Two Conceptions of Second Nature

Two Conceptions of Fundamentality

This article aims to show that fundamentality is construed differently in the two most prominent strategies of analysis we find in physical science and engineering today: (1) atomistic, reductive analysis and (2) Systems analysis. Correspondingly, atomism is the conception according to which the simplest (smallest) indivisible entity of a certain kind is most fundamental; while systemism, as wi...

Two Conceptions of Sustainability

Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees describe the ‘ecological footprint’ (i.e. the ecological capacity, measured in hectares of biologically productive land, needed to supply a given person’s consumption of natural resources and absorb their waste) as a conception of environmental sustainability, and have accumulated significant data to measure the footprints of nations, cities and even individu...

Two Conceptions of Relevance

Two Conceptions of Experience

T HE canonical text relating experience to knowledge for the philosophers of the High Middle Ages was Aristotle’s Metaphysics A.1. The very first remarks in First Philosophy describe how humans, after repeated exposure to the world, come to have art and then science through experience: hominibus autem scientia et ars per experientiam evenit (9812–3: ‚pobaÐnei d âpist mh kaÈ tèxnh di€ t ̈j âmpeir...

Two Conceptions of Subjective Experience

Do philosophers and ordinary people conceive of subjective experience in the same way? In this article, we argue that they do not and that the philosophical concept of phenomenal consciousness does not coincide with the folk conception. We first offer experimental support for the hypothesis that philosophers and ordinary people conceive of subjective experience in markedly different ways. We th...