Josef Pieper’s insight into Aquinas’s metaphysics, that “createdness determines entirely and all-pervasively the inner structure of the creature,” applies equally to philosopher William Desmond.1 For at the heart of Desmond’s metaphysical project lies a refusal to take creation for granted, a challenge to Bertrand Russell’s assertion that “the universe is just there, and that’s all.”2 Desmond work aims at “renewing metaphysical astonishment before the enigma of being that was, and is, and always will be too much for us, in excess (...) of our groping efforts.”3 This “enigma of being” arouses a sense of astonishment at creation’s givenness, “that it is,” and at creation’s contingency, for all that is “might not have been .. (shrink)

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard's mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture's theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor, faced with contemporary challenges to belief in God, issues a call for "new and unprecedented itineraries" that might be capable of leading seekers to encounter God. In Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age, Ryan G. Duns demonstrates that William Desmond's philosophy has the resources to offer a compelling response to Taylor. To show how, Duns makes use of the work of Pierre Hadot. In Hadot's view, the point of philosophy is "not (...) to inform but to form"--That is, not to provide abstract answers to abstruse questions but rather to form the human being such that she can approach reality as such in a new way. Drawing on Hadot, Duns frames Desmond's metaphysical thought as a form of spiritual exercise. So framed, Duns argues, Desmond's metaphysics attunes its readers to perceive disclosure of the divine in the everyday. In this way, Desmond's metaphysics is not about conjuring a different reality but instead leads readers to behold reality itself in a different way by helping them to encounter the presence of God, who abides in, and is disclosed through, all things in the world. Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age offers a readable and engaging introduction to the thought of Charles Taylor and William Desmond, and demonstrates how practicing metaphysics can be understood as a form of spiritual exercise that renews in its practitioners attentiveness to God in all things"-- Back cover. (shrink)

Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich might well be read as a narrative outworking of Pascal's observation that "We run heedless into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it."1 That Ivan Ilyich, an ambitious mid-level Russian legal official, plummets into the abyss is incontestable, for the novella opens by announcing his death. What is debated is how he does so: On his deathbed does he merely resign himself to nothingness, or does he (...) undergo some sort of religious conversion? Some scholars—call them "hermeneuts of denial"—find little or no religious significance in Ivan's death.2 If some allusions are religiously suggestive, they must be interpreted and discounted in view of... (shrink)

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard’s mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture’s theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

One of the conventions when it comes to discussing the thought of John Duns Scotus is that he postulated a “formal distinction” between the divine essence and the divine persons in the Trinity. This study challenges the truth of that convention in two ways. By analyzing parallel passages from the three primary works in which he discusses the Trinity (the Lectura, Ordinatio, and Reportatio), it makes apparent that Scotus does not propose the phrase “formal distinction” as part of his (...) explanation for the Trinitarian formula. More centrally, though, this study shows how the Subtle Doctor develops his thought along a consistent line, from theology through metaphysics to logic, that has as its centerpiece an argument for production in the divine. This argument is the real story behind Scotus’s account of the Trinity, as his ultimate conclusion is that God, in order to be God, must be a Trinity. (shrink)

The problem : commerce and corruption -- Smith's defense of commercial society -- What is corruption? : political and psychological perspectives -- Smith on corruption : from the citizen to the human being -- The solution : moral philosophy -- Liberal individualism and virtue ethics -- Social science vs. moral philosophy -- Types of moral philosophy : natural jurisprudence vs. ethics -- Types of ethics : utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics -- Virtue ethics : modern, ancient, and Smithean -- Interlude (...) : the what and the how of TMS VI -- The what : Sith's "practical system of morality" -- The how : rhetoric, audience, and the methods of practical ethics -- The how : the ascent of self-love in three stages -- Prudence or commercial virtue -- The challenge : from praise to prudence -- Educating the vain : fathers and sons -- Self-interest rightly understood -- The advantages and disadvantages of prudence -- Magnanimity or classical virtue -- The problems of prudence and the therapy of magnanimity -- Up from individualism : desert, praiseworthiness, conscience -- Modernity, antiquity, and magnanimity -- The dangers of magnanimity -- Beneficence or christian virtue -- Between care and caritas -- Benevolence and beneficence and the human telos -- The character and purposes of the wise and virtuous man -- Wisdom and virtue and Adam Smith's apology -- Epilogue: The "economy of greatness". (shrink)

Bilateral proof systems, which provide rules for both affirming and denying sentences, have been prominent in the development of proof-theoretic semantics for classical logic in recent years. However, such systems provide a substantial amount of freedom in the formulation of the rules, and, as a result, a number of different sets of rules have been put forward as definitive of the meanings of the classical connectives. In this paper, I argue that a single general schema for bilateral proof rules has (...) a reasonable claim to inferentially articulating the core meaning of all of the classical connectives. I propose this schema in the context of a bilateral sequent calculus in which each connective is given exactly two rules: a rule for affirmation and a rule for denial. Positive and negative rules for all of the classical connectives are given by a single rule schema, harmony between these positive and negative rules is established at the schematic level by a pair of elimination theorems, and the truth-conditions for all of the classical connectives are read off at once from the schema itself. (shrink)

Michael Ryan's Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction, Second Edition introduces students to the full range of contemporary approaches to the study of literature and culture, from Formalism, Structuralism, and Historicism to Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, and Global English. Introduces readings from a variety of theoretical perspectives, on classic literary texts. Demonstrates how the varying perspectives on texts can lead to different interpretations of the same work. Contains an accessible account of different theoretical approaches An ideal resource for use in (...) introductory courses on literary theory and criticism. Designed to function both as a stand-alone text and a companion to Rivkin and Ryan’s Literary Theory: An Anthology, Second Edition. (shrink)

Contextualizing his views of government and the political community within the Ancient World, this history of political philosophy explores the revolutionary ideas from Plato's greatest pupil that built the foundation for a democratic tradition that is still alive today.

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

Explores Russell's activities as a polemicist, agitator, educator, and popularizer and discusses the evolution of his moral philosophy and its application, including his final battle against American intervention in Vietnam.

Nichols offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's theory of perception - by far the most important feature of his philosophical system. Nichols's consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, lively examples, and plainspoken style make this book especially readable. It will be the definitive analysis for a long time to come.

Some authors argue that it is permissible for clinicians to conscientiously provide abortion services because clinicians are already allowed to conscientiously refuse to provide certain services. Call this the symmetry thesis. We argue that on either of the two main understandings of the aim of the medical profession—what we will call “pathocentric” and “interest‐centric” views—conscientious refusal and conscientious provision are mutually exclusive. On pathocentric views, refusing to provide a service that takes away from a patient's health is professionally justified because (...) there are compelling reasons, based on professional standards, to refuse to provide that service (e.g., it does not heal, and it is contrary to the goals of medicine). However, providing that same service is not professionally justified when providing that service would be contrary to the goals of medicine. Likewise, the thesis turns out false on interest‐centric views. Refusing to provide a service is not professionally justified when that service helps the patient fulfill her autonomous preferences because there are compelling reasons, based on professional standards, to provide that service (e.g., it helps her achieve her autonomous preferences, and it would be contrary to the goals of medicine to deny her that service). However, refusing to provide that same service is not professionally justified when refusing to provide that service would be contrary to the goals of medicine. As a result, on either of the two most plausible views on the goals of medicine, the symmetry thesis turns out false. (shrink)

This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline.

The essential guide to the life, thought, and legacy of Adam Smith Adam Smith (1723–90) is perhaps best known as one of the first champions of the free market and is widely regarded as the founding father of capitalism. From his ideas about the promise and pitfalls of globalization to his steadfast belief in the preservation of human dignity, his work is as relevant today as it was in the eighteenth century. Here, Ryan Hanley brings together some of the (...) world's finest scholars from across a variety of disciplines to offer new perspectives on Smith's life, thought, and enduring legacy. Contributors provide succinct and accessible discussions of Smith's landmark works and the historical context in which he wrote them, the core concepts of Smith's social vision, and the lasting impact of Smith's ideas in both academia and the broader world. They reveal other sides of Smith beyond the familiar portrayal of him as the author of the invisible hand, emphasizing his deep interests in such fields as rhetoric, ethics, and jurisprudence. Smith emerges not just as a champion of free markets but also as a thinker whose unique perspective encompasses broader commitments to virtue, justice, equality, and freedom. An essential introduction to Adam Smith's life and work, this incisive and thought-provoking book features contributions from leading figures such as Nicholas Phillipson, Amartya Sen, and John C. Bogle. It demonstrates how Smith's timeless insights speak to contemporary concerns such as growth in the developing world and the future of free trade, and how his influence extends to fields ranging from literature and philosophy to religion and law. (shrink)

In this paper we apply the popular Best System Account of laws to typical eternal worlds – both classical eternal worlds and eternal worlds of the kind posited by popular contemporary cosmological theories. We show that, according to the Best System Account, such worlds will have no laws that meaningfully constrain boundary conditions. It’s generally thought that lawful constraints on boundary conditions are required to avoid skeptical arguments. Thus the lack of such laws given the Best System Account may seem (...) like a severe problem for the view. We show, however, that at eternal worlds, lawful constraints on boundary conditions do little to help fend off skeptical worries. So with respect to handling these skeptical worries, the proponent of the Best System Account is no worse off than their competitors. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel problem for representationalism (also known as "intentionalism"), a popular contemporary account of perception. We argue that representationalism is incompatible with supervaluationism, the leading contemporary account of vagueness. The problem generalizes to naive realism and related views, which are also incompatible with supervaluationism.

The puzzle of petitionary prayer: if we ask for the best thing, God was already going to do it, and if we ask for something that's not the best, God's not going to grant our request. In this paper, we give a new solution to the puzzle.

Drawing on his extensive classroom experience and linguistic expertise, Paul Ryan offers a commentary that is both rich in detail and—in contrast to earlier, more austere commentaries on the Phaedrus—fully engaging. Line by line, he explains subtle points of language, explicates difficulties of syntax, and brings out nuances of tone and meaning that students might not otherwise notice or understand.

Can our beloved cats and dogs love us back? This chapter aims to find a satisfactory theory of love that substantiates the claim that they can. It begins by reconstructing and critically evaluating recent attempts by scientists to show that dogs can love humans back. Although these attempts are argued to be unsuccessful, it is further argued that they illuminate the need for an adequate theory of love and offer us some plausible ideas about love that direct us to two (...) recent philosophical theories of love that support the idea that dogs can love humans back. These two theories are discussed in detail before it is argued that dogs, but not cats, seem capable of loving humans under these theories. These theory-based defenses of the belief that dogs can love humans back are then criticized on the grounds that the theories they use are unsatisfactory because they fail to capture three central truths about love. This leads to a third theory of love that, after some friendly amendments, is argued to be a tentatively adequate theory that provisionally vindicates the claim that dogs, but not cats, can love humans back. (shrink)

That a standard of medical care must outline services that benefit the patient is relatively uncontroversial. However, one must determine how the practices outlined in a medical standard of care should benefit the patient. I will argue that practices outlined in a standard of medical care must not detract from the patient’s well-functioning and that clinicians can refuse to provide services that do. This paper, therefore, will advance the following two claims: (1) a standard of medical care must not cause (...) dysfunction, and (2) if a physician is medically rational to not provide some service which fails to meet the above condition (i.e. fails to be a standard of medical care), then she may refuse to do so. I then apply my thesis to the prescription of puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter is on some of the ethical and philosophical issues at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the health care sector and medical assistance in dying (e.g. physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia), including: (1) Is there a role for robotic systems/AI to play in the orchestration or delivery of assisted dying?; (2) Can the use of robotic systems/AI make the orchestration of assisted dying more ethical?; and (3) What insights can be generated in (...) the ethical debate on physician assisted suicide and euthanasia from considering the prospect of robotic systems/AI assisting with the provision of or providing assistance in dying? The prospect of including robotic systems/AI in the context of assisted dying provides opportunity to revisit longstanding philosophical and ethical issues under new light. Indeed, reflecting on these questions may invigorate debate, for example in reconsidering the de-medicalization of assisted dying, reconsidering whether assisted dying is within the proper scope of medicine, and reconsidering which normative approach to the ethics of assisted dying is the most appropriate. (shrink)

Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) originated in the 4thEuropean Research Framework Programme (1994) andresponsible research and innovation (RRI) from the EC researchagenda in 2010. ELSA has received renewed attention inEuropean funding schemes and research. This raises the questionof how these two approaches to social responsibility relate toone another and if there is the possibility to align. There is aneed to evaluate the relationship/overlap between ELSA and RRIbecause there is a possibility that new ELSA research will reinventthe wheel if it (...) does not engage with the body of literaturealready present in RRI research. This provides unneeded extrabureaucracy, reformulations of research agendas, extrainvestment, and an overabundance of frameworks to implement,and ELSA research does not take advantage of the body ofresearch developed in RRI. This paper evaluates how ELSA andRRI diverge, are complementary, and can be aligned. (shrink)

In his postapocalyptic novel, Those Who Remain, G. Michael Hopf (2016) makes an important observation about the effect crises can have on human psychology by noting that "hard times create strong [humans]" (loc. 200). While the catastrophic effects of the recent COVID-19 outbreak are incontestable, there are arguments to be made that the situation itself could be materia prima of a more grounded, and authentic generation of humanity, at least in theory. In this article I draw on Heidegger's early, implicit (...) ethic of finitude as well as his later work surrounding the nature of technology, and place them into dialogue with a global milieu contextualized by worldwide pandemic. I approach this discussion from two different angles: in the first part, I explicate the ethic of finitude, and use it as a framework to describe the observable behavior of communities worldwide in order to better understand how global crises impact the psychical welfare of individual human beings. In the second part, I apply lessons given to us by the later Heidegger, specifically those oriented around the movement away from calculative thinking, in an effort to define a loose, albeit fundamentally ennobling prescriptive aimed at easing the existential strain of the situation we have found ourselves in. *This is a pre-print of an article published in Human Arenas. The final authenticated version is available at DOI: 10.1007/s42087-020-00142-6. (shrink)

Scholars have typically regarded Confucius as an ethical thinker broadly construed and not as an epistemological thinker. This chapter seeks to overturn that view and, in doing so, has three basic goals. The first goal is to make the case that Confucian thought is of epistemological significance. Goal two is to locate the significance of Confucian thought within epistemology while accounting for the past overlooking of this significance. The third goal is to show that Confucian thought is not only of (...) epistemological significance, but that it can make a contribution to progressing contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

In this article, we offer a perspective into howCanadian doctoral nursing students’ writing capacity is mentored and, as a result, we argue is disciplined. We do this by sharing our own disciplinary and interdisciplinary experiences of writing with, for and about nurses. We locate our experiences within a broader discourse that suggests doctoral (nursing) students be prepared as stewards of the (nursing) discipline. We draw attention to tensions and effects of writing within (nursing) disciplinary boundaries. We argue that traditional approaches (...) to developing nurses’ writing capacity in doctoral programs both shepherds and excludes emerging scholarly voices, and we present some examples to illustrate this dual role. We ask our nurse colleagues to consider for whom nurses write, offering an argument that nurses’ writing must ultimately improve patient care and thus would benefit from multiple voices in writing. (shrink)

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their dynamics, (...) but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models' robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson challenges advocates of layered conceptions of reality to explain “how layers are distinguished” and “what holds them together” by “examining the world” (2014). One strategy for answering such questions is mereological, treating inter-layer relations as parthood relations, where layers exist whenever composition does, and the number of layers will be equivalent to the number of answers to Peter Van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question, while answers to his General Composition Question explain what holds the layers together (1987). Various answers (...) have been proffered for these questions, from the physicalist atomism of Richard Feynman (2015), Hilary Putnam (1958), and Kit Fine (1992) to the holism of Jonathan Schaffer (2010), the two-layer emergentism of Van Inwagen himself (1995), Tim Maudlin’s three-layered “flash ontology” (2011), and Rob Koons two-layered “thermal substances” (2019). In this PhD project, I seek to meet Thomasson’s challenge by identifying which of these proposals are compatible with plausible interpretations of quantum physics. Atomist answers may have difficulty with relativity, while holistic and emergentist models have trouble giving an account of experimental conditions. Maudlin and Koons’ views, meanwhile, may make testable predictions about the scope of entanglement. Examining the world can lead us to sharply winnow our theories about how layers are distinguished and what holds them together. (shrink)

This collection of essays articulates theoretical and philosophical arguments, and advances practical applications, as to why animals ought to matter to social work, in and of themselves. It serves as a persuasive corrective to the current invisibility of animals in contemporary social work practice and thought.

To say Early Confucians advocated the possession of a sense of shame as a means to moral virtue underestimates the tact and forethought they used successfully to mold natural dispositions to experience shame into a system of self, familial, and social governance. Shame represents an adaptive system of emotion, cognition, perception, and behavior in social primates for measurement of social rank. Early Confucians understood the utility of the shame system for promotion of cooperation, and they build and deploy cultural modules (...) – e.g., rituals, titles, punishments – with this in mind. These policies result in subtle alterations to components of the evolved shame system that are detectable in data form contemporary cross-cultural psychology that show that populations in the Confucian diaspora have a unique shame profile compared to Western and non-Western populations. The status of Confucian diaspora populations as outliers in the context of shame is partially explained by appeal to the cultural transmission and historical endurance of relevant Early Confucian cultural modules. (shrink)