Abstract:Lucian's Fatherland Encomium is thought to have been delivered at Samosata, Lucian's hometown. Although he never mentions "Samosata" in this speech, he repeatedly toys with the "name of the fatherland" as the speech's theme. But what is the name of his native city? The Greeks called it "Samosata" but this is clearly a transliteration. I consider the Aramaic, Persian, and Armenian versions of the name, and notice that the Aramaic "Shemshat" has a number of resonances in Lucian's speech, not least (...) the set theme of the speech itself "the name of (shem) the fatherland.". (shrink)

The emergence of mathematical probability has something to do with dice games: all the early discussions (Cardano, Galileo, Pascal) suggest as much. Although this has long been recognized, the problem is that gambling at dice has been a popular pastime since antiquity. Why, then, did gamblers wait until the sixteenth century ce to calculate the math of dicing? Many theories have been offerred, but there may be a simple solution: early-modern gamblers played different sorts of dice games than in antiquity. (...) While ancients diced at communal risk, early-moderns diced at individualized risk. These individual wager-games, for example, the game “hazard”, incentivized solving questions like “how likely is it to roll a triple-six?”. Before the early modern period there was no gambling game to which working out mathematical probability would have brought an advantage. (shrink)

What is art's relationship to play? Those interested in this question tend to look to modern philosophy for answers, but, as this book shows, the question was already debated in antiquity by luminaries like Plato and Aristotle. Over the course of eight chapters, this book contextualizes those debates, and demonstrates their significance for theoretical problems today. Topics include the ancient child psychology at the root of the ancient Greek word for 'play', the numerous toys that have survived from antiquity, and (...) the meaning of play's conceptual opposite, the 'serious'. What emerges is a concept of play markedly different from the one we have inherited from modernity. Play is not a certain set of activities which unleashes a certain feeling of pleasure; it is rather a certain feeling of pleasure that unleashes the activities we think of as 'play'. As such, it offers a new set of theoretical challenges. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 61, Issue 1, pp 33 - 42 _De caelo_ 2.6 describes irregular motion differently from the discussion at _Physics_ 5.4. The desire to make the one discussion congrue with the other has strained interpretation of the _De caelo_ passage. Aristotle provides a theory of irregular motion that is tripartite and the passage ought to be interpreted in such a way as to explain this tripartite motion. _Akmē_ is not a ‘top speed’ as it is generally translated, but (...) a point in an object’s motion when _epitasis_ must become _anesis_. Although the terms _epitasis_ and _anesis_ cover ‘acceleration’ and ‘deceleration’ they cannot be reduced to them. (shrink)

In 1968 E.K. Borthwick, with a brilliant conjecture, cleared up a passage from Aristophanes’Peacethat had been considered ‘nonsense’ since antiquity. ‘Bell goldfinch’ the line seemed to be saying: a jumbled idea at best, gibberish at worst. The scholium reads ad loc.: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα ἐπίτηδες ἀδιανοήτως ἔφρασεν, ‘all this is said as deliberate nonsense’, and later scholars generally follow suit. But Borthwick showed that this was not the case: ‘even nonsense expressions in Aristophanes’, he writes, ‘are not haphazard collocations of (...) incongruous words signifying nothing’. What, then, to do with the ancient scholar who failed to understand the passage, claiming it instead to be ‘nonsense’? (shrink)

What is a toy? As objects of play, toys seem to be inextricably bound up with mimesis: a child plays ‘make believe’, for example, with a doll or toy cart. But as I will show, Plato has a very different conception of toys from the modern one which tends to conceive of play as essentially mimetic. Toys do not derive their pleasure from being mimetic objects; rather, they are essentially pleasure objects and as such only incidentally mirror the objects of (...) a ‘serious’ or ‘real’ world. (shrink)

This paper is a critique of ‘integrative medicine’ as an ideal of medical progress on the grounds that it fails to realise the cognitive value of alternative medicine. After a brief account of the cognitive value of alternative medicine, I outline the form of ‘integrative medicine’ defended by the late Stephen Straus, former director of the US National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Straus’ account is then considered in the light of Zuzana Parusnikova’s recent criticism of ‘integrative medicine’ (...) and her distinction between ‘cognitive’ and ‘opportunistic’ engagement with alternative medicine. Parusnikova warns that the medical establishment is guilty of ‘dogmatism’ and proposes that one can usefully invoke Karl Popper’s ‘critical rationalism’ as an antidote. Using the example of Straus, I argue that an appeal to Popper is insufficient, on the grounds that ‘integrative medicine’ can class as a form of cognitively-productive, critical engagement. I suggest that Parusnikova’s appeal to Popper should be augmented with Paul Feyerabend’s emphasis upon the role of ‘radical alternatives’ in maximising criticism. ‘Integrative medicine’ fails to maximise criticism because it ‘translates’ alternative medicine into the theories and terminology of allopathic medicine and so erodes its capacity to provide cognitively-valuable ‘radical alternatives’. These claims are then illustrated with a discussion of ‘traditional’ and ‘medical’ acupuncture. I conclude that ‘integrative medicine’ fails to exploit the cognitive value of alternative medicine and so should be rejected as an ideal of medical progress. (shrink)

Stephen Hawking recently caused controversy by suggesting that philosophy had become obsolete in the face of the advance of modern science. Hawking's The Grand Design is only the latest in a long series of premature notifications of the obsolescence of philosophy. A wide range of writers, including but not limited to scientists and philosophers, have suggested that philosophy, in part or in whole, has been superseded by the sciences in a way that, all things considered, justifies its abandonment. Some (...) forty years ago, E.O. Wilson suggested that the province of ethics should be turned over to biology, forty years before that the logical positivists had drawn up plans for the formation of a ‘scientific philosophy’, and before that, in the nineteenth century, Comte had identified philosophy as the mere precursor to a modern, ‘positive’ stage of human culture. The list of examples could be extended, a fact which prompts the point that, if philosophy is dying, then it is putting up quite a fight. (shrink)

It's probably no secret to readers of this Journal that working in areas of frontier science can very easily test one's character and bring out the best and worst of human behavior. I mention this now because a few months ago the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences published a significant new issue (Volume 48, Part A). It contains a lengthy special section on psychical research, guest-edited by Andreas Sommer. I'll probably comment again about (...) this journal issue in later Editorials, but this time I want to focus on the first paper to catch my attention. Not surprisingly, I suppose, it was written by a philosopher, Ian James Kidd from Durham University, and it boasted the intriguing title, "Was Sir William Crookes epistemically virtuous?" (Kidd 2014). (shrink)

Comtism, with some scattered parallels.--Simple evolutionism--Spencer, Stephen.--Darwinism, or struggle for existence.--Hyper-Darwinism--Weismann, Kidd.

I argue that misanthropy is systematic condemnation of the moral character of humankind as it has come to be. Such condemnation can be expressed affectively and practically in a range of different ways, and the bulk of the paper sketches the four main misanthropic stances evident across the history of philosophy. Two of these, the Enemy and Fugitive stances, were named by Kant, and I call the others the Activist and Quietist. Without exhausting the range of ways of being a (...) philosophical misanthrope, these four suffice to justify my main claim that misanthropy should not be seen specifically in terms of hatred and violence. We should attend to the varieties of philosophical misanthropy, especially since doing so reveals a deeper phenomenon I call the misanthropic predicament. (shrink)

Throughout the writings of Paul Feyerabend, there are constant references to the historical contingency of the scientific enterprise, often accompanied by philosophical claims about the significance of that contingency. This paper presents those contingentist claims, situates them in the context of more recent work on the contingency of science, and offers an interpretation of their significance. I suggest that Feyerabend’s sense of contingency was connected to his defences of pluralism, and also to the ‘conquest of abundance’ narrative developed in the (...) very late writings. (shrink)

I suspect many philosophers feel the deep reason the topic of scientism matters is that it wrongly questions or impugns the integrity and significance of the discipline of philosophy. Such metaphilosophical concerns may not always be at the forefront during debates about scientism. Sometimes, though, we should engage much broader metaphilosophical issues.

Institutions play an indispensable role in our political and epistemic lives. This Chapter explores sympathetically the claim that political institutions can be bearers of epistemic vices. I start by describing one form of collectivism - the claim that the vices of institutions do not reduce to the vices of their members. I then describe the phenomenon of epistemic corruption and the various processes that can corrupt the epistemic ethoi of political institutions. The discussion focuses on some recent work by Miranda (...) Fricker and select examples from recent British political experience. The Chapter ends with suggestions for further work on the corruption and repair of the epistemic ethoi of political institutions. (shrink)

Stephen Davies presents a fascinating exploration of the idea that art, and our aesthetic sensibilities more generally, should be understood as an element in human evolution. He asks: Do animals have aesthetics? Do our aesthetic preferences have prehistoric roots? Is art universal? What is the biological role of aesthetic and artistic behaviour?

One way to think about the philosophical significance of hatred is to consider doctrines that are characterised by feelings of hatred. A good candidate is misanthropy, which is often conceived as an attitude of hatred directed at humankind at large. I start by sketching a working account of misanthropy as a critical verdict or judgment on the contemporary condition of humankind as it has become. The criticism is directed at the array of vices and failings that are ubiquitous and entrenched (...) within the wider structures of human life, rather than those of individual persons. In one of its forms, misanthropy manifests itself in feelings of hatred for those entrenched failings and the patterns of awful behaviour which they motivate and sustain - for instance, the figure that Kant called the "enemy of mankind", or the radical eco-misanthropes who populated much American radical environmentalism of the 1980s, with their calls to 'tear down' the 'whole human world'. I then argue that such hateful 'enemies of mankind' represent only one among a set of modes of misanthropy. These have more peaceable affective and practical profiles that offer us forms of misanthropy without hatred. If so, we can think philosophically about hate in relation to misanthropy and about the potential scope of hatred. Thinking about the entrenched vices and failings constitutive of our life as it has become offers a way of intelligibly hating something as large as 'humanity'. But there are other responses to those vices and failings than hatred. I end by speculating that although hateful misanthropy tends to dominate discussions of misanthropy, historically it is the least common. That, itself, might tell us something about the sustainability of hatred. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice is a harm done to a person in their capacity as an epistemic subject by undermining her capacity to engage in epistemic practices such as giving knowledge to others or making sense of one’s experiences. It has been argued that those who suffer from medical conditions are more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than the healthy. This paper claims that people with mental disorders are even more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than those with somatic illnesses. Two kinds of contributory (...) factors for epistemic injustice in psychiatric patients are outlined: global and specific. Some suggestions are made to counteract the effects of these contributory factors, for instance we suggest that physicians should participate in groups where the subjective experience of patients is explored, and learn to become more aware of their own unconscious prejudices towards psychiatric patients. (shrink)

In 1894, the British sociologist Benjamin Kidd published Social Evolution, an influential book that summarised and evaluated the prevailing social theories at the end of the nineteenth century: Karl Marx's socialism and Herbert Spencer's social Darwinism. Both of these conflicting theories were based on Darwinian evolutionary theory. In this book, Kidd discusses the immense changes that applied science has brought to the world and the interconnectedness of everyone. The book's ten chapters include discussions of the conditions of human (...) progress, the function of religious beliefs, and the organisation of the working classes. Kidd found flaws in both Karl Marx's and Herbert Spencer's vision of society's future and concluded that religion was essential for the evolution of society because it acts in the interest of generational group survival rather than individual competition. Social Evolution called for a comprehensive study of society because a new era in Western civilisation was beginning. (shrink)

An essay review of Havi Carel, 'Phenomenology of Illness' (OUP 2015).

This chapter describes some of the varieties of philosophical humanism and different conceptions of, and attitudes towards, the natural sciences. I focus on three kinds of humanism evident in 20th century European philosophy – humanism as essentialism, humanism as rational subjectivity, and existential humanism. Some are strongly allied to the sciences, others are antipathetic to them, while others offer subtler positions. By emphasising this diversity, I want to oppose claims about the inevitability of an 'alliance' of science to humanism, and (...) that claim that to be a humanist is something we must approve or applaud. At best, those 'alliances' and that praiseworthiness will only be true of certain varieties of humanism. (shrink)

In Return to Reason, Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of ...

We propose that certain forms of chronic illness can be transformative experiences, in the sense described by L.A. Paul.

Posidonius was one of the most important philosophers and intellectuals writing in the Greco-Roman world of the first half of the first century B.C. This book is a commentary on the surviving testimonia and fragments of his work collected in volume 1. Its purpose is to explicate and understand the evidence of these fragments, which must form the basis for any estimate of Posidonius' contribution to the learning of his time in the history of ideas. Since Posidonius was reported by (...) at least sixty different writers, an attempt has been made to disentangle what Posidonius said, as distinct from the interpretations and distortions of his reporters. Posidonius wrote at length not only on philosophy, but also on the sciences, and a large History, and Professor Kidd has assessed Posidonius' work against the background of the philosophical, scientific and historical writings of his predecessors, contemporaries amd followers; for this many other related passages are cited and examined. (shrink)

"A discussion of the historical development of our ideas of time as they relate to nature, human nature and society. . . . The excellence of The Discovery of Time is unquestionable."--Martin Lebowitz, The Kenyon Review.

The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox is a controversial discourse, rich with facts and observations gathered by one of the most erudite minds of our ...

Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of knowledge. The centuries-old dominance of rationality has diminished the value of reasonableness. Toulmin issues a powerful call to redress the balance between rationality and reasonableness.

"Biophilia" is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity's innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book Biophilia, he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species. That idea has caught the imagination of diverse thinkers. The Biophilia Hypothesis brings together the views of some of the most creative scientists of our time, (...) each attempting to amplify and refine the concept of biophilia. The variety of perspectives -- psychological, biological, cultural, symbolic, and aesthetic -- frame the theoretical issues by presenting empirical evidence that supports or refutes the hypothesis. Numerous examples illustrate the idea that biophilia and its converse, biophobia, have a genetic component: fear, and even full-blown phobias of snakes and spiders are quick to develop with very little negative reinforcement, while more threatening modern artifacts -- knives, guns, automobiles -- rarely elicit such a response people find trees that are climbable and have a broad, umbrella-like canopy more attractive than trees without these characteristics people would rather look at water, green vegetation, or flowers than built structures of glass and concrete The biophilia hypothesis, if substantiated, provides a powerful argument for the conservation of biological diversity. More important, it implies serious consequences for our well-being as society becomes further estranged from the natural world. Relentless environmental destruction could have a significant impact on our quality of life, not just materially but psychologically and even spiritually. (shrink)

This chapter offers a character-based criticism of ‘the culture of speed’ condemned by the Canadian literary scholars, Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber in their influential polemic, The Slow Professor. Central to their criticisms of speed and praise of slowness are, I argue, substantive concerns about their effects on moral and intellectual character. I argue that a full reckoning of the wrongs of academic cultures of speed must include appreciation of the ways they promote a host of accelerative vices and failings (...) while also impeding exercise of a range of the virtues vital to enactment of our core academic commitments to teaching, scholarship, and collegiality. (shrink)

An examination of verbal hallucinations and thought insertion as examples of "alienated self-consciousness.".

Transnational corporations have become actors with significant political power and authority which should entail responsibility and liability, specifically direct liability for complicity in human rights violations. Holding TNCs liable for human rights violations is complicated by the discontinuity between the fragmented legal/political structure of the TNC and its integrated strategic reality and the international state system which privileges sovereignty and non-intervention over the protection of individual rights. However, the post-Westphalian transition—the emergence of multiple authorities, increasing ambiguity of borders and jurisdiction (...) and blurring of the line between the public and private spheres—should facilitate imposing direct responsibility on transnational firms. Mechanisms for imposing direct responsibility on TNCs are considered including voluntary agreements and international law. However, I conclude that a hybrid public-private regime which relies on non-hierarchical compliance mechanisms is likely to be both more effective and consistent with the structure of the emerging transnational order. (shrink)

Undergraduate students with no prior classroom instruction in mathematical logic will benefit from this evenhanded multipart text by one of the centuries greatest authorities on the subject. Part I offers an elementary but thorough overview of mathematical logic of first order. The treatment does not stop with a single method of formulating logic; students receive instruction in a variety of techniques, first learning model theory (truth tables), then Hilbert-type proof theory, and proof theory handled through derived rules. Part II supplements (...) the material covered in Part I and introduces some of the newer ideas and the more profound results of logical research in the twentieth century. Subsequent chapters introduce the study of formal number theory, with surveys of the famous incompleteness and undecidability results of Godel, Church, Turing, and others. The emphasis in the final chapter reverts to logic, with examinations of Godel's completeness theorem, Gentzen's theorem, Skolem's paradox and nonstandard models of arithmetic, and other theorems. Unabridged republication of the edition published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1967. Preface. Bibliography. Theorem and Lemma Numbers: Pages. List of Postulates. Symbols and Notations. Index. (shrink)

Wittgenstein criticised prevailing attitudes toward the sciences. The target of his criticisms was ‘scientism’: what he described as ‘the overestimation of science’. This collection is the first study of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism - a theme in his work that is clearly central to his thought yet strikingly neglected by the existing literature. The book explores the philosophical basis of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism; how this anti-scientism helps us understand Wittgenstein’s philosophical aims; and how this underlies his later conception of philosophy and the kind (...) of philosophy he attacked. An outstanding team of international contributors articulate and critically assess Wittgenstein’s views on scientism and anti-scientism, making Wittgenstein and Scientism essential reading for students and scholars of Wittgenstein’s work, on topics as varied as the philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophical practice, the nature of religious belief, and the place of science in modern culture. (shrink)

Organizational aesthetics, both as a body of theory and a method of inquiry, is a rapidly expanding area of the organizational sciences. The Aesthetics of Organization accessibly draws key contributions delineating the emerging parameters of the field. It explains the significance of concepts devised by postmodern thinkers, through which emerge meaning and order in organizations. Methodological problems associated with investigations of the aesthetic are also highlighted so the reader can identify and understand the importance of recent ideas on vision, perspective (...) and periphery for learning in organizations. Through the contributions of leading international theorists, organizational aesthetics is defined in greater historical and theoretical depth, with a broad conceptual and practical range which academics will find invaluable. (shrink)

An essay review of Léna Soler, Emiliano Trizio, and Andrew Pickering (eds.), Science As It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press).

This entry offers a critical overview of the contemporary literature on understanding, especially in epistemology and the philosophy of science.