This thesis is a quest to find the relationship that justifies egoistic concern. I point out that what we are inclined to believe about the justification of egoistic concern, let's call it the Old Theory, is that personal identity is the relationship that justifies egoistic concern, that personal identity involves a deep further fact, and that physical and psychological continuity are good evidence for personal identity. I argue that, if personal identity involves the deep further fact, then physical and psychological continuity are not good evidence for personal identity and thus the Old Theory is mistaken. Furthermore, if the everyday egoistic concern that we have for a person who is physically and psychologically continuous with us is clearly rational, then physical and psychological continuity must be good evidence for the relationship that justifies egoistic concern, and thus either personal identity is not the relationship that justifies egoistic concern, or personal identity does not involve the deep further fact. Therefore, I suggest that a new theory about the justification of egoistic concern should have the following structure; some relationship, let's call it E, is the relationship that justifies egoistic concern, E does not involve the deep further fact, and physical and psychological continuity are good evidence for E. I then point out that a new theory about the justification of egoistic concern should take into account the dominant intuitions that the Old Theory was based on, but should ignore intuitions that are based solely on mistaken beliefs flowing from the Old Theory. I argue that it is not easy to separate these two types of intuitions, but, nevertheless, in trying to find E I attempt to capture the intuitions that underlie the Old Theory, while avoiding the use of methods that might capture intuitions that are based solely on mistaken beliefs involved in the Old Theory. After considering the various candidates for E, I conclude that psychological continuity, even if it occurs coincidentally, is the relationship that justifies egoistic concern. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This dissertation begins with the Islamic philosopher Avicenna, who transforms Aristotle’s conception of the efficient cause in the Metaphysics of his Shifā’. Its first goal is to examine the arguments which constitute Avicenna’s metaphysical account of agency. Its second goal is to examine Scholastic disputes about the causal powers of natural agents that arise in connection with his view. In its final chapter, it relates Medieval debates about efficient causality to Descartes’ account of the causal powers of bodies. One of the original features of Avicenna’s account of agency is his argument for the claim that the existence of contingent things requires an efficient cause. This aspect of his view was influential in the Latin West. Avicenna also holds that the cause of the existence of contingent things is an incorporeal principle, which he describes as an agent who “bestows forms”. I argue that Avicenna fails to resolve the tension between this claim and his commitment to an Aristotelian account of generation. This failure sets the stage for Avicenna’s role in Scholastic disputes about the causal powers of natural agents in cases of generation. Both Aquinas and Suarez attribute to Avicenna the view that generation requires the creation of form. They argue that generation occurs through natural processes. Suarez’s view includes the claim that the substantial form of a substance is an immediate efficient cause of its actions. Suarez defends this claim against other Aristotelians, who hold that a substantial form gives being to a composite substance as a formal cause and that the actions of substances depend directly on their accidents alone. Descartes claims in his letter to Regius of January 1642 that it is absurd to hold that substantial forms are immediate principles of action. He thinks that bodies act in virtue of their modes. Here Descartes sides with those Aristotelians who hold that the actions of substances depend directly on their accidents alone. I argue that this aspect of Descartes’ view tells against Daniel Garber’s claim that his denial of substantial forms deprives bodies of causal efficacy.

My thesis is a collection of philosophical essays on the sense of touch. I argue first that touch is much like vision in being unisensory. (This has often been denied). But it is unlike vision in displaying a duality of the proximal and the distal, since it informs us both of the condition of our own bodies, and of the properties of external things. My account of this duality is unorthodox, since I argue that we do not sense distant objects in virtue of sensing the condition of our own bodies. Both forms of touch involve exploratory action—both are forms of haptic perception—but the nature of this involvement is unclear. I defend the view that haptic perceptions are haptic explorations. I first clarify this thesis, then distinguish it from other views, like those of Alva Noë and Susan Hurley, that posit a strong link between action and perception. Despite this interactive nature, touch may seem more constrained than vision and audition in requiring direct bodily contact with objects in the world. I argue against this view, and show that through touch we are capable of sensing objects that are not, and are not perceived as being, in direct contact with our bodies. Here again, touch is somewhat like vision. The development of this account requires conceptual analysis of a range of important issues in the philosophy of perception, including the nature of multisensory experience, the role of bodily awareness in perception, the relation between action and perception, and the structure of non-visual spatial perception. For instance, because touch involves both coordinated bodily movements and a range of distinct sensory receptors in the skin, it is often thought to be a multisensory form of awareness (especially by psychologists). However, this view relies on an implausible conception of multisensory interaction. In its place, I develop a nuanced hierarchy of multisensory involvement according to which touch is a single modality. This is because the various systems involved in touch all predicate or assign sensory properties to the same tangible objects: when we grasp a mug, for instance, many different tactual properties—shape, warmth, texture, etc.—are all felt to belong to the mug. This is similar to what happens in vision with visual objects: when we see an object, a range of different visual properties, largely processed in functionally-distinct systems—are seen as belonging to it. Another unique aspect of my view is the claim that through touch we can experience distal objects—objects not in direct or even apparent contact with our bodies. I develop a positive account of such touch, arguing that distal touch requires (1) a strong interactive connection between our bodies and the distal object (through tools or other such intermediaries) and (2) that distal objects are represented in touch as located in peripersonal space, the space immediately surrounding our bodies, defined by the limits of our exploratory engagement (by how far we can reach or move). This positive account allows for a more robust account of our embodied experience, and shows that touch—at least in some respects—is more like the other senses than typically supposed.

Evolution by natural selection began as a biological concept, but since Darwin it has been recognized to have broader application than biology. Applying evolutionary ideas beyond biology requires that the principles of evolution by natural selection be abstracted and generalized from the biological case. The received view of evolution by natural selection in biology is itself seriously flawed, which understandably renders the project of abstracting it and applying it elsewhere challenging. This thesis develops a generalized account of models of evolution by natural selection which is used to resolve various outstanding issues in the philosophy of biology. This also clarifies the methods and prospects of applying evolution by natural selection to non-biological domains. It does so by analyzing models of evolution both within biology and outside it, relying in particular on the contrast provided by models of firm competition in evolutionary economics. This analysis highlights those aspects of the classical view which must be abandoned or revised, and leads to the development of a neo-dynamical model of evolution, which is developed, explained, defended, and applied to problems in evolutionary biology and multi-level selection theory.

Despite the evident importance of beauty (τὸ καλόν) in Plato, the precise relation between beauty and goodness (τὸ ἀγαθόν) has yet to be specified. Part of the reason for this seems to be the belief that καλός should not be translated ‘beautiful,’ because it has a broader sense and application than our word ‘beautiful.’ A better translation, on this view, would be something like ‘fine.’ But it is difficult to see the difference between fineness and goodness, and it is perhaps for this reason that determining the relation between the two has not been felt an urgent task. In the first chapter we shall investigate the use of the Greek word καλός in some of the major authors prior to and contemporary with Plato in order to determine the strength of the evidence for translations of καλός other than ‘beautiful.’ It will be argued that the evidence for translations of καλός other than ‘beautiful’ is weak, and thus that the word should generally be translated ‘beautiful.’ When we turn to Plato’s understanding of τὸ καλόν, we find that he often seems to associate the concept closely with goodness, and yet there are also passages which suggest a difference between the two. Thus the first question to ask is whether beauty and goodness are at least coextensive for Plato? In the second chapter it will be argued that despite some apparent evidence to the contrary, he does seem to think they are coextensive. In the third chapter we argue that Plato identifies goodness and unity, and that the coextension of goodness and beauty is explained on the model of the necessary connection between certain forms, or immanent characters, in the Phaedo. But it does not follow from this that goodness and beauty are identical. In the fourth chapter we will argue that, though beauty and goodness are connected in concrete particulars, qua forms they are distinct, i.e., there are two separate forms, the form of the good (which is identical to the one) and the form of beauty. Finally, a theme which runs more or less throughout this work is that, contrary to what one might expect, Plato seems to discover what is good by asking what is beautiful. This may seem counterintuitive, because there are passages, like Republic 452d-e and 509b, where it seems that goodness determines or in a way causes beauty, but it seems that when trying to discover what is truly good, Plato always settles on what is beautiful. It may be agreed, even by those who disagree about what goodness is, that things like justice and courage are beautiful, and it is these that Plato always thinks constitute the human good.

In an effort to explore how hermeneutic reason functions in cultural crises, and more specifically, how a Ming loyalist Wang Fuzhi dealt with the political and cultural crises at the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, this dissertation critically examines his commentaries on Confucian classics and historical writings as well as his criticism toward other Confucian scholars and heretical schools. My conclusion is that, unlike his peers’ iconoclastic criticism of Neo-Confucianism, Wang’s uniqueness consists in that he attempted to reconstruct it through such criticism. Through this reconstruction, he tried to provide a solution to the political and cultural crises of his time by promoting universal harmony/he and humanity/ren. In his opinion, humanity originated from the harmonious qi in the universe, was identical with human nature, and demonstrated in the humane governance. Thus, he established a comprehensive system that incorporated cosmology, human nature, and political governance. Wang insisted that human beings’ destruction of the universal harmony caused the rise of perverse qi that gave rise to natural disasters and social conflicts. In order to decrease the amount of perverse qi and in turn the number of bad people and conflicts generated, Wang thought that man could cultivate his own harmonious qi or humanity and thus increase the universal harmonious qi through self-cultivation. Individually, the measures were dependent upon complying with ritual propriety and awakening one’s innate knowledge. Politically, it depended upon the ruler’s humane governance—the cultivation and extension of humanity to the people. Wang’s motivation of reconstruction was also powered by his arrogance. From his slogan, “the Six Classics require me to start a new phase”, he tacitly assumed himself to be on par with Confucius, justifying his criticism of others. Regrettably, his criticism of other non-Confucian schools was often impertinent and biased although his criticism of Neo-Confucianism was to the point.

This dissertation begins with the Islamic philosopher Avicenna, who transforms Aristotle’s conception of the efficient cause in the Metaphysics of his Shifā’. Its first goal is to examine the arguments which constitute Avicenna’s metaphysical account of agency. Its second goal is to examine Scholastic disputes about the causal powers of natural agents that arise in connection with his view. In its final chapter, it relates Medieval debates about efficient causality to Descartes’ account of the causal powers of bodies. One of the original features of Avicenna’s account of agency is his argument for the claim that the existence of contingent things requires an efficient cause. This aspect of his view was influential in the Latin West. Avicenna also holds that the cause of the existence of contingent things is an incorporeal principle, which he describes as an agent who “bestows forms”. I argue that Avicenna fails to resolve the tension between this claim and his commitment to an Aristotelian account of generation. This failure sets the stage for Avicenna’s role in Scholastic disputes about the causal powers of natural agents in cases of generation. Both Aquinas and Suarez attribute to Avicenna the view that generation requires the creation of form. They argue that generation occurs through natural processes. Suarez’s view includes the claim that the substantial form of a substance is an immediate efficient cause of its actions. Suarez defends this claim against other Aristotelians, who hold that a substantial form gives being to a composite substance as a formal cause and that the actions of substances depend directly on their accidents alone. Descartes claims in his letter to Regius of January 1642 that it is absurd to hold that substantial forms are immediate principles of action. He thinks that bodies act in virtue of their modes. Here Descartes sides with those Aristotelians who hold that the actions of substances depend directly on their accidents alone. I argue that this aspect of Descartes’ view tells against Daniel Garber’s claim that his denial of substantial forms deprives bodies of causal efficacy.

My thesis is a collection of philosophical essays on the sense of touch. I argue first that touch is much like vision in being unisensory. (This has often been denied). But it is unlike vision in displaying a duality of the proximal and the distal, since it informs us both of the condition of our own bodies, and of the properties of external things. My account of this duality is unorthodox, since I argue that we do not sense distant objects in virtue of sensing the condition of our own bodies. Both forms of touch involve exploratory action—both are forms of haptic perception—but the nature of this involvement is unclear. I defend the view that haptic perceptions are haptic explorations. I first clarify this thesis, then distinguish it from other views, like those of Alva Noë and Susan Hurley, that posit a strong link between action and perception. Despite this interactive nature, touch may seem more constrained than vision and audition in requiring direct bodily contact with objects in the world. I argue against this view, and show that through touch we are capable of sensing objects that are not, and are not perceived as being, in direct contact with our bodies. Here again, touch is somewhat like vision. The development of this account requires conceptual analysis of a range of important issues in the philosophy of perception, including the nature of multisensory experience, the role of bodily awareness in perception, the relation between action and perception, and the structure of non-visual spatial perception. For instance, because touch involves both coordinated bodily movements and a range of distinct sensory receptors in the skin, it is often thought to be a multisensory form of awareness (especially by psychologists). However, this view relies on an implausible conception of multisensory interaction. In its place, I develop a nuanced hierarchy of multisensory involvement according to which touch is a single modality. This is because the various systems involved in touch all predicate or assign sensory properties to the same tangible objects: when we grasp a mug, for instance, many different tactual properties—shape, warmth, texture, etc.—are all felt to belong to the mug. This is similar to what happens in vision with visual objects: when we see an object, a range of different visual properties, largely processed in functionally-distinct systems—are seen as belonging to it. Another unique aspect of my view is the claim that through touch we can experience distal objects—objects not in direct or even apparent contact with our bodies. I develop a positive account of such touch, arguing that distal touch requires (1) a strong interactive connection between our bodies and the distal object (through tools or other such intermediaries) and (2) that distal objects are represented in touch as located in peripersonal space, the space immediately surrounding our bodies, defined by the limits of our exploratory engagement (by how far we can reach or move). This positive account allows for a more robust account of our embodied experience, and shows that touch—at least in some respects—is more like the other senses than typically supposed.

Despite the evident importance of beauty (τὸ καλόν) in Plato, the precise relation between beauty and goodness (τὸ ἀγαθόν) has yet to be specified. Part of the reason for this seems to be the belief that καλός should not be translated ‘beautiful,’ because it has a broader sense and application than our word ‘beautiful.’ A better translation, on this view, would be something like ‘fine.’ But it is difficult to see the difference between fineness and goodness, and it is perhaps for this reason that determining the relation between the two has not been felt an urgent task. In the first chapter we shall investigate the use of the Greek word καλός in some of the major authors prior to and contemporary with Plato in order to determine the strength of the evidence for translations of καλός other than ‘beautiful.’ It will be argued that the evidence for translations of καλός other than ‘beautiful’ is weak, and thus that the word should generally be translated ‘beautiful.’ When we turn to Plato’s understanding of τὸ καλόν, we find that he often seems to associate the concept closely with goodness, and yet there are also passages which suggest a difference between the two. Thus the first question to ask is whether beauty and goodness are at least coextensive for Plato? In the second chapter it will be argued that despite some apparent evidence to the contrary, he does seem to think they are coextensive. In the third chapter we argue that Plato identifies goodness and unity, and that the coextension of goodness and beauty is explained on the model of the necessary connection between certain forms, or immanent characters, in the Phaedo. But it does not follow from this that goodness and beauty are identical. In the fourth chapter we will argue that, though beauty and goodness are connected in concrete particulars, qua forms they are distinct, i.e., there are two separate forms, the form of the good (which is identical to the one) and the form of beauty. Finally, a theme which runs more or less throughout this work is that, contrary to what one might expect, Plato seems to discover what is good by asking what is beautiful. This may seem counterintuitive, because there are passages, like Republic 452d-e and 509b, where it seems that goodness determines or in a way causes beauty, but it seems that when trying to discover what is truly good, Plato always settles on what is beautiful. It may be agreed, even by those who disagree about what goodness is, that things like justice and courage are beautiful, and it is these that Plato always thinks constitute the human good.

In an effort to explore how hermeneutic reason functions in cultural crises, and more specifically, how a Ming loyalist Wang Fuzhi dealt with the political and cultural crises at the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, this dissertation critically examines his commentaries on Confucian classics and historical writings as well as his criticism toward other Confucian scholars and heretical schools. My conclusion is that, unlike his peers’ iconoclastic criticism of Neo-Confucianism, Wang’s uniqueness consists in that he attempted to reconstruct it through such criticism. Through this reconstruction, he tried to provide a solution to the political and cultural crises of his time by promoting universal harmony/he and humanity/ren. In his opinion, humanity originated from the harmonious qi in the universe, was identical with human nature, and demonstrated in the humane governance. Thus, he established a comprehensive system that incorporated cosmology, human nature, and political governance. Wang insisted that human beings’ destruction of the universal harmony caused the rise of perverse qi that gave rise to natural disasters and social conflicts. In order to decrease the amount of perverse qi and in turn the number of bad people and conflicts generated, Wang thought that man could cultivate his own harmonious qi or humanity and thus increase the universal harmonious qi through self-cultivation. Individually, the measures were dependent upon complying with ritual propriety and awakening one’s innate knowledge. Politically, it depended upon the ruler’s humane governance—the cultivation and extension of humanity to the people. Wang’s motivation of reconstruction was also powered by his arrogance. From his slogan, “the Six Classics require me to start a new phase”, he tacitly assumed himself to be on par with Confucius, justifying his criticism of others. Regrettably, his criticism of other non-Confucian schools was often impertinent and biased although his criticism of Neo-Confucianism was to the point.