Month: November 2023

[article] A Theory of Natural Culture and Cultural Nature

ABSTRACT: This essay offers an extended, reasoned walk-through Nathan Lyons’ path-breaking text, Signs in the Dust.  Every so often, a book comes about that manages to show how a variety of philosophical paths, hitherto regarded as separate, are converging on a common terrain.  The value of such texts is to name this common terrain, and to go beyond mere juxtaposition of different philosophical trajectories, actually to disclose the deeper affinity that makes them belong together in a coherent whole.  This is what this book manages to accomplish: by showing the rich tapestry of inquiries converging around the nature/culture relationship, it successfully retrieves the medieval conversation on natural culture and cultural nature.… Read More [article] A Theory of Natural Culture and Cultural Nature

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[article] A Thomistic Argument against the Simulation Hypothesis

ABSTRACT: In this paper we will explore how the action of signs underlying all human experience precludes the possibility that we are being systematically deceived in our perception of reality. The simulation hypothesis, as well as similarly motivated skeptical scenarios, such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis and Descartes’ evil demon thought experiment, wrongly presuppose a modern, dualistic theory of knowledge, as well as a neuroreductionist model of sensation. However, we will see how the action of signs in human cognition presupposes the existence of a relational mode of being, namely, esse intentionale (“intentional being”), which is immaterial and incapable of subjection to technological manipulation… … Read More [article] A Thomistic Argument against the Simulation Hypothesis

Editorial Team