One of the most difficult problems challenging the human mind is knowledge of the world in its human, natural, and supra-natural dimensions: what is the nature of this multidimensional reality? How do we know and verify the truth of our knowledge claims of this reality? A contemporary Polish philosopher, Malgorzata Czarnocka, has advanced one of the most comprehensive and insightful studies of the cognitive act and the conditions under which it takes place. The proposition explicated in this book is that Czarnocka's analysis of perception functions as a model of explanation in our attempt to know the nature of the being that underlies the universe. This analysis becomes the basis of the author's discussion of symbolic truth as a model of explanation and its other applications.

This book provides the foundations of trust amidst radical uncertainty. Specifically, it addresses the question of under what condition it is possible to trust relative strangers. As the first logical investigation of its kind, the book breaks with many preconceived ideas we have about trust and the scientific method that leads to its clarification. It builds on the insight that, contrary to widespread belief, it is not risk but freedom that is most fundamental for explaining trust. In fact, trust is the giving of freedom, out of freedom, and one's consciousness of the potential risks involved merely disturbs one's ability to trust. The book makes the twofold normative claim that any legitimate scientific preoccupation with trust must necessarily include the concept of freedom in its account, and that theories of trust that run against the logical prerequisites of freedom are a-priori falsified. It presents a theoretical proposal that makes sure that trust, instead of being constructed as a passive and functional "illusion" of natural love, is understood as the necessary product of an active reason that is oriented towards developing human autonomy.

This work deals with the applications of Semantic Publishing technologies in the legal domain, i.e., the use of Semantic Web technologies to address issues related to the Legal Scholarly Publishing. Research in the field of Law has a long tradition in the application of semantic technologies, such as Semantic Web and Linked Data, to real-world scenarios. This book investigates and proposes solutions for three main issues that Semantic Publishing needs to address within the context of the Legal Scholarly Publishing: the need of tools for linking document text to a formal representation of its meaning; the lack of complete metadata schemas for describing documents according to the publishing vocabulary and the absence of effective tools and user interfaces for easily acting on semantic publishing models and theories.

In particular, this work introduces EARMARK, a markup meta language that allows one to create markup documents without the structural and semantic limits imposed by markup languages such as XML. EARMARK is a platform to link the content layer of a document with its intended formal semantics and it can be used with the Semantic Publishing and Referencing (SPAR) Ontologies, another topic in this book. SPAR Ontologies are a collection of formal models providing an upper semantic layer for describing the publishing domain. Using EARMARK as a foundation for SPAR descriptions opens up to a semantic characterisation of all the aspects of a document and of its parts. Finally, four user-friendly tools are introduced: LODE, KC-Viz, Graffoo and Gaffe. They were expressly developed to facilitate the interaction of publishers and domain experts with Semantic Publishing technologies by shielding such users from the underlying formalisms and semantic models of such technologies.

Mental action deserves a place among foundational topics in action theory and philosophy of mind. Recent accounts of human agency tend to overlook the role of conscious mental action in our daily lives, while contemporary accounts of the conscious mind often ignore the role of mental action and agency in shaping consciousness. This collection aims to establish the centrality of mental action for discussions of agency and mind. The thirteen original essays provide a wide-ranging vision of the various and nuanced philosophical issues at stake. Among the questions explored by the contributors are: Which aspects of our conscious mental lives are agential? Can mental action be reduced to and explained in terms of non-agential mental states, processes, or events? Must mental action be included among the ontological categories required for understanding and explaining the conscious mind more generally? Does mental action have implications for related topics, such as attention, self-knowledge, self-control, or the mind-body problem? By investigating the nature, scope, and explanation of mental action, the essays presented here aim to demonstrate the significance of conscious mental action for discussions of agency and mind. Mental Action and the Conscious Mind will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and philosophy of agency, as well as to philosophically inclined cognitive scientists.

This book presents a philosophical study of the idea of reenchantment and its merits in the interrelated fields of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and ontology. It features chapters from leading contributors to the debate about reenchantment, including Charles Taylor, John Cottingham, Akeel Bilgrami, and Jane Bennett. The chapters examine neglected and contested notions such as enchantment, transcendence, interpretation, attention, resonance, and the sacred or reverence-worthy-notions that are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview. They also explore the significance of adopting a reenchanting perspective for debates on major concepts such as nature, naturalism, God, ontology, and disenchantment. Taken together, they demonstrate that there is much to be gained from working with a more substantial and affirmative concept of reenchantment, understood as a fundamental existential orientation towards what is seen as meaningful and of value. The Philosophy of Reenchantment will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in philosophy-especially those working in moral philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and sociology.

In this fascinating and timely book, Maren Behrensen facilitates a conversation between philosophy and the 'practitioners' of identity. What makes a person the same person over time? This question has been studied throughout the history of philosophy. Yet philosophers have never fully engaged with the 'practitioners' of identity, namely technology developers, lawyers, politicians, sociologists and applied ethicists. The book offers an answer to the metaphysical question of personal identity and tries to show how this question is of immediate relevance to the various practices of identity management - particularly in the fields of administration, counter-terrorism activities, and gender reassignment. Behrensen argues that identity documents and other markers of identity (such as biometric samples) are not merely representations of, but actually help constitute, personal identity. The metaphysical fact of personal identity lies in these supposedly 'external' features. The book goes on to focus on issues relating to 'trust' and 'security', terms central to the ethics of new technologies and in work on new identity management technologies.

The Sublime in Schopenhauer's Philosophy transforms our understanding of Schopenhauer's aesthetics and anthropology. Vandenabeele seeks ultimately to rework Schopenhauer's theory into a viable form so as to establish the sublime as a distinctive aesthetic category with a broader existential and metaphysical significance.

The purpose of this work is to critically assess Errol E. Harris's process philosophy in the face of contemporary research in the special sciences. Harris devoted his life to grappling with the big questions concerning the relationships between nature, mind, and knowledge. His 70-plus year career was distinguished, his texts on the history of philosophy, philosophy of science, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and consciousness were widely published, and yet his metaphysics has until now remained excluded from mainstream discussions. This book's contention is that Harris's work reveals as yet unnoticed connections between theories in numerous scientific disciplines ranging from psychology to cosmology and that an examination of certain theories within these disciplines may serve to strengthen his original arguments. This work maintains that the resulting metaphysics frames a transdisciplinary paradigm shift and provides a viable solution to the hard problem of consciousness.

This volume, edited by Dorota Probucka, criticizes the modern approach to hunting by incorporating legal, ethical, cultural, social, theological, and linguistic perspectives into the analysis. The collection of articles contains thorough argumentation against hunting and determines social change strategies for eliminating it from cultural behavior patterns. It utilizes the expertise of Polish experts from many fields to describe and criticize the practice of hunting, illustrate its inhumane nature and unimaginable cruelty, and condemn the devastation of the natural environment that comes as a direct consequence of the actions of hunters. This volume argues that, unless dictated by biological need, hunting as a practice ought to be outlawed and culturally shunned, much like slavery.

This book defends a relational theory of the passage of time. It argues that the B-theory of time-and its close affiliate, the eternalist-relativistic account of time-does not predicate an utterly static view of reality.

This book explores the relevance of naturalism and theories of nature to Classical German Philosophy. It presents new readings on Kant, Jacobi, Goethe, the Romantic tradition, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Marx, which highlight the relevance of Classical German Philosophy's considerations of nature and naturalism for contemporary concerns.

Brian Loar (1939-2014) was an eminent and highly respected philosopher of mind and language. He was at the forefront of several different field-defining debates between the 1970s and the 2000s-from his earliest work on reducing semantics to psychology, through debates about reference, functionalism, externalism, and the nature of intentionality, to his most enduringly influential work on the explanatory gap between consciousness and neurons. Loar is widely credited with having developed the most comprehensive functionalist account of certain aspects of the mind, and his 'phenomenal content strategy' is arguably one of the most significant developments on the ancient mind/body problem. This volume of essays honours the entirety of Loar's wide-ranging philosophical career. It features sixteen original essays from influential figures in the fields of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, including those who worked with and were taught by Loar. The essays are divided into three thematic sections covering Loar's work in philosophy of language, especially the relations between semantics and psychology (1970s-80s), on content in the philosophy of mind (1980s-90s), and on the metaphysics of intentionality and consciousness (1990s and beyond). Taken together, this book is a fitting tribute to one of the leading minds of the latter-20th century, and a timely reflection on Loar's enduring influence on the philosophy of mind and language.

This book is about the idea that some true statements would have been true no matter how the world had turned out, while others could have been false. It develops and defends a version of the idea that we tell the difference between these two types of truths in part by reflecting on the meanings of words. It has often been thought that modal issues-issues about possibility and necessity-are related to issues about meaning. In this book, the author defends the view that the analysis of meaning is not just a preliminary to answering modal questions in philosophy; it is not merely that before we can find out whether something is possible, we need to get clear on what we are talking about. Rather, clarity about meaning often brings with it answers to modal questions. In service of this view, the author analyzes the notion of necessity and develops ideas about linguistic meaning, applying them to several puzzles and problems in philosophy of language. Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic.

This book presents a systematic unifying-pluralist account-a "constructive-engagement" account-of how cross-tradition engagement in philosophy is possible. The goal of this "constructive-engagement" account is, by way of reflective criticism, argumentation, and methodological guiding principles, to inquire into how distinct approaches from different philosophical traditions can talk to and learn from each other for the sake of making joint contributions to the contemporary development of philosophy. In Part I of the book, Bo Mou explores a range of fundamental theoretic and methodological issues in cross-tradition philosophical engagement and philosophical interpretation. In Part II, he analyzes several representative case studies that demonstrate how relevant resources in the Western and Chinese philosophical traditions can constructively engage with each other. These studies cover issues in philosophical methodology, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and logic, and ethics. The book's theoretical and practical approaches expand the vision, coverage, and agenda of doing philosophy comparatively, and promote worldwide joint efforts of cross-tradition philosophical inquiries. Cross-Tradition Engagement in Philosophy will be of interest to graduate students and scholars interested in comparative philosophy and the intersection of Chinese and Western philosophy. It will also appeal to those who are interested in the ways in which cross-tradition philosophical engagement can enhance contemporary philosophical debates in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and logic, and ethics.

Social functions and functional explanations play a prominent role not only in our everyday reasoning but also in classical as well as contemporary social theory and empirical social research. This volume explores metaphysical, normative, and methodological perspectives on social functions and functional explanations in the social sciences. It aims to push the philosophical debate on social functions forward along new investigative lines by including up-to-date discussions of the metaphysics of social functions, questions concerning the nature of functional explanations within the social domain, and various applications of functionalist theorising. As such, this is one of the first collections to exclusively address a variety of philosophical questions concerning the nature and relevance of social functions.

This book explores the metaphysics of political communities. It discusses how and why a plurality of individuals becomes a political unity, what principles or forces keep that unity together, and what threats that unity can be faced with. In Part I, the author justifies the need for the notion of substance in metaphysics in general and in the metaphysics of politics in particular. He spells out a moderately realist theory of substances and of their principles of unity, which supports substantial gradualism. Part II concerns action theory and the nature of practical reason. The author claims that the acknowledgement of reasons by agents is constitutive of action and that normativity depends on the role of the good in the formation of reasons. Finally, in Part III the author addresses the notion of political community. He claims that the principle of unity of a political community is its authority to give members of the community moral reasons for action. This suggests a middle way between liberal individualism and organicism, and the author demonstrates the significance of this view by discussing current political issues such as the role of religion in the public sphere and the political significance of cultural identity. Authority and the Metaphysics of Political Communities will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in social metaphysics, political philosophy, philosophy of action, and philosophy of the social sciences.

In this new kind of entree to contemporary discussions of free will and human agency, Garrett Pendergraft collects and illuminates 50 of the most relevant puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Assuming no familiarity with the philosophical literature on free will, each chapter describes a case, explains the questions that it raises, briefly summarizes some of the key responses to the case, and provides a list of suggested readings. Every chapter is accessible, succinct, and self-contained. The puzzles are divided into five broad categories: the threat from fatalism, the threat from determinism, practical reason, social dimensions, and moral luck. Entries cover topics such as the grandfather paradox, theological fatalism, the consequence argument, manipulation arguments, luck arguments, weakness of will, action explanation, addiction, blame and punishment, situationism in moral psychology, and Huckleberry Finn. Free Will and Human Agency is an effective and engaging teaching tool as well as a handy resource for anyone interested in exploring the questions that have made human agency a topic of perennial philosophical interest. Key Features: Though concise overall, offers broad coverage of the key areas of free will and human agency. Describes each imaginative case directly and in a memorable way, making the cases accessible and easy to remember. Provides a list of suggested readings for each case.

First published in 1982, Philosophical Foundations of Probability Theory starts with the uses we make of the concept in everyday life and then examines the rival theories that seek to account for these applications. It offers a critical exposition of the major philosophical theories of probability, with special attention given to the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of each. The Classical Theory suggests probability is simply the ratio of favorable cases to all equi-possible cases: it is this theory that is relied on by gamblers and by most non-specialists. The A Priori Theory, on the other hand, describes probability as a logical relation between statements based on evidence. The Relative Frequency theories locate it not in logic but among empirical rates of occurrence in the real world, while the Subjectivist Theory identifies probability with the degree of a person's belief in a proposition. Each of these types of theory is examined in turn, and the treatment is unified by the use of running examples and parallel analyses of each theory. The final chapter includes a summary and the author's conclusions. This book is an essential read for scholars and researchers of Philosophy.

What does Heidegger mean by ‘Dasein’? What does he say in Being and Time? How does his phenomenology differ to that of his teacher, Husserl? Answering these questions and more, The Heidegger Dictionary provides students with all the tools they need to better understand one of the most influential yet complex philosophers of the 20th century. Easy to use and navigate, this book is divided into four main parts, covering Heidegger’s life, ideas and innovative terminology, related thinkers, and published and unpublished works. Updated with significant new material throughout, the 2nd edition has been expanded to engage with the latest Heidegger scholarship, and features: · A new A-Z section on Heidegger’s influences, contemporaries, and commentators, from Martin Luther to Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre · Summaries of Heidegger’s entire 102-volume Collected Works, including the Black Notebooks · Expanded coverage of Heidegger’s thought, with straightforward explanations of his views on modernity, science and more · An updated glossary of Heidegger’s key terms, listing all the major translation alternatives alongside his original German Providing a road-map to how Heidegger’s ideas developed over his long philosophical career, this is an essential research companion for all students of Heidegger, from beginners to the advanced.

For a thing to be real, it must be able to communicate with other things. If this is so, then the problem of being receives a straightforward resolution: to be is to be in communion. So the fundamental science, indeed the science that needs to underwrite all other sciences, is a theory of communication. Within such a theory of communication the proper object of study becomes not isolated particles but the information that passes between entities. In Being as Communion philosopher and mathematician William Dembski provides a non-technical overview of his work on information. Dembski attempts to make good on the promise of John Wheeler, Paul Davies, and others that information is poised to replace matter as the primary stuff of reality. With profound implications for theology and metaphysics, Being as Communion develops a relational ontology that is at once congenial to science and open to teleology in nature. All those interested in the intersections of theology, philosophy and science should read this book.

This book is a major contribution to the study of the philosopher F. H. Bradley, the most influential member of the nineteenth-century school of British Idealists. It offers a sustained interpretation of Bradley's Principles of Logic, explaining the problem of how it is possible for inferences to be both valid and yet have conclusions that contain new information. The author then describes how this solution provides a basis for Bradley's metaphysical view that reality is one interconnected experience and how this gives rise to a new problem of truth.

This book is about the role of knowledge in information systems. Knowledge is usually articulated and exchanged through human language(s). In this sense, language can be seen as the most natural vehicle to convey our concepts, whose meanings are usually intermingled, grouped and organized according to shared criteria, from simple perceptions ( every tree has a stem ) and common sense ( unsupported objects fall ) to complex social conventions ( a tax is a fee charged by a government on a product, income, or activity ). But what is natural for a human being turns out to be extremely difficult for machines: machines need to be instilled with knowledge and suitably equipped with logical and statistical algorithms to reason over it. Computers can t represent the external world and communicate their representations as effectively as humans do: ontologies and NLP have been invented to face this problem: in particular, integrating ontologies with (possibly multi-lingual) computational lexical resources is an essential requirement to make human meanings understandable by machines. This book explores the advancements in this integration, from the most recent steps in building the necessary infrastructure, i.e. the Semantic Web, to the different knowledge contents that can be analyzed, encoded and transferred (multimedia, emotions, events, etc.) through it. The work aims at presenting the progress in the field of integrating ontologies and lexicons: together, they constitute the essential technology for adequately represent, elicit and exchange knowledge contents in information systems, web services, text processing and several other domains of application.

This collection of original essays brings together a world-class lineup of philosophers to provide the most comprehensive critical treatment of Ted Honderich's philosophy, focusing on three major areas of his work: (1) his theory of consciousness; (2) his extensive and ground-breaking work on determinism and freedom; and (3) his views on right and wrong, including his Principle of Humanity and his judgments on terrorism. Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, Honderich is a leading contemporary philosopher of mind, determinism and freedom, and morals. The collection begins with a comprehensive introduction written by Honderich followed by fourteen original chapters separated into three sections. Each section concludes with a set of remarks by Honderich. Contributors include Noam Chomsky, Paul Snowdon, Alastair Hannay, Barbara Gail Montero, Barry Smith, Derk Pereboom, Paul Russell, Kevin Timpe, Gregg D. Caruso, Mary Warnock, Paul Gilbert, Richard J. Norman, Michael Neumann, and Saul Smilansky.