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In his discussion of virtue and sin, John Chrysostom makes frequent reference to the law of nature. He defines it as a moral norm given by God at the time of creation and argues that on account of it humans know what must be done and what must not be done. This article examines the role of natural law in Chrysostom's conception of human action, focusing on the relationship between the law and human freedom. It argues that Chrysostom draws on the philosophical idea of natural law in order to explain human moral responsibility and the capacity for good deeds. By clarifying the interplay between natural law and free choice he rejects the doctrine of determinism. It is shown that the concept of natural law is also fundamental for Chrysostom's instruction as it provides a basis for the moral reformation of the believers' actions and behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars who wonder how the Buddha would take sides in the traditional debate on the existence of free will generally believe that it is possible to attribute to him a single point of view capable of reconciling apparent inconsistencies that arise from the reading of the scriptural pages that might be related to this issue. The thesis of this article is that the Buddha's position on the question of free will is in fact far from being univocal. Rather, in each of the three philosophical registers that can be identified in his teachings, different answers to the same question are implicit--in the personalist dimension of the Buddhadharma, a libertarian language is spoken; the reductionist register of the nonself doctrine, on the other hand, necessarily implies a hard determinist position; and finally, in the antimetaphysical context of the middle path, we find a suspension of judgment regarding the determinism/free will dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immanuel Kant is one of the most influential figures in the history of thought. In the social sciences, Kant's terminology is a cornerstone for many disciplines with the topics he deals with, the arguments he presents, the solutions he suggests, and the new enlightening questions he raises. Especially when we consider how fertile contemporary literature is today on topics such as freedom, determinism and ethics, Kant's relevance becomes more valuable than ever. For this reason, the article focuses on how Kant tried to find a response to the consensus on determinism and freedom through the idea of causality. Kant attempts to address the necessary causal character of the phenomenal world, which is dependent on time and space, together with the characteristics of the intelligible world. One motivation here is to rescue the principle of causality, which had run into trouble in the hands of David Hume. But Kant also wants to establish a concept of causality that makes room for free will. Therefore, his other (and more important) motivation appears to be to open up a space for the moral individual with free will. This article examines Kant's attempt to reconcile the determinism of the natural world, which is the object of study of science, with the autonomy of the subject, which is the basis of moral actions. In addition, the basic foundations of Kant's attempt are examined and an evaluation of his arguments in this direction is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper addresses the way in which local conditions – geographical, biological or astrological – were believed to influence the general constitution of human nature from the viewpoint of natural philosophy. What were the material conditions that constituted the diversity between peoples and individuals? The focus of this paper is on the relation between climatic zones and the complexion of their inhabitants. This relation and the ensuing natural determinism are present in Albert the Great's De natura loci. While not being as specific as Albert in laying out the ethnographic specifics, Thomas Aquinas shared the general framework set out by his teacher that astrological and geographical conditions greatly affect the complexion of the inhabitants. In his unedited commentary on Aristotle's Parva naturalia , John Buridan sticks to the general Aristotelian paradigm, to which Albert and Thomas also adhered, but considers in greater detail the way climatic conditions affect the individual human complexion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'climate' has evolved from its original meaning as an astronomical and geographical reality to a contemporary vision in which it appears as an entity that can be changed and affected by human beings. Long before arriving at the current state of affairs, the thirteenth-century notion of clima was closely related to the influence exerted by the heavens and the supra-terrestrial realm on terrestrial bodies that underwent generation and corruption. It is in this particular sense that we may speak of climate determinism: involving the formative and non-accidental action upon natural beings by climatic or regional conditions that were determined from above. This paper explores Albert the Great's account of climatic determinism by relating the astronomical notion of clima with a pair of notions belonging to natural philosophy: locus and locatum. For this purpose, it will rely on the theory of natural places that Albert developed in De natura loci and in his other works of natural philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturalism novels portray the reality of life in a sharper and more decisive way than realism novels. Naturalism takes the place of building a narrative, like shooting a photographic reality by zooming in. Narrative naturalism normally provides a sharp depiction of reality without idealization. This study identified the description of reality through elements of naturalism in the novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz. This study deployed Emile Zola's naturalism theory with a qualitative descriptive approach. The primary data source was the novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, supported by secondary data from relevant books and journal articles. The data were in sentences or paragraphs collected by reading and note-taking techniques. The results of this study figured out the elements of naturalism in the novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, including aspects of objectivity, setting, determinism, pessimism, and plot twists. The provisions for selecting these elements were based on findings practiced in writing the novel Midaq Alley. The novelty of this article lies in the discovery of elements of Emile Zola's naturalism in the novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz and the evidence of a picture of the postwar situation of Egypt depicted in real, alive, but natural by the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existentialism, after over a century of development, has evolved from a philosophical idea into a way of life. In recent years, a group known as "refined egoists" has emerged in both reality and animated works. The appearance of these extreme existentialists who ignore social responsibility reveals that in this era of transition between old and new ideologies, existentialist thought has awakened in people's value systems. This article intends to analyze the external manifestations of character's existentialism in animation works to summarize the reflections of objective phenomena in reality and to discuss the contradictions and problems that the current young generation are facing between themselves and society. This article uses qualitative research methods to analyze representative characters from three animated series, The Outcast, Killer Seven, and Incarnation, and uses a thematic analysis method that combines existentialism theory to summarize the external manifestations of characters in terms of their internal conflicts, conflicts between individuals, and conflicts between individuals and society. These manifestations include the denial of determinism, affirmation of subjectivity under relative justice, identification with minority groups, denial of authority, and autonomous choice of values. Young generation people are confronted with unprecedentedly great uncertainty and insecurity brought about by the freedom of choice, as well as the social reality of the gradual awakening of existentialist consciousness in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compatibilists aim to solve the causal exclusion problem by arguing that a physical cause and a mental cause are compatible with each other without involving the problematic overdetermination. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I target at Karen Bennett's (2003, 2008) influential compatibilist strategy—one that rests on the assumption that a mental cause is sufficient for bringing about a physical effect, just as a physical cause is. I argue that, on a plausible physicalist picture, this assumption cannot be established. Second, I propose a weaker and more plausible interpretation of the mental efficacy, which takes a mental cause to be necessary (but not sufficient) for a physical effect in a counterfactual sense. The resulting picture of mental causation avoids the difficulties engendered from Bennett's assumption and delivers fresh resources to solve the exclusion problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article shows that Christopher Franklin's No Opportunity Argument fails and argues that it puts requirements on the ability to do otherwise that have nothing to do with determinism. Topics discussed include the Possibility Principle, the idea of the No Possibility Argument, Humean reductionism, problems of non-fundamentality and crowding out, indeterminism and free will tailored for the No Opportunity Argument, and timing of actions and abilities as loopholes of the No Opportunity Argument.

In appraising human actions, an important consideration is whether they are free. If they are compelled, this may be excusatory; if controlled by someone other than the agent, this may mitigate; and if selfishly motivated, this may invalidate excuses. Moral appraisals of action by non‐philosophers do not normally consider whether it can be free under determinism. Metaphysical inquiry about action, by contrast, seems incomplete if it does not consider this. Are there two free will problems, one normative and one metaphysical? If so, they share such terms as ‘could’ and ‘could not’, and thoughtful non‐philosophers question their own normative assumptions once they understand the metaphysical problem determinism poses for the philosophy of action. This paper distinguishes metaphysical from action‐theoretic elements of the free will problem but also connects the metaphysical issues with normative questions about responsibility; it critically appraises some major metaphysical arguments concerning free action; and—to the extent possible in a single paper—it provides a positive account of free action neutral toward determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classic formulation of causal decision theory (CDT) appeals to counterfactuals. It says that you should aim to choose an option that would have a good outcome, were you to choose it. However, this version of CDT faces trouble if the laws of nature are deterministic. After all, the standard theory of counterfactuals says that, if the laws are deterministic, then if anything—including the choice you make—were different in the present, either the laws would be violated or the distant past would be changed. And as several authors have shown, it's easy to transform this upshot of the standard theory of counterfactuals into full‐blown counterexamples to CDT. In response to these counterexamples, I argue here that the problem lies, not so much with CDT's guiding idea—that it's the expected causal consequences of your actions that matter for rational decision‐making—but with the fact that the classic formulation of CDT doesn't pay sufficient attention to the context‐sensitivity of counterfactuals. I develop a contextualist version of CDT which better accounts for this context‐sensitivity. And I show that my theory avoids the problems faced by the classic formulation of CDT in determinstic worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I (re)think An Essay on Man with respect to the history of philosophy, by reading Pope's poem comparatively with Spinoza's Ethics , a method suggested by Jean-Pierre de Crousaz's contemporary critiques of the Essay , which accused Pope of Spinozism. I also consider the Essay in the light of Fredric Jameson's assertion that there exist perennial problems that "philosophy," "theory," indeed "thinking" itself cannot solve, but which must continue to be posed anyway, not set aside or abandoned. I thus suggest a new approach to the Essay , focused on several such problems, which have often vexed previous criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Small human complex systems, here called co-present groups, are found across all fields of human social life. Complexity thinking suggests why this is so: that these groups, irrespective of formal content, have a meta-function of providing maximum complexity to manage the indeterminacy or uncertainty that characterises the most complex of human social issues. This claim depends on an understanding of the functioning of these groups as being characterised by irreducibly complex intersubjective (person to person) relations, which are involved in the processing of raw human experience ('affective processing'), to produce shared meaningfulness. An example of the use of co-present groups in medical continuing professional development (CPD) is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper, Brian Cutter objected to the consequence argument due to its dependence on the principle that miracle workers are metaphysically impossible. A miracle worker is someone who has the ability to act in a way such that the laws of nature would be violated. While there is something to the thought that agents like us do not have this ability, Cutter claims that there is no compelling reason to regard miracle workers as metaphysically impossible. However, the paper contends that miracle workers are indeed impossible according to well-known theories concerning the laws of nature. This result highlights the reliance of the consequence argument on a plausible premise, which is widely accepted by proponents of non-Humean views of laws. The paper also provides a way to explain away the intuition that miracle workers are possible, but this has the upshot that a recent, two-dimensional formulation of the consequence argument is unsound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the symposium held at Rutgers University. Topics discussed include challenges to responsibility presented by contemporary neuroscience, such as physicalistic reductionism, determinism, and epiphenomenalism. The speakers at the symposium include Michael S. Moore, who authored the book as well as six commentators who presented papers analyzing and critiquing Moore's work.

This paper aims to relate two debates about how logic and language influence thought. There is an axis of discussion about whether there exists a plurality of logic or a single logical system as an evaluation criterion for any reasoning context. In linguistics, the debate arising from the strong and weak interpretations of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has centralized the discussion around the degree of influence or determination of language on thought. From different perspectives and theoreticalconceptual frameworks, logic, and linguistics delimit and problematize a field of inquiry and reflection. The article, from a transdisciplinary perspective, intends to account for and postulate communicating vessels between these debates, considering the nuances of each approach. It also seeks to propose its own hypothesis on the problem raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the development of the "Confucian Contingency Model," which challenges individualistic notions of persons, agency, and morality prevalent in contemporary discourse. Topics include three commonly recognized orientations in understanding persons, agency, and morality, namely "Non-Contingent Autonomy," "Contingency-Influenced Agency," and "Determinism."

This essay reads Hobbes' account of human action against Aristotle's accounts of animal motion and human action, thus offering a new perspective for understanding Hobbes' account and illuminating a neglected aspect of Hobbes' relationship to Aristotle. I argue that the basic structure of Hobbes' account is indebted to Aristotle's account of animal motion, except that Hobbes purges the teleological elements from his predecessor and presents a picture that is mechanistic and explicitly deterministic. Moreover, while Aristotle introduces 'deliberation' as a way of explaining the diversity of human actions as their varied attempts at realizing the distinctly human end of the good life, Hobbes' radically anti-Aristotelian notion of 'deliberation' explains that diversity in terms of the fundamental uncertainty of the passions. I conclude with some reflections on two related tensions in Hobbes: between Hobbes' determinism and his account of human action, and between his ethical project of reducing human life to mere life and his separate ethical project of justifying diverse ways of life. This essay contributes to our understanding of the significance of Hobbes' account of human action in both the history of the debate on determinism and the history of ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses the potential implications of computerized methods of communication to French and Francophone studies. Other topics include the legacy of determinism of experts like Michel Foucault and Aristotle, the noncausal relations between political reality and scholarship, and the enunciation of race in French poetry by citing the novel "The Plague" by Albert Camus.

This article was created based on a talk given by Canisia Lubrin with the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA) for their 2022 conference, "Black Solidarities, Thought and the Quest for Black Freedom." It engages with the theme of Black solidarities, thought, and the quest for Black freedom, in the interest of recognizing the complexities of its range. In this era of new forms of Black dispersement, the author offers this as a care work in the core character of Blackness. It is a wish for a kind of respite from the ontological over-determinism that bares down on us from all directions, from the restlessness that forms the tenor of our being in this world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the standard account of directive insincerity, emphasizing an asymmetry between sincere directives and assertives. It discusses the asymmetry arises from the traditional view's exclusion of self-addressed speech, where the speaker issues directives to themselves; aiming to show that this asymmetry is not incoherent; reevaluated in the context of cognitive mechanisms for pragmatic competence; and highlighting similarities with assertives in terms of sincerity determinants.

The connection between Social Work and social relationships can be seen as obvious, but it is complex indeed. The aim of this article is to explore several analytical concepts for a better understanding of the deeply «social» (relational) nature of social work practice. Some fundamental semantic, epistemological, and methodological issues regarding this relationship are briefly explored, with particular attention to the dynamics of networking in coping processes. The background of the paper includes general considerations about the scientific nature and «epistemological object» of Social Work, as well as about the discipline's best place in the ongoing debate between the classical paradigms of determinism on the one hand and of phenomenology on the other. The ambivalent meanings that the widely used term «social» can assume within the label of «Social Work» are analysed, and the different possible connotations of the term «relationship» are discussed. A set of operational coordinates is proposed to better understand what relational (or relationship-based) professional Social Work is and eight levels of relationality in Social Work professional practice are proposed, based on the idea of reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the research question of how divine apostolicity affects God's interaction with the world and humanity, predicates apostolicity as being a divine attribute. The logical extension therefore necessitates consideration of the apostolic attribute as an ontological, Trinitarian and operational characteristic demonstrated in the divine-human inter-relationship. Knowledge was drawn from relevant and authoritative sources: Ancient Near Eastern, Israelite, biblical, Hellenistic, reformation and contemporary theological and scientific. They were examined to accurately articulate diverse academic views, to provide critical appraisal of historical, theological and scientific investigation and theoretical frameworks, axiomatic for current and future research. The research method was of necessity an ontological consideration of the nature of God as a transcendent-immanent and relational reality. Epistemological analysis examines the multiple and developing theories of causation, of divine providence determinist or necessitarian, indeterminist or contingent, or an open participatory view of natural order. Philosophical, theological and scientific paradigms expose the founding theoretical principles confronting positivist-determinist and post-positivist-contingent views, thereafter enabling the proposition of an apostolic paradigm. (Cohen et al., 2018: 3, 5-6, 10, 14, 16, 18, 28, 34). The apostolic paradigm articulates a dynamic relationship to the world and humanity with particular attention to New Testament incarnational Christological and pneumatological parameters that postulate a paradigm change and subsequent rereading of the worldview through apostolic dynamic phases. Herein lies the contribution to the existing body of knowledge and contemporary biblical worldview developments in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpretations of Genesis 50:20 have typically sought to understand the parallelism between good and evil according to systematic categories. Theologians have read the verse as one that invokes notions of human determinism or fate. This article contends for an alternative reading of 50:20 that pays heed to its role within the prevailing plot-structure. By understanding 50:15–21 as a secondary moment of crisis within the broader narrative, Joseph’s assertion invokes a redemptive dynamic. He proclaims the outworking of good, in line with the thematic emphases of the Jacob tôlĕdôt: the notion of royalty and the patriarchal promises. In turn, this outworking of good appeals to a broader narrative arc that extends to God’s “created good” established in Genesis 1. The purpose of such a statement is didactic, as the narrator confronts his readers through the words of Joseph, who has become the herald of redemptive good. Have the readers acquiesced to this worldview, or do they, like the brothers, still have lessons to learn? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new puzzle about logical truth, necessity, and moral responsibility. We defend one solution to the puzzle. A corollary of our preferred solution is that prominent arguments for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility are invalid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with Spinozist philosopher Frédéric Lordon is presented. Topics discussed include epistemological split between British and French Marxism regarding the study of history as a science; agency with free will, designating it as determinism's antipode and accused of judicial pursuit when they cannot be judged responsible for their own actions.

There is a longstanding argument that purports to show that divine foreknowledge is inconsistent with human freedom to do otherwise. Proponents of this argument, however, have for some time been met with the following reply: the argument posits what would have to be a mysterious non‐causal constraint on freedom. In this paper, I argue that this objection is misguided—not because after all there can indeed be non‐causal constraints on freedom (as in Pike, Fischer, and Hunt), but because the success of the incompatibilist's argument does not require the real possibility of non‐causal constraints on freedom. I contend that the incompatibilist's argument is best seen as showing that, given divine foreknowledge, something makes one unfree—and that this something is most plausibly identified, not with the foreknowledge itself, but with the causally deterministic factors that would have to be in place in order for there to be infallible foreknowledge in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newtonian mechanics was for centuries virtually universally regarded as the absolute model of scientific knowledge. However, during the 20th century, developments in physics prompted the need to broaden the conceptual and theoretical framework around fundamental issues such as the predictive power of scientific models or the role of the observer in the description of physical phenomena; this in turn revitalised the long-standing debate between determinism and indeterminism. Today, the disciplinary discussion, far from reaching a consensus, has given rise to new kinds of questions that reflect a change in what Cassirer calls the ideal of knowledge. From a historical synthesis of the debate of the last decades, the present article seeks to point out some contemporary perspectives on indeterminism in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eidos magazine, from the University of the North, presents its 40th issue with a variety of essays and a review. The article by Sebastián Alejandro González Montero and Lucas Uribe Lopera on the concept of community stands out, as well as Filippo Salimbeni's article on a third way in 19th-century political philosophy, and Nicolás García De Castro and Alejandro Villamor Iglesias' articles on the philosophy of science. Other topics addressed include text and experience, art as a map of intensity, the concept of death from S. Kierkegaard's thinking, memory and stigmatization in the case of the Colombian township El Salado. The issue concludes with a review of the book "El nadador de Paestum" by Tonio Hölscher. [Extracted from the article]

I defend counterfactual decision theory, which says that you should evaluate an action in terms of which outcomes would likely obtain were you to perform it. Counterfactual decision theory has traditionally been subsumed under causal decision theory as a particular formulation of the latter. This is a mistake. Counterfactual decision theory is importantly different from, and superior to, causal decision theory, properly so called. Causation and counterfactuals come apart in three kinds of cases. In cases of overdetermination, an action can cause a good outcome without the latter counterfactually depending on the former. In cases of constitution, an action can constitute a good outcome rather than causing it. And in cases of determinism, either the laws or the past counterfactually depend on your action, even though your action cannot cause the laws or the past to be different. In each of these cases, it is counterfactual decision theory which gives the right verdict, and for the right reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cognitive anthropological critique of François Jullien's approach to language and culture. Jullien approaches 'culture' as a coherent set of concepts across time and space, relying primarily on identifying Chinese (and Greek) thought with particular concepts expressed in language. This mischaracterizes human culture, which exists on the level of individual mental representations, and relies on a form of linguistic determinism which fails to stand in the face of psychological and anthropological evidence. This leads Jullien to claim an incredible degree of cultural (and ontological) divergence between the Chinese and Europeans. By accounting for the distribution and dynamism of mental representations, the degree to which thought is underdetermined by language, and above all the divergence of intuitive and reflective cognition on the individual level, we can arrive at an alternative, ontologically realistic account of cultural divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequence argument purports to show that determinism is true only if no one has free will. Judgments about whether the argument is sound depend on how one understands locutions of the form 'p and no one can render p false'. The main interpretation on offer appeals to counterfactual sufficiency: s can render p false just in case there is something s can do such that, were s to do it, p would be false; otherwise, s cannot render p false. Here I show that, in the context of the consequence argument, this interpretation conflicts with widely endorsed principles governing the logic of counterfactuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this essay is to provide an interpretive and evaluative introduction to Franco 'Bifo' Berardi's critical media theory and to situate it with a view to understanding but also thinking beyond the limitations of an aesthetic practice rooted almost exclusively in conscious, language-based thought. It begins by examining the way in which Berardi conceptualizes the techno-social paradigm emerging in the passage from late industrial society to semiocapitalism (a form of capitalism based on immaterial labour and the explosion of the infosphere), connecting this to the ecological-aesthetic concerns of Félix Guattari. It concludes by questioning the prospects of poetry to forge lines of escape from the determinism of techno-linguistic governance, suggesting, by way of N. Katherine Hayles and Donna Haraway, that extra-linguistic, nonconscious resources may provide a broader and more viable theoretical palette for conceiving of indeterminability beyond, behind, and in the interstices of a complex digital ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Walter Pater's exploration of fate as both a literary figure and a philosophical concept, examining its significance in the context of fin de siècle European thought. Topics include the presence of fate in the works of various writers such as Verlaine, Nietzsche, and Maeterlinck, Pater's treatment of fate within the framework of historical determinism and modern science, and the aesthetic transformation of life into a coherent narrative as conceptualized by Pater.

Major creative insights may challenge the fundamental assumptions of a discipline and may generate vigorous (and negative) reactions. Further, such creative insights may require that a scholar courageously defies the crowd and zeitgeist, strives to overcome obstacles and challenges to their views, and develops a strong work ethic that facilitates creativity. B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism is considered as a prototypical example of a major creative insight and current psychological research is discussed that supports Skinner's writings. In addition to showing how radical behaviorism was a major creative insight, the present article evaluates Skinner's writings with the aim to "buy low and sell high" as advocated by an investment approach to creativity (Sternberg & Lubart 1995). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we clarify, unpack, and ultimately resist what is perhaps the most prominent argument for the compatibility of free will and determinism: the epistemic argument for compatibilism. We focus on one such argument as articulated by David Lewis: (i) we know we are free, (ii) for all we know everything is predetermined, (iii) if we know we are free but for all we know everything is predetermined, then for all we know we are free but everything is predetermined, (iv) if for all we know we are free but predetermined, then it is really possible that we are, so (v) compatibilism. We uncover how the crucial epistemic modality underlying (iv) must be understood, and contend that, understood this way, the libertarian can resist (iv). Importantly, however, resisting the argument does commit the libertarian to what has been called "flip-flopping"—but we argue that this is perfectly coherent. We conclude by articulating two crucially ways the libertarian can resist the argument, by saying that we can know that determinism is false "from the armchair". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to one interpretation, Montesquieu believed that laws should be suited to the particular physical and moral characteristics of a nation, and that political change should not be abruptly imposed. However, as Montesquieu nonetheless condemned despotism, he argued that change in despotic regimes should happen gradually through the noncoercive alternative of doux commerce. My aim is to challenge this interpretation of Montesquieu in two ways. First of all, Montesquieu was far more skeptical about the possibility of political change; so strong was his physical determinism that Montesquieu himself thought that despotic states could not be reformed, even through commerce. Second, even though successors of Montesquieu—such as the Abbé Raynal—did view the use of force in reforming despotic states as futile and preferred commerce as a benign alternative, they had to acknowledge that even commerce could not take root in those supposedly despotic states without coercion. The two most representative doux commerce theorists of the eighteenth century, when confronted with the prevailing trope of Oriental despotism, were far less optimistic about the civilizing effect of commerce than today's interpretations suggest. My reading of The Spirit of the Laws and The History of the Two Indies suggests the limits of turning to eighteenth-century doux commerce ideals to theorize political reform in so-called despotic governments today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determinism which denies freedom of action is a common philosophical view. Is the action of such determinists incompatible with Kant's claim that a rationally willed being "cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom" [G 4, 448]? In my paper, I examine Kant's argument for this claim at the beginning of the Third Section of the Groundwork and argue that it amounts to the assertion that one cannot act while being aware of being guided by invalid principles. Belief in determinism does not necessarily amount to such awareness. A structurally similar argument based on the contrast between deliberation and prediction is examined and similarly found wanting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the concept of procedural chances in allocating goods or avoiding harm when individuals have an equal claim. Topics include the distinction between objective chances and subjective probabilities, the introduction of procedural chances and their importance in ensuring equal opportunities, and the compatibility of determinism with the notion of objective chance.

Overseas poems, a neglected type of poetry, reflect the development of the times and the characteristics of civilization. The modern era was not only a critical period of social transformation, but it was also a time of rapid development in overseas poems. Due to their academic and political backgrounds as well as their travel experiences, the overseas poems of Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873-1929), which represent the apex of the genre, show a pattern absent in the poems of other contemporary poets. Their poems were influenced by the theories of geographical determinism and evolutionism. They wanted to find decisive factors regarding the geographical environment from the investigation of different civilizations in the world, and they summed up the laws affecting evolution such as geographical location, sea power, material resources and colonization, which could be used as points of reference in China's future development. Their vision and cultural consciousness were different from those of the Han centralism of the past, in that they embodied the turn of facing the ocean and actively merging into modern civilization, presenting a macro image on a world scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will try to consider the usual allegations of determinism that are directed towards Bourdieu's notion of habitus from a slightly different perspective. One of the most common arguments found in these types of charges is that Bourdieu unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile objective and subjective aspects of social life under one notion. According to critics, habitus is not a viable solution to structure vs. agency debate simply because it cannot be both determined by social structure and open to contingency of autonomous subjective interpretations of the social world. I will show that this critique of Bourdieu actually is inspired by incompatibilist philosophy which maintains that regarding human action either determinism or free will can be true. However, those sociologists who, in criticising Bourdieu's understanding of habitus, follow the incompatibilist line of reasoning usually overlook the compatibilist side of this old debate in moral philosophy. In that regard, I will argue that Frankfurt and Taylor's compatibilist account of second order desires and strong evaluations can help us to better understand how habitus can be determined by environmental social factors and, at the same, time not only foster free will, but also provide a theoretical insight into radical forms of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the career and theories of Samuel H. Pillsbury, a prominent legal scholar and novelist. It focuses on Pillsbury's "defense of value" theory of punishment, which emphasizes the violation of societal norms and disrespect for human value, rather than the inherent badness of the offender. It also discusses Pillsbury's exploration of the problem of evil and the question of free will versus determinism, and his approach to navigate between the two poles.

A common style of argument in the literature on free will and moral responsibility is the Manipulation Argument. These tend to begin with a case of an agent in a deterministic universe who is manipulated, say, via brain surgery, into performing some action. Intuitively, this agent is not responsible for that action. Yet, since there is no relevant difference, with respect to whether an agent is responsible, between the manipulated agent and a typical agent in a deterministic universe, responsibility is not compatible with the truth of determinism. In response, some theorists have argued that there is a relevant difference, and have developed two sorts of accounts of that difference: bypassing views, and manipulator-focused views. Manipulator-focused views suggest that the difference concerns the presence of a manipulator, whereas bypassing views suggest that the relevant difference concerns the fact that the action issues from attitudes that the manipulated agent acquired in a way that bypassed her capacities for control over her mental life. One sort of case used to decide between these sorts of accounts is a case of machine induction, which is just like a manipulation case, yet the change in the agent is the result of some natural force. Against the received view, Xiaofei Liu argues that such cases pose problems for bypassing views, and favor manipulator-focused views instead. This paper addresses Liu's arguments, as well as a variety of cases, concluding that cases of machine induction do not provide motivation for a bypassing theorist to adopt a manipulator-focused view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determinism is frequently understood as implying the possibility of perfect prediction. This possibility then functions as an assumption in the Manipulation Argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Yet this assumption is mistaken. As a result, arguments that rely on it fail to show that determinism would rule out human free will. We explain why determinism does not imply the possibility of perfect prediction in any world with laws of nature like ours, since it would be impossible for an agent to predict with certainty any future event that is causally influenced by events outside her own backward light cone yet inside the backward light cone of the future event. This is the light-cone limit and it undermines the Manipulation Argument or limits what this argument can tell us about the relevance of determinism to free will. We also respond to objections that the light-cone limit is irrelevant to the Manipulation Argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 15-minute city concept was introduced as a post-COVID strategy to support more sustainable recovery from the pandemic and develop complete, climate-sensitive, and resilient neighborhoods. This review examines key neighborhood planning movements to identify the origins of the 15-minute city concept. These include the garden city, neighborhood unit plan, modernist urbanism, post-modern urbanism, and eco-urbanism, which have emerged since the late 19th century. The results of the study show that the concept of the 15-minute city has ten basic characteristics: proximity, density, diversity, mixed-use, modularity, adaptability, flexibility, human-scale design, connectivity, and digitalization. The concept has been successful in advancing theoretical debates on sustainable urbanism. However, some criticisms of past planning movements also apply to the 15-minute city. Similar to the neighborhood unit and modernist urbanism, the concept follows a philosophy of physical determinism, setting goals without specifying how or by what means they will be achieved. At this point, one can only speculate about the future of the concept. A more detailed study of the real-world applications of the concept is needed before one can thoroughly discuss its strengths and weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]