Laws of nature have been traditionally thought to express regularities in the systems which they describe, and, via their expression of regularities, to allow us to explain and predict the behavior of these systems. Using the driven simple pendulum as a paradigm, we identify three senses that regularity might have in connection with nonlinear dynamical systems: periodicity, uniqueness, and perturbative stability. Such systems are always regular only in the second of these senses, and that sense is not robust enough to (...) support predictions. We thus illustrate precisely how physical laws in the classical regime of dynamical systems fail to exhibit predictive power. *R. G. Holt gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Center for Physical Acoustics at Oxford, Mississippi, and the Office of Naval Research. (shrink)

This book introduces and explores the role of apprehension in reasoning - setting out the problems, determining the vocabulary, fixing the boundaries, and questioning what is often taken for granted. Lynn Holt argues that a robust conception of rationality must include intellectual virtues which cannot be reduced to a set of rules for reasoners, and argues that the virtue of apprehension, an acquired disposition to see things correctly, is required if rationality is to be defensible. Drawing on an (...) Aristotelian conception of intellectual virtue and examples from the sciences, Holt shows why impersonal standards for rationality are misguided, why foundations for knowledge are the last elements to emerge from inquiry not the first, and why intuition is a poor substitute for virtue. By placing the current scene in historical perspective, Holt displays the current impasse as the inevitable outcome of the replacement of intellectual virtue with method in the early modern philosophical imagination. Written in an engaging and jargon-free style, this book is of interest to a wide range of readers, particularly epistemologists and philosophers of science concerned with the fate of reason. (shrink)

With a historicist sensibility and attention to the ancient language, this paper attempts to sort out the question of how the ultimate end, and therefore how the starting point, of Aristotelian practical reasoning is determined. Some have argued that AristotIe’s practical reasoning must begin with desire in order to be motivational, beginning with his psychological works and interpreting his ethical works from that standpoint. I counter with the claim that an appropriate and sufficiently motivational form of reason grasps the end, (...) beginning with the ethical works and interpreting the psychological works from that aIternative standpoint. Along the way, I sort out questions of interpretive strategy and the relationship between AristotIe’s psychological and ethical works. (shrink)

I consider an alleged example of a non-transitive causal chain, on the basis of which J. Lee has argued that causation is non-transitive. I show that his analysis of the example rests on too coarse-grained an approach to causal relata. I develop a fine-grained analysis of events which owes much to Dretske’s notion of an allomorphic event, and I use this analysis to show that in the example all the genuine causal chains are indeed transitive. It emerges that when fine-grained (...) analyses of events are possible, causal contexts are aIlomorphicaIly sensitive. (shrink)

At its inception, the training model in the Graduate School of Clinical Psychology at George Fox University was informed by the approach inaugurated at Fuller Theological Seminary School of Psychology in the 1960s. In the original model, training in Christian religion/spirituality and theology accompanied training in professional psychology. In the interim, our culture, psychological knowledge, perceived psychological needs, and training programs have changed greatly. Here we report changes in religion/spirituality training and integration over the last two decades. We describe our (...) current spiritual formation structure and process, and program evaluation efforts. Over the past several years the GSCP has shifted from relying mainly on a cognitive approach involving Bible and theology courses toward a more personal-experiential approach that includes team teaching of the theology and religion courses, an individualized spiritual direction experience spread over two years, and more intentional integration of R/s and spiritual formation components throughout the program. We anticipate this may be an ongoing area for further development in coming years as we seek to meet the needs of a changing student body with greater R/s diversity and largely postmodern worldviews. (shrink)

With a historicist sensibility and attention to the ancient language, this paper attempts to sort out the question of how the ultimate end, and therefore how the starting point, of Aristotelian practical reasoning is determined. Some have argued that AristotIe’s practical reasoning must begin with desire in order to be motivational, beginning with his psychological works and interpreting his ethical works from that standpoint. I counter with the claim that an appropriate and sufficiently motivational form of reason grasps the end, (...) beginning with the ethical works and interpreting the psychological works from that aIternative standpoint. Along the way, I sort out questions of interpretive strategy and the relationship between AristotIe’s psychological and ethical works. (shrink)

I consider an alleged example of a non-transitive causal chain, on the basis of which J. Lee has argued that causation is non-transitive. I show that his analysis of the example rests on too coarse-grained an approach to causal relata. I develop a fine-grained analysis of events which owes much to Dretske’s notion of an allomorphic event, and I use this analysis to show that in the example all the genuine causal chains are indeed transitive. It emerges that when fine-grained (...) analyses of events are possible, causal contexts are aIlomorphicaIly sensitive. (shrink)

Dissatisfied with relatively anemic views that in the last thirty years have come to be known as virtue epistemology, we urge the adoption of a robust form of Aristotelianism about the intellect, which we call virtuoso epistemology. We transform virtue into virtuosity by emphasizing persons over principles, expertise over method, and extraordinary achievement over routine performance. While scattered elements of our view can be found in the current literature, none is quite so radical and transformative as ours. We briefly survey (...) the current work in virtue epistemology, point to the failures of this approach, outline the distinctive characteristics of virtuoso epistemology, craft an epitome of the epistemic virtuoso, and conclude with a gesture at the various research programs our approach entails. (shrink)

Recent experimental work by T.D. Wilson et al. indicates that a consequence of asking subjects to reflect on their attitudes is that they not only reduce the consistency between their attitudes and behavior, but they perform actions which they come to regret. Wilson interprets this work via intra-psychic concepts, and arrives at the conclusion that it is rational to avoid deliberating about a wide range of attitudes and behaviors. This consequence has objectionable implications for philosophical theories of deliberative practical rationality. (...) I respond to this challenge by reinterpreting the experimental results in a way which is not only consistent with a certain theory of deliberative practical rationality but in which the results lend support to that theory. My interpretive focus is on attending closely to the social circumstances of subjects in the experiments[1]. (shrink)

Abstract The thesis that teleological explanations are best understood as causal explanations is defended (contra Valentine). I shift the focus of debate from behavior simpliciter to allegedly rational behavior. Teleological explanation, in the case of rational agents, involves reason?giving; and the reasons agents give for acting must be causative of that action if those agents are to be rational in practice. I argue initially that to abandon the claim that reasons are causes of action is to abandon that which renders (...) many generalisations of systematic human behavior intelligible. I then adduce and defend against two major objections to the secondary thesis that reasons can be causes of action: (1) Experiments in attribution research suggest that agents are characteristically mistaken when reporting on the causes of their behavior; (2) Causal explanation must refer to some law, and reasons cannot enter into such laws as causes of action. In responding to these objections, I note that strict predictability is probably not a reliable indicator of genuine causal explanation; some explanations will afford predictions, others will not. (shrink)

In an article “Countering a Counter-intuitive Probability” [4], Lynn E. Rose discusses a question in conditional probability, claiming that the following problem posed by Copi [1] is usually incorrectly solved:Remove all cards except aces and kings from a deck, so that only eight cards remain, of which four are aces and four are kings. From this abbreviated deck, deal two cards to a friend. If he looks at his cards and announces that his hand contains an ace, what is (...) the probability that both his cards are aces? If he announces instead that one of his cards is the ace of spades, what is the probability then that both his cards are aces? (shrink)

The current chapter provides an overview of research on responses in moral dilemmas where maximization of outcomes for the greater good (utilitarianism) conflicts with adherence to moral norms (deontology). Expanding on a description of the traditional paradigm to study moral-dilemma judgments (i.e., the trolley problem), the chapter reviews the most prominent dual-process account of moral-dilemma judgments, normative conclusions that have been derived from this account, and criticisms raised against this line of work. The following sections review advances in the development (...) of alternative approaches that aim to address shortcomings of the traditional dilemma paradigm as well as the implications of this work for psychological theories of moral-dilemma judgments and philosophical inferences about the normative implications of moral-dilemma research. The chapter concludes with a review of research on the links between moral-dilemma judgments and social impressions. (shrink)

One important proposal about the nature of well-being, prudential value or the personal good is that intrinsic values for a person ought to ‘resonate’ with the person for whom they are good. Indeed, virtually everyone agrees that there is something very plausible about this necessary condition on the building blocks of a good life. Given the importance of this constraint, however, it may come as something of a surprise how little reason we actually have to believe it. In this paper, (...) I'd like to do two things: first, to illustrate just how philosophically tenuous this thesis is, despite its apparent attraction, and to correct, or at least begin to correct, this state of affairs. My argument—which I call the ‘relationship to value’ argument—focuses in part on what it means to be a valuer—specifically, the peculiar relationship valuing agents bear to objects of value. (shrink)

An important platitude about prudential rationality is that I should not refuse to sacrifice a smaller amount of present welfare for the sake of larger future benefits. I ought, in other words, to treat my present and future as of equal prudential significance. The demands of prudence are less clear, however, when it comes to one’s past selves. In this paper, I argue that past benefits are possible in two ways, and that this fact cannot be easily accommodated by traditional (...) approaches to prudential rationality. Against univocal accounts of prudential rationality, I hold that the possibility of past benefits suggests that a bias toward the present and future is defensible when it comes to some welfare goods, but that prudential reasons are temporally neutral between when it comes to the success or failure of one’s long-term projects. (shrink)

A feminist study of language and its rules argues that men have shaped it in order to instill their own prejudices and viewpoints on society, and shows how male-slanted language affects all women's lives.

Supervision in analytical psychology is a topic that until recently has been largely neglected. _Vision and Supervision_ draws on archetypal, classical, and developmental Post-Jungian theory to explore supervision from a variety of different avenues. Supervision is a critical issue for therapists in many training programmes. Quality of training and of therapeutic treatment is paramount, and increasingly the therapy profession is having to devise ways of assessing and monitoring themselves and each other. In this book, Dale Mathers and his contributors (...) emphasise a model of supervision based on parallel process, symbol formation and classical Jungian analysis rather than developmental psychology or psychoanalytic theory, to show how respect for diversity can innovate the practice of supervision. Divided into three sections, this book covers: the framework of supervision, its boundaries and ethical parameters individuation supervision in different contexts including working with organisations and multicultural perspectives. Written by experienced clinicians, _Vision and Supervision_ brings insights from analytical psychology to the supervisory task and encourages the supervisor to pay as much attention to what does not happen in a session as to what does. It offers a fresh perspective for analysts and psychotherapists alike, as well as other mental health professionals involved in the supervisory process. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

_The easy way to understand atheism and secular philosophy_ For people seeking a non-religious philosophy of life, as well as believers with atheist friends, _Atheism For Dummies_ offers an intelligent exploration of the historical and moral case for atheism. Often wildly misunderstood, atheism is a secular approach to life based on the understanding that reality is an arrangement of physical matter, with no consideration of unverifiable spiritual forces. _Atheism For Dummies_ offers a brief history of atheist philosophy and its evolution, (...) explores it as a historical and cultural movement, covers important historical writings on the subject, and discusses the nature of ethics and morality in the absence of religion. A simple, yet intelligent exploration of an often misunderstood philosophy Explores the differences between explicit and implicit atheism A comprehensive, readable, and thoroughly unbiased resource As the number of atheists worldwide continues to grow, this book offers a broad understanding of the subject for those exploring atheism as an approach to living. (shrink)

A common presupposition in metaethical theory is that moral assessment comes in two flavors, one of which is sensitive to our epistemic circumstances, the second of which is not so sensitive. Though this thought is popular, a number of questions arise. In this paper, I limit my discussion to what I dub the "explanatory question": how one might understand the construction of subjective moral assessment given an explanatorily prior objective assessment. I argue that a proper answer to this question is (...) important not simply for its own sake, but because it also sheds new light on important challenges to the existence of both objective and subjective moral obligations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Current literature in moral and political philosophy is rife with discussion of adaptive preferences. This is no accident: while preferences are generally thought to play an important role in a number of normative domains, adaptive preferences seem exceptions to this general rule—they seem problematic in a way that preference-respecting theories of these domains cannot adequately capture. Thus, adaptive preferences are often taken to be theoretically explanatory: a reason for adjusting our theories of the relevant normative domains. However, as I shall (...) argue here, the relentless focus on the phenomenon of preference adaptation is a mistake. While I do not take a stand on whether typical examples of adaptive preferences are or are not problematic, I argue here that if they are problematic, it cannot be because they are adaptive. (shrink)

This comprehensive, general introduction to Schelling's philosophy shows that it was Schelling who set the agenda for German idealism and defined the term of its characteristic problems.

In this article, I articulate and explore a novel constructivist approach to metanormativity that is inspired by David Hume’s metaesthetics. This view, which I call perfectionist Humean constructivism, rejects the claim that practical reasons are constructed by each individual’s valuing attitudes, holding instead that they are constructed by humanity’s shared evaluative nature. I hold that this approach can plausibly respond to a persistent worry for extant versions of Humean constructivism without embracing the commitments of either a Kantian constructivism or a (...) metaphysically robust form of metanormative realism. (shrink)

In Phenomenology of Spirit (1806) Hegel is often held to have announced the end of history, where 'history' is to be understood as the long pursuit of ends towards which humanity had always been striving. In this, the first book in English to thoroughly critique this entrenched view, Eric Michael Dale argues that it is a misinterpretation. Dale offers a reading of his own, showing how it sits within the larger schema of Hegel's thought and makes room for (...) an understanding of the 'end of history' as Hegel intended. Through an elegant analysis of Hegel's philosophy of history, Dale guides the reader away from the common misinterpretation of the 'end of history' to other valuable elements of Hegel's arguments which are often overlooked and deserve to endure. His book will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students of Hegel, the philosophy of history, and the history of political thought. (shrink)

In his article “Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality,” Joshua Greene argues that the empirical findings of cognitive neuroscience have implications for ethics. Specifically, he contends that we ought to trust our manual, conscious reasoning system more than our automatic, emotional system when confronting unfamiliar problems; and because cognitive neuroscience has shown that consequentialist judgments are generated by the manual system and deontological judgments are generated by the automatic system, we ought to trust the former more than the latter when facing unfamiliar moral (...) problems. In the present article, I analyze one of the premises of Greene’s argument. In particular, I ask what exactly an unfamiliar problem is and whether moral problems can be classified as unfamiliar. After exploring several different possible interpretations of familiarity and unfamiliarity, I conclude that the concepts are too problematic to be philosophically compelling, and thus should be abandoned. (shrink)

This collection explores the growing interface between Eastern and Western concepts of what it is to be human from analytical psychology, psychoanalytic and Buddhist perspectives. The relationship between these different approaches has been discussed for decades, with each discipline inviting its followers to explore the depths of the psyche and confront the sometimes difficult psychological experiences that can emerge during any in-depth exploration of mental processes. _Self and No-Self_ considers topics discussed at the Self and No-Self conference in Kyoto, Japan (...) in 2006. International experts from practical and theoretical backgrounds compare and contrast Buddhist and psychological traditions, providing a fresh insight on the relationship between the two. Areas covered include: the concept of self Buddhist theory and practice psychotherapeutic theory and practice mysticism and spirituality myth and fairy tale. This book explains how a Buddhist approach can be integrated into the clinical setting and will interest seasoned practitioners and theoreticians from analytical psychology, psychoanalytic and Buddhist backgrounds, as well as novices in these fields. (shrink)

The preferences of ordinary folks typically display a future‐bias. For instance, we care more about pains and pleasures in our future than pains and pleasures in our past. Indeed, this future‐bias is so pervasive, many have taken it for granted that the preferences of rational agents will, or at least can, display this future‐bias to some degree or other. However, the rationality of future‐biased preferences has recently come in for critique. However, in this article, I offer a defense of future‐biased (...) preferences against three recent attempts – offered by David Brink, Preston Greene and Meghan Sullivan, and Tom Dougherty – to show such preferences irrational. (shrink)

Actions can be moral or immoral, surely, but can also be prudent or imprudent, rude or polite, sportsmanlike or unsportsmanlike, and so on. The fact that diverse methods of evaluating action exist seems to give rise to a further question: what distinguishes moral evaluation in particular? In this article, my concern is methodological. I argue that any account of the distinctiveness of morality cannot be prior to substantive inquiry into the content of moral reasons, requirements, and concerns. The genuine distinctiveness (...) of morality will become clear only after we have determined what those very reasons, requirements, and concerns really are. (shrink)

Quine argues, in “On the Nature of Moral Values” that a coherence theory of truth is the “lot of ethics”. In this paper, I do a bit of work from within Quinean theory. Specifically, I explore precisely what a coherence theory of truth in ethics might look like and what it might imply for the study of normative value theory generally. The first section of the paper is dedicated to the exposition of a formally correct coherence truth predicate, the possibility (...) of which has been the subject of some skepticism. In the final two sections of the paper, I claim that a coherence theory in ethics does not reduce the practice of moral inquiry to absurdity, in practice as well as in principle. (shrink)

Ethics has been identified as a significant issue among those in leadership positions. The purpose of this research was to assess the ethics and integrity of leaders in today's manufacturing environment as perceived by their employees. This study included a total of 10 manufacturing companies in the United States. A total of 59 surveys were used to calculate data for this study. A demographic survey and the Perceived Leader Integrity Scale (PLIS) were used to collect data from respondents. The research (...) addressed the following question: To what degree are leaders in the manufacturing industry considered "low ethical," "moderate ethical," and "high ethical" on the PLIS? It was determined through descriptive data analysis that the majority of supervisors in this study, as rated by their employees were highly ethical. Male and female employees equally rated their supervisors as highly ethical. Employees in the age category (18-25) rated their supervisors higher ethically than other age groups in the study. However, considering ethnicity categories, African-Americans scored their supervisors lower ethically than the European-American category. The education level of the employees did not provide any significant findings in rating their supervisors. (shrink)

This book addresses several dimensions of the transformation of English Nonconformity over the course of an important century in its history. It begins with the question of education for ministry, considering the activities undertaken by four major evangelical traditions to establish theological colleges for this purpose, and then takes up the complex three-way relationship of ministry/churches/colleges that evolved from these activities. As author Dale Johnson illustrates, this evolution came to have significant implications for the Nonconformist engagement with its message (...) and with the culture at large. These implications are investigated in chapters on the changing perception or understanding of ministry itself, religious authority, theological questions, and religious identity.In Johnson's exploration of these issues, conversations about these topics are located primarily in addresses at denominational meetings, conferences that took up specific questions, and representative religious and theological publications of the day that participated in key debates or advocated contentious positions. While attending to some important denominational differences, The Changing Shape of English Nonconformity, 1825-1925 focuses on the representative discussion of these topics across the whole spectrum of evangelical Nonconformity rather than on specific denominational traditions.Johnson maintains that too many interpretations of nineteenth-century Nonconformity, especially those that deal with aspects of the theological discussion within these traditions, have tended to depict such developments as occasions of decline from earlier phases of evangelical vitality and appeal. This book instead argues that it is more appropriate to assess these Nonconformist developments as a collective, necessary, and deeply serious effort to come to terms with modernity and, further, to retain a responsible understanding of what it meant to be evangelical. It also shows these developments to be part of a larger schema through which Nonconformity assumed a more prominent place in the English culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (shrink)

The first new translation of this work to appear in more than twenty-five years, the Columbia I Ching presents the classic book of changes for the world of today.