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Drawing on insights found in both philosophy and psychology, this paper offers an analysis of hate and distinguishes between its main types. I argue that hate is a sentiment, i.e., a form to regard the other as evil which on certain occasions can be acutely felt. On the basis of this definition, I develop a typology which, unlike the main typologies in philosophy and psychology, does not explain hate in terms of patterns of other affective states. By examining the developmental history and intentional structure of hate, I obtain two variables: the replaceability/irreplaceability of the target and the determinacy/indeterminacy of the focus of concern. The combination of these variables generates the four-types model of hate, according to which hate comes in the following kinds: normative, ideological, retributive, and malicious.
Drawing on insights found in both philosophy and psychology, this paper offers an analysis of hate and distinguishes between its main types. I argue that hate is a sentiment, i.e., a form to regard the other as evil which on certain occasions can be acutely felt. On the basis of this definition, I develop a typology which, unlike the main typologies in philosophy and psychology, does not explain hate in terms of patterns of other affective states. By examining the developmental history and intentional structure of hate, I obtain two variables: the replaceability/irreplaceability of the target and the determinacy/indeterminacy of the focus of concern. The combination of these variables generates the four-types model of hate, according to which hate comes in the following kinds: normative, ideological, retributive, and malicious.
A vast range of our everyday experiences seem to involve an immediate consciousness of value. We hear the rudeness of someone making offensive comments. In seeing someone risking her life to save another, we recognize her bravery. When we witness a person shouting at an innocent child, we feel the unfairness of this action. If, in learning of a close friend’s success, envy arises in us, we experience our own emotional response as wrong. How are these values apprehended? The three most common answers provided by contemporary philosophy explain the consciousness of value in terms of judgment, emotion, or perception. An alternative view endorsed mainly by authors inspired by the phenomenological tradition argues that values are apprehended by an intentional feeling. In this model, it is by virtue of a feeling that objects are presented as being in different degrees and nuances fair or unfair, boring or funny, good or bad. This paper offers an account of this model of feeling and its basic features, and defends it over alternative models. To this end, the paper discusses different versions of the model circulating in current research which until now have developed in parallel rather than in mutual exchange. The paper also applies the proposed account to the moral domain and examines how a feeling of values is presupposed by several moral experiences.
Rational agency is of central interest to philosophy, with evolutionary accounts of the cognitive underpinnings of rational agency being much debated. Yet one building block—our ability to argue—is less studied, except Mercier and Sperber’s argumentative theory (Mercier and Sperber in Behav Brain Sci 34(02):57–74, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x10000968 [Titel anhand dieser DOI in Citavi-Projekt übernehmen] , 2011, in The enigma of reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2017). I discuss their account and argue that it faces a lacuna: It cannot explain the origin of argumentation as a series of small steps that reveal how hominins with baseline abilities of the trait in question could turn into full-blown owners of it. This paper then provides a first sketch of the desired evolutionary trajectory. I argue that reasoning coevolves with the ability to coordinate behavior. After that, I establish a model based on niche construction theory. This model yields a story with following claims. First, argumentation came into being during the Oldowan period as a tool for justifying information ‘out of sight’. Second, argumentation enabled hominins to solve collective action problems with collaborators out of sight, which stabilized argumentative practices eventually. Archeological findings are discussed to substantiate both claims. I conclude with outlining changes resultant from my model for the concept of rational agency.
Explaining humans as rational creatures—capable of deductive reasoning—remains challenging for evolutionary naturalism. Schechter (Philosophical Perspectives, 24(1)437–464, 2011, 2013) proposes to link the evolution of this kind of reasoning with the ability to plan. His proposal, however, does neither include any elaborated theory on how logical abilities came into being within the hominin lineage nor is it sufficiently supported by empirical evidence. I present such a theory in broad outline and substantiate it with archeological findings. It is argued that the cognitive makeup of any animal is constituted by being embedded in a certain way of life. Changing ways of life thus foster appearances of new cognitive abilities. Finally, a new way of life of coordinated group behavior emerged within the hominins: anticipatory group planning involved in activities like making sophisticated spears for hunting. This gave rise to human logical cognition. It turned hominins into domain-general reasoner and adherents of intersubjective norms for reasoning. However, as I argue, it did not—and most likely could not—give rise to reason by deductive logic. More likely, deductive reasoning entered our world only a few thousand years ago: exclusively as a cultural artifact.
Stanley Cavell is one of very few philosophers who systematically reflect on the impact and influence of autobiographical detail, experience, and preferences on their philosophical work. The aim of this essay is to show how Cavell’s use of autobiographical exploration is rooted in his early aesthetic theory, in particular his view of the similarities between philosophy and aesthetic criticism. Cavell argues that criticism starts by exploiting and incorporating a subjective vantage point, eventually bringing the reader to test the significance of a work on herself. In his ‘Aesthetic Problems of Modern Philosophy’, Cavell states exactly this form of appeal to the ‘We’ of author and reader as the basic move of his own version of ‘ordinary language philosophy’. It is because of the connections Cavell sees between criticism and philosophy that his aesthetic diagnosis harks back on his overall critical style of thinking.
The book deals with a comprehensive constellation of narrative and visual, often counterposed representations of the causes, course, and results of the assault on the Palace of Justice of Colombia by a guerrilla commando and the immediate counterattack launched by state security forces on November 6, 1985, as well as with the local memorial traditions in which the production, circulation and reproduction of these representations have taken place between 1985 and 2020. The research on which it is based was grounded in the method and perspective of classical anthropology, in as much as qualitative fieldwork and the search for the perspective of the actors involved have played a central role. Within that context, memory entrepreneurs belonging to diverse sectors, from the far-right to the human rights movement, were followed through multisited fieldwork in various locations of Colombia, as well as in various countries of America and Europe. The analyses of fieldwork data, documental sources, and visual representations that constitute the core of the argument are framed in the field of memory studies and mainly based on theoretical and methodological resources from Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory, Jeffrey Alexander’s theory of social trauma, and Ernst Gombrich’s characterization of iconological analysis.
The book is composed of four chapters preceded by an introduction and followed by the conclusions and documental appendices, and substantiates three main theses. The first is that the Palace of Justice events were a radio- and television-broadcasted dispersed tragedy that affected the lives of actors from different social sectors and regions of Colombia, who have launched since 1985 multiple memorial initiatives in different fields of culture, thereby contributing to the formation and intergenerational transmission of a widespread cultural trauma. The second is that the narrative and visual representations at the core of that trauma express a vast universe of local representational traditions that can be traced at least until the early 20th century, and therefore preexists the so-called Colombian “memory boom”, dated to the mid-1990s. As an example of the preexistence and longstanding impact of these traditions, the local usage of the figure of “holocaust” for representing the effects of politically motivated violence is analyzed regarding the Palace of Justice events, but also traced to other representations emerged in the decade of 1920. The third thesis is that analyzing the diverse, frequently counterposed accounts of political violence elaborated within these traditions provides an opportunity to explore a wide variety of understandings of the causes and characteristics of the longstanding Colombian social and armed conflict.
Keywords: Political violence, Cultural trauma, Collective Memory, Iconology, Holocaust, Colombia.
This thesis develops a naturalist theory of phenomenal consciousness. In a first step, it is argued on phenomenological grounds that consciousness is a representational state and that explaining consciousness requires a study of the brain’s representational capacities. In a second step, Bayesian cognitive science and predictive processing are introduced as the most promising attempts to understand mental representation to date. Finally, in a third step, the thesis argues that the so-called “hard problem of consciousness” can be resolved if one adopts a form of metaphysical anti-realism that can be motivated in terms of core principles of Bayesian cognitive science.
NGO brokers between local needs and global norms: trajectories of development actors in Burkina Faso
(2021)
Local NGO brokers in Africa and beyond negotiate and mediate between (inter)national donors and potential beneficiaries within their communities. They translate local needs into development projects to make them suitable for international donors. This article looks at two main conditions that influence their work: First, windows of opportunity, which open and close according to structures and institutions beyond their sphere of influence; and second, their personality and skills. Based on two case studies from Burkina Faso, this article offers insights into biographies and life stories of such brokers where engagement leads to a distinguished lifestyle that contains aspects of cosmopolitanism and distinctiveness.
NGO brokers between local needs and global norms: trajectories of development actors in Burkina Faso
(2021)
Local NGO brokers in Africa and beyond negotiate and mediate between (inter)national donors and potential beneficiaries within their communities. They translate local needs into development projects to make them suitable for international donors. This article looks at two main conditions that influence their work: First, windows of opportunity, which open and close according to structures and institutions beyond their sphere of influence; and second, their personality and skills. Based on two case studies from Burkina Faso, this article offers insights into biographies and life stories of such brokers where engagement leads to a distinguished lifestyle that contains aspects of cosmopolitanism and distinctiveness.