Talbot Brewer seeks to follow Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, and Alasdair MacIntyre in "retrieving" philosophical ethics from the grip of bad questions and worse answers. This is an ambitious aim, and Brewer may not entirely succeed. But if he falls short it is in an intelligent, rich, and fecund way. It is what moral philosophy can be like at its best.

Talbot Brewer has argued that contemporary philosophy of action and ethics are hampered by a picture of human agency as essentially consisting in bringing about states of affairs – a “production-oriented” conception of action. From classical sources, centrally including Aristotle, Brewer retrieves a different picture – of human activity as fundamentally “dialectical”. Ritual activity, including a ritual dimension of many dialectical activities, affirms and deepens our human presence in and to the world, and to other human beings. I argue (...) that this aspect of ritual activity cannot be adequately recognised in the terms of Brewer's dialectical account of human activity. (shrink)

Short review of Talbot Brewer's excellent book "The Retrieval of Ethics".

In The Retrieval of Ethics, Talbot Brewer defends an Aristotelian-inspired understanding of the good life, in which living the good life is conceived of in terms of engaging in a unified dialectical activity. In this essay, I explore the assumptions at work in Brewer's understanding of dialectical activity and raise some concerns about whether or not we have reason to embrace them. I argue that his conception of human nature and that towards which we are drawn stands in tension (...) with empirical research on motivation. Given this tension, I conclude that it is implausible to construe living the good life as a unified dialectical activity. (shrink)

: In a short and much-neglected passage in the second Critique, Kant discusses the threat posed to human freedom by theological determinism. In this paper we present an interpretation of Kant’s conception of and response to this threat. Regarding his conception, we argue that he addresses two versions of the threat: either God causes appearances directly or he does so indirectly by causing things in themselves which in turn cause appearances. Kant’s response to the first version is that God cannot (...) cause appearances directly because they depend essentially on the passive sensibility of finite beings. Kant’s response to the second version is that human beings are endowed with transcendental freedom, which blocks the causal transitivity that is presupposed by this version. We also contrast his position on this topic with Leibniz’s and Spinoza’s. (shrink)

Boyer & Petersen lay out a compelling theory for folk-economic beliefs, focusing on beliefs about markets. However, societies also allocate resources through mechanisms involving power and group decision-making, through the political economy. We encourage future work to keep folkpoliticaleconomic beliefs in mind, and sketch an example involving pollution and climate change mitigation policy.

De Dreu and Gross's distinction between attack and defense is complicated in real-world conflicts because competing leaders construe their position as one of defense, and power imbalances place status quo challengers in a defensive position. Their account of defense as vigilant avoidance is incomplete because it avoids a reference to anger which transforms anxious avoidance into collective and unified action.

This paper examines the form of mental representation of scientific theories in scientists and nonscientists. It concludes that images and schemas are not the appropriate form of mental representation for scientific theories but that mental models and perceptual symbols do seem appropriate for representing physical/mechanical phenomena. These forms of mental representation are postulated to have an analogical relation with the world and it is this relationship that gives them strong explanatory power. It is argued that the construct of naïve theories (...) as used in developmental psychology may be the appropriate form of mental representation for non physical/mechanical domains. The paper adopts a strong form of psychologism in the philosophy of science and argues that model-based approaches to scientific theories are more appropriate forms of representation for scientific theories than the formalist approaches that dominate current philosophy of science. (shrink)

We must critically rethink race and genetics in the context of the new genetic breakthroughs and haplotype mapping. We must avoid the slippery slope of turning socially constructed racial categories into genetic realities. It is a potentially dangerous arena given the history of racialized science in the United States and globally. Indeed, the new advances must be viewed in the context of a long history of racial inequality, continuing into the current period. This is more than a question of how (...) carefully we use categories of analysis such as race. Justice and equity must be core to our considerations. There is a community stake in this work that must be seriously considered and included in decision making. A progressive and critical analysis is in order. (shrink)

This paper summarizes ideas about the nature of gases proposed during the period following the discovery of Boyle's law. Particular stress is laid on the hypotheses of the Bernoullis, and later, on the equally speculative work of Herapath. Reasons for the success of Herapath's theory, and the neglect of Daniel Bernoulli's are discussed, but it has not been thought necessary to take the story beyond the initial acceptance of Herapath's theory by J. P. Joule, because the paper is concerned only (...) with the antecedents of the modern kinetic theory. (shrink)

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

: This paper addresses the need to examine teaching practices from the observation that they are beyond what they should be. This task devolved to scientists of education is to learn about teaching practices in their relationship to student learning in order to build the database useful to teacher educators and reflexivity necessary for any teacher about their own practice. The concepts of competence, pattern and are useful instrument in this endeavor of explanation and understanding of the practices. The proposed (...) theoretical framework is illustrated by a perspective of teaching practices of teachers in schools and colleges. These differ in many aspects and this requires the testing of new hypotheses to explain -/- La présente contribution traite de la nécessité d’étudier les pratiques d’enseignement à partir du constat de ce qu’elles sont au delà de ce qu’elles devraient être. Cette tâche dévolue aux chercheurs en sciences de l’éducation vise à mieux connaître les pratiques d’enseignement dans leurs relations aux apprentissages des élèves afin de constituer la base de données utiles aux formateurs d’enseignants et nécessaire à toute réflexivité des enseignants à propos de leur propre pratique. Les notions de compétence, de schème et d’instrument sont utiles à cette entreprise d’explication et de compréhension des pratiques. La proposition de cadrage théorique est illustrée par une mise en perspective des pratiques d’enseignement de professeurs des écoles et de collèges. Celles-ci se distinguent sur bien des aspects ce qui réclame la mise à l’épreuve de nouvelles hypothèses explicatives. (shrink)

Early modern empiricists thought that the nature of perceptual experience is given by citing the object presented to the mind in that experience. Hallucination and illusion suggest that this requires untenable mind-dependent objects. Current orthodoxy replaces the appeal to direct objects with the claim that perceptual experience is characterized instead by its representational content. This paper argues that the move to content is problematic, and reclaims the early modern empiricist insight as perfectly consistent, even in cases of illusion, with the (...) realist contention that these direct objects of perception are the persisting mind-independent physical objects we all know and love. (shrink)

Bill Brewer presents an original view of the role of conscious experience in the acquisition of empirical knowledge. He argues that perceptual experiences must provide reasons for empirical beliefs if there are to be any determinate beliefs at all about particular objects in the world. This fresh approach to epistemology turns away from the search for necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge and works instead from a theory of understanding in a particular area.

This article presents the results of an experiment which investigated elementary school children's explanations of the day/night cycle. First, third, and fifth grade children were asked to explain certain phenomena, such as the disappearance of the sun during the night, the disappearance of stars during the day, the apparent movement of the moon, and the alteration of day and night. The results showed that the majority of the children in our sample used in a consistent fashion a small number of (...) relatively well‐defined mental models of the earth, the sun, and the moon to explain the day/night cycle. These mental models of the day/night cycle were empirically accurate, logically consistent and revealed some sensitivity on the part of the children to issues of simplicity of explanation. The younger children formed Initial mental models which provided explanations of the day/night cycle based on everyday experience (e.g., the sun goes down behind mountains, clouds cover up the sun). The older children constructed synthetic mental models (e.g., the sun and the moon revolve around the stationary earth every 24 hours; the earth rotates in an up/down direction and the sun and moon are fixed on opposite sides) which represented attempts to synthesize the culturally accepted view with aspects of their Initial models. A few of the older children appeared to have constructed a mental model of the day/night cycle similar to the scientific one. A theoretical framework is outlined which explains the formation of initial, synthetic, and scientific models of the day/night cycle in terms of the reinterpretation of a hierarchy of constraints, some of which are present early in the child's life, and others which emerge later out of the structure of the acquired knowledge. (shrink)

What is the role of conscious experience in the epistemology of perceptual knowledge: how should we characterise what is going on in seeing that o is F in order to illuminate the contribution of seeing o to their status as cases of knowing that o is F? My proposal is that seeing o involves conscious acquaintance with o itself, the concrete worldly source of the truth that o is F, in a way that may make it evident to the subject (...) that o is an instance of ‘x is F’ as she understands this, and hence evident that o is F. Seeing that o is F is thus a way of its being evident that o is F and is therefore a way of knowing that o is F. (shrink)

The objective of this longitudinal study is to analyze the intrinsic drivers and values underlying managers’ organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment from a developmental psychology perspective based on measuring the stages of consciousness that shape the meaning-making systems of individuals. At time 1, the stages of consciousness of 138 managers were qualitatively assessed using the Leader Development Profile test. At time 2, a quantitative survey measured the environmental beliefs and OCBEs of these managers. The links between stages of consciousness, (...) environmental beliefs, and OCBEs were analyzed using hierarchical regressions. The main findings show that managers’ stages of consciousness positively influence two types of OCBEs, namely eco-initiatives and eco-helping, while environmental beliefs influence eco-helping and eco-civic engagement but do not appear to be connected with the stage of consciousness development. This paper first contributes to the literature on corporate greening by shedding more light on the aspects of behavioral and developmental psychology that underlie environmental leadership. Second, it bridges the gap between theories that have developed separately by showing the interconnectedness between the managers’ stage of consciousness and the more concrete environmental behaviors in the workplace that could have emulative effects throughout the organization. (shrink)

Physical objects are such things as stones, tables, trees, people and other animals: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world we live in. therefore expresses a commonsense commitment to physical realism: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world we live in exist, and are as they are, quite independently of anyone.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.Your burden is not to clear your conscience but to learn how to bear the burdens on your conscience.Since the time of (...) hippocrates, Western medicine has assumed that the exercise of conscience is fundamental to its sound practice. Despite significant changes to medical training in the intervening millennia, this emphasis on conscience remains. "The Physician's Pledge" of the World... (shrink)

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease, primarily leading to the degeneration of motor neurons. The traditional focus on motor neuron‐centric mechanisms has recently shifted towards understanding the contribution of non‐neuronal cells, such as microglia, in ALS pathophysiology. Advances in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology have enabled the generation of iPSC‐derived microglia monocultures and co‐cultures to investigate their role in ALS pathogenesis. Here, we briefly review the insights gained from these studies into the role of microglia in ALS. (...) While iPSC‐derived microglia monocultures have revealed intrinsic cellular dysfunction due to ALS‐associated mutations, microglia‐motor neuron co‐culture studies have demonstrated neurotoxic effects of mutant microglia on motor neurons. Based on these findings, we briefly discuss currently unresolved questions and how they could be addressed in future studies. iPSC models hold promise for uncovering disease‐relevant pathways in ALS and identifying potential therapeutic targets. (shrink)

Since USA constitutional precedent established in 1976, adolescents have increasingly been afforded the right to access contraception without first obtaining parental consent or authorisation. There is general agreement this ethically permissible. However, long-acting reversible contraception methods have only recently been prescribed to the adolescent population. They are currently the most effective forms of contraception available and have high compliance and satisfaction rates. Yet unlike other contraceptives, LARCs are associated with special procedural risks because they must be inserted and removed by (...) trained healthcare providers. It is unclear whether the unique invasive nature of LARC changes the traditional ethical calculus of permitting adolescent decision-making in the realm of contraception. To answer this question, we review the risk–benefit profile of adolescent LARC use. Traditional justifications for permitting adolescent contraception decision-making authority are then considered in the context of LARCs. Finally, analogous reasoning is used to evaluate potential differences between permitting adolescents to consent for LARC procedures versus for emergency and pregnancy termination procedures. Ultimately, we argue that the invasive nature of LARCs does not override adolescents’ unique and compelling need for safe and effective forms of contraception. In fact, LARCs may oftentimes be in the best interest of adolescent patients who wish to prevent unintended pregnancy. We advocate for the specific enumeration of adolescents’ ability to consent to both LARC insertion and removal procedures within state policies. Given the provider-dependent nature of LARCs and the stigma regarding adolescent sexuality, special political and procedural safeguards to protect adolescent autonomy are warranted. (shrink)

Accuracy‐first epistemology is an approach to formal epistemology which takes accuracy to be a measure of epistemic utility and attempts to vindicate norms of epistemic rationality by showing how conformity with them is beneficial. If accuracy‐first epistemology can actually vindicate any epistemic norms, it must adopt a plausible account of epistemic value. Any such account must avoid the epistemic version of Derek Parfit's “repugnant conclusion.” I argue that the only plausible way of doing so is to say that accurate credences (...) in certain propositions have no, or almost no, epistemic value. I prove that this is incompatible with standard accuracy‐first arguments for probabilism, and argue that there is no way for accuracy‐first epistemology to show that all credences of all agents should be coherent. (shrink)

Religious considerations in medical decision-making have enjoyed newfound attention in recent years, challenging the assumption that the domains of biological and spiritual flourishing can be cleanly separated in clinical practice. A surprising majority of patients desire their physicians to engage their religious and spiritual concerns, yet most never receive such attention, particularly in cases near the end of life where such attention seems most warranted.1–3 As physicians Aparna Sajja and Christina Puchalski recently wrote in the AMA Journal of Ethics theme (...) issue on ‘Religion and Spirituality in Healthcare Practice’, modern medical training is ‘falling short of preparing physicians to help patients with the metaphysical needs of their illness’.4 It would seem then that both patients and physicians might challenge the conclusions proffered by philosophers Jake Greenblum and Ryan Hubbard in ‘Responding to Religious Patients: Why Physicians Have No Business Doing Theology’, in which they claim that physicians ought not to engage religious reasoning for medical decisions. Their conclusion relies on two core arguments: a ‘public reason’ argument and a ‘fiduciary argument’, both of which contend that theology and religious considerations have no place in medical reasoning. We find that two central errors undergird these arguments. First is the fraught notion of an epistemically and ethically normative public reason, and second is a fundamental mischaracterisation of the fiduciary nature of the patient–physician relationship and the nature of medicine itself. In response, we argue that all physicians essentially ‘do theology’ and that, rather than divorcing theology from medical practice, clinicians should make it their business to do theology well. To support the exclusion of religious reasoning from medical decision-making, the authors open with a ‘public reason argument’, suggesting that physicians serve in roles closely resembling those of public officials. As such, the physician as public official ought to limit himself …. (shrink)

It is close to current orthodoxy that perceptual experience is to be characterized, at least in part, by its representational content, roughly, by the way it represents things as being in the world around the perceiver. Call this basic idea the content view.

The prevalence of obesity skyrocketed over the past decades to become a significant public health problem. Obesity is recognized as a low-grade inflammatory disease and is linked with several comorbidities such as diabetes, circulatory disease, common neurodegenerative diseases, as well as chronic pain. Adipocytes are a major neuroendocrine organ that continually, and systemically, releases pro-inflammatory factors. While the exact mechanisms driving obesity-induced pain remain poorly defined, nociceptors hypersensitivity may result from the systemic state of inflammation characteristic of obesity as well (...) as weight surplus-induced mechanical stress. Obesity and pain also share various genetic mutations, lifestyle risk factors, and metabolic pathways. For instance, fat pads are often found hyper-innervated and rich in immune cell types of multiple origins. These immunocytes release cytokines, amplifying nociceptor function, which, in turn, via locally-released neuropeptides sustain immunocytes’ function. Here, we posit that along with mechanical stressed stemming from extra weight, the local neuro-immune interplay occurring within the fat pads maintains the state of chronic low-grade inflammation and heightens sensory hypersensitivity. Overall, stopping the harmful neuro-immune crosstalk may constitute a novel pathway to prevent obesity-associated comorbidities, including neuronal hypersensitivity. (shrink)

This concise, elegant essay on the roots and historical justification of philosophy marks a decisive step in posing the problem of what philosophy is. With consummate clarity and the charisma that distinguished him as a lecturer, José Ortega y Gasset re-creates "that moment when Parmenides began talking about something exceptionally strange, which he called 'being.'" How and why, he asks, did such a surprising adventure come about? Considering the human qualities that prompt a curiosity about existence and eternity, Ortega examines (...) philosophy's etymology, its connection to poetry, and its differentiation from religion and other modes of thought. He lucidly delineates radical differences of doctrine and style among early Greek thinkers, especially the "madman of reason" Parmenides and the "absolute individual" Heraclitus. He also considers philosophy's fundamental task of revealing the latent world poised behind the manifest world and discovering the relations between them. "Unable to find lodging among the philosophies of the past," Ortega observes, "we have no choice but to attempt to construct one of our own." The Origin of Philosophy argues for the vital importance of philosophy as a human endeavor, even while noting that each generation of thought reveals the past as "a defunct world of errors". (shrink)

"This concise, elegant essay on the roots and historical justification of philosophy marks a decisive step in posing the problem of what philosophy is.