In this paper I outline Donald Davidson’s account of two forms of irrationality, akrasia and self-deception, and relate this account to ethical action and belief. His view of irrationality is generally a Freudian one, to the effect that agents must compartmentalize both offending particular mental contents, and governing second order principles. Davidson also hints that his account of akrasia and self-deception might show certain normative and meta-ethical theories to be irrational, insofar as they too engender irrationality. I explore these hints, (...) and hopefully show both that Davidson is correct about irrationality and correct that certain ethical theories engender irrationality as well. I believe this to be no great loss to ethics generally, but will hopefully aid our understanding of how ethical action and belief actually happen. (shrink)

This thesis has three parts. In the first part, the author defends the coherence of Cartesian scepticism about the external world. In particular, the author contends that such scepticism survives attacks from Descartes himself, as well as from W.V.O. Quine, Robert Nozick, Alvin Goldman, and David Armstrong. It follows that Cartesian scepticism remains intact. In the second part of this thesis, the author contends that the semantic or content externalisms of Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge do not refute Cartesian scepticism (...) about the external world. In particular, he argues that Putnam and Burge do not make good their respective externalist cases against scepticism, and that they beg the question against that position. The author concludes that semantic or content externalism is important against such scepticism. In the third part of this thesis, the author addresses the mind, and suggests that Descartes, by offering his cogito argument, also offers a theory of thought content, which he then supports with his substance dualism. He suggests that Descartes does not succeed with any of his arguments here, although his theory of thought content is still plausible. To remedy this, the author discusses the versions of narrow meaning or content offered by Jerry Fodor and Colin McGinn, and defends a version of such meaning or content that presupposes that semantic or content externalism is false. The author lastly follows Donald Davidson, and argues for a version anomalous monism, which he contends is a theory that shows how semantic or content internalism might be true. (shrink)

THE ECONOMICS OF TIME AND IGNORANCE by Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr. and Mario J. Rizzo New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985. 261pp., $34.95 O'Driscoll and Rizzo, two leading exponents of the Austrian subjectivist school of economics, claim to provide an original and powerful challenge to mainstream neoclassical economics. They also argue that there is much common ground between the Austrian approach and the recent development of Post Keynesian analysis. In this essay, the validity of such claims is analyzed, and the (...) shortcomings of the Austrian school's approach vis?à?vis Post Keynesian and neoclassical analysis is developed. (shrink)

Printed in Great Britain. Erratum slip inserted.

Donald Davidson was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the twentieth century. The Structure of Truth presents his 1970 Locke Lectures in print for the first time. They comprise an invaluable historical document which illuminates how Davidson was thinking about the theory of meaning, the role of a truth theory therein, the ontological commitments of a truth theory, the notion of logical form, and so on, at a pivotal moment in the development of his thought. Unlike Davidson's (...) previously published work, the lectures are written so as to be presented to an audience as a fully organized and coherent exposition of his program in the philosophy of language. Had they been widely available in the years following 1970, the reception of Davidson's work might have been very different. Given the systematic nature of their presentation of Davidson's semantic program, these lectures will be of interest to anyone working in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

English summary: French description: Pensees du corps: se peut-il que le corps pense, qu'il ne soit pas un simple objet de reflexion, mais un sujet de pensee a part entiere?La demarche philosophique est ici confrontee a un corpus de pratiques et d'arts gestuels japonais (danse, theatre, arts martiaux). Une serie d'experiences significatives bousculent les idees recues et poussent le penseur a un renouvellement radical de ses methodes et de ses concepts. En resulte une philosophie de terrain, incarnee et immanente, qui (...) met en lumiere la profonde rationalite du corps. Y compris dans ses deploiements qui d'ordinaire resistent a l'analyse: sensation et action.Nul besoin d'avoir recours a un relativisme culturaliste friand d'exotisme, encore moins a un quelconque irrationalisme. Les pensees du corps dessinent un espace de publicite et d'intelligibilite, une forme d'universalite que chacun peut intimement eprouver et affiner. Loin de constituer un dehors, le corps apparait comme le lieu de production d'un savoir et d'une pensee universellement partageables. (shrink)

The author proceeds from empirical basis to show how far the two Rawls's principles of justice can be implemented in Africa. Positions not only of Rawls but also of other philosophers are presented, reconstructed and commented. They are also opposed with critiques and other theories, so that the appropriate position for Africa can be explained. The author comes to the conclusion that the fundamental liberties are still in the making in Africa. A long colonial past and Aparthied have deprived Africa (...) from its blossoming. However, a groping democracy of full hope is pointing ahead. So that freedom and democracy gain more room the author suggests the establishment of federalism based on ethnic groups. To speak of democracy and freedom without a substantial economic support seems illusive. In order to improve the lot of the least advantaged the author proposes betterment of education and health. (shrink)

This book represents part of an ongoing effort to understand the rules, practices, agencies and agents which shape and change the social construction of pedagogic discourse. It draws together and re-examines the findings of the author's earlier work.

People with bad beliefs — roughly beliefs that conflict with those of the relevant experts and are maintained regardless of counter-evidence — are often cast as bad believers. Such beliefs are seen to be the result of, e.g., motivated or biased cognition and believers are judged to be epistemically irrational and blameworthy in holding them. Here I develop a novel framework to explain why people form bad beliefs. People with bad beliefs follow the social epistemic norms guiding how agents are (...) supposed to form and share beliefs within their respective communities. Beliefs go bad because these norms aren’t reliably knowledge-conducive. In other words, bad beliefs aren’t due to bad believers but due bad social epistemic norms. The framework also unifies different explanations of bad beliefs, is testable and provides distinct interventions to combat such beliefs. The framework also helps to capture the complex and often contextual normative landscape surrounding bad beliefs more adequately. On this picture, it’s primarily groups that are to be blamed for bad beliefs. I also suggest that some individuals will be blameless for forming their beliefs in line with their group’s norms, whereas others won’t be. And I draw attention to the factors that influence blameworthiness-judgements in these contexts. (shrink)

Repr. as Essay 14 in Davidson, Donald, _Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation_, 2nd ed. Oxford, UK (Clarendon, 2001). 215-226.

Basil Bernstein rarely had a good press in the forty-odd years in which he presented his developing theories to the public. Early admiration for his sociolinguistic 'discoveries' - of codes which regulate, at a deep-structural level, family beliefs and behaviours and relationships, as well as surface utterances - turned quite quickly into a suspicion that his description of social class difference amounted to a declaration of working class deficit. Although Bernstein's writings, particularly in the 1990s, became opaque to the (...) point of seeming to be purposefully obscurantist, they have always been enlivened by clear, pithy and punchy statements which left no room for ambiguity about the case he was making. The struggle to achieve an education system which would offer genuinely equal opportunities to children from all class and cultural backgrounds continued to underpin the writing and teaching of his later years. (shrink)

This book encourages today's students to engage in Plato's thought, grapple with Plato's arguments, and explore the relevance of his arguments in contemporary terms. A text only comes alive if we make it our own; Plato's great work The Republic, often reads as though it were addressing the problems of the day rather than those of ancient Athens. Treating The Republic as a whole and offering a comprehensive introduction to Plato's arguments, Mitchell and Lucas draw students into an exploration of (...) the relevance of Plato's thought to our present ideas about politics, society and education, as well as the philosophy of mathematics, science and religion.The authors bring The Republic to life. The first chapters help the reader to make sense of the text, either in translation or the original Greek. Later chapters deal with the themes that Plato raises, treating Plato as a contemporary. Plato is inexhaustible: he speaks to many different people of different generations and from different backgrounds. The Republic is not just an ancient text: it never ceases to be relevant to contemporary concerns, and it demands fresh discussion in every age. (shrink)

Mainstream cognitive neuroscience typically ignores the role of quantum physical effects in the neural processes underlying cogni¬tion and consciousness. However, many unsolved problems remain, suggesting the need to consider new approaches. We propose that quantum theory, especially through an ontological interpretation due to Bohm and Hiley, provides a fruitful framework for addressing the neural correlates of cognition and consciousness. In particular, the ontological interpretation suggests that a novel type of 'active information', connected with a novel type of 'quantum potential energy', (...) plays a key role in quantum physical processes. After introducing the ontological interpretation we illustrate its value for cognitive neuroscience by discussing it in the light of a proposal by Beck and Eccles about how quantum tunneling could play a role in controlling the frequency of synaptic exocytosis. In this proposal, quantum tunneling would enable the 'self' to control its brain without violating the energy conservation law. We argue that the ontological interpretation provides a sharper picture of what actually could be taking place in quantum tunneling in general and in synaptic exocytosis in particular. Based on the notions of active information and quantum potential energy, we propose a coherent way of understanding how mental processes (understood as involving non-classical physical processes) can act on traditional, classically describable neural processes without violating the energy conservation law. (shrink)

In this paper, the aim is to explore how there can be a role for expression of affect in illocution, drawing upon some ideas about expression put forward by Karl Bühler. In a first part of the paper, I map some active discussions and open questions surrounding phenomena that seem to involve “expression of affect”. Second, I home in on a smaller piece of that larger puzzle; namely, a consideration of how there may be non-conventional expression of affect. I provide (...) some examples of what I take that to involve and set out some premises for approaching it. In a third section, I motivate such an interest by pointing to a question in speech act theory concerning ‘force conventionalism’. This is whether and how illocution can be performed non-conventionally—that is, whether (at least some) utterances can be communicated with illocutionary force without need of convention. I propose that where expression of affect may occur non-conventionally, it may in turn constitute one important route through which at least some kinds of illocution are achieved. In the fourth part of the paper, I sketch an account of such non-conventional expression of affect for the purposes of illocution, by exploring a broadly Bühlerian account of some affects; namely, that some affects are teleological in character, that coordinations may be involved in their satisfactional states, and that uptake of the expressed affect constitutes one subset of such satisfactional states. That exposition points to the contemporary relevance of the “action theory of expression” proposed by Bühler. (shrink)

St. Basil was a towering figure in the fourth-century Church. In the midst of great controversy, he led the charge of those faithful to the doctrine proclaimed at Nicaea. For the bishop of Caesarea, the array of false teachings that plagued the Church was not merely a matter of conflicting opinions or interpretations. It was rather a result of the moral failure of so-called leaders of the Church to look first to the will of God revealed in Scripture as (...) their compass in all things-in matters of both theology and personal conduct. Here St. Basil lays out a consistent theological ethic, rooted in a nuanced appreciation for the supremacy of Scripture. These texts, presented with the Greek on the facing page, are essential reading for anyone interested in early Christian approaches to ethics as well as the right use and interpretation of the Bible. (shrink)

In the _The Undivided Universe_, David Bohn and Basil Hiley present a radically different approach to quantum theory. They develop an interpretation of quantum mechanics which gives a clear, intuitive understanding of its meaning and in which there is a coherent notion of the reality of the universe without assuming a fundamental role for the human observer. With the aid of new concepts such as active information together with non-locality, they provide a comprehensive account of all the basic features (...) of quantum mechanics, including the relativistic domain and quantum field theory. It is shown that, with the new approach, paradoxical or unsatisfactory features associated with the standard approaches, such as the wave-particle duality and the collapse of the wave function, do not arise. Finally, the authors make new suggestions and indicate some areas in which one may expect quantum theory to break down in a way that will allow for a test. _The Undivided Universe_ is an important book especially because it provides a different overall world view which is neither mechanistic nor reductionist. This view will ultimately have radical implications not only in physics but also in our general approach to all areas of life. (shrink)

What is the connection between thought and language? The dependence of speaking on thinking is evident, for to speak is to express thoughts. This dependence is manifest in endless further ways. Someone who utters the sentence “The candle is out” as a sentence of English must intend to utter words that are true if and only if an indicated candle is out at the time of utterance, and he must believe that by making the sounds he does he is uttering (...) words that are true only under those circumstances. These intentions and beliefs are not apt to be dwelt on by the fluent speaker. But though they may not normally command attention, their absence would be enough to show he was not speaking English, and the absence of any analogous thoughts would show he was not speaking at all. (shrink)

The late Professor Basil Willey's important and influential inquiry into the history of religious and moral ideas in the nineteenth century has become (since ...

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper explores how Wundt’s and Bühler’s respective conceptions of gestural expression have implications for how each conceives of what, in broad terms, may be understood as a ‘grammar of gestures’: that is, the rules for the formation and performance of gestures with and without speech. Unlike previous scholarship that has looked at the relationship of Wundt and Bühler, the aim here will be to give particular attention to the relevance of their respective accounts for current philosophical and linguistic research (...) on gesture. Building off of Bühler, we can offer an alternative to the psychologistic and solipsistic model of gestural expression that can be found in Wundt and that seems to be resurgent today in work by McNeil and others. Via Bühler’s notions of diacrisis and of the underlying functions that guide human communication, we propose an understanding of the relationship between gestures and speech that aims to render accurately both the highly contextualised and the highly structured conditions of their mutual employment. (shrink)

David Bohm is one of the foremost scientific thinkers of today and one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation. His challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to reexamine what it is they are going and his ideas have been an inspiration across a wide range of disciplines. _Quantum Implications_ is a collection of original contributions by many of the world' s leading scholars and is dedicated to David Bohm, his work and the issues (...) raised by his ideas. The contributors range across physics, philosophy, biology, art, psychology, and include some of the most distinguished scientists of the day. There is an excellent introduction by the editors, putting Bohm's work in context and setting right some of the misconceptions that have persisted about the work of David Bohm. (shrink)

b /b b i Quantum Implications /i /b is dedicated to David Bohm, his work, and the issues raised by his ideas.

CHAPTER I FRANCIS W. NEWMAN (i 805-1 897) I. Phases of Faith IN the history of nineteenth century English thought there is no story more striking, ...

Theodore the Studite resolved the logical problem posed by the second Iconoclasm in an explicitly paraconsistent way, when he applied to Jesus the definition of the human hypostasis while stating that there is no human hypostasis in Jesus. Methodologically he was following, albeit without knowing, Eulogius of Alexandria. He, in turn, was apparently followed by Photius, but in a confused manner.

Philosophical work on the concept of consent in the past few decades has got to grips with it as a rich notion. We are increasingly sensitive to consent not as a momentary, atomic, transactional thing, but as a complex idea admitting of various qualities and dimensions. In this paper we note that the recognition of this complexity demands a theoretical framework quite different to those presently extant, and we suggest that the enactive approach is one which offers significant value in (...) this regard. In consonance with arguments made by Laurie Penny about how consent is a continuous and dynamic process, we outline how an enactive approach identifies consent as temporally extended (rather than momentarily transactional), and as affected by the skilfulness of the agents involved, the fitness of community provided resources to negotiate the consensual relationship over time, and the unfolding of circumstances in the situation in which the joint action is taking place. We argue that the value of an enactive perspective on consent is in highlighting these complexities, and providing resources to articulate and theorise them in ways that are not open to other current approaches. (shrink)