This article connects two of Dewey’s generic traits of existence—stability and precariousness—to four elements specified in his preface to Democracy and Education (democracy, evolution, industrialization and the experimental method) and one element specified in his preface to How We Think (childhood). It argues that Dewey’s metaphysics of stability and precariousness is implicit in his philosop...

The following framework of theses, roughly hewn, shapes contemporary discussion of the problem of mental causation: (1) Non-Identity of the Mental and the Physical Mental properties and states cannot be identified with specific physical properties and states. (2) Causal Closure (Completeness) of the Physical The objective probability of every physical event is fixed by prior physical events and...

I take issue with Frank Leavitt's sketch of a pragmatic criterion for the relevance of metaphysics to medical ethics. I argue that appeal to the potential for confusion generated by metaphysical subtlety establishes a need for better communication rather than shows philosophical insight beside the point. I demonstrate that the proposed Criterion of Relevance has absurd consequences, and I claim...

In a recent article entitled ‘What has functional neuroimaging told us about the mind (so far)?’ Coltheart ( 2006 ) concludes that the answer to this question is: ‘nothing’. The essential reason for this gloomy assessment about the value of functional neuroimaging for cognitive psychology boils down to this essential argument, namely, that since psychological theories do not make predictions ab...

In this article, I explore the viability of a shamanist ontology. Through lens German philosopher Ludwig Klages (1872-1956), will address possibility outlining philosophical merits shamanism. was one last European philosophers to represent tradition which took seriously altered states consciousness. opposed destructive ‘Spirit’ (= Reason, Will) nourishing ‘Soul’ (=Life). His thinking can be cal...