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Step selection functions (SSFs) are used to jointly describe animal movement patterns and habitat preferences. Recent work has extended this framework to model inter‐individual differences, account for unexplained structure in animals' space use and capture temporally varying patterns of movement and habitat selection.In this paper, we formulate SSFs with penalised smooths (similar to generalised additive models) to unify new and existing extensions, and conveniently implement the models in the popular, open‐source mgcv R package.We explore non‐linear patterns of movement and habitat selection, and use the equivalence between penalised smoothing splines and random effects to implement individual‐level and spatial random effects. This framework can also be used to fit varying‐coefficient models to account for temporally or spatially heterogeneous patterns of selection (e.g. resulting from behavioural variation), or any other non‐linear interactions between drivers of the animal's movement decisions.We provide the necessary technical details to understand several key special cases of smooths and their implementation in mgcv, showcase the ecological relevance using two illustrative examples and provide R code to facilitate the adoption of these methods. This paper offers a broad overview of how smooth effects can be applied to increase the flexibility and biological realism of SSFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can realistic spatial scenarios be used to measure spatial mental imagery? Can people accurately evaluate their spatial imagery? Does gender moderate the relationship between performance on realistic spatial imagery tasks and ratings of imagery realism? Forty-two female and 31 male undergraduates first rated the realism of their images after reading spatial scenarios based on actual spatial tasks. In phase 2, they solved closely related spatial scenario problems, and then completed the VZ-2 Paper Folding test. Performance on realistic spatial scenarios predicted performance on the VZ-2. Men's evaluation of their spatial imagery realism predicted their actual spatial performance, but women's did not. More task experience was positively related to more realistic images and higher scores on the VZ-2. These results were generally consistent with those found with more artificial stimulus materials, but also demonstrated the importance of considering gender differences in spatial problem strategy and/or rating scale interpretation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial article reports on interdisciplinary research being conducted at the interface between the scientific disciplines of marketing and design. It reviews the 11 academic papers from the special issue situated at this intersection, thereby showing the richness of research happening in this liminal area. At the same time, the paper observes how the disciplines' different scopes as well as their different modi operandi inhibit the collaboration between marketing and design research. Whereas marketing largely follows the paradigm of empirical realism asking how the current world works, design largely follows the pragmatist paradigm asking how a future world can be shaped. Finally, this paper contains a number of suggestions on how to foster cooperation between the two disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the "manyworlds theory". It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects' experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different "first-personally centred worlds". We can think of these as distinct "first-personal realizers" of a shared "third-personal world", where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects' first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Durkheim's relationship to realism. I argue that there is enough prima facie evidence of realist commitments in his work that our task should be to consider what kind of realist Durkheim was. I discuss, first of all, Durkheim's epistemics and follow that analysis with a discussion of metaphysical realism in his texts. The first part of the paper covers a wide range of his work; the second part focuses primarily on The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. In a final concluding section, I go on to consider how his epistemic arguments and his philosophical realism might work together to support important parts of his general sociology. Realism is not often brought to bear on Durkheim's work. When it has been, Durkheim has been identified as a naïve realist. These interpretations of Durkheim do not recognize the sophistication of contemporary realism, which does not reduce to naïve representationalism. This paper will sort out Durkheim's realist commitments in his texts, and in light of the variety of realisms consistent with "sophisticated" (that is, non‐naïve) realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The wrongness of Albert's action causally explains why Jane judged that his action was wrong". This type of causal moral explanation has been extensively discussed in the recent metaethical literature. This paper motivates the following claims about this type of moral explanation. First, a typical defence of this type of moral explanation suggested in the literature does not work because it predicts inaccurate modal information. Second, focusing on different aspects of the ways moral judgements are generated provides better chances for the defender of this type of moral explanation. Third, the strategy mentioned in the previous point leads us to the following alternative evaluative explanation: The property of being a harmful action explains a recognisable pattern of moral judgements observed in the relevant empirical studies. One crucial implication the paper alludes to is a localist approach to the debates concerning moral realism: We should consider each moral property's ontological genuineness separately, referring to specific empirical findings that are particularly relevant to the target moral property in question. Such a localist approach can provide solid resources for realists to respond to various anti‐realist challenges, such as an influential evolutionary debunking argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teleosemantic indeterminacy problem has generated much discussion but no consensus. One possible solution is to accept indeterminacy as a real feature of some representations. I call this view "indeterminacy realism." In this paper, I argue that indeterminacy realism should be treated as a serious option. By drawing an analogy with vagueness, I try to show that accepting the reality of indeterminacy would not be catastrophic for teleosemantics. I further argue that there are positive reasons to endorse indeterminacy realism. I end the paper by arguing that indeterminacy realism need not generalize viciously to the case of propositional attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable consensus on the idea that Aristotelian virtue ethics advocates moral realism. In numerous works, the well‐known business ethicist Edwin Hartman grapples with reconciling the unitary vision of life that a particular kind of moral realism advocates and the pluralist respect for diverse cultures and belief systems that comprise our world. This paper closely follows Hartman's efforts to reconcile his liberal values with his guarded support for Aristotelian moral realism. We argue that the realist interpretation of Aristotle's function argument can be employed to strengthen Hartman's critique of the concept of Homo economicus, which is often posited by its proponents and critics alike as the only viable position for a business manager. Drawing from Aristotle, the paper posits a novel notion of species‐excellence as the ultimate telos of human life and an objective basis for a critique of Homo economicus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes explicit the basic problem perfect hallucinations pose for perceptual naive realists, more fundamental than the well‐trodden Screening‐off Problem. The deeper problem offers the basis for an overarching classification of the available naive‐ realist‐friendly approaches to perfect hallucinations. In the course of laying out the challenges to the different types of response, the paper makes a case for the superiority of a particular approach to perfect hallucinations, on which they would be understood as a special kind of perceptual anomaly—arising from a secondary mode of perceptual processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1930 Fairbairn wrote ‘Libido theory re‐evaluated’, which remained unpublished until 1994. It contains the beginnings of theoretical arguments that, I argue, resulted in his more famous 1940s papers. I posit that Fairbairn's critique of Freud's analytical dualist theoretical foundation is consistent with, and lays the ground for, his later work. Using the papers ‘Schizoid factors in the personality’ (1940), ‘The repression and return of bad objects’ (1943), ‘Endopsychic structure considered in terms of object‐relationships’ (1944), and ‘Object‐relationships and dynamic structure’ (1946), I show how Fairbairn's critique is relevant to his later propositions and elucidate Fairbairn's metatheoretical assumptions, about which he was not explicit after 1930. I argue that his theoretical propositions arise as a result of his longstanding, consistent critique that led him to replace analytical dualism with dynamical structure. Further, I argue that Klein, and Khan and Winnicott's criticism is unjustified; Fairbairn did not challenge the content of a theory he describes as ‘truths of fundamental importance’, he challenged its theorization. Because it resulted in his important theoretical propositions, Fairbairn's longstanding critique of libido theory is important within the history of psychoanalytic thought and deserves scholarly attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As standardly conceived, an illusion is a case in which appearances in at least one respect conflict with reality. Such a conflict only obtains in cases where a non‐F object appears to be F—appears F in a 'committal' way, as I put it. It is, however, possible for an object to appear F in a non‐committal way—i.e. without appearing to be F. The paper discusses a number of recent naïve realist attempts to account for illusion. Drawing on the distinction between committal and non‐committal appearances, I argue that none of the proposals is able to account for illusion as standardly conceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher‐order metaphysicians take facts to be higher‐order beings, i.e., entities in the range of irreducibly higher‐order quantifiers. In this paper, I investigate the impact of this conception of facts on the debate about the reality of tense. I identify two major repercussions. The first concerns the logical space of tense realism: on a higher‐order conception of facts, a prominent version of tense realism, dynamic absolutism, turns out to conflict with the laws of (higher‐order tense) logic. The second concerns our understanding of the positions occupying this logical space: on a higher‐order conception of facts, an attractive interpretation of the central tense realist notion of ‘facts constituting reality’ becomes unavailable. I discuss these results in the context of the more general project of higher‐order metaphysics and the (meta)metaphysics of time, drawing out their implications for the nature of the disputes both between realists and anti‐realists about tense and between different tense realist factions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Screen Space Reflection (SSR) can reliably achieve highly efficient reflective effects, significantly enhancing users' sense of realism in real‐time applications. However, when directly applied to stereo rendering, popular SSR algorithms lead to inconsistencies due to the differing information between the left and right eyes. This inconsistency, invisible to human vision, results in visual discomfort. This paper analyzes and demonstrates how screen‐space geometries, fade boundaries, and reflection samples introduce inconsistent cues. Considering the complementary nature of screen information, we introduce a stereo‐aware SSR method to alleviate visual discomfort caused by screen space disparities. By contrasting our stereo‐aware SSR with conventional SSR and ray‐traced results, we showcase the effectiveness of our approach in mitigating the inconsistencies stemming from screen space differences while introducing affordable performance overhead for real‐time rendering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matti Eklund (2017) has argued that ardent realists face a serious dilemma. Ardent realists believe that there is a mind‐independent fact as to which normative concepts we are to use. Eklund claims that the ardent realist cannot explain why this is so without plumping in favor of their own normative concepts or changing the topic. The paper first advances the discussion by clarifying two ways of understanding the question of which normative concepts to choose: a theoretical question about which concepts have the abstract property of being normatively privileged and a further practical question of which concepts we are to choose even granting some concepts are thus privileged. I argue that the ardent realist's best bet for answering the theoretical question while avoiding Eklund's dilemma is to provide a real definition of this property. I point out the difficulties for providing such a definition. I then argue that even with an answer to the theoretical question, the ardent realist faces a further dilemma in answering the practical question. In sum, though I see no knock‐down argument against ardent realism, it may nonetheless die a death by a thousand cuts. I close by considering a deeper reason for why ardent realism is so difficult to defend: every argument starts somewhere. It is unclear how there can be an Archimedean point that makes no reference to any normative concepts that can nonetheless be employed to convince everyone to adopt ours. I then briefly propose two options for someone still inclined towards realism: either (i) accept that our normative concepts are normatively privileged without attempting to explain why this is so, or (ii) be less ardent and accept a perspective‐dependent account of normativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary landscape about temporal experience, debates concerning the "hard question" of the experience of the flow—as opposed to debates concerning more qualitative aspects of temporality, such as change, movement, succession and duration—are gaining more and more attention. The overall dialectics can be thought of in terms of a debate between the realists (who take the phenomenology of the flow of time seriously, and propose various account of it) and deflationists (who take our description of temporal phenomenology as "flowy" to be spurious, and propose various explanation of this spuriousness). In this paper we look inside the realist side. We distinguish primitivist realism, according to which the feeling of time flowing is an irreducible sui generis phenomenology, and various forms of reductionist realism, according to which the experience of the flow is ultimately explainable in terms of a more basic phenomenology. We present reasons to be sceptical against the various reductionist proposals. The conclusion is thus disjunctive: either primitivism or deflationism is the correct account of the purported experience of the flow of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perception plays a central and wide‐ranging role in the philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. In this paper, I argue that Cavendish holds a naïve realist theory of perception. The case draws on what Cavendish has to say about perceptual presentation, the role of sympathy in experience, the natures of hallucination and of illusion, and the individuation of kinds. While Cavendish takes perception to have representational content, I explain how this is consistent with naïve realism. In closing, I address challenges to the interpretation, one of which turns on whether Cavendish allows for action at a distance. I argue that she does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the early aesthetic writings of Joseph Margolis from the late 1950s to the mid‐1960s in order to argue for the relevance of these works in understanding Margolis's later, more well‐known views in the philosophy of art. Specifically, the paper addresses Margolis's early essays on the definition and ontology of art and aesthetic perception. These essays not only show Margolis engaged in the most significant debates in mid‐century analytic aesthetics but also provide important indications of the limitations of that approach to thinking about the arts that informs the development of Margolis's later cultural realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a straightforward view of perception that has not received adequate consideration because it requires us to rethink basic assumptions about the objects of perception. In this paper, I develop a novel account of these objects—the sensible qualities—which makes room for the straightforward view. I defend two primary claims. First, I argue that qualities like color and shape are "ontologically flexible" kinds. That is, their real definitions allow for both physical objects and mental entities to be colored or shaped. Second, a single instance of these qualities can be attributed to more than one entity. Just as we attribute the same instance of a material property to a statue and to the clay that constitutes it, single instances of sensible qualities should be attributed both to the physical objects perceived and to the perceptual states that have those instances as their objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy of social science (PoS) typologies can help practitioners in the social sciences to reflect upon the often‐tacit assumptions embedded in research. Existing PoS typologies however suffer from various shortcomings, one of them being a tendency to present extreme versions of the assumptions underpinning research. Having considered this and other shortcomings, the present paper advances a flexible PoS typology. Operating with strong and moderated versions of three PoS perspectives – positivism, constructionism and (critical) realism – the typology captures key assumptions underpinning a broad range of contemporary social research. Moreover, it opens up the possibility of contemplating the assumptions embedded in research in a more fruitful way. To render tangible how the typology constitutes an improvement over existing typologies, it is used in reflections on sustainability research on climate negotiations, green growth and housing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temporal, first‐personal, and modal domains in metaphysics involve a range of perspectives on reality: the perspective of the present as opposed to those of other times, the perspective of one's own self as opposed to those of other subjects, and the perspective of the actual world as opposed to those of other possible worlds. In each case, we can ask about the metaphysical standing of these various perspectives with respect to one another: Is one perspective privileged above the rest? There is a tension at the heart of our intuitive conception of the phenomena in these domains, motivating (at least in some of these cases) a pluralist conception of reality — a stance which attempts to take seriously the absoluteness of the present‐tensed, first‐personal, or actual‐worldly facts, while also embracing the equal standing in reality of all perspectives of the relevant kind. My purpose in this paper is, first, to present an overview of recently popular forms of pluralism — or, what Fine (2005) calls non‐standard realism — with a particular focus on fragmentalism. I'll then raise a worry for fragmentalist views, and finally, present an alternative form of pluralism about the perspectival. We'll see that, while in some ways more radical, the alternative form of pluralism I present has some conceptual advantages over more familiar non‐standard realist views, and — more generally — can help illuminate the space of possible pluralist views about the perspectival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The naturalized metaphysics promoted by Ladyman and Ross, among others, is often described as (neo)‐Quinean metaphysics. This association with Quine's naturalism can, however, give a misleading impression of the aims and commitments of this kind of naturalized metaphysics. Contrary to Quine, these naturalized metaphysicians endorse metaphysical realism and offer wholesale arguments in favor of the epistemic standing of science‐based metaphysics. Accordingly, this naturalized metaphysics comes closer to Roy Wood Sellars's evolutionary naturalism, especially since the theory of evolution is central to the criticism that naturalized metaphysics levels at nonnaturalized metaphysics. The paper argues that Sellars's naturalism is furthermore helpful (1) for explicating the naturalism of naturalized metaphysics, (2) for theorizing a more general naturalist basis for naturalized metaphysics, and (3) for suggesting where naturalized metaphysics is perhaps not naturalist enough, especially when it comes to considering the implications of the theory of evolution for its positive program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Price claims that the agency theory of causation could be understood as a sophisticated form of either realism or empiricism (but not a simple‐minded form of any of them). In this paper, I argue that the agency theory could find a more congenial ally in constructive empiricism (rather than realism) and show that this new alliance would be profitable to both constructive empiricism and the agency theory of causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Russian sensory physiology and psychology uses the notion of a "dark sense," referring to the background of bodily sensation, especially of the position and movement of the body. The physiologist Ivan Sechenov introduced this language in the 1860s in the context of arguing for a physiological basis for scientific psychology. The muscular sense (the term preceding modern notions of kinaesthesia and proprioception) thereafter featured in the many talks and journal articles he presented to spread scientific enlightenment. The paper describes the history and significance of this. It does so in the light of Soviet representations of Sechenov as a scientist who substantially contributed to the Leninist materialist–realist theory of knowledge. These representations assessed Sechenov's discussions as a breakthrough in world science to the understanding of the human organism as a self‐regulating material system. It is necessary to understand the purposes and pressures driving Soviet historiography. The paper confirms the historical importance the sense of movement has had in realist theories of knowledge of the world; and it contributes a previously unknown chapter to the history of psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antirealism about metaphysical explanation is relatively underexplored. This paper maps out the territory for the antirealist, explaining what it would take to be an antirealist given various different conceptions of metaphysical explanation, and of the relationship between metaphysical explanation and grounding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different authors offer subtly different characterizations of naïve realism. We disentangle the main ones and argue that illusions provide the best proving ground for naïve realism and its main rival, representationalism. According to naïve realism, illusions never involve perceptual error. We assess two leading attempts to explain apparent perceptual error away, from William Fish and Bill Brewer, and conclude that they fail. Another leading attempt is assessed in a companion paper, which also sketches an alternative representational account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles S. Peirce's realism has been neglected by pragmatists and critical realists alike in the current debate over metatheoretical realism in sociology. This paper introduces Peirce's view of what is at stake in the question of realism, specifically regarding causation. Leveraging current interest in Peirce's conception of abduction, I show how realism about causation is implicit therein. I present a genealogy of the concept of real causation Peirce embraces. I explicate Peirce's view of the scientific significance of realism about causation, and why he finds it compelling. Finally, I argue that Peirce would intervene in the current debate by saying that those committed to abductive theorizing and causal explanation are implicitly realist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography on the subject of philosophy is presented, including the books "Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression," by Sandry Lee Bartky, "Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism," by Owen Flanagan, and "Morality and Human Nature: A New Route to Ethical Theory," by Robert J. McShea.

The phenomenon of entrepreneurship has historically been viewed as an agential and meritocratic activity, wherein actors can creatively mobilise resources to overcome disadvantaged social positions. However, recent literature highlights entrepreneurship's socially embedded, processual nature, suggesting that enduring positions in social hierarchies may be more relevant to opportunity pursuit than previously envisioned. This conceptual paper proposes and builds upon the notions of intersectionality and positionality to more fully theorise disadvantage in entrepreneurial activity. Underpinned by philosophical realism, it makes an ontological argument about the nature of entrepreneurial advantage and disadvantage, offering a reconceptualisation of its relationship to agency and resources. The paper thus illuminates significant structural aspects of entrepreneurship that are currently under‐theorised, and without which the picture of entrepreneurial disadvantage is incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to advance understanding of interactive knowledge sharing (KS) processes through exploring the role of transactive memory systems (TMSs) and Web 2.0. In the context of the information systems literature, there is little focus on their particular role in KS. To address this gap, this paper develops a conceptual model based on activity theory and critical realism outlining the role of TMS and Web 2.0 as mediating tools. This paper further reveals that their use as tools depends on deeper underlying structures/factors embedded within the community, namely, informal networks and trust among people. The new conceptual model and theoretical propositions are then illustrated by a qualitative study undertaken in Bulgarian organisations. This illustrative case provides support for the model, where TMS and Web 2.0 are found to facilitate KS. It further demonstrates that informal networks and trust among people support the use and the positive effects of these tools. The contribution of this paper is in the new analytical approach and conceptual model developed, which advances our understanding of interactive KS by explaining the linkages between the various factors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper motivates and defends 'Rortian realism,' a position that is Rortian in respect of its underlying philosophical theses but non-Rortian in terms of the lessons it draws from these for cultural politics. The philosophical theses amount to what the paper calls Rorty's 'anti-representationalism' (AR), arguing that AR is robust to critique as being anti-realist, relativist, or sceptical, invoking Rorty's historicism/ethnocentrism as part of the defence. The latter, however, creates problems for Rorty in so far as his reformative views on the nature of philosophical and academic activity are meant to be foisted on an academy that ex hypothesi holds views different from these. The paper suggests we can motivate a different conception of the consequences of AR more amenable to the academy: Rortian realism, a view that makes greater concessions to realism and a kind of scientific naturalism than Rorty would like, but that for those very reasons is more likely to allow AR to prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to provide an insight into the epistemological and metaphysical implications of a structuralist interpretation of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM). I will suggest that the 'entity‐relation identity' at the core of a particular formulation of Ontic Structural Realism represents the best framework against which to understand RQM, and, in turn, that this interpretation provides some support for the adoption of a structuralist viewpoint in Quantum Mechanics thus understood. The choice is motivated by the same revisionary metaphysics they both seem to offer, with respect to the notion of entity and of relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Realistic visualizations have been associated with benefits in retention performance, but also with disadvantages in transfer tasks. Realistic details are considered to be helpful for the initial learning of content, but not for the generalization to other domains and tasks. Objectives: The contradictory nature of previous evidence needed to be tested in a situation in which both the retention of concrete surfaces as well as the transfer to different shapes is necessary. Methods: Three experiments were conducted to assess whether transfer tasks in which knowledge of surfaces needed to be transferred to variations can benefit from realism, shape distinctness, and descriptive labels. In Experiment 1, participants learned skull anatomy either in a schematic or a realistic style and completed near and far transfer tests. In Experiment 2, the realism and shape distinctness of a fictional bone model was varied. Subjective cognitive load, retention performance, and transfer scores were measured. Experiment 3 compared how distinct and less distinct shapes of another fictional bone model affect learning in combination with label texts of differing semantic descriptiveness. Results and Conclusions: In Experiment 1, performance in an anatomy learning task was raised by learning with a realistic visualization across near and far transfer tests. Experiment 2 revealed that extraneous cognitive load is increased for realistic visualizations when the depicted shapes lack distinctness. Experiment 3 suggests that when realistic visualizations feature less distinct shapes, learners struggle with descriptive labels in retention tests and benefit from similarly unspecific labels. Lay Description: What is currently known about the this topic: There are conflicting results concerning the effect of realism.In anatomy learning, realistic visualizations can benefit retention.In fields such as mathematics education, realistic details impede transfer.It is unknown whether realism helps learners transfer concrete information. What this paper adds: Transfer performance was raised by learning with a realistic visualization.The effects of shape distinctness and label descriptiveness are investigated. Implications for practitioners: The advantages of realism regarding transfer are highly situation‐specific.For the transfer of concrete surface information to other concrete shapes, realism can help.Realistic renderings should feature distinctive shapes to lower cognitive demands.Realism did not consistently raise transfer performance, but did not lower transfer scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues concerning naturalism have increasingly become the subject of philosophical reflections involving ontological, epistemological, and even ethics affairs. The most popular topic for contemporary philosophy has been the relationship between ontological results of Darwinism and epistemology. Despite the varied circumstances of its establishment, naturalism almost always produces recommendations that reflect a worldview much "weaker" (as in the case of Habermas) than the strong one more common among scientism. There are good structural reasons for this difference. The aim of this paper is to elucidate some of distinctive social features of Habermas's conception of the human being and its implications in the Theory of Communicative Action (1982). Therefore, it is shown that his anthropology takes a naturalistic and Darwinist perspective in the weak naturalism perspective. In the first part, Darwin ́s legacy is analysed as a research program, and Habermas ́s studies on biological anthropology are compared with the latest research in genetics and palaeontology. In the second part, we will show Habermas's proposal to confront an epistemological dualism through a weak non‐reductionist naturalism as a critique of modern metaphysics, which structures a new pragmatic realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hegel often criticizes the use of unobservable entities postulated in scientific theories. For example, he claims that atoms are not things but, rather, thoughts, and that various imponderable stuffs such as caloric are not independently existing things but, rather, "moments" of material bodies. In this paper I argue that, in such passages, Hegel expresses his original metaphysics of nature, which I relate to the different positions on the relation between what Sellars has called the "scientific image" and the "manifest image." I reconstruct those aspects of Hegel's philosophy of inorganic nature that allow us to understand Hegel's position in detail, as well as his reasoning in support of it. I argue that, for Hegel, mechanical properties of bodies are abstractions from the bodies that have a full complement of physical and chemical properties standing in specific relations of dependency. Such bodies correspond to the objects of our manifest image, which thus has priority over the scientific image for Hegel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to reveal the source of the dispute between naive realism and intentionalism. To accomplish this task, it examines Adam Pautz's challenge to naive realism, according to which a naive intuition about visual phenomenology, which is the only workable case for naive realism, is problematic. It argues that naive realists can address the challenge from Pautz by rejecting his assumption that naive realists and intentionalists agree on the nominal definition of visual phenomenology. The paper then argues that the reason naive realists want to preserve the naive intuition is its irresistibility rather than its reliability. Given this, it concludes that the disagreement between naive realism and intentionalism is rooted in what philosophical projects they tackle. Naive realists are engaged in the philosophical project of delineating a coherent view of the actual world in which the irresistible naive intuition can be true; the intentionalist philosophical project differs from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a form of transcendental naïve realism. According to naïve realism, veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational. According to transcendental naïve realism, the naïve realist theory of perception is not just one theory of perception amongst others, to be established as an inference to the best explanation and assessed on the basis of a cost‐benefit analysis that weighs performance along a number of different dimensions: for instance, fidelity to appearances, simplicity, systematicity, fit with scientific theories, and so on. Rather, naïve realism enjoys a special status in debates in the philosophy of perception because it represents part of the transcendental project of explaining how it is possible that perceptual experience has the distinctive characteristics it does. One of the potentially most interesting prospects of adopting a transcendental attitude towards naïve realism is that it promises to make the naïve realist theory of perception, in some sense, immune to falsification. This paper develops a modest form of transcendental naïve realism modelled loosely on the account of the reactive attitudes provided by Strawson in 'Freedom and Resentment', and suggests one way of understanding the claim that naïve realism is immune to falsification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementation of existing ethical guidelines for international collaborative medical and health research is still largely controversial in sub-Saharan Africa for two major reasons: One, they are seen as foreign and allegedly inconsistent with what has been described as an 'African worldview', hence, demand for their strict implementations reeks of 'bioethical imperialism'. Two, they have other discernible inadequacies - lack of sufficient detail, apparent as well as real ambiguities, vagueness and contradictions. Similar charges exist(ed) in other non-Western societies. Consequently, these guidelines have been correctly judged as an inadequate response to the complex and ever shifting dilemmas met by researchers and research regulators in the field. This paper proposes a framework for effective implementation of existing guidelines without much worry about bioethical imperialism and other inadequacies. This framework is proposed using an analogy of Legal Realism, specifically its key assertions on how, in reality, judicial systems operate using general legal rules to settle specific cases. Legal realists assert that in judicial decision-making, general legal rules do not totally dictate court decisions in specific cases. This analogy is used to coin a new term, 'Bioethical Realism.' The framework suggests that local Research Ethics Committees ought to be construed as analogues of judicial courts with the resulting implications. Consequently, just like legal rules are general rules that do not always dictate court decisions, similarly international bioethical guidelines are general ethical rules that should not always dictate local RECs' decisions and such decisions (ought to) enjoy considerable immunity from outsiders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most philosophers of religion subscribe to some variety of religious realism: they believe that religious statements aim at capturing a mind‐independent reality and are true precisely if they successfully do so. Curiously, most religious realists also believe that at least some of our religious beliefs are rationally justified. In this paper, I argue that these positions are actually at odds with each other. Religious realists should rather be religious skeptics. I first argue that realism always implies the possibility of our beliefs being false. Then, I develop a Copernican argument to show that we have no reason to believe that we are in an epistemically privileged position where we could be confident that our particular belief is justified while all competing beliefs are not. This seems impossible for two reasons: (a) From a probabilistic point of view (adopting a principle of mediocrity), it is highly unlikely that current humans have the maximum of epistemic capacities possible. Rather, our ability to understand reality is limited, so we should expect at least some parts of religious reality to remain unknown to us. (b) From a deep‐time perspective, humanity has not pondered religious questions for long. We are probably still in the early stages of our cognitive evolution, and so we should treat our religious beliefs as provisional and open to revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I address a range of arguments put forward by Kwame Gyekye (1992) and Bernard Matolino (2014) denying Menkiti's twin propositions that persons differ ontologically from human beings and that human attitudes, behaviours and practices constitute persons in social reality. They argue that his account of "maximal" persons, rooted in African traditional thought‐worlds, conflates issues and ultimately involve him in a category mistake. I argue that their arguments do not succeed, and that Menkiti's view is not in any predicament because of them. Then, I draw on John Searle's account of social ontology to clarify the sense in which attitudes, behaviours and practices are constituents of persons. Thus, I characterise persons as social entities belonging in a social ontology. Finally, I argue that realism regarding persons is not undermined by the threat of conventionalism lurking behind the view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a form of realism about aesthetics that is stronger than typical versions of aesthetic realism. As I conceive of it, aesthetic realism is the view that there are some response‐independent aesthetic facts. This kind of realism is unpopular in aesthetics and is often viewed as a non‐starter. Against this pessimism, I argue that the prospects for this realist approach are more favorable than commonly supposed. I offer some reasons to prefer my brand of aesthetic realism to competing realist and anti‐realist positions. I also defend this aesthetic realism against what I call the 'overly objective worry' and correct misconceptions about what realism's commitment to response‐independence involves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some moral propositions are so obviously true that we refuse to doubt them, even where we believe that many people disagree. Following Fritz and McPherson, I call our behaviour in such cases 'moral steadfastness'. In this paper, I argue for two metaethical implications of moral steadfastness. I first argue that morally steadfast behaviour is sufficiently prevalent to present an important challenge for some prominent analogies between moral epistemology and non‐moral forms of epistemology. These analogies are often pressed by moral realists. I then argue that moral quasi‐realism, unlike realism, can explain and vindicate our presumption that moral steadfastness is frequently rational. On the assumption that we frequently act as it is rational to act, quasi‐realism is therefore well placed to explain why we are so frequently morally steadfast. I conclude that this is an important respect in which quasi‐realism is explanatorily preferable to realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite emerging securitization patterns all over Europe and although desecuritization has occasionally been suggested as a possible alternative to security discourses, it has remained, however, severely underexplored. Implications pertaining to the polarization of the security‐migration nexus are traceable both in the host state as well as in the overall life quality of migrants and refugees. As far as Greece is concerned, the migration‐related security discourse has penetrated all layers of the social and political fabric with serious consequences both for those that remain in the country as well as for the political imprint of Greece. Yet, despite limited conceptual attempts to explore the desecuritization of migration dynamics in Greece, there remains a huge research gap. The aim of this paper was to present a desecuritization framework for Greece, through the management and supervision of migratory flows. Drawing insights from conceptual understandings, a pragmatic, utilitarian, flexible and positive form of desecuritization is proposed, called "flexicuritization", which constitutes a feasible and implementable solution in the Greek case. It is argued that desecuritization presupposes a pragmatic view of security leading policymakers to the management of migration through monitoring and supervision. At a theoretical and synthetic level, this strategy will include elements from the three theoretical schools of realism, liberalism and constructivism. The purpose of this flexible strategy is to become a precursor to integration under conditions that are consistent and in the spirit of the flows and the number of migrants / refugees currently in Greece. A case study method will be used, based on Paul Roe's (2004) desecuritization strategy for ethnic minorities in the Greek migration context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Metaphysical views typically draw some distinction between reality and appearance, endorsing realism about some subject matters and antirealism about others. There are different conceptions of how best to construe antirealist theories. A simple view has it that we are antirealists about a subject matter when we believe that this subject matter fails to obtain. This paper discusses an alternative view, which I will call the fundamentality‐based conception of antirealism. We are antirealists in this sense when we think that the relevant matter fails to be constitutive of fundamental reality. The following discussion will not rely on any particular understanding of fundamental reality, covering conceptions based on grounding, naturalness and truthmaking, to name three salient ones. This paper argues that there are serious issues with fundamentality‐based metaphysics. It will be argued that: (1) the fundamentality‐based approach shapes and restricts our realist and antirealist views in unsatisfying ways, (2) that it is unable to handle the conflicting facts that lie across the envisaged ‘layers’ of the metaphysically structured world, and (3) that the methodological reasons for adopting the fundamentality‐based approach fail. The paper will conclude with a diagnosis of the discussed issues, identifying a common source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reductionist realist accounts of certain entities, such as the natural numbers and propositions, have been taken to be fatally undermined by what we may call the problem of arbitrary identification. The problem is that there are multiple and equally adequate reductions of the natural numbers to sets (see Benacerraf, 1965), as well as of propositions to unstructured or structured entities (see, e.g., Bealer, 1998; King, Soames, & Speaks, 2014; Melia, 1992). This paper sets out to solve the problem by canvassing what we may call the arbitrary reference strategy. The main claims of such strategy are 2. First, we do not know which objects are the referents of proposition and numerical terms since their reference is fixed arbitrarily. Second, our ignorance of which object is picked out as the referent does not entail that no object is referred to by the relevant expression. Different articulations of the strategy are assessed, and a new one is defended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plausibly, any adequate theory of perception must (a) solve what Alva Noë calls ‘the problem of perceptual presence,’ and (b) do justice to the direct realist idea that what is given in perception are garden-variety spatiotemporal particulars. This paper shows that, while Noë's sensorimotor view arguably satisfies the first of these conditions, it does not satisfy the second. Moreover, Noë is wrong to think that a naïve realist approach to perception cannot handle the problem of perceptual presence. Section three of this paper develops a version of naïve realism that meets both of the adequacy conditions above. This paper thus provides strong considerations in favor of naïve realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the status of scientific realism in relation to quantum physics, focusing on the problem of underdetermination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates some unexplored ambivalences of Strawson's distinction between the participant stance marked by reactive attitudes and the objective stance in which such attitudes are deemed inappropriate. First, a distinction between recipient‐oriented and agent‐oriented reasons for taking the objective stance is introduced. These are both practical reasons rooted in the agent's position. The former category of reasons refers to the recipient's capacities for moral agency, and the latter to the agent's interests and concerns. Second, it is shown that taking the objective stance for recipient‐oriented reasons (a) is a moral move, which alters one's normative relation to others; and (b) it may have severe disempowering effects on others. Third, departing from current debates, this investigation refocuses on cases in which the objective stance is grounded on self‐defensive or adversarial reasons. The examination of such cases shows that the objective/participant divide stands behind and organizes the complex dynamics through which moral membership is negotiated. Once agent‐oriented reasons are brought into focus, it appears that the divide is contestable and renegotiable: the boundaries of the relevant community can be altered by claiming and reclaiming responsibility. Correspondingly, reactive attitudes should be acknowledged as means and drives of the struggle for moral and political recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter Katzenstein's 'analytic eclecticism' argues for problem-driven, policy-relevant international relations, where 'messy' problems in the world encourage creative recombinations of theory and sidestep paradigmatic debates. Ideally, the rigor of theory and originality springing from atypical reconfigurations improve policy recommendations. This paper applies this approach to South Korea and Abenomics. Seoul's elites have generally opposed Abenomics, but my eclectic approach argues for six theoretically informed but practically relevant ways in which Japan's reflation is, in fact, in the national interest: First, as a 'responsible middle power' in the G-20, 'Global Korea' is expected to act with a wider view of its national interest in support of global institutions. Second, as a major trading partner, Japan's reflation is good for Korean growth. Third, an appreciated won is good for heavily indebted Korean consumers. Fourth, a normally growing Japan is good for Korean security. Fifth, a normalized Japan is more likely to deal calmly with Korea on history issues. Sixth, a normalized Japan is likelier to contribute to the costs of eventual unification. Per the eclectic approach, these arguments, first, are not selected for paradigmatic commensurability, but rather for problem/policy-relevance. Second, they leverage international relations theory to enrich the menu of options in the ROK policy space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many moral debunking arguments are driven by the idea that the correlation between our moral beliefs and the moral truths is a big coincidence, given a robustly realist conception of morality. One influential response is that the correlation is not a coincidence because there is a common explainer of our moral beliefs and the moral truths. For example, the reason that I believe that I should feed my child is because feeding my child helps them to survive, and natural selection instills in me beliefs and dispositions that help my children survive since that is conductive to my genes continuing through the generations. Similarly, the reason that it's morally good to feed my child is because it helps them to survive, and survival is morally valuable. But if we look at some cases from scientific practice, and from everyday life, we can see, I argue, why this response fails. A correlation can be coincidental even if there is a common explainer. I give an account of the nature of coincidence that draws upon recent literature on scientific explanation and argue that the correlation between moral belief and moral truth is a coincidence, even given such common explainers. And I use this to defend a certain form of debunking argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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