Review of Contemporary Philosophy

ALADDIN M. YAQUB

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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The central argument for nonreductive physicalism is the argument from multiple realizability. J. Kim subjected this argument to a forceful critique and defended a form of type-physicalism. I revisit these fundamental arguments here, reconstructing both the argument and the counterargument. I argue that not only does nonreductive physicalism escape Kim’s counterargument, but also its truth is central to our understanding of the physical world. Mental types are in general not reducible to physical types, and furthermore many important types of physical individuals can only be classified and explained by their role in realizing mental types. Keywords: non-reductive physicalism, type-physicalism, mental types, physical types, multiple realizability, wildly heterogeneous disjunctions

MARK MALLER

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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It is argued that wishful thinking is an informal logical fallacy and is distinguished from self-deception and delusion. Wishful thinking is unique in that a human desire is the starting point, which remains unfulfilled because of insufficient, no evidence, or ignorance, despite the agent’s beliefs. It contrasts with self-deception, a more serious mental state in which the agent hides or denies the truth from himself, regardless of whether it is desired. Wishful thinking is a logical fallacy, depending on the agent’s genuine beliefs as an epistemic dilemma or merely a harmless fantasy. Keywords: wishful thinking, informal fallacy, self-deception, desires

JOSEPH A. HEDGER

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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The problem of genuine names occurring in fictions has garnered much less attention than its more glamorous cousin—viz. the problem of vacuous or empty names—but perhaps a careful examination of the former may shed some light on the latter, as well as on aesthetics more generally. In this paper I argue that proper names occurring in fiction directly refer to the actual persons, places and things. I offer a theory for consideration which handles Kroon’s “Real-Fictional Problem,” which is a puzzle concerning direct reference accounts of such names. I also present some reasons why this theory is preferable to the highly influential account in Lewis’s “Truth in Fiction”—the modal realist solution to Kroon’s puzzle which is originally suggested in the closing of Kroon’s “Make-Believe and Fictional Reference.” I present an objection to the modal realist solution involving anaphora. Next, I examine French’s Lewisian account from “Places of Fiction,” and argue that my suggestion better accords with our intuitions about fiction, and also that it is more applicable to other areas of aesthetics. Keywords: semantics, names, fiction, philosophy of language, Fred Kroon, Peter French, David Lewis, modal realism

JAMES M. MAGRINI

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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From an ontological perspective, there is something valuable that we can learn about learning from Arendt’s formal philosophy of education, on the one hand, and her ontological-phenomenological elucidation of “action” and the “space of appearance” on the other. Since Arendt establishes the hard and fast distinction between private and public realms, synthesizing her divergent views concerning the education of children and the learning that occurs among adults appears problematic. In addition to the phenomenological analysis of the ontological essence of “learning” in Arendt, I attempt a rapprochement between the private and public, the two seemingly irreconcilable realms of the human condition. Keywords: Arendt, education, curriculum, learning, phenomenology, ontology, hermeneutics

M.J. GARCÍA-ENCINAS

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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Here, I argue that the fundamental dogma that all necessary relations are internal is ungrounded. To motivate my argument, I analyze Moore’s classic ideas on internal relations and take them as an illustration of the common form of reasoning that can mislead us to conclude that all necessary relations are internal. That reasoning illicitly smuggles the idea that necessary properties and relations reflect on identity—in the sense that the loss of a necessary property/relation is a loss of identity—into the separate idea that the loss of a necessary property/relation is a loss of essence. Essence, however, is not identity. So the way seems to be open for the existence of necessary properties/relations which do not belong to the essence of entities; that is, the existence of necessary but external relations. I then offer some examples of such relations. Keywords: necessary relations, external relations, identity, essence, Moore

GIACOMO BORBONE

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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It is a widespread cliche that there is no relationship between Marxian theory of estrangement (Entfremdung) exposed in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the theory of value present in Marxian scientific works like Das Kapital and Grundrisse. In this essay I will try to demonstrate, despite this historical-philosophical cliche, that the concept of Entfremdung is perfectly compatible with Marxian economic theories; furthermore, I will demonstrate that the Marxian theory of estrangement or alienation (Entäusserung), acted as a kind of philosophical premise to the theory of value. Keywords: alienation, capitalism, economy, estrangement, theory of value

MURRAY HUNTER

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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This article considers the concept of imagination and the role it plays in constructing our reality. The author postulates that there are eight types of imagination, being effectuative imagination, intellectual imagination, imaginative fantasy, empathy, strategic imagination, emotional imagination, dreams, and memory reconstruction. Keywords: imagination, emotions, empathy, memory, fantasy, dreams

CARMEN PETCU

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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This research makes conceptual and methodological contributions to Sarraute’s notion of a subterranean reality enlivened by ambiguous, fluctuating tropistic effluvia, the primordial importance Sarraute accords to tropistic movements as the basic factor of the human organism, and the nature of Sarraute’s reality. The current study sets out to identify Sarraute’s intention to find new fictional substance beneath the apparent and the artificial, her literary vision and expression, her fragmentation of reality, and her influence on feminist thought. Keywords: Sarraute, novel, reality, language, feminist, tropistic

GEORGE LĂZĂROIU

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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Peters focuses on the development of the knowledge, learning and digital economies, the culture-bound nature of symbolic functions, and the ethic of participation, collaboration and file-sharing characterizing the rise of social media. Peters’s analysis complements the growing literature on new transnational academic communities in global knowledge ecologies, the transformation of traditional modes of teaching and learning, and the marketization of knowledge futures. Keywords: participation, collaboration, knowledge, university, ecology, openness

GHEORGHE FLORESCU

2013 Review of Contemporary Philosophy

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This research makes conceptual and methodological contributions to the complex, interactive biological processes that influence personality, the development and ongoing function of cognitive processes and brain systems involved in intelligence, the distinction between impulse and restraint in behavior, and the evolved psychological mechanisms that comprise the structure of human nature. The theory that I shall seek to elaborate here puts considerable emphasis on the causal bases of personality, the prospective relation between childhood personality and adult health outcomes, the role of personality traits in determining economic outcomes, and the neuropsychology of human personality. Keywords: human personality, cognitive process, mechanism, behavior