If you trained someone to emit a particular sound at the sight of something red, another at the sight of something yellow, and so on for other colors, still he would not yet be describing objects by their colors. Though he might be a help to us in giving a description. A description is a representation of a distribution in a space (in that of time, for instance).

We apply Benacerraf’s distinction between mathematical ontology and mathematical practice to examine contrasting interpretations of infinitesimal mathematics of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, in the work of Bos, Ferraro, Laugwitz, and others. We detect Weierstrass’s ghost behind some of the received historiography on Euler’s infinitesimal mathematics, as when Ferraro proposes to understand Euler in terms of a Weierstrassian notion of limit and Fraser declares classical analysis to be a “primary point of reference for understanding the eighteenth-century theories.” Meanwhile, scholars like (...) Bos and Laugwitz seek to explore Eulerian methodology, practice, and procedures in a way more faithful to Euler’s own. Euler’s use of infinite integers and the associated infinite products are analyzed in the context of his infinite product decomposition for the sine function. Euler’s principle of cancellation is compared to the Leibnizian transcendental law of homogeneity. The Leibnizian law of continuity similarly finds echoes in Euler. We argue that Ferraro’s assumption that Euler worked with a classical notion of quantity is symptomatic of a post-Weierstrassian placement of Euler in the Archimedean track for the development of analysis, as well as a blurring of the distinction between the dual tracks noted by Bos. Interpreting Euler in an Archimedean conceptual framework obscures important aspects of Euler’s work. Such a framework is profitably replaced by a syntactically more versatile modern infinitesimal framework that provides better proxies for his inferential moves. (shrink)

While there is a growing literature on “dark traits” (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first draft (...) measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and benefice... (shrink)

This study examines the impact of trust and a national culture of secretiveness on the number of bank relationships per firm. We hypothesize that the degree of openness of a firm and trust between economic agents may influence the willingness of the firm to release sensitive information to its lenders, as well as the decision between maintaining single or multiple bank relationships. Using a sample of over 8000 non-financial firms operating in 12 countries from the eurozone we provide evidence that (...) a national culture of secrecy enhances the number of bank relationships, while trust has the opposite effect. Results are robust to the use of various estimation techniques, alternative definitions of secrecy and trust, controls for firm-level and country-level characteristics, and instrumental variables. The main implication of this finding is that the financial decisions of firms cannot be effectively examined without considering deep-rooted national cultural elements. We also find that the results are mainly driven by small and medium enterprises, implying that the higher informational opaqueness of these firms enhances the role of secrecy and trust. (shrink)

Research regulations around the world do not impose any limits on the risks to which consenting adults may be exposed. Nonetheless, most review committees regard some risks as too high, even for consenting adults. To justify this practice, commentators have appealed to a range of considerations which are external to informed consent and the risks themselves. Most prominently, some argue that exposing consenting adults to very high risks has the potential to undermine public trust in research. This justification assumes that (...) it is not the magnitude of the risks themselves which raises concern, but the way in which the public might respond to them. This justification thus depends on the possibility that the public will find out about the risks and respond to them in the specified way. Like the other proposed external justifications, it thereby fails to offer a reason to think that exposing consenting adults to very high risks is problematic in itself. In the present paper, we describe and endorse a different justification. Rather than appealing to external factors, we argue that limits on risks for consenting adults trace to internal limits on informed consent, to limits on the things consent can and cannot make ethically permissible. In doing so, we aim to provide a firmer conceptual basis for the view that some research risks are unacceptably high, no matter how the research is conducted. (shrink)

Can we ever truly answer the question, “Who am I?” Moderated by Alex Voorhoeve (London School of Economics), neuro-philosopher Elie During (University of Paris, Ouest Nanterre), cognitive scientist David Jopling (York University, Canada), social psychologist Timothy Wilson (University of Virginia),and ethicist Frances Kamm (Harvard University) examine the difficulty of achieving genuine self-knowledge and how the pursuit of self-knowledge plays a role in shaping the self.

What makes our utterances mean what they do? In this work I formulate and justify a structural constraint on possible answers to this key question in the philosophy of language, and I show that accepting this constraint leads naturally to the adoption of an algebraic formalization of truth-theoretic semantics. I develop such a formalization, and show that applying algebraic methodology to the theory of meaning yields important insights into the nature of language. ;The constraint I propose is, roughly, this: the (...) meaning of an utterance of a natural language sentence is derived from the place of that sentence within a system that includes other sentences, and is structured in virtue of primitive semantic facts about complete sentences. This constraint calls for a formal semantics program where the meaning of natural language sentences is represented by an appropriate assignment of the elements of an algebraic structure to sentences, an assignment that represents facts concerning complete sentences. I call the above constraint 'The Algebraic Thesis', and the corresponding formal semantics program 'Algebraic Semantics.' ;I introduce AT by carving it out of the holistic views of language of Quine and Davidson, and I show that it is independent of other important features of these philosophers' views. I then argue for AT, taking into account recent work by Brandom, Dummett, Fodor and Lepore, Gaifman and Perry. In developing Algebraic Semantics I present structures of two basic types: Boolean algebras and cylindric algebras; these structures are construed in the context of AT in a novel way: they are treated as applying to classes of sentences as numbers apply to physical objects in measurement. Applying algebraic methodology to formal semantics and to the theory of meaning, I develop these results: ; An account of the semantics of necessity and possibility that avoids both Quine's dismissal of these notions and their reduction by David Lewis to quantification over possible worlds; ; The application of the model-theoretic notion of expansion to capture the process of our learning progressively more of the meaning of expressions in our first languages. (shrink)

A great fissure occurred in Western civilization in the early modern period with the divorce between the humanities and the sciences and the rise of scientific naturalism. The Metaphysics of Self and World is a philosophical exploration of the relationship between the individual, the culture, and the world. It is, in the author's words, "a philosophy of the humanities, a philosophy of humanity, and a philosophy of social reality." It explores the implications of a world-view that would integrate the perspective (...) of the sciences with humanistic ways of thought. E.M. Adams claims that we do violence to ourselves as human beings by trying to fit into the world as delineated in scientific categories. Rejecting cultural subjectivism and scientific naturalism, he argues for the irreducibility and validity of the categories of the humanities and for a fully developed humanistic philosophy of self and world. In generating this world-view, he utilizes the humanities as a source of culture therapy in order to close the fissure in Western civilization. Author note: E. M. Adams is Kenan Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has written numerous books and articles, and a festschrift celebrating his work, Mind, Value, and Culture: Essays in Honor of E. M. Adams (edited by David Weissbord), was published in 1989. (shrink)

Palestra proferida pelo Prof. Leo Strauss no General Seminar of the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of the New School for Social Research in New York em fevereiro de 1941 editado pelos professores David Janssens e Daniel Tanguay e publicado na revista Interpretation A Journal of Political Philosophy Spring 1999 Volume 26 Number 3.

Nous présupposons le critère de démarcation de Popper d’après lequel un énoncé M est dit métaphysique s’il est empiriquement irréfutable. M sera qualifié de synthétique a priori si, de surcroît, il ne peut pas être expérimentalement vérifié. Nous démontrerons que le principe d’induction physique J* est synthétique a priori, J* étant défini — en gros — comme le principe suivant : toute théorie H qui est à la fois non-adhoc et empiriquement corroborée dans un domaine Δ courra, à l’avenir, moins (...) de risques d’être mise en défaut — dans Δ — qu’une hypothèse rivale infirmée par l’expérience. Bien qu’étant invérifiable tout autant qu’incritiquable, J* s’avère indispensable à la technologie ; ce que Popper avait d’ailleurs admis à plusieurs reprises. Nous critiquons ensuite le point de vue de David Miller selon lequel il n’est besoin d’aucune thèse métaphysique telle que J*, le critère de démarcation étant le seul principe requis par la science comme par la technologie. Dans ce même contexte, nous soutenons, contre Miller, que la science entretient un rapport positif, plutôt que purement critique ou négatif, avec la technologie. (shrink)

Nous présupposons le critère de démarcation de Popper d’après lequel un énoncé M est dit métaphysique s’il est empiriquement irréfutable. M sera qualifié de synthétique a priori si, de surcroît, il ne peut pas être expérimentalement vérifié. Nous démontrerons que le principe d’induction physique J* est synthétique a priori, J* étant défini — en gros — comme le principe suivant : toute théorie H qui est à la fois non-adhoc et empiriquement corroborée dans un domaine Δ courra, à l’avenir, moins (...) de risques d’être mise en défaut — dans Δ — qu’une hypothèse rivale infirmée par l’expérience. Bien qu’étant invérifiable tout autant qu’incritiquable, J* s’avère indispensable à la technologie ; ce que Popper avait d’ailleurs admis à plusieurs reprises. Nous critiquons ensuite le point de vue de David Miller selon lequel il n’est besoin d’aucune thèse métaphysique telle que J*, le critère de démarcation étant le seul principe requis par la science comme par la technologie. Dans ce même contexte, nous soutenons, contre Miller, que la science entretient un rapport positif, plutôt que purement critique ou négatif, avec la technologie. (shrink)

Memory, mother of the Muses by Zeus, has nurtured culture for nearly three millennia while her nemesis, forgetfulness, has been demonized as an agent of destruction. In the modern age, however, memory has grown increasingly burdensome, opening the way for a more positive assessment of forgetfulness. Nietzsche praises animals for an inability to remember that preserves their innocence and happiness, and Freud documents the discontents of a civilization that cannot forget. ;In tracing the recent development of these issues, the dissertation (...) focuses primarily on Walter Benjamin, Hans Blumenberg, and Thomas Pynchon. Benjamin and his anguished "angel of history" show the destructive psychological effects of trying to use human memory as a secular form of redemption. Blumenberg's philosophy of history makes it possible to trace memory's responsibility for redemption to the modern age's inflated notion of the subject. Blumenberg's work also emphasizes the importance of metaphor and narrative in mediating and creating historical understanding, and this aesthetic distance weakens memory's redemptive relation to the past. Pynchon's protagonists, too, find that their desire to make historical meaning fully present is overshadowed by their fear of such presence. By reconciling themselves to a profane aesthetic distance from the past, Blumenberg and Pynchon redeem themselves from the melancholy engendered by an overly ambitious memory. ;Thus the dissertation attempts to recover a more modest and less oppressive memory by understanding it as a way to distance rather than redeem past injustices. This reconception of the function of memory helps establish an equilibrium between the pensive memory of Benjamin's "angel of history" and the innocent oblivion of Nietzsche's animals. ;In addition to the three major figures named in the title, the dissertation devotes sections and excursuses to Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, Virginia Woolf, Ernst Robert Curtius, Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Michel Foucault, and Thomas Kuhn. Translations of two essays by Blumenberg, "Pensiveness" and "Being--A MacGuffin," and a comprehensive Blumenberg bibliography are included as appendices. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre criticizes the modern morality for having emotivist features and in his cent- ral book After Virtue he points out that David Hume is the main personality who provides these emotivist contents to the modern morality. According to MacIntyre, Hume’s and the modern emotivist moral philosophy include fundamental contrasts generally with the classical moral tradition particularly with Aristotle’s moral philosophy. However, MacIntyre underlines these contrasts in After Virtue, he in his other texts out of After Virtue, distinguishably brings Hume (...) and Aristotle together as they both have similar standpoints about how to understand morality. Therefore, MacIntyre’s interpretation on Hume needs to be examined with a perspective poin- ting these two different and seemingly mutually exclusive aspects. Putting together these two perspectives, this article aims to construct a holistic comprehension about MacIntyre’s placing Hume in the modern emotivism. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity through time of material objects where those conditions have a kind of empirical content necessary for them to function as criteria for identity through time. Taking Eli Hirsch’s program in The Concept of Identity as representative of attempts to formulate conditions which are logically necessary and sufficient and which also function as criteria guiding our tracing of objects’ careers through time, I argue (a) that, when such (...) programs are constructed in a way sensitive to the criteria we actually use, they fall prey to conceivable counterexamples and (b) that, when such programs are tightened to avoid logically possible counterexamples, they fail to capture the identity criteria implicit in our ordinary experience. The paper argues that our identity criteria are incomplete and informal and that our individuative practice is partially determined by the kind of interest we have in the object(s) being traced. The relationship between this view and two versions of relative identity is also discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.4 (1999) 116-127 [Access article in PDF] Authority, Solidarity, and the Political Economy of Identity: The Case of the United States David A. Hollinger Theorists of nationalism tend to circle around the United States like boy scouts who have spotted a clump of poison oak. The nationalism of the United States has figured small in the robust and wide-ranging discourse about nationalism that has involved sociologists, historians, political (...) scientists, philosophers, and literary scholars during the past two decades. Although there are significant exceptions to this pattern of avoidance--David Miller and Liah Greenfeld are convenient examples--several prominent cases illustrate the pattern. The United States is mentioned in only a single footnote in Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism. The United States is given short shrift in three of the most important collections of the 1990s: Homi Bhabha's Nation and Narration, John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith's Nationalism, and Geoff Eley and Ronald G. Suny's Becoming National. Montserrat Guibernau mentions the United States only twice, and in passing, in her Nationalisms: The Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. The United States gets less attention than Canada and the Ukraine in John A. Hall's rich, state-of-the-art collection of 1998, The State of the Nation. Ronald Beiner's Theorizing Nationalism has much more to tell us about Quebec than about the United States, which is alluded to even in passing by only half the contributors to this valuable anthology of 1999. That "nationalism is unknown" in the United States is claimed by Elie Kedouri, even in the fourth edition of his classic text Nationalism [143]. But the most interesting case of all is that of nationalism's most creative and influential theorist, Benedict Anderson.Anderson provides only episodic treatment of the United States while discussing "creole nationalism" in his influential book Imagined Communities. To be sure, Anderson's demonstration of the similarities between a large number of similarly situated, comparably developing national projects among creole populations in the New World is no cause for complaint. It is a signal contribution, and still insufficiently absorbed by a persistently Europe-centered discourse about nationalism. Anderson's recent book, The Spectre of Comparisons, also deals episodically with the United States, which Anderson now tells us explicitly has proved "too sui generis for ready-to-hand" [336] comparisons with other national projects in the Western Hemisphere. Most of Spectre of Comparisons is about Southeast Asia, just as the preponderance of Imagined Communities is about Latin America. Fair enough. [End Page 116]My point is not to find fault with Anderson for being an Area Studies specialist in so many areas of the world outside the United States. Nor do I have any significant quarrel with what little Anderson does say about the United States. What is worth remarking upon is simply that even the least Eurocentric of our era's leading theorists of nationalism in general has emerged not from the study of the United States, but from the study of Southeast Asia and Latin America. This is less a comment about Anderson than about the class of theorists of which he is a member. The scholars whose careers focus on the United States are "area studies specialists" of a kind, but few of them have intervened tellingly in the cross-disciplinary discussion of nationalism. One who did was the historian David Potter, whose still-powerful article "Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa" was published nearly forty years ago but is rarely cited today.The poison oak effect among theorists of nationalism would not be worthy of notice were it not for one fact that might be expected to attract rather than repel these theorists: the United States is the most successful nationalist project in all of modern history. What makes it "successful" is its longevity, its absorption of a variety of peoples, and its sheer power. Two-and-one-quarter centuries after its founding and 135 years after its Civil War, it is by far the most powerful nation-state... (shrink)

This paper argues that there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity through time of material objects where those conditions have a kind of empirical content necessary for them to function as criteria for identity through time. Taking Eli Hirsch’s program in The Concept of Identity as representative of attempts to formulate conditions which are logically necessary and sufficient and which also function as criteria guiding our tracing of objects’ careers through time, I argue (a) that, when such (...) programs are constructed in a way sensitive to the criteria we actually use, they fall prey to conceivable counterexamples and (b) that, when such programs are tightened to avoid logically possible counterexamples, they fail to capture the identity criteria implicit in our ordinary experience. The paper argues that our identity criteria are incomplete and informal and that our individuative practice is partially determined by the kind of interest we have in the object(s) being traced. The relationship between this view and two versions of relative identity is also discussed. (shrink)

Review of David Patterson, Portraits: The Hasidic Legacy of Elie Wiesel.

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a form (...) of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

A collection of 14 essays honoring the life and work of Oxford philosopher Wiggins touching on topics from ancient philosophy to ethics, metaphysics and the theory of meaning. The contributing scholars debate many of the seminal issues of Wiggins' work, including the determinancy of distinctness, relative identity, naturalism in ethics, logic and truth in moral judgments, and the practical wisdom of Aristotle. The collection uniquely features replies by Wiggins to each of the papers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

Why study notations, diagrams, or more broadly the variety of nonverbal “representations” or “signs” that are used in mathematical practice? This chapter maps out recent work on the topic by distinguishing three main philosophical motivations for doing so. First, some work (like that on diagrammatic reasoning) studies signs to recover norms of informal or historical mathematical practices that would get lost if the particular signs that these practices rely on were translated away; work in this vein has the potential to (...) broaden our view of the specific normativity of mathematics beyond logical proof. Second, some work focuses on signs to highlight the open-ended and “nonrigorous” aspects of mathematical practice, and the role of these aspects in the historical development of mathematics. The third motivation is based on the following observation: the reason differences in signs matter in mathematics is that humans are finite agents, with cognitive and computational limitations. Accordingly, studying signs can be a way to study how human computational constraints shape the mathematics that we do, and to tackle the topic of mathematical understanding. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out both (...) necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

Introduction générale à la philosophie des sciences du 20e siècle.

Extant theoretical work on the political resource curse implies that dependence on resource revenues should decrease autocracies’ likelihood of democratizing but not necessarily affect democracies’ chances of survival. Yet most previous empirical studies estimate models that are ill-suited to address this claim. We improve upon earlier studies, estimating a dynamic logit model that interacts a continuous measure of resource dependence with an indicator of regime type using data from 166 countries, covering the period from 1816-2006. We find that an increase (...) in resource dependence at time t - 1 increases the likelihood of autocratic persistence at t, but has no appreciable effect on democratic survival. We go beyond existing empirical studies to show that increases in resource dependence have persistent and substantial cumulative effects on autocracies' likelihood of becoming democratic over the long-term, showing that the total effect of resource dependence on regime type is much larger than the short-term (one period) effect indicates. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument. _Fate, Time, and Language_ presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's thesis (...) reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue. (shrink)

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light on (...) how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment. (shrink)

While there are many legal textbooks on the laws of armed conflict and academic works on ethical issues in international relations, this is the first text on the relevance of legal and normative issues in military practice. It covers the entire spectrum of military operations and is written with military deicision-makers particularly in mind.

Two main claims are defended in this paper: first, that typical disputes in the literature about the ontology of physical objects are merely verbal; second, that the proper way to resolve these disputes is by appealing to common sense or ordinary language. A verbal dispute is characterized not in terms of private idiolects, but in terms of different linguistic communities representing different positions. If we imagine a community that makes Chisholm's mereological essentialist assertions, and another community that makes Lewis's four‐dimensionalist (...) assertions, the members of each community speak the truth in their respective languages. This follows from an application of the principle of interpretive charity to the two communities. (shrink)

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science argues that Eurocentric blindness is a scientific failing, not a moral one. In a way true of no other political system, Japan's greatness has the potential to enliven and reform almost all the main branches of Western Political Science. David Williams criticizes Western social science, Anglo-American Philosophy and French Theory and explains why mainstream economists, historians of political thought and postculturalists have ignored Japan's modern achievements. Williams demonstrates why the renewal of social (...) science and the nurturing of a "a philosophy of the Pacific Century" requires a sustained act of intellectual demolition. (shrink)

The author of this book has traced the major lines of argument over those years in a most engaging style with clear descriptions of the concepts and ideas.