Research Outputs
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/2
Browse
14 results
Search Results
Publication Open Access An algebraic approach to physical fields(Elsevier, 2021) Fritz, Tobias; Department of Philosophy; Chen, Lu; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and HumanitiesAccording to the algebraic approach to spacetime, a thoroughgoing dynamicism, physical fields exist without an underlying manifold. This view is usually implemented by postulating an algebraic structure (e.g., commutative ring) of scalar-valued functions, which can be interpreted as representing a scalar field, and deriving other structures from it. In this work, we point out that this leads to the unjustified primacy of an undetermined scalar field. Instead, we propose to consider algebraic structures in which all (and only) physical fields are primitive. We explain how the theory of natural operations in differential geometry-the modern formalism behind classifying diffeomorphism-invariant constructions-can be used to obtain concrete implementations of this idea for any given collection of fields. For concrete examples, we illustrate how our approach applies to a number of particular physical fields, including electrodynamics coupled to a Weyl spinor.
Publication Metadata only Auto-affection and ethics(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2024) Department of Philosophy; Direk, Zeynep; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and HumanitiesThis essay starts with the possibility of situating Derrida's aporetic ethics in the domain of normative ethics and argues that Derrida's reflection on ethics is enrooted in the specific way he conceives the phenomenological notion of auto-affection. In the second section, I analyze, in the early work, auto-affection with signs and show its centrality in Derrida's first encounter with Levinas's philosophy. Derrida refuses to substitute the hetero-affective relation to the Other for auto-affection as the source of universal law and normativity. He does not sacrifice universality and tackles the problem of autonomous ethical decision-making even though he welcomes through affectivity the signification of the singular other, which is irreducible to conceptual, emotive, and normative self-relation. This background helps us understand the rootedness of ethical aporias in a reflection on auto-affection.Publication Metadata only Between Socrates and Kant. Thinking and sensus communis in Arendt's conception of the banality of evil(Edizioni Ets, 2017) Department of Philosophy; Roney, Patrick; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThe aim of this paper is to show how Hannah Arendt develops her concept of the banality of evil through a phenomenological appropriation of Kant's theory of judgment and of the principle of sensus communis in particular. Even though Arendt initially defined the banality of evil as a form of thoughtlessness grounded upon her understanding of thinking as an inner dialogue with one's 'other' self, I argue that she develops the concept much more extensively in relation to Kant's doctrine of reflective judgment and the possibility of a sensus communis as a pre-conceptual model of unforced consensus for the public space. I further argue that her reading of Kant is carried out together with both an existential-ontological re-appraisal of appearances and its relation to the transcendental imagination. Through the emphasis on the sensus communis, the banality of evil can then be re-defined as a refusal of the same.Publication Metadata only Can we "effectivize" spacetime?(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2022) Department of Philosophy; Chen, Lu; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 329122According to effective realism, scientific theories give us knowledge about the unobservable world, but not at the fundamental level. This view is supported by the well-received effective -field-theory (EFT) approach to high energy physics, according to which even our most successful physical theories are only applicable up to a certain energy scale and expected to break down beyond that. In this paper, I advance new challenges for effective realism and the EFT approach. I argue that effective quantum gravity (EQG) does not give us a realistic theory of spacetime even within its scope of validity. This also exposes a general interpretative dilemma faced by all EFTs concerning their indispensable references to classical spacetime beyond their scope of validity.Publication Metadata only Consciousness as objective activity: a historical-genetic approach(Guilford Publications Inc, 2011) Department of Philosophy; Azeri, Siyaveş; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AMental phenomena and consciousness can be located in sign and in language. Since these latter belong to the objective world of human interaction, consciousness emerges as a part of objectivity. A sign is the product of the interaction between consciousnesses. Thus, admitting the existence of the sign presumes the existence of action. Activity is a social phenomenon; thus, it is objective. It is the objectivization of human needs and desires as production and reproduction of these needs in society. Human consciousness emerges as co-knowing or co-consciousness through linguistic activity. Consciousness as co-knowing emphasizes the genesis of human subjectivity not as a mere assertion but as something the existence of which is to be shown. Consciousness and selfhood, thus, appear as objective, mediating but subjective action. In this view, the self is emancipated consciousness. Therefore, the psyche emerges as the subjective image of objectivity.Publication Metadata only Dretske on non-epistemic seeing(Wiley, 2017) Department of Philosophy; Demircioğlu, Erhan; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 193390In this article, I make a distinction between two versions of non-epistemicism about seeing, and bring explicitly into view and argue against a particular version defended by Dretske. More specifically, I distinguish non-epistemic seeing as non-conceptual seeing, where concept possession is assumed to be cognitively demanding, from non-epistemic seeing as seeing without noticing, where noticing is assumed to be relatively cognitively undemanding. After showing that Dretske argues for the possibility of non-epistemic seeing in both senses of the term, I target his thesis that a given subject (non-epistemically) sees all the objects that are visually differentiated in her visual field, where visual differentiation does not require that she notice those objects. I argue that the notion of a visual field deployed in the formulation of the thesis cannot be phenomenal and therefore that seeing without noticing amounts to mere visual confrontation (in a sense to be specified). I further argue that since the epistemicist does not (and need not) deny the existence of seeing without noticing in the sense of mere visual confrontation, there is a clear sense in which Dretske's non-epistemicism turns out to be trivial.Publication Metadata only Ethics of security: a genealogical introduction(Sage Publications Ltd, 2020) Department of Philosophy; Rossi, Andrea; Teaching Faculty; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThis article analyses the set of ethical questions underlying the emergence of the modern politics of security, as articulated, in particular, in the work of Thomas Hobbes. An ethic is here understood - in line with its ancient philosophical use and the interpretation advanced by authors such as Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot - as a domain of reflections and practices related to the cultivation and conversion of the self (askesis, metanoia). The article aims to demonstrate that, besides attending to the physical safety of the state and its citizens, modern apparatuses of security are also crucially implicated in the formation of their subjects as ethical and autonomous individuals. To substantiate this thesis, the article first illustrates how, since the first appearance of the term in the vocabulary of Western thought - and in Seneca's work in particular - theories of security have been intimately tied to the cultivation of the self. It thus interprets Hobbes's reflections on the subject as the upshot of a substantive, if implicit, re-articulation of Seneca's ethic of security, by focusing on the two authors' respective understandings of (a) autonomy, (b) the world, (c) ascesis, and (d) politics. Overall, it is suggested that the differences between the two authors testify to a wider political-historical shift: in modern regimes of governmentality, the ethical dimension of security no longer defines the rightful exercise of political power, but rather appears as an object of social and economic governance.Publication Metadata only Evil and the experience of freedom: Nancy on schelling and Heidegger(Humanities Press Inc, 2009) Department of Philosophy; Roney, Patrick; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThis essay examines Jean-Luc Nancy's re-posing of the question of freedom in The Experience of Freedom in relation to three issues-what lie calls the "thought of freedom," the reality of evil, and the closure of metaphysics. All three elements that lie discusses point directly to Heidegger's engagement with Friedrich Schelling's attempt to establish a system of freedom. My intervention into the discussion between these three thinkers will address several issues. The first part draws out the implications of Nancy's argument that the thought of freedom, not the question of being as Heidegger Would have it, is the ultimate matter for thinking that arises at the end of metaphysics. This in turn has important implications for Nancy's understanding of evil. The next part confronts and criticizes Nancy's contention that there is an "ontodicy" in Heidegger's thought that lends a certain justification to evil. The final part aims to show how Heidegger's engagement with Schelling and the reality of evil has to be understood within the context of the question concerning technology. This leads to a second confrontation with Nancy, who proposes a quite different interpretation of technology according to his own ontology, which he calls "being singular plural," which amounts in effect to a liberation of technology from the being-question.Publication Metadata only Hearkening to Thalia: toward the rebirth of comedy in continental philosophy(Humanities Press Inc, 2009) Department of Philosophy; Freydberg, Bernard; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThis paper discloses and furthers the rebirth of comedy in Continental philosophy in three stages. The first treats Greek comedy, bringing forth the comic contours in Plato and exploring the philosophical content of Aristophanic comedy. The second examines certain German encounters with comedy, from the staid Wieland translations of Aristophanes through the thoughtful discussions of Schiller, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The third investigates twentieth-century American comedy and its connection to American Continental philosophy, and includes a close analysis of the Marx Brothers' Horsefeathers. The latter serves as a bridge to some surprising developments regarding comedy, poetry, and philosophy.Publication Metadata only Locke on personal identity: the form of the self(Slovak Academy of Sciences - Inst of Philosophy, 2011) Department of Philosophy; Azeri, Siyaveş; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AIn line with the empiricist project, Locke tries to describe how unconscious encounters with environment yield to the emergence of consciousness. For Locke the self is identical with consciousness and consciousness is accessible empirically. As far as the identity of human is concerned, identity of the self depends on the consciousness of the person. The person is identical to himself to the extent that he is aware of his own perceptions and thinking. The range of the person's memory sets the limits of consciousness. According to Locke, consciousness is an element that accompanies all acts of thinking including act of recollection. Such accompanying consciousness constitutes the form of the identity of the self, whereas memory-ideas may be considered the content of consciousness. Therefore, it is this formal constitutive element that provides constancy of the idea of the self. If so, then it can be claimed that Locke's approach to the question of the self results in admitting the truth of what he intends to reject and it is self-defeating; this is to say that, Locke's methodology pushes him to adopt a Platonic-Aristotelian formal theory of identity in general and of personal identity in particular.