Bourdieu suggested that the habitus contains the ‘genetic information’ which both allows and disposes successive generations to reproduce the world they inherit from their parents’ generation. While his writings on habitus are concerned with embodied dispositions, biological processes are not a feature of the practical reason of habitus. Recent critiques of the separate worlds of biology and culture, and the rise in epigenetics, provide new opportunities for expanding theoretical concepts like habitus. Using obesity science as a case study we attempt (...) to conceptualise the enfolding of biological and social processes (via a Deleuzian metaphor) to develop a concept of biohabitus – reconfiguring how social and biological environments interact across the life course, and may be transmitted and transformed intergenerationally. In conclusion we suggest that the enfolding and reproduction of social life that Bourdieu articulated as habitus is a useful theoretical frame that can be enhanced to critically develop epigenetic understandings of obesity, and vice versa. (shrink)

Dialectical materialism was born in 1857, when Marx returned to studying Hegel. In opposition to Hegel, Marx adopted a realist epistemology. Abandoning the pragmatist ambiguities of his Economic?Philosophical Manuscripts, he became a materialist in the traditional sense of that word. Influenced by Hegel, Marx simultaneously attempted a dialectical proof for the labor theory of value. Abandoning his positivist critique in The Holy Family, he started using dialectic to discover beneath appearances an otherwise inaccessible reality. But his dialectic was incompatible with (...) his materialism. The identification of reality with Praxis, rejected at the level of philosophical statement, was retained at the level of economic argument. Turning Hegel upside down proved harder than Marx thought. (shrink)

The challenge to Marxian theory presented by the current collapse of communist economies centers on the role of markets. _Marx versus Markets _points out that Marx defines communist economies—even in their lower stage of development—as classless economies without markets. It then examines his claims that classless economies with markets are in some sense inferior to communist economies. Two conclusions emerge from Stanley Moore's analysis. First, Marx's major arguments for abolishing commodity exchange rely on moral and philosophical premises, derived (...) from Feuerbach in the earlier writings and from Hegel in the later. Second, Marx's ideal of communist economy in incompatible with his materialistic approach to history. Marx's attack on markets flunked the test of theory one hundred years before it flunked the test of practice. (shrink)

Hobbes lays down three requirements for harmonizing self-Interest with morality: the principles of rule-Egoism, Equal treatment, And reasonable security. Though he attempts to base all three principles upon prudential considerations, In the first two cases he does not succeed. His laws of nature are moral - as distinct from merely prudential - rules, Because these two principles function in his argument as moral imperatives in disguise.

(1977). Justice and imagination. The necessity of Utopian thinking to a humane social order. World Futures: Vol. 15, Utopia and World Order, pp. 69-81.

Marx versus Markets points out that Marx defines communist economies--even in their lower stage of development--as classless economies without markets.

This study provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of the meaning of Locke's political thought. John Dunn restores Locke's ideas to their exact context, and so stresses the historical question of what Locke in the Two Treatises of Government was intending to claim. By adopting this approach, he reveals the predominantly theological character of all Locke's thinking about politics and provides a convincing analysis of the development of Locke's thought. In a polemical concluding section, John Dunn argues that liberal and Marxist interpretations (...) of Locke's politics have failed to grasp his meaning. Locke emerges as not merely a contributor to the development of English constitutional thought, or as a reflector of socio-economic change in seventeenth-century England, but as essentially a Calvinist natural theologian. (shrink)

Marx wrote two critiques of Hegel’s political philosophy, which are brought together here in English translations. In 1843 he laid aside, unfinished, a lengthy manuscript - known since its publication in 1927 as the Kritik des Hegelschen Staatsrechts - containing a detailed criticism of §§ 261–313 of The Philosophy of Right. In 1844 he published a short article, “Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung”, proclaiming the imminence of a proletarian revolution in Germany. His specific criticisms of Hegel’s political theory are (...) to be found, not in the article, but in the manuscript, which is presented here in its first complete English translation. (shrink)

This paper is a companion piece to my earlier paper “Fallibilism and Concessive Knowledge Attributions”. There are two intuitive charges against fallibilism. One is that it countenances the truth (and presumably acceptability) of utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, though it might be that he is not a Republican”. The second is that it countenances the truth (and presumably acceptability) of utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, even though (...) I’m not certain that he is”, or “I know that Bush it a Republican, even though it isn’t certain that he is.” In “Fallibilism and Concessive Knowledge Attributions”, I argue that fallibilism in epistemology does not countenance the truth of utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, though it might be that he is not a Republican”. In this paper, I argue that there are independent reasons for thinking that utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, though I’m not certain that he is” and “I know that Bush is a Republican, though it’s not certain that he is” are unassertible. More specifically, I argue that these are simply instances of Moore’s Paradox, such as “Dogs bark, but I don’t know that they do.” The right account of Moore’s Paradox does not involve the falsehood of the semantic content of the relevant utterances, but rather their pragmatic unacceptability. So the anti-fallibilist intuitions turn out to have pragmatic, rather than semantic import, and therefore do not tell against the truth of fallibilism. Fallibilism in epistemology is often thought to be theoretically desirable, but intuitively problematic. My purpose with these two papers is to show that fallibilism is not intuitively problematic. (shrink)

When the utility of masks or vaccinations became politicized during the COVID-19 pandemic and lost its mooring in scientific evidence, an already-developing crisis of expertise was exacerbated. Those who believe in consensus science wondered: “How can ‘those people’ not see the truth?” With a foreword by Harry Collins, this book shows that the crisis is not a scientific controversy, but an ideological dispute with believers on both sides. If the advocates for consensus science acknowledge the uncertainties involved, rather than insisting (...) on cold, hard facts, it is possible to open a pathway towards interaction and communication, even persuasion, between world views. As the crisis of expertise continues to be a global issue, this will be an invaluable resource for readers concerned about polarized societies and the distrust of consensus science. (shrink)

Current work in language models (LMs) helps us speed up or even skip thinking by accelerating and automating cognitive work. But can LMs help us with critical thinking -- thinking in deeper, more reflective ways which challenge assumptions, clarify ideas, and engineer new concepts? We treat philosophy as a case study in critical thinking, and interview 21 professional philosophers about how they engage in critical thinking and on their experiences with LMs. We find that philosophers do not find LMs to (...) be useful because they lack a sense of selfhood (memory, beliefs, consistency) and initiative (curiosity, proactivity). We propose the selfhood-initiative model for critical thinking tools to characterize this gap. Using the model, we formulate three roles LMs could play as critical thinking tools: the Interlocutor, the Monitor, and the Respondent. We hope that our work inspires LM researchers to further develop LMs as critical thinking tools and philosophers and other 'critical thinkers' to imagine intellectually substantive uses of LMs. (shrink)

There are broad commonalities between the projects of Donald MacKinnon and Stanley Cavell sufficient to make the claim that they struck an analogous pose in their respective contexts. This is not to discount their manifest differences. In the milieu of 1960s and 1970s Cambridge, MacKinnon argued in support of a qualified language of metaphysics in the service of a renewed catholic humanism and Christian socialism. At Harvard, Cavell articulated commitments that made him more at home in the world of (...) North American secular political liberalism. Where Nietzsche, Hume, Freud, Heidegger, Emerson and Thoreau were Cavell’s inspirations, Butler, Kant, G. E. Moore, Collingwood and the New Testament were MacKinnon’s. For all the stark differences, commonalities abound and the reason for this can be traced to a shared appreciation of Austin’s contribution to the ‘lingusitic turn’ together with Wittgenstein’s later work. They both developed projects obsessed with the problem of scepticism together with a commitment to a creative re-animation of moral discourse in light of it, with MacKinnon defending a qualified ‘moral realism’, and Cavell, ‘moral perfectionism’. Seen together, a distinctive post-Kantian and post-Wittgensteinian therapeutic moral philosophy is in evidence. (shrink)

This study investigated the link between meditation, self-reported mindfulness and cognitive flexibility as well as other attentional functions. It compared a group of meditators experienced in mindfulness meditation with a meditation-naïve control group on measures of Stroop interference and the “d2-concentration and endurance test”. Overall the results suggest that attentional performance and cognitive flexibility are positively related to meditation practice and levels of mindfulness. Meditators performed significantly better than non-meditators on all measures of attention. Furthermore, self-reported mindfulness was higher in (...) meditators than non-meditators and correlations with all attention measures were of moderate to high strength. This pattern of results suggests that mindfulness is intimately linked to improvements of attentional functions and cognitive flexibility. The relevance of these findings for mental balance and well-being are discussed. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there is a fundamental distinction between knowing that something is the case and knowing how to do something. According to Gilbert Ryle, to whom the insight is credited, knowledge-how is an ability, which is in turn a complex of dispositions. Knowledge-that, on the other hand, is not an ability, or anything similar. Rather, knowledge-that is a relation between a thinker and a true proposition.

Development and Evolution surveys and illuminates the key themes of rapidly changing fields and areas of controversy that the redefining the theory and philosophy of biology. It continues Stanley Salthe's investigation of evolutionary theory, begun in his influential book Evolving Hierarchical Systems, while negating the implicit philosophical mechanisms of much of that work. Here Salthe attempts to reinitiate a theory of biology from the perspective of development rather than from that of evolution, recognizing the applicability of general systems thinking (...) to biological and social phenomena and pointing towards a non-Darwinian and even a postmodern biology. (shrink)

Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work - their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.

Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work - their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.

This book is a major contribution to the study of the philosophy of action, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. Its central idea is a radically unorthodox theory of rational action. Most contemporary Anglo-American philosophers believe that action is motivated by desire. Professor Benn rejects the doctrine and replaces it with a reformulation of Kant's ethical and political theory, in which rational action can be determined simply by principles, regardless of consequences. The book analyzes the way in which value conflicts can (...) be rationally resolved, the objectivity of value, the concept of moral personality, the principles of non-interference and respect of persons, the ideals of autonomy and community and various aspects of individual rights - focusing on the rights to freedom, welfare, and privacy. (shrink)