Argues that the historical concept of agency ultimately fails since such weighing and choosing always require grounds that reach beyond private consciousness. Agency is bound inherently with morality; the modernist understanding of agency removes it from morality. It is suggested that agency is only possible on inherently moral, rather than metaphysical, grounds. An alternative conceptualization of agency as living truthfully is proposed that does not posit the existence of Cartesian ego and does not surrender to moral relativism. This concept of (...) agency is exemplified and distinguished from volition, which is much closer to the more traditional view of agency as the capacity to choose from among alternatives. A grounding for agency in ethics is offered, suggesting that neither traditional notions, which are grounded in traditional metaphysics, nor postmodern notions, which accept ethical relativity, can render satisfactory accounts of human agency. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Reviews in allegory the approaches taken to the problem of agency by contemporary perspectives in psychology and broader intellectual tradition. The author argues that agency can only be rendered sensible or possible where there is freedom from traditional determinisms and where there is real moral content. It is argued that agency will only be possible when moral relativity is overcome. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

For years there was no focus within the U.S. federal government for alternatives to animal toxicity testing. Questions coming to regulatory agencies fell upon individuals to address in the best way they could. Given this void, the ad hoc Interagency Regulatory Alternatives Group was founded by staff in a number of federal agencies in the late 1980s to coalesce efforts in the field. The group sponsored two international workshops on eye irritation, the first making proposals for change in the current (...) test method in rabbits, the second reviewing available data on in vitro alternatives. The result has been that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is considering revision of the in vivo eye irritation test guideline to incorporate a number of the workshop deliberations. However, movement of the in vitro eye irritation alternatives has been disappointing; attempts to determine their practical testing significance have thus far been unrewarding. (shrink)

Scientism: The New Orthodoxy is a comprehensive philosophical overview of the question of scientism, discussing the place of science in the humanities and religion. Clarifying and defining the key terms in play in discussions of scientism, this collection identifies the dimensions that differentiate science from scientism. Leading scholars appraise the means available to science, covering the impact of the neurosciences and the new challenges it presents for the law and the self. Illustrating the effect of scientism on the humanities, Scientism: (...) The New Orthodoxy addresses what science is. This provocative collection is an important contribution to the humanities in the 21st century. Contributors include: Peter Hacker, Bastian van Fraassen, Kenneth Schaffner, Roger Scruton, James K.A. Smith, Richard Swinburne, Lawrence Principe and Richard Williams. (shrink)

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Contributors -- Series Editor's Foreword -- Preface: A 'Science' of Psychology: The Enduring Aspiration -- Introduction: Science, Scientism, and Psychology -- 1 Epistemology and the Boundaries Between Phenomena and Conventions -- 2 Hayek and Hempel on the Nature, Role, and Limitations of Science -- 3 On Scientism in Psychology: Some Observations of Historical Relevance -- 4 Why Science Needs Intuition -- 5 Scientism and Saturation: Evolutionary Psychology, Human Experience, and the (...) Phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion -- 6 Psychotherapy and Scientism -- 7 Science and Society: Effects, Reactions, and a Call for Reformation -- 8 Beyond Scientism: Reaches in Psychology Toward a Science of Consciousness -- Index. (shrink)

In behavioral ethics today, there is debate as to which theory of moral development is the best for understanding ethical decision making, thereby facilitating ethical behavior. This debate between behavioral ethicists has been profoundly influenced by the field of moral psychology. Unfortunately, in the course of this marriage between moral psychology and business ethics and subsequent internal debate, a simple but critical understanding of human being in the field of management has been obscured; i.e., that morality is not a secondary (...) phenomenon arising out of something else. Therefore, in this paper, we will argue that there is a need in behavioral ethics to shift our understanding away from the influence of contemporary moral psychology and back to management theorist Ghoshal’s :75–91, 2005) view of what it means to be human in which the moral is fundamental. To assist in this labor, we will build on the philosophical work of Emmanuel Levinas who sees ethics, regardless of the setting, as a metaphysical concern. What this means is that Levinas sees the essential moral character of human life and the reality of human agency as ontologically fundamental, or constitutive of human nature itself. In other words, the ethical is the “first cause” in regard to understanding the nature and action of the individual, including within organizations. Thus, morality in any sphere of human endeavor, including in business, is not merely epiphenomenal to some more fundamental reality. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

In this important collection, the editors argue that medieval philosophy is best studied as an interactive discussion between thinkers working on very much the same problems despite being often widely separated in time or place. Each section opens with at least one selection from a classical philosopher, and there are many points at which the readings chosen refer to other works that the reader will also find in this collection. There is a considerable amount of material from central figures such (...) as Augustine, Abelard, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham, as well as extensive texts from thinkers in the medieval Islamic world. Each selection is prefaced by a brief introduction by the editors, providing a philosophical and religious background to help make the material more accessible to the reader. This edition, updated throughout, contains a substantial new chapter on medieval psychology and philosophy of mind, with texts from authors not previously represented such as John Buridan and Peter John Olivi. (shrink)

Since its inception, experimental social psychology has arguably been of two minds about the nature and role of theory. Contemporary social psychology's experimental approach has been strongly informed by the “nomological-deductive” approach of Carl Hempel in tandem with the “hypothetico-deducive” approach of Karl Popper. Social psychology's commitment to this hybrid model of science has produced at least two serious obstacles to more fruitful theorizing about human experience: the problem of situational specificity, and the manifest impossibility of formulating meaningful general laws (...) of human social behavior. It is argued that a social psychology based on the search for this kind of lawfulness, under the auspices of either a strict or loose interpretation of the largely Hempelian model, is ultimately unworkable. An alternative approach to social psychology that is attentive both to the need for understanding individual situations and behaviors and to the need for generalized understanding of actual human behaviors is offered. This approach is grounded in the hermeneutic tradition. (shrink)

Since its inception, experimental social psychology has arguably been of two minds about the nature and role of theory. Contemporary social psychology's experimental approach has been strongly informed by the “nomological-deductive” approach of Carl Hempel in tandem with the “hypothetico-deducive” approach of Karl Popper. Social psychology's commitment to this hybrid model of science has produced at least two serious obstacles to more fruitful theorizing about human experience: the problem of situational specificity, and the manifest impossibility of formulating meaningful general laws (...) of human social behavior. It is argued that a social psychology based on the search for this kind of lawfulness, under the auspices of either a strict or loose interpretation of the largely Hempelian model, is ultimately unworkable. An alternative approach to social psychology that is attentive both to the need for understanding individual situations and behaviors and to the need for generalized understanding of actual human behaviors is offered. This approach is grounded in the hermeneutic tradition. (shrink)

This article explores the prevailing assumption of instrumentalism in negotiation and argues that contrary to the popular conception in negotiation scholarship, negotiators need not be assumed to be ontologically individualistic or purely self-interested in their motivation and action. We show the contribution that can be made to the field by an approach to negotiation that does not presume a strong and inevitable self-interest as the fundamental starting point of any account of negotiation behavior and we offer ideas for an alternative (...) starting point, which we call the agentic-relational model. (shrink)

For a fixed set A, the number of queries to A needed in order to decide a set S is a measure of S's complexity. We consider the complexity of certain sets defined in terms of A: $ODD^A_n = \{(x_1, \dots ,x_n): {\tt\#}^A_n(x_1, \dots, x_n) \text{is odd}\}$ and, for m ≥ 2, $\text{MOD}m^A_n = \{(x_1, \dots ,x_n):{\tt\#}^A_n(x_1, \dots ,x_n) \not\equiv 0 (\text{mod} m)\},$ where ${\tt\#}^A_n(x_1, \dots ,x_n) = A(x_1)+\cdots+A(x_n)$ . (We identify A(x) with χ A (x), where χ A is (...) the characteristic function of A.) If A is a nonrecursive semirecursive set or if A is a jump, we give tight bounds on the number of queries needed in order to decide ODD A n and $\text{MOD}m^A_n: \bullet\text{ODD}^A_n$ can be decided with n parallel queries to A, but not with n - 1. $\bullet \text{ODD}^A_n$ can be decided with $\lceil log(n + 1)\rceil$ sequential queries to A but not with $\lceil log(n + 1)\rceil - 1. \bullet\text{MOD}m^A_n$ can be decided with $\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor$ parallel queries to A but not with $\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor - 1. \bullet\text{MOD}m^A_n$ can be decided with $\lceil log(\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor + 1)\rceil$ sequential queries to A but not with $\lceil log(\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor + 1)\rceil - 1$ . The lower bounds above hold for nonrecursive recursively enumerable sets A as well. (Interestingly, the lower bounds for recursively enumerable sets follow by a general result from the lower bounds for semirecursive sets.) In particular, every nonzero truth-table degree contains a set A such that ODD A n cannot be decided with n - 1 parallel queries to A. Since every truth-table degree also contains a set B such that ODD B n can be decided with one query to B, a set's query complexity depends more on its structure than on its degree. For a fixed set A, $Q(n,A) = \{S: S \text{can be decided with n sequential queries to} A\},\\Q_\parallel(n, A) = \{S: S \text{can be decided with n parallel queries to} A\}.$ We show that if A is semirecursive or recursively enumerable, but is not recursive, then these classes form non-collapsing hierarchies: $\bullet Q(0,A) \subset Q(1,A) \subset Q(2,A) \subset\cdots\\ \bullet Q_\parallel(0, A) \subset Q_\parallel(1, A) \subset Q_\parallel(2,A) \subset\cdots$ The same is true if A is a jump. (shrink)

Photography in Colorado was encouraged as early as 1861, when newspaper editor William Byers wrote in the Rocky Mountain News, "Secure the shadow, ere the substance perish," and roused the citizenry to take photographs of their families, friends, landscape, homes, and mills in order to document their lives and share them with others. The revised edition of Colorado: A History in Photographs draws on this rich legacy, portraying Colorado's history in images taken from the frontier era to the present, all (...) accompanied by a vivid, updated narrative. Presenting a broad view of countless aspects of life in Colorado and including 270 black-and-white photographs, this book will inform, entertain, and inspire all those who delight in learning more about the history of the Centennial State. (shrink)

Research has shown that adults can engage in cognitive offloading, whereby internal processes are offloaded onto the environment to help task performance. Here, we investigate an application of this approach with children, in particular children with poor working memory. Participants were required to remember and recall sequences of colors by placing colored blocks in the correct serial order. In one condition the blocks were arranged to facilitate cognitive offloading (i.e., grouped by color), whereas in the other condition they were arranged (...) randomly. Across two experiments (total N = 166) the ordered condition improved task performance for children with low working memory ability. In addition, participants in Experiment 2 rated the difficulty of the two arrangements and performed a further condition in which they were given an opportunity to freely arrange the blocks before completing the task. Despite performing better in the ordered condition, children with low working memory ability did not rate the ordered arrangement as easier, nor did they choose an ordered arrangement when given the opportunity to do so. This research shows that cognitive offloading can also be a useful process in populations other than typical adults, and the implications of this work for supporting children with poor working memory are discussed. (shrink)

In 19651 Richard Rorty defended a theory of mind which has since come to be called' eliminative materialism'. The theory has attained some status as a distinct, autonomous brand of materialism; and it has been criticized at length in the literature, ... \n.

Book reviewed in this article: In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History. By John Van Seters. The Hidden God: The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament. By Samuel E. Balentine. Theodicy in the Old Testament. Edited by James L. Crenshaw. Ce Dieu censé aimer la Souffrance. By François Varone. Evil and Evolution, A Theodicy. By Richard W. Kropf. ‘Poet and Peasant’ and ‘Through Peasant Eyes’: A Literary‐Cultural Approach (...) to the Parable in Luke. By Kenneth Bailey. The Biblical Foundations for Mission. By Donald Senior and Carroll Stuhlmueller. New Testament Foundations of Ministry. By Colin Kruse. Church, Ministry and Unity. By James E. Griffiss. Theology of Ministry. By Thomas Franklin O'Meara. Yesterday and Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology. By Colin E. Gunton. I believe in the Holy Spirit. By Yves Congar. Between Jesus and Paul. By Martin Hengel. From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and its Background. By Frances Young. Alan of Lille: The Frontiers of Theology in the Later Twelfth Century. By G.R. Evans. Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe. By Clarissa W. Atkinson. Church, Politics and Society: Scotland 1408–1929. Edited by N. Macdougall. Renaissance and Reform: The Italian Contribution. Collected Essays, Volume II. By Frances A. Yates. Seven‐Headed Luther: Essays in Commemoration of a Quincentury, 1483–1983. Edited by Peter Newman Brooks. Ökumenische Erschliessung Martin Luthers. Edited by Peter Manns and Harding Meyer. Luther's Ecumenical Significance, An Interconfessional Consultation. Edited by Peter Manns and Harding Meyer, in collaboration with Carter Lindberg and Harry McSorley. States of Mind: A Study of Anglo‐Irish Conflict 1780 to 1980. By Oliver MacDonagh. The Parish Clergy in Nineteenth‐Century Russia: Crisis, Reform, Counter Reform. By Gregory L. Freeze. Pusey Rediscovered. Edited by Perry Butler. Between Two Worlds: George Tyrrell's Relationship to the Thought of Matthew Arnold. By Nicholas Sagovsky. The Concept of Glaubenslehre. By Walter E. Wyman, Jr. The Existence and Nature of God. Edited by Alfred J. Freddoso. Faith and Reason. By Anthony Kenny. Logic and The Nature of God. By Stephen T. Davis. Personal Responsibility and Christian Morality. By Josef Fuchs. Morality and Conflict. By Stuart Hampshire. Realism and Imagination in Ethics. By Sabina Lovibond. Intentionality. By John R. Searle. Philosophical Papers, I: Practical Reason. By G.H. von Wright. Philosophical Papers, II: Philosophical Logic. By G.H. von Wright. A Model of Making: Literary Criticism and its Theology. By Ruth Etchells. The Return of the Goddess: Femininity, Aggression and the Modern Grail Quest. By Edward Whitmont. The Power of the Poor in History. By Gustavo Gutierrez, translated by Robert R. Barr. The God of the Xhosa. By Janet Hodgson. Our Hymn Tunes: Their Choice and Performance. By Donald Webster. The Almighty Wall: The Architecture of Henry Vaughan. By William Morgan. An Introduction to Plato's Laws. By R.E. Stalley. Plato's Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved. By Kenneth M. Sayre. Plato's ‘Parmenides’: Translation and Analysis. By R.E. Allen. Politics in the Ancient World. By M.I. Finley. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joseph Priestley's Criticisms of David Hume's Philosophy RICHARD H. POPKIN ONE OF HUME'S MOST FAMOUS CRITICS, the great scientist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), is scarcely mentioned or studied in the Hume literature.' Perhaps because of the course philosophy followed after Hume, the Scottish Common Sense critics and the German ones connected with Kant are given almost all of the attention. In this paper 1 shall try to correct this (...) oversight, and examine the background of Priestley's critique of Hume, both in terms of Priestley's scientific and religious views and in terms of Hume's influence at the time. I shall then evaluate the merits of Priestley's critique and attempt to determine whether it deserves further study or should be returned to the obscurity it has been in for almost two centuries. 2 Joseph Priestley was a nonconforming minister whose progressively radical views caused him to lose various posts. Eventually he became a millenarian, convinced that crucial signs of the end of the world were at hand: the events of the French Revolution; the purported discovery of the Lost Tribes in Afghanistan by Sir William Jones; plans or hopes for the Jews to return to Palestine and join forces with the Christians. After years of religious wanderings Priestley ended up a millenarian Unitarian, much in the tradition of Sir Isaac Newton, whose religious writing he used extensively, and of Newton's successor, William Whiston? Priestley taught science in various schools and was immensely influenced by David Hartley's Observations on Man. He found in Hartley's theory of association of ideas a naturalistic way of explaining human mental life. And in Hartley's millenarian views he located the sort of theology he was seeking. Priestly later reedited Hartley, including introductory essays about some of the more difficult aspects of his mechanistic psychology.' (Coleridge, who was deeply impressed by ' T. E. Jessop, A Bibliography of David Hume and of the Scottish Philosophy from l-)'ancis Hutcheson to Lord Balfour (New York, 1966), lists the titles of Priestley's works relevant to Hume. However, there appear to be no discussions of Priestley on Hume listed in this work or in Roland Hill, A Bibliography of David Hume from 1930 (York, 1971). E. C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Edinburgh, 1954), mentions Priestley's criticisms of Hume, but only as these were made in connection with criticisms of Beattie. Joseph Priestley, Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley to the Year 1795, written by Himself, with a Continuation to the time of his decease by his son, Joseph Priestley, ed. T. Cooper (London, 1806). It is also of some interest that Priestley attacked Reid, Beattie, and Oswald a few years before challenging Hume. He seemed to think that he had disposed of the Scottish Philosophy for all time. Thus Priestley was certainly no part of the mainstream of Hume's opponents in Britain. See Memoirs, pp. 78-79n, and n. 16 below. ' On Priestley's career, see his Memoirs. Modern biographies deal principally with his scientific achievements and ignore or play down his theological concerns. For an extended discussion of Priestley's millenarian views, see Clarke Garrett, Respectable Folly (Baltimore, 1975), pp. 126-143. " Priestley, Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, on the Principle of the Association of Ideas... (London, 1775). [437] 438 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Hartley, probably read Priestley's edition of his works.) For the most part, Priestley wrote long and controversial works on theology. His scientific achievements stem from his friendship with Benjamin Franklin and Richard Price, who encouraged him to write a history of discoveries in electricity. Franklin provided the resources for making the equipment. On the basis of the new material in his work, Priestley was nominated to the Royal Society by Franklin and Price. s Priestley's most famous scientific works came thereafter--his discovery of oxygen and his work on how the human body used oxygen. Later still, he became entangled in a controversy with Lavoisier over the phlogiston theory, Priestley upholding it, the French chemist opposing it. 6 Priestley was also active in politics, supporting radical causes. He supported John Wilkes, of whom Hume thoroughly disapproved, and was an early... (shrink)

In recent decades, issues that reside at the center of philosophical and psychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variously identified as "brain science," "cognitive science," and "cognitive neuroscience." Scholars have heralded this development as revolutionary, but a revolution implies an existing method has been overturned in favor of something new. What long-held theories have been abandoned or significantly modified in light of cognitive neuroscience? _Consciousness and Mental Life_ questions our present approach to the study of consciousness and (...) the way modern discoveries either mirror or contradict understandings reached in the centuries leading up to our own. Daniel N. Robinson does not wage an attack on the emerging discipline of cognitive science. Rather, he provides the necessary historical context to properly evaluate the relationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience and their evolution over time. Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and continues through to René Descartes, David Hume, William James, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Derek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both a philosophical and a psychological perspective, Robinson identifies what makes the study of consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitive neuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events, emotions, and preference, or if these occurrences are better understood by studying the whole person, not just the brain. Well-reasoned and thoroughly argued, _Consciousness and Mental Life_ corrects many claims made about the success of brain science and provides a valuable historical context for the study of human consciousness. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that selection history accounts of function can support a fully reductive naturalization of functional properties. I argue that this assumption is false. A problem with the alternative causal role account of function in this context is that it invokes the teleological notion of a goal in analysing real function. The selection history account, if it is to have reductive status, must not do the same. But attention to certain cases of selection history in biology, specifically those (...) involving meiotic drive, shows that selection historical explanations are available in the case of items without any plausible function. Making contributions to goals, here fitness, must be introduced as an additional constraint in the analysis, either explicitly, or implicitly by appeal to individual functions or the selection-of/selection-for distinction. (shrink)

Two ideas govern the organisation of this collection. It is suggested that medieval philosophy is best studied as an interactive debate between thinkers of different times, and also the importance of the Ancient Greek philosophers in this field.