Philosophies, Volume 8, Issue 4 (August 2023) – 23 articles

This paper defends resilience in bereavement by way of responding to two prominent objections in the contemporary philosophical literature. Resilience in bereavement pertains to the ability to return to one’s functional and emotional baselines in a comparatively short period after the death of a loved one. Contrary to what Moller thinks, resilience is compatible with having a deep appreciation for the deceased loved one. Appealing to the example of Zhuangzi’s grieving of his wife, I argue that the agony of grief is assuaged as one comes to terms with one’s loss through a realization of the universality and inevitability of death. This can be so even as one continues to appreciate the significance of what one has lost. Also, contrary to Smuts’ view, resilience does not indicate a failure to care. Although the resilient is free from prolonged and intense grief, she could continue to care for the deceased by constructing a new relationship with her and contributing to this relationship in ways that are appropriate to it. This view is further corroborated by empirical bereavement research. According to the continuing bonds theory, healthy grief is resolved by establishing changed ties with the deceased rather than detaching ourselves from them. Full article

In the last century, science fiction has become an incredibly powerful tool in depicting alternative social imaginaries, particularly those of the future. Extending beyond their fictious nature is a commentary on the stark realities of modern society. The ‘cyberpunk’ subgenre, for example, offers a dystopian critique on the dangers of technological dependence and hypercapitalism. In studying science fiction, future imaginaries can be developed as utopian goals for governance systems to strive for. In contrast to cyberpunk, the subgenre of ‘solarpunk’ depicts a utopian society where humanity lives locally, sustainably, and in harmony with nature. This paper deconstructs solarpunk media to describe three guiding principles of solarpunk: anarchism, ecology, and justice. As an anarchist community, solarpunk strives for a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society devoid of hierarchy and domination. As an ecological community, solarpunk strives for local, self-sufficient, and sustainable living where both the human and non-human flourish. Finally, as a just community, solarpunk strives to rid society of marginalization and celebrate authenticity. These three principles can be used to guide humanity towards a utopian, solarpunk future. Full article

In this paper, I draw a contrast between two ways of posing the question of moral experience: the episodic and the contemplative. On the first, the episodic outlook, the question of moral experience is the question of specifying the workings of a capacity (or set of capacities) whose exercise may ground claims of moral knowledge. On the contemplative outlook, on the other hand, the question of understanding moral experience is the question of articulating a standpoint: the moral standpoint. On this view, philosophical reflection on moral experience aims to shed light on the human experiences that paradigmatically exemplify and, thus, best reveal the moral standpoint. In the tradition of contemplative accounts, I propose that some of the human experiences that paradigmatically exemplify and reveal the moral standpoint are experiences of “moral growth and change”. Finally, I argue that in “moral growth and change”, one is in view of the world as what is at stake. This leads to a different sense in which moral experience grounds knowledge claims. Full article

Is curiosity a virtue or a vice? Curiosity, as a disposition to attain new, worthwhile information, can manifest as an epistemic virtue. When the disposition to attain new information is not manifested virtuously, this is either because the agent lacks the appropriate motivation to attain the information or because the agent has poor judgement, seeking information that is not worthwhile or seeking information by inappropriate means. In the right circumstances, curiosity contributes to the agent’s excellence in character: it is appropriate to praise the agent for being curious, blame the agent for not being curious, and also prompt the agent to cultivate such curiosity, at least in some of the relevant contexts. We believe curiosity can also manifest as a moral virtue when it helps an interpreter view a speaker as an agent with a valuable perspective on the world. Especially in interactions where either there is a marked power imbalance between interpreter and speaker, or interpreter and speaker have identity beliefs that lead them to radically different worldviews, curiosity can help foster mutual understanding, and prevent the interpreter from dismissing, marginalizing, or pathologizing the speaker’s perspective. Full article

Consciousness and intelligence are properties that can be misunderstood as necessarily dependent. The term artificial intelligence and the kind of problems it managed to solve in recent years has been shown as an argument to establish that machines experience some sort of consciousness. Following Russell’s analogy, if a machine can do what a conscious human being does, the likelihood that the machine is conscious increases. However, the social implications of this analogy are catastrophic. Concretely, if rights are given to entities that can solve the kind of problems that a neurotypical person can, does the machine have potentially more rights than a person that has a disability? For example, the autistic syndrome disorder spectrum can make a person unable to solve the kind of problems that a machine solves. We believe the obvious answer is no, as problem-solving does not imply consciousness. Consequently, we will argue in this paper how phenomenal consciousness, at least, cannot be modeled by computational intelligence and why machines do not possess phenomenal consciousness, although they can potentially develop a higher computational intelligence than human beings. In order to do so, we try to formulate an objective measure of computational intelligence and study how it presents in human beings, animals, and machines. Analogously, we study phenomenal consciousness as a dichotomous variable and how it is distributed in humans, animals, and machines. Full article

The goal of this paper is to provide an initial defense of a neglected epistemology of value according to which a fundamental mode of access to evaluative facts and properties is constituted by a distinctive kind of feeling, sometimes called ‘value feeling’. The paper defends the appeal to value feelings against some objections that have been leveled against it, objections intended to show that it is a nonstarter. The paper argues that these objections can be met and that the view that there are such value feelings constitutes a reasonable hypothesis. Full article

The Consequence argument is an argument from plausible premises–our lack of causal power over the laws and past–to an implausible conclusion: that if determinism is true, we are equally powerless with respect to the future. What the compatibilist needs is a theory of counterfactuals that preserves the links between counterfactuals, causation, and the natural laws in a way that supports our commonsense belief that we have the power to make a causal difference to the future but no such power with respect to the past. Lewis’s critique of the Consequence argument was based on his theory of counterfactuals and his analysis of causation as a counterfactual relation between particular events. He argued that, at a world that is deterministic in the way that ours might be, counterfactuals are temporally asymmetric in a way that matches the contingent temporal asymmetry of cauation. So it is not surprising, but only to be expected, that the past is causally closed while the future is causally open. If this worked, it would be just what the compatibilist needs. But it doesn’t work. There is an argument, due to Tooley and recently endorsed by Wasserman, that a fundamental feature of Lewis’s theory of counterfactuals is inconsistent with the metaphysical possibility of time travel and backwards causation. If this is right, then Lewis’s response to the Consequence argument fails. I endorse this conclusion, but argue that there is a better theory of counterfactuals–a theory that leaves open the metaphysical possibility of time travel to the past and backwards causation. Full article

The primary aim of this paper is to provide a plausible fictional creationist explanation of when and how a fictional object comes into existence without a successful creative intention, focusing on the problem posed by Stuart Brock’s nominalist author scenario. I first present some intuitions about parallel scenarios for fictional objects and concrete artifacts as data to be explained. Then I provide a sufficient condition for the existence of artifacts that can explain both cases. An important upshot of this is that there is an overlooked way to bring artifacts into existence that should merit serious consideration, and this leads to a version of the mind-dependence, but not the intention-dependence, view of artifacts. Full article

Although it has acquired an extraordinary social diffusion, entrepreneurial education has a certain lack of definition associated with its conceptualisation and meaning. It seems clear that entrepreneurial education is linked to the economic sphere, but it is not limited to the productive sector. The idea of entrepreneurial education has been progressively enriched, being linked to the development of skills for personal growth and social progress. Further clarification of the meaning and scope of entrepreneurial education is, therefore, needed. Thus, it is relevant to analyse entrepreneurial identity in the context of personal identity via the theoretical–explanatory investigation of a model developed in two phases. A critical analysis leads us to study the different factors that intervene in the configuration of this identity in an attempt to construct a systemic map of entrepreneurial action. Between the private and the public, entrepreneurs seek new ways of facing the challenges of our times, trying to find new ways of regenerating the links between individuals and institutions and with society in general. In this sense, we show how entrepreneurial educational ecosystems acquire relevance insofar as they consider the subject as the principle of action rather than merely the result of various contextual factors. Full article

This article not only mentions spiritual anarchism nominally, as do so many previous articles, but tries to define it as precisely as possible. The definition assumes that the self itself can be a source of unjustifiable authority and a limitation to freedom, and that spiritual anarchism is nothing more than being open to that which transegoically transcends our narrow perspective. The article critically revisits previous overviews of spiritual anarchism, and itself proposes to take into account traditions that have been neglected. Finally, the article reverses the approach; that is, it considers how some of our spiritual practices can be made more anarchistic, including meditation, the psychedelic experience and the mystical experience. Full article

How do we see the world aright? This question is central to Iris Murdoch’s philosophy as well as to that of her great source of inspiration, Simone Weil. For both of them, not only our action, but the very quality of our being depends on the ability to see things as they are, where vision is both a metaphor for immediate understanding and a literal expression of the requirement to train our perception so as to get rid of illusions. For both, too, the method to achieve this goal is attention. For both, finally, attention requires a dethronement of the self, considered as the source of illusion. In this paper I investigate what moral perception means for each of these philosophers and how it operates through attention and its relationship with the self. I will show that, despite many striking similarities, Murdoch’s project does not equal ‘Weil minus God’, but offers a different concept of the self, a different understanding of its removal, and therefore a different picture of attention and moral perception. In evaluating both views, I will gesture towards a third way represented by Zen Buddhism, which both philosophers variously consider but do not embrace. Full article

In this paper, I use insights from post-structuralist anarchism to consider the relationship between a sense of the future, or “futurity”, and the notion of utopia for anarchist movements. At issue is whether anarchism requires a vision or sense of the future at all and, if so, whether that futurity should be utopian. Drawing from the post-structuralist anarchism of Todd May, Saul Newman, and Lewis Call, I consider the problems with utopia, as well as the potential irrelevance or impossibility of even thinking the future. I then argue for the necessity of both and contend that post-structuralist anarchism does not preclude either futurity or provisional forms of utopia. I conclude by sketching the outlines of a utopia that would be acceptably post-structuralist and acceptably anarchist. Full article

In this paper, I discuss the importance of practices of disidentification and imagination for democratic progress and change. To this end, I bring together certain aspects of Stanley Cavell’s and Richard Rorty’s reflections on democracy, aesthetics, and morality with Jacques Rancière’s account of the importance of appearance for democratic participation. With Rancière, it can be shown that any public–political order always involves the possibility (and often the reality) of exclusion or oppression of those who “have no part” in the current order through a particular order of perceptibility, and that democratic action, therefore, requires rupturing acts of political agency on the part of self-proclaimed political actors through which disidentifications and constructions of difference against such existing orders become possible. With Cavell and Rorty, in turn, it can be shown that these rupturing moments, in order to actually become politically effective, require a responsive disposition and a willingness to engage in practices of imagination on the part of those who occupy dominant positions on existing orders, insofar as they must acknowledge the expression of others’ sense of injustice. The upshot of my discussion is that a comprehensive account of the aesthetic dimension of democratic politics must simultaneously address the interruption of political action on the one hand and responsiveness on the other, and that Rancière and the neo-pragmatists Rorty and Cavell complement each other insofar as they illuminate the blind spots of their respective approaches. Full article

This piece of research presents the concepts of Ethics and Morals in relation to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal targets 8.5 and 8.8 of the 2030 Agenda. Specifically, this work develops an explanation for some possible conflicts generated by the challenges of an ethical and moral nature in the implementation of business policies oriented toward economic sustainability. To this end, first, a reflection of the basic concepts is provided. Second, these two concepts are polemically pitted against each other. Finally, some solutions are suggested as a synthesis of a dialectical process. Additionally, throughout this study, both terms are presented in accordance with the idea of sustainability from a socio-economic and political context, which are generated by the ideological system of their culture. Full article

‘What is ‘sexual orientation’ for?’ is a question we need to answer when addressing a seemingly more basic one, ‘what is sexual orientation?’. The concept of sexual orientation is grounded in the concepts of sex and/or gender since it refers to the sex or gender of the individuals one is sexually attracted to. Typical categories of sexual orientation, such as ’heterosexual’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘bisexual’, all rely on a sex or gender binary. Yet, it is now common practice to recognize sex and gender categories that transcend the binary. Should our sexual orientation categories be revised to reflect sex and gender diversity? Drawing on the example of pansexuality, I argue that they should. The reason is that one aim of reconstructing the concept of sexual orientation—in addition to the epistemic goal of understanding—should also be political: it should make it easier to argue for the protection of those who have been marginalized or discriminated against because their sexual attraction is other than heterosexual. Full article

Curiosity’s connection with democracy remains neglected and unexplored. Various disciplines have mostly treated curiosity as an epistemic trait of the individual. Beyond epistemology, curiosity is studied as a moral virtue or vice of the self. Beyond epistemic and moral frameworks, curiosity is examined politically and decolonially. However, all frameworks remain focused on the individual and rarely imply a relevance of curiosity to democracy. The present article departs from such explorative frameworks philosophically to expand the research scope on curiosity in the direction of democratic theory. It highlights the complex politics of curiosity as a collective, rather than merely individual, desire for knowledge. I argue that curiosity should become a key analytical category for studying democracy as a political attitude and as a way of life. Investigations of the multifaceted curiosity of the demos may enhance the visibility of ethico-political issues that often escape the curious eye of citizens and researchers. Full article

In his last writings, Wittgenstein repeatedly addresses the question of how our concepts relate to general facts of nature or human nature and how they are embedded in our lives. In doing so, he uses the term “pattern of life”, characterizing the complicated relationship between concepts and our lives and how our concepts “are connected with what interests us, with what matters to us” (LWPP II, 46). But who is this “us”, and whose interests manifest in the concepts we use to designate patterns of life? What if certain concepts—or their absence—are exclusionary, discriminatory, or otherwise unjust to those who are not “us”? In this paper, I want to discuss Wittgenstein’s notion of “pattern of life” in its interweaving with facts, human life, and concepts, as well as its political implications. To this end, I will first outline the relationship between facts and concept formation as Wittgenstein drew it in his last writings. Based on this, I will argue that he uses the concept of pattern of life to capture the complicated relationship between concepts and human nature or “social facts”. Going beyond Wittgenstein and drawing on recent feminist epistemology, I will raise the question of the political implications of our patterns of life and concomitant social “conceptual injustices”. Finally, I will show how imagining facts otherwise and other conceptual worlds can help us to reveal the prejudices and injustices of our concepts and can lead to conceptual change and new patterns of life that may ultimately even change “things”, i.e., our thinking, judging and acting in the world. Full article

Sexual activism (for, e.g., participants in the LGBT+ or BDSM communities) is prima facie commendable, at least for the liberal. However, it is unclear whether the end goal of such activism is toleration or recognition. The argument of this paper is that, on the level of authoritative political and social-moral rules, toleration is the only justifiable goal, while recognition may be pursued as an ideal outside the sphere of political and social-moral rules, that is, in civil society. The argument builds on a Gausian public reason understanding of justifiability, emphasizing reasonable disagreement and a diversity of viewpoints. Full article

Suppose that fictional objects are abstract objects dependent for their existence and their identity on the creative intentions of their authors. Is an author who intends to create indeterminately identical fictional objects committed to incoherent created objects? My claim is that she is not so committed. I argue that indeterminate identity is an ambiguous notion, allowing for an incoherent interpretation and for at least three coherent ones; and I show that if an author of fiction applies coherent indeterminate identity when creating fictional objects, she succeeds in creating coherent objects, whereas she fails to create fictional objects when she tries to apply incoherent indeterminate identity in her creation. In so doing, I offer a reply to a challenge first raised by Everett against realist philosophers on fictional objects and more recently reproposed by Friedell, allowing for the creation of fictional objects along the lines proposed by Evnine. Full article

Individual responsibility is usually articulated either in terms of an individual’s intentions or in terms of the consequences of her actions. However, many of the situations we encounter on a regular basis are structured in such a way as to render the attribution of individual responsibility unintelligible in intentional or consequential terms. Situations of this type require a different understanding of individual responsibility, which I call conditioned responsibility. The conditioned responsibility model advances that, in such situations, responsibility arises directly out of the conditions in which the individual finds herself, irrespective of her intentions or of the consequences of her actions. This model gives rise to a series of challenges, some of which, I propose, can be addressed by drawing on Wittgenstein’s later notion of form of life, together with the notion of honesty implicit in his early approach to ethics. Full article

Once one draws a distinction between loyal non-existent items, which do not exist in a non-universal sense of the first-order existence predicate, and non-items, which fail to exist in a universal sense of that predicate, one may allow for the former but not for the latter in the overall ontological domain, so as to adopt a form of soft Parmenideanism. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons for this distinction. Full article

The article is devoted to the analysis of the theological-academic ontological doctrine of the three types of being formulated within the framework of the Russian theological-academic philosophy of the 19th century. The study of this problem in the context of the general analysis of the phenomenon of theological-academic philosophy allows expanding our understanding of the genesis of Russian philosophy and its religious-philosophical component. The main aim of the article is the historical-philosophical analysis (on the material of philosophical courses of Russian theological academies and original works of professors of academies) of the doctrine about three types of being, which was developed within the framework of the theological-academic philosophy in Russia in the 19th century. The set goal is achieved by means of textual and religious analysis methods, as well as historical-functional, historical-genetic, and comparative research methods. The authors conclude that the specificity of theological-academic philosophizing was determined by confessional affiliation and consisted in its theistic form: the transversal theme of all theological-academic interpretations was the problem of being. Thus, theological-academic ontology took the form of the doctrine of God as an absolute being and the world as its derivative. The theological-academic doctrine of the three types of being and the synthesizing function of the absolute in relation to theological and material being cannot be characterized as quite logical and consistent. The notion of God as an absolute being is conditioned by the aspiration of theological-academic philosophers not to go beyond traditional orthodoxy and is one of the main specific features of theological-academic philosophical interpretations of religious consciousness. At the same time, the historical and philosophical analysis of the works of professors from Russian theological academies allows tracing how the powerful ideological and theoretical potential accumulated in Russian theological academies after their reforms in the 19th century contributed to the development of professional philosophy in Russia, the development of a philosophical categorical apparatus and the systematic formation of Russian philosophical thought. The development of this theme responds to the urgent research tasks of the history of philosophy. Further, this topic is very interesting not only for historians of philosophy but also for historians of religion, historians of orthodoxy, and culturologists. Full article

For consciousness to exist, an entity must have prerequisite characteristics and attributes to give rise to it. We explore these “building blocks” of consciousness in detail in this paper, which range from perceptive to computational to meta-representational characteristics of an entity’s cognitive architecture. We show how each cognitive attribute is strictly necessary for the emergence of consciousness, and how the building blocks may be used for any entity to be classified as being conscious. The list of building blocks is not limited to human or organic consciousness and may be used to classify artificial and organisational conscious entities. We further explore a list of attributes that seem intuitively necessary for consciousness, but on further investigation, are neither required nor sufficient. The building blocks do not represent a theory of consciousness but rather a meta-theory on the emergence and classification of consciousness. Full article