Philosophy

When a theory, as the general relativity, linked to special relativity, is foundation of a scientific paradigm, through normal science and academy, scientifics, professionals, professors, students and journals of that scientific community, the paradigm, it self-sustains and reproduces. Thus, the research is obligated and limited to apply the model existent of the paradigm to formulate problems and solve them, without searching new discoveries. This self-protection of the paradigm causes it to end its cycle of life, only after a long time, until that arise unresolved anomalies, some presents since origin, that they finally cause its change by other new paradigm. In this work, we study the most important anomalies that are part of the foundations of general relativity with the goal of promoting the call period of transition that is previous to scientific revolution. We use critical analysis method for rereading the general relativity, from the perspective of the history of science and philosophy of science. We find, the structural and complex anomaly of general relativity based on metaphysical spacetime that produces the metaphysics replaces physics. Also, two internal anomalies their direct consequences. These are: matter curves metaphysical spacetime, and metaphysical spacetime determines the geodesic motion of physical matter. We conclude that general relativity has no valid physical concept of spacetime, therefore of gravity. For these reasons, a new paradigm is needed.

Journal of Modern Physics, 2014, 5, 364-374 Published Online April 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jmp http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jmp.2014.56047 How to cite this paper: Guillen Gomez, A.L. (2014) Relativity Current Paradigm with Unresolved Anomalies. Journal of Modern Physics, 5, 364-374. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jmp.2014.56047 Relativity Current Paradigm with Unresolved Anomalies Alfonso Leon Guillen Gomez Independent Scientific Researcher, Bogota, Colombia Email: email@example.com Received 17 February 2014; revised 13 March 2014; accepted 11 April 2014 Copyright © 2014 by author and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract When a theory, as the general relativity, linked to special relativity, is foundation of a scientific paradigm, through normal science and academy, scientifics, professionals, professors, students and journals of that scientific community, the paradigm, it self-sustains and reproduces. Thus, the research is obligated and limited to apply the model existent of the paradigm to formulate problems and solve them, without searching new discoveries. This self-protection of the paradigm causes it to end its cycle of life, only after a long time, until that arise unresolved anomalies, some presents since origin, that they finally cause its change by other new paradigm. In this work, we study the most important anomalies that are part of the foundations of general relativity with the goal of promoting the call period of transition that is previous to scientific revolution. We use critical analysis method for rereading the general relativity, from the perspective of the history of science and philosophy of science. We find, the structural and complex anomaly of general relativity based on metaphysical spacetime that produces the metaphysics replaces physics. Also, two internal anomalies their direct consequences. These are: matter curves metaphysical spacetime , and metaphysical spacetime determines the geodesic motion of physical matter. We conclude that general relativity has no valid physical concept of spacetime, therefore of gravity. For these reasons, a new paradigm is needed. Keywords Relativity, Spacetime, Gravity, Physics, Metaphysics, Paradigm, Scientific Revolution 1. Introduction Science is divided into factual and formal science. The first seeks the objective knowledge, i.e. knowledge of reality. The last studies the ideal entities that are created by thought. The scientists of a particular factual science only can do its scientific practice through a set of recognized A. L. Guillen Gomez 365 theories. These theories form its basis that must be conserved, "often eliminating novelties which undermine it" (Bernath and Vidal, 2007) [1]. Research does not discover the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education" that is based on these theories (Kunt, 1996) [2]. Theories imply a systematic ordering of concepts, principles and laws about the object of inquiry of a particular factual science and are mainly of two kinds. One is concerned with understanding, which is descriptive and analytical, and the other is with explanation and prediction, transcending the facts. A theory is a conceptual unit of facts, assumptions and hypotheses. This unit shows how facts are subordinated to general principles or laws. A scientific theory must be consistent with the facts and verified by experiments or observations. Theories focus on one selected aspect of the object according to the goals of a particular factual science (Bernath and Vidal, 2007) [1]. A set of theories are the foundation of the normal science that "means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific communities acknowledge for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice". These achievements are called paradigms. A paradigm is essential to scientific inquiry-"no natural history can be interpreted in the absence of at least some implicit bodies of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism" (Kunt, 1996) [2]. Paradigms have a cycle of life. They emerge from pre-paradigmatic theories in competition. "To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem to be better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted" (Kunt, 1996) [2]. When a new paradigm is adopted by the scientists of a particular science the previous paradigm and/or the other pre-paradigms disappear. The paradigm transforms groups into a profession or, at least, a discipline. And from this, the formation of specialised journals, foundation of professional bodies and a claim to a special place in academe follow (Pajares, 2012) [3]. The paradigm becomes the normal science that through the scientific inquiry it actualizes and increases. But, no effort is made to discover anomalies. When anomalies pop up, they are usually discarded or ignored. Anomalies are usually not even noticed and no effort is made to invent a new theory (and there's no tolerance for those who try) (Pajares, 2012) [3]. Research results during a long time are the refinement of the vocabulary and concepts, development new technologies, the construction of complex equipment, and the realization of highly precise experiments and sophisticated methodological observation. This professionalisation leads to immense restriction of the scientist's vision, rigid science, resistance to paradigm change, and a detail of information and precision of the observation-theory match that can be achieved in no other way. New and refined methods and instruments result in greater precision and understanding of the paradigm (Pajares, 2012) [3]. But while the governed paradigm-based research is "an attempt to force nature into the pre-formed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies" (Kunt, 1996) [2], and through normal science, the paradigm is self-perpetual. Paradoxically, with the cumulative development during a long time of the paradigm, researchers can recognise that something has gone wrong. Consequently, anomalies appear. There are three ways: through discovery-novelty of fact; by invention-novelty of theory; or by reunderstanding theory. Consequently, anomalies appear. Discovery begins with the awareness of anomaly-the recognition that nature has violated the paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science. The recognition of anomalies results in crisis that is a necessary condition for the emergence of novel theory and for paradigm change (Pajares, 2012) [3]. When crisis scientists confronted with anomalies or took a different attitude toward existing paradigms and therefore the nature, their research changes. The proliferation of articulations in competition, the disposal for rehearse it all, the explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and the debate on the foundations, are symptoms of a transition of the normal investigation to non-ordinary (Kunt, 1996) [2]. Theoretical alternatives are made, which initially can be speculative theories. Crisis is the essential tension implicit in scientific research. In responding to this crisis, scientists generally do not renounce the paradigm that has led them into crisis. Rather, they devise usually numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to eliminate any apparent conflict. All crises are closed in one of three ways. (1) Normal science proves able to handle the crisis-provoking problem and all return to "normal." (2) The problem resists and is labelled, but it is perceived as resulting from the field's failure to possess the necessary tools with which to solve it, and so scientists set it aside for a future generation with more developed tools. (3) A new candidate for paradigm emerges, and a battle over its acceptance ensues (Pajares, 2012) [3]. Once it has achieved the status of paradigm, a paradigm is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its place. Because there is no such thing as research in the absence of a paradigm, to reject one paradigm A. L. Guillen Gomez 366 without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself. Transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new one from which a new tradition of normal science emerges is not a cumulative process. It is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals. This reconstruction changes some of the field's foundational theoretical generalisations. It changes methods and applications. It alters the rules (Pajares, 2012) [3]. The result is a scientific revolution that is a non-cumulative developmental episode in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one (Pajares, 2012) [3], i.e., a profound change (Bachelard, 2010) [4]. The paradigm change is complete when the paradigm has been adjusted so that the anomalous become the expected. The result is that the scientist is able "to see nature in a different way" (Kunt, 1996) [2]. The scientific progress occurs only through scientific revolutions. Successive transition from one paradigm to another vía of a revolution is the usual pattern of development of a mature science (Kunt, 1996) [2]. In the science of physics, according to mechanic, since the epoch of Aristotle's pre-paradigm, there have been the revolutions of Galilei-Newton and Einstein. "The mechanics of Isaac Newton in the 17th century, the special relativity and the general relativity in the twentieth century, were paradigms to represent and understand the universe" (Jaoude, 2013) [5]. In Aristotle's physics, the motion was caused by force, "there was absolute time, absolute space and an absolute rest frame, provided by earth" (Ashtekar, 2006) [6]. Newton introduced the classical mechanics paradigm applied to the motion in the macroscopic world. This paradigm is based on principle of least action, determinism and law of inertia of Galilei. The inertial motion is not caused by force but by absence of force. The gravitational motion is caused by force. The "time was sill represented by a 1-dimensional continuum and was absolute, the same for all observers. All simultaneous events constituted the 3-dimensional spatial continuum. But there was no absolute rest frame. Thanks to the lessons learned from Copernicus, earth was removed from its hitherto privileged status. Galilean relativity was made mathematically precise and all inertial observers were put on the same physical footing" (Ashtekar, 2006) [6], according to Galilei's transformation. Einstein introduced the relativistic mechanics as a new paradigm which generalizes the principle of inertial motion to all motion, including the gravitational motion. "Einstein revolutionized the notions of space and time, first through special relativity and then, a decade later, through general relativity" (Ashtekar, 2006) [6]. "Modify fixed concepts (inertial mass, gravitational mass and gravity) in order to fit a series of new experimental facts into a coherent world ruled by an "improved" paradigm: the relative mechanics paradigm" (Bass, 2002) [7]. "General relativity due to the numerous experiments made, especially after 1960, all with results impressively accurate to favour of this theory, to its conceptual integration with its antecedent the special relativity and the numerous theories derived in physics, astronomy and cosmology truly the relativity is the current physics paradigm" (Guillen, 2013) [8]. "A new, better model emerged and with it new kinematics, was called special relativity". Time lost is absolute standing. Only the 4-dimensional space-time continuum had an absolute meaning. Space-time distances between events are well defined but time intervals or spatial distances between them depend on the state of motion of the observer, i.e., of the choice of a reference frame" (Ashtekar, 2006) [6]. In general, relativity of the action of a free particle is proportional to the length traveled by the particle along a geodesic' space and time fusing to form a 4-dimensional continuum. The geometry of this continuum is curved and the amount of curvature in a region encodes the strength of the gravitational field there. Space-time is not an inert entity. It acts on matter and can be acted upon". "This is a profound paradigm shift. Since all physical systems reside in space and time" (Ashtekar, 2006) [6], the action of a free particle is proportional to the length traveled by the particle along a geodesic. Thus, classical mechanics is extended to particles traveling at speeds close to c, including electromagnetism in spacial relativity and gravity, in general relativity, beyond the reach of Galilei's relativity. Mainly the differences, between the Newton's paradigm and the relativistic paradigm, in the special relativity are the discoveries reached, with subsequent scientific development to Newton, in laws of motion in the inertial systems; while, in the general relativity, the geometrization of gravity, a force, is in the case de Newton. The mechanic laws, of Galilei-Newton, are apply only to the inertial systems, without including the privileged inertial system of Lorentz, i.e. only systems in that electromagnetic laws are valid, while in the special relativity the laws of the nature are valid in all the inertial systems. Therefore, it includes Lorentz's system, and also the law of the maximun limit of speed and speed constant of light in vacuum, and for this reason between inertial systems, to calculate the change of coordinates, it uses the transformation of Lorentz, while in Newton, it uses the transformation of Galilei, since it does not include such effects of the speed of light, that in the special relativity implies, the relativity of time and space, while in Newton, the time and space are absolute. On the other hand, in A. L. Guillen Gomez 367 general relativity is generalized by the inertial motion of the plane space, to the curved spacetime. Thus Einstein identifies the functions guv with the gravitational field and this field with gravity and, since the functions guv express geometric relations between events, then he geometrizes gravity, i.e. consequence of the method based on the principle of equivalence between the inertial system, the accelerated system and the gravitatory system applied in the differential tensorial geometry used by Einstein. Relativistic mechanics coexists practically since its foundation with, its main external anomaly, quantum mechanics, is applied in the scale of the microscopic world, in the context of classical mechanic, quantizing the action on the order of the Planck constant, that is, its elemental unit, and responding to Schrödinger's wave function. Quantum mechanics is governed by the wave-particle duality of energy and matter and Eisenberg's uncertainty principle. Relativistic mechanics with the relativistic quantum mechanics has succeeded in developing quantum mechanics applied with the special relativity, but not with general relativity. Thus, the relativistic physics lost determinism and quantum theory lost the action quantized. But, relativistic quantum mechanics is only an approximation to relativistic quantum field theory in which particles are interpreted as field quanta and of course this theory can describe creation and annihilation of particles, where its amount changes (Messiah, 1981) [9]. On the other hand, the result of applying general relativity into quantum theory is the quantum gravity, a critical external anomaly in relativistic physics. While general relativity is a geometric theory on gravity of the inertial motion in an elliptically curved spacetime in change, quantum gravity is a physical theory on gravity, of the interaction forces between the virtual graviton and all other quants, included the same virtual graviton. "Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories―the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics". "Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other―they both cannot be correct. One of the major endeavors in physics today", is the search for a new theory that will incorporates them both―a quantum theory of gravity" (Hawking, 2001) [10]. Relativistic mechanics has other anomalies yet more profound anomalies, since those are one structural anomaly and internal anomalies, from its conception. Here, in this paper, we analyze the structural anomaly and two internal anomalies with the goal of proposing the change of this paradigm. 2. Relativistic Paradigm without Epistemological Break The fundamental component of relativistic paradigm, i.e. general relativity is an application of Galilean's relativistic theory on the inertial motion in euclidean spacetime plane, to riemannian spacetime, elliptically curved. This is the conclusion of the author, through reread the general relativity theory since the perspective of the history of the science and the philosophy of the science. The unique geometry known in the time of Galilei was Euclid's geometry, from year 300 BC, that studies the geometric properties of plane space, i.e., with a curvature equal to 0, where the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to 180 grades, based in five axioms, considered as weak the fifth, on the parallel lines: for a point outside a line, only it can draw a line parallel to the given line. Euclidean geometry initially restricted to a space, of two orthogonal dimensions, compound by infinite points and lines, that is represented in a cartesian coordinates system, where a point is determined by real numbers x1, x2 was applied to three orthogonal dimensions x1, x2, x3 and generalized to a space n-dimensional Rn metric (ημν), where metric allows one to define and compute the length of straight lines on the Rn. Thus, a space is a geometric object, used to determine and to measures the shape, size, angle, distance and relative position, direction and sense of objects or events. Previous to formulation of law of the inertia, Galilei did three experiments inside of a euclidean space R3. Two experiments were done on a body of shape pyramidal, therefore, with an inclined surface and the third experiment on the surface of a plane body. In the first experiment established that a sphere was moving uniformly accelerated when descended and in the second experiment animated with an initial speed, when ascended the sphere was decelerated uniformly. Galilei induced that on plane, the sphere would be in rest when its initial speed equal 0, or with rectilinear uniforme motion whether its initial speed greater than 0. However, when Galilei realized its third experiment on plane, animated with an initial speed, the sphere was decelerated uniformly. Then, Galilei discovered that was due to the friction force between the surface of plane and sphere. Course, whether it eliminates this friction, sphere would move rectilinearly with uniform speed. Through this inductive experimental method Galilei formulated the inertia principle: The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which everybody, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line (Newton, 1846) [11]. Thus, Galileo refuted conception of Aristotle A. L. Guillen Gomez 368 on motion, since motion is not caused by force as he said, but by absence of force. Aristotle believed that bodies would move only while it is pushing or pulling them, i.e., moved by a mover. "Everything that is in motion must be moved by something". "The mover too is moved, as has been said-every mover, that is, which is capable of motion, and whose immobility is rest-when a thing is subject to motion its immobility is rest. To act on the movable as such is just to move it. But this it does by contact, so that at the same time it is also acted on. Hence we can define motion as the fulfillment of the movable qua movable, the cause of the attribute being contact with what can move so that the mover is also acted on. Now since wherever there is a movement, its motion always acts upon something, is always in something, and always extends to something (by "is always in something" I mean that it occupies a time: and by "extends to something" I mean that it involves the traversing of a certain amount of distance: for at any moment when a thing is causing motion, it also has caused motion, so that there must always be a certain amount of distance that has been traversed and a certain amount of time that has been occupied)". "Can never be motion of mover and moved, because there cannot be motion of motion" (Aristotle, 1930) [12]. The rectilinear uniform motion arises of a geometric property of plane space, i.e. the plane space tells matter how to move, exactly the plane space says to matter move it rectilinearly, but it does not cause motion, i.e., change from rest into motion. Since, whether a body has a initial speed is because was caused by action of a previous force that was applied to it; a force that acted by contact, at exact moment that such force communicated to body a determined speed, i.e., the effect of an instantaneous action applied by contact; when that force ceased the speed is maintained by inertia; however, whether exists a friction force on body is need a mover to maintain motion, therefore, in that sense, Aristotle is correct. Surely, the force does not cause motion, but force is cause of change of speed, for example, it is need a force to animate a body, initially with speed equal to 0, i.e. in rest, for that it moves with a speed greater than 0. Also, the inertial force that arises when the inertial motion is altered or is ended is reaction force to a action force that was applied to a body in inertial motion, that can put it out its rectilinear way, in any case, accelerate it. Understand correctly true difference between thought on motion of Aristotle and Galilei is source frequently of lethal mistake. Rigorously, the principle of inertia of Galilei establishes that a body maintains its state of rest or motion while a force does not act, and in the arena of a plane space, its geometric property it determines that a body it moves rectilinearly in the direction and sense of the force that put out body of rest; thus is need a force to initiate body motion and a mover to maintain to body moving when on it acts a force of reaction, as in form approximated Aristotle said. Galilei established, through their experiments, the principle of relativity, which declares the motion is relative because always is necessary refer the mobile body, inside a space system coordinates, called inertial frame of reference, to other where there is an observer. Thus, there are an infinite number of inertial frames. Only in this arena is possible determine that a body is moving, since, whether a body is traveling at uniform speed there is not any experiment able to determine whether the body is moving or in rest. Therefore, the speed and the states of rest or motion are relative (However, the author, of this work, has proved the absolute motion (Guillen, Sept 2013)) [13]. To determine the motion is used the transformation of Galileo that expresses the coordinates of an inertial frame of reference, i.e., at R3, of a body or, at R4 metric (ημν) of an event, respect to the coordinates of other inertial frame, doing possible in this last inertial frame establish whether the body or event is in relative state of motion or spatial rest, also measure its relative speed. This transformation has the property of that the laws of motion are the same, in all the inertial frames, property known as principle of invariance. In summary, the theory of Galilei is a mechanic physics theory, whose bodies and events occurs inside plane space of geometry of Euclides, governed by principles of inertia, invariance, rectilinear uniform motion, trajectory as a geometric property of a plane space and galilean transformation. In the decade of 1830, it discovered two options to Euclid's geometry, consequence of the affine geometry that studies parallel lines, and it enabled change the fifth postulate, resulting the called non-Euclidean geometries. These are: • Hyperbolic geometry, with curvature negative, where the sum of the angles of a triangle is less than 180 grades, generated mainly by Friedrich Gauss, Nikolái Lobachevski and János Bolyai, through change the fifth postulate of Euclid's geometry by: given a line l and a point P not on l, then there are two distinct lines through P that are parallel to l (Ross, 1990) [14]. • Elliptical geometry, with curvature positive, where the sum of the angles of a triangle is greater than 180 grades, generated by Friedrich Gauss for sphere in two dimensions, and generalized for sphere in n-dimensions by Bernhard Riemann, through change the fifth postulate of the Euclid's geometry by: given a line l A. L. Guillen Gomez 369 and a point p outside l, there exists no line parallel to l passing through p. • Here, we will update the Galilei's physics applied to elliptical geometry, i.e., the Galilei's mechanic at the curved positively Riemann's space in 4 dimensions. Thus: • Principle of inertia: all body in rest or in geodesic motion will stay in such state, while body is free of force, inside of an inertial frame. • The trajectory of the motion of a body will be uniformly positive curved and it arises of property geometric of the space. • Principles of relativity and invariance are conserved although generalized to all frames. According to the generalized invariance the laws of physics are expressed in same form in all coordinate systems; intrinsic property of the tensors that are independent of any chosen coordinate system. As it observes Galilei's physics when is applied to elliptical geometry, coincides in the essential with general relativity. Too, whether in Newton's physics the gravitational motion is explained by the geodesic motion, Galilei-Newton's physics it geometrizes. Since this perspective general relativity is resulted of the development of the relativity of Galilei. In particular, the generalization of the principle of inertia of the plane space to the positively curved space (Guillen, 2006; Petkov, 2012) [15] [16]. In the elliptical geometry the straight line is equivalent to the geodesic that is defined as a curve such that a point moving along the curve with the velocity of constant magnitude (i.e. the velocity can change its direction but not its magnitude) has the acceleration vector perpendicular to the given surface, i.e. the acceleration component tangent to the given surface is zero (Pokorny, 2012) [17]. General relativity incorporates a number of basic principles that correlate spacetime structure with physical objects and processes. Among them is geodesic principle: free massive point particles traverse timelike geodesics. One can think of it as a relativistic version of Newton's first law of motion (Malament, 2009) [18]. By the geodesic hypothesis in general relativity, the assumption that the worldline of a free particle is a timelike geodesic in spacetime is a natural generalization of Newton's first law, that is, a mere extension of Galileo's law of inertia to curved spacetime. This means that in general relativity a particle, whose worldline is geodesic, is a free particle which moves by inertia (Petkov, 2012) [16]. In consequence, with relativistic paradigm, based in general relativity, is there is a new paradigm? yes, in sense of Kunt but without the epistemologic rupture of Althusser, which implies irreversibility in the paradigm shift, because it no longer supports backtracking, it is established a new notion, without return point (Gassmann, 2013) [19], emergence of unprecedented concepts of a new scientific problem (Balibar, 2004) [20]. Since, in general relativity whether there is reversibility, with respect to Galilei-Newton's paradigm, as we have analized, i.e., in Galilei's mechanic potentially resides general relativity. Then, in the relativist paradigm does not exist epistemologic rupture. However, often it believes otherwise. 3. Estructural Anomaly In Galilei-Newton, the science of the physics works its object of study: the matter and energy and their relations through of the process of production of a factual science. Thus, through theoretical and experimental tools transforms the model that is its object of work, by scientific praxis whose peculiarity is that unlike an economic production is not to achieve the material form previously exists and pursued in a specific production of goods or services, but to test hypotheses, making methodologically observations and experiments for produce an new knowledge or improving an existing one (Althusser, 1967) [21] in the cumulative process of normal science, inside of the current paradigm. In the Galilei-Newton's physics is used a scene to locate its object of study; these are the inertial frames defined by coordinates. They are geometric objects that its study corresponds to the formal science of the geometry. The inertial frame leads to structural anomaly of Galilei-Newton's paradigm due to that is not only the frame of the mechanic, also determines the trajectory of motion and thus it is strongly linked to spacetime, a concept no defined yet by physics, but by metaphysics (Guillen, Dec 2013) [8]. This anomaly is preserved when the inertial frame of the plane spacetime is generalized to the positively curved spacetime. In consequence, via general relativity, the relativistic paradigm reproduces anomaly of the inertial frame formulated as geodesic frame. In addition, critically aggravates this structural anomaly, when gravity is defined as the positive curvature of spacetime, resulting from the geodesic frame, in Galilei-Newton a physical phenomenon. The intrinsic geometry of positively curved spacetime M4 υ guv, since, has not a constant metric tensor between two events (Euclides's A. L. Guillen Gomez 370 spacetime, whether), therefore, the shortest curve is a geodesic, that is equivalent to the straight line of a Euclidean coordinate system. General relativity is based conceptually in the equivalence between inertial mass and gravitational mass, that Galilei discovered, and that was proved in the Eötvös experiment, and in two thinking experiments that were realized in the called Einstein's box, in Minkowski's spacetime, of the special relativity, that is a pseudo-euclidean space R4, with the property that speed of a massive particle or a body must be less than speed of electromagnetic wave in the vacuum c, this is an intrinsec geometric property of the interval(s) between two events, this interval can be: space-like whether s2 > 0, time-like whether s2 < 0 and light-like whether s2 = 0; surely, the only interval possible for a massive particle or a body is space-like. In the first experiment the Einstein's box is in free fallen, but for an interior observer all happen as if its frame is an inertial frame of Galilei, although restricted to little speeds while to an exterior observer is a gravitational frame, this experiment was tested in artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, the result is the principle of equivalence between an inertial frame and a gravitational frame. In the second experiment the Einstein's box is uniformly accelerated according value g, in the orthogonal direction to soil and in up sense, but for an interior observer all happen as whether its frame is a gravitational frame while to an exterior observer is an accelerated uniformly frame, in addition, the exterior observer discovers that light traces a positively curved trajectory that the interior observer explains as effect of its curved spacetime, the result is the principle of equivalence between an uniformly accelerated frame and a gravitational frame. To Einstein as gravitational frame is equivalent to inertial frame and equivalent to uniformly accelerated frame, also uniformly accelerated frame equivalent to positively curved spacetime then gravity is caused by positively curved spacetime since the uniform acceleration suffered by the bodies submitted to the action of gravity arises of this last equivalence: if plane spacetime is curved by acceleration then curved spacetime produces acceleration. Thus, Einstein told, to Newton: all the reference frames are equivalents. And like Galilei told on motion, to Aristotle; Einstein told, to Newton: gravity is not a force but accelerated uniformly motion caused by positively curved spacetime, based in the wrong interpretation of Galilei's principle. In general relativity, the phenomenon of gravity is removed from the physics and it is put in arena of geometry. The tensor of order 4 (M4), geometric object represented the positively curved spacetime, metric (guv), this metric allows one to define and compute the length of positively curved lines on M4, it becomes the model same of gravity, since gravity is the same frame where the physical phenomenon occurs. Thus, the theory on gravity is presented in the intrinsic language and logic of the formal science of the mathematic, in the complex scene of differential geometry that uses the techniques of the linear and multilinear algebra, differential calculus and integral calculus of tensors of order 4. A mathematic whose variables are geometric objects in 4 dimensions, very difficult understand and operate, whose concepts replace to the concepts of the physical theory and they block the intellectual access to the anomalies of a physical theory geometrized. Such mathematical concepts are very obscure concepts as the curvature tensor of a Riemann manifold that "is a little monster of multilinear algebra whose complete geometrical meaning remains obscure" (Gromov, 1994) [22]. 4. From Galilei, Einstein Arrived to General Relativity Surely, the discovery of non euclid's geometries does not drive necessarily to the geometrization of the physics as happened with general relativity, because the application of a physics theory to an inertial frame, itself is an mathematical exercise, which only is important always that it can use in the description of a physical phenomenon . Hyperbolical geometry or elliptical geometry applied to Galilei's mechanic only changes the inertial trajectory of the motion of a body in a negatively curved line, or in a positively curved line. The election of any of two options only is relevant whether exist in the nature, a inertial motion corresponding that necessarily it will must test. In effect, gravitational motion traces a curved positively trajectory, which does possible explain, this trajectory using elliptical geometry applied to the gravitational motion. This does not mean, that the gravitational motion has as cause the elliptical geometry of the spacetime, similarly that the Euclid's plane geometry of the spacetime is not cause of motion of a body that need a force to leave its state of rest, but, whether that a body in inertial motion traces a rectilinear trajectory at a plane space or a geodesic at a curved spacetime. Einstein did not the previous reflections. He elaborated general relativity using the principle of equivalence between an accelerated system and a gravitational system. As bridge, he used the principle of equivalence between an inertial system, and a gravitational system, based in the equivalence between inertial mass and gravitational mass, experimentally established. A. L. Guillen Gomez 371 Thus, Einstein applied the double principle of equivalence and he established that inside of an infinitesimal lapse of the spacetime, since in it its variation of gravity can be considered null, a inertial frame is equivalent to a gravitational frame as also an accelerated uniformly frame is equivalent to a gravitational frame. Einstein considered the simple case of a transformation from an inertial frame of special relativity to a frame in uniform rectilinear acceleration. In the accelerated frame of reference a homogeneous inertial field arises. Because of the key empirical fact of the equality of inertial and gravitational mass, Einstein was able to identify this field as a gravitational field (Norton, 1993) [23]. From the principle of equivalence, the inertial frame, the accelerated uniform frame and the gravitational frame are equivalents, i.e., kinematics produces inertia, acceleration or gravity according the coordinates of a particular observer, therefore inertia, acceleration and gravity are relative kinematics phenomena depending of the system of coordinates of the observer, absolutely a accident geometric of the spacetime, relative to the configuration geometric of spacetime of a particular observer. The change from the inertial frame to gravitational frame or vice versa, or from the accelerated frame to the gravitational frame or vice versa, is a simple question of change of coordinates, i.e., technically, a geometric manipulation of spacetime. Einstein started with the invariant interval of Minkowski in differential form 2 2 2 2 2 2d d d d ds c t x y z= − − − (1) where (x, y, z, t) are the space and time coordinates of an inertial frame of reference in a Minkowski spacetime. Transforming to arbitrary coordinates xu for 1, , 4u =  , becomes 2d d duv u vs g x x= (2) where the magnitudes g11, etc., have values which vary with the position in the continuum. Einstein employed his principle of equivalence to interpret the matrix of quantities guv that had arisen with the introduction of arbitrary coordinates. In the special case of the principle, the transformation from (1) to (2) is from an inertial coordinate system to a uniformly accelerated coordinate system. In that case, the matrix of coefficients guv reduces to that of (1), except that c now is a function of the coordinates ( ), ,x y z′ ′ ′ . That is, (2) becomes ( )2 2 2 2 2 2d , , d d d ds c x y z t x y z′ ′ ′ ′ ′ ′ ′= − − − (3) According to the principle of equivalence, the presence of a gravitational field was the only difference between the spacetime of (3) and that of special relativity (1). Therefore Einstein interpreted the coordinate dependent c of (3) as representing a gravitational field and, more generally, the guv of (2) as representing a gravitational field (Norton, 1993) [23]. From principle of equivalence, inertia and gravity are identical in essence. From this and from the results of the special theory of relativity, it follows necessarily that the symmetric fundamental tensor (guv) determines the metric properties of space, the inertial relations of bodies in it, as well as gravitational effects (Norton, 1993) [23]. As the gravitational field is a simple consequence of a new expression of Minkowski coordinates and these a new expression of cartesian coordinates, the gravitational field does not imply energy-momentum. However, out of limit, of the infinitesimal lapse, the gravitational field has the full properties of a curve geometry, from the Gaussian coordinate system according (2), that is a logical generalization of the cartesian frame. Thus, the spacetime continuum of the general theory of relativity is not a Euclidean continuum. We start off on a consideration of a Galilean domain, i.e. a domain in which there is no gravitational field relative to the Galilean reference-body K. The behaviour of measuring -rods and clocks with reference to K is known from the special theory of relativity, likewise the behaviour of isolated material points; the latter move uniformly and in straight lines. Now let us refer this domain to a random Gauss coordinate system or to a mollusc as reference-body K1. Then with respect to K1 there is a gravitational field G. We learn the behaviour of measuring-rods and clocks and also of freely-moving material points with reference to K1 simply by mathematical transformation. We interpret this behaviour as he behaviour of measuring-rods, clocks and material points under the influence of the gravitational field G. Here upon we introduce a hypothesis: that the influence of the gravitational field on measuring rods, clocks and freely-moving material points continues to take place according to the same laws, even A. L. Guillen Gomez 372 in the case where the prevailing gravitational field is not derivable from the Galileian special case, simply by means of a transformation of coordinates. According to the general principle of relativity, the space-time continuum cannot be regarded as a Euclidean one. We refer the four dimensional spacetime continuum in an arbitrary manner to Gauss coordinates (Einstein, 1920) [24]. The gravitational field is at best a geometric not a physical field (Minkowski, 2012 [25]. We denote everything but the gravitational field as matter. Our use the word therefore includes not only matter in the ordinary sense, but the electromagnetic field as well (Einstein, 1997) [26]. When gravitational phenomena are adequately modelled by the spacetime curvature it is evident that the gravitational field is not something physically real, that is, it is not a physical entity. It is a geometric field (Petkov, 2012) [16]. We have seen how Einstein defined the gravitational field to be identical to the so-called metric tensor guv used by Riemann to describe the geometry of a curved space. Einstein's minimalist adoption of guv as the embodiment of the gravitational field was significant and has far-reaching ramifications (Odenwald, 2009) [27]. This complete reduction to kinematics yields a purely geometric field of gravitation (composed of metric, curvature, geodesic lines) and a theory which is fully consistent with the original guiding principle of equivalence (Dalton, 1997) [28]. Thus, Einstein geometrized the phenomenon of gravity, since he does not only explain the trajectory of the gravitational motion, but also, the gravitational acceleration and the atraction between particles and in general between the bodies by the geodesic motion, in the positively curved spacetime, an metaphysical entity. General relativity as geometric phenomenon, and as phenomenon of the metaphysic spacetime, structurally is based in a critical and complex anomaly, partially inherited of Galileo-Newton and completed by Einstein. 5. Internal Anomalies In general relativity, the matter-energy acts on spacetime and spacetime acts on matter-energy, in particular: matter tells space-time how to bend and space-time tells matter how to move (Wheeler, 1990) [29]. This symmetric relation between spacetime and matter puts in relation to two entities that are contraries, since while matter-energy is an physical entity, spacetime is a geometrical entity, according to super substantivalism, the best conception on it, a metaphysical entity (Grant, 2013) [30]. In addition, Einstein pushed physics to abyss of metaphysics when he explained the phenomenon of gravity as the consequence of the curvature of spacetime (Guillen, Dec 2013) [8]. In terms of the current relativistic paradigm in this work, we have conceptualized both, i.e. the metaphysical spacetime and the metaphysical phenomenon of the gravity as the critical complex structural anomaly, that produces the internal two anomalies, of this paradigm, that are analized in this work. These anomalies arise of the processes concerning to: • Matter-energy curves spacetime. General relativity defines and determines such process, only operationally, through of the Einstein's field equations: 8πuv uv uvG g T+ Λ = where Guv is Einstein tensor formed from the second derivatives of the metric tensor, metric tensor guv that describes spacetime curvature, Λ is the cosmological constant and Tuv the distribution of mass-energy. But, it is a mystery as a physical entity, matter-energy, can curve a metaphysical entity, spacetime, also with positive curvature, although it could be with negative curvature. • Curvature of spacetime puts in accelerated motion, to a body in rest. General relativity only operationally determines this process through of the geodesic equation (Einstein, 1922) [31]: 2 2 dd d 0 d dd uu xx x s ss βα αβ+ Γ = But, it is a mystery as a metaphysical entity, spacetime, can put at accelerated motion to a physical entity, matter-energy, yet worst that spacetime, that lacks of energy-momentum (Logunov, 1989) [32], can put at accelerated motion, to a body in rest (Van Flandern, 2004) [33]. In the special relativity, the particles or bodies always are in motion, although they can be in rest, respect to space; in such case, to put them in motion is need apply a force. In the general relativity the particles and bodies always are accelerating, yet when they are in rest, because Einstein established the equivalence between positively curved spacetime and accelerated spacetime. Thus, if a spacetime is positively curved, then the motion of particles or bodies is accelerating. But, the Earth is positively curved, its geodesics converge at the north and A. L. Guillen Gomez 373 south poles, however, particles on geodesics are not observed that they are accelerating. Although, it says that Earth is not spacetime. Will be that Earth has not spacetime? 6. Conclusions The result, of this work, is that the current relativistic paradigm is the development of the classical paradigm, without epistemological break, when conserving the Newton's spacetime as a geometric container, with a real existence, of matter-energy, however, now as dynamic actor. Also, generalizing the principle of inertia of Galilei of the plane space, to positively curved spacetime, and by this via, it geometrizes physics, when it is explained the phenomenon of gravity as the effect of the positive curvature of the spacetime and in summary, our conclusions are: • The general relativity structurally is based on the complex anomaly of the metaphysical spacetime and the replacement of physics by metaphysics due to that gravity is a metaphysical phenomenon. • The general relativity presents a first internal anomaly by no given conceptual explanation as physical matter -energy curve metaphysical spacetime. • The general relativity presents other second internal anomaly by no given conceptual explanation as the curvature. A simple geometric property of metaphysical spacetime can put in accelerated motion, to the physical particles and physical bodies, yet in rest. Due to the previous anomalies, it is necessary to have a new paradigm. References [1] Bernath, U. and Vidal, M. (2007) The Theories and the Theorists: Why Theory Is Important for Research. Foundation for Research in Open and Distance Learning, Oldenburg. [2] Kunt, T. (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolution. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. [3] Pajares, F. (2012) Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions: A Synopsis from the Original. http://stripe.colorado.edu/~yulsman/paradigms.pdf [4] Bachelard, G. (2010) La formación del espíritu científico. Contribución a un psicoanálisis del conocimiento objetivo. Siglo XXI, Buenos Aires. [5] Jaoude, A.A. (2013) The Theory of Metarelativity: Beyond Albert Einstein's Relativity, 97-109. http://www.google.com.co/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F% 2Fthescipub.com%2Fpdf%2F10.3844%2Fpisp.2013.97.109&ei=loMXU-nhJMW_kQell4CQCA&usg=AFQjCNGbrKr L3eI94BitzALv6RKgCwF_zg&bvm=bv.62286460,d.eW0 [6] Ashtekar, A. (2006) Space and Time: From Antiquity to Einstein and Beyond, 1-10. http://igpg.gravity.psu.edu/people/Ashtekar/articles/spaceandtime.pdf [7] Bass, A. (2002) Consolidacion de un paradigma de la fisica. http://www.scielo.org.ar/pdf/cfhycs/n15/n15a14.pdf [8] Guillen, A.L. (2013) Gravity, Metaphysics or Physics? 68-74. http://fundamentaljournals.org/ijfps/downloads/58_IJFPS_Dec_2013_68_74.pdf [9] Messiah, A. (1981) Quantum Mechanics 2. North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam. 875. [10] Hawking, S. (2001) A Brief History of Time. http://www.fisica.net/relatividade/stephen_hawking_a_brief_history_of_time.pdf [11] Newton, I. (1846) Newton's Principia: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Tr, Motte's A. Ed Daniel Adee, New York. http://www.google.com.co/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CEUQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F% 2Fwww.forgottenbooks.org%2Fdownload_pdf%2FNewtons_Principia_1000136637.pdf&ei=sYcXU-GzJ9DqkAfI6Y GQCg&usg=AFQjCNH9N8-sLJu0sbki4NVq3zGCoAxOcg&bvm=bv.62286460,d.eW0 [12] Aristotle (1930) Physics. Books III, V, VII. Tr Hardie R.P. and Gaye. Works of Aristotle v. 2, R.K. W.D. Ross, ed, Clarendon Press, Oxford. [13] Guillen, A.L. (2013) International Fundamental Journal of Physical Sciences, 50-53. http://fundamentaljournals.org/ijfps/downloads/54_IJFPS_Sept_2013_50_53.pdf [14] Ross, S.W. (1990) Non-Euclidean Geometry. PHD Thesis, University of Maine, Maine. http://library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/RossSW2000.pdf [15] Guillen, A.L. (2006) Gravedad si es una fuerza. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Gravedad+si+es+una+fuerza.+guillen&btnG=&hl=es&as_sdt=0%2C5 A. L. Guillen Gomez 374 [16] Petkov, V. (2012) Can Gravity Be Quantized? http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Petkov_PetkovFQXi4_2.pdf [17] Pokorny, P. (2012) Geodesics Revisited: Chaotic Modeling and Simulation. http://www.cmsim.eu/papers_pdf/january_2012_papers/25_CMSIM_2012_Pokorny_1_281-298.pdf [18] Malament, D. (2009) On the Status of the Geodesic Principle in General Relativity. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4908/1/GeodesicLaw.pdf [19] Gassmann, C. (2013) La ruptura epistemológica según Bachelard, Althusser y Badiou, 34-52. http://www.filo.unt.edu.ar/rev/episte/rev/10/epi_10.pdf [20] Balibar, É. (2004) El concepto de "corte epistemológico" de Gaston Bachelard a Louis Althusser, en escritos por Althusser, Nueva Visión, Buenos Aires. [21] Althusser, L. (1967) La revolución teórica de Marx. Tr. Martha Harnecker. Siglo XXI, México. [22] Gromov, M. (1994) Rendiconti del Seminario Matematico e Fisico di Milano, 61, 9-123. [23] Norton, J. (1993) Reports on Progress in Physics, 56, 791-858. http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/decades.pdf [24] Einstein, A. (1920) Relativity: The Special and General Theory. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/works/1910s/relative/relativity.pdf [25] Minkowski, H. (2012) Space and Time Minkowski's Papers on Relativity. In: Petkov, V., Ed., Minkowski Institute Press, Moscu. http://rgs.vniims.ru/books/spacetime.pdf [26] Einstein, A. (1997) The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity. http://www.academia.edu/375613/Einsteins_Original_Paper_on_General_Relativity [27] Odenwald, S. (2009) Spacetime: Gravity. In: Haisch, B. and Lindblom, J.F., Eds., Universe Foundation, Redwood. [28] Dalton, K. (1997) Gravity, Geometry, and Equivalence. 1-3. http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9601004.pdf [29] Wheeler, J. (1990) A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime. W. H. Freeman, Scientific American Library, San Francisco. [30] Grant, S. (2013) The Metaphysics of Spacetime Substantivalism: A Methodological Study of the Structure of Spacetime in the Context of General Relativity. PhD Thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin. http://otago.ourarchive.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10523/4176/GrantSarahK2013PhD.pdf?sequence=1 [31] Einstein, A. (1922) The Meaning of Relativity. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36276/36276-pdf.pdf [32] Logunov, A. and Mestvirishvili, M. (1989) The Relativistic Theory of Gravitation. Mir Publisher, Moscow. [33] Van Flandern, T. (2004) Does Gravity Have Inertia? http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/Does%20Gravity%20Have%20Inertia.asp


Review of Kwok-Ying Lau, Phenomenology and Intercultural Understanding

Philosophy

This book, the fruition of twenty years of research and writing about phenomenology, carefully and insightfully traces the complex historical relations between phenomenology and non-Western thought over the last century. It also offers a critical diagnosis of the contemporary impediments to, and possibilities for, intercultural philosophy...

College of Arts and Letters Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2017.09.13 Author Kwok-Ying Lau Phenomenology and Intercultural Understanding: Toward a New Cultural Flesh Published: September 13, 2017 Kwok-Ying Lau, Phenomenology and Intercultural Understanding: Toward a New Cultural Flesh, Springer, 2016, 256pp., $109.00 (hbk), ISBN 9783319447629. Reviewed by Eric S. Nelson, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology This book, the fruition of twenty years of research and writing about phenomenology, carefully and insightfully traces the complex historical relations between phenomenology and non-Western thought over the last century. It also offers a critical diagnosis of the contemporary impediments to, and possibilities for, intercultural philosophy. One key element of Lau's argumentation is his sustained confrontation of the paradoxical relationship between phenomenology and non-Western and Asian philosophies with an original and provocative approach that is attentive and responsive to our intercultural embodiment and flesh. In particular, Lau's intercultural reinterpretation of the phenomenological notion of flesh resituates the discourse of intercultural philosophy that is dominated by the more typical discussion of intercultural communication and understanding that characteristically occurs without reference to their fleshy and worldly embodiment. Lau provides a thoughtful response to the ambiguous and paradoxical relationship classical phenomenology has had with non-Western cultures and philosophies. He shows both how phenomenological philosophy frequently supported a Eurocentric understanding of philosophy and history (although there are counter-examples such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jan Patočka, among others), and how it nonetheless provided an early and ongoing spur for intercultural interpretation and thinking. Lau adopts a distinction between "open" and "closed" elements of a form of thought from Lao Sze-Kwang (勞思光, 1927-2012), a significant figure in twentieth-century Chinese philosophy, whose importance for intercultural philosophy is unfolded in Chapter 8. Lau traces the openness and closedness of phenomenology from its classical to its contemporary representatives. He interrogates the closed and isolated character of the Eurocentric conception of philosophy, spirit, and history that powerfully shapes the discourse of phenomenology from its origins in Husserl's interpretation of philosophy as a pure and objective "thêoria," associated with decisive moments in the developmental history of Western spirit, to a number of its contemporary proponents. This closure of phenomenology as a philosophy limited by its historical conditions and presuppositions is contrasted with and undone by the openness of phenomenological methods that call for and demand attentively and responsively encountering the phenomena themselves. While the former presuppositions have blocked and short-circuited intercultural dialogue and interpretation, the latter tendencies have disclosed pathways for its flourishing practice. How then has phenomenology had a double role in relation to possibilities for intercultural thinking? On the one hand, a number of phenomenology's paradigmatic thinkers (most notably, Husserl and Heidegger) have explicitly identified philosophy with a uniquely and exclusively Greco-European transmission. The history of philosophy is a European history of the universal and infinite for Husserl and of the Occidental history of the concealment-unconcealement of being for Heidegger. Both the cosmopolitan humanist Husserl and the anti-humanist and anti-globalist Heidegger reductively categorized non-Western forms of thought as essentially unphilosophical and non-conceptual forms of expression. Husserl considered Indian and Chinese philosophy to be merely mytho-poetic and practical, in contrast to the disinterested objectivity of pure theoretical inquiry, and Heidegger could at best appreciate Chinese and East Asian Daoism and Zen Buddhism as forms of "poetic thinking." Despite the moments of genuine engagement and encounter with Buddhism in Husserl (pp. 56-64) and Daoism and Zen Buddhism in Heidegger (pp. 37-40) that Lau astutely analyzes, the "Asiatic" and "Orient" are primarily interpreted as the other of the Occidental, an incomprehensible alterity and exteriority. In both Husserl and Heidegger, notwithstanding their differences about what is essential to their construction of an autonomous and isolated Western tradition, the result is a challenging call for the West to rediscover and recover its own genuine origins: whether it is its telos toward humanism and science (Husserl) or transformative encounter with the Greek origins of philosophy in the wonder of the question of being (Heidegger). The exteriority of the other is revealed in a number of decisive ways in Husserl and Heidegger. Husserl can dismissively refer to Chinese and Indians as well as mention so-called "gypsies" wandering around geographical Europe without belonging to spiritual Europe. [1] Husserl's references to China typically operate in a number of different works as a symbol for what is completely alien and incomprehensible to the European world. For instance, in his posthumously published notes on the constitution of the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) through homeworld and alienworld, Husserl repeatedly returned to the Chinese as an exemplar of radical foreignness and incomprehensibility. [2] Heidegger openly engaged with Daoist and Buddhist thinkers and sources throughout his career. Nonetheless, we find a series of hesitations about whether such encounters can be decisive and even possible, as Heidegger set the Occidental and Oriental, the morning and evening lands, into opposition, projected the encounter between East and West into a future that can only be anticipated and never enacted. He also reemphasized the necessity -from his first formulation of the "first and other beginning" (der erste und der andere Anfang) in the early 1930s through his Spiegel Interview in 1966 -of an Occidental encounter and confrontation with its own origins in order to initiate a new or other beginning. Or, to mention another revealing case, even while Emmanuel Levinas critiqued the priority of the self and the home in previous Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology for the sake of the other person and the neighbor, and opened up the differences and tensions between the ontological (Athens) and the ethical (Jerusalem) in interrogating the reign of identity and totality in Western philosophy, he could at points dismiss non-Western thinking as mere dancing, pagan idolatry, and faddish exoticism. [3] These examples--and there are more--indicate how historical phenomenological discourses have been non-accidentally or systematically closed toward non-Western philosophical transmissions and sources in a number of fundamental ways. The sources of this closure can be identified with the definition of philosophy itself, its association with a certain conception of Western spirit and culture, and a metanarrative of its developmental history of progress (Husserl) or pathology (Heidegger) extending from the ancient Greeks to the modern West. This configuration of ideas is itself a modern one, unknown to ancient Greeks or even early modern Western philosophy. Lau's critical engagement with the Eurocentrism of phenomenology is apt and efficacious. Lau rightly does not conclude with this negative assessment. There is also "the other hand." Since its beginnings phenomenology has been a crucial source for the encounter and dialogue between Western and non-Western philosophy. As Lau examines in chapter 4, Husserl himself saw the possibility of transcendental philosophy outside the West in his initial reflections on the Buddha, a thematic that was more complexly developed -after Husserl quickly abandoned this possibility and increasingly identified the universal and the infinite solely with "Europe" -by his students starting with his assistant Eugen Fink. Phenomenology has been -often notably through Asian scholars who studied with Husserl, Heidegger, and later phenomenologists in Europe -at the forefront of encouraging encounters and stimulating dialogues between Western and non-Western philosophy. Merleau-Ponty, despite the perhaps lingering Hegelian concept of unity expressed in his introduction to a collection of sources of world philosophy, encouraged a more intercultural conception and practice of philosophy in "Everywhere and Nowhere," and further, as Lau argues, through his later explication of the inherent multiplicity, reversibility, and crisscrossing traversability of the flesh of the world. [4] Lau examines Merleau-Ponty's multi-dimensional chiasmic flesh in its in-betweenness and inter-corporeity and provides a suggestive (and less intellectualistic, static, and hierarchical) model for reflecting on processes of intercultural understanding and misunderstanding. Furthermore, Lau considers the intercultural import of the works of other phenomenologists and related philosophers whose works have been relatively neglected in comparative philosophy. A particularly significant and striking contribution are the chapters in which Lau traces how Patočka's phenomenology developed (albeit imperfectly) and is an inspiration for a non-Eurocentric and appropriately intercultural conception and practice of philosophy in its atypical engagement with the typically Eurocentric topic of "Europe." Patočka depicted the "care of the soul" as the spiritual foundation of Europe and understood the development of the care of the soul as a uniquely European humanistic achievement (pp. 93-97). As with Husserl to some extent, whose limited conception of humanity in the Crisis he critiques (pp. 87-93), a central concept of Patočka's phenomenology is identified with an underlying thematic of Western civilization that serves as basis for a critique of the present (in this case, the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe). Lau undoes the exclusivity of Patočka's claim by tracing how the care of the soul, or the particular sense of self of a given cultural-historical milieu, is a human concern across diverse contexts. Accordingly, in the Chinese context, one can find a deep concern with the dignity and moral worth of the individual self in the Confucian intellectual lineage and particularly in the account of the "four sprouts" (siduan 四端), which call for appropriate cultivation and care to be developed into ethical dispositions, in Mencius孟子 (pp. 98-103). Lau elucidates the phenomenological implications of the sprouts and moral embodiment in the Mencius. There has been a rich and varied literature unfolding the phenomenological dimensions of South and East Asian philosophies and how Western phenomenological inquiry can learn from and be reoriented by Buddhist, Daoist, and other phenomenologies communicated in non-Western sources and discourses. A powerful example of this potential is evident in Lau's third chapter that provocatively interprets the Daodejing (道德經) of Laozi (老子) in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty. This chapter unfolds the phenomenology of vacuity and quietude, tenderness and weakness, explicating the dao (道) in the Daodejing as inchoative nature in relation to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of nature, (pp. 42-52). Lau raises a number of claims and issues that warrant further questioning and clarification. (1) One objection to the project of intercultural philosophy is that a horizon of ethnocentric presuppositions, so to speak an ethnocentric a priori, is inevitable and cannot be overcome. Lau's work does not deny that all thinking, including intercultural philosophy, has its contexts and assumptions. His argument is that the project of intercultural philosophy serves as an orientating idea that allows these conditions and presuppositions to be discussed, questioned, and potentially transformed. The word "intercultural" indicates the occurrence of a dynamic process of embodied communication that transforms the participants involved. It should not be understood as the essentialism of vulgar versions of multiculturalism, the correlate of nationalism, which identifies each people and culture with an unchanging essence and identity that cannot be transformed or appropriated by others. The issue of cultural appropriationmisappropriation-de-appropriation is complex insofar as it encompasses asymmetrical relations of power and their sedimentations that continue to block and undermine intercultural understanding. Lau's response to this impasse is to articulate how the intercultural is precisely, adopting Lao Sze-Kwang's language, an open element that can contest and transform closed elements. One can practice what he describes as a "double epoché" in relation to the linguistic and philosophical medium which one employs and presupposes (p. 23). Lau can expand the role of the epoché, as he interprets it as operating as an open and orientative element in Husserl's philosophy (pp. 146-150), just as he modifies Derrida's practice of deconstruction with his own practice of an intercultural "para-deconstruction," in response to a situation of the radical plurality of cultures (pp. 29-31). (2) These questions lead us to a further set of issues and another objection. Can one decisively separate the openness of the phenomenological method from the closedness of classical phenomenology's undeniably Eurocentric and ethnocentric moments that continue to inform contemporary accounts of and approaches to phenomenology? What if phenomenological philosophy is more tightly interwoven with its cultural-historical presuppositions of the superiority of the West such that phenomenology's open elements are undone by its closed elements rather than the opposite? This question indicates that there is a contest for the "soul" of phenomenology and its care, to adopt Patočka's language, and potential limits to how far classical phenomenology can be taken in an intercultural direction and requires an explicitly intercultural conception and practice of phenomenology. (3) A third problematic is the contrast between understanding philosophy as an art and way of life in contrast to the primacy of theory. Adopting another distinction from Lao Sze-Kwang between "orientative" and "theoretical" philosophizing, Chinese philosophy can be understood as life-orienting and modern Western philosophy as cognitive and theoretical (p. 125). Of course, on the one hand, premodern Western philosophy (including most of classical Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman philosophy) understood philosophy as an art of living. This motivation has never been entirely absent even in modernity, despite the preeminence of method and theory, as movements such as life-philosophy and existentialism reemphasized questions of life and how to live. On the other hand, this contrast is not without validity. Aristotle and the subsequent Western tradition have often accentuated how objective dispassionate theory expresses the highest form of life. This interpretation informs phenomenology through Husserl's conception of philosophy as theory. Following the dominant model of classical German philosophy, Husserl placed the emphasis on the primacy of theory and how this priority distinguished European from non-European forms of thinking. Husserl portrays the theoretical attitude as the freest and highest form of life in The Crisis of the European Sciences. Theory is a form of practice that can transform the lifeworld through its independence from practical concerns, an independence that he contends exists only in Europe. (4) The priority of theory is interlinked with the Eurocentrism of modern Western philosophy. Nonetheless, it is not its sufficient condition as some counter-examples indicate. In particular, Leibniz has a deeply theoretical oriented philosophy, prioritizing its mathematical and logical form, and does not exclude non-Western philosophies from the realm of philosophy. Not only did Leibniz allow for the possibility of philosophy in -for instance -the Chinese world, which he actively engaged in interpreting. In this situation, at the beginnings of the Enlightenment across Europe, the standing of theory does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of different forms of philosophy. One reason for this might well be not only Leibniz's hermeneutic openness to other cultures but also his analysis of the gradation between perception, imagination, and cognition. The pictorial image and the purely cognitive concept, dependent practical concern and autonomous objective theorizing, are not the radical opposites for Leibniz that they will be in subsequent philosophical discourse. There is continuity in the transformations between them such that the image is already proto-conceptual and the conceptual can be expressed and grasped through images and symbols as mathematics reveals in a highly sophisticated form. Leibniz could recognize a logic and mathematics in the unfolding of the Yijing(易經, Book of Changes) unlike later thinkers (e.g., Hegel, who dismissed it as non-conceptual pictorial thinking). [5] The idea of theory aims at the universal, which it fails to achieve in Eurocentric conceptions of theory and humanity that undermine its very pretention to universality. Hegel's philosophy of ethical life and Husserl's phenomenology of the lifeworld, in which they situate the theoretical and scientific enterprise, might indicate alternative paths. Nonetheless, these elucidations of the concrete bonds of practical life did not lead either thinker to recognize non-Western philosophies as philosophical. In contrast to Hegel and Husserl who identify theory and spirit exclusively with the West (pp. 55-56), Leibniz's writings on China indicate how the analysis of theory and its practical mediation need not take this route. Lau's book is an original and thoughtful study for our contemporary understanding and practice of phenomenology, both as an historical intellectual movement and as an open orientative method; it discusses the contemporary hybrid and impure hermeneutical situation and the possibilities of intercultural philosophy and interpretation. It not only anticipates or speaks abstractly about such possibilities. Lau's work itself enacts intercultural communication, bringing into conversation a range of diverse sources and authors from Chinese and Continental European thought: Laozi, Mengzi, Lao Sze-Kwang, Zhuangzi (莊子), Derrida, Foucault, Hegel, Husserl, Lévinas, Lévi-Strauss, Merleau-Ponty, and Patočka. This is a refreshing work given the dominant monotonous Eurocentrism of academic philosophy that cannot perceive or admit philosophical inquiry outside of the Western tradition or, even more narrowly, of a limited subsection of it such as contemporary Anglophone thought. There are, however, encouraging new developments and arguably a growing "intercultural turn" occurring in contemporary Western philosophy. Lau lucidly articulates a phenomenological interpretation of intercultural philosophy, tracing how the phenomenological method has contributed to the flourishing of intercultural philosophy and indicates further paths to pursue. He deftly examines the Eurocentric moments in the phenomenological tradition in relation to its possibilities for intercultural philosophy by unfolding a phenomenological approach to intercultural understanding through its continuing intercultural embodiment and flesh. [1] Husserl, Edmund. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, tr. David Carr (Northwestern University Press, 1970), 273. [2] See, for instance, Husserl, Edmund. Die Lebenswelt: Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution (Springer-Verlag, 2008), 157-163, 169, 171, 341-342, 524, 538, 549, 691. [3] Also compare such examples and the problematic of Eurocentrism in Nelson, Eric S. Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought (Bloomsbury 2017). There is arguably a growing "intercultural turn" occurring in contemporary Western philosophy as other recent works indicate: Flanagan, Owen. The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Van Norden, Bryan W. Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (Columbia University Press, 2017). [4] Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "Partout et nulle part", in Signes (Gallimard, 1960); "Everywhere and Nowhere", in Signs, tr. R. C. McCleary (Northwestern University Press, 1964). [5] See the discussion of the changing attitude in Western philosophy toward the Yijing from Leibniz to Hegel in Nelson, Eric S. "The Yijing and Philosophy: From Leibniz to Derrida." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38.3 (2011): 377-396. Copyright © 2017 ISSN: 1538 1617 College of Arts and Letters Accessibility Information Notre Dame, IN


Review of David Sobel's From Valuing to Value

Philosophy

Review of Sobel's From Valuing to Value.

David Sobel, From Valuing to Value: A Defense of Subjectivism, Oxford University Press, 2017, 352pp., $85.00, ISBN 9780198712640. Reviewed by Ben Bramble, Trinity College Dublin David Sobel's From Valuing to Value: A Defense of Subjectivism collects fifteen essays (fourteen reprinted, one new) on subjectivism about value, the view that "things have value because we value them" (1). Sobel has three main goals in the book: to "make [subjectivism] clearer, underline its main strengths and weaknesses, and try to persuade you that the view is genuinely attractive and plausible even after sustained scrutiny" (3). The book is intended as merely the first step on an exciting journey from Valuing to Value (accordingly, it is depicted on the book's front cover as a small step-ladder leading up into a dazzling but treacherous mountain). Subjectivism about a particular normative domain holds that normativity in that domain flows from, or has its source in, an individual's "not truth-assessable favoring attitudes" (3). What does this mean? It means that there are certain psychological states that cannot themselves be true or false, states such as "liking, desiring, valuing, preferring, wanting, loving, caring for" (3), and so on, and that these determine what is true in the relevant normative domain. Sobel focuses on two domains: well-being (what is good for one) and normative reasons for action (what one has a reason to do). He emphasises two definitional points. First, subjectivists are concerned to give theories of objective matters- i.e., of what would actually advance one's interests, or what one in fact has a reason to do, rather than merely what it would be rational to think or do given one's beliefs or evidence. Second, the claim is not merely one of extensional adequacy-i.e., it is not just that there is a perfect fit between what would fulfill one's desires and the normative facts, but that the former makes true the latter. While Sobel's book is a defense of subjectivism, it is a remarkably measured one. He admits he has no "magic bullet" (17) argument for subjectivism. Instead, he says, he will "take the messier path of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of the view" (7). And there are, he stresses, some serious disadvantages. Most importantly, for Sobel, subjectivism implies that "there could be agents who lack any reason to be decent or moral" (8). This he finds "deeply counter-intuitive" (10). Sobel dubs this the Amoralism Objection. He addresses it in "Subjectivism and Reasons to be Moral" (Chapter One). Here, he argues that the vast majority of us do have subjectivist-friendly reasons to treat all others well. This is because most of us, when fully informed about anyone else's suffering, would want that suffering not to occur. What about those unusual individuals who would not care about others even under idealized conditions? Such individuals, Sobel admits, might have no reason to treat others well. He tries to account for why we might mistakenly feel that they do. It might be, for example, he says, because (i) we have a tendency to think (falsely) that acting morally is always in one's own self-interest, something that almost all of us care about, (ii) we have been programmed by evolution or society to have such intuitions, or (iii) we are getting confused with various legitimate ways in which we might criticise or denounce the individual (for example, by saying she is "mean, nasty, immoral, brutish, horrific, monstrous, inexcusable" (28)). In any event, Sobel says, these individuals are likely to be so unusual that we should not trust our intuitions concerning them. Not only is Sobel upfront about what he regards as weaknesses of subjectivism, he himself is the author of what is to my mind the most serious objection posed to subjectivism in the last thirty years. In "Full Information Accounts of Well-Being" (Chapter Two), he questions whether desires can be informed in the way subjectivists need them to be if they are to plausibly determine one's well-being. More precisely, Sobel argues that "there are substantive worries about uniting the experience of all lives we could lead into a single consciousness" (65). How does a paper such as this belong in a book defending subjectivism? One of the nice new features of Sobel's book is a postscript to this paper, in which he explains how he is now tempted to reply to this objection. His reply, in brief, is that it is no longer clear to him that subjectivism requires that we be able to "[stuff] so much experience and knowledge into a single consciousness" (66). Instead, it might be sufficient to consider "a series of pair-wise comparisons of possible futures in which not every option need be compared to every other" (12). It might even be possible, he says, that the well-being value of a particular life for someone is determined independently of comparisons with other possible lives for that person. Instead of consulting the agent's preferences between different lives, it might be sufficient to "see to what extent her preferences are satisfied within a life, come up with a number such as 74 percent satisfied, and use that to determine the degree to which she is benefited by that life" (67). Sobel refers to such theories as "isolatable" ones (67). Sobel's candour and charity to opposing viewpoints is refreshing. It is a standout feature of the book, and of his work more generally. So, why does Sobel think we should be subjectivists? His account of the right motivation for subjectivism is one of his major contributions. In "Explanation, Internalism, and Reasons for Action" (Chapter Seven), he rejects as a sound motivation for subjectivism Bernard Williams's influential idea that "if consideration C grounds a reason for A to φ, it must be that C could motivate A to φ" (160). Reasons, he argues, need not be capable of motivating in this way. Instead, Sobel suggests, in numerous chapters throughout the book, a subjectivist should start by noting that it is incredibly plausible that our desires determine what is good for us, and what we have a reason to do, in matters of mere taste. Why might I have a reason to choose chocolate ice cream over vanilla, whereas you have a reason to go with vanilla? In the normal case, Sobel says, it is just because of our differing desires or preferences. If this is true, then we have some reason to think that desires determine our well-being and reasons in all areas of life. "The reasons provided by desires in matters of mere taste are", he writes, "the thin end of the wedge" (297). If we refuse to go all the way toward subjectivism, we will be left with a theory that looks "ad hoc and fundamentally disunited" (297). Some have objected to Sobel's claim about the source of our reasons in matters of mere taste by claiming that my reason to go for chocolate over vanilla is not that I now prefer chocolate, but that I would get more enjoyment or pleasure from chocolate. Sobel's reply, first made in "Pain for Objectivists" (Chapter Eleven), is that on the most plausible account of pleasure, a pleasure is just any feeling that is wanted (in the right sort of way), and so it is just desires that are providing the reasons here. A different worry for Sobel's account of the right motivation for subjectivism is that subjectivists are committed to saying that it is only one's present desires that provide one's reasons (and so that one's future ice cream enjoyment could provide one with a reason only if one happened now to want enjoyment later on). However, Sobel argues (in "Parfit's Case Against Subjectivism" (Chapter Fourteen)) against such a commitment. Indeed, he says, we should endorse a temporally-neutral subjectivism, on which one's reasons for action at any given time "are responsive to the [informed] concerns of all one's [time-slices]" (292). Such a view, he emphasises, "borrows no objectivist principles about what is worth caring about in the first instance" (286). He concedes that there are problems for such a view raised by past desires. Does a long abandoned childhood desire to drive a fire truck give one a reason now to drive a fire truck? This is implausible. So, it may be best, Sobel suggests, to restrict the reason-providing desires to "now-for-now ones" (294). A further major advantage of temporally-neutral subjectivism, according to Sobel, is that it allows a subjectivist to accommodate the widespread intuition that we each necessarily have a reason to avoid our own future pain, regardless of what we happen to care about right now. Another major contribution of Sobel's is his argument that subjectivists are entitled to, and indeed should, "grant authority [just] to idealized...attitudes" (3). In Chapter Seven, he rejects Williams's basis for a full information requirement, namely, that we all want to be better informed. Our desires, Sobel says, determine what we have a reason to do, not the conditions under which our desires determine what we have a reason to do. What particular account of idealization does Sobel favour? He says subjectivists should appeal just to those preferences that "are responsive to their object as it really is rather than as it is falsely imagined to be" (6). Such an appeal, he argues, is fully consonant with the right motivations for subjectivism, since only such desires "reflect the agent's real evaluative perspective" (6). Once again, there need be no presupposition here "that certain goods are more worthy of the idealized valuing attitude than others" (5). In making all of these arguments, Sobel develops an extremely innovative and nuanced subjectivism. In my view, Sobel's is probably the most sophisticated defense of subjectivism given to date. That said, I have a number of concerns. First, I am not entirely persuaded by Sobel's response to the Amoralism Objection. When I think of an agent who knows all there is to know about a given innocent, but remains unmoved by her condition or well-being, I am inclined to think that we have here, not some brute to be condemned, but someone who is making a mistake, someone who has either missed something (an evaluative fact) or is responding in an ill-fitting way to their full and accurate appreciation of the evaluative facts. Such an agent fails to care about something that seems in some sense worth caring about. Sobel's response, and indeed his subjectivism more generally, seems to lack the resources to properly account for this intuition. Second, while Sobel admits that there are objections to subjectivism that he does not consider in this book, he says that the Amoralism Objection is the most serious objection to subjectivism. I doubt this. Here, I think, is an even more serious objection: Suppose I were to conclude that nothing matters, no way the world could go that would be in any way better than or preferable to any other way it could go. It seems that such a belief would entirely extinguish my motivations to live. Or, if I somehow had some desires remaining (or believed that I had some), I would not think that I had any reason to fulfill them. I would think that I was a fool for still having any. And how would I regard others who did not realise that nothing mattered, who were going about their lives with a sense of meaning or purpose? I would think them deluded, blind to the pointlessness of their activity. Subjectivism (or at least, the sort Sobel defends, which appeals to one's rationally contingent nontruth assessable favorings) seems unable to account for this. It seems committed to saying that the reasons of all these beings might be entirely unaffected by the fact that nothing mattered or could go better than anything else. If Sobel's subjectivism were true, it should not matter to me whether anything matters. This seems wrong. Third, while I was excited to read Sobel's postscript in Chapter Two, it left me wanting more. I wasn't clear on what has changed in Sobel's head such that he now finds the possible solution mentioned in footnote 31 of his paper more promising than he originally did. I remain as pessimistic as the original Sobel that we could construct a tolerably detailed well-being ranking of possible lives for someone out of a series of pairwise comparisons. More generally, I am deeply concerned that the knowledge we can have of our various options is much less than what we would need on a plausible subjectivism. Likewise, why is Sobel now more tempted than he originally was by an isolatable version of subjectivism (beyond its ability to overcome the objections in question)? Such isolatable theories seem to me quite inadequate. How can my preferences concerning just how my actual life is going be sufficiently well-informed to count as authoritative if I do not know a heck of a lot about other possible lives I might have led? Incidentally, given Sobel's interest both here and elsewhere (namely, in his contemplated restriction to nowfor-now desires mentioned earlier) in Chris Heathwood's views on these topics, it would be interesting to hear more from him on exactly where and why he does not want to go along with Heathwood. 1 Fourth, it would have been nice to hear more from Sobel on exactly how his "thin edge of the wedge" argument is supposed to go. In Chapter Fourteen, he mentions the argument, promising to flesh it out in future work. In Chapter One, he says a little more. He writes: "saying that such favoring attitudes sometimes carry authority but only in trivial contexts would...be unexplained and mysterious. A tempting explanation for the clear authority of such attitudes in matters of mere taste would be that in such simple cases we have unique access to the relevantly informed favoring attitudes..." (39). This is intriguing, but we still await a full spelling out of this most important argument. Fifth, I am not sold on Sobel's account of our reasons in matters of mere taste. Why (in the normal case) have I a reason to go for chocolate ice cream rather than vanilla? Unlike Sobel, I find it quite plausible to think it is because this flavour would give me the most pleasure, where pleasure is understood as a particular kind of feeling (rather than any feeling whose subject merely happens to want it to be occurring). Sobel writes: "The person who tries to capture reasons of mere taste by appealing to a conception of pleasure divorced from any favoring attitude must offer some account of what pleasure is. Most For Heathwood's views, see his "Preferentialism and Self-Sacrifice", Pacific Philosophical 1 Quarterly 92 (2011): 18–38, "Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism" Philosophical Studies (2006): 539–63, and "Desire-Based Theories of Reasons, Pleasure, and Welfare," Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 6, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau, Oxford University Press (2011): 79-106. who appeal to such hedonistic views have offered precious little by way of a positive characterization of pleasure and pain and seem to maintain that this is not a problem for their view" (38). But as I and others have argued, our articulateness as well as our powers of introspection over even our own current phenomenology are seriously limited. It is therefore not a major weakness of this sort of objectivism that we cannot say much about what the feeling of pleasure itself is like. 2 Sobel also worries that it is hard to see how such a sensation of pleasure could be good for somebody who happened to be indifferent to it. He writes: "Most likely pleasure seemed a uniquely plausible recommendation partially because the vast majority of actual people like it. But of course, in other possible worlds, most people do not like that sensation. What could then be said on behalf of [it]?" (226) But should we expect to have reliable intuitions about creatures so unlike ourselves? Perhaps we feel that beings must have some pro-attitude toward what is good for them only because everyone around here happens to like or want pleasure. Or perhaps it is no coincidence at all that all beings with whom we are acquainted like or want their own pleasure. Perhaps we all like or want our own pleasure because pleasure is the most obviously valuable thing. Why is it so hard to imagine beings who do not want their own pleasure? Perhaps it is because it is hard to imagine beings who are so dense as to not realise the value for them of feeling good. Each of Sobel's chapters is a gem, and there is not space to discuss all of them here. I want, however, to briefly mention one other chapter that I have not yet mentioned, "Well-Being as the Object of Moral Consideration" (Chapter Four). Here, Sobel argues against welfarist consequentialism, according to which we should act so as to maximise the well-being of everyone. He argues that a better view is a version of consequentialism (or "quasi-consequentialism" (95)) that respects what he calls "the autonomy principle"- i.e., the principle which states that the right way to "take people into account morally" is not to promote just a subset of their preferences (the ones that determine their wellbeing), but "what the agent informedly wants us to promote for her sake" (77). This is a fascinating suggestion, and deserves more attention than it has received so far. A final considerable virtue of Sobel's book is its many, extremely clear reconstructions of a number of tricky arguments by other leaders in the field, including Christine Korsgaard, Bernard Williams, Wayne Sumner, Michael Smith, John McDowell, Connie Rosati, and Mark Schroeder. His book is worth reading for these alone. Sobel's essays in this book are some of the finest ever written in moral philosophy. Whatever one's favoured theory of value, I hope we can all agree that this book is an invaluable resource. See Ben Bramble, "The Distinctive Feeling Theory of Pleasure", Philosophical Studies, (2013), 2 162 (2): 201-217, and Ben Bramble, "A New Defense of Hedonism about Well-Being", Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 3 (2016).