This original new work takes a sharply focused look at Berkeley's ontology and provides a fuller understanding of the relationship between, on the one hand, Berkeley's nominalism and antiabstractionism and, on the other, his principal arguments for idealism and his attempts to square his idealism with common sense. Drawing heavily on detailed textual analysis, historical context, and careful examination of the work of other scholars, Muehlmann challenges, modifies, rejects, and exploits some well-established interpretations of Berkeley's philosophy.

This paper consists of a thorough examination of the russell-Wittgenstein controversy over identity. The early wittgenstein's comments on this issue are cryptic and obscure; yet one thing is obvious. His views on identity are partly, If not wholly a negative response to russell's. In unearthing the source of the controversy, I distinguish several senses of 'identity'. I then examine several texts of russell's showing that he fails to make these necessary distinctions. I conclude by demonstrating that wittgenstein's comments are designed (...) in part to rectify this mistake and in part to offer an illuminating analysis of his own. (shrink)

This collection of fourteen interpretative essays on the philosophy of George Berkeley focuses specifically on Berkeley’s theory of the nature and variety of existing things. The collection is notable for containing the first four winners of the Turbayne International Berkeley Essay Prize. The seven essays in the first part, entitled “Idealism,” attempt to illuminate Berkeley’s notorious thesis that to be is to be perceived, that the _esse_ of sensible things is _percipi._ Most of the essays in this first part are (...) either direct or indirect responses to an influential interpretation of Berkeley’s idealism advanced thirty years ago by Edwin B. Allaire. The second part, “Volition, Action, and Causation,” contains four essays focusing on Berkeley’s volitionism, on his thesis that only the activities of minds are causally efficacious. “Vision and the Perceptual Objects,” the third part of the volume, deals with Berkeley’s theory of vision and his doctrine that all of the objects of perception depend on God’s will for their existence. (shrink)

Berkeley's idealism consists of the following claims. Objects such as chairs, apples, mountains, and our bodies are combinations of sensible qualities. Sensible qualities and combinations of such are ideas or sensations. In the philosophical sense of ‘substance’ there is no such entity as a substance. There are minds which perceive and will: When a mind perceives it has sensations or ideas; and when a mind wills it produces or causes sensations or ideas. These claims are grounded in the ontological and (...) epistemological framework of assumptions, distinctions and arguments informing Berkeley's doctrine that esse est percipi aut percipere. The purpose of this paper is to explore and expose the main features of that framework.What is the ontological force and import on Berkeley's claim that esse est percipi? One influential recent suggestion1 is this: Berkeley holds that material substances do not exist, the analysis of sensible things yields nothing but sensible qualities, minds are mental substances and no sensible quality or collection of sensible qualities can exist without inhering in some substance. (shrink)

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize With a new preface by the author In his most powerful and important book, renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton presents a brilliant analysis of the crucial role that German doctors played in the Nazi genocide. Now updated with a new preface, The Nazi Doctors remains the definitive work on the Nazi medical atrocities, a chilling exposé of the banality of evil at its epitome, and a sobering reminder of the darkest side (...) of human nature. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of "the species problem", arguing for a view of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds, positioning the resulting form of realism about species as an alternative to the claim that species are individuals and pluralistic views of species. It draws on taxonomic practice in the neurosciences, especially of neural crest cells and retinal ganglion cells, to motivate both the rejection of the species-as-individuals thesis and species pluralism.

Drawing on a passage from Ramsey's Truth and Probability, we formulate a simple, plausible constraint on evaluating the accuracy of credences: the Calibration Test. We show that any additive, continuous accuracy measure that passes the Calibration Test will be strictly proper. Strictly proper accuracy measures are known to support the touchstone results of accuracy-first epistemology, for example vindications of probabilism and conditionalization. We show that our use of Calibration is an improvement on previous such appeals by showing how it answers (...) or sidesteps problems that have been raised for previous work in this area. (shrink)

The thirty chapters work through various fundamental metaphysical issues, sometimes focusing more on scholastic thought, sometimes on the seventeenth century.

Are interpersonal comparisons of desire possible? Can we give an account of how facts about desires are grounded, that underpins such comparisons? This paper supposes the answer to the first question is yes, and provides an account of the nature of desire that explains how this is so. The account is a modification of the interpretationist metaphysics of representation that the author has recently been developing. The modification is to allow phenomenological affective valence into the “base facts” on which correct (...) interpretation is grounded. To use this extra resource within that theory to vindicate interpersonal comparisons, we will need to appeal rational connections between level of valence and level of desire, which this paper sets out and examines. (shrink)

BOOK REVIEWS $0 5 David Berman. George Ber~ley: Idealism anti the Man. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 230. Cloth, $42.00. Professor Berman's focus on Berkeley is more on "the Man" than on the metaphysics and this engaging study will therefore be of greater value to those with a historical, rather than a philosophical, interest in the good bishop. The book is aptly subtitled, particularly if we understand 'idealism' in its first, or Platonic sense , rather than just (...) in the peculiarly Berkeleyan metaphysical sense. The first three of its eight chapters deal with Berkeley's metaphysics, but the bulk of the book is concerned with extraphilosophical events in Berkeley's life, in particular with the two most significant ones: the abortive Bermuda Project and the messianic, indeed almost mystical, devotion to tar-water as a medical panacea. One of the great virtues of Berman's book is that it ties together the three periods of Berkeley's career--"each marked by an.. (shrink)

My purpose herein is to demonstrate that Berkeley's only use of the argument from perceptual relativity (APR), in both of his major works, is ad hominem, that he uses it to undermine what he calls materialism. Specifically, I show that Berkeley does not use APR to conclude that sensible qualities are mind-dependent; rather he uses APR only to conclude that they are not in material substances; and that his real argument for the former is a quite different one: the heat-pain (...) identification argument. (shrink)

The paper offers an analysis of Protagoras’ fr. DK 80 B 1 and rejects the traditional reading of Protagoras as relativist. By considering the ipsissima verba that Protagoras makes use of in his passage, it is argued that alternative interpretations are possible, of which epistemological reism and psychological individualism are proposed. On a more general level, it is discussed to what extent Protagoras’ fragment contains descriptive rather than normative claim.

In the good old days, when general philosophy of science ruled the Earth, a simple division was often invoked to talk about philosophical issues specific to particular kinds of science: that between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Over the last 20 years, philosophical studies shaped around this dichotomy have given way to those organized by more fine-grained categories, corresponding to specific disciplines, as the literatures on the philosophy of physics, biology, economics and psychology--to take the most prominent four (...) examples--have blossomed. In general terms, work in each of these areas has become increasingly enmeshed with that in the corresponding science itself, increasingly naturalistic (in at least one sense of that term), and in my view, increasingly interesting. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

In this paper I explore Michael Loux’s important distinction between “tropes” and “tropers”. First, I argue that the distinction throws into relief an ambiguity and discrepancy in the literature, revealing two fundamentally different versions of trope theory. Second, I argue that the distinction brings into focus unique challenges facing each of the resulting trope theories, thus calling into question an alleged advantage of trope theory—that by uniquely occupying the middle ground between its rivals, trope theory is able to recover and (...) preserve the insights of these views. Ultimately, the distinction suggests that trope theory is a divided house. (shrink)

The general concept of a trope – that of a non-shareable character-grounder – admits of a distinction between modifier tropes and module tropes. Roughly, a module trope is self-exemplifying whereas a modifier trope is not. This distinction has wide-ranging implications. Modifier tropes are uniquely eligible to be powers and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes are uniquely eligible to play a direct role in perception and causation. Moreover, each type of trope theory faces unique challenges concerning character- grounding. Modifier trope theory (...) faces challenges concerning the inscrutability of predication and the incompatibility with bundle theory, whereas module trope theory faces challenges concerning character overdetermination and a collapse into austere nominalism. These differences indicate that the modifier/module distinction divides the advantages of general trope theory and thus presents the trope theorist with a pivotal choice. (shrink)

My aim is to propose affectivity as a criterion for personal identity. My proposal is to be taken in its weak version: affectivity as _only one_ of the criteria for personal identity. I start by arguing for affectivity being a better candidate as a criterion for personal identity than thinking. Next, I focus on synchronic vs. diachronic and on ontic vs. epistemic distinctions (my proposal will concern diachronic ontic personal identity) and consider the realm of affectivity in its temporal dimension. (...) In my argument, I rely on the genuineness of affectivity and I exploit chiefly long- or everlasting feelings (or emotions) and those which involve the feeling subject more rather than less. I conclude by stating that genuine long-lasting feelings (or emotions) are constitutive of diachronic ontic personal identity. (shrink)

Se resume en esta obra el vasto y complejo sistema teórico-jurídico de Hans Kelsen, el jurista más grande de nuestro siglo. La doctrina de Kelsen y en particular su Teoría Pura del Derecho han conocido muchas vicisitudes y ataques debidos más a prejuicios políticos y racistas que a una verdadera confrontación con sus tesis. El autor enfatiza en el hecho de que la doctrina jurídica de Kelsen no es una teoría terminada y archivada sino en permanente desarrollo, una teoría a (...) cuya ulterior construcción están convocados todos los juristas. (shrink)

A common compatibilist view says that we are free and morally responsible in virtue of the ability to respond aptly to reasons. Many hold a version of this view despite disagreement about whether free will requires the ability to do otherwise. The canonical version of this view is reductive. It reduces the pertinent ability to a set of modal properties that are more obviously compatible with determinism, like dispositions. I argue that this and any reductive view of abilities faces a (...) significant challenge: it cannot adequately explain the freedom-grounding element of this ability. The problem has the form of a dilemma. This leaves reasons-responsive compatibilists with two options: abandon theories of free will grounded in abilities or abandon reductive theories of abilities. (shrink)

El profesor Robert Walter, el más eminente representante de la Teoría Pura del Derecho en nuestro tiempo, estudia en "Hans Kelsen, la Teoría Pura del Derecho y el problema de la justicia" y "Normas y enunciados sobre normas", los dos textos que componen esta obra, los puntos centrales del pensamiento filosófico y jurídico de Hans Kelsen.

Initiated by Robert Wesson, _Evolution and Human Values_ is a collection of newly written essays designed to bring interdisciplinary insight to that area of thought where human evolution intersects with human values. The disciplines brought to bear on the subject are diverse - philosophy, psychiatry, behavioral science, biology, anthropology, psychology, biochemistry, and sociology. Yet, as organized by co-editor Patricia A. Williams, the volume falls coherently into three related sections. Entitled Evolutionary Ethics, the first section brings contemporary research to an (...) area first explored by Herbert Spencer. Evolutionary ethics looks to the theory of evolution by natural selection to find values for human living. The second section, Evolved Ethics, discusses the evolution of language and religion and their impact on moral thought and feeling. Evolved ethics was partly Charles Darwin's subject in _The Descent of Man._ The last section bears the title Scientific Ethics. A nascent field, scientific ethics asks about the evolution of human nature and the implications of that nature for ethical theory and social policy. Together, the essays collected here provide important contemporary insights into what it is - and what it may be - to be human. (shrink)

"Among the foremost Catholic philosophers of his generation. He has utilized the fullness of the Catholic intellectual tradition to brilliantly take the measure of modern philosophical thought... This volume is an expression of Robert Wood's singular philosophical outlook." -Jude Dougherty, dean emeritus, school of philosophy, The Catholic University of America.

Doing Greek Philosophy conveys a vivid sense of dynamism and continuity of the Greek philosophical tradition and illustrates how interaction between Greek philosophers creates and sustains that tradition. It concentrates on a set of inter-related challenges and problems that emerged early in the tradition and moves on to the subsequent reactions to them.

Der Wandel der kulturellen Verhältnisse führt zu einer Zuspitzung des Verhältnisses von Gesellschaft und Rechtssystem. In diesem Prozess gestaltet New Political Ecology (NPE) Umwelt und Rechtssystem und ist zugleich evolutiv ausgerichtet. NPE erfährt Evolution in der Zeit als Überfluss und in eigenartiger Vernetzung als knappes Gut. Diese Verbindung basiert auf Zusammenhängen, die bisher noch nicht systematisch bearbeitet worden sind. Dabei geht es ganz wesentlich auch um das Verhältnis von Staat und moderner Risikogesellschaft. Wissenschaftlicher Fortschritt erweist sich vor diesem Hintergrund selbst (...) als ein evolutiver Prozess. (shrink)