In this paper, we redefine the target of evolutionary explanations by proposing the “evosystem” as an alternative to populations, lineages and species. Evosystems account for changes in the distribution of heritable variation within individual Darwinian populations (evolution by natural selection, drift, or constructive neutral evolution), but also for changes in the networks of interactions within or between Darwinian populations and changes in the abiotic environment (whether these changes are caused by the organic entities or not). The evosystem can thereby become (...) a centerpiece for a redefined evolutionary science, that is, evolutionary studies, that apprehends through a single framework the variety of evolutionary processes that lie at various scales. To illustrate the importance of this broadened perspective on evolution, we use a case of antimicrobial resistance evolution: the spread of the blaNDM gene family and the related resistance to carbapenem antibiotics observed globally, and show how evolutionary studies can contribute to answering contemporary socially relevant challenges. (shrink)

Why do humans make music? Theories of the evolution of musicality have focused mainly on the value of music for specific adaptive contexts such as mate selection, parental care, coalition signaling, and group cohesion. Synthesizing and extending previous proposals, we argue that social bonding is an overarching function that unifies all of these theories, and that musicality enabled social bonding at larger scales than grooming and other bonding mechanisms available in ancestral primate societies. We combine cross-disciplinary evidence from archeology, anthropology, (...) biology, musicology, psychology, and neuroscience into a unified framework that accounts for the biological and cultural evolution of music. We argue that the evolution of musicality involves gene–culture coevolution, through which proto-musical behaviors that initially arose and spread as cultural inventions had feedback effects on biological evolution because of their impact on social bonding. We emphasize the deep links between production, perception, prediction, and social reward arising from repetition, synchronization, and harmonization of rhythms and pitches, and summarize empirical evidence for these links at the levels of brain networks, physiological mechanisms, and behaviors across cultures and across species. Finally, we address potential criticisms and make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music. (shrink)

We compare and contrast the 60 commentaries by 109 authors on the pair of target articles by Mehr et al. and ourselves. The commentators largely reject Mehr et al.'s fundamental definition of music and their attempts to refute (1) our social bonding hypothesis, (2) byproduct hypotheses, and (3) sexual selection hypotheses for the evolution of musicality. Instead, the commentators generally support our more inclusive proposal that social bonding and credible signaling mechanisms complement one another in explaining cooperation within and competition (...) between groups in a coevolutionary framework (albeit with some confusion regarding terminologies such as “byproduct” and “exaptation”). We discuss the proposed criticisms and extensions, with a focus on moving beyond adaptation/byproduct dichotomies and toward testing of cross-species, cross-cultural, and other empirical predictions. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

While recent studies have claimed that non-referential gestures are used to mark discourse-new and/or -accessible referents and focused information in adult speech, to our knowledge, no prior investigation has studied the relationship between information structure and gesture referentiality in children’s narrative speech from a developmental perspective. A longitudinal database consisting of 332 narratives performed by 83 children at two different time points in development was coded for IS and gesture referentiality. Results revealed that at both time points, both referential and (...) non-referential gestures were produced more with information that moves discourse forward and predication rather than topical or background information. Further, at 7–9 years of age, children tended to use more non-referential gestures to mark focus and comment constituents than referential gestures. In terms of the marking of the newness of discourse referents, non-referential gestures already seem to play a key role at 5–6 years old, whereas referential gestures did not show any patterns. This relationship was even stronger at 7–9 years old. All in all, our findings offer supporting evidence that in contrast with referential gestures, non-referential gestures have been found to play a key role in marking IS, and that the development of this relationship solidifies at a period in development that coincides with a spurt in non-referential gesture production. (shrink)

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

This article deals with the methodologies commonly used in the framework of the structural approach to social representations. It concerns free and hierarchical evocations, the characterization questionnaire, the similarity analysis, the basic cognitive schemes model, the attribute-challenge technique and the test of context independence. More than a simple review of these methodologies, it offers a critical approach concerning the problems encountered and related to: thresholds or “cutoff points” used to diagnose the structure and the accuracy of the structural diagnosis, grouping (...) methods employed to reduce the corpus of verbal associations, the dilemma between reliability and feasibility, especially in field research, the adequacy and number of modalities of response in the framework of the structural diagnosis. Following this evaluation, this article suggests potential solutions to overcome these methodological limitations. Moreover, as methodological issues are closely related to theoretical questions, the link between social representation theory and identity approaches is discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dei Filius in ContextPatrick Gorevan"On January 3, Vérot, bishop of Savannah, made his debut at the council with a common-sense but long-winded speech, laced with witting or unwitting touches of humor that pleased some but annoyed others. He asked why the council was wasting time in refuting the errors of some obscure German philosophers. It should instead focus on real issues."1This article is an attempt to help understand the (...) First Vatican Council's efforts which resulted in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Dei Filius, in the face of skepticism by Bishop Augustin Vérot (and others) about the need for the debate and subsequent constitution on faith and reason.The philosophers in question were not particularly obscure: Georg Hermes and Anton Günther were influential figures in the Catholic intellectual world of the mid nineteenth century, while Louis Bautain, and indeed Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, even apart from their influence in Catholic intellectual circles, were inspiring spiritual figures, founders of important and widespread religious orders which flourish to this day. Their "errors" were influential, and represented a broad flank of Christian thinking in the aftermath of the Enlightenment, in many cases demonstrating the truth of Karl Barth's remark that, in those years, "theology... retreated into the narrow regions of epistemology and ethics that Kant left for it."2 [End Page 803]Their "errors" also reflected the dialogue which Christians, haltingly and awkwardly sometimes, but unavoidably, were carrying on with the world of the Enlightenment. Hermann-Josef Pottmeyer concluded his assessment of Dei Filius by saying that the constitution was nothing less than the solemn recognition of the elements of truth in the Enlightenment.3 Pottmeyer is offering a benign assessment of the council's attitude, for the preface to Dei Filius rather speaks about problems to be solved, which had been caused or accentuated by the Enlightenment.4 Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that the Catholic semi-rationalists, ontologists, and even fideists were the ones trying to discern the truthful elements emerging from the Enlightenment.5This introductory paper will try to assess: what the semi-rationalists such as Hermes and Günther, the ontologists such as Rosmini-Serbati, and the semi-fideists such as Bautain were trying to achieve; what the maturing judgment of the Church, assisted particularly by the theologians of the "Roman School," was on their efforts; and how this prepared the ground for the Council and the constitution Dei Filius.The Role of Semi-RationalismIt is clear that semi-rationalism, the Catholic version of rationalism as it were, is one of the chief explicit targets of Dei Filius. While rationalism or a total reliance on reason for religious truth, ignoring or rejecting revelation in the process, is a bridge too far for Catholics, semi-rationalism in its [End Page 804] many forms can seem to offer a different kind of bridge, keeping Christian thought in touch with the deliverances of enlightened reason.Semi-rationalism is the view that, while the revelation of God is important and even necessary for knowledge of religious truths (either initially or for the uneducated),human reason can independently demonstrate all or almost all of the truths known through revelation. Accordingly, on this view there are no or very few divine mysteries that cannot be independently proven through reason. Semi-rationalism was especially popular among German Catholic philosophers and theologians at the start of the nineteenth century, as a way to defend Catholicism in post Enlightenment times.6Thinkers of this kind who take center stage in the mind of the fathers of the Council, and of the Church's doctrinal concern in the years leading up to Vatican I, are Hermes, based in the University of Münster, and Günther, a Bohemian who worked and taught (privately) in Vienna. To these we turn.Georg Hermes (1775–1831)Hermes was an influential priest and theologian, professor of dogmatic theology in Münster and eventually in Bonn, with a wide following among his colleagues and students. He was motivated by his exposure to Kantian thought to approach theology as an apologist. His thought is sometimes termed an apologetic... (shrink)

This rejoinder to J. Patrick Gray's and Linda Wolfe's 'The Loving Parent Meets the Selfish Gene' (Inquiry, this issue), which in turn was in response to the author's 'Human Tragedy and Natural Selection' (Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 4), briefly addresses their major objections and suggests that in many instances they have misunderstood the point of that paper. They argue that many of the traits referred to are more cultural than genetic. That this is not the central issue is made (...) clearer by stressing certain aspects of the view underlying the original article, chiefly concerning the extent of human irrationality and insensitivity. (shrink)

The latest volume of Leibniz’ Politische Schriften, in the great Akademie-Ausgabe of the Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, reveals the astonishing range of Leibniz’ political-moral-legal-religious-scientific-cultural concerns: if the first, largest and most important section of this new fifth volume deals with justice and law, that is only to be expected, since Leibniz’ doctoral degree was in law and jurisprudence, and since he served as jurisconsult and “intimate counsellor of justice” to an ever-expanding circle of European rulers: first the Elector of Mainz, (...) then the house of Hannover, then the King of Prussia in Berlin, the Emperor in Vienna, and Czar Peter the Great.. But Politische Schriften vol. 5 also treats “church policy” and charitable religious reconciliation—including a Latin memorial poem on the death of benevolently ecumenical Huguenot-turned-Catholic Pellisson ; the raising of Hannover to the status of an Electorate within the Holy Roman Empire; and the relations of the Reich with Europe, especially with the France of bellicose Louis XIV. Moreover vol. 5 takes up “health policy,” the improvement of the coinage, and numerous schemes for the rational re-ordering of the ducal libraries of Hannover and Wolfenbüttel, with emphasis on books in the so-called “higher-faculties”. And all of these apparently diverse, seemingly scattered matters are coherently linked by Leibniz’ charitable concern for le bien général du genre humain: “Provided that something of importance is achieved, I am indifferent whether it is done in Germany or France, for I seek the good of mankind. I am neither a phil-Hellene nor a philo-Roman, but a philanthropos.”. (shrink)

This paper highlights the contributions of three major Islamicists, Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin, and Frithjof Schuon, to the understanding of the Qur’ân. Their works point to the epistemologic primacy of the contemplative and esoteric dimensions of the Book. Its linguistic texture and modalities are here understood as expressing the very limits of language, the proportional reciprocity between the actualization of inner meaning and spiritual fruition, and its ultimate metaphysical substance. These principles and their spiritual consequences may constitute the best (...) antidote to contemporary fundamentalist and modernist reductionism in scriptural hermeneutics. (shrink)

A quick way of spotting the new intellectual climate in Italy is via a comparison of a survey article on contemporary Italian philosophy, "Orientamenti della Filosofia Contemporanea in Italia," published by Francesco Orestano practically on the eve of the last war, with a very recent volume of essays entitled La mia prospettiva filosofica. The latter contains a dozen Confessiones Fidei, ten of which are written by present-day Italian thinkers, the other two being by Jules Chaix-Ruy and Louis Lavelle of (...) France. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789Patrick HenryCitizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, by Daniel Gordon; viii & 270 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.Under examination here is the early modern period in France from Louis XIV to the French Revolution when kings ruled absolutely and citizens were without sovereignty. Discarding the traditional image of the Enlightenment as the (...) absolute enemy of absolutism, Gordon, in this sense, follows Norbert Elias and Robert Darnton who treat the Enlightenment as part of an elitist and hierarchical establishment. More specifically, as his subtitle indicates, Gordon portrays the invention of a “nonpolitical polis” (p. 6), an ideological social space where, despite political inequality, citizens could practice social equality in a hierarchical régime. The rise of this “nondemocratic egalitarian ethos” (p. 7) brought with it a new cult of sociabilité, a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe the idealization of the private sphere and the practice of social equality.The first chapter, then, ties sociability not to democracy, as in the Habermasian model, but to the absolutism that stimulated it and coexisted with it. A series of five ideal types of sociability depict how men and women, members of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, came together—in commerce, public welfare, scientific academies, salons, cafés, public libraries, and various other social situations not protorevolutionary in character—to create a bond among equals [End Page 279] under the ancien régime. In this framework, progress and modernity are born during the absolute monarchy where sociability suggests conviviality rather than class warfare. Every major French novel of the eighteenth century supports Gordon’s refutation of De Toqueville’s surprising statement that “noblemen and bourgeois never met except by chance in private life “in prerevolutionary France” (p. 27).In chapters two and three, Gordon examines the nature of the rules of sociability found in courtesy literature and their functioning as the imagined basis of the newly invented idealized space called société. In addition to analyzing in great detail the nature and frequency of the vocabulary invented to define and describe sociabilité, Gordon discusses sociabilité in the context of natural law theory in Hobbes, Bossuet, and among others, Pufendorf, who wanted to refute Hobbes by showing that self-interest leads humans to establish stable social relations even before government orders them to do so. Holbach surfaces here too for having amalgamated the older language of politeness and the newer language of natural law. In Holbach, as in the Encyclopédie, sociability, based on egalitarian premises of natural law, is nonetheless fully compatible with the hierarchical regime. Among other things, this shows clearly that the philosophes never preached the French Revolution. Striving to eliminate the abuses of despotism and establish equality in private life was not tantamount to working for political equality and the abolition of all rank. In this same vein, Gordon paints the apolitical essence of the private sphere and, by a rigorous study of the seventeenth-century manuals of polite living, shows convincingly (this time against Elias who saw the court as a model of refined behavior) that the salon was indeed a world unto itself, independent of preexisting social hierarchies. Rejecting Paul Hazard’s conception of absolute rupture between seventeenth-century culture and eighteenth-century thought, Gordon destroys the facile dichotomy between seventeenth-century hierarchy and eighteenth-century equality and, once again, admirably depicts the compatibility of Enlightenment and absolutism.If chapters one to three underscore a certain continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chapters four and five explain important changes. It is not, for example, the mere preservation of the idea of sociable communication but rather its new use that is germane in understanding the Enlightenment. Now “conversation” and “civility” no longer had meaning only for an urban elite but had in fact become ideals in all philosophical endeavors including the writing of universal history. Sociable communication had become the defining characteristic of modern nations. In the fourth chapter, by analyzing in detail the works of Jean-Baptiste Suard, Gordon demonstrates the meaning that the writing of universal history in Scotland acquired within the French... (shrink)

In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. — Ecclesiastes.

In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.—Ecclesiastes.

The latest volume of Leibniz’ Politische Schriften, in the great Akademie-Ausgabe of the Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, reveals the astonishing range of Leibniz’ political-moral-legal-religious-scientific-cultural concerns: if the first, largest and most important section of this new fifth volume deals with justice and law, that is only to be expected, since Leibniz’ doctoral degree was in law and jurisprudence, and since he served as jurisconsult and “intimate counsellor of justice” to an ever-expanding circle of European rulers: first the Elector of Mainz, (...) then the house of Hannover, then the King of Prussia in Berlin, the Emperor in Vienna, and Czar Peter the Great.. But Politische Schriften vol. 5 also treats “church policy” and charitable religious reconciliation—including a Latin memorial poem on the death of benevolently ecumenical Huguenot-turned-Catholic Pellisson ; the raising of Hannover to the status of an Electorate within the Holy Roman Empire; and the relations of the Reich with Europe, especially with the France of bellicose Louis XIV. Moreover vol. 5 takes up “health policy,” the improvement of the coinage, and numerous schemes for the rational re-ordering of the ducal libraries of Hannover and Wolfenbüttel, with emphasis on books in the so-called “higher-faculties”. And all of these apparently diverse, seemingly scattered matters are coherently linked by Leibniz’ charitable concern for le bien général du genre humain: “Provided that something of importance is achieved, I am indifferent whether it is done in Germany or France, for I seek the good of mankind. I am neither a phil-Hellene nor a philo-Roman, but a philanthropos.”. (shrink)

MAKERS of the MODERN MIND THOMAS P. NEILL, P H. D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY MILWAUKEE Copyright, 1949,..

Fénelon may be the most neglected of all the major early modern philosophers. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, yet today even specialists rarely engage his work directly. This problem is particularly acute in the Anglophone world, for while Fénelon's works have been published in several excellent modern French editions, only the smallest fraction of his vast and influential corpus has appeared in modern English translation. This volume aims to help remedy this by (...) bringing to English-language audiences the first collection of his moral and political writings in translation. By so doing it hopes to make more widely available the riches of one of the leading voices of resistance to the absolutism of Louis XIV. Fénelon's political thought will thus be of particular interest to students and scholars of French history, as well as to those today engaged in questions of political resistance and reform. But Fénelon's reach also extends to fields well beyond politics and ethics. In the Enlightenment, Fénelon came to be celebrated not only as a humanitarian political reformer but also as a pioneering theorist of education, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in contemporary philosophical debates-not to mention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century's most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. As such, his work will be of interest to students and scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and political science to economics, education, literature, French history, and religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789Patrick HenryCitizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, by Daniel Gordon; viii & 270 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.Under examination here is the early modern period in France from Louis XIV to the French Revolution when kings ruled absolutely and citizens were without sovereignty. Discarding the traditional image of the Enlightenment as the (...) absolute enemy of absolutism, Gordon, in this sense, follows Norbert Elias and Robert Darnton who treat the Enlightenment as part of an elitist and hierarchical establishment. More specifically, as his subtitle indicates, Gordon portrays the invention of a “nonpolitical polis” (p. 6), an ideological social space where, despite political inequality, citizens could practice social equality in a hierarchical régime. The rise of this “nondemocratic egalitarian ethos” (p. 7) brought with it a new cult of sociabilité, a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe the idealization of the private sphere and the practice of social equality.The first chapter, then, ties sociability not to democracy, as in the Habermasian model, but to the absolutism that stimulated it and coexisted with it. A series of five ideal types of sociability depict how men and women, members of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, came together—in commerce, public welfare, scientific academies, salons, cafés, public libraries, and various other social situations not protorevolutionary in character—to create a bond among equals [End Page 279] under the ancien régime. In this framework, progress and modernity are born during the absolute monarchy where sociability suggests conviviality rather than class warfare. Every major French novel of the eighteenth century supports Gordon’s refutation of De Toqueville’s surprising statement that “noblemen and bourgeois never met except by chance in private life “in prerevolutionary France” (p. 27).In chapters two and three, Gordon examines the nature of the rules of sociability found in courtesy literature and their functioning as the imagined basis of the newly invented idealized space called société. In addition to analyzing in great detail the nature and frequency of the vocabulary invented to define and describe sociabilité, Gordon discusses sociabilité in the context of natural law theory in Hobbes, Bossuet, and among others, Pufendorf, who wanted to refute Hobbes by showing that self-interest leads humans to establish stable social relations even before government orders them to do so. Holbach surfaces here too for having amalgamated the older language of politeness and the newer language of natural law. In Holbach, as in the Encyclopédie, sociability, based on egalitarian premises of natural law, is nonetheless fully compatible with the hierarchical regime. Among other things, this shows clearly that the philosophes never preached the French Revolution. Striving to eliminate the abuses of despotism and establish equality in private life was not tantamount to working for political equality and the abolition of all rank. In this same vein, Gordon paints the apolitical essence of the private sphere and, by a rigorous study of the seventeenth-century manuals of polite living, shows convincingly (this time against Elias who saw the court as a model of refined behavior) that the salon was indeed a world unto itself, independent of preexisting social hierarchies. Rejecting Paul Hazard’s conception of absolute rupture between seventeenth-century culture and eighteenth-century thought, Gordon destroys the facile dichotomy between seventeenth-century hierarchy and eighteenth-century equality and, once again, admirably depicts the compatibility of Enlightenment and absolutism.If chapters one to three underscore a certain continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chapters four and five explain important changes. It is not, for example, the mere preservation of the idea of sociable communication but rather its new use that is germane in understanding the Enlightenment. Now “conversation” and “civility” no longer had meaning only for an urban elite but had in fact become ideals in all philosophical endeavors including the writing of universal history. Sociable communication had become the defining characteristic of modern nations. In the fourth chapter, by analyzing in detail the works of Jean-Baptiste Suard, Gordon demonstrates the meaning that the writing of universal history in Scotland acquired within the French... (shrink)

In a recent Inquiry article Louis Pascal argues that the problem of massive starvation in the modern world is the result of a genetically-based human propensity to produce as many offspring as possible, regardless of ecological conditions. In this paper biological and anthropological objections to Pascal's thesis are discussed as well as the conclusions he draws from it. It is suggested that natural selection has produced humans who are flexible in their reproductive behavior in order to cope with rapidly (...) changing environments. The implications of both arguments for the population movement and the attempt to eliminate starvation are discussed. (shrink)

Abortion is the central issue in the conscientious objection debate. In this article I demonstrate why this is so for two philosophical viewpoints prominent in American culture. One, represented by Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, holds that the fundamental moral value of being human can be found in bare life and the other, represented by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, holds that this fundamental value is found in the life that can choose and determine itself. First, I articulate (...) Lee and George’s philosophical theory and demonstrate how the fundamental moral value of their theory, personhood, is represented in the issue of abortion. Second, I examine Beauchamp and Childress’ theoretical vision and demonstrate how their fundamental moral value, the right to autonomous self-determination, is represented in abortion. Third, I sketch the theoretical and practical dynamics of the conscientious objection debate as well as each author’s understanding of conscience. Fourth, I demonstrate how abortion, which represents their respective fundamental value, shapes each perspectives’ approach to the conscientious objection debate. I conclude that because each theory finds its fundamental value represented in the issue of abortion, each perspective is bound to engage the conscientious objection debate in a way that centers on the issue of abortion. (shrink)

At least since Aristotle’s famous 'sea-battle' passages in On Interpretation 9, some substantial minority of philosophers has been attracted to the doctrine of the open future--the doctrine that future contingent statements are not true. But, prima facie, such views seem inconsistent with the following intuition: if something has happened, then (looking back) it was the case that it would happen. How can it be that, looking forwards, it isn’t true that there will be a sea battle, while also being true (...) that, looking backwards, it was the case that there would be a sea battle? This tension forms, in large part, what might be called the problem of future contingents. A dominant trend in temporal logic and semantic theorizing about future contingents seeks to validate both intuitions. Theorists in this tradition--including some interpretations of Aristotle, but paradigmatically, Thomason (1970), as well as more recent developments in Belnap, et. al (2001) and MacFarlane (2003, 2014)--have argued that the apparent tension between the intuitions is in fact merely apparent. In short, such theorists seek to maintain both of the following two theses: (i) the open future: Future contingents are not true, and (ii) retro-closure: From the fact that something is true, it follows that it was the case that it would be true. It is well-known that reflection on the problem of future contingents has in many ways been inspired by importantly parallel issues regarding divine foreknowledge and indeterminism. In this paper, we take up this perspective, and ask what accepting both the open future and retro-closure predicts about omniscience. When we theorize about a perfect knower, we are theorizing about what an ideal agent ought to believe. Our contention is that there isn’t an acceptable view of ideally rational belief given the assumptions of the open future and retro-closure, and thus this casts doubt on the conjunction of those assumptions. (shrink)

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for (...) an anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

This book launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future. Patrick Todd argues that all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false.

Moving from a purely religious rebirth to works grounded in a personal philosophy or aesthetic vocation, the autobiographies considered in this book stand as episodes in a genealogy of conversion.

The text includes fragments of his work that have never before been translated.