Written over the last two decades, John McDowell's papers, as a whole, deal with issues of philosophy. Specifically, separate groups of essays look at the ethical writings of Aristotle and Plato; moral questions regarding the Greek tradition; interpretations of Wittgenstein's work; and, finally, questions about personal identity and the character of first-person thought and speech.

Much as we would like to conceive empirical thought as rationally grounded in experience, pitfalls await anyone who tries to articulate this position, and ...

Much as we would like to conceive empirical thought as rationally grounded in experience, pitfalls await anyone who tries to articulate this position, and ...

Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years, geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as feminist recognition of the differences between women, their diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist and postmodern debates. Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the wide field of issues (...) that have been addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation, although the links between different spatial scales are also emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between the public and private spheres and their association with men and women respectively has been a crucial part of the social construction of gendered differences and its establishment, maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the possibilities of doing feminist research. It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology. (shrink)

Cilj ovoga istraživanja bio je ispitati povezanost osobina ličnosti, motivacije i strategija učenja kod učenika osnovnoškolske dobi. Ukupno 193 učenika ispunilo je Upitnik za ispitivanje osobina ličnosti kod djece, Upitnik za ispitivanje ciljnih orijentacija i Upitnik za ispitivanje strategija učenja. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da su učenici, u odnosu na učenice, skloniji ciljevima usmjerenima na druge i neakademskim ciljevima. Učenice, u odnosu na učenike, češće koriste meta-kognitivnu kontrolu i dubinsko procesiranje. Mlađi učenici važnijima su procijenili i ciljeve usmjerene na sebe (...) i na druge, a češće koriste i sve tri strategije učenja. Regresijske su analize pokazale da i osobine ličnosti i ciljne orijentacije učenika zasebno doprinose objašnjenju dijela varijance svih strategija učenja pri čemu su se od osobina ličnosti najvažnijim prediktorima pokazale savjesnost i emocionalna stabilnost. Ciljevi usmjereni na sebe značajni su prediktori meta-kognitivne kontrole i dubinskog procesiranja, dok su ciljevi usmjereni na druge značajan prediktor površinskog procesiranja. (shrink)

_Philosophy and Animal Life_ offers a new way of thinking about animal rights, our obligation to animals, and the nature of philosophy itself. Cora Diamond begins with "The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy," in which she accuses analytical philosophy of evading, or deflecting, the responsibility of human beings toward nonhuman animals. Diamond then explores the animal question as it is bound up with the more general problem of philosophical skepticism. Focusing specifically on J. M. Coetzee's _The Lives (...) of Animals_, she considers the failure of language to capture the vulnerability of humans and animals. Stanley Cavell responds to Diamond's argument with his own close reading of Coetzee's work, connecting the human-animal relation to further themes of morality and philosophy. John McDowell follows with a critique of both Diamond and Cavell, and Ian Hacking explains why Cora Diamond's essay is so deeply perturbing and, paradoxically for a philosopher, he favors poetry over philosophy as a way of overcoming some of her difficulties. Cary Wolfe's introduction situates these arguments within the broader context of contemporary continental philosophy and theory, particularly Jacques Derrida's work on deconstruction and the question of the animal. _Philosophy and Animal Life_ is a crucial collection for those interested in animal rights, ethics, and the development of philosophical inquiry. It also offers a unique exploration of the role of ethics in Coetzee's fiction. (shrink)

La figura de Orfeo, el poeta mítico, ha trascendido a través de la tradición poética e influido en ella de diversas maneras: el personaje está ligado a géneros poéticos, y a tópicos, motivos y temas literarios. Además, es el prototipo del poeta y el origen de la idealización de sus facultades. Esto último es en sí un tópico, como se puede observar en dos poemas, “Introito” de Ramón López Velarde y “Arte poética” de Alfonso Reyes.

This article discusses some possible issues and tasks that are particularly important for information and communication sciences. It deals with ethical and technological issues, the role and responsibility of information and communication intellectuals, anthropological issues in information and communication sciences, political economy, propaganda and public relations, corporations and post-politics, practical foundations of information and communication sciences, creation, the utopian dimension of information and communication sciences, libraries and the market, challenges in the education of information and communication experts, and a look (...) into the future. Deliberations about questions and tasks of information and communication sciences emphasise the need for their humanisation. This means that information and communication sciences should refrain from an uncritical adoption of affirmative discourses on the information society and adopt a truly critical relationship to life and society as a whole. (shrink)

resumo Um empirismo conseqüente depende da atribuição de um significado racional à nossa experiência perceptiva. Sem isto, a experiência perceptiva fica segregada do universo das crenças. Por outro lado, a experiência perceptiva não pode ser tratada como se fosse uma criação nossa. Ela deve ser vista como uma contribuição vinda de fora, que chega até nós através de nossos órgãos sensíveis. Estas duas exigências podem ser cumpridas desde que concebamos a experiência como a realização de capacidades conceituais na própria consciência (...) sensível. palavras-chave experiência, percepção, capacidades conceituais, crenças, racionalidade. (shrink)

How do rational minds make contact with the world? The empiricist tradition sees a gap between mind and world, and takes sensory experience, fallible as it is, to provide our only bridge across that gap. In its crudest form, for example, the traditional idea is that our minds consult an inner realm of sensory experience, which provides us with evidence about the nature of external reality. Notoriously, however, it turns out to be far from clear that there is any viable (...) conception of experience which allows it to do the job. The original problem is to show that thought is rationally constrained by external reality. If sensory experience is to provide the solution--in particular, if it is to provide the answer to sceptical challenges--it must therefore meet two criteria. First, it must itself be `receptive'--i.e., appropriately constrained by external reality. Second, it must be the kind of thing that can enter into a logical or rational relationship with belief--it must already be `conceptual,' in other words. In arguing against the idea that anything could serve both roles, Wilfred Sellars termed this conception of experience "the Myth of the Given.". (shrink)

Space Gender Knowledge is an innovative and comprehensive introduction to the geographies of gender and the gendered nature of spatial relations. It examines the major issues raised by women's movements and academic feminism, and outlines the main shifts in feminist geographical work, from the geography of women to the impact of post-structuralism. In making their selection, the editors have drawn on a wide range of interdisciplinary material, ranging across spatial scales from the body to the globe. The book presents influential (...) arguments for the importance of the intersection between space and gender. Looking both at geography and beyond the discipline, it explores the gendered construction of space and the spatial construction of gender. Divided into a number of conceptual sections, each prefaced by an editorial introduction, this reader includes extracts from both landmark texts and less well-known works, making it an indispensable introduction to this dynamic field of study. (shrink)

In 2013 John McDowell, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, delivered the Agnes Cuming Lectures that are hosted annually by the School of Philosophy at...

1. Presumably the point of, say, inculcating a moral outlook lies in a concern with how people live. It may seem that the very idea of a moral outlook makes room for, and requires, the existence of moral theory, conceived as a discipline which seeks to formulate acceptable principles of conduct. It is then natural to think of ethics as a branch of philosophy related to moral theory, so conceived, rather as the philosophy of science is related to science. On (...) this view, the primary topic of ethics is the concept of right conduct, and the nature and justification of principles of behaviour. If there is a place for an interest in the concept of virtue, it is a secondary place. Virtue is a disposition to behave rightly; the nature of virtue is explained, as it were, from the outside in. (shrink)

Historians have been divided about the origins of Leveller theories concerning natural rights, equality, and democracy. This article gives an account of the monistic natural philosophy outlined by Richard Overton in his pre-Leveller work Mans Mortalitie (1643/44) and demonstrates how his heretical conception of creation provided a metaphysical foundation for his political ideas about the liberty of the subject. Comparisons and contrasts are made with the hermetic idealism of Henry and Thomas Vaughan and the spiritual materialism of Gerrard Winstanley. The (...) most illuminating comparison amongst contemporaries, however, is found in Milton's poetic vision of the cosmos in Paradise Lost (1667). (shrink)

Deir el-Medina, the village of the workmen who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, is a uniquely rich source of information about life in Egypt between 1539 and 1075 BC. The abundant archaeological remains are complemented by tens of thousands of texts documenting the thoughts and activities of the villagers. Many of the texts are written on papyrus but most are on flakes of limestone which, being free and readily available, were used for even the most (...) casual and temporary of records. They include private letters, administrative accounts, magic spells, records of purchases, last wills and testaments, laundry lists, and love songs. The value of these rare glimpses of daily life is greatly enhanced by the concentration of texts in one time and place. This book combines translations of over 200 of these texts spanning the entire range of preserved genres with stunning illustrations. The reader will, therefore, be able to experience the life of the villagers through their own words whilst viewing places known to each individual writer. Each text is introduced by a commentary that provides the context and explains the contribution each text makes to our understanding of Egyptian society at this period. (shrink)

J.L. Mackie insists that ordinary evaluative thought presents itself as a matter of sensitivity to aspects of the world. And this phenomenological thesis seems correct. When one or another variety of philosophical non-cognitivism claims to capture the truth about what the experience of value is like, or (in a familiar surrogate for phenomenology) about what we mean by our evaluative language, the claim is never based on careful attention to the lived character of evaluative thought or discourse. The idea is, (...) rather, that the very concept of the cognitive or factual rules out the possibility of an undiluted representation of how things are, enjoying, nevertheless, the internal relation to 'attitudes' or the will that would be needed to count as evaluative. On this view the phenomenology of value would involve a mere incoherence, if it were as Mackie says--a possibility that then tends (naturally enough) not to be so much as entertained. But, as Mackie sees, there is no satisfactory justification for supposing that the factual is, by definition, attitudinatively and motivationally neutral. This clears away the only obstacle to accepting his phenomenological claim; and the upshot is that non-cognitivism must offer to correct the phenomenology of value, rather than give an account of it. -/- In Machie's view the correction is called for. In this paper I want to suggest that he attributes an unmerited plausibility to this thesis, by giving a false picture of what one is committed to if one resists it. (shrink)

In this new book, John McDowell builds on his much discussed Mind and World—one of the most highly regarded books in contemporary philosophy.

This is the 2011 Aquinas Lecture delivered by John McDowell on February 27, 2011 at Marquette University. A central theme in much of Professor McDowell's work is the harmful effect, in modern philosophy and in the modern reception of pre-modern philosophy, of a conception of nature that reflects an understanding, in itself perfectly correct, of the proper goals of the natural sciences. He has argued that we can free ourselves from the characteristic sorts of philosophical anxiety by recalling (...) the possibility of a less restrictive conception of what it takes for something to be natural. (shrink)