ON DAVIDSON'S REFUTATION OF CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES AND CONCEPTUAL RELATIVISM

Despite Donald Davidson's influential criticism of the very notion of conceptual schemes, the notion continues enjoying its popularity in contemporary philosophy and, accordingly, conceptual relativism is still very much alive. There is one major reason responsible for Davidson's failure which has not been widely recognized: What Davidson attacks fiercely is not the very notion , but a notion of conceptual schemes, namely, the Quinean notion of conceptual schemes and its underlying Kantian scheme-content dualism. However, such a notion simply cannot carry the weight of conceptual relativism for it does not catch the essences of conceptual relativism. Consequently, I argue that the very notion of conceptual schemes and conceptual relativism have survived Davidson's attack. Therefore, the failure of the Quinean notion of conceptual schemes and Kantian scheme-content dualism, even if Davidson can claim victory, does not mark the end of the very notion of conceptual schemes.     

MINDING QUANTA AND COSMOLOGY

The revolution in science inaugurated by quantum physics has made us aware of the role of observation in the construction of data. Eugene Wigner remarked that in quantum physics we no longer have observables (invariants), only observations. Tongue in cheek, I asked him whether that meant that quantum physics is really psychology, expecting a gruff reply to my sassiness. Instead, Wigner beamed understanding and replied "Yes, yes, that's exactly correct." David Bohm pointed out that were we to look at the cosmos without the lenses of our telescopes we would see a hologram. I extend Bohm's insight to the lens in the optics of the eye. The receptor processes of the ear and skin work in a similar fashion. Without these lenses and lenslike operations all of our perceptions would be entangled as in a hologram. Furthermore, the retina absorbs quanta of radiation so that quantum physics uses the very perceptions that become formed by it. In turn, higher-order brain systems send signals to the sensory receptors so that what we perceive is often as much a result of earlier rather than just immediate experience. This influence from inside out becomes especially relevant to our interpretation of how we experience the contents and bounds of cosmology that come to us by way of radiation.     

MINDSCAPES AND LANDSCAPES: EXPLORING THE EXTENDED MIND

This brief article introduces a symposium discussing the extended mind thesis and its suggestive relation to religious thought. Essays by Mark Rowlands, Lynne Rudder Baker, Teed Rockwell, Joel Krueger, Leonard Angel, and Matthew Day present a variety of perspectives.     

THE EMERGENCE OF TRANSCENDENTAL NORMS IN HUMAN SYSTEMS

Terrence Deacon has described three orders of emergence; Arthur Peacocke and others have suggested four levels of human systems and sciences; and Philip Clayton has postulated an additional, transcendent, level. Orders and levels describe distinct aspects of emergence, with orders characterizing topological complexity and levels characterizing theoretical knowledge and causal power. By using Deacon's orders to analyze and relate each of the four "lower" levels one can project that analysis on the transcendent level to gain insight into the teleodynamic emergence of transcendent-level systems. I argue that cross-cultural interactions among human cultural-level systems results in the emergence of the "universal" transcendental norms historically characterized as the Greek Good, Beauty, and Truth. These norms require a dynamic existence that I characterize as the emergence of Spirit, using Josiah Royce's community of interpretation, and that I suggest provides a pragmatic clarification of Clayton's transcendent level. An understanding of those emergent norms clarifies ethical systems, highlights the importance of aesthetics in understanding scientific systems, and suggests the necessity of community in fruitful science-and-religion dialogue on human systems.     

LOVE IN THE "UNIDIVERSE": A SALESIAN PERSPECTIVE ON CHANCE

The notion of the universe evolving through an interplay of law and chance raises numerous theological questions. In particular, scientific evidence of chance confronts images of God and divine action within this emerging worldview. To interpret Christian faith within a scientific world, figures from church tradition are drawn into the conversation, and a particular spirituality is appropriated to highlight the relationship between science and religion. The personal, practical, accessible spirituality of Saint Francis de Sales is retrieved for the discussion. This Christian humanist recognized the love of God as paramount to a human-divine relationship. The themes of divine providence and the will of God illustrate a spirituality of the heart that provides relevant insights into the theological implications of chance. An overview of how the reality of chance has posed numerous questions is considered before drawing on the spirituality of de Sales. Various theological views on chance are presented. As Salesian thought enhances an understanding of divine action in a world of chance, contemporary theologies of chance provide a framework for understanding the teachings of the saint in a new way.     

COMMENTARY ON ELIZABETH COREY'S INTERPRETATION OF MICHAEL OAKESHOTT

Elizabeth Corey suggests that in order to understand Michael Oakeshott's worldview one should pay special attention to two subjects, religion and aesthetics, and analyze the connection between these two realms and the idea of practical life in general and of politics in particular. Her book provides a sympathetic but also critical conversation with Oakeshott's ideas, ultimately offering us a coherent picture of the place of the religious, poetical, and political in the totality of his thought. Corey persuasively shows that the major ideas of the mature Oakeshott originated in his earlier religious convictions and that his philosophy of aesthetics, contrary to what his critics claimed, fit nicely in the general framework of his thought.     

REREADING THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN TRANSATLANTIC PERSPECTIVE

William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience is one of the world's most popular attempts to meld science and religion. Academic reviews of the book were mixed in Europe and America, however, and prominent contemporaries, unsure whether it was science or theology, struggled to interpret it. James's reliance on an inherently ambiguous understanding of the subconscious as a means of bridging between religion and science accounts for some of the interpretive difficulties, but it does not explain why his overarching question was so obscure, why psychopathology and unusual experiences figured so prominently, or why he gave us so many examples and so little argument. To understand these persistent puzzles we need to do more than acknowledge James's indebtedness to Frederic Myers's conception of the subconscious. We need to read VRE in the context of the transatlantic network of experimental psychologists and psychical researchers who provided the primary intellectual inspiration for the book. Doing so not only locates and clarifies the underlying question that animated the work but also illuminates the structural and rhetorical similarities between VRE and Myers's Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. In contrast to the individual case studies of hysterics, mediums, and mystics produced by others in this network, both Myers and James adopted a natural-history approach in which they arranged examples of automatisms to produce a rhetorical effect, thus invoking science in order to evoke a religious response. Where Myers organized his examples to make a case for human survival of death, James organized his to make a case for the involvement of higher powers in the transformation of the self. Read in this way, VRE marks a dramatic shift from a religious preoccupation with life after death to a religious preoccupation with this-worldly self-transformation.