David Macarthur

Putnam's natural realism and the question of a perceptual interface

According to Hilary Putnam, natural realism is a form of direct realism in the philosophy of perception that promises to help see us past an irresolvable metaphysical dispute between realism and anti-realism. Illumination depends upon the claim that in perception that there is no interface between the cognitive powers of the mind and the causal powers of the world. In the present paper I aim to show that there is a hidden complexity in Putnams notion of a perceptual interface. On a trivializing reading, Putnam intends only to reject a modern materialist version of the traditional ‘veil of ideas’. On a richer reading, he intends also to reject the view that the intentional content of experience is autonomous with respect to the external world. I conclude by suggesting that natural realism is not mere common sense and that its fate is tied to its ability to respond to the skeptical threats that help to motivate the traditional options of realism and antirealism.

Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition by Barry Allen

A popular view of traditional Chinese philosophy has it that it is focused solely on the question of how to live, leaving issues of theoretical knowledge—say, the development of modern science—aside. In this arresting, highly readable, and thought-provoking book Barry Allen, one of the most imaginative philosophers working today, provides a powerful polemical portrayal of Chinese philosophy of knowledge that corrects this and other common misconceptions. Allen’s book is far from being a mere lesson in the history of Eastern thought. He argues for the relative advantages of ancient Chinese philosophy in confronting the challenges of our industrialized techno-scientific world that combines a scientific expansion of knowledge with a global capitalist economy keen to develop new technologies on the basis of new scientific discoveries—for example, the atomic bomb, coalfired and nuclear power plants, the internet and social media, genetic cloning. A major source of trouble is an entrenched fact/value dichotomy that seems to provide a principled reason for setting aside ethical questions about the point or value of knowledge, with potentially dire consequences—such as mass destruction, man-made climate change, alienation, human cloning. Allen sees this as a dangerous stupidity. Indeed, in a coup de grâce Allen contends that a genuine philosopher—a lover of wisdom—should be closer to the Chinese sage than to the Western academic philosopher, since Chinese wisdom trumps Platonic wisdom which is misidentified with contemplative knowledge. The wisdom of the sage is a matter of ethical intelligence in the use of knowledge. Allen writes [224]:

Possibilities of Perception by Jennifer Church

find themselves. Partly as a reaction to these changes, but partly driving them, states have increased their co-operation in attempting to control migration flows, and have attempted to accrue as many benefits as possible from the phenomenon. We have therefore seen the emergence of a great number of international agreements, from temporary labour migration programs to co-operation aimed at the containment of irregular migration. These changes, I have argued [2013], point towards the emergence of a complex system of multi-level governance for migration that is developing alongside, but also changing, the traditional, state-based, practice of migration regulation and control. While Carens briefly mentions what he calls techniques of exclusion, he fails to consider them as part of an emerging system of governance of human mobility and how much they are changing our practices around borders. These changed practices raise new normative questions that remain unaddressed in Carens’s discussion, despite its specific methodological commitments. This is not to say that they need remain so; the richness of Carens’s discussion offers all of the material needed for such an enterprise, and I am sure that this book will be invaluable in the continued study of the ethics of immigration but also of human mobility more generally.

Reflections on “Architecture is a Gesture” (Wittgenstein)

This paper is an extended meditation on Wittgenstein’s remark, “Architecture is a gesture” by way of a many-sided contrast and comparison with Adolf Loos’s influential architectural criticism. The paper makes the case for the artistic status of architecture according to what I call Wittgenstein’s communicative action model of art. The conception of architecture as frozen gestures is an apt metaphor for the power of architecture to express (aesthetic) ideas that glorify its purpose. The final section of the paper is a discussion of the modern architectural gesture of anti-ornamentalism.

Working on Oneself in Philosophy and Architecture: A Perfectionist Reading of the Wittgenstein House

How are we to understand the relation between Wittgensteins philosophy and architecture as exemplified by Wittgensteins only architectural commission, the house in Kundmanngasse, Vienna (1926–1928)? That there is some intimate relation worthy of our attention is attested to by Wittgensteins stature as a philosopher and the close connection between Wittgensteins life and thought. Since the Wittgenstein House was built shortly after Wittgenstein published the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), standard interpretations have seen the House in terms of this books method, style, or ethics. In this paper, I shall suggest a new perfectionist reading, which takes seriously Wittgensteins ethical aim of “working on oneself” by overcoming the temptation to instruct others, from some imagined higher plane, about how to live the examined life.