First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper is an attempt to re-interpret some of the results of contemporary studies of action and explanation by philosophers who may loosely be called 'post-Wittgensteinian', e.g. G. E. M. Anscombe, A. Kenny, A. I. Melden. One of the themes which recurs in these' discussions is that of the non-contingent connection between desires, intentions, etc., and the actions which we explain by them — although not all the authors concerned understand this in the same way, and many would not accept (...) the term 'non-contingent connection'. The thesis that there is a non-contingent connection between, e.g., desire and action is strongly contested, and I attempt in this paper to show (a) that our language for the factors which we cite in explaining action, desires, intentions (Sect. II), feelings (Sect. III), sensations (Sect. IV), etc. is inescapably dispositional in a strong sense, i.e. that it characterizes these factors as disposing us to act in certain ways. But I argue (b) that this does nothing to show that these factors are not causes of the actions they explain (Sect. I). The seeming oddity of causes which are non-contingently linked with their consequences is explained when we see (c) that the account of action embedded in our ordinary language is teleological, i.e. refers us ultimately to the inclinations of the subject, and intentional (Sects. V and VI). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Bibliography on Plato's "'Laws, "" 1920-1970: With Additional Citations through May, 1975. By Trevor J. Saunders. (New York: Arno Press, 1976. Pp. i + 60. $15.00) The Penguin Classics translator of the non-Socratic Laws, as Leo Strauss called them, has here compiled in a most usable way a thorough bibliography of books and articles about the Laws or parts of them. The section "Texts, Translations, and Commentaries" (...) properly excludes translations not made directly from the Greek. In previous centuries this would, also properly, have excluded many a famous or popular translation, such as Thomas Taylor's or Victor Cousin's, worked out from the text of M. Ficino's "first edition" in Latin. Given the state of the Greek text and the practice, inaugurated by Ficino, of improving upon the Greek in the translatioias, some notation about the literalness of the translations cited would have been of additional value. Section B, in thirty pages, is the largest and also deliberately the most selective in striving to limit itself to work concerned exclusively or primarily with the Laws. But it cannot avoid including much material about some aspect of Plato in general rather than about the Laws; this is especially true of the subsection, B1, on comprehensive accounts. Section B2, on the text and its tradition, has overwhelmingly more citations about the indirect tradition than about the texts themselves, an interesting indication of the current state of this question. The next subsections, to B12, divide according to subject matter. BI3 lists studies on the influence of the Laws. The last section, in twenty-four pages, is most valuable. It lists, by Stephanus page number, an abundance of discussions of individual passages from Book I through Book XII wherever these discussions, bibliographically speaking, may have occurred. Students of the Laws will be well served by, and most grateful to, Professor Saunders for this bibliography. I can only second the intent of his parting epigraph that sends us back to the study of the Laws themselves. But I must add that more explicitly detailed work appears to be required both on the difficulties the text itself presents to students of Plato (one thinks of A. Boeckh's analyses of the prose in Books I through III) and on those which arise when the Laws is contrasted--from the point of view of design and intellectuality--with those of Plato's works that are comparable, if not in number of pages, at least in scale of conception and monumentality. V. TEJERA SUNY at Stony Brook Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works. By Anthony Preus. (Hildesheim and New York: George Olms, 1975. Pp. ix + 404. DM.88) A reciprocal influence between Aristotle's philosophy and biology--if it could be demonstrated through step-by-step criticism and not merely asserted in generalities about functionalism--might help to explain both, and might also itself be philosophically interesting ; for it should clarify Aristotle's concepts of form, essence, universal, and species-concepts which have been mercilessly jumbled in the traditional interpretations. With the failure of Jaegerian developmental analyses, we can hardly now hope for help from detailed chronology. But a general dating of Aristotle's biological interest to the Assos-Mytilene period, when he was already aged forty, is accepted by most people (though not by Jaeger who [463]... (shrink)

Qualitative fieldwork research on sensitive topics sometimes requires that interviewees be granted confidentiality and anonymity. When qualitative researchers later publish their findings, they must ensure that any statements obtained during fieldwork interviews cannot be traced back to the interviewees. Given these protections to interviewees, the integrity of the published findings cannot usually be verified or replicated by third parties, and the scholarly community must trust the word of qualitative researchers when they publish their results. This trust is fundamentally abused, however, (...) when researchers publish articles reporting qualitative fieldwork data that they never collected. Using only publicly available information, I argue that a 2017 article in an Elsevier foreign policy and international relations journal presents anonymised fieldwork interviews that could not have occurred as described. As an exercise in post-publication peer review (PPPR), this paper examines the evidence that calls into question the reliability of the putative fieldwork quotations. I show further that the 2017 article is not a unique case. The anonymity and confidentiality protections common in some areas of research create an ethical problem: the protections necessary for obtaining research data can be used as a cover to hide substandard research practices as well as research misconduct. (shrink)

Disguised plagiarism often goes undetected. An especially subtle type of disguised plagiarism is translation plagiarism, which occurs when the work of one author is republished in a different language with authorship credit taken by someone else. I focus on the challenge of demonstrating this subtle variety of plagiarism and examine the corruptive influence that plagiarizing articles exert on unsuspecting researchers who later cite them in the downstream literature as genuine products of research. I conclude by arguing that an open discussion (...) of plagiarizing articles in philosophy is necessary for maintaining the reliability of the body of published research and for restoring integrity to scholarly communication. (shrink)

Despite an increased recognition that plagiarism in published research can take many forms, current typologies of plagiarism are far from complete. One under-recognized variety of plagiarism—designated here as compression plagiarism—consists of the distillation of a lengthy scholarly text into a short one, followed by the publication of the short one under a new name with inadequate credit to the original author. In typical cases, compression plagiarism is invisible to unsuspecting readers and immune to anti-plagiarism software. The persistence of uncorrected instances (...) of plagiarism in all its forms—including compression plagiarism—in the body of published research literature has deleterious consequences for the reliability of scholarly communication. Not the least of these problems is that original authors are denied credit for their discoveries. When unsuspecting researchers read articles that are the products of plagiarism, they unwittingly engage the arguments of hidden original authors through the proxy of plagiarists. Furthermore, when these researchers later publish responses to the plagiarizing articles, not knowing they are engaging products of plagiarism, they create additional inefficiencies and redundancies in the body of published research. This article analyzes a suspected instance of compression plagiarism that appeared within the pages of this journal and considers the particular ways in which plagiarism of this variety weakens the quality of scholarly argumentation, with special attention paid to the field of philosophy. (shrink)

This volume is the first book-length study of disguised forms of plagiarism that mar the body of published research in humanities disciplines. As a contribution to applied research ethics, this practical guide offers a typology of the principal forms of disguised plagiarism. It provides detailed analyses, in-depth case studies, and useful flow charts to assist researchers, editors, and publishers in protecting the integrity of the body of published research literature. Disguised plagiarism is more subtle than copy-and-paste plagiarism; all its varieties (...) involve some additional concealment that creates further distance between the plagiarizing text and its source. These disguised forms are the most difficult forms of plagiarism to detect. Readers of the volume will become acquainted with the subtler forms of plagiarism that corrupt the production and dissemination of knowledge in humanities fields. The book is valuable not only to those interested in research ethics, but also to those in humanities fields including philosophy, theology, and history. (shrink)

The history of moral dilemma theory often ignores the medieval period, overlooking the sophisticated theorizing by several thinkers who debated the existence of moral dilemmas from 1150 to 1450. In this book Michael V. Dougherty offers a rich and fascinating overview of the debates which were pursued by medieval philosophers, theologians and canon lawyers, illustrating his discussion with a diverse range of examples of the moral dilemmas which they considered. He shows that much of what seems particular to twentieth-century moral (...) theory was well-known long ago - especially the view of some medieval thinkers that some forms of wrongdoing are inescapable, and their emphasis on the principle 'choose the lesser of two evils'. His book will be valuable not only to advanced students and specialists of medieval thought, but also to those interested in the history of ethics. (shrink)

This volume is the first book-length study on post-publication responses to academic plagiarism in humanities disciplines. It demonstrates that the correction of the scholarly literature for plagiarism is not a task for editors and publishers alone; each member of the research community has an indispensable role in maintaining the integrity of the published literature in the aftermath of plagiarism. If untreated, academic plagiarism damages the integrity of the scholarly record, corrupts the surrounding academic enterprise, and creates inefficiencies across all levels (...) of knowledge production. By providing case studies from the field of philosophy and related disciplines, the volume exhibits that current post-publication responses to academic plagiarism are insufficient. It catalogues how humanities disciplines fall short in comparison with the natural and biomedical sciences for ensuring the integrity of the body of published research. This volume provides clarity about how to conceptualize the scholarly record, surveys the traditional methods for correcting it, and argues for new interventions to improve the reliability of the body of published research. The book is valuable not only to those in the field of philosophy and other humanities disciplines, but also to those interested in research ethics, meta-science, and the sociology of research. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on what is referred to as the ‘mineness’ of experience, that is, the intimate familiarity we have with our own thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. Most accounts characterize mineness in terms of an experiential dimension, the first-person givenness of experience, that is subsumed under the notion of minimal self-consciousness or a ‘minimal self’. We argue that this account faces problems and develop an alternative account of mineness in terms of the coherence of experiences with what we (...) label an ‘embodied biography’. Building on a near consensus among consciousness researchers over the function of consciousness as integrating infor- mation, we argue that the phenomenology of mineness consists in the absence of any further thought on top of the experience itself. Finally we argue that this non-phenomenological account of mineness fits well with existing data on pathologies of mineness such as delusions of thought insertion. (shrink)

Taylor, R. A tribute.--Epistemology: Cornman, J. W. Chisholm on sensing and perceiving. Ross, J. F. Testimonial evidence. Lehrer, K. Reason and consistency. Keim, R. Epistemic values and epistemic viewpoints. Hanen, M. Confirmation, explanation, and acceptance. Canfield, J. V. "I know that I am in pain" is senseless. Steel, T. J. Knowledge and the self-presenting.--Metaphysics: Cartwright, R. Scattered objects. Duggan, T. J. Hume on causation. Arnaud, R. B. Brentanist relations. Johnson, M. L., Jr. Events as recurrables.--Ethics: Stevenson, J. T. On (...) doxastic responsibility. Feldman, F. World utilitarianism. Lamb, J. W. Some definitions for the theory of rules. Donnelly, J. Suicide: some epistemological considerations. (shrink)

This volume provides a comprehensive presentation of the philosophical work of the fifteenth-century Renaissance thinker Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. In essays specially commissioned for this book, a distinguished group of scholars presents the central topics and texts of Pico's literary output. Best known as the author of the celebrated 'Oration on the Dignity of Man', Pico also wrote several other prominent works. They include an influential diatribe against astrology, an ambitious metaphysical treatise attempting to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysical views, (...) and writings on a range of subjects such as magic, Kabbalah, the Church, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of knowledge. The first volume of its kind in English, this collection of essays will be of value not only to advanced students and specialists of late medieval and Renaissance thought, but also to those interested in Italian humanism and Renaissance Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas's Disputed Questions on Evil is a careful and detailed analysis of the general topic of evil, including discussions on evil as privation, human free choice, the cause of moral evil, moral failure, and the so-called seven deadly sins. This collection of ten, specially commissioned new essays, the first book-length English-language study of Disputed Questions on Evil, examines the most interesting and philosophically relevant aspects of Aquinas's work, highlighting what is distinctive about it and situating it in relation not (...) only to Aquinas's other works but also to contemporary philosophical debates in metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of action. The essays also explore the history of the work's interpretation. The volume will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of philosophical disciplines including medieval philosophy and history of philosophy, as well as to theologians. (shrink)

Nearly all attempts to include Aquinas among the class of divine command theorists have focused on two kinds of texts: those exhibiting Aquinas’s treatment of the apparent immoralities of the patriarchs (e.g., Abraham’s intention to kill Isaac), and those pertaining to Aquinas’s discussion of the divine will. In the present paper, I lay out a third approach unrelated to these two. I argue that Aquinas’s explicit endorsement of one ethical proposition as self-evident throughout his writings is sufficient justification to include (...) Aquinas among the class of divine command theorists. I examine Aquinas’s persistent contention that the proposition “the commands of God are to be obeyed” is a self-evident or per se nota proposition of ethical reasoning, and I then trace Aquinas’s appeals to it in the Sentences commentary, De Veritate, and Quodlibet 3. I conclude with a discussion of passages where Aquinas argues that the experience of moral necessity or obligation requires reference to divine commands. (shrink)

Purpose: Constructivism postulates that the perceived reality is a complex construct formed during development. Depending on the particular school, these inner constructs take on different forms and structures and affect cognition in different ways. The purpose of this article is to address the questions of how and, even more importantly, why we form such inner constructs. Approach: This article proposes that brain development is controlled by an inherent anticipatory drive, which biases learning towards the formation of forward predictive structures and (...) inverse goal-oriented control structures. This drive, in combination with increasingly complex environmental interactions during cognitive development, enforces the structuring of our conscious self, which is embedded in a constructed inner reality. Essentially, the following questions are addressed: Which basic mechanisms lead us to the construction of inner realities? How are these emergent inner realities structured? How is the self represented within the inner realities? And consequently, which cognitive structures constitute the media for conscious thought and selfconsciousness? Findings: Due to the anticipatory drive, representations in the brain shape themselves predominantly purposefully or intentionally. Taking a developmental, evolutionary perspective, we show how the brain is forced to develop progressively complex and abstract representations of the self embedded in the constructed inner realities. These self representations can evoke different stages of self-consciousness. Implications: The anticipatory drive shapes brain structures and cognition during the development of progressively more complex, competent, and flexible goal-oriented bodyenvironment interactions. Self-consciousness develops because increasingly abstract, individualizing self representations are necessary to realize these progressively more challenging environmental interactions. (shrink)

In recent years, Alasdair MacIntyre and others have observed an increasing interest on the part of contemporary ethicists regarding the question of whetherinnocent agents ever find themselves in moral dilemmas. This present-day support for the existence of moral dilemmas for innocent agents has spawned a re-reading of canonical ethical texts in the history of philosophy. The point of departure for the present paper is one particularly contentious battleground of this ongoing historical retrieval, namely, the ethical writings of Thomas Aquinas. I (...) contend that Aquinas is not an ally of those who defend the existence of moral dilemmas for innocent agents. However, Aquinas does present what is in my view a valuable contribution to the discussion of moral dilemmas as such. I show that a close textual reading of one of Aquinas’s examples leads to some rather interesting consequences for his moral theory, and that, surprisingly, this example could be of interest to contemporary ethicists who argue for the existence of moral luck. (shrink)

Proving academic plagiarism is difficult. This volume borrows principles from textual criticism to illustrate new techniques for demonstrating plagiarism. These techniques can be used to persuade others—colleagues, editors, publishers, and research integrity committees—when academic plagiarism has been committed.

Largely uncontested among interpreters of Aquinas is the claim that the Angelic Doctor presents sacra doctrina as a subalternated science. To be sure, in fourtexts of the Thomistic corpus Aquinas broaches the subject of subalternation in discussions of whether sacra doctrina can be a science. I contend that the appeal to subalternation in these discussions is not to defend sacra doctrina as a subalternated science, but is rather to defend the possibility of arriving at scientific conclusions when an act of (...) belief serves as the starting point for syllogistic reasoning. There is indeed an epistemic similarity between the starting points of a subalternated science and the science of sacra doctrina, insofar as an act of belief serves as the proximate epistemic point of departure in both cases. However, the cognitive similarity between the practitioner of a subalternated science and a practitioner of sacra doctrina does not necessitate that sacra doctrina is a subalternated science. (shrink)

Nearly all attempts to include Aquinas among the class of divine command theorists have focused on two kinds of texts: those exhibiting Aquinas’s treatment of the apparent immoralities of the patriarchs (e.g., Abraham’s intention to kill Isaac), and those pertaining to Aquinas’s discussion of the divine will. In the present paper, I lay out a third approach unrelated to these two. I argue that Aquinas’s explicit endorsement of one ethical proposition as self-evident throughout his writings is sufficient justification to include (...) Aquinas among the class of divine command theorists. I examine Aquinas’s persistent contention that the proposition “the commands of God are to be obeyed” is a self-evident or per se nota proposition of ethical reasoning, and I then trace Aquinas’s appeals to it in the Sentences commentary, De Veritate, and Quodlibet 3. I conclude with a discussion of passages where Aquinas argues that the experience of moral necessity or obligation requires reference to divine commands. (shrink)

IT IS CUSTOMARY TO CREDIT Aristotle with the discovery, or at least the first extant formulation, of the concept of self-evidence. Recent work in the history of science has suggested that Aristotle was indebted in this respect to earlier Greek geometrical models of demonstration, but these earlier texts no longer survive. However, in our present day, the merits of the ancient discovery suffer from neglect, and the very concept is met with suspicion. One finds, for instance, influential textbooks of the (...) history of logic enjoining readers to acquire a “healthy skepticism of the concept of self-evidence.” Further, it is not uncommon for contemporary philosophers to reduce the concept of self-evidence to some kind of subjective feeling of certainty or even personal preference. The abandonment of the notion of self-evidence among contemporary philosophers is not a procedure limited to practitioners of logic, as representative views can be found among those who practice metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of science, legal philosophy, political philosophy, and epistemology. This demise of the concept of self-evidence among contemporary philosophers, although widespread, has not gone entirely unlamented, however. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that commentators have missed a significant clue given by Descartes in coming to understand his 'ontological' proof for the existence of God. In both the analytic and synthetic presentations of the proof throughout his writings, Descartes notes that the proof works 'in the same way' as a particular geometrical proof. I explore the significance of such a parallel, and conclude that Descartes could not have intended readers to think that the argument consists of some kind (...) of intuition. I argue that for Descartes the attribute of existence is a 'second-order' attribute that is demonstrated to belong to the idea of God on the basis of 'first-order' attributes. The proof, properly understood, is in fact a demonstration. Having brought to light the geometrical parallels between the ontological and geometrical proofs, we have new evidence to resolve the 'intuition versus demonstration' controversy that has characterized much of the discussion of Descartes's ontological argument. (shrink)

In Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae one finds a rather unusual argument contending that human beings can lose their natures as the result of immoral or virtuous activity. A number of texts in the work argue that the polarities of beast and god serve as options for those who lead highly immoral or highly virtuous lives. This argument is examined in detail in light of its philosophical ancestry. I argue that those who think the Boethian doctrine is Platonic in origin tend to (...) read the texts about the loss of human nature as metaphorical. I then suggest that if one places the argument in an Aristotelian context one is able to see it as a metaphysical argument, and moreparticularly, as part of Boethian psychology. This paper thus provides a new context for approaching Boethius’s contention that human beings can lose their natures. (shrink)

This article documents how a serial plagiarism case discovered over a decade ago continues to generate negative effects in the downstream research on medieval and early modern philosophy. The ongoing positive citation of the 40 plagiarizing articles and book chapters – including those retracted by their publishers – affects the reliability of later scholarship in several ways. The present state of affairs is the joint result of authors, editors, peer reviewers, and publishers who continue to allow (and in some cases, (...) support) the publication of new works across a variety of genres that contain positive citations to the 40 plagiarizing articles and book chapters. The problem shows no signs of abating; the plagiarizing articles and book chapters continue to acquire positive citations in new publications, including authoritative reference works. The breach of research standards is further shown by the fact that even a non-existent publication by the plagiarist continues to acquire positive citations. (shrink)

We exhibit a 10-element semigroup Q such that the question “Does a given quasi-identity hold inQ?” is co-NP-complete while the question “Does a given identity hold inQ?” can be answered in linear time.

The article considers Max Weber’s model of plebiscitary leadership and historical examples of plebiscitary democracy. It is argued that there is no clear distinction between plebiscitary democracy and dictatorship inWeber’s writings. As Stefan Breuer demonstrates, such a distinction allows us to broaden the application of Weberian concepts. Plebiscitary elements can be seen in the political life of non-Western states, which have been discussed from the multiple modernities perspective. However, while that perspective develops the Weberian sociological tradition, its representatives mostly do (...) not use the concept of plebiscitary leadership. Thus, Shmuel Eisenstadt draws primarily on Weber’s sociology of religion in his analysis of different types of modernity. Specifically, Eisenstadt considers the impact of civilizational legacies on political processes in India and Latin America. Peter Wagner discusses the relevance of Weber’s rationalization thesis and theory of capitalism rather than the concepts of Weberian political sociology. In his study of democratization in Brazil and South Africa, Wagner emphasizes the progressive character of political changes but does not consider the possibility of a reversal of these processes. The article argues that the contemporary reconstruction of Weber’s model of plebiscitary leadership can complement the analyses of democratization in non-Western societies from the multiple modernities perspective. (shrink)