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Conventionalism about mathematics has much in common with two other views: fictionalism and the multiverse view (aka plenitudinous platonism). The three views may differ over the existence of mathematical objects, but they agree in rejecting a certain kind of objectivity claim about mathematics, advocating instead an extreme pluralism. The early parts of the paper will try to elucidate this anti‐objectivist position, and question whether conventionalism really offers a third form of it distinct from fictionalism and the multiverse view. The paper then turns to anti‐objectivism about logic, and suggests that here too conventionalism offers no distinct alternative, and that there are limits on the extent of pluralism/anti‐objectivism. It also argues that these limits can't be used to argue for more extensive objectivity within mathematics, and also that they do allow for more limited pluralism within logic, e.g. as regards resolution of semantic and property‐theoretic paradoxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the views of leading Czech physicists regarding a physics curriculum for upper secondary schools. This paper presents the first part of an effort to define starting points for a new physics curriculum in Czechia (subsequent phases would analyze the opinions of other scientists, education experts, and physics teachers regarding the physicists' ideas) and create a new physics textbook for upper secondary schools. The methodology was inspired especially by the objectivist grounded theory. We conducted in‐depth interviews about the upper secondary physics curriculum with 29 leading Czech physicists and identified 56 ideas (categories) that they agreed on (according to the interview analysis). Subsequently, a questionnaire was created based on these 56 ideas. Two years later, the same group of physicists were asked to express their opinions on the ideas on a 7‐point Likert scale. The new survey sought to clarify the relevance and permanence of the ideas, and the physicists' willingness to collaborate on constructing a physics curriculum for upper secondary schools. Four core categories—students, physics, context, and math—were identified through a comparison of the relevance of the ideas. Additionally, we compared the questionnaire answers of a physicist with their opinions during the interview and identified 43 ideas as permanent (in the 2‐year interval). Surprisingly, 26 of the 29 researchers in the initial study completed the subsequent questionnaire survey and 13 among these expressed their willingness to contribute to the development of a physics textbook for upper secondary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Chicago sociologist William F. Ogburn's (1886–1959) views about technological unemployment, which were intimately connected to his analysis of the social impacts of technological developments and resulting social problems due to cultural lag. We trace the development of his views as seen through his well‐known 1922 book, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature, his important contributions to the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (1933), and his lesser‐known pamphlets designed for a broader audience—Living with Machines (1933), You and Machines (1934), and Machines and Tomorrow's World (1938). He used these pamphlets to educate the public about the dangers of new machines and technological unemployment. In doing so, he drew upon sociological analysis in his professional scholarly writings and his long‐standing personal interests in social betterment and social reform. Our analysis also calls into question the adequacy of existing scholarship on Ogburn that has emphasized his commitment to a statistical, dispassionate, and "objectivist" approach to social science research. We call for a revised, richer, and more complex view of Ogburn's work and legacy as one of the nation's leading social scientists during the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the received view, philosophy of action took a justified turn towards causalism because anti‐causalists failed the causalist challenge about efficacious reasons. This paper contests that view by examining the ways in which Georg Henrik von Wright responded to causalism in his later philosophy. First, von Wright attacked the subjectivism of causalism by arguing for an objectivist view that construes reasons not as subjective mental states but as external facts of the agent's situation. Second, von Wright fundamentally disagreed with the view of philosophical inquiry that underpinned causalism. For von Wright, the task of philosophy was conceptual: to explicate what one is looking for when one is looking for the real reasons for action. In contrast, for causalists the task was ontological: to determine what kind of item in the world the real reason for action is. Examining von Wright's account contributes to contemporary assessments of the metaphilosophical dimension of the reasons/causes debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that participants in the subjectivism/objectivism/hybridism debate, a central issue in recent meaning in life research, conflate two different distinctions marked by the terms objective and subjective, one having to do with the question of whether life's meaningfulness depends on factors internal or external to the agent, the other having to do with the question of whether there is any 'absolute' as opposed to 'relative' truth about the first question. The paper then argues that a distinctive type of hybridism with respect to the first sense is true. To vindicate this type of hybridism, the paper identifies, by using examples and counterexamples, internal and external necessary conditions for having meaningful lives. In this type of hybridism, internal states that are not directed at external factors, such as autonomy, serenity and contentment, are also taken account of, and, more generally, internal and external factors need not relate to each other at all. Further, although the more a combination of internal and external factors is valuable the more meaningful a life is, not any increase in the value of any relevant internal or external factor enhances meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of Jacques Lacan's views on psychology, paying particular attention to how such critiques support a distinctively Lacanian view of the subject. Lacan attacked various facets of psychology, including: psychology's objectifying (and objectivistic) tendencies; the discipline's historical attempt to model itself on the natural sciences; its conceptual and practical prioritizations of the ego and consciousness; its frequent prioritization of developmental, biological and physiological paradigms above a careful analysis of the structures and operations of language and speech. The aim of the paper is not to systematically work through Lacan's various criticisms, still less to refute them. Ultimately, Lacan's historical attacks against psychology-apposite as they are-have their greatest value in helping us to strike some distance from commonplace assumptions and psychological assumptions about the nature of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article in this journal, Daan Evers and Gerlinde Emma van Smeden () defend Wolf's hybridism against objectivist counterexamples advanced by Metz, Smuts, and Bramble. They also offer their own new hybridism, which they take to be even less vulnerable to such counterexamples. In this paper, I argue that Evers and van Smeden's defense of their and Wolf's hybridizing from objectivist counterexamples is problematic and that they do not, in fact, succeed in meeting the challenge the objectivist counterexamples pose. Evers and van Smeden do not read the counterexamples charitably and, hence, are not coping with the strongest challenges the counterexamples have to offer. I conclude that Metz's, Smuts's and Bramble's objectivist counterexamples continue to pose serious challenges to hybridism, both in Wolf's and in Evers and van Smeden's versions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many philosophers have claimed that we might do well to adopt a hybrid theory of well-being: a theory that incorporates both an objective-value constraint and a pro-attitude constraint. Hybrid theories are attractive for two main reasons. First, unlike desire theories of well-being, hybrid theories need not worry about the problem of defective desires. This is so because, unlike desire theories, hybrid theories place an objective-value constraint on well-being. Second, unlike objectivist theories of well-being, hybrid theories need not worry about being overly alienating. This is so because, unlike objectivist theories, hybrid theories place a pro-attitude constraint on well-being. However, from the point of view of objectivists, hybrid theories are not objectivist enough, and this can be seen clearly in missing-desires cases. For instance, hybrid theories entail that, if someone lacks the desire for health, then health is not a component of her well-being. This, objectivists say, is implausible. It is obvious, objectivists say, that someone's life goes better for herself inasmuch as she is healthy, and, hence, that health is a component of her welfare. This paper focuses on the missing-desires objection (as leveled by objectivists) to hybrid theories of well-being. My argument is that the missing-desires objection can be answered in a way that is generally convincing and, in particular, in a way that pays a good deal of respect to objectivist intuitions about well-being. My hope, then, is that this paper will help to persuade objectivists about well-being to become hybrid theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary debunking arguments ( EDAs) are arguments that appeal to the evolutionary origins of evaluative beliefs to undermine their justification. This paper aims to clarify the premises and presuppositions of EDAs-a form of argument that is increasingly put to use in normative ethics. I argue that such arguments face serious obstacles. It is often overlooked, for example, that they presuppose the truth of metaethical objectivism. More importantly, even if objectivism is assumed, the use of EDAs in normative ethics is incompatible with a parallel and more sweeping global evolutionary debunking argument that has been discussed in recent metaethics. After examining several ways of responding to this global debunking argument, I end by arguing that even if we could resist it, this would still not rehabilitate the current targeted use of EDAs in normative ethics given that, if EDAs work at all, they will in any case lead to a truly radical revision of our evaluative outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the vast literature on human rights and natural law one finds arguments that draw on science or mathematics to support claims to universality and objectivity. Here are two such arguments: 1) Human rights are as universal (i.e., valid independently of their specific historical and cultural Western origin) as the laws and theories of science; and 2) principles of natural law have the same objective (metahistorical) validity as mathematical principles. In what follows I will examine these arguments in some detail and argue that both are misplaced. A section of the paper will be devoted to a discussion of arguments relying on the historical and cultural specificity (and intrinsic superiority) of Western science. The conclusion is that both science and mathematics offer little help to anyone wanting to make use of them as paradigms of universality, objectivity, and rationality. Finally, I will draw some consequences for the idea of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although traditional instructional design and technology (IDT) has largely been based on objectivism, in the past 20 years, constructivism has emerged as a dominant framework for IDT. Both perspectives, however, present shortcomings. This paper explores enactivism—an emerging new philosophical world view—as an alternative paradigm. It also investigates the possibilities offered by this new paradigm to IDT. The philosophical world view known as enactivism is reviewed to illustrate the similarities and differences among the three philosophical paradigms, namely, objectivism, constructivism and enactivism. Finally, details of enactivism and its implications for IDT are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing a characterization of pragmatism drawn from Joseph Margolis, and with reference to the thought of C. S. Peirce and John Dewey, this paper first exposes a pragmatist conception of rationality within the French philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It then explores how this praxical, biologically rooted understanding of rationality leads Merleau-Ponty to espouse the same broadly pragmatist conception of ethical life that we find in a recent work from Joseph Margolis: one that repudiates fixed principles and absolute ends in order to prompt us, under the pressing exigencies of life, to learn from radically different ways of thinking, thus committing us to negotiating peaceful solutions to our moral and political conflicts across diverse rational perspectives in a manner that, although taking us far from any form of objectivism, nevertheless refuses to renounce all claims to objectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When thinking about the notion of essence or of an essential feature, philosophers typically focus on what I will call the notion of objectual essence. The main aim of this paper is to argue that beside this familiar notion stands another one, the notion of generic essence, which contrary to appearance cannot be understood in terms of the familiar notion, and which also fails to be correctly characterized by certain other accounts which naturally come to mind as well. Some of my objections to these accounts are similar to some of Kit Fine's compelling objections to the standard modal account of (objectual) essence (Fine 1994). In the light of these objections, Fine advances the view that it is metaphysical necessity which has to be understood in terms of essence, rather than the other way around, and takes essence to be unanalyzable. When formulating this view, Fine had only objectual essence in mind (or had both concepts in mind, but assumed that the generic is a special case of the objectual), and for that reason, I will argue, his account fails. I will suggest that Fineans should modify their view, and take it that metaphysical necessity is to be understood in terms of the two notions of essence - a view I myself find appealing. Finally, I will end by suggesting a further move which reduces the objectual to the generic, making metaphysical necessity reducible to generic essence alone - a move with which I myself have some sympathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I focus on the central role faith plays in the thought of Polanyi and Voegelin. I begin by indicating how both find the modern conception of scientific knowing seriously wanting. What Polanyi terms“objectivism” and Voegelin calls“scientism” is the modern tendency to reduce knowledge to only that which can be scientifically demonstrated. This errant view of knowledge does not occur in a vacuum, though, and both men draw a connection between this and the political pathologies of the twentieth century. I then show the complementary ways in which these two thinkers believe recovery is possible: an epistemological solution encompassed in Polanyi's personal knowledge and an ontological reorientation that is the core of Voegelin's insistence that we must recover an awareness of human participation in transcendent reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that theTractatusclassifies names into constant names and variable names. A variable name, via the application of the existential quantifier against the background of picturing, picks out and denotes an unspecified object from the range of objects of the form shown by the relevant variable. A constant name labels an object picked out from a scope of the existential quantifier. I also refute two types of attempts to argue that the Tractarian relation between a name and its meaning is not realist, and to explain why it is more reasonable to hold that it is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relation between interpretation and the objects of interpretation, principally, but not exclusively, in the realm of art. Several theses are defended: that interpretation cannot proceed without prior determination of the kind of thing being interpreted; that the mode of interpretation is determined by the nature of its object; that interpretation, of a meaning-determining rather than generic kind, focuses at the level of works, not descending to a bedrock of “mere objects”; that because works and their appropriate mode of interpretation are constituted by convention-bound practices, it follows that no clear line can be drawn between properties “in” a work and those “imputed to” it through interpretive procedures endorsed by the practice. The debate over constructivism or “imputationalism” – between Margolis and Krausz, on the one hand, and Stecker and Levinson, on the other – is engaged with an attempt to show a core of truth in each of the conflicting theories, once the right distinction between object, work, and interpretation is in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]