Forty years after his death, Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) remains one of the most discussed and influential legal philosophers of our time. This collection of new essays takes Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law as a stimulus, aiming to move forward the debate on several central issues in contemporary jurisprudence. The essays in Part I address legal validity, the normativity of law, and Kelsen's famous but puzzling idea of a legal system's 'basic norm'. Part II engages with the difficult issues raised by (...) the social realities of law and the actual practices of legal officials. Part III focuses on conceptual features of legal systems and the logical structure of legal norms. All the essays were written for this volume by internationally renowned scholars from seven countries. Also included, in English translation, is an important polemical essay by Kelsen himself. (shrink)

We propose that Mealey's model is limited in its description of sociopathy because it does not provide an adequate role for the main organ mediating genes and behavior, namely, the brain. Further, on the basis of our research, we question the view of sociopaths as a homogeneous group.

Sebastian Gardner competently tackles one of Sartre's more complex and challenging works in this new addition to the Reader's Guides series.

Book description: This outstanding collection of specially commissioned chapters examines German idealism from several angles and assesses the renewed interest in the subject from a wide range of fields. Including discussions of the key representatives of German idealism such as Kant, Fichte and Hegel, it is structured in clear sections dealing with: * metaphysics * the legacy of Hegel’s philosophy * Brandom and Hegel * recognition and agency * autonomy and nature * the philosophy of German romanticism. Amongst other important (...) topics, German Idealism: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives addresses the debates surrounding the metaphysical and epistemological legacy of German idealism; its importance for understanding recent debates in moral and political thought; its appropriation in recent theories of language and the relationship between mind and world; and how German idealism affected subsequent movements such as romanticism, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

Careerism refers to an individual’s propensity to achieve their personal and career goals through nonperformance-based activities. We investigated the role of several dispositional predictors of careerism, including Five-factor model personality traits, primary psychopathy, and exchange ideology. Based on data from 131 respondents, as expected, we observed that emotional stability was negatively correlated with careerism. Primary psychopathy and exchange ideology explained additional variance in careerism after accounting for FFM traits. Relative importance analyses indicated that psychopathy and exchange ideology were equally important (...) in predicting careerism. We highlight the need for future research efforts investigating the combined effects of contextual factors—particularly, human resource practices—and individual differences to understand careerism in the workplace. (shrink)

[Sebastian Gardner] German idealism has been pictured as an unwarranted deviation from the central epistemological orientation of modern philosophy, and its close historical association with German romanticism is adduced in support of this verdict. This paper proposes an interpretation of German idealism which seeks to grant key importance to its connection with romanticism without thereby undermining its philosophical rationality. I suggest that the fundamental motivation of German idealism is axiological, and that its augment of Kant's idealism is intelligible in (...) terms of its combined aim of consolidating the transcendental turn and legitimating the kind of relation to value articulated in German romanticism. /// [Paul Franks] German idealists regard Spinozism as both the realism that outflanks Kant's idealism and the source of the conception of systematicity with which to fortify idealism. But they offer little argument for this view. To fill the gap, I reconstruct arguments that could underlie Jacobi's and Pistorius's tentative but influential suggestions that Kant is or should be a Spinozist. Kant is indeed a monist about phenomena, but, unlike Spinoza, a pluralist about noumena. Nevertheless, it is arguable that the Third Antinomy can be solved by a more thoroughgoing Spinozistic monism. The resulting Spinozism outflanks Kant by acknowledging Jacobi's charge that philosophy annihilates immediacy and individuality, whereas Kant's commitment to things in themselves can seem a half-hearted attempt to avoid the charge. However, the German idealist contention is that only a synthesis of such a Spinozism with Kantian idealism can retrieve immediacy and individuality, thus overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

Book description: Art and Morality is a collection of groundbreaking new papers on the theme of aesthetics and ethics, and the link between the two subjects. A group of distinguished contributors tackle the important questions that arise when one thinks about the moral dimensions of art and the aesthetic dimension of moral life. The volume is a significant contribution to philosophical literature, opening up unexplored questions and shedding new light on more traditional debates in aesthetics. The topics explored include: the (...) relation of aesthetic to ethical judgement; the relation of artistic experience to moral consciousness; the moral status of fiction; the concepts of sentimentality and decadence; the moral dimension of critical practice, pictorial art and music; the moral significance of tragedy; and the connections between artistic and moral issues elaborated in the writings of central figures in modern philosophy, such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The contributors share the view that progress in aesthetics requires detailed study of the practice of criticism. This volume will appeal both to the philosophical community and to researchers in areas such as literary theory, musicology and the theory of art. (shrink)

Concerns about the welfare of agricultural animals in corporate or “factory farming” systems are growing. Increasingly, it is suggested that modem farm animal production practices are morally objectionable, causing physical and mental suffering to animals. Such criticisms are premised on beliefs about the mental capacities of farm animals that are not wholly supported by scientific evidence, for little is known about farm animal cognition. Some animal scientists, realizing that concerns about the treatment of agricultural animals cannot be addressed in absence (...) of knowledge about farm animal mentality, have begun cognitive studies of farm animals. Subsequently, several ethical problems have emerged. In this paper it is argued that while farm animal cognition studies are needed, scientists must consider the moral problems and implications of the research, and must devise empirically testable hypotheses about those aspects of cognitive behavior that are relevant to discussions about moral treatment of farm animals. (shrink)

Sartre’s discussion of «being-with-others» in Part Three of Being and Nothingness is extraordinarily rich and highly original. At its core, I argue, lies an insight into the aporetic character of intersubjectivity – «the scandal of the plurality of consciousnesses», as Sartre puts it – which emerges most clearly in his critique of Hegel’s theory of intersubjectivity. My aim in this paper is to isolate this thesis of Sartre’s and spell out his grounds for it. I argue furthermore that Hegel’s conception (...) of intersubjectivity corresponds to that of natural consciousness, such that, in rejecting Hegel, Sartre is also impugning the reality of a conception integral to ordinary thought. I suggest that Sartre’s insight also holds the key to his distinctive approach to social and political theory in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. (shrink)

This paper examines how the exercises offered to the young Socrates in the Parmenides can be understood as an educational practice, or a gymnastic that is prior to and instrumental for defining forms. To this end, I argue that the subject of the exercises given to Socrates can be understood as an open and indeterminate ‘one’, rather than a form per se. I show that the description of the gymnastic exercises, the demonstration of the hypotheses themselves, and the language concerning (...) the ‘one’, are consistent with an indeterminate subject ‘one’. (shrink)

The first full-scale history of cognitive science, this work addresses a central issue: What is the nature of knowledge?

Institutional review boards are almost universally considered to be overworked and understaffed. They also require substantial commitments of time and resources from their members. Although some surveys report average IRB memberships of 15 people or more, federal regulations require only five. We present data on IRB meetings at eight of the top 25 academic medical centers in the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health. These data indicate substantial contributions from primary reviewers and chairs during protocol discussions but (...) little from other members, which implies that it may be possible for smaller IRBs to accomplish the same tasks with no reduction in the quality of review. (shrink)

Patients have received experimental pharmaceuticals outside of clinical trials for decades. There are no industry-wide best practices, and many companies that have granted compassionate use, or ‘preapproval’, access to their investigational products have done so without fanfare and without divulging the process or grounds on which decisions were made. The number of compassionate use requests has increased over time. Driving the demand are new treatments for serious unmet medical needs; patient advocacy groups pressing for access to emerging treatments; internet platforms (...) enabling broad awareness of compelling cases or novel drugs and a lack of trust among some that the pharmaceutical industry and/or the FDA have patients’ best interests in mind. High-profile cases in the media have highlighted the gap between patient expectations for compassionate use and company utilisation of fair processes to adjudicate requests. With many pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient groups, healthcare providers and policy analysts unhappy with the inequities of the status quo, fairer and more ethical management of compassionate use requests was needed. This paper reports on a novel collaboration between a pharmaceutical company and an academic medical ethics department that led to the formation of the Compassionate Use Advisory Committee. Comprising medical experts, bioethicists and patient representatives, CompAC established an ethical framework for the allocation of a scarce investigational oncology agent to single patients requesting non-trial access. This is the first account of how the committee was formed and how it built an ethical framework and put it into practice. (shrink)

Given that one of the major goals of the practice of Philosophy for Children (P4C) is the development of critical thinking skills (Sharp 1987/2018, pp. 4 6), an urgent question that emerged for one of the authors, who is of Chinese Heritage and a novice practitioner at a P4C summer camp was whether this emphasis on critical thinking might make this practice incompatible with the fabric of Chinese culture. Filial piety (孝), which requires respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors (...) is considered an important virtue in Asian culture, as is the preservation of harmony. But if one of the goals of P4C is to teach youngsters to courageously pursue reasoned dialogue, does this not set-up young Asians for serious conflict when they come face-to-face with positions that are articulated by elders, but which are ones to which they are diametrically opposed; a racist grandmother, for instance, or an uncle who insists that those at the Tiananmen Square uprising were nothing but hooligan’s. It is this question that we will explore in this presentation. In the process, we will come to the conclusion that, when positions seem irreconcilable, rather than continuing to pursue rigorous critical interchange that may do little other than escalate insult, the facilitator, rather, ought to move toward creating a deeper understanding of each position juxtaposed against its opposing view (a process that we refer to as ‘collaborative caring’), so as to produce side-by-side understanding, knowing that communal bonds have been maintained and, hence, that the opportunity for genuine reasoned collaborative inquiry on other issues and at future times remains open. (shrink)

The _Analects_ is a compendium of the sayings of Confucius (551-479 b.c.e.), transcribed and passed down by his disciples. How it came to be transformed by Zhu Xi (1130-1200) into one of the most philosophically significant texts in the Confucian tradition is the subject of this book. Scholarly attention in China had long been devoted to the _Analects._ By the time of Zhu Xi, a rich history of commentary had grown up around it. But Zhu, claiming that the _Analects_ was (...) one of the authoritative texts in the canon and should be read before all others, gave it a still more privileged status in the tradition. He spent decades preparing an extended interlinear commentary on it. Sustained by a newer, more elaborate language of metaphysics, Zhu's commentary on the _Analects_ marked a significant shift in the philosophical orientation of Confucianism--a shift that redefined the Confucian tradition for the next eight centuries, not only in China, but in Japan and Korea well. Gardner's translations and analysis of Zhu Xi's commentary on the _Analects_ show one of China's great thinkers in an interesting and complex act of philosophical negotiation. Through an interlinear, line-by-line "dialogue" with Confucius, Zhu effected a reconciliation of the teachings of the Master, commentary by later exegetes, and contemporary philosophical concerns of Song-dynasty scholars. By comparing Zhu's reading of the _Analects_ with the earlier standard reading by He Yan (190-249), Gardner illuminates what is dramatically new in Zhu Xi's interpretation of the _Analects._ A pioneering study of Zhu Xi's reading of the _Analects,_ this book demonstrates how commentary is both informed by a text and informs future readings, and highlights the importance of interlinear commentary as a genre in Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Merleau-Ponty’s account of perception should be understood, not as a theory of perception in the usual sense, but as belonging squarely to transcendental philosophy. Contra the interpretation of Phenomenology of Perception as essentially a work in the philosophy of psychology, and the associated naturalistic construal of his ideas, it is suggested that Merleau-Ponty must be seen in the light of the history of transcendental philosophy and that an original form of idealism lies at the heart of (...) his philosophical project. The transcendental turn is presupposed by Merleau-Ponty’s claims regarding perception, and his key notion of ambiguity is a transcendental descendant of Kant’s strategy of establishing idealism by way of antinomy. (shrink)

A survey of Howard Gardner's contributions to our understanding of learning, and how to create environments that support growth in all learners across the lifespan.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces--extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions--so the work can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field. A developmental psychologist by training, Howard Gardner has spent the last 30 years researching, (...) thinking and writing about the development and education of the mind. He has contributed over 30 years researching, thinking and writing about the development and education of the mind. He has contributed over 30 books and 700 articles to the field. He is best known for his critique of the notion that intelligence is one single human intelligence that can be assessed through psychometric tests. Instead Gardner developed the theory of "multiple intelligence" which states that an individual has eight relatively autonomous intelligence: · Language · Music · Emotional · Logical-mathematical · Spatial · Kinesthetic · Creative · Interpersonal (understanding oneself) This theory has proved popular, particularly with those who see the IQ testing a relatively narrow set of abilities. In this book, he brings together over 20 of his key writings in one place. The book begins with a specially written Introduction, which gives an overview of Howard's career and contextualizes his selection in this book. Through his selection we can see the development of his thinking as well as the development of the field. This is the only book that offers this insight into this great scholar's work. (shrink)

Schelling’s 1809 Freiheitsschrift, perhaps his most widely read work, presents considerable difficulties of understanding. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of the work in relation to Kant. My focus is on the relation in each case of their theory of human freedom to their general metaphysics, a relation which both regard as essential. The argument of the paper is in sum that Schelling may be viewed as addressing and resolving a problem which faces Kant’s theory of freedom and transcendental (...) idealism, deriving from the challenge posed by Spinozism. One major innovation in Schelling’s theory of human freedom is his claim that it presupposes the reality of evil. I argue that Schelling’s thesis concerning evil also provides a key to the new and highly original metaphysics of the Freiheitsschrift. The relation of Schelling’s theory of freedom to his general metaphysics is therefore complex, for it goes in two directions: the metaphysics are not simply presupposed by the theory of freedom but are also in part derived from it. These new metaphysics also, I argue, allow Schelling to resolve a problem which his own earlier Spinozistic system had left unresolved. (shrink)

Michael Hand's recent paper, ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered', re-opens a debate that was flourishing over a decade ago in this journal and, long before that, in the works of others. In this response I examine Hand's claims that earlier contributions to the debate passed over the central problem and that he can solve that problem. I endeavour to show that several of Hand's arguments, such as those dealing with indoctrination, as well as his claims may be flawed, that the relevance of (...) his inquiries is open to question, but that his hidden and, apparently, unacknowledged agenda should not remain hidden or passed over. (shrink)

This paper offers a synoptic view of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgement and its reception by the German Idealists. I begin by sketching Kant's conception of how its several parts fit together, and emphasize the way in which the specifically moral motivation of Kant's project of unification of Freedom and Nature distances it from our contemporary philosophical concerns. For the German Idealists, by contrast, the CPJ's conception of the opposition of Freedom and Nature as defining the overarching task (...) of philosophy provides a warrant and basis for bold speculative programmes. The German Idealist development therefore presupposes Kant's failure in the CPJ to resolve the problem of the relation of Freedom and Nature. What is fundamentally at issue in the argument between Kant and his successors is the question of the correct conception of philosophical systematicity and in this context I reconstruct Kant's defence of his claim to philosophical finality. (shrink)

Michael Hand’s recent paper, ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered’, re-opens a debate that was flourishing over a decade ago in this journal and, long before that, in the works of others. In this response I examine Hand’s claims that earlier contributions to the debate passed over the central problem and that he can solve that problem. I endeavour to show that several of Hand’s arguments, such as those dealing with indoctrination, as well as his claims may be flawed, that the relevance of (...) his inquiries is open to question, but that his hidden and, apparently, unacknowledged agenda should not remain hidden or passed over. (shrink)

James McAllister’s 2003 article, “Algorithmic randomness in empirical data” claims that empirical data sets are algorithmically random, and hence incompressible. We show that this claim is mistaken. We present theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for compressibility, and discuss the matter in the framework of Minimum Message Length (MML) inference, which shows that the theory which best compresses the data is the one with highest posterior probability, and the best explanation of the data.

In this paper I offer a selective, systematic rather than historical account of Merleau-Ponty’s highly complex relation to classical German philosophy, focussing on issues which bear on the question of his relation to transcendentalism and naturalism. I argue that the concerns which define his project in Phenomenology of Perception are fundamentally those of transcendental philosophy, and that Merleau-Ponty’s disagreements with Kant, and the position he arrives at in The Visible and the Invisible, are helpfully viewed in light of issues which (...) Merleau-Ponty identifies as raised by Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement, and Schelling’s conversion of Kantian idealism into a Real-Idealismus. Finally I address the question of whether, and on what basis, Merleau-Ponty’s claim to have surpassed systematic philosophy can be defended. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The advent of formal definitions of the simplicity of a theory has important implications for model selection. But what is the best way to define simplicity? Forster and Sober ([1994]) advocate the use of Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), a non-Bayesian formalisation of the notion of simplicity. This forms an important part of their wider attack on Bayesianism in the philosophy of science. We defend a Bayesian alternative: the simplicity of a theory is to be characterised in terms of Wallace's Minimum (...) Message Length (MML). We show that AIC is inadequate for many statistical problems where MML performs well. Whereas MML is always defined, AIC can be undefined. Whereas MML is not known ever to be statistically inconsistent, AIC can be. Even when defined and consistent, AIC performs worse than MML on small sample sizes. MML is statistically invariant under 1-to-1 re-parametrisation, thus avoiding a common criticism of Bayesian approaches. We also show that MML provides answers to many of Forster's objections to Bayesianism. Hence an important part of the attack on Bayesianism fails. (shrink)

One of my main concerns with Hand’s original paper (see Gardner, 2004, p. 121 and pp. 126–127) was and still is the matter of its relevance. Hand insists in tha.

One of my main concerns with Hand’s original paper (see Gardner, 2004, p. 121 and pp. 126–127) was and still is the matter of its relevance. Hand insists in tha.

German idealism has been pictured as an unwarranted deviation from the central epistemological orientation of modern philosophy, and its close historical association with German romanticism is adduced in support of this verdict. This paper proposes an interpretation of German idealism which seeks to grant key importance to its connection with romanticism without thereby undermining its philosophical rationality. I suggest that the fundamental motivation of German idealism is axiological, and that its augment of Kant's idealism is intelligible in terms of its (...) combined aim of consolidating the transcendental turn and legitimating the kind of relation to value articulated in German romanticism. /// [Paul Franks] German idealists regard Spinozism as both the realism that outflanks Kant's idealism and the source of the conception of systematicity with which to fortify idealism. But they offer little argument for this view. To fill the gap, I reconstruct arguments that could underlie Jacobi's and Pistorius's tentative but influential suggestions that Kant is or should be a Spinozist. Kant is indeed a monist about phenomena, but, unlike Spinoza, a pluralist about noumena. Nevertheless, it is arguable that the Third Antinomy can be solved by a more thoroughgoing Spinozistic monism. The resulting Spinozism outflanks Kant by acknowledging Jacobi's charge that philosophy annihilates immediacy and individuality, whereas Kant's commitment to things in themselves can seem a half-hearted attempt to avoid the charge. However, the German idealist contention is that only a synthesis of such a Spinozism with Kantian idealism can retrieve immediacy and individuality, thus overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

Broad consent is permitted by the South African National Department of Health Ethics Guidelines but appears to be prohibited by section 13(1) of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013. Additionally, the Act mandates that all personal data (including biobank sample data) be collected for lawful, explicit, and clearly defined purposes. There is possibility for ambiguity in interpretation because of this discrepancy between the two instruments. Given the association between the transfer of samples and data, the long-term nature (...) of biobanking, which makes it impractical to provide too much or enough information because it is simply not available at the time of sample collection, and the various ways that the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 have been interpreted, we aim to demonstrate that South Africa’s current regulatory framework should appropriately permit broad consent use for biobank research where the transfer of samples and their associated data are contemplated. In summary, the proposed amendments include removing regulatory ambiguity regarding broad consent use, ensuring adequate safeguards for research participants by specifying rules for data access and personal information processing, and incorporating consent form information requirements into the national Consent Template. (shrink)