The Passions and Disinterest: From Kantian Free Play to Creative Determination by Power, via Schiller and Nietzsche

I argue that Nietzsche’s criticism of the Kantian theory of disinterested pleasure in beauty reflects his own commitment to claims that closely resemble certain Kantian aesthetic principles, specifically as reinterpreted by Schiller. I show that Schiller takes the experience of beauty to be disinterested both (1) insofar as it involves impassioned ‘play’ rather than desire-driven ‘work’, and (2) insofar as it involves rational-sensuous (‘aesthetic’) play rather than mere physical play. In figures like Nietzsche, Schiller’s generic notion of play—which is itself influenced by Kant’s claim that aesthetic pleasure is orthogonal to desire-satisfaction—becomes decoupled from his (further) Kantian view that aesthetic play essentially involves a harmony of sensuous receptivity and rational spontaneity. The result, I suggest, is a self-standing opposition between desires and passions. This motivates a recognizably Romantic vision of aesthetic disinterestedness, as freedom from desire realized in a state of creative determination by passion

Nietzsche contra Sublimation

Many commentators have claimed that Nietzsche views the “sublimation” (Sublimierung) of drives as a positive achievement. Against this tradition, I argue that, on the dominant if not universal Nietzschean use of Sublimierung and its cognates, sublimation is just a broad psychological analogue of the traditional (al)chemical process: the “vaporization” of drives into a finer or lighter state, figuratively if not literally. This can yield ennobling elevation, or purity in a positive sense—the intensified “sublimate” of an unrefined original sample. But it can also yield drives that are attenuated or otherworldly, in a pejorative sense. One (but only one) kind of Nietzschean sublimation is the “translation” of drives to “imaginative and spiritual” (Imaginative und Seelische) modes of expression. I con­clude that, despite certain appearances to the contrary, Nietzsche ultimately values basic drives’ powerful expression, without preferring either that this occur specifically as “higher culture” or as “savage” natural impulse

Revaluing Laws of Nature in Secularized Science

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light on how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment

How Anti-Humeans Can Embrace a Thermodynamic Reduction of Time’s Causal Arrow

Some argue that time’s causal arrow is grounded in an underlying thermodynamic asymmetry. Often, this is tied to Humean skepticism that causes produce their effects, in any robust sense of ‘produce’. Conversely, those who advocate stronger notions of natural necessity often reject thermodynamic reductions of time’s causal arrow. Against these traditional pairings, I argue that ‘reduction-plus-production’ is coherent. Reductionists looking to invoke robust production can insist that there are metaphysical constraints on the signs of objects’ velocities in any state, given other—including far later—states’ properties. The Past Hypothesis may thus be a metaphysical condition, not a physical law

Inconvenient Truth and Inductive Risk in Covid-19 Science

To clarify the proper role of values in science, focusing on controversial expert responses to Covid-19, this article examines the status of (in)convenient hypotheses. Polarizing cases like health experts downplaying mask efficacy to save resources for healthcare workers, or scientists dismissing “accidental lab leak” hypotheses in view of potential xenophobia, plausibly involve modifying evidential standards for (in)convenient claims. Societies could accept that scientists handle (in)convenient claims just like nonscientists, and give experts less political power. Or societies could hold scientists to a higher bar, by expecting them not to modify evidential standards to avoid costs only incidentally tied to error

(Mis)Understanding scientific disagreement: Success versus pursuit-worthiness in theory choice

Scientists often diverge widely when choosing between research programs. This can seem to be rooted in disagreements about which of several theories, competing to address shared questions or phenomena, is currently the most epistemically or explanatorily valuable—i.e. most successful. But many such cases are actually more directly rooted in differing judgments of pursuit-worthiness, concerning which theory will be best down the line, or which addresses the most significant data or questions. Using case studies from 16th-century astronomy and 20th-century geology and biology, I argue that divergent theory choice is thus often driven by considerations of scientific process, even where direct epistemic or explanatory evaluation of its final products appears more relevant. Broadly following Kuhn’s analysis of theoretical virtues, I suggest that widely shared criteria for pursuit-worthiness function as imprecise, mutually-conflicting values. However, even Kuhn and others sensitive to pragmatic dimensions of theory ‘acceptance’, including the virtue of fruitfulness, still commonly understate the role of pursuit-worthiness—especially by exaggerating the impact of more present-oriented virtues, or failing to stress how ‘competing’ theories excel at addressing different questions or data. This framework clarifies the nature of the choice and competition involved in theory choice, and the role of alternative theoretical virtues

Inconvenient Truth and Inductive Risk in Covid-19 Science

To clarify the proper role of values in science, focusing on controversial expert responses to Covid-19, this article examines the status of (in)convenient hypotheses. Polarizing cases like health experts downplaying mask efficacy to save resources for healthcare workers, or scientists dismissing “accidental lab leak” hypotheses in view of potential xenophobia, plausibly involve modifying evidential standards for (in)convenient claims. Societies could accept that scientists handle (in)convenient claims just like nonscientists, and give experts less political power. Or societies could hold scientists to a higher bar, by expecting them not to modify evidential standards to avoid costs only incidentally tied to error

Symmetry Breaking in Few Layer Graphene Films

Recently, it was demonstrated that the quasiparticle dynamics, the layer-dependent charge and potential, and the c-axis screening coefficient could be extracted from measurements of the spectral function of few layer graphene films grown epitaxially on SiC using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). In this article we review these findings, and present detailed methodology for extracting such parameters from ARPES. We also present detailed arguments against the possibility of an energy gap at the Dirac crossing ED.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures, Conference Proceedings of DPG Meeting Mar 2007 Regensburg Submitted to New Journal of Physic