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research articles
1. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
Rufus Duits What Would a Deontic Logic of Internal Reasons Look Like?
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The so-called ‘central problem’ of internalism has been formulated like this: one cannot concurrently maintain the following three philosophical positions without inconsistency: internalism about practical reason, moral rationalism, and moral absolutism. Since internalism about practical reason is the most controversial of these, the suggestion is that it is the one that is best abandoned. In this paper, I point towards a response to this problem by sketching a deontic logic of internal reasons that deflates moral normativity to the normativity of instrumental rationality, and provides support for the assertion that one can hold fast simultaneously to internalism and at least many of the intuitive commitments of liberal moral thinking. Crucial to the proposal is an account of the enkratic principle – I ought to attempt to realise what I ultimately desire – as the source of obligations we owe to ourselves. I attempt to show how from this, in conjunction with some plausible assumptions, obligations to others might be derived.
2. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
Ioana Grancea Visual Modes of Ethotic Argumentation: An Exploratory Inquiry
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Ethotic arguments are defined as sequences of claims-and-reasons regarding speaker character, based on which the plausibility of speaker assertions can be questioned. This is an exploratory study concerning the role of visuals in ethotic arguing. In this paper, I bring together contributions from visual argumentation theory and from studies regarding various modes of construing an ethotic argument, in an attempt to offer an adequate account of the argumentative action of images in ethotic sequences of discourse. In the last section, I propose a case study which illustrates the argumentative action that visuals may perform in the ethotic genre of advertising.
3. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
Christophe Perrin Faire l’amour
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What does it mean to ‘make love?’ Or, rather, what are we doing when we ‘make love?’ This expression makes of love a praxis on which the history of philosophy, rather modest, has said little. Philosophy has certainly evoked love, but always as a passion, an emotion, a feeling, and rarely as an action, exercise or even as a test. It is this aspect of the issue that it is important to study in order to determine it. At bottom, only a definition will be in question.
4. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
Andreea Poenaru Echoes of the Eugenic Movement from Interwar Romania in Communist Pronatalist Practices
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The present article dwells on the idea of the empowerment of women as it was used by the Communist regime. Eugenics, a field much discussed in inter-war Romania, was the main tool in controlling women. The principles of this science, related to the idea of biology as destiny, were adopted and applied so that the private sphere became public. My thesis is that even if these principles were used in the communist strategy in order to strengthen the nation, in fact, their core aspect – reproduction – became only a means for increasing work force and in the end weakened the family and implicitly the nation.
5. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
James O. Young The Buck Passing Theory of Art
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In Beyond Art (2014), Dominic Lopes proposed a new theory of art, the buck passing theory. Rather than attempting to define art in terms of exhibited or genetic featured shared by all artworks, Lopes passes the buck to theories of individual arts. He proposes that we seek theories of music, painting, poetry, and other arts. Once we have these theories, we know everything there is to know about the theory of art. This essay presents two challenges to the theory. First, this essay argues that Lopes is wrong in supposing that theories of arts were developed to deal with the ‘hard cases’ – developments such as Duchamp’s readymades and conceptual art. This is a problem since Lopes holds that the buck passing theory’s capacity to deal with the hard cases is one of its virtues. Second, this essay argues that the buck passing theory has no account of which activities are arts and no account of what makes some activity an art.
discussion notes/debate
6. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
Terence Rajivan Edward Does Marilyn Strathern Argue that the Concept of Nature Is a Social Construction?
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It is tempting to interpret Marilyn Strathern as saying that the concept of nature is a social construction, because in her essay “No Nature, No Culture: the Hagen Case” she tells us that the Hagen people do not describe the world using this concept. However, I point out an obstacle to interpreting her in this way, an obstacle which leads me to reject this interpretation. Interpreting her in this way makes her inconsistent. The inconsistency is owing to a commitment that she shares with previous British anthropologists, a commitment which points to an incompatibility between two intellectual traditions.
7. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
Rocco J. Gennaro H.O.T. Theory, Concepts, and Synesthesia: A Reply to Adams and Shreve
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In response to Fred Adams and Charlotte Shreve’s (2016) paper entitled “What Can Synesthesia Teach Us about Higher Order Theories of Consciousness?”, previously published in Symposion, I argue that H.O.T. theory does have the resources to account for synesthesia and the specific worries that they advance in their paper, such as the relationship between concepts and experience and the ability to handle instances of ‘pop-out’ experiences.
8. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
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9. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
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10. Symposion: Volume > 3 > Issue: 4
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