Has the Internet changed the pattern of social relations? More specifically, have social relations undergone any systematic change during the recent widespread diffusion of new communications technology? This question is addressed using a unique longitudinal survey that bookends the entire period of Internet diffusion in two African nations and one Indian state. We analyze data on nine professional linkages reported by a population of agricultural and environmental scientists in Kenya, Ghana, and Kerala over a sixteen-year period. Factor analysis reveals two (...) clusters of relationships, one interpretable as traditional scientific exchange, the other indicating mediated forms of collaboration. While collaboration increases in frequency, friendship declines. We interpret this shift as a consequence of communications technology that facilitates formal projects, reducing the affective dimension of professional association. (shrink)

This edition includes a new introduction by Peter J. Gomes that reflects on the impact of this book in the years since it was written.

Focusing on the logistics of perception, this title introduces the author's understanding of 'picnolepsy' - the epileptic state of consciousness produced by speed, or rather, the consciousness invented by the subject through its very absence: the gaps, glitches, and speed bumps lacing through and defining it.

Paul Thom's book presents Kilwardby's science of logic as a body of demonstrative knowledge about inferences and their validity, about the semantics of non-modal and modal propositions, and about the logic of genus and species. This science is thoroughly intensional. It grounds the logic of inference on "that in virtue of which" the inference holds. It bases the truth conditions of propositions on relations between conceptual entities. It explains the logic of genus and species through the notion of essence. (...) Thom interprets this science as a formal logic of intensions with its own proof theory and semantics. This comprehensive reconstruction of Kilwardby's logic shows the medieval master to be one of the most interesting logicians of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

In the modern day, it is understood that the role of the teacher comprises aspects of therapy directed towards the child. But to what extent should this relationship be developed, and what are its concomitant responsibilities? This book offers a challenging philosophical approach to the inherent problems and tensions involved with these issues.

“One day the day will come when the day will not come.” Bleak, but passionately political in its analysis of the social destruction wrought by modern technologies of communication and surveillance, Open Sky is Paul Virilio's most far-reaching and radical book. Deepening and extending his earlier work, he explores the growing danger of what he calls a “generalized accident,” provoked by the breakdown of our collective and individual relation to time, space and movement in the context of global electronic (...) media. But this is not merely a lucid and disturbing lament for the loss of real geographical spaces, distance, intimacy or democracy. Open Sky is also a call for revolt—against the insidious and accelerating manipulation of perception by the electronic media and repressive political power, against the tyranny of “real time,” and against the infantilism of cyberhype. Virilio makes a powerful case for a new ethics of perception, and a new ecology, one which will not only strive to protect the natural world from pollution and destruction, but will also combat the devastation of urban communities by proliferating technologies of control and virtuality. (shrink)

The first full-length study of Robert Kilwardby's commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics, based on a study of the medieval manuscripts.

Foreword William Schweiker Paul Tillich, one of the great Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, addresses in Morality and Beyond a basic problem ...

[Significantly updated in Chapter 6 of Awareness and the Substructure of Knowledge] In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P (...) is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline a novel theory of the epistemic requirement on possession in terms of this more general state of non-accidental true representation. It is just as well placed to explain the motivations behind knowledge-centric views of possession, and it is also better placed to explain the extent of the reasons we possess in certain cases of deductive belief-updates and cases involving environmental luck. I conclude with three reflections. First, I indicate how my arguments generate a dilemma for Errol Lord’s view that possessing reasons is just a matter of being in a position to manifest one’s knowledge how to use them. Second, I explain how my view can simultaneously manage cases of environmental luck without falling prey to lottery cases. Finally, I sketch the direction for a further range of counterexamples to knowledge-centric theories of possession. (shrink)

The task of this chapter is to investigate and assess Grossmann’s view of the ontological status of categories. It has two dimensions. Because Grossmann does not offer a full discussion of the ontology of categories, we first need to present an interpretation of his view. Our point of departure is Grossmann’s claim that a category is a fundamental property of being (which implies that he holds view 3 above). Our second task is to assess the adequacy of his view. We (...) do this by raising some problems with Grossmann’s account, offering as an alternative view a version of 4 above, and defending it against what we construe as Grossmann’s possible counter-arguments. We argue that the best way to view categories themselves is as ontologically neutral insofar as this opens the way for particular categories to be linguistic entities, mental acts, or properties of extra-mental things. This requires, in turn, a qualified defense of two views rejected by Grossmann—common natures and modes of being. (shrink)

Conservatism about perceptual justification tells us that we cannot have perceptual justification to believe p unless we also have justification to believe that perceptual experiences are reliable. There are many ways to maintain this thesis, ways that have not been sufficiently appreciated. Most of these ways lead to at least one of two problems. The first is an over-intellectualization problem, whereas the second problem concerns the satisfaction of the epistemic basing requirement on justified belief. I argue that there is at (...) least one Conservative view that survives both difficulties, a view which has the further ability to undercut a crucial consideration that has supported Dogmatist views about perceptual justification. The final section explores a tension between Conservatism and the prospects of having a completely general account of propositional justification. Ironically, the problem is that Conservatives seem committed to making the acquisition of propositional justification too easy. My partial defense of Conservatism concludes by suggesting possible solutions to this problem. (shrink)

The relationship between abstract formal procedures and the activities of actual physical systems has proved to be surprisingly subtle and controversial, and there are a number of competing accounts of when a physical system can be properly said to implement a mathematical formalism and hence perform a computation. I defend an account wherein computational descriptions of physical systems are high-level normative interpretations motivated by our pragmatic concerns. Furthermore, the criteria of utility and success vary according to our diverse purposes and (...) pragmatic goals. Hence there is no independent or uniform fact to the matter, and I advance the ‘anti-realist’ conclusion that computational descriptions of physical systems are not founded upon deep ontological distinctions, but rather upon interest-relative human conventions. Hence physical computation is a ‘conventional’ rather than a ‘natural’ kind. (shrink)

Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been an object of study ever since the time of Theophrastus; but these studies have been somewhat desultory. Remarkably, in the 1990s several new lines of research have appeared, with series of original publications by Fred Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ulrich Nortmann. Johnson presented for the first time a formal semantics adequate to a de re reading of the apodeictic syllogistic; this was based on a simple intuition linking the modal syllogistic to Aristotelian metaphysics. Nortmann developed (...) an ingenious de dicto analysis. Patterson articulated the links between the modal syllogistic and the metaphysics, using an analysis which strictly speaking is neither de re nor de dicto. My own studies in this field date from 1976, when my colleague Peter Roeper and I jointly wrote a paper "Aristotle's apodeictic syllogisms" for the XXIInd History of Logic Conference in Krakow. This paper contained the disjunctive reading of particular affirmative apodeictic propositions, which I still favour. Nonetheless, I did not consider that paper's results decisive or comprehensive enough to publish, and my 1981 book The Syllogism contained no treatment of the modal syllogism. The paper's ideas lay dormant till 1989, when I read Johnson's and Patterson's initial articles. I began publishing on the topic in 1991. Gradually my thoughts acquired a certain comprehensiveness and systematicity, till in 1993 I was able to take a semester's sabbatical to write up a draft of this book. (shrink)

Le philosophe, collègue et ami de Michel Foucault, fait le portrait de ce dernier et présente les grands thèmes de sa pensée philosophique et politique.

L'époque a le goût de la mort : mort de Dieu, mort de la morale, mort de l'art, peut-être même mort de la civilisation et de la planète... Cette tendance catastrophiste risque bien, non de nous éclairer sur notre situation, mais de nous aveugler. Nous finissons par ne plus distinguer les "paillettes d'or" (Diderot) du présent. Cela est sans doute plus manifeste dans les arts qu'ailleurs. Ce livre veut attirer l'attention sur la permanence du pouvoir créateur humain, notamment à travers (...) l'art contemporain, pourtant si bafoué par de nouveaux prophètes de malheur. La beauté n'a pas disparu pour qui sait la découvrir. Elle a une dimension morale, car la beauté fait vivre et respirer, instille le goût d'assumer son existence, donc de vouloir la vie plutôt que rien. Elle a une dimension religieuse en tant qu'elle fait signe vers plus grand, plus beau, plus vivant qu'elle. La sécularisation de nos sociétés peut certes troubler nos regards, nous rendant insensibles à ces dimensions de la beauté. Il n'en reste pas moins que, pour quiconque entretient en soi une vie culturelle et spirituelle, la beauté n'a pas cessé d'être évocatrice, et donc d'inspirer le désir de vivre, par-delà les "mille morts amères" qui parsèment nos vies. (shrink)

This self-contained treatise, originally published in 1947 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, examines fundamental features of nature in order to lay the groundwork for providing a solution to the major problems of ethics.

This book explores noteworthy approaches to modal syllogistic adopted by medieval logicians including Abélard, Albert the Great, Avicenna, Averröes, Jean Buridan, Richard Campsall, Robert Kilwardby, and William of Ockham. The book situates these approaches in relation to Aristotle's discussion in the Prior and Posterior Analytics, and other parts of the Organon, but also in relation to the thought of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Boethius on the one hand, and to modern interpretations of the modal syllogistic on the other. Problems explored (...) include: Aristotle's doctrine of modal conversion, the pure and mixed necessity-moods, modal ecthesis, the pure and mixed contingency-moods, and Aristotle's use of counter-examples. Medieval logicians brought various concepts to bear on these problems, including the distinction between per se and per accidens terms, the notion of essential predication, the distinction between ut nunc and simpliciter propositions, the distinction between de dicto and de re modals, and the notion of ampliation. All these are examined in this book. (shrink)

An argument is epistemically self-defeating when either the truth of an argument’s conclusion or belief in an argument’s conclusion defeats one’s justification to believe at least one of that argument’s premises. Some extant defenses of the evidentiary value of intuition have invoked considerations of epistemic self-defeat in their defense. I argue that there is one kind of argument against intuition, an unreliability argument, which, even if epistemically self-defeating, can still imply that we are not justified in thinking intuition has evidentiary (...) value. (shrink)

With around 645 million people expected to be displaced Ğ by wars and other catastrophes Ğ by 2050, Virilio begins The Futurism of the Instant by looking at ...

Wittgenstein's later rejection of the externalist Tractarian picture of logic according to which all rationally analysable discourse is properly understood as truth-functional rules out any conception of logic as the study of universal features of discourse. Given later references to 'the logic of our language', some conception of logic appears to survive even on Wittgenstein's later view. However, given his rejection of any conception of philosophical theory as explanatory or hypothetical, Wittgenstein seems to be forced into descriptivism. Despite these constraints, (...) I attempt to show that a valuable account of logic consistent with Wittgenstein's critique can be identified. That possibility raises the question: can any conception of formal logic as valuable modulo natural language survive Wittgenstein's later change of heart? Taking Wittgenstein's rejection of Tractarian conceptions seriously, logic is relativised to language-games in general and, perhaps, localised to particular language-games. Looking at logic in this way opens up the possibility of uncovering inferential structures distinct from those which form the traditional logical-epistemological dichotomy. Here I outline a formal logical framework consistent with all of the foregoing points in terms of which analogues of inferential structures (traditional and non-traditional) can be constructed. Taking third-person ascriptions of psychological predicates as a testcase, I try to show that the formal framework (a system of formal dialogue) has a flexibility which augurs well for future logical investigations into linguistic practices without presupposing knowledge of the kinds of inferential structures which such investigations might reveal. Hence, my claim that the system in question represents logic after (the later) Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Ethics is no less of a science than any other. It has its roots in conflicts of interest between human beings, and in their conflicting urges to behave either selfishly or altruistically. Resolving such conflicts leads to the specification of rules of conduct, often expressed in terms of rights and duties. In the special case of professional ethics, the paramount rule of conduct is altruism in the service of a 'noble' cause, and this distinguishes true professions from other trades or (...) occupations. If professional ethics come into conflict with national laws, the professional today can test the legitimacy of such laws by reference to internationally agreed legal standards in the field of human rights, and so help to perform the role of 'professions as the conscience of society'. (shrink)

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification has been of undisputed theoretical importance in a wide range of contemporary epistemological debates. Yet there are a host of intimately related issues that have rarely been discussed in connection with this distinction. For instance, the distinction not only applies to an individual’s beliefs, but also to group beliefs and to various other attitudes that both groups and individuals can take: credence, commitment, suspension, faith, and hope. Moreover, discussions of propositional and doxastic justification (...) have rarely focused on broader meta-epistemological issues, and yet meta-epistemological positions can have important implications for first-order views about this distinction. This volume addresses these and other issues by bringing together 16 essays that advance the state-of-the-art thinking on propositional and doxastic justification and explore how such thinking shapes and is shaped by a range of issues previously neglected in contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

This paper challenges “traditional measurement-accuracy realism”, according to which there are in nature quantities of which concrete systems have definite values. An accurate measurement outcome is one that is close to the value for the quantity measured. For a measurement of the temperature of some water to be accurate in this sense requires that there be this temperature. But there isn’t. Not because there are no quantities “out there in nature” but because the term ‘the temperature of this water’ fails (...) to refer owing to idealization and failure of specificity in picking out concrete cases. The problems can be seen as an artifact of vagueness, and so doing facilitates applying Eran Tal’s robustness account of measurement accuracy to suggest an attractive way of understanding vagueness in terms of the function of idealization, a way that sidesteps the problems of higher order vagueness and that shows how idealization provides a natural generalization of what it is to be vague. (shrink)

v. 1. 1955-1960.--v. 2. 1960-1964.--v. 3. March-November 1964.--v. 4. November 26, 1964-September 2, 1965.--v. 5. September 3, 1965-August 27, 1968.--v. 6. August 28, 1968-May 22, 1971.--v. 7. April 13, 1975-June 21, 1976.--v. 7, pt. 2. September 17, 1977-February 26, 1978.--v. 8. April 28, 1978-July 28, 1980 -- v. 9. August 16, 1980-March 15, 1984 -- v. 11. January 19, 1986-May 27, 1987.

A celebration of John Michel's insights and far-reaching influence, revealing his pivotal role in alternative culture over the last five decades.

This text provides a comprehensive examination of key concepts and theories in moral and political philosophy. With a clear focus on the essentials of each topic, Smith presupposes no prior knowledge and relates moral philosophy to social and political issues.

This essay maintains that thoughtful people can no longer rest within the limitations of any one world religion. It attempts to bring into focus the contemporary status of the theory of knowledge and the claims to knowledge that occur in the sacred books of the world's religions. The author investigates and tests these theories as to whether or not claims to religious knowledge can be drawn from and justified by religious experience.

Four strands of research in the philosophy of technology have made important contributions to environmental philosophy. First, critical theory of technology emphasizes the environmentally exploitative tendencies of capitalist technological innovation. Second, phenomenologyhas examined how technologies shapeperception and orientation to the world with implications for our treatment of and regard for nature. Third, concurrent with the environmental movement itself, an empirical turn in philosophy of technology resulting in philosophers focusing their attention on particular tools and techniques. Empirical studies have emphasized environmentally (...) significant technologies. Finally, work inspired by philosophy of science has adopted scientific reasoning and methods in environmental policy with tools such as risk analysis and environmental impact assessment. These four strands of work have often merged with the work of sociologists, geographers, and political theorists interested in the connections between science and democracy. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder’s Reasons First is admirable in its scope and execution, deftly demonstrating the theoretical promise of extending the reasons-first approach from ethics to epistemology. In what follows we explore how (not) to account for the evidence-that relation within the reasons-first program, we explain how factive content views of evidence can be resilient in the face of Schroeder’s criticisms, and we explain how knowledge from falsehood threatens Schroeder’s view of knowledge. Along the way we sketch a reliabilist account of the (...) reasons-for relation (inspired by Alston) and show how it limits the applicability of Schroeder’s arguments. (shrink)

Nietzsche n'est jamais tout à fait où l'on croit savoir qu'il se trouve. Est-il sûr par exemple que le philosophe soit aussi ennemi de la raison qu'on l'a dit? Son athéisme ne serait-il pas une condition d'affirmation renouvelée d'une luxuriance du divin? Telles sont quelques-unes des questions intempestives que pose ce livre.

Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the most famous philosophers of the twentieth century. The principal founder of existentialism, a political thinker and famous novelist and dramatist, his work has exerted enormous influence in philosophy, literature, politics and cultural studies. Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings is the first collection of Sartre's key philosophical writings and provides an indispensable resource for readers of his work. Stephen Priest's clear and helpful introductions make the volume an ideal companion to those coming to Sartre's (...) writing for the first time. (shrink)

_A Communion of Subjects_ is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their (...) findings offer profound insights into humans' relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live. Contributors examine Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism, African religions, traditions from ancient Egypt and early China, and Native American, indigenous Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal traditions, among others. They explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment. By grappling with the nature and ideological features of various religious views, the contributors cast religious teachings and practices in a new light. They reveal how we either intentionally or inadvertently marginalize "others," whether they are human or otherwise, reflecting on the ways in which we assign value to living beings. Though it is an ancient concern, the topic of "Religion and Animals" has yet to be systematically studied by modern scholars. This groundbreaking collection takes the first steps toward a meaningful analysis. (shrink)