despite the apparent (but superficial) sense of opposition, Levinas's philosophy works in a deliberately noncommittal, or, to use a Levinasian expression, ``dis-interested'' mode with respect to Hegel. Such mode of disinterstedness expresses an ethical gesture of joyful hospitality that neither confirms nor refutes the German philosopher but rather opens him up to an eschatological dimension.     

Moral Relativism

Moral relativism comes in many varieties. One is a moral doctrine, according to which we ought to respect other cultures, and allow them to solve moral problems as they see fit. I will say nothing about this kind of moral relativism in the present context. Another kind of moral relativism is semantic moral relativism, according to which, when we pass moral judgements, we make an implicit reference to some system of morality (our own). According to this kind of moral relativism, when I say that a certain action is right, my statement is elliptic. What I am really saying is that, according to the system of morality in my culture, this action is right. I will reject this kind of relativism. According to yet another kind of moral relativism, which we may call epistemic, it is possible that, when one person (belonging to one culture) makes a certain moral judgement, such as that this action is right, and another person (belong to another culture) makes the judgement that the very same action is wrong, they may have just as good reasons for their respective judgements; it is even possible that, were they fully informed about all the facts, equally imaginative, and so forth, they would still hold on to their respective (conflicting) judgements. They are each fully justified in their belief in conflicting judgements. I will comment on this form of moral relativism in passing. Finally, however, there is a kind of moral relativism we could call ontological, according to which, when two persons pass conflicting moral verdicts on a certain action, they may both be right. The explanation is that they make their judgements from the perspective of different, socially constructed, moral universes. So while it is true in the first person's moral universe that a certain action is right, it is true in the second person's moral universe that the very same action is wrong. I explain and defend this version of ontological moral relativism.     

四卡问题解决中的内容与逻辑分析效应

选取条件概率(P(Q|P))由低到高的四个命题作为四卡问题中的检验规则,探讨了大学生被试对四张卡片的逻辑证明作用的推断能力及其对解决四卡问题的影响。结果发现:(1)不同条件概率的命题之间正确选择P-Q的人数百分比不存在显著差异,命题的条件概率因素对四卡问题的正确解决没有影响。(2)逻辑分析过程对四卡问题的正确解决产生了一定的抑制作用,这可能是因为被试不能从整体上思考四张卡片在命题检验中的逻辑作用的缘故。(3)一些被试即使在逻辑分析过程中表现出知道-Q卡片的证伪作用,仍然倾向于选择卡片Q而非-Q,这一现象再次证实了人类思维的非形式逻辑的一面。     

论清代《养真集》的养生思想

《养真集》是清代道教养生典籍中的重要文献之一,其阐论道教内炼养生的理法深入浅出、明白晓畅,因而流传广泛,影响久远,是研究清代道教养生思想的重要资料。