This article discusses the discourses of disability through a parallel `disabling' of its own text. It draws on literary as well as sociological sources in order to interrogate the nature and relations of the `tragic', the `heroic' and the `comic'. The authors offer the conclusion that the comic is never quite absent from the discourse of tragedy (after Kundera), and turn that insight back on their own text, in an attempt to refuse the solemnities and closures of their own narrative.

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs) accompanying sleep paralysis (SP) are often cited as sources of accounts of supernatural nocturnal assaults and paranormal experiences. Descriptions of such experiences are remarkably consistent across time and cultures and consistent also with known mechanisms of REM states. A three-factor structural model of HHEs based on their relations both to cultural narratives and REM neurophysiology is developed and tested with several large samples. One factor, labeled Intruder, consisting of sensed presence, fear, and auditory and visual (...) hallucinations, is conjectured to originate in a hypervigilant state initiated in the midbrain. Another factor, Incubus, comprising pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties, and pain, is attributed to effects of hyperpolarization of motoneurons on perceptions of respiration. These two factors have in common an implied alien ''other'' consistent with occult narratives identified in numerous contemporary and historical cultures. A third factor, labeled Unusual Bodily Experiences, consisting of floating/flying sensations, out-of-body experiences, and feelings of bliss, is related to physically impossible experiences generated by conflicts of endogenous and exogenous activation related to body position, orientation, and movement. Implications of this last factor for understanding of orientational primacy in self-consciousness are considered. Central features of the model developed here are consistent with recent work on hallucinations associated with hypnosis and schizophrenia. (shrink)

By a fragment of a natural language, we understand a collection of sentences forming a naturally delineated subset of that language and equipped with a semantics commanding the general assent of its native speakers. By the semantic complexity of such a fragment, we understand the computational complexity of deciding whether any given set of sentences in that fragment represents a logically possible situation. In earlier papers by the first author, the semantic complexity of various fragments of English involving at most (...) transitive verbs was investigated. The present paper considers various fragments of English involving ditransitive verbs and determines their semantic complexity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, using two case studies of episodes from recent physics against the contingency view advocated by social constructionists. In this view, physics, or science in general, is, in Ian Hacking’s words, not determined by anything. Much of the previous discussion has centered on examples of scientific success. In this paper I argue that experimental evidence and reasoned and critical discussion played the crucial role in the refutation of a previously strongly believed hypothesis, and in the decision (...) that a proposed new elementary particle did not exist, leaving no reasonable doubt. I suggest that the argument against contingency does not require the absence of all possible doubt, but rather the absence of reasonable doubt.Keywords: Contingency; Refutation; 17-keV neutrino; Parity nonconservation. (shrink)

author. University Professor in the School of Law, Columbia University. (From July 2006, Professor of Law, New York University.) Earlier versions of this Essay were presented at the Colloquium in Legal and Social Philosophy at University College London, at a law faculty workshop at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at a constitutional law conference at Harvard Law School. I am particularly grateful to Ronald Dworkin, Ruth Gavison, and Seana Shiffrin for their formal comments on those occasions and also to (...) James Allan, Aharon Barak, Richard Bellamy, Aileen Cavanagh, Arthur Chaskalson, Michael Dorf, Richard Fallon, Charles Fried, Andrew Geddis, Stephen Guest, Ian Haney-Lopez, Alon Harel, David Heyd, Sam Issacharoff, Elena Kagan, Kenneth Keith, Michael Klarman, John Manning, Andrei Marmor, Frank Michelman, Henry Monaghan, Véronique Munoz-Dardé, John Morley, Matthew Palmer, Richard Pildes, Joseph Raz, Carol Sanger, David Wiggins, and Jo Wolff for their suggestions and criticisms. Hundreds of others have argued with me about this issue over the years: This Essay is dedicated to all of them, collegially and with thanks. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: SECTION 1 THE WORLD BEFORE GLOBALIZATION: CHANGING -- SCALES OF EXPERIENCE Edited by Denis Shaw -- Chapter 1 Pre-capitalist worlds Denis Shaw -- Chapter 2 The rise and spread of capitalism Terry Slater -- Chapter 3 The making of the twentieth-century world Denis Shaw -- SECTION 2 SOCIETY, SETTLEMENT AND CULTURE Edited by Denis Shaw -- Chapter 4 Cities Allan Cochrane -- Chapter 5 Rural alternatives Ian Bowler -- Chapter 6 Geography, culture and global change (...) Cheryl McEwan -- SECTION 3 POPULATION, RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT -- Edited by iMichael Bradshaw -- Chapter 7 Demographic transformations Tony Champion -- Chapter 8 Resources and development Michael Bradshaw -- Chapter 9 Changing geographies of global food production Brian Ilbery -- Chapter 10 Alternative geographies of global development and inequality -- Marcus Power -- SECTION 4 PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE AND CONSUMPTION -- Edited by Peter Daniels -- Chapter 11 The geography of the economy Peter Daniels -- Chapter 12 The global production system: from Fordism to post-Fordism -- John Bryson and Nick Henry -- Chapter 13 The global financial system: worlds of monies Jane Pollard -- Chapter 14 Worlds of consumption Philip Crang -- SECTION 5 GEOPOLITICS, STATES AND CITIZENSHIP -- Edited by James Sidaway -- Chapter 15 Geopolitical traditions James Sidaway -- Chapter 16 The place of the nation-state James Sidaway -- Chapter 17 States, citizenship and collective action Murray Low -- Conclusions Challenges and promises -- Peter Daniels, Michael Bradshaw, Denis Shaw and James Sidaway -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

The 1980s, it is often claimed, was the decade when experimentation finally became a philosophical topic. This was the responsibility, the claim continues, of one particular movement within philosophy of science, called “new experimentalism.” The aim of this article is to complicate this historical narrative. We argue that in the 1980s, the study of experimentation was carried out not by one movement with one particular aim but rather in a diverse and open-ended way by people with different aims and backgrounds. (...) We then argue that from the late 1990s onward, this diversity disappeared and made room for disciplinary divisions—questions concerning experimentation became philosophical, others sociological, and so on. The reason for this, we claim, was that science and technology studies, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of science took over aspects of the 1980s study of experimentation. In this way, we argue, these elements became institutionalized, whereas others were forgotten. The importance of this process of institutionalization is illustrated by means of a discussion of other, similar approaches to the philosophy of experimentation that have not been able to ensure continuity because they did not find an institutional home. (shrink)

Introduction / Alessandra Tanesini and Michael P. Lynch -- Reassessing different conceptions of argumentation / Catarina Dutilh Novaes -- Martial metaphors and argumentative virtues and vices / Ian James Kidd -- Arrogance and deep disagreement / Andrew Aberdein -- Closed-mindedness and arrogance / Heather Battaly -- Intellectual trust and the marketplace of ideas / Allan Hazlett -- Is searching the Internet making us intellectually arrogant? / J. Adam Carter and Emma C. Gordon -- Intellectual humility and the curse of (...) knowledge / Michael Hannon -- Bullshit and dogmatism : a discourse analytical perspective / Chris Heffer -- Polarization and the problem of spreading arrogance / Michael P. Lynch -- Arrogance, polarization and arguing to win / Alessandra Tanesini -- Partisanship, humility, and epistemic polarization / Thomas Nadelhoffer, Rose Graves, Gus Skorburg, Mark Leary, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong -- Science denial, polarization, and arrogance / Lee McIntyre -- The polarization toolkit / Quassim Cassam -- Epistemic rights in a polarized world : the right to know and the abortion / Debate Lani Watson. (shrink)

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family circa 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-five dialogues developing Socrates' dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with (...) the Apology and thirteen letters. The four works in this volume recount the circumstances of Socrates' trial and execution in 399 BC. In Euthyphro, set in the weeks before the trial, Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to define holiness. In Apology, Socrates answers his accusers at trial and unapologetically defends his philosophical career. In Crito, a discussion of justice and injustice explains Socrates' refusal of Crito's offer to finance his escape from prison. And in Phaedo, Socrates discusses the concept of an afterlife and offers arguments for the immortality of the soul. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Harold North Fowler, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

Democracy and justice are often mutually antagonistic ideas, but in this innovative book Ian Shapiro shows how and why they should be pursued together. Justice must be sought democratically if it is to garner legitimacy in the modern world, he claims, and democracy must be justice-promoting if it is to sustain allegiance over time. _Democratic Justice_ meets these criteria, offering an attractive vision of a practical path to a better future. Wherever power is exercised in human affairs, Shapiro argues, the (...) lack of democracy will be experienced as injustice. The challenge is to democratize social relations so as to diminish injustice, but to do this in ways that are compatible with people’s values and goals. Shapiro shows how this can be done in different phases of the human life cycle, from childhood through the adult worlds of work and domestic life, retirement, old age, and approaching death. He spells out the implications for pressing debates about authority over children, the law of marriage and divorce, population control, governing the firm, basic income guarantees, health insurance, retirement policies, and decisions made by and for the infirm elderly. This refreshing encounter between political philosophy and practical politics will interest all those who aspire to bequeath a more just world to our children than the one we have inherited. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the question of whether it is ever permissible to grant a request for physician-aid-in-dying (PAD) from an individual suffering from treatment-resistant depression. I assume for the sake of argument that PAD is sometimes permissible. There are three requirements for PAD: suffering, prognosis, and competence. First, an individual must be suffering from an illness or injury which is sufficient to cause serious, ongoing hardship. Second, one must have exhausted effective treatment options, and one’s prospects for recovery (...) must be poor. Third, the individual must be judged competent to request PAD. I argue that many cases of treatment-resistant depression meet the first two requirements. Thus, the key question concerns the third. I consider four features of depression that might compromise a person’s decision-making capacity. Ultimately, I conclude that PAD requests from depressed patients can be permissibly granted in some circumstances. (shrink)

Despite significant ethical advances in recent years, including professional developments in ethical review and codification, research deception continues to be a pervasive practice and contentious focus of debate in the behavioral sciences. Given the disciplines' generally stated ethical standards regarding the use of deceptive procedures, researchers have little practical guidance as to their ethical acceptability in specific research contexts. We use social contract theory to identify the conditions under which deception may or may not be morally permissible and formulate practical (...) recommendations to guide researchers on the ethical employment of deception in behavioral science research. (shrink)

This discussion paper continues the debate over risk‐related standards of mental competence which appears in Bioethics 5. Dan Brock there defends an approach to mental competence in patients which defines it as being relative to differing standards, more or less rigorous depending on the degree of risk involved in proposed treatments. But Mark Wicclair raises a problem for this approach: if significantly different levels of risk attach, respectively, to accepting and refusing the same treatment, then it is possible, on this (...) account, for a patient to be considered competent to accept, but not refuse, the treatment, or vice versa. I argue that this puzzle does not constitute a genuine problem for a risk‐related standard. To this end I focus on the situation where, of two mutually exclusive options, one is riskier, but offering more pronounced benefit, while the other is safer, but offering less benefit. I argue for this proposition: it can take far less insight to know that the safe option is good than to know that the risky option is better. Now say one is actually informed enough to know that the safe option is good, but not enough to know whether the risky option is better; in such a case one is competent to say yes to that first option (the safe one), but not to say yes to the other. (I argue in passing that Pascal's Wager can be interpreted as having precisely this deliberative structure.) I thus conclude that cases do indeed exist where one can be competent to say yes but not no, or vice versa; and that it is thus not an anomaly in the risk‐related standard that it entails the existence of such cases. (shrink)

Arguments strong enough to justify skeptical theism will be strong enough to justify the position that every claim about God is empirically unfalsifiable. This fact is problematic because that position licenses further arguments which are clearly unreasonable, but which the skeptical theist cannot consistently accept as such. Avoiding this result while still achieving the theoretical objectives looked for in skeptical theism appears to demand an impossibly nuanced position.

How to draw the line between depression-as-disorder and non-pathological depressive symptoms continues to be a contested issue in psychiatry. Relatively few philosophers have waded into this debate, but the tools of philosophical analysis are quite relevant to it. In this paper, I defend a particular answer to this question, the Contextual approach.On this view, depression is a disorder if and only if it is a disproportionate response to a justifying cause or else is unconnected to any justifying cause. I present (...) four objections to this approach and then defend it from them. Along the way, I explain why it matters whether we get this question right. (shrink)

This article examines in detail a remarkable but short-lived cosmological theory of 1959. The theory depended crucially on a hypothesis that could be, and was, tested in the laboratory. I use the case to discuss the nature of testing in cosmology and to argue against ideas about astronomy suggested by Ian Hacking. The case of the electrical universe exemplifies how disagreements can be settled by good experiments and also how experiments of wide-ranging theoretical significance need not be biased by either (...) theory or the experimentalists’ predisposed ideas. I argue that the episode supports Allan Franklins “evidence model” and disputes accounts based on the sociology of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

David Lewis maintained that epistemological contextualism (on which the truth-conditions for utterances of “S knows p” change in different contexts depending on the salient “alternative possibilities”) could solve the problem of skepticism as well as the Gettier problem. Contextualist approaches to skepticism have become commonplace, if not orthodox, in epistemology. But not so for contextualist approaches to the Gettier problem: the standard approach to this has been to add an “anti-luck” condition to the analysis of knowledge.

Thomas Williams has developed a radical interpretation of Duns Scotus’s voluntarism using an earlier interpretation of my own as a foil. He argues that the goodness of creatures and the rightness of actions are wholly dependent on the divine will, apart from any reference to the divine intellect, human nature, or any principle other than God’s own arbitrary will. I explain how his interpretation fails to account for the roles that essential goodness and divine justice play in divine volition. The (...) unmitigated voluntarism that Williams develops does not conform to the full range of authentic Scotistic texts. Despite the interest Williams’s voluntarism may have if taken as a theoretical position, it does not do justice to the nuance and speculative depth of Scotus’s actual understanding of the divine will, whose creative artistry is repugnant to arbitrary volition. I am grateful to Williams for the provocation to develop further the richness of Scotus’s volutarism. (shrink)

Ian Wilson; XI—The True and the False1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 67, Issue 1, 1 June 1967, Pages 169–178, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

(1992). Cultural contingencies and economic behavior: Return migration in Portugal. World Futures: Vol. 33, Culture and Development: European Experiences and Challenges A Special Research Report of the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 155-164.

(1992). Globality and community in culture and development. World Futures: Vol. 33, Culture and Development: European Experiences and Challenges A Special Research Report of the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 1-24.

This article makes critical observations about the popular examination of dying and its care, identifies the key challenges to modern dying, and argues for a public health approach to end-of-life care. Only by adopting a global and non-clinical perspective on the human experience of dying can we address people’s concerns where these arise—in their own homes and workplaces—and to offer alternatives to the more radical choices offered by modern medicine.

The much-anticipated anthology on Plato’s_Timaeus_—Plato’s singular dialogue on the creation of the universe, the nature of the physical world, and the place of persons in the cosmos—examining all dimensions of one of the most important books in Western Civilization: its philosophy, cosmology, science, and ethics, its literary aspects and reception. Contributions come from leading scholars in their respective fields, including Sir Anthony Leggett, 2003 Nobel Laureate for Physics. Parts of or earlier versions of these papers were first presented at the (...) _Timaeus_ Conference, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in September of 2007._ To this day, Plato’s _Timaeus_ grounds the form of ethical and political thinking called Natural Law—the view that there are norms in nature that provide the patterns for our actions and ground the objectivity of human values. Beyond the intellectual content of the dialogue’s core, its literary frame is also the source of the myth of Atlantis, giving the West the concept of the “lost world.” From Platonic space to Presocratic vortices, from Philosopher-Kings to Craftsman-Gods and from modern physics to the myth of Atlantis, _One Book, The Whole Universe_ presents in one volume the most up-to-date and penetrating scholarship on Plato’s _Timaeus_ by some of the greatest minds alive today. Contributors__ _Ann Bergren Gábor Betegh Sean Carroll Alan Code Zina Giannopoulou Verity Harte Thomas Kjeller Johansen Charles H. Kahn Anthony J. Leggett Anthony A. Long Stephen Menn Richard D. Mohr Kathryn A. Morgan Alexander P.D. Mourelatos Ian Mueller Thomas M. Robinson Barbara M. Sattler Allan Silverman Jon Solomon Anthony Vidler Matthias Vorwerk Donald Zeyl. (shrink)

This issue investigates the meaning of photographic image for contemporary art. In Malraux' dream, photography offers the ultimate guarantee for a coherent presentation of art. However, as Douglas Crimp has stated, the appearance and enhancement of photography as a form of art among other art forms disrupted the center of the art world. What does this mean for art and philosophy in our time? Various artists and theorists will delve into that question: Christian Boltanski, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Jean-François Chevrier, Douglas (...) Crimp, Jos de Mul, Mirjam de Zeeuw, Rineke Dijkstra, Michael Gibbs, Rodney Graham, Gerald van der Kaap, Karen Knorr, Zoe Leonard, Ken Lum, Hermann Pitz, Liza-May Post, John Roberts, Allan Sekula, Andres Serrano, Jan Simons, Beat Streuli, John M. Swinnen, Renée van de Vall, Hilde van Gelder, Hripsimé Visser, Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace and Herta Wolf. (shrink)

This paper concerns the attempt to formulate an empirical version of the problem of evil, and the attempt to counter this version by what is known as ‘sceptical theism’. My concern is to assess what is actually achieved in these attempts. To this end I consider the debate between them against the backdrop of William Rowe's distinction between expanded standard theism and restricted standard theism (which I label E and R respectively). My claim is that the empirical version significantly fails (...) to challenge E in the way that a workable logical version would; and that sceptical theism significantly fails to defend R in the way that a workable theodicy would. My conclusion is that sceptical theism and the empirical argument play a significantly more limited role in the debate over evil than the arguments they are supposed to replace. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)

: The question of whether science may usefully be viewed as a market process has recently been addressed by Mäki (1999), who concludes that "either free-market economics is self-defeating, or else there must be two different concepts of free market, one for the ordinary economy, the other for science." Here I argue that such pessimism is unwarranted. Mäki proposes (see also Wible 1998) that the conduct of economic research itself be taken, self-reflexively, as a test case for any suggested economics (...) of science. While agreeing that we may expect economics to apply to the conduct of economic research itself, I demonstrate that there is a lack of cogency, both in Mäki's argument for his proposal and in his attempt to implement a reflexivity test. Mäki asks what would be exchanged in the scientific "market for ideas" (see also Sent 1997). The answer is that recognition is exchanged for the opportunity to use another's research results. The identification of an organized and pervasive system of exchange establishes a firm basis for analyzing science as a market process. (shrink)

Written by Thomas Hobbes and first published in 1651, _Leviathan_ is widely considered the greatest work of political philosophy ever composed in the English language. Hobbes's central argument—that human beings are first and foremost concerned with their own fears and desires, and that they must relinquish basic freedoms in order to maintain a peaceful society—has found new adherents and critics in every generation. This new edition, which uses modern text and relies on large-sheet copies from the 1651 Head version, includes (...) interpretive essays by four leading Hobbes scholars: John Dunn, David Dyzenhaus, Elisabeth Ellis, and Bryan Garsten. Taken together with Ian Shapiro’s wide-ranging introduction, they provide fresh and varied interpretations of _Leviathan_ for our time. (shrink)

As a result of the stress of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers have been expressing a great deal of frustration and anger, sometimes directed at patients who have chosen not to get vaccinated. This paper examines the moral status of such anger in light of philosophical treatments of anger's purpose, benefits, and drawbacks. A theory of appropriate anger is sketched, after which healthcare workers’ anger toward perceived patient wrongdoing is assessed in light of philosophical (...) considerations for and against anger. Ultimately, it is argued that it would be better for nurses and doctors not to experience this kind of anger, and this conclusion is used to motivate a moral case for additional support for overtaxed healthcare workers. (shrink)