Philosophies

Open AccessArticle

How Naive Is Contentful Moral Perception?

by

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030049 - 31 May 2023

According to contentful moral perception (CMP), moral properties can be perceived in the same sense as tables, tigers, and tomatoes. Recently, Heather Logue (2012) has distinguished between two potential ways of perceiving a property. A Kantian Property (KP) in perception is one in [...] Read more.

According to contentful moral perception (CMP), moral properties can be perceived in the same sense as tables, tigers, and tomatoes. Recently, Heather Logue (2012) has distinguished between two potential ways of perceiving a property. A Kantian Property (KP) in perception is one in which a perceiver’s access involves a detection of the property via a representational vehicle. A Berkeleyan Property (BP) in perception is one in which a perceiver’s access to the property involves that property as partly constitutive of the experience itself. In this paper, I set aside generalized arguments in favor of one view or another, and instead ask whether proponents of CMP have reasons to understand moral perception as Kantian or Berkeleyan. I explore three possible explanatory differences—(a) explaining the intrinsic motivating force of moral perceptions, (b) providing a metasemantics for moral properties, and (c) providing an epistemology of the normative authority of moral properties. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Moral Perception)

Open AccessArticle

Solidarity, Care and Permanent Crisis

by

Jordi Riba

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030048 - 31 May 2023

Abstract

Solidarity is a contested concept whose definition needs to be clarified, especially in the context of the recent pandemic and in a world in permanent crisis. It is necessary to review certain stages of how solidarity develops and to relate the stages to [...] Read more.

Solidarity is a contested concept whose definition needs to be clarified, especially in the context of the recent pandemic and in a world in permanent crisis. It is necessary to review certain stages of how solidarity develops and to relate the stages to the current status of solidarity in this post-pandemic period, with the aim of establishing some lines of approach to proposals for viable bioethics in the context of a post-foundational philosophy as the present one. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solidarity in Bioethics)

Open AccessArticle

Crime and Punishment: A Rethink

by

Ognjen Arandjelović

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 47; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030047 - 26 May 2023

Abstract

Incarceration remains the foremost form of sentence for serious crimes in Western democracies. At the same time, the management of prisons and of the prison population has become a major real-world challenge, with growing concerns about overcrowding, the offenders’ well-being, and the failure [...] Read more.

Incarceration remains the foremost form of sentence for serious crimes in Western democracies. At the same time, the management of prisons and of the prison population has become a major real-world challenge, with growing concerns about overcrowding, the offenders’ well-being, and the failure of achieving the distal desideratum of reduced criminality, all of which have a moral dimension. In no small part motivated by these practical problems, the focus of the present article is on the ethical framework that we use in thinking about and administering criminal justice. I start with an analysis of imprisonment and its permissibility as a punitive tool of justice. In particular, I present a novel argument against punitive imprisonment, showing it to fall short in meeting two key criteria of just punishment, namely (i) that the appropriate individual is being punished, and (ii) that the punishment can be adequately moderated to reflect the seriousness of the crime. The principles I argue for and that the aforementioned analysis brings to the fore, rooted in the sentient experience, firstly of victims, and not only of victims but also of the offenders as well as the society at large, then lead me to elucidate the broader framework of jurisprudence that I then apply more widely. Hence, while rejecting punitive imprisonment, I use its identified shortcomings to argue for the reinstitution of forms of punishment that are, incongruently, presently not seen as permissible, such as corporal punishment and punishments dismissed on the basis of being seen as humiliating. I also present a novel view of capital punishment, which, in contradiction to its name, I reject for punitive aims, but which I argue is permissible on compassionate grounds. Full article

Open AccessArticle

Ends of Life: Forms of Life as the “Ruins of an Enduring Fable”?

by

Edward Guetti

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030046 - 25 May 2023

Abstract

This paper addresses the possibility of using the Wittgensteinian conception of “forms of life” (“Lebensformen”) as a potentially transformative philosophical framework that responds to contemporary challenges. These challenges can be understood as resulting from parallel discourses of “ends”: that of “nature” [...] Read more.

This paper addresses the possibility of using the Wittgensteinian conception of “forms of life” (“Lebensformen”) as a potentially transformative philosophical framework that responds to contemporary challenges. These challenges can be understood as resulting from parallel discourses of “ends”: that of “nature” and that of the “human”. These challenges are relevant, especially, for a Cavellian interpretation of Wittgensteinian Lebensformen as an expression of cultural and natural factors. My purpose is to show how Cavell’s elaboration of Wittgensteinian Lebensformen can be maintained against the critical pressures exerted by prevailing discourses of ends. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wittgenstein’s “Forms of Life”: Future of the Concept)

Open AccessArticle

John Dewey’s Radical Temporalism

by

Vincent Colapietro

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030045 - 24 May 2023

Abstract

The author presents John Dewey’s mature account of temporal continuity, showing how Dewey’s position can be identified as a form of radical temporalism. Even at the most elemental level (that of subatomic particles), natural existence is for such a temporalist an irreducibly temporal [...] Read more.

The author presents John Dewey’s mature account of temporal continuity, showing how Dewey’s position can be identified as a form of radical temporalism. Even at the most elemental level (that of subatomic particles), natural existence is for such a temporalist an irreducibly temporal affair. While he focuses primarily on Dewey’s “Time and Individuality” (1940), the author supplements his account by drawing upon Experience and Nature (1925), “Events and the Future” (1926), and to a lesser extent, other texts. In his magnum opus, Dewey draws a crucial distinction between temporal quality and temporal seriality. In an essay published the following year, he insists, contra C. D. Broad, on qualitative heterogeneity being an intrinsic trait of even the thinnest slice of the tem-poral continuum. The most elemental units of the temporal flux are neither “eternal and immu-table”, nor qualitatively homogenous. They also exhibit a from-to-through structure, with the dimensions of time being defined by these terms (pastness as from which, futurity as toward which, and presentness as through which). By relating the distinction between temporal quality and temporal seriality as well as the central claims made in “Events and the Future” to “Time and Individuality”, the author brings into clear focus the contours of Dewey’s radical temporalism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Historic Ontology and Epistemology)

Open AccessArticle

Prolegomena to the Study of Love

by

Alan Soble

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030044 - 17 May 2023

Abstract

Consider this propositional function which includes the dyadic predicate “loves”: “X does not love Y unless Y loves X” (or “if Y does not love X”). This function may be treated in four ways. (1) If universally quantified, it states [...] Read more.

Consider this propositional function which includes the dyadic predicate “loves”: “X does not love Y unless Y loves X” (or “if Y does not love X”). This function may be treated in four ways. (1) If universally quantified, it states a (purported) conceptual truth about “love” or the nature or essence of love. Love is necessarily reciprocal. (2) If universally quantified, it may alternatively be a nomological generalization stating an empirical or factual truth about human nature, i.e., about a pattern of reciprocity that occurs among people who are independently identified as lovers. (3) If instantiated with constants, it is an empirical proposition about the attitudes or behaviors of particular individuals (a, b, c). Finally, (4) the function may be treated axiologically; it expresses a normative judgment about what love ought to be or what lovers ought to feel or do. Other propositional functions may be constructed for the constancy, exclusivity, and benevolence of love. This essay investigates the implications of these understandings of the function and how they are logically related to each other. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Philosophical Richness and Variety of Sex and Love)

Open AccessArticle

The Effects of a Martial Arts-Based Intervention on Secondary School Students’ Self-Efficacy: A Randomised Controlled Trial

by

Brian Moore

,

Dean Dudley

and

Stuart Woodcock

Philosophies 2023, 8(3), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8030043 - 10 May 2023

Cited by 1

Abstract

Physical activities are generally accepted as promoting important psychological benefits. However, studies examining martial arts as a form of physical activity and mental health have exhibited many methodological limitations in the past. Additionally, recent philosophical discussion has debated whether martial arts training promotes [...] Read more.

Physical activities are generally accepted as promoting important psychological benefits. However, studies examining martial arts as a form of physical activity and mental health have exhibited many methodological limitations in the past. Additionally, recent philosophical discussion has debated whether martial arts training promotes psychological wellbeing or illness. Self-efficacy has an important relationship with mental health and may be an important mechanism underpinning the potential of martial arts training to promote mental health. This study examined the effect of martial arts training on the psychological construct of self-efficacy. A total of 283 secondary school students with a mean age of 12.76 (SD = 0.68) years were recruited to complete a time-limited (10-session) martial arts intervention, which was examined using a randomised controlled trial. Univariate ANOVAs found that the intervention improved the experimental group’s self-efficacy compared to the control group, which was sustained at follow-up. Regression analysis indicated that socio-educational status moderated this outcome. These findings support the martial arts-based intervention’s potential to improve self-efficacy and promote wellbeing through physical activity. Martial arts training may be an efficacious psychosocial treatment that can be used as a complementary approach to promote mental health. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Philosophy and Science of Martial Arts)

Open AccessArticle

Psychotherapy as Ethics

by

Richard G. T. Gipps

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020042 - 20 Apr 2023

Abstract

Talk of matters ethical is, in the psychotherapeutic context, typically relegated to therapy’s preconditions and setting, i.e., to its ‘frame’. What goes on within that frame, i.e., therapeutic action itself, gets theorised in psychological rather than ethical terms. An explanation for this is [...] Read more.

Talk of matters ethical is, in the psychotherapeutic context, typically relegated to therapy’s preconditions and setting, i.e., to its ‘frame’. What goes on within that frame, i.e., therapeutic action itself, gets theorised in psychological rather than ethical terms. An explanation for this is the frequent therapeutic imperative to extirpate self-directed moralising. Moralising, however, constitutes but a phoney pretender to the ethical life. A true ethical sensibility instead shows itself in such moments of life as involve our offering humane recognition to one another and to ourselves. Being offered such recognition not only allows a patient to internalise it as a remoralising dignity or healthy pride. It also enables the patient to know herself by animating within herself a range of virtue concepts—courage, probity, repentance, etc.—which can then function as regulative ideals for a well-functioning psyche. Inchoate anxiety now takes shape as intelligible guilt. Repentance and the repair of damaged relationships now replace blame’s repression or projection. Conscience now becomes a motor for therapeutic change. In such ways, ethical concern constitutes not merely the frame but the living flesh of the therapeutic project. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Virtue and Epistemology)

Open AccessArticle

An Inquiry Concerning the Persistence of Physical Information

by

Roman Krzanowski

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020041 - 20 Apr 2023

Abstract

Physical information is a property of nature. How does physical information persist over time? Does it do so as an object, process, or event, which are things considered in the current persistence theories? Physical information is none of these, however, this implies that [...] Read more.

Physical information is a property of nature. How does physical information persist over time? Does it do so as an object, process, or event, which are things considered in the current persistence theories? Physical information is none of these, however, this implies that persistence theories cannot explain the persistence of information. We therefore study the persistence of snowflakes, ephemeral natural structures, to better understand the persistence of natural things, such as physical information. The transitory nature of snowflakes suggests that physical information persists as nature’s latent order, therefore, it is associated with natural structures, but it is not identical to them. This interpretation preserves the properties attributed to physical information, particularly its foundational character. The concept of physical information as latent order accords with Burgin’s General Theory of Information (GTI), which is currently the most comprehensive conceptualization of information that has been proposed. Full article

Open AccessArticle

Habit, Gesture and the History of Ideas

by

Giovanni Maddalena

and

Simone Bernardi della Rosa

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020040 - 18 Apr 2023

Abstract

This paper explores the intertwinement of ontology and history that happened after the idealist turn of Kantian transcendentalism, particularly in classic German idealism and later in American pragmatism. The paper focuses on the less remarked-upon consequence of this intertwinement, namely the possibility of [...] Read more.

This paper explores the intertwinement of ontology and history that happened after the idealist turn of Kantian transcendentalism, particularly in classic German idealism and later in American pragmatism. The paper focuses on the less remarked-upon consequence of this intertwinement, namely the possibility of a new reading of history based on changes in concepts and habitual mentality. The paper proposes a new take on historiography that vindicates Hegel’s insight but changes his approach to a pragmatist one, more apt to face historical changes in a technical way and less easily twistable into ideological frameworks. The paper argues that the notion of habit, as phenomenologically and semiotically described by Peirce, is the fundamental cellule of the pragmatist take on the entanglement of history and ontology. The paper elaborates on the notion of habit, singling out a special form of it called “gesture” that can be a useful tool for reading the history of the human spirit without incorporating Hegel’s dialectic and Absolute. The paper compares the notion of gesture as it originated in the pragmatist tradition with the parallel use of the term in the early studies of Michel Foucault and argues that the notion of gesture is better equipped to tackle a theoretical reading of history. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Historic Ontology and Epistemology)

Open AccessArticle

Practical Wisdom, Extended Rationality, and Human Agency

by

John Hacker-Wright

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020039 - 16 Apr 2023

Abstract

This paper defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as a virtue that enables human agents to reflect on and direct their lives toward virtuous ends over time. This view is sometimes assumed to require a commitment to an intellectualist Grand End or [...] Read more.

This paper defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as a virtue that enables human agents to reflect on and direct their lives toward virtuous ends over time. This view is sometimes assumed to require a commitment to an intellectualist Grand End or blueprint view. On that view, practical wisdom would require philosophical insight and an implausibly well worked out set of weighted preferences. In this paper, I aim to show that particularists can and should take on much of what was thought to belong to the Grand End view. I argue for a conception of practical wisdom as a virtue of extended action that accounts for overarching ends without the need to appeal to an unrealistic, intellectualized blueprint for life. Further, on the view advocated here, as in Aristotle, practical wisdom is a virtue of substantial rationality and a different capacity from instrumental rationality in that it requires reflection on what constitutes a good human life. This is not high-minded philosophical reflection and is, in fact, something rather mundane that draws on the same rational capacities we deploy to assess the goodness of actions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Virtue and Epistemology)

Open AccessArticle

The Wrong Question?

by

Michael Lambek

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020038 - 15 Apr 2023

Abstract

The Wrong Question? is the response by an anthropologist to a question posed by a philosopher concerning the intelligibility of alien forms of thought. I argue that it is wrong to describe the problem of intelligibility as one of logic or rationality. Indeed, [...] Read more.

The Wrong Question? is the response by an anthropologist to a question posed by a philosopher concerning the intelligibility of alien forms of thought. I argue that it is wrong to describe the problem of intelligibility as one of logic or rationality. Indeed, foreign practices (no less than our own) may become intelligible only once they are not evaluated according to abstract criteria of rationality. To ask of a given practice or form of life whether it is rational is an error of grammar (nonsense) in Wittgenstein’s sense. I describe how intelligibility emerges over the course of ethnographic fieldwork but also argue that we must work on our own concepts in order to make foreign ones intelligible. The response draws from both Gadamer and Wittgenstein as well as anthropologists Geertz, Evans-Pritchard, and Lévi-Strauss. Following Cora Diamond, I suggest further that the ethical and rational dimensions of understanding another are indissociable. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wittgenstein’s “Forms of Life”: Future of the Concept)

Open AccessArticle

History and the Manifestation of the Good in Plato’s Republic

by

Marco Stango

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020037 - 14 Apr 2023

Abstract

This paper suggests that history, both personal and political, plays a crucial role in the manifestation (or concealment) of the Good in Plato’s Republic. After an introduction on how to read Plato’s dialogues vis-a-vis the problem of history, this article offers a [...] Read more.

This paper suggests that history, both personal and political, plays a crucial role in the manifestation (or concealment) of the Good in Plato’s Republic. After an introduction on how to read Plato’s dialogues vis-a-vis the problem of history, this article offers a close reading of Books I and VIII of the Republic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Historic Ontology and Epistemology)

Open AccessArticle

Degradation of the Body in Idealist–Dualist Philosophy

by

Alejandro Quintas

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020036 - 08 Apr 2023

Abstract

There is no corporal philosophy at the level of other philosophical subdisciplines. A research line has begun whose ultimate goal is to determine whether a somatic philosophy can be built. From a pragmatist and biopolitical approach, the present study investigated why it has [...] Read more.

There is no corporal philosophy at the level of other philosophical subdisciplines. A research line has begun whose ultimate goal is to determine whether a somatic philosophy can be built. From a pragmatist and biopolitical approach, the present study investigated why it has not been possible to develop grounded somatic philosophy. As an answer, the “idealist–dualist episteme” is described, which encompasses invariants in the history of idealist philosophy at the ontological, gnoseological, ethical–political, and pedagogical levels. These constants reflect somatophobia, as well as an ontological and gnoseological disregard of the body, which has led to the irrelevance of the body and corporeality in philosophy until the arrival of the “bodily turn”. The critique of this prevailing idealism and dualism will enable a review of current approaches based on these positions, such as embodiment, enactivism, embodied cognition, or embodied artificial intelligence. It opens up a new philosophical line with a universalis scope that is open to the eclectic construction of a pragmatic corporal philosophy that takes into account Chinese, Japanese, or African philosophies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Consciousness in a Physical World: Physical Candidates for Phenomenal Experience)

Open AccessArticle

An Apology for a Dynamic Ontology: Peirce’s Analysis of Futurity in a Nietzschean Perspective

by

Fabbrichesi Rossella

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020035 - 03 Apr 2023

Abstract

Ontology is a part of metaphysics; it concerns what there is. Is it possible to consider being and reality not in a traditional metaphysical way—that is, not as a ground, an origin, a cause, but as a movement, a flux, a dynamogenic principle? [...] Read more.

Ontology is a part of metaphysics; it concerns what there is. Is it possible to consider being and reality not in a traditional metaphysical way—that is, not as a ground, an origin, a cause, but as a movement, a flux, a dynamogenic principle? I will set out from a seminal aphorism by Nietzsche, occurring in Human, all too Human (§2): “A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers. But everything has evolved; there are no eternal facts, as there are likewise no absolute truths. Therefore, historical philosophising is henceforth necessary, and with it the virtue of diffidence”. I will then move on to explore Peirce’s late thought, starting from a passage in a letter to W. James, where the author supports a “futurist” interpretation of reality—as he had in the juvenile writings—and speaks of “the reality of the public world of the indefinite future as against our past opinions of what it was to be.” This can be defined as a process of “mellonization,” that operation of logic by which what “is conceived as having been is conceived as extended indefinitely into what always will be”. Similarly, in the Preface to Human, all too Human Nietzsche writes: “Our destiny rules over us, even when we are not yet aware of it; it is the future that makes laws for our today”. I will try to read some Peirce’s statements in a Nietzschean perspective within the context of the plan to develop a dynamic and historical ontology; and I will try to read the “enigma” of Nietzsche’s Eternal recurrence from a Peircean perspective. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Historic Ontology and Epistemology)

Open AccessArticle

Should We Want to Be Loved Unconditionally and Forever?

by

Troy Jollimore

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020034 - 31 Mar 2023

Abstract

People often say that romantic love should be unconditional, and they often want romantic love to last forever. These claims and desires are presumably linked: part of the reason it would be good for love to be unconditional is that it is assumed [...] Read more.

People often say that romantic love should be unconditional, and they often want romantic love to last forever. These claims and desires are presumably linked: part of the reason it would be good for love to be unconditional is that it is assumed that such love, being detached from changing conditions, would last forever. This article argues that there are, indeed, kinds of unconditional and permanent love that are worth wanting, but also kinds that are not, and attempts to clarify just what it is that is valuable about these kinds of romantic love. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Philosophical Richness and Variety of Sex and Love)

Open AccessArticle

Concerning the Epistemology of Design: The Role of the Eco-Cognitive Model of Abduction in Pragmatism

by

Alger Sans Pinillos

and

Anna Estany

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020033 - 29 Mar 2023

Abstract

Design has usually been linked to art and applied in scenarios related to everyday life. Even when design has, on occasion, made its way into the world of academia, it has always been closely linked to art and scenarios related everyday life. At [...] Read more.

Design has usually been linked to art and applied in scenarios related to everyday life. Even when design has, on occasion, made its way into the world of academia, it has always been closely linked to art and scenarios related everyday life. At last, however, the idea of design has reached the field of epistemology: an area within the very heart of philosophy that has always focused, in theory, on the foundations of knowledge. Consequently, design is being studied from different approaches interested in the foundation of knowledge, theoretical and practical. This is one of the reasons why abduction and pragmatism have been considered relevant from a design perspective. This paper first shows the main features of abduction and pragmatism, describes their evolution and considers their mutual implications. Second, the epistemology of design is analysed considering its most relevant characteristics. Third, the connection between abduction and, on the one hand, pragmatism and, on the other, design epistemology is addressed. Finally, the role of abductive inference in grounding a real epistemology for design theory from the naturalised cognitive perspective of abduction is outlined. The central proposition is that this approach is essential as a methodological innovation, as it allows us to analyse both the inquiry process and the design process as interdependent when dealing with practical problems of a social and cultural nature. This approach allows us to analyse how human actions determine changes in the theoretical framework from which we make our inquiry. In short, the world is an open-ended project that humans design through our daily inquiry. Full article

Open AccessArticle

Global Inequality and the Fracture of (Proactive) Solidarity

by

Maria Julia Bertomeu

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020032 - 28 Mar 2023

Abstract

In this paper, I wish to examine what is meant by this new concept of “international solidarity”. The study will be presented in a number of sections, beginning with a general introduction that sets out the problem and emphasizes the importance of the [...] Read more.

In this paper, I wish to examine what is meant by this new concept of “international solidarity”. The study will be presented in a number of sections, beginning with a general introduction that sets out the problem and emphasizes the importance of the document produced by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. I will then detail certain general characteristics of the normative concept of solidarity and clarify a number of methodological assumptions and historical data. Thirdly, I will forward an in-depth discussion on the analysis of and debate around the concept of solidarity in its bioethical context, both prior to and during the pandemic. Finally, I will attempt to analyze what I call the ‘rhetoric of solidarity’, as set forth by international organizations and political leaders of the Global North during the pandemic, understanding it as aid in the face of the morally objectionable global inequality and injustice caused by a number of factors, the principal one being the current system of patents imposed by the WTO and the conversion of vaccines into commodities and even ‘positional goods’. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solidarity in Bioethics)

Open AccessArticle

Taking Natural History Seriously: Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty’s Ontological Approach

by

Maria Regina Brioschi

Philosophies 2023, 8(2), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8020031 - 24 Mar 2023

Abstract

This paper investigates Alfred North Whitehead and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s attempts to develop a historical, dynamic ontology (a “process ontology”, according to the former, and an “ontology of the flesh” for the latter). The claim of the paper is that their originality lies in [...] Read more.

This paper investigates Alfred North Whitehead and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s attempts to develop a historical, dynamic ontology (a “process ontology”, according to the former, and an “ontology of the flesh” for the latter). The claim of the paper is that their originality lies in the methods adopted to reach such ontologies, which show strong similarities. Both authors based their research on nature, conceived of as “the leaf of Being”, and on perceptual experience, understood not as a chaos of bare, punctual, sense data, but as the complex, original source of meaning that constitutes the primary field of philosophical investigation—the only source from which one can gain new understanding of both nature and logos (things, happenings, values, subjectivity, laws, etc.). After some introductory remarks on the connections between Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty, the paper is divided into three parts. The first part clarifies why and how, according to the philosophers, ontology should start from a new scrutiny of nature. The second part specifies what this new conception of nature, based on perceptual experience, is. The third part focuses on how their ontologies must be construed as historic, insofar as behaviors, actions, and practices lie at the core of their concept of being. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Historic Ontology and Epistemology)

Journal Description

Philosophies

Latest Articles

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Highly Accessed Articles

Latest Books

E-Mail Alert

News

Topics

Conferences

Special Issues

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI