In The Veiled God, Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft offers a detailed portrait of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s early life, ethics, and theology in its historical and social context, and critically reflects on the enduring relevance of his work for the study of religion.

Part 1: Metaphysics and Conceptual Analysis 1. Analysis, description and the a priori?, Simon Blackburn 2. Physicalism, conceptual analysis and acts of faith, Jennifer Hornsby 3. Serious metaphysics: Frank Jackson’s defense of conceptual analysis, William G. Lycan 4. Jackson’s classical model of meaning, Laura Schroeter & John Bigelow 5. The semantic foundations of metaphysics, Huw Price 6. The folk theory of colours and the causes of colour experience, Peter Menzies Part 2: The Knowledge Argument 7. Consciousness and the frustrations of (...) physicalism, Philip Pettit 8. Jackson’s change of mind: representationalism, a priorism and the knowledge argument, Robert Van Gulick Part 3: Ethics 9. Analytic moral functionalism meets moral twin earth, Terrence Horgan & Mark Timmons 10. Consequentialism and the nearest and dearest objection, Michael Smith 11. The ’actual’ in actualism, Julia Driver Part 4: Conditionals and the Purposes of Arguing 12. Conditionals, truth and assertion, Dorothy Edgington 13. Conditionals: A debate with Jackson, Graham Priest 14. Two purposes of arguing and two epistemic projects, Martin Davies Replies to my critics, Frank Jackson. (shrink)

The Young Women’s Group in Manchester is a ‘young women’s peer health project, run by and for young lesbian and bisexual women’, which runs an allotment as one of its activities. At a time when interest in allotments and gardening appears to be on the increase, the existence of yet another community allotment may seem unremarkable. Yet we suggest that this queer allotment poses challenges for conventional theorisations of allotments, as well as for understandings of public and private. In this (...) article we explore how the allotment project might be understood to be intensely engaged in ‘growing intimate publics’, or what we term ‘privatepublics’. These are paradoxical intimacies, privatepublic spaces which are not necessarily made possible in the usual private sphere of domestic homes. Here we focus on the work involved in materialising the allotment, which we understand as a queer privatepublic ‘natureculture’ (Haraway, 2008) which appears as an ‘everyday utopia’ (Cooper, 2014). (shrink)

What’s Darwin got to do with it? The role of evolutionary theory in psychiatry Content Type Journal Article Category Review Essay Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9301-3 Authors Ian Ravenscroft, Philosophy Department, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867.

This chapter draws an analogy between substance dualism (SD) and one kind of creationism. Some substance dualists appear to believe that SD is preferable to physicalism because only the former can account for the existence of morality. Some dualists are attracted to emergence, although it is unclear that it is a form of SD; indeed, it is not clear that it is a form of dualism at all, and if it is it would seem to be a form of property (...) dualism. The chapter discusses SD's relationship to three key elements of religious doctrine and the idea of emergence. It describes most serious arguments for physicalism and consequently against SD. According to SD, mind and brain are radically different substances, the former nonphysical, the latter physical. Advocates of occasionalist SD claim that God appropriately correlates mental and physical events occasion by occasion. (shrink)

Designed specifically for students with no background knowledge in the subject, this accessible introduction covers all of the basic concepts and major theories in the philosophy of mind. Topics discussed include dualism, behaviorism, the identity theory, functionalism, the computational theory of mind, connectionism, physicalism, mental causation, and consciousness. The text is enhanced by chapter summaries, a glossary, suggestions for further reading, and self-assessment questions.

Eliminativism has been a major focus of discussion in the philosophy of mind for the last two decades. According to eliminativists, beliefs and other intentional states are the posits of a folk theory of mind standardly called "folk psychology". That theory, they claim, is radically false and hence beliefs and other intentional states do not exist. We argue that the expression "folk psychology" is ambiguous in an important way. On the one hand, "folk psychology" is used by many philosophers and (...) cognitive scientists to refer to an internally represented theory of human psychology exploited in the prediction of behavior. On the other hand, "folk psychology" is used to refer to the theory of mind implicit in our everyday talk about mental states. We then argue that sorting out the conceptual and terminological confusion surrounding "folk psychology" has major consequences for the eliminativism debate. In particular, if certain models of cognition turn out to be true, then on some readings of "folk psychology" the arguments for eliminativism collapse. (shrink)

This paper explores two models of empathy. One model places theory centre stage; the other emphasises our capacity to re‐enact fragments of another's mental life. I argue that considerations of parsimony strongly support the latter, simulative approach. My results have consequences for the current debate between the theory‐theory and simulation theory. That debate is standardly conceived as a debate about mental state attribution rather than about empathy. However, on the simulation model, empathy and mental state attribution involve a common mechanism. (...) Thus the strength of the simulative approach to empathy lends considerable credence to the simulation account of mental state attribution. Considerations of empathy are thus surprisingly important in the philosophy of mind.. (shrink)

Francis Crick has identified a doctrine‐the neuron doctrine‐which he apparently regards as both true and astonishing. I begin by carefully articulating Crick’s doctrine, arguing that whilst plausible it is certainly not astonishing. I then consider a related doctrine, the biological neuroscience thesis (BNT). According to BNT, mental science is biological neuroscience, where biological neuroscience is pretty much exhausted by neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neurochemistry. Stoljar and Gold argue that BNT is unsupported by current scientific developments. I argue that well‐established results in (...) the cognitive sciences show that it is false. (shrink)

The current study is designed to propose and test a model about the ethical reputation of a target manager who must decide whether to engage in earnings management. We employ an experimental approach to examine the potential negative reputation effects within the internal labor market of a firm that occur as a consequence of earnings management. We examine participants’ responses to a hypothetical (target) manager when both the target’s behavior and the corporate incentives were manipulated. Participants assessed how ethical they (...) believed a target manager to be, based on the target’s decision regarding earnings management and the nature of the corporate incentives. Participants also assessed the target’s managerial ability. Participants’ judgments regarding the target’s morality were significantly affected by the target’s behavior, but were not affected by the incentive structure. Ability judgments were significantly and positively related with morality assessments. Further analysis indicates that morality assessments mediate the relationships between the target’s behavior and the participants’ willingness to extend work-related opportunities to the target. Implications of these results for management control systems design and for future research are discussed. (shrink)

The current study is designed to propose and test a model about the ethical reputation of a target manager who must decide whether to engage in earnings management. We employ an experimental approach to examine the potential negative reputation effects within the internal labor market of a firm that occur as a consequence of earnings management. We examine participants’ responses to a hypothetical (target) manager when both the target’s behavior and the corporate incentives were manipulated. Participants assessed how ethical they (...) believed a target manager to be, based on the target’s decision regarding earnings management and the nature of the corporate incentives. Participants also assessed the target’s managerial ability. Participants’ judgments regarding the target’s morality were significantly affected by the target’s behavior, but were not affected by the incentive structure. Ability judgments were significantly and positively related with morality assessments. Further analysis indicates that morality assessments mediate the relationships between the target’s behavior and the participants’ willingness to extend work-related opportunities to the target. Implications of these results for management control systems design and for future research are discussed. (shrink)

For the last two decades a doctrine called ‘‘eliminative materialism’’ (or sometimes just ‘‘eliminativism’’) has been a major focus of discussion in the philosophy of mind. It is easy to understand why eliminativism has attracted so much attention, for it is hard to imagine a more radical and provocative doctrine. What eliminativism claims is that the intentional states and processes that are alluded to in our everyday descriptions and explanations of people’s mental lives and their actions are _myths_. Like the (...) gods that Homer invoked to explain the outcome of battles, or the witches that Inquisitors invoked to explain local catastrophes, they _do not exist_. According to eliminativists, there are no such things as beliefs or desires or hopes or fears or thoughts. These putative states and processes are the badly misguided posits of a seriously mistaken theory, just like phlogiston and caloric fluid and the luminiferous ether.¹. (shrink)

Assistive technology is widely used in contemporary special needs education. Our interest is in the extent to which we can conceive of certain uses of AT in this educational context as a form of extended cognition. It is argued that what is critical to answering this question is that the relationship between the student and the AT is more than just that of subject-and-instrument, but instead incorporates a fluidity and spontaneity that puts it on a functional par with their use (...) of the student’s biological cognitive traits. It is claimed that AT use in special needs education offers an especially plausible case of extended cognition for just this reason. It is further maintained that understanding AT in this fashion has some important philosophical and practical ramifications, including how we should conceive of mainstream education, given that this is increasingly conducted within highly technologically-embedded environments. (shrink)

In this paper we seek to understand the interplay between increasingly widely held concerns about the hegemony of industrialized agriculture and the emergence of counter-hegemonic activities, such as membership of community supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives. Informed by Blackshaw’s (Leisure, Abingdon, Routledge, 2010) work on “liquid leisure,” we offer a new leisure-based conceptualization of the tactics of counter-hegemony, arguing in the process that food politics offers a rich site for new, transitional identity formation. Using a case study of a well-established community (...) farm in southeast England, we demonstrate how the community members devote themselves to transient and inconsequential activities as a means of attempting to realize a larger self-related identity project. We also demonstrate how the seemingly close inter-personal bonds typical of CSA may not reflect the permanence accorded to them, with members able willingly to leave these communities once they can no longer progress their identity project. We conclude by arguing that our findings are emblematic of society in transition, with people moving well beyond the work/leisure activity into a world in which they embody the idea and the practice of being an active co-producer—in our case, of food. While recognizing that this does not necessarily mean that there is simple causality between practice and identity formation, we do argue that there is evidence of an increasing relationship between activity, time, and the performance of a new form of civil labor practice. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

Recent, well-publicized accounting scandals have shown that the penalties outsiders impose on those found culpable of earnings management can be severe. However, less is known about how colleagues within internal labor markets respond when they believe fellow managers have managed earnings. Designers of responsibility accounting systems need to understand the reputational costs managers impose on one another within internal labor markets. In an experimental study, 159 evening MBA students were asked to assume the role of a manager in a company (...) and respond to a scenario in which another manager (the target manager) has the opportunity to engage in earnings management. Participants provided causal attributions, assessed the morality of the target manager, and indicated whether they would change their judgments about the target manager's reputation. The study manipulated three between-subjects factors: (1) whether the target manager chose to engage in earnings management, (2) whether the company's budgetary control system was rigid or flexible, and (3) whether the target manager's work history was average or above average. We found that causal attributions are affected more by the budgetary systems when the target did not manage earnings than when the manager did. We also found that morality judgments were significantly associated with the target manager's behavior, but not with the budgetary system. In addition, participants' judgments about the target manager's reputation were more strongly associated with morality judgments than with causal attributions. We discuss implications of the role of reputation in management control systems design. (shrink)

Stich and Ravenscroft (1994) distinguish between internal and external accounts of folk psychology and argue that this distinction makes a significant difference to the debate over eliminative materialism. I argue that their views about the implications of the internal/external distinction for the debate over eliminativism are mistaken. First, I demonstrate that the first of their two external versions of folk psychology is either not a possible target of eliminativist critique, or not a target distinct from their second version of (...) externalism. Second, I show that whether or not the second of their two external version of folk psychology is open to eliminativist critique depends on ‘internal’ factors. Finally, I argue that they are wrong to claim that eliminativists might, by attacking external versions of folk psychology, escape being put out of business if the simulation theory is correct. (shrink)

Stich & Ravenscroft (1994) have argued that (contrary to most people's initial assumptions) a simulation account of folk psychology may be consistent with eliminative materialism, but they fail to bring out the full complexity or the potential significance of the relationship. Contemporary eliminativism (particularly in the Churchland version) makes two major claims: the first is a rejection of the orthodox assumption that realistically construed propositional attitudes are fundamental to human cognition; the second is the suggestion that with the advancement (...) of scientific understanding of the mind it will be possible to entirely eliminate the mentalistic and intentional from our ontology, thus dissolving the mind-body problem. The first claim (which has been argued in detail) supplies the principal grounds for accepting the second, much more ambitious and significant, claim. Robert Gordon's (1995, 1996, 2000) radical simulation theory of "folk psychology", proposed initially (Gordon, 1986) as an alternative to "theory theory" accounts of self and interpersonal understanding, but subsequently developing into a quite general challenge to symbolic computational accounts of mind, is not merely consistent with, but actually provides considerable additional support for, the first eliminativist claim. However, although radical simulationism has no use for reified propositional attitudes, it relies on another family of mentalistic and intentional notions, including perspective taking, "seeing as", pretending, imagery, and, most centrally, imagination. It is thus inconsistent with eliminativist metaphysical ambitions. Nevertheless, from this perspective the mind-body problem is transformed. Its solution no longer depends on accounting directly for the intentionality of the attitudes, but rather on accounting for the intentionality of imagination. Although standard accounts of imagination derive its intentionality from that of the attitudes, the recently proposed "perceptual activity" theory of imagery and imagination (Thomas, 1999) can provide a direct account of the intentionality of imagination that is consistent with physicalism.. (shrink)

We know, since Descartes (1641), that exercises of sensory imagining (S-imagining) are not purely imagistic: they possess multiple aspects. This much is agreed upon among philosophers but, when the question of the intentionality of S-imaginings arises, agreement seems to unravel. -/- According to the Two Content View (TCV), S-imagining “has two kinds of content, qualitative content and assigned content” (Kung, 2010:632) – e.g., my image of an apple is about both (i) shapes and colors and (ii) about the fact that (...) it is an apple, rather than a perfect imitation thereof. Advocates of TCV claim that the imagistic content does represent something, but it is not enough to individuate the imagining of an A rather than a B (Kung, 2010; Langland-Hassan, 2015; Martin, 2002; Noordhof, 2002; Peacocke, 1985; Tooming, 2018; White, 1990). -/- Some, however, have expressed skepticism about TCV. As Sartre claims, “despite some prejudices […] when I produce in myself the image of Pierre, it is Pierre who is the object of my current consciousness.” (1940/2010:4) The intentional object of our S-imaginings is exhausted by a single content treated in a specific way (Currie & Ravenscroft, 2002; Goldman, 2006; Hutto, 2015; Mulligan, 1999; Soteriou, 2013; Stock, n.d.; Wiltsher, 2016,2019). -/- In the following, (1) I sketch one of the most efficient pleas for the TCV by Peter Langland-Hassan, (2) I give two reasons to doubt the decisiveness of his arguments, and (3) suggest that S-imagining can be captured by the attitude/content distinction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology by Paige E. HochschildJoseph T. Lienhard, S.J.Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology. By Paige E. Hochschild. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. 251. $125.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-19-964302-8.When students of St. Augustine consider his teaching on memory, they turn instinctively to the Confessions, book 10, and to On the Trinity, books 11 and 12. The lyrical passage in the Confessions is easy to teach and (...) intriguing in its contents. Paige Hochschild paints a much larger picture, drawing on far more sources. She also sees memory as a central category in Augustine’s thought. In the opening paragraph of the introduction, she describes memory (for Augustine) as the way the mind meets the world, as the way things external to the body are apprehended, as the way intelligible objects are known, and as what it means to be constituted in the image of God. This is a big order. And “order,” in Augustine’s sense, is key: the mind, as memory, brings order to the natural world, but also brings to light a providential order that is implicit in the sensible.The book is divided into three parts: (1) the philosophical tradition (Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus), (2) Augustine’s earlier writings (from the Cassiciacum dialogues up to De magistro and De musica), and (3) the Confessions and De trinitate. The conclusion of this complex study is that memory is salvific: it accounts for the soul’s progress by the dialectical play of the knowledge and love of what is possessed, yet not possessed. The lifelong process of healing in which memory functions is fulfilled in contemplation.Two characteristics of Hochschild’s book can be mentioned at the outset. First, she studies each author diachronically, measuring progress and growth in the author’s thought, and particularly in his understanding of memory. Second, she readily invokes a wide range of categories to explain and illuminate her main topic. The book is anything but an extended encyclopedia article on “memoria in Augustine.” The two principal terms in the title, “memory” and “theological anthropology,” are richly developed and elaborated.Chapter 1 begins with a short note on Augustine’s knowledge of Plato. It is generally admitted that Augustine read some of the dialogues of Plato in translation: the Timaeus, the Republic (albeit only parts of it), the Phaedo, and the Phaedrus. Some of these works, at least, may have come down to him through doxographers. But Plato’s influence on Augustine remains shadowy. It is “Platonism,” and particularly Plotinus, that influences him so clearly, a point made memorably in Confessions 7.9.13-15, and its intriguing reference to the libri Platonicorum. Before all else, Platonism delivers Augustine from the bondage of materialism.Hochschild treats Plato’s doctrine of memory under four headings: sense perception, knowledge as recollection, divisions in the ways of knowing, and the practice of dialectic. In regard to sense perception, the sharp distinction (found in the Republic) between opinion (doxa) and knowledge (epistêmê) [End Page 144] needs to be refined, Hochschild avers. At least in some later works, the sensible is an image of the intelligible, and hence some sense perception can be infallible. On the next topic, Plato invokes recollection to explain direct apprehension of the forms, but recollection does not recall what was perceived in the past but is a restoration of a clear, logical relationship. The Republic introduces a new element, “the illuminative power of the Good” (21). The final section of chapter 1 treats dialectic, concluding that “knowledge is fulfilled in virtue, and the art of dialectic is not merely an exercise in definition, but a hexis, and a way of living” (27).Chapter 2, on Aristotle, begins with the observation that, if Plato’s influence on Augustine was indirect, Aristotle’s was even more indirect, reaching Augustine through Plotinus. Most familiar, of course, are Augustine’s account of reading Aristotle’s Categories during his days at Carthage (Confessions 4.16.28-31) and his later use of the categories of substance and relation in his understanding of the Trinity, creating the category of “substantial relation,” which would... (shrink)

Charlene Haddock Seigfried argues that William James’s philosophy significantly influenced the shaping of pragmatist feminism and feminist pragmatism. Interpreting his works, she recognized the potential of his ideas for feminist reconstruction and their alignment with feminist goals. However, Seigfried also criticizes James for what she perceives as pervasive sexism in his writings. In this paper, I will defend James from the accusations made by Seigfried and demonstrate that he did not hold such a hostile attitude towards women as she suggests.

In this short, dense essay, Jean Cavaillès evaluates philosophical efforts to determine the origin - logical or ontological - of scientific thought, arguing that, rather than seeking to found science in original intentional acts, a priori meanings, or foundational logical relations, any adequate theory must involve a history of the concept. Cavaillès insists on a historical epistemology that is conceptual rather than phenomenological, and a logic that is dialectical rather than transcendental. His famous call (cited by Foucault) to abandon "a (...) philosophy of consciousness" for "a philosophy of the concept" was crucial in displacing the focus of philosophical enquiry from aprioristic foundations toward structural historical shifts in the conceptual fabric. This new translation of Cavaillès's final work, written in 1942 during his imprisonment for Resistance activities, presents an opportunity to reencounter an original and lucid thinker. Cavaillès's subtle adjudication between positivistic claims that science has no need of philosophy, and philosophers' obstinate disregard for actual scientific events, speaks to a dilemma that remains pertinent for us today. His affirmation of the authority of scientific thinking combined with his commitment to conceptual creation yields a radical defense of the freedom of thought and the possibility of the new. (shrink)

This article critically analyzes Rawls’s attitude toward envy. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls is predominantly concerned with the threat that class envy poses to political stability. Yet he also briefly discusses the kind of envy that individuals experience toward their social peers, which he calls particular envy, and which I refer to as peer envy. He quickly concludes, however, that particular envy would not present a serious risk to the stability of his just society. In this article, I contest (...) this claim by arguing that the principles that structure Rawls’s ideal society are likely to exacerbate particular envy to a politically risky extent. Section 1 reconstructs his account of envy, giving special attention to his belief that competition kindles envy between peers. Section 2 then examines the way in which Rawls often endorses rivalry within the body politic. I argue that the society governed by justice as fairness is, on account of this rivalry, likely to generate a politically problematic degree of particular envy. In Section 3, I invoke ancient Greece as an example of a society that was, as a result of its intense competitiveness, often imperiled by dangerously elevated levels of peer envy. I then survey the key institutional mechanisms by which the ancient Greeks sought to manage this hazardous emotion. It turns out, however, that most of these mechanisms would be unavailable to Rawls insofar as they starkly contravene his principles of justice. I conclude that if Rawlsians wish to establish a society that fosters rivalry, they would do well to reflect on the means by which peer envy can be effectively harnessed. (shrink)

Ṣadr, Muḥammad Bāqir; Islamic philosophy; 20th century.

Dewey's voluminous writings, spanning decades and reflecting the contrasting national moods of different historical periods, abound with tensions, not to say contradictions. In highlighting and working with a conflict within Dewey's commitments, then, I do not mean to be catching him out or correcting a mistake. The tension on which I focus is one with which he struggled for most of his philosophical career and one that he never satisfactorily resolved, yet it is also one that goes to the heart (...) of what it is to be a pragmatist. It involves the role of final ends in a philosophy that places practical reasoning at the heart of all knowledge. I will argue that while Dewey had powerful philosophical prejudices that prevented him from adequately dealing with this problem himself, a solution is nonetheless forthcoming that maintains, and perhaps even deepens, the main themes of his pragmatism. Setting out this solution will lead me, in the end, to a novel formulation of the pragmatist theory of truth. (shrink)

Classical Sanskrit commentary on Brahmasūtra; includes original Sanskrit text with English translation.

[1] The early years, 1878-1923 -- [2] The middle years, 1923-1945 -- [3] The later years, 1945-1965.

Ptolemy reports three dated lunar eclipses observed by Hipparchus, and also refers to two more, without identifying them, which Hipparchus compared with two earlier counterparts (apparently, observed in Mesopotamia) to assess the validity of the Babylonian period relations of the lunar motion. Also, in Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis, we are told that a horizontal lunar eclipse (selenelion) at sunrise and moonset was reported (observed?) by Hipparchus. Reviewing a paper by G.J. Toomer in 1980, it is shown that the pairs (...) of the eclipses were, almost certainly, the ones occurring on “31 January 486 b.c. and 27 January 141 b.c.” and “19 November 502 b.c. and 14 November 157 b.c.”; and if Hipparchus observed from St. Stephen’s Hill in Rhodes, the most probable candidate for the selenelion at moonset was the lunar eclipse of 7 February 142 b.c., although he also had the chance to observe any of the four others, occurring on 3 July 150 b.c., 10 April 145 b.c., 26 November 139 b.c., and 15 November 138 b.c., on a sufficiently elevated mountain on the island. (shrink)

_This paper discusses the concept of compassion fatigue in light of the importance that political decisions, especially the application of the concept of public spirit, have had on care and nursing in a Danish hospital context during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is based on recent research literature in the field as well as the author’s own participatory observation study. The paper suggests that nurses already show a sense of public spirit due to their authorization and professional ethics, but at (...) the same time they must balance the ambiguity of nursing care. A linguistic-philosophical study of public spirit shows that the concept can have a discursive, double-binding and interpellative effect on nurses, who may therefore have an experience of inadequacy and compassion fatigue. In this context, compassion fatigue must be understood as the fact that nurses cannot provide the care they want or that is expected of them. Public spirit can be said to have had a renaissance and linguistic and moral supremacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper views the concept of __waywardness 1 as a possible response for how to prevent or completely avoid compassion fatigue, so that nurses instead have an experience of compassion / self-compassion. This could in the end be important for encouraging more nursing students and nurses who have the desire and opportunity to stay in the profession._ _Keywords_: Nursing care, compassion fatigue, public spirit, compassion, COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The practical goal of preventing premature death seems uncontroversial. But the term ‘premature death’ is vague with several, sometimes conflicting definitions. This ambiguity results in several conceptions with which not all will agree. Moreover, the normative rationale behind the goal of preventing premature deaths is masked by the operational definition of existing measures. In this article, we argue that ‘premature death’ should be recognized as a normative concept. We propose that normative theories should be used to justify measures of premature (...) death to provide them with normative validity and public legitimacy. (shrink)

In the ground-breaking 2018 judgment of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India ushered in a new era by decriminalizing homosexuality, marking a pivotal moment in the country's legal history. However, this progressive stride was accompanied by persistent questions concerning homosexual rights that remained unexplored within both cultural and legal frameworks. Despite the legal acknowledgment, members of the homosexual community are often professed merely as 'individuals' and not fully integrated into mainstream society. This perception (...) is aggravated by the absence of a societal 'stamp of marriage,' reinforcing their marginalization. In the realm of Hindu law, the sanctity of marriage is deeply rooted in the scriptures, which explicitly define it as the union of 'two souls.' Remarkably, these very scriptures also assert that a soul is inherently without gender, elucidating that gender is a characteristic exclusive to the human body. It is crucial to recognize that Hindu law, including the relevant Acts, draws extensively from these scriptures, making them a fundamental source of legal principles. The legislation, such as the Hindu Marriage Act, essentially serves to codify and organize the pre-existing Hindu law without seeking to undermine the intrinsic values enshrined within the Holy Scriptures. This article aims to delve into the unaddressed aspects of homosexual rights within the contemporary legal framework, shedding light on the denied rights that persist. While global attitudes are progressing towards recognizing and safeguarding homosexual rights, the Indian government and cultural factors appear hesitant to renounce orthodox and conservative stances. This article seeks to analyse and critique these aspects, exploring the challenges hindering the full acceptance and integration of homosexual individuals into the broader societal fabric despite the transformative legal landscape initiated by the Navtej Singh Johar case. (shrink)

This review essay of Economics Rules situates Dani Rodrik’s contribution with respect to the 2007–2008 global economic crisis. This financial meltdown, which the eurozone did not fully recover from before the Covid-19 pandemic, led to soul- searching among economists as well as a call for heterodox economic approaches. Yet, over the past decade, instead the economics profession has maintained its orthodoxy. Rodrik’s Economics Rules offers a critique of the economics profession that is castigating but mild. It calls for economists to (...) use more and diverse models without becoming wedded to any single model or an overarching vision. Yet Rodrik ratifies many of the benchmark models standard to orthodox economics and provides little ground for a fundamental rethinking of the discipline. This essay analyses the conservatism underlying Rodrik’s approach, which upholds general equilibrium theory and rational expectations underlying the efficient market hypothesis. It argues that the economics discipline’s scope-creep to maintain its applicability to all human decision-making, and its acceptance of all-inclusive utility functions, crowds out moral sentiments and civic virtue. Thus. it argues that rather than urging economists simply to be more cautious in their application of models to address particular social concerns, instead economists must recognise their discipline’s inherent limitations. (shrink)

While Weber’s distinction between ‘ideal’ and ‘material’ interests is one of the most enduring aspects of his theoretical legacy, it has been subjected to little critical commentary. In this article, we revisit the theoretical legacy of interest-based explanation in social theory, with an eye to clarifying Weber’s place in this tradition. We then reconsider extant critical commentary on the ideal/material interest distinction, noting the primarily Parsonian rendering of Weber and the unproductive allegiance to ‘generic need’ readings of Weber’s action theory. (...) We reconstruct the basis of the ideal/material interest distinction in the work of Rudolph von Ihering and provide a sounder basis for its analytic role in Weber’s ‘grand’ project. (shrink)

In this paper we seek to clarify the question of what exactly is meant by an “autonomous” decision or act by focusing on the most fundamental personal condition for deciding or acting autonomously. This basic personal requirement has often been overlooked in recent debates; where it has been seen, it is characterized in ways that are too demanding. What is meant here is an individual form of self-relation that seems to be constitutive for leading a life as a human and (...) is likely to be acquired very early in life. This significant personal self-relation has three essential aspects: a primal sense of “self-confidence”, a basic form of “self-assertiveness”, and a fundamental form of “self-esteem”. We will call this the “triple S condition” for autonomy. Our main thesis is that any decision or action which is not based on this triple S condition cannot be called “autonomous”. (shrink)