Remarks on the architecture of Brentano’s philosophical program

This paper is about Brentano’s philosophical program in Vienna and the overall architecture, which binds together the main parts of his philosophy. I argue that this program is based on Brentano’s project of philosophy as science and it aims to account for the unity of the main branches of his philosophy. The paper is divided into six parts. The first bears on Brentano’s philosophy of history, which is an important piece of the program. The second is on the close relationship between philosophy and science, and the third is on Brentano’s classification of theoretical sciences. In the three remaining parts of the paper, I examine the two main axes of the program, i.e. psychology and metaphysics, and the question how the three normative sciences are rooted in psychology. In the conclusion, I argue that Brentano’s theory of the four phases in the history of philosophy provides his philosophical program with a justification

Invariance and Logicality in Perspective

Although the invariance criterion of logicality first emerged as a criterion of a purely mathematical interest, it has developed into a criterion of considerable linguistic and philosophical interest. In this paper I compare two different perspectives on this criterion. The first is the perspective of natural language. Here, the invariance criterion is measured by its success in capturing our linguistic intuitions about logicality and explaining our logical behavior in natural-linguistic settings. The second perspective is more theoretical. Here, the invariance criterion is used as a tool for developing a theoretical foundation of logic, focused on a critical examination, explanation, and justification of its veridicality and modal force

An Analysis of the Philosophical Foundations of Behaviouralism and Constructivism:any Imperative to Modern Political Science?

Three broad paradigms initially dominated the deliberations among political analysts on what best mode of analysis exists when it comes to analyzing political issues and phenomenon. Recent studies however reveal that evolving trends of thoughts in political science and generally in the social sciences - with regards to the questions above - now exist among contemporary thinkers in the 21st Century. Consequently, against the existing institutionalists’, pluralists’ and elitists’ approaches to political analysis, contemporary thinkers have proposed the behaviouralists’ and the constructivists’ approaches, among other new modes of analysis, as a more empiric method of analysis which increases the scienticity of deductions made during political analysis. This study, in the light of the various criticisms presented against these new approaches, examines via critical and analytical philosophical methods, all available literature on the behaviouralists’ and constructivists’ approaches with the view to identifying the vivid imperatives which these new approaches offer researchers in political science and in the social sciences. The study concludes that the behaviouralists approach in practice totally embraces all that lends to a scientific character. The constructivist approach on the other hand takes into consideration the various complexities that now exist in human phenomeno

An Emergent Economics of Ecosystem Management

Economics is an evolving and emerging field of study, so is the management of ecosystems. As such, this paper delineates the co-evolution of economic evaluation that reflects the various recognized ecosystem management approaches of anticipative, adaptive and capacitive ecosystem management. Each management approach is critiqued and from this theoretical analysis an emergent approach for the management of ecosystem is put forward, which accordingly suggests an alternative methodological approach for economic evaluations.Complexity, creativity, economic evaluation, ecosystem management, evolution, open systems, rationality, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Kant, causation and laws of nature

In the Second Analogy, Kant argues that every event has a cause. It remains disputed what this conclusion amounts to. Does Kant argue only for the Weak Causal Principle that every event has some cause, or for the Strong Causal Principle that every event is produced according to a universal causal law? Existing interpretations have assumed that, by Kant’s lights, there is a substantive difference between the two. I argue that this is false. Kant holds that the concept of cause contains the notion of lawful connection, so it is analytic that causes operate according to universal laws. He is explicit about this commitment, not least in his derivation of the Categorical Imperative in Groundwork III. Consequently, Kant’s move from causal rules to universal laws is much simpler than previously assumed. Given his commitments, establishing the Strong Causal Principle requires no more argument than establishing the Weak Causal Principle

Unveiling the Dynamics of African Post-Colonial Administration: A Holistic Analysis of Devil on the Cross

Through the frame frequency of the imported state and the westernization of the African political order, the social construction of the African bureaucracy appears as a structural device of abstraction, exploitation, and brutality. Then, through the frame of reference with the importation of conceptual juridical coordination and perceptual representative consensus, the African public administration enhances a frameshift transformation and a succession of causality. Therefore, in combinatorial and transactional analysis, the framework of Devil On The Cross progresses in a method of empirical processing decomposition. Within this respect, the elemental and pure imaginary of the African administration proceeds as a functional derivative governmentality and a colonial functional inception power. Subsequently, with its interaction design, processing system, and volume technique, the realm of Devil on The Cross inserts a paradigmatic analysis and a value engineering within which this African administration happens as an characteristic structural formula and an inefficient relational frame theory. Moreover, within the space-time continuum, the configuration management and the linear configuration programming of the African management apparatus, Devil On The Cross becomes a holomorphic function and an analytic continuation that reveal the anachronism nature and the asynchronous system of the African post-colonial administration

The centrality of the machine in the thought of Jacques Lafitte

Jacques Lafitte occupies an odd place in the philosophy of technology. He was a French engineer who made a significant and conceptually innovative contribution to this field, yet his influence has been elusive and largely ignored until relatively recently. Many of Lafitte’s ideas find echoes in the work of later philosophers (particularly Gilbert Simondon), yet, notably in the case of Simondon, apparently without any direct line of influence. Lafitte placed the machine at the centre of his thinking about technology and articulated various layers of analysis around it; for example, he considered machines in the broader context of an artificial world or “mechanosphere”, which encompassed certain aspects of philosophical anthropology (namely, how to think the human in the context of human–machine relations, in the context of socio-political organizations). In this work we seek to reconstruct Lafitte’s ideas and briefly trace some of their later impact. We identify three dimensions (or theses) in Lafitte’s analysis: epistemological, ontological and anthropological. We argue that the most remarkable fact about Lafitte’s thought is the way it inaugurates, and anticipates, the approach of later currents, not just in the “French tradition”, who also made an effort to integrate machine theory into broader philosophical, anthropological and political aspects, in terms that echo Lafitte’s. In particular, we will focus on Gilbert Simondon and cybernetics.Fil: Sandrone, Darío Rubén. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Humanidades. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Humanidades; ArgentinaFil: Vaccari, Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro; ArgentinaFil: Lawler, Diego. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas. - Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas; Argentin

Development, underdevelopment, and the state in Ghana

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 5

The Bayesian Fallacy: Distinguishing Four Kinds of Beliefs

This paper distinguishes among four kinds of beliefs: conviction, confidence, perception, conception. Conviction concerns self-ability:“I can build these stairs.” Confidence also concerns the self—ut focuses on the assertion of will in the face of weakness of will. Perception is about the environment such as weather prediction. Conception is also about the environment—but usually couched with context. While convictions are noncognitive and nonevidential beliefs, the other beliefs are either cognitive, evidential, or both. This paper uses the terms “cognition” and “evidentiality” as axes to distinguish the four beliefs. While “cognitive beliefs” are about one’s environment, “noncognitive beliefs” are about one’s self. While the cognitive/noncognitive divide is unconventional, it generates a payoff in light of the evidentiality axis. While “evidential beliefs” are correctable via Bayes’s rule, “nonevidential beliefs” are not. However, when the nonevidential belief is about the environment, the evidence can at least make the belief more (or less) warranted—where “warrantability” is a weaker criterion than “correctability.” And when the nonevidential belief is about the self, i.e., a conviction, the evidence cannot even make the belief more (or less) warranted. The evidence itself develops when one tries to test a conviction. This paper highlights that convictions are the basis of tenacity—crucial for entrepreneurship and economic growth. This paper further demonstrates how three major theories of action—standard rationality, normative theory, and procedural rationality—fail to distinguish the four kinds of beliefs. They, hence, commit, although in different ways, a set of confusions called here the “Bayesian fallacy.”Cognitive Dissonance; Internal Motivations (convictions); Normative Theory (embodied cognition); Other Beliefs (confidence, perception, conception); Procedural Rationality Theory (pragmatism); Self-Perception Theory; Standard Rationality Theory