The aim of this paper is to use Sir William Crookes‘ researches into psychical phenomena as a sustained case study of the role of epistemic virtues within scientific enquiry. Despite growing interest in virtues in science, there are few integrated historical and philosophical studies, and even fewer studies focusing on controversial or ‗fringe‘ sciences where, one might suppose, certain epistemic virtues (like open-mindedness and tolerance) may be subjected to sterner tests. Using the virtue of epistemic courage as my focus, (...) it emerges that Crookes‘ psychical researches were indeed epistemically courageous, but that this judgment must be grounded in sensitivity to the motivational complexity and context-sensitivity of the exercise of epistemic virtues. The paper then considers Crookes‘ remarks on the relationship between epistemic virtuousness and the intellectual integrity and public duties of scientists, thereby placing epistemic virtues in the context of wider debates about the authority of science in late modern societies. I conclude that Crookes‘ researches into psychical phenomena offer instructive lessons for historians of science and virtue epistemologists concerning the complexity and contextuality of epistemic virtues, and the profitable forms that future studies of virtues in science could take. (shrink)

This article challenges Philip Kitcher’s recent proposals for an ‘enlightened secularism’. I use William James’s theory of the emotions and his related discussion of ‘temperaments’ to argue that religious and naturalistic commitments are grounded in tacit, inarticulate ways that one finds oneself in a world. This indicates that, in many cases, religiosity and naturalism are grounded not in rational and evidential considerations, but in a tacit and implicit sense of reality which is disclosed through phenomenological enquiry. Once the foundational (...) role of these temperaments is appreciated, it emerges that enlightened secularism relies upon a facile conception of the nature of religious belief – one that lessens its chances for success. The article ends with some positive proposals for incorporating phenomenological insights into debates about science, religion, and secularism. (shrink)

Theophrastus of Eresus was Aristotle's pupil and successor as head of the Peripatetic School. He is best known as the author of the amusing Characters and two ground-breaking works in botany, but his writings extend over the entire range of Hellenistic philosophic studies. Volume 5 of Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities focuses on his scientific work. The volume contains new editions of two brief scientific essays-On Fish and Afeteoro/o^y-accompanied by translations and commentary. Among the contributions are: "Peripatetic Dialectic in (...) the De sensibus," Han Baltussen; "Empedocles" Theory of Vision and Theophrastus' De sensibus," David N. Sedley; "Theophrastus on the Intellect," Daniel Devereux; "Theophrastus and Aristotle on Animal Intelligence," Eve Browning Cole; "Physikai doxai and Problemata physika from Aristotle to Agtius," Jap Mansfield; "Xenophanes or Theophrastus? An Aetian Doxographicum on the Sun," David Runia; "Place1 in Context: On Theophrastus, Fr. 21 and 22 Wimmer," Keimpe Algra; "The Meteorology of Theophrastus in Syriac and Arabic Translation," Hans Daiber; "Theophrastus' Meteorology, Aristotle and Posidonius," Ian G. Kidd; "The Authorship and Sources of the Peri Semeion Ascribed to Theophrastus," Patrick Cronin; "Theophrastus, On Fish" Robert W. Sharpies. (shrink)

An essay review of Havi Carel, 'Phenomenology of Illness' (OUP 2015).

In 1894, the British sociologist Benjamin Kidd published Social Evolution, an influential book that summarised and evaluated the prevailing social theories at the end of the nineteenth century: Karl Marx's socialism and Herbert Spencer's social Darwinism. Both of these conflicting theories were based on Darwinian evolutionary theory. In this book, Kidd discusses the immense changes that applied science has brought to the world and the interconnectedness of everyone. The book's ten chapters include discussions of the conditions of human (...) progress, the function of religious beliefs, and the organisation of the working classes. Kidd found flaws in both Karl Marx's and Herbert Spencer's vision of society's future and concluded that religion was essential for the evolution of society because it acts in the interest of generational group survival rather than individual competition. Social Evolution called for a comprehensive study of society because a new era in Western civilisation was beginning. (shrink)

We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients (...) than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. _Shame and Necessity_ gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. (shrink)

Former Google advertising strategist, now Oxford-trained philosopher James Williams launches a plea to society and to the tech industry to help ensure that the technology we all carry with us every day does not distract us from pursuing our true goals in life. As information becomes ever more plentiful, the resource that is becoming more scarce is our attention. In this 'attention economy', we need to recognise the fundamental impacts of our new information environment on our lives in order to (...) take back control. Drawing on insights ranging from Diogenes to contemporary tech leaders, Williams's thoughtful and impassioned analysis is sure to provoke discussion and debate. Williams is the inaugural winner of the Nine Dots Prize, a new Prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary social issues. This title is also available as Open Access. (shrink)

Bernard Williams's remarkable essay on morality confronts the problems of writing moral philosophy, and offers a stimulating alternative to more systematic accounts which seem nevertheless to have left all the important issues somewhere off the page. Williams explains, analyses and distinguishes a number of key positions, from the purely amoral to notions of subjective or relative morality, testing their coherence before going on to explore the nature of 'goodness' in relation to responsibilities and choice, roles, standards, and human nature. The (...) final chapters make a fascinating enquiry into what morality is about, looking beyond happiness to other human aims and ideals. This re-issue of a classic in moral philosophy includes a new foreword by the author. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Posidonius was one of the most important philosophers and intellectuals writing in the Greco-Roman world of the first half of the first century B.C. This book is a commentary on the surviving testimonia and fragments of his work collected in volume 1. Its purpose is to explicate and understand the evidence of these fragments, which must form the basis for any estimate of Posidonius' contribution to the learning of his time in the history of ideas. Since Posidonius was reported by (...) at least sixty different writers, an attempt has been made to disentangle what Posidonius said, as distinct from the interpretations and distortions of his reporters. Posidonius wrote at length not only on philosophy, but also on the sciences, and a large History, and Professor Kidd has assessed Posidonius' work against the background of the philosophical, scientific and historical writings of his predecessors, contemporaries amd followers; for this many other related passages are cited and examined. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

An essay review of Léna Soler, Emiliano Trizio, and Andrew Pickering (eds.), Science As It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press).

Abstract:Lucian's Fatherland Encomium is thought to have been delivered at Samosata, Lucian's hometown. Although he never mentions "Samosata" in this speech, he repeatedly toys with the "name of the fatherland" as the speech's theme. But what is the name of his native city? The Greeks called it "Samosata" but this is clearly a transliteration. I consider the Aramaic, Persian, and Armenian versions of the name, and notice that the Aramaic "Shemshat" has a number of resonances in Lucian's speech, not least (...) the set theme of the speech itself "the name of (shem) the fatherland.". (shrink)

Introduction: the advance of governmentality -- Foucault, power, and governmentality: introduction; what is governmentality?; beyond the microphysics of power?; from theory of the state to genealogy of the state; history of the art of government; pastoral power; raison d'état; liberal governmentality; five propositions on foucault and governmentality -- Governmentality 3.4.7.: introduction; governmentality after Foucault; governmentality and the political sciences; some problems in governmentality -- Foucault effect redux? some notes on international governmentality studies: constellation; a few preliminary observations; problems and debates (...) in international governmentality studies -- Reconnecting governmentality and genealogy: introduction; genealogy and governmentality; pluralizing genealogy; practicing genealogy; lines of descent: the family tree of power?; counter-memory and re-serialization; the retrieval of forgotten struggles and subjugated knowledges -- Conclusion: encountering governmentality: governmentality as a new cartography of power; from mapping to encountering; governmentality and politics. (shrink)

Are interpersonal comparisons of desire possible? Can we give an account of how facts about desires are grounded, that underpins such comparisons? This paper supposes the answer to the first question is yes, and provides an account of the nature of desire that explains how this is so. The account is a modification of the interpretationist metaphysics of representation that the author has recently been developing. The modification is to allow phenomenological affective valence into the “base facts” on which correct (...) interpretation is grounded. To use this extra resource within that theory to vindicate interpersonal comparisons, we will need to appeal rational connections between level of valence and level of desire, which this paper sets out and examines. (shrink)

Awarding rights to rivers, forests, and other environmental entities (EEs) is a new and increasingly popular approach to environmental protection. The distinctive feature of such rights of nature (RoN) legislation is that direct duties are owed to the EEs. This paper presents a novel rebuttal of the strongest argument against RoN: the no interest argument. The crux of this argument is that because EEs are not sentient, they cannot possess the kinds of interests necessary to ground direct duties. Therefore, they (...) cannot be legitimate rights-bearers. After considering and rejecting standard responses to this argument, the paper challenges its fundamental assumption: that rights-correlative duties must be grounded in the interests of the rights-bearer. The paper then presents the RoN critic with a dilemma. The critic must either accept that EEs are legitimate rights-bearers, or delegitimise many well-established rights-bearers along with EEs. Either way, the no interest argument loses its force. (shrink)

This new volume of philosophical papers by Bernard Williams is divided into three sections: the first Action, Freedom, Responsibility, the second Philosophy, Evolution and the Human Sciences; in which appears the essay which gives the collection its title; and the third Ethics, which contains essays closely related to his 1983 book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Like the two earlier volumes of Williams's papers published by Cambridge University Press, Problems of the Self and Moral Luck, this volume will be (...) welcomed by all readers with a serious interest in philosophy. It is published alongside a volume of essays on Williams's work, World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams, edited by J. E. J. Altham and Ross Harrison, which provides a reappraisal of his work by other distinguished thinkers in the field. (shrink)

Bernard Williams; XIV*—The Truth in Relativism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 215–228, https://doi.org/10.1093.

A pioneer in early studies of the human mind and founder of that peculiarly American philosophy called Pragmatism, William James remains America's most widely read philosopher. Generations of students have been drawn to his lucid presentations of philosophical problems. His works, now being made available for the first time in a definitive edition, have a permanent place in American letters and a continuing influence in philosophy and psychology. The essays gathered in the posthumously published Essays in Radical Empiricism formulate (...) ideas that had brewed in James's mind for thirty years as he sought a way out of the philosophical dilemmas generated by the new psychology of the late nineteenth century. They constitute the explanatory core of his doctrine of radical empiricism, a doctrine that charts his course between the absolute idealism he could not accept and, at the other extreme, the law of associationism, which reduces knowledge to sheer contiguity of ideas. In his introduction John J. McDermott describes the historical background and the genesis of James's theory and considers the objections raised by its opponents. (shrink)

This is the first critical study of The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze's most important work on language and ethics, as well as the main source of his vital philosophy of the event.James Williams explains the originality of Deleuze's work with careful definitions of all his innovative terms and a detailed description of the complex structure he constructs. This reading makes connections to his ground-breaking work on literature, to his critical but also progressive relation to the sciences, and to his (...) controversial denial of the priority of standard logics, human values and 'meaning' in thinking.This book will open new debates and develop current ones around Deleuze's work in philosophy, politics, literature, linguistics, cultural studies and sociology. (shrink)

In his overview of recent work on intellectual humility, Nathan Ballantyne (2021) highlights some of the potential ‘dark sides’ of intellectual humility (IH) and calls for a critical study of the ‘value-theory’ of IH. In this article, we sketch out three ways that IH may threaten political conviction. We end our response by arguing that some forms of IH include different kinds of quietism about political convictions, which do not necessarily equate with a lack of conviction.

Both children and adults predict the content of upcoming language, suggesting that prediction is useful for learning as well as processing. We present an alternative model which can explain prediction behaviour as a by-product of language learning. We suggest that a consideration of language acquisition places important constraints on Pickering & Garrod's (P&G's) theory.

We propose that certain forms of chronic illness can be transformative experiences, in the sense described by L.A. Paul.

The debate over the existence of a “public sphere” in China’s Late Qing/Early Republican era began nearly three decades ago, but it has yet to generate a special socio-cultural review on the “Confucian social imaginary” of the Chinese people. The article builds on existing “economic-political approach” and “idea-communication approach” to argue decisive factors hindering the development of a Habermasian “public sphere.” These includes (1) people’s traditional-collectivist lifestyle, (2) lack of understanding of “universal equality,” (3) conservative self-positioning during social transition, (4) (...) regionalist attitude toward outsiders, (5) lack of access to Enlightenment ideas, (6) disregard for parliamentary systems, and (7) ignorance of the rule of law. (shrink)

Acknowledged as perhaps _the_ masterpiece of materialist criticism in the English language, this omnibus ranges over British literary history from George Eliot to George Orwell to inquire about the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination.

Epistemic injustice is a harm done to a person in their capacity as an epistemic subject by undermining her capacity to engage in epistemic practices such as giving knowledge to others or making sense of one’s experiences. It has been argued that those who suffer from medical conditions are more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than the healthy. This paper claims that people with mental disorders are even more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than those with somatic illnesses. Two kinds of contributory (...) factors for epistemic injustice in psychiatric patients are outlined: global and specific. Some suggestions are made to counteract the effects of these contributory factors, for instance we suggest that physicians should participate in groups where the subjective experience of patients is explored, and learn to become more aware of their own unconscious prejudices towards psychiatric patients. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenon of epistemic injustice within contemporary healthcare. We begin by detailing the persistent complaints patients make about their testimonial frustration and hermeneutical marginalization, and the negative impact this has on their care. We offer an epistemic analysis of this problem using Miranda Fricker's account of epistemic injustice. We detail two types of epistemic injustice, testimonial and hermeneutical, and identify the negative stereotypes and structural features of modern healthcare practices that generate them. We claim that these stereotypes (...) and structural features render ill persons especially vulnerable to these two types of epistemic injustice. We end by proposing five avenues for further work on epistemic injustice in healthcare. (shrink)

‘The co-production of meaning’ is a popular, widely-used, but under-defined concept. To better understand the co-production of meaning, we shall attempt to develop an account of co-production through phenomenological psychopathology. Through Hans Georg Gadamer’s remarks on ‘the hermeneutic problem of psychiatry’, we distinguish kinds of contingent and intrinsic obstacles to 'co-production'. In calling attention to these obstacles, we problematise the concept of ‘co-production’ in public mental health, revealing it to be more complex than originally thought. We conclude that new developments (...) in phenomenological psychopathology can be used to overcome some of the limitations of ‘co-production’. (shrink)

As humans, we want to live meaningfully, yet we are often driven by impulse. In Religion and the Meaning of Life, Williams investigates this paradox – one with profound implications. Delving into felt realities pertinent to meaning, such as boredom, trauma, suicide, denial of death, and indifference, Williams describes ways to acquire meaning and potential obstacles to its acquisition. This book is unique in its willingness to transcend a more secular stance and explore how one's belief in God may be (...) relevant to life's meaning. Religion and the Meaning of Life's interdisciplinary approach makes it useful to philosophers, religious studies scholars, psychologists, students, and general readers alike. The insights from this book have profound real-world applications – they can transform how readers search for meaning and, consequently, how readers see and exist in the world. (shrink)

We develop and apply a multi-dimensional conception of explanatory depth towards a comparative analysis of inflationary and bouncing paradigms in primordial cosmology. Our analysis builds on earlier work due to Azhar and Loeb (2021) that establishes initial condition fine-tuning as a dimension of explanatory depth relevant to debates in contemporary cosmology. We propose dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy as two further dimensions of depth in the context of problems with instability and trans-Planckian modes that afflict bouncing and inflationary approaches respectively. In (...) the context of the latter issue, we argue that the recently formulated trans-Planckian censorship conjecture leads to a trade-off for inflationary models between dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy. We conclude with the suggestion that explanatory preference with regard to the different dimensions of depth is best understood in terms of differing attitudes towards heuristics for future model building. (shrink)

Wittgenstein criticised prevailing attitudes toward the sciences. The target of his criticisms was ‘scientism’: what he described as ‘the overestimation of science’. This collection is the first study of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism - a theme in his work that is clearly central to his thought yet strikingly neglected by the existing literature. The book explores the philosophical basis of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism; how this anti-scientism helps us understand Wittgenstein’s philosophical aims; and how this underlies his later conception of philosophy and the kind (...) of philosophy he attacked. An outstanding team of international contributors articulate and critically assess Wittgenstein’s views on scientism and anti-scientism, making Wittgenstein and Scientism essential reading for students and scholars of Wittgenstein’s work, on topics as varied as the philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophical practice, the nature of religious belief, and the place of science in modern culture. (shrink)

What sorts of epistemic virtues are required for effective mathematical practice? Should these be virtues of individual or collective agents? What sorts of corresponding epistemic vices might interfere with mathematical practice? How do these virtues and vices of mathematics relate to the virtue-theoretic terminology used by philosophers? We engage in these foundational questions, and explore how the richness of mathematical practices is enhanced by thinking in terms of virtues and vices, and how the philosophical picture is challenged by the complexity (...) of the case of mathematics. For example, within different social and interpersonal conditions, a trait often classified as a vice might be epistemically productive and vice versa. We illustrate that this occurs in mathematics by discussing Gerovitch’s historical study of the aggressive adversarialism of the Gelfand seminar in post-war Moscow. From this we conclude that virtue epistemologies of mathematics should avoid pre-emptive judgments about the sorts of epistemic character traits that ought to be promoted and criticised. (shrink)

This paper is a review of the influence that lógos has had on ancient Greek, Jewish, and Christian writings. During the philosophical era known as Middle Platonism, the concept/ontology of the lógos played a unique role in enabling Pagan, Jewish, and Christian intellectuals to communicate on a small space of common ground.

In this paper we argue that ill persons are particularly vulnerable to epistemic injustice in the sense articulated by Fricker. Ill persons are vulnerable to testimonial injustice through the presumptive attribution of characteristics like cognitive unreliability and emotional instability that downgrade the credibility of their testimonies. Ill persons are also vulnerable to hermeneutical injustice because many aspects of the experience of illness are difficult to understand and communicate and this often owes to gaps in collective hermeneutical resources. We then argue (...) that epistemic injustice arises in part owing to the epistemic privilege enjoyed by the practitioners and institutions of contemporary healthcare services—the former owing to their training, expertise, and third-person psychology, and the latter owing to their implicit privileging of certain styles of articulating and evidencing testimonies in ways that marginalise ill persons. We suggest that a phenomenological toolkit may be part of an effort to ameliorate epistemic injustice. (shrink)