Ernst Mayr (1980) provided an influential picture of the nature of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis and of the debate and changes occurring prior to its completion. Mayr intended his account to be applicable to comparable cases. Sociobiology should be evaluated both as a comparable case, an attempt to produce a synthesis which undergoes development of the sort Mayr described, and as an extension of the Modern Synthesis itself. Examination of what the explanatory goals and development of the New Sociobiological Synthesis (...) would be, if it is to achieve a fruitful synthesis which fits Mayr's account, undermines Richard Lewontin's critique of sociobiology. Although Lewontin speaks for many in viewing sociobiology as the latest historical manifestation of social Darwinism, genetic determinism, biological reductionism, and vulgar adaptationism, sociobiology's effort to produce a synthesis does not entail commitment to those positions. (shrink)

A set of constraints forces trade-offs which prevent us from achieving the best possible definitions of the ‘level’ and ‘unit’ of natural selection. This set consists in decisions concerning conflicting pre-analytic intuitions in problematic cases, the relative roles of various conceptual resources in the definitions, which facts need to be accounted for using the definitions, how the relation between selection and evolution orients the definitions, and the relation between the level and unit concepts. Systematic reconstruction and evaluation of leading analyses (...) along these dimensions favors a new functional analysis over Williams’ consequentialist analysis, Sober’s causal analysis, and Dawkins’ teleological analysis. (shrink)

In response to continental structuralist approaches in contemporary semiotics, Johansen has drawn from Pierce a dialogic model of language meaning. This project organizes the book. In Part 1 Johansen explicates and critiques the approaches of the French structuralist Saussure and the Danish linguist Hjelmslev. In Part 2 he expounds the philosophy of language of the American pragmatist Pierce. In Part 3 he advances his own dialogic model, which crystallizes his proposed union of continental text theory and the general Piercean theory (...) of signs and meaning. The book succeeds in establishing a connection between the study of the formal properties of the sign and the theory of meaning. (shrink)

A central theme of metaphysics has been the status of the object of experience. Vahlberg asks us to reconsider whether the object of sensory experience is an external or an internal object, that is, one whose existence is, respectively, independent of or dependent on experience.

Critics of evolutionary psychology object that it is not rigorous science compared to other evolutionary science. Advocates reply that it is rigorous science, and that the critics are uninformed. Still, informed people having opposing preconceptions of what counts as rigor may reach opposing evaluative conclusions. I shall clarify the very idea of rigorous evolutionary histories in relation to the basic objection that “evolution without history” is not rigorous.

In The Adapted Mind (1992), Cosmides and Tooby argue for the thesis that biological evolution endowed the human mind with a system of content‐specific computational mechanisms designed to solve long‐standing adaptive problems humans encountered as hunter‐gatherers, and not just a generalized "capacity for culture" or all‐purpose "learning capacity". I analyze three types of arguments they offer: historical arguments for the rise of content‐Specific psychology; programmatic arguments for the aims, theory, concepts, and methods of their evolutionary approach; and experimental arguments for (...) the content‐dependence of reasoning. Their arguments stand or fall on the claim that functionally specialized adaptations must be richly structured in a content‐specific way. (shrink)

HOLCOMBE (2004) ARGUED THAT government was inevitable. In Block (2005) I maintained that this institution was not unavoidable. Holcombe (2007) takes issue with that response of mine to his earlier paper, and the present essay is, in turn, a response to his latest missive in this conversation.1 In section I, I deal with what I can consider an anomaly in Holcombe’s argument. Section II is devoted to a consideration of his dismissal of my paper on grounds of “fallacy of composition.” (...) The burden of section III is to consider Holcombe’s supposed refutation of my views on the basis of his comments about the price ceiling; in section IV, I comment on the examples offered by this author, and in section V, I examine his claim that he is not actually supporting government. I conclude in section VI. (shrink)

The paper interprets Nietzsche’s description of authentic human person.Based on the works of Nietzsche, commentaries and philosophical interpretationsof various authors, authentic human person evolves into a superman by usingthe principles of discipline and mastery of oneself. His authenticity, however,requires persistence, courage and strength to endure many forms of sufferingsand to overcome alienation brought about by his environment. Otherwise,man would become slave of his desires or alien to his own powers, talents andcapacities. Thus, Nietzsche’s thought of superman is an invitation to (...) overcomeoneself, the self that is influenced by the non-self or factors outside one self. Itis only possible by using the will to power. The will to power of man overcomesthe influences of the world’s modernization and industrialization that alienateshim to his true self, and this true self is best expressed by his will to power. Onthis note, the author suggests that the readers must use their potentials to face up to challenges of this new era. Keywords: Philosophy, language and literature, emergence, authentic human person,philosophy of the superman, authenticity, alienation, morality, descriptivedesign, Philippines. (shrink)

After so much scholarship has been devoted to the dispute between the defenders and critics of liberalism, it is reasonable to ask whether the topic has been exhausted or, at the very least, if the rival and incommensurable options have been so thoroughly defined that one simply has to pick a side. John Christman's new book, The Politics of Persons, demonstrates that this intuition is flawed. The central concern of this compelling work is to outline an alternative conception of autonomy (...) that incorporates a wide range of insights provided by the critics of liberalism. What emerges is not only a plausible philosophical compromise but also a politically relevant model for understanding how the policies and .. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the description of the process of measurement within the context of a quantum theory of the physical world. It is noted that quantum mechanics permits a quasi-classical description (classical in the limited sense implied by the correspondence principle of Bohr) of those macroscopic phenomena in terms of which the observer forms his perceptions. Thus, the process of measurement in quantum mechanics can be understood on the quasi-classical level by transcribing from the strictly classical observables of (...) Newtonian physics to their quasi-classical counterparts the known rules for the measurement of the former. The remaining physical problem is the delineation of the circumstances in which the correlation of a peculiarly quantum mechanical observable A with a classically measurable observable B can result in a significant measurement of A. This is undertaken within the context of quantum theory. The resulting clarification of the process of measurement has important implications relative to the philosophic interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Wilderness valued as mere resource for human?interest satisfaction is challenged in favor of wilderness as a productive source, in which humans have roots, but which also yields wild neighbors and aliens with intrinsic value. Wild value is storied achievement in an evolutionary ecosystem, with instrumental and intrinsic, organismic and systemic values intermeshed. Survival value is reconsidered in this light. Changing cultural appreciations of values in wilderness can transform and relativize our judgments about appropriate conduct there. A final valued element in (...) wildness is its idiographic historical particularity, and most surprising is the emergence of a novel morality when humans learn to let values go wild. (shrink)

Lawyers and the legal system have been much criticized in recent years. Despite popular perceptions, the legal system contains numerous mechanisms and rules designed to ensure fair results. This paper shows how the legal system tries to implement, in commercial transactions, the ethical principles of truthfulness and fairness. The Anglo-American development of Equity Courts is reviewed briefly. Several examples of the Law's enforcement of ethical principles are presented, in four different legal areas: Contracts, Securities, Goods, and Real Estate. The intent (...) here is to present an overview of the problem, with area-specific illustrations, rather than a comprehenisve examination of the cases in just one area. (shrink)

This study examines the use of a video news release in a specific story. Press coverage and editorial criticism in the case showed that journalists do not articulate sufficiently how the news owners' sway, through institutional controls, can lead to a hegemony of expedient action in the newsroom. Critical self-reflection by news workers will better enable journalists to ethically deliberate news choices that balance their responsibilities to owners, peers, and the public.

This symposium examines insurrectionist ethics, the brainchild of Leonard Harris. The position does not stem from one key source; it was born out of Harris’s philosophical interaction with various philosophers over an extended period, including thinkers as diverse as David Walker, Karl Marx, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Alain Locke, and Angela Davis. The driving questions are: What counts as justified protest? Do slaves have a moral duty to insurrect? What character traits and modes to resistance are most conducive to liberation and (...) the amelioration of oppressive material conditions? Insurrectionist ethics is meant to address such questions. This symposium attempts to locate insurrectionist ethics in the work .. (shrink)

This essay shows that Derrida’s discussion of “Differance,” is remarkably parallel to Plato’s discussion of Difference in the Parmenides. Plato’s presentation of “Parmenides’” discussion of generation from a One which Is is a version of Derrida’s preconceptual spacing. Derrida’s implicit reference to Plato both interprets Plato and explains the obscure features of “Differance.” Derrida’s paradoxical remarks about Differance are very like what Plato implies about Difference.Derrida’s Differance addresses the puzzle that concepts are required to construct the beings in a plurality (...) of objects, but concepts cannot differentiate unless there is already a plurality of objects. Plato’s version of the same problem is a notational variant of Derrida’s Husserlian dilemma.Derrida, following Davidson, is not only skeptical about the project of founding metaphysics on simple entities, but also holds that necessity has no foundation in the “world.” Plato, on the other hand, retains the idea that necessity has an objective basis in the self-evident truths of mereology. (shrink)

On the scale of decades and centuries, ongoingscience is reconfigured into human history that must be interpreted. So I concluded two decades back: "Progressively reforming and developing theories are erected over observations.... This leads at a larger scale to progressively reforming and developing narrative models.... The story is ever reforming" (pp. 338 — 39). I faced the future with hopes and fears about the escalating powers of science for good and evil, finding it simultaneously powerless for the meaningful guidance of (...) life, the classical province of religion. So now„having turned the millennium, what's new in the story? If I had to give a sound-bite answer (as we now must do with the media), my reply would be: increasing concern about human uniqueness and human respon-. (shrink)

Both science and ethics are embedded in cultural traditions where truths are shared through education; both need competent critics educated within such traditions. Education in both ought to be directed although moral education demands levels of responsible agency that science education does not. Evolutionary science often carries an implicit or explicit understanding of who and what humans are, one which may not be coherent with the implicit or explicit human self-understanding in moral education.

Few discussions of environmental conservation continue long without reaching the question "Why?", and the answers are seldom elaborated for long without reaching the question of values. What we wish to conserve depends on what we value. What we ought to conserve depends on what we ought to value. Environmental ethics is entwined with values carried by nature. What is of value there? How are values to be discovered and judged? That is a philosophical question.