Journal Description
Philosophies
Philosophies
is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal promoting re-integration of diverse forms of philosophical reflection and scientific research on fundamental issues in science, technology and culture, published bimonthly online by MDPI. The International Society for Information Studies (IS4SI) is affiliated with Philosophies and their members receive a discount on the article processing charge.
- Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
- High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, ESCI (Web of Science), PhilPapers, and other databases.
- Journal Rank: CiteScore - Q1 (Philosophy)
- Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 25.9 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 7.2 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the second half of 2023).
- Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.
Impact Factor:
0.9 (2022)
Latest Articles
Digital Resurrection: Challenging the Boundary between Life and Death with Artificial Intelligence
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030071 (registering DOI) - 18 May 2024
Abstract
The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses challenges in the field of bioethics, especially concerning issues related to life and death. AI has permeated areas such as health and research, generating ethical dilemmas and questions about privacy, decision-making, and access to technology. Life
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The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses challenges in the field of bioethics, especially concerning issues related to life and death. AI has permeated areas such as health and research, generating ethical dilemmas and questions about privacy, decision-making, and access to technology. Life and death have been recurring human concerns, particularly in connection with depression. AI has created systems like Thanabots or Deadbots, which digitally recreate deceased individuals and allow interactions with them. These systems rely on information generated by AI users during their lifetime, raising ethical and emotional questions about the authenticity and purpose of these recreations. AI acts as a mediator between life, death, and the human being, enabling a new form of communication with the deceased. However, this raises ethical issues such as informed consent from users and the limits of digital recreation. Companies offer services like the Digital Resurrection of deceased individuals and the generation of hyper-realistic avatars. Still, concerns arise about the authenticity of these representations and their long-term emotional impact. Interaction with Thanabots may alter perceptions of death and finitude, leading to a potential “postmortal society” where death is no longer viewed as a definitive end. Nevertheless, this raises questions about the value of life and the authenticity of human experiences. AI becomes a bridge between the living and the dead, partially replacing rituals and mystical beliefs. As technology advances, there will be a need for greater transparency in interacting with AI systems and ethical reflections on the role of these technologies in shaping perceptions of life and death. Ultimately, the question arises of whether we should allow the dead to rest in peace and how to balance the pursuit of emotional relief with authenticity and respect for the memory of the deceased. A deeper ethical consideration is needed on how AI alters traditional notions of life, death, and communication in contemporary society. In this research, an interdisciplinary approach was utilized to conduct a comprehensive systematic review of the recent academic literature, followed by a detailed analysis of two key texts. Central ideas were extracted, and recurring themes were identified. Finally, a reflective analysis of the findings was conducted, yielding significant conclusions and recommendations for future research.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clinical Ethics and Philosophy)
Open AccessArticle
Researching Gender and Disasters of Natural Origin: Ethical Challenges
by
Sandra Dema Moreno, María Teresa Alonso Moro and Virginia Cocina Díaz
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030070 - 17 May 2024
Abstract
Ethical issues are very relevant in the field of women’s, gender and/or feminist studies. The aim of this article is to highlight the ethical challenges faced by the authors in their research process, with specific reference to two projects on gender and disasters
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Ethical issues are very relevant in the field of women’s, gender and/or feminist studies. The aim of this article is to highlight the ethical challenges faced by the authors in their research process, with specific reference to two projects on gender and disasters in which they have been involved. In general, we try to avoid sexist bias throughout the complete research process, from the definition of the objectives themselves to the methodology design, where we ensure diversity in the selection of participants in order to take into consideration the variety of voices present in society, especially those of women. Also, when developing our research, we take into account the power relationships involved, both between those who participate in the fieldwork and with the researchers themselves. To counteract the effects of such relations, we have considered people’s wellbeing and the humanization of the whole process. Finally, when it comes to the dissemination of the results and their transfer to society at large, we follow the same principles and actively integrate the people involved. Considering these issues benefits the research process and makes the resultant knowledge more ethical and socially useful, in addition to promoting more egalitarian gender relations.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emergencies, Disasters and Catastrophes: Perspectives from Ethics and Political Philosophy)
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Open AccessArticle
Intercultural and Deliberative Disaster Ethics in Volcanic Eruptions
by
Noelia Bueno Gómez and Salvador Beato Bergua
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030069 - 16 May 2024
Abstract
The objectives of this article are (i) to identify the most challenging ethical dilemmas and questions arising from the experiences of communities and professionals affected by or involved in volcanic eruptions, including risk management, the dissemination of information, and tourism; and (ii) to
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The objectives of this article are (i) to identify the most challenging ethical dilemmas and questions arising from the experiences of communities and professionals affected by or involved in volcanic eruptions, including risk management, the dissemination of information, and tourism; and (ii) to provide arguments for intercultural ethics to address these dilemmas. Intercultural ethics provide invaluable resources to disaster ethics across all three phases of the complete disaster management cycle. In this article, intercultural ethics is viewed as an ethics grounded in ongoing dialogue, facilitating the examination and establishment of norms and a critical reflection on values and their evolution. This approach recognizes power dynamics that may influence fair participation in dialogues and aims to address them, while also integrating elements of deliberative ethics to ensure that dialogues genuinely contribute to legitimizing decisions. Intercultural sensibility helps bridge the gap between experts and non-experts in both directions (a) by emphasizing the duty of transferring scientific knowledge (for experts) and the responsibility of acquiring scientific literacy (for citizens); and (b) by highlighting the importance of a ‘knowledge dialogue’ that acknowledges the non-scientific knowledge of citizens, rooted in their cultural background and experiences of dealing with past disasters, and shaping life in volcanic territories.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emergencies, Disasters and Catastrophes: Perspectives from Ethics and Political Philosophy)
Open AccessFeature PaperArticle
Susceptibility and Resilience, a Fig Tree and a Scream
by
Rebecca Saunders
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030068 - 14 May 2024
Abstract
Analyzing two key figures in Elif Shafak’s novel The Island of Missing Trees—a schoolgirl’s scream and a narrating fig tree—this essay analyzes the intersection between susceptibility and resilience, particularly as these terms are developed in psychology, trauma studies, and ecology. I argue
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Analyzing two key figures in Elif Shafak’s novel The Island of Missing Trees—a schoolgirl’s scream and a narrating fig tree—this essay analyzes the intersection between susceptibility and resilience, particularly as these terms are developed in psychology, trauma studies, and ecology. I argue that the novel’s resonant scream critiques the discourse of psychological resilience on multiple counts: its inadequacy as a response to complex trauma, its focus on autonomous individuals, its assumption that responsibility for resilience rests on victims rather than perpetrators of harm, its construction of a “resistance imperative” and its disavowal of the inequalities in access to resilience-building resources. By contrast, the novel’s fig tree, I contend, exemplifies an ecological model of resilience rooted in a recognition of the interdependence of the multiple and diverse organisms that comprise an ecosystem, and of susceptibility as an advantageous suite of capacities that are crucial to resilience. These contrasting conceptions of resilience lead me to advocate for a politics of susceptibility, an eco-psychosocial politics based on the recognition that individuals cannot become resilient on their own, through their own volition, intention, or “self-efficacy”, and that focuses instead on building systemic and sustainable forms of resilience inclusive of the diverse subjects that comprise a community, society or ecosystem; that, rather than fetishizing independence, liberty and rights, fortifies interdependence and reinforces mutual responsibilities; and that rather than exploiting susceptibility as a weakness, nurtures it as the soul of resilience itself.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Susceptibilities: Toward a Cultural Politics of Consent under Erasure)
Open AccessEssay
Conflicts and Proposals for an Antispeciesist Ecofeminist Consideration of Nonhuman Animals in Disaster Contexts
by
Amanda Briones Marrero
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030067 - 12 May 2024
Abstract
This essay aims to defend the need to help animals in any disaster situation, be it anthropogenic, natural, or hybrid. To this end, I will first establish a brief foundation of the antispeciesist principles that have been advocated by different theorists over the
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This essay aims to defend the need to help animals in any disaster situation, be it anthropogenic, natural, or hybrid. To this end, I will first establish a brief foundation of the antispeciesist principles that have been advocated by different theorists over the last decades. Then, I will describe the conflict between environmental and animal approaches as a problem for the consideration of animals in unfavorable situations. This will be followed by the ways in which animals can be harmed in such contexts. After that, I will argue that many anthropogenic disasters affect animals, but they also deserve aid in the face of natural disasters: they are sentient beings and capable of suffering just like humans, to whom help is offered unconditionally in such cases. Finally, I will propose sentience, particularly suffering, and an ecofeminist and antispeciesist approach to address the situation of animals in disaster situations in a dialogic way between environmentalist and individual-centered positions.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emergencies, Disasters and Catastrophes: Perspectives from Ethics and Political Philosophy)
Open AccessArticle
Quid Sit Deus? Heidegger on Nietzsche and the Question of God
by
José Daniel Parra
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030066 - 8 May 2024
Abstract
This article develops a hermeneutic study of Heidegger’s text The Word of Nietzsche: “God is Dead”. We attempt to read Heidegger’s remarks in the context of the “period of transition” that, according to Nietzsche, is occurring in the history of western thought and
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This article develops a hermeneutic study of Heidegger’s text The Word of Nietzsche: “God is Dead”. We attempt to read Heidegger’s remarks in the context of the “period of transition” that, according to Nietzsche, is occurring in the history of western thought and culture. This essay unfolds in the following manner: beginning with Heidegger’s contention that Nietzsche’s philosophy is the “fulfilment” of Platonism, we go over the problem of nihilism in relation to the metaphysics of the will to power, which for Heidegger requires revising Cartesian subjectivity in search of a new ontology. Heidegger’s critique of modernity encompasses a narrative that goes from “Plato” to “Nietzsche”, leading to a reconsideration of the notions of art and truth. Finally, we attempt to interpret the meaning of the “madman’s lament” voicing the passing of God.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Creative Death of God)
Open AccessArticle
Susceptibility and Cixous’s Self-Strange Subject
by
Robert Hughes
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030065 - 6 May 2024
Abstract
This essay reads a short narrative, “Savoir” by Hélène Cixous, to describe susceptibility as a problem organized around two lines of impingement: between subject and world and between consciousness and the wayward impulses of interior life. The young girl in Cixous’s text suffers
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This essay reads a short narrative, “Savoir” by Hélène Cixous, to describe susceptibility as a problem organized around two lines of impingement: between subject and world and between consciousness and the wayward impulses of interior life. The young girl in Cixous’s text suffers a moment of disorientation and distress one misty morning and, against presumptions of inviolability and ideals of subjective consistency, this unhappy event comes to resonate with her disappointed trust in the generosity of the world, her anxious sense of betrayal with respect to those who ought to protect her and her insecurity about her own role in this complex of associations. The frame of susceptibility thus opens up a space for Cixous’s reader and this essay to think the subject in her inconsistency and self-strangeness.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Susceptibilities: Toward a Cultural Politics of Consent under Erasure)
Open AccessArticle
The Ethics of Care in Disaster Contexts from a Gender and Intersectional Perspective
by
Rosario González-Arias, María Aránzazu Fernández-Rodríguez and Ana Gabriela Fernández-Saavedra
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030064 - 6 May 2024
Abstract
Feminist reflections on the sexual division of labour have given rise to a body of knowledge on the ethics of care from different disciplines, including philosophy, in which outstanding contributions to the topic have been formulated. This approach is applicable to the analysis
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Feminist reflections on the sexual division of labour have given rise to a body of knowledge on the ethics of care from different disciplines, including philosophy, in which outstanding contributions to the topic have been formulated. This approach is applicable to the analysis of any phenomenon and particularly that of disasters. As various investigations have highlighted, the consequences on the population throughout all of a disaster’s phases (prevention, emergency, and reconstruction) require an analysis of differentiated vulnerabilities based on gender and other identity categories, such as social class, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual identity, etc. The interrelation between all these variables gives rise to differentiated impacts that cannot be ignored in catastrophic contexts, where survival and sustaining life are at stake, so care becomes a central issue. Research on the topic has also identified that, along with the analysis of social vulnerability, we must consider the capacity for agency, both individual and collective, where care is once again of vital importance. Considering the gender approach and its multiple intersections is thus a fundamental theoretical-practical proposal for the study of disasters from philosophy, as it implies an unavoidable epistemic, ontological, and ethical reflection in the face of risk reduction.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emergencies, Disasters and Catastrophes: Perspectives from Ethics and Political Philosophy)
Open AccessArticle
Phenomenal Socialism
by
Sophie Grace Chappell
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030063 - 2 May 2024
Abstract
Phenomenal socialism says that what we actually, directly, literally perceive is only or primarily instances of high-level phenomenal properties; this paper argues for phenomenal socialism in the weaker, primarily version. Phenomenal socialism is the philosophy of perception that goes with recognitionalism, which is
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Phenomenal socialism says that what we actually, directly, literally perceive is only or primarily instances of high-level phenomenal properties; this paper argues for phenomenal socialism in the weaker, primarily version. Phenomenal socialism is the philosophy of perception that goes with recognitionalism, which is the metaethics that goes with epiphanies. The first part states the recognitionalist manifesto. The second part situates this manifesto relative to some more global concerns, about naturalism, perception, the metaphysics of value, and theory vs. anti-theory in ethics. The third part rehearses two familiar views about the possible contents of perceptual experience, Phenomenal Conservativism and Phenomenal Liberalism. It notes that the usual catalogue omits two other theoretical possibilities, Phenomenal Socialism and Phenomenal Nihilism, and it defends a watered-down form of Phenomenal Socialism from four main objections. The fourth part makes some connections with the epistemology of modality and with the role of the imagination.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Moral Perception)
Open AccessPerspective
The Evolution of Humanitarian Aid in Disasters: Ethical Implications and Future Challenges
by
Pedro Arcos González and Rick Kye Gan
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030062 - 1 May 2024
Abstract
Ethical dilemmas affect several essential elements of humanitarian aid, such as the adequate selection of crises to which to provide aid and a selection of beneficiaries based on needs and not political or geostrategic criteria. Other challenges encompass maintaining neutrality against aggressors, deciding
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Ethical dilemmas affect several essential elements of humanitarian aid, such as the adequate selection of crises to which to provide aid and a selection of beneficiaries based on needs and not political or geostrategic criteria. Other challenges encompass maintaining neutrality against aggressors, deciding whether to collaborate with governments that violate human rights, and managing the allocation and prioritization of limited resources. Additionally, issues arise concerning the safety and protection of aid recipients, the need for cultural and political sensitivity, and recognition of the importance of local knowledge, skills, and capacity. The appropriateness, sustainability, and long-term impact of actions; security risks for aid personnel; and the need for transparency and accountability are also crucial. Furthermore, humanitarian workers face the duty to report and engage in civil activism in response to human rights violations and the erosion of respect for international humanitarian law. Lastly, the rights of affected groups and local communities in the decision-making and implementation of humanitarian aid are vital. The traditional foundations and approaches of humanitarian aid appear insufficient in today’s landscape of disasters and crises, which are increasingly complex and divergent, marked by a diminished capacity and shifting roles of various actors in alleviating suffering. This article reviews the historical evolution of the conceptualization of humanitarian aid and addresses some of its ethical challenges and dilemmas.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emergencies, Disasters and Catastrophes: Perspectives from Ethics and Political Philosophy)
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Open AccessViewpoint
Three Different Currents of Thought to Conceive Justice: Legal, and Medical Ethics Reflections
by
Francesco De Micco and Roberto Scendoni
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030061 - 30 Apr 2024
Abstract
The meaning of justice can be defined according to a juridical, human, theological, ethical, biomedical, or social perspective. It should guarantee the protection of life and health, personal, civil, political, economic, and religious rights, as well as non-discrimination, inclusion, protection, and access to
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The meaning of justice can be defined according to a juridical, human, theological, ethical, biomedical, or social perspective. It should guarantee the protection of life and health, personal, civil, political, economic, and religious rights, as well as non-discrimination, inclusion, protection, and access to care. In this review, we deal with three theoretical concepts that define justice in all its aspects. (1) The utilitarian theory, which justifies moral statements on the basis of the evaluation of the consequences that an action produces, elaborating a pragmatic model of medical science. (2) The libertarian theory, which considers freedom as the highest political aim, thus absolutizing the rights of the individual; here, the principle of self-determination, with respect to which the principle of permission/consent is the fundamental presupposition, plays a central role in the definition of the person. (3) The iusnaturalist theory, in which man’s moral freedom is identified with the ability to act by choosing what the intellect indicates to him as good; the natural moral law that drives every conscience to do good is therefore realized in respect for the person in the fullness of his rights. In conclusion, different forms and conceptions of justice correspond to different organizations of society and different ways of addressing ethical issues in the biomedical domain.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clinical Ethics and Philosophy)
Open AccessArticle
Navigating the Complex Terrain of Photography and Temporality
by
Liv Hausken
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030060 - 30 Apr 2024
Abstract
In recent years, discourses on photography have undergone a transformative shift from a focus on the individual photograph’s connection to memory, pastness, loss, and death towards exploring photographic imagery as shared, networked, and continuously circulating in a ubiquitous present. The general claim for
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In recent years, discourses on photography have undergone a transformative shift from a focus on the individual photograph’s connection to memory, pastness, loss, and death towards exploring photographic imagery as shared, networked, and continuously circulating in a ubiquitous present. The general claim for the temporal dimension in this shift is that photography is no longer seen as a mere witness or reservoir of the past but instead points to or participates in an active present. Against this claim, the article argues for broadening the perspective, drawing on resources across C.P. Snow’s “two cultures”—the arts and humanities vs. the natural sciences—to develop a better conception of time and a more varied and useful selection of photographic practices. In this connection, the article provides a reading of Paul Ricoeur’s compound concept of “the third time”, cutting across the two cultures. Drawing on insights from Patrick Maynard and Kelley Wilder, basic premises for photographic practices in the natural sciences are brought into the discussions of the discursive shift from a preoccupation with photography and the past to an interest in photography and the present. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better ground for navigating intricate questions about the relationship between photography and time.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy and Communication Technology)
Open AccessArticle
Informed Ignorance as a Form of Epistemic Injustice
by
Noa Cohen and Mirko Daniel Garasic
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030059 - 29 Apr 2024
Abstract
Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, appears to be steadily spreading, despite the increasing availability of information. The notion of informed ignorance herein proposed to describe the widespread position of being exposed to an abundance of information yet lacking relevant knowledge, which is
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Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, appears to be steadily spreading, despite the increasing availability of information. The notion of informed ignorance herein proposed to describe the widespread position of being exposed to an abundance of information yet lacking relevant knowledge, which is tied to the exponential growth in misinformation driven by technological developments and social media. Linked to many of societies’ most looming catastrophes, from political polarization to the climate crisis, practices related to knowledge and information are deemed some of the most imminent and daunting modern threats, evidenced by the latest report of the World Economic Forum, which has named misinformation the most severe short-term global risk. This paper’s epistemic perspective links the properties of today’s information culture and the ways in which it interacts with individual capacities and limitations in current technological and socio-political contexts. Such a position is analyzed through the lens of epistemic principles as a contemporary epistemic phenotype that emerges from an environment of ill-adapted and excessive information inputs and leads to a distinctive type of social injustice that is primarily epistemic in nature. While equity and accessibility are widely discussed as important contributing factors to epistemic discrepancies, other overlooked but fundamental issues underlying epistemic injustices are considered, such as information manipulation, cognitive limitations, and epistemic degradation. To effectively face this elusive threat, we propose an inclusive viewpoint that harnesses knowledge from cognitive science, science and technology studies, and social epistemology to inform a unifying theory of its main impacts and driving forces. By adjusting a modern epistemic framework to the described phenomena, we intend to contextually outline its trajectory and possible means of containment based on a shared responsibility to maintain ethical epistemic standards. In a time of international unrest and mounting civil acts of violence, it is pertinent to emphasize the ethical principles of knowledge systems and authorities and suggest policy adaptations to maintain a social contract based on the shared values of truth and freedom.
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Open AccessEditorial
Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies—Part 3
by
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic and Marcin J. Schroeder
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030058 - 27 Apr 2024
Abstract
In 2018, we initiated a series of three Special Issues dedicated to contemporary natural philosophy in the spirit of the goals of the journal Philosophies (See Appendix A and Appendix B) [...]
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies - Part 3)
Open AccessArticle
Stances and Skills to in-Habit the World: Pragmatic Agnosticisms and Religion
by
Ulf Zackariasson
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030057 - 26 Apr 2024
Abstract
This paper explores two routes along which a pragmatic philosophical approach can contribute to reflections on agnosticism. The first of these approaches is developed in dialogue with William James, and it is oriented towards the needs and obligations of individuals and the extent
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This paper explores two routes along which a pragmatic philosophical approach can contribute to reflections on agnosticism. The first of these approaches is developed in dialogue with William James, and it is oriented towards the needs and obligations of individuals and the extent to which agnosticism affects our abilities to lead strenuous lives. The second is developed in dialogue with Richard Rorty. It is oriented towards how agnosticisms can be adopted within particular vocabularies vis-a-vis other vocabularies as a pragmatically helpful strategy or skill. I discuss the extent to which these can contribute to philosophical reflection on agnosticism and propose that they show that the agnosticism debate would benefit from a broadened focus where epistemic and pragmatic considerations are better integrated than presently. This would enable us to discuss different types of agnosticism that come to the fore in various contexts and whether they prevent us or allow us to better handle concrete problems in our interactions with the world.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agnosticism in the 21st Century)
Open AccessArticle
Burning “Between Two Fires”: The Individual under Erasure in Hassan Blasim’s “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes”
by
Gautam Basu Thakur
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030056 - 26 Apr 2024
Abstract
This essay uses Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to interpret Hassan Blasim’s short story “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes”. Blasim’s story depicts the psychological struggles of an Iraqi emigrant relating to his embattled sense of belonging in a Dutch society due to the recurrent nightmares
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This essay uses Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to interpret Hassan Blasim’s short story “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes”. Blasim’s story depicts the psychological struggles of an Iraqi emigrant relating to his embattled sense of belonging in a Dutch society due to the recurrent nightmares of his “traumatic” past. It challenges his assimilationist fantasies. I develop Lacan’s idea of ontological lack as a structural susceptibility that is exacerbated by actual experiences of trauma to underline how racialized refugees from the war-torn global South are doubly vulnerable to experiencing subjective dehiscence between their efforts to forget past war traumas and the challenges of assimilating into (white) host nations. This essay uses Blasim’s story to illustrate a serious psychological issue experienced by racialized minority subjects in white/European host countries.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Susceptibilities: Toward a Cultural Politics of Consent under Erasure)
Open AccessArticle
The Death of God as Source of the Creativity of Humans
by
Franke William
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 55; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030055 - 25 Apr 2024
Abstract
Although declarations of the death of God seem to be provocations announcing the end of the era of theology, this announcement is actually central to the Christian revelation in its most classic forms, as well as to its reworkings in contemporary religious thought.
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Although declarations of the death of God seem to be provocations announcing the end of the era of theology, this announcement is actually central to the Christian revelation in its most classic forms, as well as to its reworkings in contemporary religious thought. Indeed provocative new possibilities for thinking theologically open up precisely in the wake of the death of God. Already Hegel envisaged a revolutionary new realization of divinity emerging in and with the secular world through its establishment of a total order of immanence. However, in postmodern times this comprehensive order aspired to by modern secularism implodes or cracks open towards the wholly Other. A hitherto repressed demand for the absolute difference of the religious, or for “transcendence”, returns with a vengeance. This difference is what could not be stated in terms of the Hegelian System, for reasons that poststructuralist writers particularly have insisted on: all representations of God are indeed dead. Yet this does not mean that they cannot still be powerful, but only that they cannot assign God any stable identity. Nietzsche’s sense of foreboding concerning the death of God is coupled with his intimations of the demise of representation and “grammar” as epistemologically bankrupt, but also with his vision of a positive potential for creating value in the wake of this collapse of all linguistically articulated culture. He points the way towards the emergence of a post-secular religious thinking of what exceeds thought and representation.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Creative Death of God)
Open AccessArticle
The Emergence of Ur-Intentionality: An Ecological Proposal
by
Manuel Heras-Escribano and Daniel Martínez Moreno
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030054 - 25 Apr 2024
Abstract
Radical enactivism supports radical embodied cognition (REC), which is the idea that basic or fundamental cognition (perception and action) does not need to be understood in representational, contentful terms. REC departs from the idea that the mind can be naturalized through biological functions,
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Radical enactivism supports radical embodied cognition (REC), which is the idea that basic or fundamental cognition (perception and action) does not need to be understood in representational, contentful terms. REC departs from the idea that the mind can be naturalized through biological functions, but rejects the idea that mental content, which is understood as having a representational nature, can be naturalized. For REC, the natural origins of content (or NOC) is a program based on the following hypothesis: first, we depart from basic cognitive processes that are target-based and guided by an Ur-intentionality or directedness toward the world, and then sociality enters in the picture when language appears into the scene, allowing for establishing full-blown semantic content in which that content is about worldly states of affairs. Here, we are going to focus on the phenomenon of directedness since there are blind spots in this picture: as many authors claim, REC takes Ur-intentionality as the starting point, but there is simply no explanation to date of how this directedness or Ur-intentionality is established. Therefore, how could we account for Ur-intentionality? How does this kind of intentionality emerge? We believe that we can answer this question if we invoke the best scientific evidence from ecological perceptual learning especially in regard to the role of the environment and the information for perceiving affordances in our learning processes. This allows us to offer an answer to the question of how the most basic form of cognition (Ur-intentionality or directedness) emerges in nature.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Philosophy and Ecological Thought)
Open AccessArticle
Art after the Untreatable: Psychoanalysis, Sexual Violence, and the Ethics of Looking in Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You
by
Melissa A. Wright
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030053 - 23 Apr 2024
Abstract
This essay brings psychoanalytic theory on trauma together with film and television criticism on rape narrative in an analysis of Michael Coel’s 2020 series I May Destroy You. Beyond the limited carceral framework of the police procedural, which dislocates the act of
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This essay brings psychoanalytic theory on trauma together with film and television criticism on rape narrative in an analysis of Michael Coel’s 2020 series I May Destroy You. Beyond the limited carceral framework of the police procedural, which dislocates the act of violence from the survivor’s history and context, Coel’s polyvalent, looping narrative metabolizes rape television’s forms and genres in order to stage and restage both trauma and genre again and anew. Contesting common conceptions of vulnerability and susceptibility that prefigure a violent breach of autonomy, Coel’s series and her interviews about it invite an ethics of looking that embraces a curiosity in the unknowable and untreatable kernel of subjective experience and defies and resists a policing of the survivor’s thoughts and emotions. By emphasizing and exploring what psychoanalysis calls the “afterwardness” of trauma, Coel foregrounds her main character’s subjectivity prior to her victimization, widens the sphere of consequence beyond the victim and criminal justice system to the survivor’s larger community, and entreats that community to preserve a space for her to look and look again at everything, without judgment.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Susceptibilities: Toward a Cultural Politics of Consent under Erasure)
Open AccessArticle
Can Democratic “We” Be Thought? The Politics of Negativity in Nihilistic Times
by
Agustín Lucas Prestifilippo
Philosophies 2024, 9(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9020052 - 22 Apr 2024
Abstract
In this article I attempt to systematically reconstruct Theodor Adorno’s account of the relationship between the processes of authoritarian subject formation and the processes of political formation of the democratic common will. Undertaking a reading that brings Adorno into dialogue with contemporary philosophical
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In this article I attempt to systematically reconstruct Theodor Adorno’s account of the relationship between the processes of authoritarian subject formation and the processes of political formation of the democratic common will. Undertaking a reading that brings Adorno into dialogue with contemporary philosophical perspectives, the paper asks the question of whether it is possible to think of a “democratic We” in nihilistic times. In order to achieve this aim, I will analyze in reverse the modifications that the concept of narcissism has undergone, from Adorno’s use of it to account for the symbolic obstacles to the formation of democratic subjectivities after the Holocaust, to the initial formulations of Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, I will attempt to outline an affirmative answer to the initial question, formulating the potentials and merits of what I will call a politics of negativity.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theories of Plurality and the Democratic We)
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