Includes essays on parapsychology and life after death by J. B. Rhine, David Hume, George Price, Plato, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, among others.

This study proposes that Neoplatonism, while not a modern philosophy, is philosophy in the modern sense. Lloyd analyzes the key structures that underlie the dogmas of the Neoplatonic world picture, including the concept of emanation, the return of the soul to the One, the place of mystical knowledge, epistemology, and Porphyry's theory of predication, and shows that they rest on original but intelligible concepts and arguments.

Many researchers believe the tremendous industrial development over the past two centuries is unsustainable because it has led to unintended ecological deterioration. Despite the ever-growing attention sustainable supply-chain management has received, most SSCM research and models look at the consequences, rather than the antecedents or motives of such responsible practices. The few studies that explore corporate motives have remained largely qualitative, and large-scale empirical analyses are scarce. Drawing on multiple theories and combining supply-chain and business ethics literature, we purport that (...) instrumental, relational, and moral motives are behind a firm’s engagement in SSCM practices. Specifically, we examine the links between corporate motives, SSCM practices, and firm performance. Using a sample of 259 supply-chain firms in Germany, we empirically test five hypothesized relationships. Our results reveal that relational and moral motives are key drivers, and that firms exhibiting high levels of moral obligations tend to outperform those primarily driven by amoral considerations. Findings of this study contribute to multiple literatures espousing sustainability management and can help policy makers, stakeholder groups, and scholars develop more robust strategies for encouraging firms to practice SSCM. (shrink)

The current legal status and medical ethics of routine or religious penile circumcision of minors is a matter of ongoing controversy in many countries. We focus on the United Kingdom as an illustrative example, giving a detailed analysis of the most recent British Medical Association guidance from 2019. We argue that the guidance paints a confused and conflicting portrait of the law and ethics of the procedure in the UK context, reflecting deeper, unresolved moral and legal tensions surrounding child genital (...) cutting practices more generally. Of particular note is a lack of clarity around how to apply the “best interests” standard—ordinarily associated with time-sensitive proxy decision making regarding therapeutic options for a medically unwell patient—to a parental request for a medically unnecessary surgery to be carried out on the genitalia of a healthy child. Challenges arise in measuring and assigning weights to intended sociocultural or religious/spiritual benefits, and even to health-related prophylactic benefits, and in balancing these against potential physical, functional, and psychosexual risks or harms. Also of concern are apparently inconsistent safeguarding standards being applied to children based on their birth sex categorization or gender of rearing. We identify and discuss recent trends in British and international medical ethics and law, finding gradual movement toward a more unified standard for evaluating the permissibility of surgically modifying healthy children's genitals before they can meaningfully participate in the decision. (shrink)

A complete history of Islamic political thought from early Islam to the present Now in its 2nd edition, this textbook describes and interprets all schools of Islamic political thought, their origins, inter-connections and meaning. It examines the Qur'an, the early Caliphate, classical Islamic philosophy and the political culture of the Ottoman and other empires. It covers major thinkers such as Averroes and Ibn Taymiyya as well as a number of lesser authors, and Ibn Khaldun is presented as one of the (...) most original political theorists ever. It draws on a wide range of sources including writings on religion, law, philosophy and statecraft expressed in treatises, handbooks and political rhetoric. The new edition analyses the connections between religion and politics, covering the most recent developments in Islamic political thought and the most recent historical scholarship. It ends with a critical survey of reformism and Islamism from the late-19th century up to the present day. (shrink)

Following the pattern set by the early German Romantics, Kierkegaard conveys many of his insights through literature rather than academic prose. What makes him a valuable member of this tradition is the theory he develops to support it, his so-called “theory of indirect communication.” The most exciting aspect of this theory concerns the alleged importance of indirect communication: Kierkegaard claims that there are some projects only it can accomplish. This paper provides a critical account of two arguments Kierkegaard offers in (...) defense of this claim. The first argument is that he needs to use indirect communication in order to discourage people from losing themselves in the “crowd”. The second argument is that he needs to use it in order to help people out of a “monstrous illusion”. It is shown that while both arguments justify Kierkegaard’s decision to use indirect communication, neither one supports the original claim about its indispensability. (shrink)

In this brief but powerful book, acclaimed political philosopher C.B. Macpherson sets out in bold relief the essence of liberal democracy, both as it is currently conceived and as it might be reimagined. The Wynford edition includes a new Introduction by Frank Cunningham.

At the beginning of Book X of his last work The Laws Plato turns his attention from violent and outrageous actions in general to the particular case of undisciplined and presumptuous behaviour in matters of religion: “We have already stated summarily what the punishment should be for temple-robbing, whether by open force or secretly. But the punishments for the various sorts of insolence in speech or action with regard to the gods, which a man can show in word or deed, (...) have to be proclaimed after we have provided an exordium. Let this be it: ‘No one believing, as the laws prescribe, in the existence of the gods has ever yet performed an impious action willingly, or uttered a lawless word. Anyone acting in such a way is in one of three conditions: either, first, he does not believe the proposition aforesaid; or, second, he believes that though the gods exist they have no concern about men; or, third, he believes that they can easily be won over by the bribery of prayer and sacrifice”. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I reassess the place of Plato’s Laws in the history of legal thought. The Laws has been traditionally considered to present a natural law theory of law. I argue instead that it presents a positivist account of the nature of law. Through analysis of some key passages of the Laws I argue that in that dialogue law is identified with conclusions of enkratic civic reason that may systematically conflict with precepts of substantive moral reason. I also argue (...) that in the Laws the rule of law is a precondition of a legal system but lacks inherent moral significance. For the rule of law to obtain there needs to be some compromise between the political interests of rulers and subjects which is grounded on political pragmatism and not on moral considerations. (shrink)

In the 1960s and 1970s, scuba technology, underwater cameras, and documentarians revealed a long-hidden underwater world to the public. At this time oceanographic science was growing exponentially. Historians of the marine sciences have focused their studies of the period on institutional and military partnerships, and on the scientist-administrators who shaped oceanographic research institutions (such as the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the British National Institute of Oceanography). Underwater habitat development during the 1960s and 1970s, however, (...) deserves greater attention than it has yet received, as it highlights a peculiar confluence of military, scientific, and popular interest, characteristic of the period, in the colonization of the seafloor. Existing accounts have focused on American habitats, notably Sealab and Tektite, since these were the largest and best funded. But this approach overemphasizes a Cold War narrative in which the sole protagonists of the habitat programs were the United States and the Soviet Union. At least 65 habitats were built between 1962 and 1991. Some were state-sponsored, with significant programs run by French, German, Japanese, and Canadian teams. This essay takes as a case study the Canadian Sublimnos habitat as well as the underwater exploration programs it helped launch in Newfoundland (Lora-I) and in the Arctic (Sub-Igloo). The Canadian case demonstrates that technological expertise and public enthusiasm for underwater exploration should not be solely understood with reference to Cold War interests of the two superpowers. Rather, the international range of habitat programs of the 1960s and 1970s reveals an expanding interest in the vertical underwater dimension that was fueled by numerous national scientific aims and territorial claims. (shrink)

The Anatomy of Neoplatonism was the crowning achievement of A. C. Lloyd, the distinguished scholar of late ancient philosophy. He offers a rich and authoritative study of this school of thought, which was highly influential not only on subsequent philosophy but also on Christian theology. His discussion ranges over metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and language, and reveals the fundamental structure of Neoplatonist thought; the book is essential reading for all who work in this area. Lloyd shows that while Neoplatonism is not (...) a modern philosophy, it is indeed philosophy in the modern sense. (shrink)

Currently, testimony is studied extensively in Anglo-American philosophy. However, most of this work is done from a justificationist perspective in which philosophers try to justify our reliance on testimony in some way. I agree with Popper that justificationism is radically mistaken. Thus, I construct an account of how we respond to testimony that in no way attempts to justify our reliance on it. This account is not a straightforward exegesis of Popper, as he never tackled testimony systematically. It makes use, (...) however, of several of Popper's key insights and incorporates them into a viable theory of testimony. Key Words: testimony • anti-justificationism • social epistemology • situational analysis • defeasibility. (shrink)

Gender dysphoria is a persistent distress about one’s assigned gender. Referrals regarding gender dysphoria have recently greatly increased, often of a form that is rapid in onset. The sex ratio ha...

The paper presents the territorial and axiological context and the peculiarities of the participatory project developed by the Polis Research Centre and the Bon Pastor Neighbourhood Association, as well as the first steps in the design of two interventions. The first intervention, the Wall and Party Walls in Rodriguez de la Fuente Square, is proposed within the framework of the sustainable development strategies of Barcelona City Council. Its main objective is to achieve thermal insula­tion of the affected dwellings, thus contributing (...) to the well being of the residents and to the reduc­tion of CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere. Besides, it is aimed to solve landscape discontinuity. In the lower part of the party walls, there is a wall, a kind of plinth that the residents have chosen as a site for the expansion of the work on the civic remembrance of the neighbourhood. There, the “Living Memory” space will be set up, reserved for interventions by children from the quarter’s schools through a work programme run in cooperation with them. The second intervention is the case of the centennial Mulberry Tree classified as a tree of local interest. In 2018, the mulberry tree suffered some damage from thugs who threw firecrackers inside. Therefore, the need was pointed out to reorganise the space around the tree in order to create dissuasive effects and preserve its integrity. These are preliminary studies to be discussed by the agents involved in the project: the Sant Andreu District, the IMPUQV (Institut Municipal del Paisatge Urbài la Qualitat de Vida), and the Bon Pastor Neighbourhood Association. (shrink)

Causation appears to present us with an interpretative difficulty. While arguably a redundant relation given fundamental physics, it is nevertheless apparently pragmatically indispensable. This chapter revisits certain arguments made previously by the author for these claims with the benefit of hindsight, starting with the role of causal models in the human sciences, and attempting to explain why it is not possible to straightforwardly ground such models in fundamental physics. This suggests that further constraints, going beyond physics, are needed to legitimate (...) such models. These supplementary constraints could be reified, but that would seem to conflict with the completeness of physics. A response is to emphasize the practical role of causal talk, and the author suggests that a fictionalist approach might be worth exploring. After clarifying fictionalism as a general approach, they carry out in some detail the project of clarifying what a fictionalist attitude to causation would involve. (shrink)

Studies of AGL have frequently used training and test stimuli that might provide multiple cues for learning, raising the question what subjects have actually learned. Using a selected subset of studies on humans and non‐human animals, Trotter et al. demonstrate how a meta‐analysis can be used to identify relevant experimental variables, providing a first step in asssessing the relative contribution of design features of grammars as well as of species‐specific effects on AGL.

Pascal founds his interpretation of the Augustinian doctrine of the corruption of human nature on a philosophy of faith inherited from Montaigne: « we are Christians in just the same way as we are Périgordians or Germans » (Essais, II, 12) : this conception of « human faith » is analysed, in turn, by means of concepts drawn from Descartes (passion) and Gassendi (imagination). He thus leads us to a very modern conception of « human faith » – without grace (...) – as being the product of education and habit, a « sentiment » like so many others. (shrink)

I begin by discussing the ways in which a would‐be blamer's own prior conduct towards the person he seeks to blame can undermine his standing to blame her (to call her to account for her wrongdoing). This provides the basis for an examination of a particular kind of ‘bar to trial’ in the criminal law – of ways in which a state or a polity's right to put a defendant on trial can be undermined by the prior misconduct of the (...) state or its officials. The examination of this often neglected legal phenomenon illuminates some central features of the criminal law and the criminal process, and some of the preconditions for the legitimacy of the criminal law in a liberal republic. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns Kierkegaard’s theory of indirect communication. A central aspect of this theory is what I call the “indispensability thesis”: there are some projects only indirect communication can accomplish. The purpose of the dissertation is to disclose and assess the rationale behind the indispensability thesis. -/- A pair of questions guides the project. First, to what does ‘indirect communication’ refer? Two acceptable responses exist: (1) Kierkegaard’s version of Socrates’ midwifery method and (2) Kierkegaard’s use of artful literary devices. Second, (...) for what end does Kierkegaard use indirect communication? There are two acceptable responses here as well: (1) helping others become religious and (2) making others aware of the nature of existence. -/- These responses are interrelated. First, Kierkegaard’s notion of religion places restrictions on the means he can use to get readers to become religious. These restrictions ultimately entail that the only viable form of religious pedagogy is the midwifery method. Second, Kierkegaard engages in the midwifery method in part by making readers aware of the nature of existence (especially religious existence). But given the problems plaguing his readers, he thinks a straightforward approach to this project will likely fail. An approach that used artful literary devices such as deception and humor would be more successful. Third, Kierkegaard believes that there is one aspect of religious existence (viz. subjectivity) that people can come to know only first-hand. As such, he cannot directly impart knowledge of subjectivity to his readers. He argues that this means he must use the midwifery method. And he thinks the most productive way to do so is to provide readers with the kind of fictional narratives found in his early pseudonymous writings. Thus artful rhetorical devices play a role here as well. -/- All of Kierkegaard’s arguments for the indispensability thesis turn on debatable assumptions. But the arguments concerning artful rhetorical devices have the additional defect of being merely probabilistic in nature. They lack the strength to support the indispensability thesis even if we grant the relevant background assumptions. Therefore, to the degree that the indispensability thesis has merit, it lies with the arguments concerning the midwifery method. (shrink)

Material Engagement Theory is currently driving a conceptual change in the archaeology of mind. Drawing upon the dictates of enactivism and active externalism, it specifically calls for a radical reconceptualization of mind and material culture. Unpersuaded by the common assumption that cognition is brain-bound, Malafouris argues in favour of a process ontology that situates thinking in action. In granting ontological primacy to material engagement, MET seeks to illuminate the emergence of human ways of thinking through the practical effects of the (...) material world. Considering that this is a characteristic example of a pragmatic take on cognition, this contemporary theoretical platform appears to share a lot with pragmatism. As of late, scholars working at the intersection of philosophy, semiotics, and cognitive science have made important steps towards the rapprochement between pragmatism and externalism. Looking to contribute to this growing corpus of work, the present paper focuses on MET’s relation to the pragmatism of Peirce, Dewey, and Mead. Having elsewhere recognized the overlap and complementarity between Malafouris’ and Peirce’s theories in particular, I developed a pragmatic and enactive theory of cognitive semiotics that is suitably geared to trace the nature, emergence, and evolution of material signs. Therefore, besides noting some obvious historical connections, I hereby aim to establish the theoretical backdrop upon which this composite theory is supposed to function, while also exploring new potential avenues. Given that this cognitive semiotic framework can be seen as a pragmatic extension of Malafouris’ enactivist approach to archaeology, the current paper delves into MET’s theoretical underpinnings, seeking to complement its working hypotheses and concepts with philosophical notions and ideas advanced long ago. This synthesis ultimately concludes with a call for the reconceptualization of ‘representation’ as a heuristic concept. (shrink)

In order to understand what we are talking about when we talk about joint attention, I will scrutinize how the mainstream view that builds on representational and intentionalist theories of mind is constituted. My aim is to show that much of the theory of joint attention is quite narrowly constructed and comes with tacit disciplinary biases that exclude much of what is existentially important in our practices of sharing our perceptions and guiding others to attend to the world in novel (...) ways. By using the frameworks of classical phenomenology and enactivist theories of mind, I aim to show how we, in our interactions, share our perceptions even with beings that are distinctly different from us. And, that this _difference_ in our personal worldview, our cognitive capacities, and our sensory modalities should be seen as a constitutive aspect of our practices of shared attention. I will articulate attention as a revelatory practice that aids us in discovering a shared world through the plurality, rather than similarity, of our perceptual actions. Attention is, in this sense, not solely driven by subjective intentions; it is also formed and co-constituted by my being addressed by the other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response 2: “Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will”Antonis BalasopoulosLet me begin with a few words on my title, which was chosen as reflecting the nature of the orientation of my work in the field of utopian studies and therefore also of my orientation toward the theme of this roundtable. As Francesca Antonini puts it in a recent essay, the phrase, which became associated with the work of (...) Antonio Gramsci though it originates in Romain Rolland, describes “the (seemingly contradictory) coexistence of a realistic description of the status quo, on the one hand, and a genuine commitment to the possibility of transforming reality, on the other.”1Anyone who has read Thomas More’s Utopia knows that Rolland’s and Gramsci’s formula very much describes that book’s bifurcation between a voice of relentless critique of what exists in Europe—and particularly in England—in More’s time (in Book 1) and a voice preoccupied with the description of an alternative, and arguably better, world (in Book 2). This bifurcation, it is equally well known, is part of the genetic material More’s book bequeathed to its successors, so that one calls a “utopia” a (mostly, though not always) literary text, where the “realistic description of the status quo” coexists with a vision arising out of a “commitment to the possibility of transforming reality”—admittedly in different admixtures and proportions of [End Page 544] the critical or negative and the anticipatory, projective or prefigurative elements. Though Ernst Bloch’s distinction between “cold” and warm” streams within Marxism is not identical to this first binary, it is certainly related to it, so that the “cold” stream is one that privileges the rational and analytical element (usually, I would propose, in relation to the part of the Marxist tradition we know as “critique of political economy”), while the “warm stream” is one that rather foregrounds that which relates to affect, to desire, hope, or fidelity to the transformative project (these are frequently correlated to those elements of Marxism that correspond to its also being a political and philosophically imbued creed).2 What follows here, then, explores the implications of the dialectical interplay between these two sets of oppositions—and hopefully justifies such insistence on dialectic itself.3To the extent that I can see, the basic themes and areas of concentration in my colleagues’ essays involve decolonizing utopian studies as a project; addressing, in that connection, the heterogeneity of utopianisms that emerge out of a number of marginalized subjectivities; the provenance of the questions of ecology, sustainability, animal life for the present and future of utopian studies (and to some degree, for utopianism’s past); and finally, the question of utopian forms of social activism and therefore also the search for spaces beyond the walls of academic insularity. These are important and largely interconnected questions, but I am afraid I will only have the space to touch on them briefly and sketchily here.In her cogent and multifaceted intervention, Caroline Edwards begins her reflections on the task of decolonizing utopian studies by noting the high investment of fin-de-siècle utopian fiction in notions of industrial progress, noting that such notions have involved “lasting damage” for “Black writers, artists, and thinkers.” Within this framework, she evokes Joseph R. Winters’s argument that “modern notions of progress and freedom are inherently flawed,” since they are founded on the oppressive traditions of capitalism and colonialism. In turn, this leads to an argument against the teleological futurism of most nineteenth-century utopias and in support of the deconstruction of “the idea of historical progress unfolding in Hegelian dialectical stages.” What is to replace this is a hauntological (after Derrida) conception of the relation between the present and the past, for which “the present is always a site of potential breaks and ruptures that can signify both dislocation and pain as well as novelty and possibility.” In a similar vein, Heather Alberro questions the teleological futurism of an earlier tradition of utopia, evoking Laurence Davis’s observation on the importance of [End Page 545] “neglected or suppressed possibilities for qualitatively better forms of life” within the “Now.” The desideratum is, again... (shrink)

This paper studies the relationship between Argumentation Logic, a recently defined logic based on the study of argumentation in AI, and classical Propositional Logic. In particular, it shows that AL and PL are logically equivalent in that they have the same entailment relation from any given classically consistent theory. This equivalence follows from a correspondence between the non-acceptability of sentences in AL and Natural Deduction proofs of the complement of these sentences. The proof of this equivalence uses a restricted form (...) of ND proofs, where hypotheses in the application of the Reductio of Absurdum inference rule are required to be “relevant” to the absurdity derived in the rule. The paper also discusses how the argumentative re-interpretation of PL could help control the application of ex-falso quodlibet in the presence of inconsistencies. (shrink)

We show that the class of all isomorphic images of Boolean Products of members of SR [1] is the class of all archimedean W-algebras. We obtain this result from the characterization of W-algebras which are isomorphic images of Boolean Products of CW-algebras.

Expressions designating collectives, such as “the committee” or “the ships in the port”, may be interpreted de re or de dicto, depending on context, according as they pick out collectives defined by their members or collectives defined by some criterion for membership. We call these E-collectives and I-collectives respectively, and in this paper we explore in depth the relationship between these two categories. In particular, we identify important respects in which they differ, regarding the nature of the dependence of the (...) collective on its members, the nature of the parthood relation in which the members stand to the whole, and, from an application perspective, the different methods used for identifying the two forms of collective from large spatio-temporal data-sets. (shrink)

The notion of multiple location plays an important role in the characterization of endurantism. Several authors have recently offered cases intended to demonstrate the incoherence of multiple location. I argue that these cases do not succeed in making multiple location problematic. Along the way, several crucial issues about multiple location and its use by endurantists are clarified.

What is logic? What were the most significant contributions of Kant, Plato and Descartes? What is the concept of yin and yang? The personalities, terminology, and definitions of philosophers and philosophical schools of thought are presented clearly in this unique A-to-Z reference guide.

Medically unnecessary penile circumcision (MUPC) performed on a non-consenting child has been the subject of increasing critical attention in recent years. This paper provides a behind-the-scenes narrative of the politics of ethical policymaking in the United Kingdom in this area including a discussion about some potential barriers to reform. After a brief overview of ethical guidance for medically unnecessary surgical procedures on children in general and on their genitalia in particular, the paper takes a closer look at three contemporary documents (...) released by UK medical bodies and highlights the unique ethical and safeguarding contradictions in this area. The outcomes of initiatives aimed at engaging constructively with the medical bodies and encouraging wider debate are then described, along with some of the main obstacles to engagement and counter-arguments employed. MUPC is subsequently discussed in a wider societal context, highlighting why serious safeguarding concerns have been raised about what many people believe to be a harmful, preventable practice hiding ‘in plain sight’. The paper ends by calling for UK MUPC guidance to be made consistent with the body of guidance that UK doctors are expected to follow. (shrink)

Le statut de Pierre Bayle dans l'histoire des idées philosophiques et religieuses de l'époque classique a changé du tout au tout. D'observateur, il est devenu, dans l'historiographie actuelle, un acteur majeur dans les débats philosophiques, religieux et politiques de son époque, dont les écrits nourriront la réflexion des philosophes clandestins qui fondent les Lumières radicales. Ce volume d'études contribue à cette nouvelle interprétation du statut et de la portée du rationalisme de Bayle.

Like many 19th c. thinkers, Kierkegaard embraces a cognitivist view of art. He thinks works of art matter because they can teach us in important ways. This chapter defends two striking features of Kierkegaard’s version of this theory. First, works of art do not teach “directly” by telling us truths and offering us evidence. Instead, they educate us “indirect-ly” by helping us make our own discoveries. Second, the fact that art does not teach in a straightforward manner is no defect. (...) On the contrary, it is precisely because art teaches indirectly that it teaches better than philosophy and science do. (shrink)