BACK TO THE ORIGINS OF THE REPUDIATION OF WUNDT: OSWALD KÜLPE AND RICHARD AVENARIUS

This essay provides a fresh account of the break between Oswald Külpe and his master Wilhelm Wundt. Kurt Danziger's reconstruction of the “repudiation” of Wundt, which has become the canon for this significant episode of history of psychology, focused on the supposed influence of Ernst Mach on this set of events, overshadowing the other exponent of Empiriocriticism: Richard Avenarius. Analyzing archival documents and examining anew the primary sources, the paper shows that Avenarius was himself a member of Wundt's circle, and that his “repudiation” of the master paved the way for Külpe. The essay points out the original anti‐Wundtian aspects of Avenarius' notion of psychology, thus showing how they were then adopted by Külpe.     

Grading Complicity in Rwandan Refugee Camps

Complicity with wrongdoing comes in many forms and many degrees. We distinguish subcategories cooperation, collaboration and collusion from connivance and condoning, identifying their defining features and assessing their characteristic moral valences. We illustrate the use of these distinctions by reference to events in refugee camps in and around Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, and the extent to which international organizations and nongovernment organizations were wrongfully complicit with the misuse of refugees as human shields by the perpetrators of the genocide who were allowed to run those camps.     

Are Some Perfumes Works of Art?

What more do we need to fully appreciate perfumes, beyond considering them objects for aesthetic appreciation? My contention is that our appreciation of some perfumes would be largely incomplete, unless we acknowledged them as works of art. I defend the claim that some perfumes are works of art from the point of view of different definitions. Nick Zangwill's aesthetic definition makes it easy to defend the proposed claim, but is not very informative for the purposes of fully appreciating some perfumes. On the other hand, Jerrold Levinson's intentional-historical definition and Dominic Lopes's approach to defining art make it more challenging to defend the proposed claim. I show that, even so, the challenge may be met. Moreover, the challenge is well worth engaging with, since tackling it uncovers features of some perfumes that are essential to their full appreciation.