Errol Lord offers a new account of the nature of rationality: what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. Lord defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons, and dispels doubts about whether we ought to be rational.

Throughout the history of the Western world, science has possessed an extraordinary amount of authority and prestige. And while its pedestal has been jostled by numerous evolutions and revolutions, science has always managed to maintain its stronghold as the knowing enterprise that explains how the natural world works: we treat such legendary scientists as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein with admiration and reverence because they offer profound and sustaining insight into the meaning of the universe. In The Intelligibility of Nature (...) , Peter Dear considers how science as such has evolved and how it has marshaled itself to make sense of the world. His intellectual journey begins with a crucial observation: that the enterprise of science is, and has been, directed toward two distinct but frequently conflated ends—doing and knowing. The ancient Greeks developed this distinction of value between craft on the one hand and understanding on the other, and according to Dear, that distinction has survived to shape attitudes toward science ever since. Teasing out this tension between doing and knowing during key episodes in the history of science—mechanical philosophy and Newtonian gravitation, elective affinities and the chemical revolution, enlightened natural history and taxonomy, evolutionary biology, the dynamical theory of electromagnetism, and quantum theory—Dear reveals how the two principles became formalized into a single enterprise, science, that would be carried out by a new kind of person, the scientist. Finely nuanced and elegantly conceived, The Intelligibility of Nature will be essential reading for aficionados and historians of science alike. (shrink)

> I read the two papers you sent me and found the Budapest one particularly > clear. But I have two reservations concerning your scheme. The first is > that I don?t understand why one needs collapse, and the second is that the > collapsing scheme seems so complicated. Perhaps it is best to illustrate > using an example.

Check out ONGsucks.com, this is not a Justpeace or Better Times page, it's from a guy who's obviously fed up with the high prices of natural gas. We are too, that's why we put a wood stove in last year. For other energy conservation tips, check out our Better Times Energy Conservation Page.

Many' people in the community including myself are concerned at the continuation of the single member electorate system for election of members to the House of Representatives, and its failure to result in proper representation of the diversity of interests in the community. A multimember electorate system, or single electorate for each State or Territory, with random rotation of names on ballot papers, is long overdue after over a century of debate over existing undemocratic practices. The Australian Constitution allows that (...) "each State shall be one electorate" in the absence of. (shrink)

Table of Contents: Preface vii Introduction: Philosophy and Operationalism 1 1. "What was Worth Knowing" in 1500 10 2. Humanism and Ancient Wisdom: How to Learn Things in the Sixteenth Century 30 3. The Scholar and the Craftsman: Paracelsus, Gilbert, Bacon 49 4. Mathematics Challenges Philosphy: Galileo, Kepler, and the Surveyors 65 5. Mechanism: Descartes Builds a Universe 80 6. Extra-Curricular Activities: New Homes for Natural Knowledge 101 7. Experiment: How to Learn Things about Nature in the Seventeenth Century 131 (...) 8. Cartesians and Newtonians 149 Conclusion: What was Worth Knowing by the Eighteenth Century 168 Notes and References 171 Documentation and Further Reading 181 Dramatis Personae 193 Glossary of Major Terms 197 Index 201. (shrink)

Greetings, and may this letter find you at peace and in prosperity! Forgive my writing to you out of the blue. Though you and I have never met, we are not strangers. We are, in a certain sense, the closest of kin. I am one of your possible futures.

My dissertation is a systematic defense of the claim that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to the reasons you possess. The dissertation is split into two parts, each consisting of three chapters. In Part I--Coherence, Possession, and Correctly Responding--I argue that my view has important advantages over popular views in metaethics that tie rationality to coherence (ch. 2), defend a novel view of what it is to possess a reason (ch. 3), and defend a novel (...) view about what it is to act and hold attitudes for normative reasons (ch. 4). In Part II--Foundationalism, Deception, and The Importance of Being Rational--I argue that foundationalists about epistemic rationality should think that the foundational beliefs are held for sufficient reasons (ch. 5), argue that my view solves the New Evil Demon problem for externalism (and solves a related and underapprieciated problem) (ch. 6), and argue that my view can vindicate the thought that we ought to be rational (ch. 7). (shrink)

enterprise initiated by Descartes, in that makes it into an effort to say the least one can confidentially assert rather than the most that one can usefully propose, as a way of understanding the scientifically accepted data.

Free speech is a great value and forms the life blood of a civilised society. It is however, one of several values and may sometimes come into conflict with them. In those cases it may need to be restricted. Hate speech is one such case and the author argues that it can and should be prohibited.

Father Lord, author of Armchair Philosophy, herein offers to a wider audience some notes from a recent talk to the Philosophers in St. Louis. He believes that writing is necessary not only to express, but also really to assimilate philosophy.

Father Lord, author of Armchair Philosophy, herein offers to a wider audience some notes from a recent talk to the Philosophers in St. Louis. He believes that writing is necessary not only to express, but also really to assimilate philosophy.

Burd se ha propuesto redimir nuestra tradicional inferioridad en los estudios maquiavélicos, y creo que quedará patente que ha dado una explicación mucho más satisfactoria de El príncipe que la que cualquier país poseyera con anterioridad. Su edición comentada proporciona todas las respuestas a un conocido problema de la historia de Italia y de la literatura política. En realidad, el antiguo problema ha dejado de existir, y ningún lector de este volumen continuará preguntándose cómo un hombre tan inteligente y razonable (...) llegó a proponer consejos tan execrables. (shrink)

Errol Lord explores the boundaries of epistemic normativity. He argues that we can understand these better by thinking about which mental states are competitors in rationality’s competition. He argues that belief, disbelief, and two kinds of suspension of judgment are competitors. Lord shows that there are non-evidential reasons for suspension of judgment. One upshot is an independent motivation for a certain sort of pragmatist view of epistemic rationality.

such as to affect an election result. As I understand, this is acknowledged by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral lvlatters, and remains the view of my Govemrnent, as supported by recent State election experiences. In the absence of such evidence, any proposal to tighten voter eligibility by insisting on validating the proof of identity of electors against driver's licence details or supplementary documentation will only operate to disenfranchise many rural and indigenous Australian electors and potentially those people in society (...) who do not have a driver's licence. More rigorous identity tests may also considerably increase the time taken for electors to submit or update.. (shrink)

It’s an undeniable fact about our moral lives that we are partial towards certain people and projects. Despite this, it has traditionally been very hard to justify partiality. In this paper I defend a novel partialist theory. The context of the paper is the debate between three different views of how partiality is justified. According to the first view, partiality is justified by facts about our ground projects. According to the second view, partiality is justified by facts about our relationships (...) with the things that we are partial towards. And according to the third view, partiality is justified by facts about the things that we are partial towards. I argue that all three views contain part of the truth. We can see this by adopting a more sophisticated view of the weight of reasons. Once we do this, it will be clear that both facts about individuals and facts about relationships play a role in explaining why we often have stronger reason to act well towards those things we are partial towards. Further, I argue, facts about projects help explain why facts about relationships play the role that they do in determining the strength of our reasons. (shrink)

Objectivists about obligation hold that obligations are determined by all of the normatively relevant facts. Perspectivalists, on the other hand, hold that only facts within one’s perspective can determine what we are obligated to do. This chapter argues for a perspectivalist view. It argues that what you are obligated to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess. This view is anchored in the thought that our obligations have to be action-guiding in a certain sense—we have to be able (...) to act for the reasons that obligate us. The chapter argues that we have this ability—the ability to act for the right reasons—only if we possess those reasons. Thus, objectivism is false. The second half of the chapter argues that problems having to do with new information do not plague the particular perspectival view presented. (shrink)

There are parallel debates in metaethics and aesthetics about the rational merits of deferring to others about ethics and aesthetics. In both areas it is common to think that there is something amiss about deference. A popular explanation of this in aesthetics appeals to the importance of aesthetic acquaintance. This kind of explanation has not been explored much in ethics. This chapter defends a unified account of what is amiss about ethical and aesthetic deference. According to this account, deference is (...) a non-ideal way of thinking about ethics and aesthetics because it does not allow us to possess the full range of reasons provided by the ethical and aesthetic facts. It has this feature because it does not acquaint us with ethical and aesthetic facts. It is argued further that despite this defect, there is no general obligation not to defer. The upshot is a moderate optimism about ethical and aesthetic deference. (shrink)

It is a truism that we ought to be rational. Despite this, it has become popular to think that it is not the case that we ought to be rational. In this paper I argue for a view about rationality—the view that what one is rationally required to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses—by showing that it can vindicate that one ought to be rational. I do this by showing that it is independently very plausible that what (...) one ought to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses. Thus, the paper also makes a contribution tos the debate about the nature of our obligations. (shrink)

Normative reasons have become a popular theoretical tool in recent decades. One helpful feature of normative reasons is their weight. The fourteen new essays in this book theorize about many different aspects of weight. Topics range from foundational issues to applications of weight in debates across philosophy.

This article is currently available as a free download on Ingenta Connect.

Objectivists about obligation hold that obligations are determined by all of the normatively relevant facts. Perspectivalists, on the other hand, hold that only facts within one's perspective can determine what we are obligated to do. In this paper I argue for a perspectivalist view. On my view, what you are obligated to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess. My argument for my view is anchored in the thought that our obligations have to be action-guiding in a certain (...) sense--we have to be able to act for the reasons that obligate us. I argue that we have this ability--the ability to act for the right reasons--only if we possess those reasons. Thus, objectivism is false. In the second half of the paper I argue that problems having to do with new information do not plague my particular perspectival view. (shrink)

It’s natural to say that when it’s rational for me to φ, I have reasons to φ. That is, there are reasons for φ-ing, and moreover, I have some of them. Mark Schroeder calls this view The Factoring Account of the having reasons relation. He thinks The Factoring Account is false. In this paper, I defend The Factoring Account. Not only do I provide intuitive support for the view, but I also defend it against Schroeder’s criticisms. Moreover, I show that (...) it helps us understand the requirements of substantive rationality, or what we are rationally required to do when responding to reasons. (shrink)

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 92, Issue 2, Page 365-377, June 2014.

The mismatch between common representations of “science” and the miscellany of materials typically studied by the historian of science is traced to a systematic ambiguity that may itself be traced to early modern Europe. In that cultural setting, natural philosophy came to be rearticulated as involving both contemplative and practical knowledge. The resulting tension and ambiguity are illustrated by the eighteenth‐century views of Buffon. In the nineteenth century, a new enterprise called “science” represents the establishment of an unstable ideology of (...) natural knowledge that was heavily indebted to those early modern developments. The two complementary and competing elements of the ideology of modern science are accordingly described as “natural philosophy” and “instrumentality” . The history of science in large part concerns the story of their shifting, often mutually denying, interrelations. (shrink)