The article investigates Eustratius of Constantinople's version of the life and martyrdom of the late sixth-century martyr, Golinduch, in the context of the manipulation of saints' cults and relics by the imperial government under Emperor Maurice. Composed on the eve of Phocas's putsch, Eustratius's Life of Golinduch displays how a rhetoric of saintly intercession on behalf of the 'God-guarded' Christian empire was deployed in order to strengthen the sacredness of imperial authority. Crucially, however, Eustratius's text also reveals how far this (...) vision of the empire's sainted benefactors was contested at Constantinople. The paper argues that this reflects a current of opposition to the ideology of Christian autocracy that had been emerging since the time of Justinian. (shrink)

ExcerptSecularity is not merely to deny the existence of God or obstruct the practice of religion; it is also, and even more precisely, to confine God to the practice of religion.

IntroductionThis paper’s argument can be stated simply: first, the primary unacknowledged cause of modern warfare (that is, since the Great War of 1914–18) is neither “nationalism” nor “imperialism” (to name two popular bogeymen) but modern rationality itself, specifically the epistemological revolution embodied in the philosophy of the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804); second, the current Ukraine War is a case in point, one that interacts with contemporary transformations in Western culture (especially the abolishment of a sense of the objective reality (...) and meaning of male and female sexual differentiation) in ways that reveal the current Russia–Ukraine War as reprising—if it does not merely continue—the ideational conflict at the heart of the Great War, a conflict that emerges for the reasons set forth as the Ur-Krieg, or “source war,” of the historical era we inhabit. In making this argument, this paper will take its inspiration from the writings of the little-known Russian philosopher Vladimir Ern (1882–1917), and for this reason, we begin in a public lecture hall in Moscow in 1914. (shrink)

Trata-se de um relato de experiência sobre o projeto “Prevenção: é um prazer falar sobre isso”, com o objetivo de fomentar ações de prevenção às Infecções Sexualmente Transmissíveis (ISTs) com o público universitário. Pautadas na abordagem da educação entre pares, foram realizadas 6 oficinas com universitárias dos cursos de saúde, culminando na produção de uma intervenção denominada Barraca do Tinder. A intervenção foi realizada numa universidade pública paranaense e visava expandir o alcance do projeto, produzindo discussão sobre sexualidade, vulnerabilidade e (...) prevenção através de abordagem participativa e lúdica junto ao público universitário. Discutimos os resultados do projeto, destacando o imaginário acerca da Aids, a vulnerabilidade relacionada a populações específicas, a efetividade da metodologia da educação entre pares e do uso de cenas sexuais como dispositivos de prevenção. (shrink)

This research seeks to understand the relationship between philosophy and the formation of concepts in childhood from the perspective of Matthew Lipman. As our own research in the area of philosophy of education, we pose the following question as a problem to be analyzed: how can philosophy contribute to the concept formation process in childhood according to Lipman? The development of this problem was organized in five stages. A first seeks to understand and deepen Lipman's conception of Philosophy for (...) Children, especially the idea of thinking skills and philosophical dialogue in the research community; the second stage consisted of planning philosophical practice with the children at school, in a class with 32 students from the 3rd year of elementary school in a public school in the city of Londrina / PR, in the period of one semester; the third was to carry out the classroom experience with the students and the teacher from the previous stages; the fourth step was the evaluation of the practice and the planning of the following classes after each meeting; and the fifth stage was concerned with the registration, analysis and systematization of the observed. In order to investigate the contribution of philosophy to the concept formation process in childhood, according to Lipman, part of the research methodology was qualitative, analyzing the concepts of philosophy, thinking and the research community of this philosopher. For this, his main works and those of his commentators were consulted. Action research procedures were also employed through the practice of students from Elementary School I, in order to carry out an experience of the analyzed concepts. As a result of the research, it is possible to highlight the fundamental role of Lipman’s Philosophy for Children in the formation of concepts, because, through philosophical practices, the children were more reflective in approaching concepts that in their daily lives could go unnoticed. The work of questioning and dialogue in the research community made it possible to highlight the difficulty of conceptualizing at the beginning of the work, the progress along their approach and the need to seek more in-depth answers. With that, it can be highlighted that the Philosophy classes contributed to such advances and that without them the skills would remain stagnant. This study is added to the philosophical educational movement of teaching philosophy from childhood, which is considered essential for the formation of more reasonable subjects, and most importantly, with the acquisition of skills that will facilitate life in and out of school. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo la presentación y discusión de las representaciones de los niños sobre el papel del Gestor de la Palabra (GP). Se trata de un recurso concebido y desarrollado en el ámbito de las sesiones de Filosofía para Niños, de acuerdo con la metodología de la comunidad de investigación filosófica (community of philosophical inquiry) de Matthew Lipman (2003) y de Ann Margaret Sharp (1987). Designamos como “Gestor de la Palabra” al miembro de la comunidad de (...) investigación responsable por escoger, durante o diálogo, quien habla y cuando habla. Surge como una estrategia para envolver activamente a los niños en los procedimientos de la sesión y su importancia se extiende hasta las dimensiones pedagógica y filosófica de la comunidad de investigación. Se adoptó como metodología el estudio de un caso exploratorio, recorriéndose a un cuestionario para realizar o levantamiento de las formas de pensar de los niños. Del análisis de contenido del cuestionario, emergieron tres subcategorías en la definición de lo que el GP debe y no debe hacer: cognitiva, ética y social. De estas, es la dimensión ética aquella que revela mayor incidencia de respuestas, con implicaciones para dimensiones fundamentales de la Filosofía para Niños como sean la promoción del caring thinking y la noción de autoridad en la comunidad de investigación. Así, el artículo se divide en cinco secciones: la Filosofía para Niños como área científica y como programa curricular, con incidencia en el concepto de “comunidad de investigación filosófica”; el GP en el ámbito de la comunidad de investigación; el enfoque metodológico del estudio; la presentación de los resultados y su respectiva discusión. (shrink)

L’agiografia fa parte dei generi letterari nei quali si esprimono con più libertà concezioni teologiche e morali non convenzionali, che ci svelano un Medioevo meno uniforme di come lo si immagina. L’articolo presenta alcuni esempi tratti da testi originari di diverse aree, dal Mediterraneo greco all’Irlanda, dall’epoca tardoantica al basso Medioevo. Di santi come il bretone Macuto, Epifanio di Salamina, i martiri edesseni e svariati abati irlandesi si narrano azioni mosse da permalosità, vendicatività, gelosia, competizione. Ancora nelle storie di santi (...) irlandesi, tra cui Brigida, compare il miracolo dell’eliminazione di un feto indesiderato dal grembo della madre. Il bolognese Procolo è celebrato per aver assassinato a sangue freddo il suo persecutore. La greca Irene è assunta fisicamente in cielo. Nella Navigatio Brendani, infine, la figura di Giuda è oggetto di una pietà del tutto eccezionale. Tutte queste anomalie generano alcune reazioni di censura e mitigazione nella ricezione e trasmissione dei testi, ma fondamentalmente sono accettate e conservate, testimoniando l’apertura e varietà dottrinale ancora possibile in epoca medievale. Hagiography is one of the literary genres in which unconventional theological and moral conceptions are most freely expressed, revealing a less uniform Middle Ages than we imagine. The article presents some examples from texts originating in different areas, from the Greek Mediterranean to Ireland, from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages. Saints such as the Breton Macutus, Epiphanius of Salamis, the Edessenian martyrs and several Irish abbots are described as acting out of touchiness, vindictiveness, jealousy and competition. In the stories of other Irish saints, including Bridget, we read the miracle of the elimination of an unwanted foetus from his mother’s womb. The Bolognese Proculus is celebrated for having cold-bloodedly murdered his persecutor. The Greek Irene is physically assumed into heaven. Finally, in the Navigatio Brendani, the figure of Judas is granted a quite exceptional piety. All these anomalies arouse some reactions of censorship and mitigation in the reception and transmission of these texts, but fundamentally they are accepted and preserved, testifying to the doctrinal openness and variety still possible in medieval times. (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

Suppose we consider knowledge to be valuable because of the role known propositions play in practical reasoning. This, I argue, does not provide a reason to think that knowledge is valuable in itself. Rather, it provides a reason to think that true belief is valuable from one standpoint, and that justified belief is valuable from another standpoint, and similarly for other epistemic concepts. The value of the concept of knowledge is that it provides an economical way of talking about many (...) epistemic concepts that are valuable in itself from one standpoint or another. In this way knowledge is like a Swiss Army Knife; a Swiss Army Knife is not useful as such on any occasion, but it provides an efficient way of carrying around different tools that are useful in themselves on different occasions. (shrink)

Writing in his pamphlet, De viris illustribus, St. Jerome informs us that Fortunatianus, bishop of Aquileia, wrote a Commentary on the Gospels. However, until a few years ago, we knew only a few fragments of this work. Now, thanks to the scholar Lukas Dorfbauer and to the manuscript Köln – D, we have the complete work. This paper presents this work, pending a critical edition, in which the Author dwells on the text of the Gospel of Matthew, capturing Fortunatianus’s (...) interpretation and his references to the Church. To this are added some thoughts about the Church found in the commentaries of other Church Fathers of the fourth century. (shrink)

In Plato’s Symposium, the mysterious Apollodorus recounts to an unnamed comrade, and to us, Aristodemus’ story of just what happened at Agathon’s drinking party. Since Apollodorus did not attend the party, however, it is unclear what relevance he could have to our understanding of Socrates’ speech, or to the Alcibiadean “satyr and silenic drama” (222d) that follows. The strangeness of Apollodorus is accentuated by his recession into the background after only two Stephanus pages. What difference—if any—does Apollodorus make to the (...) Symposium? Does his inclusion call the dramatic and philosophical unity of the work into question? I argue that despite initial appearances, Plato has important philosophical reasons for including Apollodorus as a character. Far from being an odd appendage to an otherwise complete narrative, the figure of Apollodorus is useful for our understanding of Socrates’s conception of eros later in the work. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7–8, Aristotle defends a striking view about the good for human beings. According to Aristotle, the single happiest way of life is organized around philosophical contemplation. According to the narrowness worry, however, Aristotle's contemplative ideal is unduly Procrustean, restrictive, inflexible, and oblivious of human diversity. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle has resources for responding to the narrowness worry, and that his contemplative ideal can take due account of human diversity.

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

On the one hand, Hume accepts the view -- which he attributes primarily to Stoicism -- that there exists a determinate best and happiest life for human beings, a way of life led by a figure whom Hume calls "the true philosopher." On the other hand, Hume accepts that view -- which he attributes to Scepticism -- that there exists a vast plurality of good and happy lives, each potentially equally choiceworthy. In this paper, I reconcile Hume's apparently conflicting commitments: (...) I argue that Hume's "Sceptical" pluralism about the character of the happiest life need not conflict with his "Stoic" advocacy of the supreme happiness of the true philosopher, given Hume's flexible understanding of how one might live as a true philosopher. (shrink)

En el planteamiento husser­liano de la constitución del alter ego con­vergen un componente de fenomenología estática o de aparición del otro mediante actos objetivantes peculiares y otro com­ponente pasivo o de génesis asociativa, en la medida en que el alter ego es otro como yo. Se plantea el problema del entrecruza­miento de ambos planos, ya que, por un lado, el otro que aparece está encubierto por su aparición y, por otro lado, la génesis se mantiene en los límites que impone (...) la alteridad recíproca de los sujetos. El análi­sis se centra en la V Meditación Cartesiana y en la Fenomenología de la intersubjetivi­dad, mostrando cierta simetría en los enfo­ques. Finalmente se hace ver la insuficien­cia del análisis husserliano por lo que hace a la diferencia entre el yo masculino y el yo femenino. (shrink)

O presente trabalho visa apresentar a interpretação deleuzeana do conceito de multiplicidade em Bergson, considerando que ao separar-se do dualismo que distingue o Uno e o Múltiplo, Bergson concebe a multiplicidade como diferença de qualidade e diferença de quantidade, e a partir disso, pensará a divisão que se opera entre duração e espaço.

Traditionally, Aristotle is held to believe that philosophical contemplation is valuable for its own sake, but ultimately useless. In this volume, Matthew D. Walker offers a fresh, systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good. The book situates Aristotle's views against the background of his wider philosophy, and examines the complete range of available textual evidence. On this basis, Walker argues that contemplation also benefits humans as perishable living organisms by actively guiding human life activity, (...) including human self-maintenance. Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good thus cohere with his broader thinking about how living organisms live well. A novel exploration of Aristotle's views on theory and practice, this volume will interest scholars and students of both ancient Greek ethics and natural philosophy. It will also appeal to those working in other disciplines including classics, ethics, and political theory. (shrink)

This chapter offers a complete account of Aristotle’s underexplored treatment of the virtue of wittiness (eutrapelia) in Nicomachean Ethics IV.8. It addresses the following questions: (1) What, according to Aristotle, is this virtue and what is its structure? (2) How do Aristotle’s moral psychological views inform Aristotle’s account, and how might Aristotle’s discussions of other, more familiar virtues, enable us to understand wittiness better? In particular, what passions does the virtue of wittiness concern, and how might the virtue (and its (...) attendant vices) be related to the virtue of temperance (and its attendant vices)? (3) How does wittiness, as an ethical virtue, benefit its possessor? (4) How can Aristotle resolve some key tensions that his introducing a virtue of wittiness apparently generates for his ethics? In addition to exploring these questions, this chapter challenges some commonly accepted accounts of Aristotle’s views on the nature of the laughable. (shrink)

Research in the neurosciences continues to provide evidence that sleep plays a role in the processes of learning and memory. There is less of a consensus, however, regarding the precise stages of memory development during which sleep is considered a requirement, simply favorable, or not important. This article begins with an overview of recent studies regarding sleep and learning, predominantly in the procedural memory domain, and is measured against our current understanding of the mechanisms that govern memory formation. Based on (...) these considerations, I offer a new neurocognitive framework of procedural learning, consisting first of acquisition, followed by two specific stages of consolidation, one involving a process of stabilization, the other involving enhancement, whereby delayed learning occurs. Psychophysiological evidence indicates that initial acquisition does not rely fundamentally on sleep. This also appears to be true for the stabilization phase of consolidation, with durable representations, resistant to interference, clearly developing in a successful manner during time awake (or just time, per se). In contrast, the consolidation stage, resulting in additional/enhanced learning in the absence of further rehearsal, does appear to rely on the process of sleep, with evidence for specific sleep-stage dependencies across the procedural domain. Evaluations at a molecular, cellular, and systems level currently offer several sleep specific candidates that could play a role in sleep-dependent learning. These include the upregulation of select plasticity-associated genes, increased protein synthesis, changes in neurotransmitter concentration, and specific electrical events in neuronal networks that modulate synaptic potentiation. Key Words: consolidation; enhancement; learning; memory; plasticity; sleep; stabilization. (shrink)

By scholarly consensus, extant fragments from, and testimony about, Aristotle’s lost dialogue Eudemus provide strong evidence for thinking that Aristotle at some point defended the human soul’s unqualified immortality (either in whole or in part). I reject this consensus and develop an alternative, deflationary, speculative, but textually supported proposal to explain why Aristotle might have written a dialogue featuring arguments for the soul’s unqualified immortality. Instead of defending unqualified immortality as a doctrine, I argue, the Eudemus was most likely offering (...) a dramatically engaging propaedeutic to the sort of philosophical inquiry about the soul and its prospects that Aristotle pursues more scientifically in the De anima and Parva naturalia. (shrink)

This paper builds upon, but substantially revises, John Harsanyi's concept of ‘extended preferences’. An individual ‘history’ is a possible life that some person (a subject) might lead. Harsanyi supposes that a given spectator, formulating her ethical preferences, can rank histories by empathetic projection: putting herself ‘in the shoes’ of various subjects. Harsanyi then suggests that interpersonal comparisons be derived from the utility function representing spectators’ (supposedly common) ranking of history lotteries. Unfortunately, Harsanyi's proposal has various flaws, including some that have (...) hitherto escaped scholarly attention. In particular, it ignores the limits of personal identity. If the subject has welfare-relevant attributes that the spectator cannot acquire without changing who she is, full empathetic identification of the latter with the former becomes impossible. This paper proposes instead to usesympathyas the attitude on a spectator's part that allows us to make sense of her extended preferences. Sympathy – an attitude of care and concern – is a psychological state quite different from empathy. We should also allow for hetereogeneity in spectators’ extended preferences. Interpersonal comparisons emerge from a plurality of sympathetic spectators, not (as per Harsanyi) from a common empathetic ranking. (shrink)

In this article, we focus on a particular kind of emotional impact of the pandemic, namely the phenomenology of the experience of moral injury in healthcare professionals. Drawing on Weber's reflections in his lecture Politics as a Vocation and data from the Experiences of Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic Survey, we analyse responses from healthcare professionals which show the experiences of burnout, sense of frustration and impotence, and how these affect clinicians’ emotional state. We argue that this may relate (...) to the ethical conflicts they experience when they are forced to make clinical decisions where there are no optimal outcomes, and how in turn that impacts on their own emotional state. We then further examine the notion of ‘burnout’ and the phenomenology of ‘moral injury’. Our argument is that these experiences of moral injury across a range of clinicians during the pandemic may be more prevalent and long-standing in psychiatry and mental health than in other areas of healthcare, where ethically difficult decisions and resource constraints are common outside times of crisis. Hence, in these clinical arenas, moral injury and the phenomenology of emotional changes may be independent of the pandemic. The insights gained during the pandemic may provide wider insights into the challenges of developing services and training the workforce to provide appropriate mental health care. (shrink)

Los cinco estudios que componen este volumen estan dedicados a mostrar que es posible abordar el estudio de un film y por extension del cine en su conjunto a partir de fragmentos minimos extraidos de una obra concreta. Concebidos con una metodologia unitaria intentan, limitando al maximo el uso de esa jerga especializada que suele hacer de muralla entre el analista y el lector, proporcionar instrumentos operativos para todos aquellos que conciben el cine como territorio donde saber y placer no (...) solo no estan renidos sino que se refuerzan mutuamente. Los ejemplos han sido tomados, conscientemente, de obras al mismo tiempo muy conocidas y suficientemente representativas de determinadas maneras de hacer. Se ha huido de toda normatividad con la finalidad de hacer buena la frase de S.M. Eisenstein cuando recordaba a sus discipulos que el no podia ensenarles nada, pero ellos si que podian aprender mucho. Equidistante del moderno analisis formalista y de la tradicion clasica que reivindicaba la primacia del contenido, el tipo de trabajo patente en estas paginas reivindica el lugar central del texto filmico y sus texturas singulares en los nuevos estudios cinematograficos. (shrink)

According to Nicomachean Ethics I.7 1098a16–18, eudaimonia consists in activity of soul “according to the best and most final” virtue. Ongoing debate between inclusivist and exclusivist readers of this passage has focused on the referent of “the best and most final” virtue. I argue that even if one accepts the exclusivist's answer to this reference question, one still needs an account of what it means for activity of soul to accord with the best and most final virtue. I examine the (...) nature of this accordance relation and defend a novel inclusivist reading of the whole passage. (shrink)

Aristotle’s views on the choiceworthiness of friends might seem both internally inconsistent and objectionably instrumentalizing. On the one hand, Aristotle maintains that perfect friends or virtue friends are choiceworthy and lovable for their own sake, and not merely for the sake of further ends. On the other hand, in Nicomachean Ethics IX.9, Aristotle appears somehow to account for the choiceworthiness of such friends by reference to their utility as sources of a virtuous agent’s robust self-awareness. I examine Aristotle’s views on (...) the utility and choiceworthiness of friends, and offer a novel reading of Nicomachean Ethics IX.9. On this reading, Aristotle accepts a version of instrumental conditionalism about final value, that is, the thesis that goods (including friends) can be choiceworthy for their own sake (i.e., possess final or end value) at least partly on account of their instrumental properties. In articulating what sort of instrumental conditionalism it is reasonable to attribute to Aristotle, I argue that Aristotle appeals to the utility of perfect friends as part of a broadly material causal account of why such friends are choiceworthy for their own sake. On this reading, perfect friends are not choiceworthy for the sake of their utility in eliciting self-awareness; rather, their choiceworthiness for their own sake is (at least partly) realized in, or constituted by, their conduciveness to the virtuous agent’s self-awareness. This reading, I argue, frees Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency: Aristotle can appeal to the conduciveness of perfect friends to the virtuous agent’s self-awareness as a way of explaining why such friends are choiceworthy for their own sake. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of professionalization in the life sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century through a survey of British entomological periodicals. It is generally accepted that this period saw the rise of professional practitioners and the emergence of biology. However, recent scholarship has increasingly shown that this narrative elides the more complex processes at work in shaping scientific communities from the 1850s to the turn of the century. This article adds to such scholarship by examining (...) the ways in which the editors of four entomological periodicals from across this time frame attempted to shape the communities of their readership, and in particular focuses upon the apparent divide between ‘mere collectors’ and ‘entomologists’ as expressed within these journals. Crucially, the article argues that non-professional practitioners were active in defining their own distinct identities and thereby claiming scientific authority. Alongside the periodicals, the article makes use of the correspondence archive of the entomologist and periodical editor Henry Tibbats Stainton, which has hitherto not been subject to sustained analysis by historians. (shrink)

We study an alternative embedding of IPC into atomic system F whose translation of proofs is based, not on instantiation overflow, but instead on the admissibility of the elimination rules for disjunction and absurdity. As compared to the embedding based on instantiation overflow, the alternative embedding works equally well at the levels of provability and preservation of proof identity, but it produces shorter derivations and shorter simulations of reduction sequences. Lambda-terms are employed in the technical development so that the algorithmic (...) content is made explicit, both for the alternative and the original embeddings. The investigation of preservation of proof-reduction steps by the alternative embedding enables the analysis of generation of “administrative” redexes. These are the key, on the one hand, to understand the difference between the two embeddings; on the other hand, to understand whether the final word on the embedding of IPC into atomic system F has been said. (shrink)

This book addresses a range of relevant theoretical issues, including the possibility of an interpersonally comparable measure of well-being, or “utility” metric; the moral value of equality, and how that bears on the form of the social welfare function; social choice under uncertainty; and the possibility of integrating considerations of individual choice and responsibility into the social-welfare-function framework. This book also deals with issues of implementation, and explores how survey data and other sources of evidence might be used to calibrate (...) both a utility metric and a social welfare function, and whether distributive goals are ever best pursued through regulation rather than the tax system. In working through this range of theoretical and practical issues, the book draws from a wide variety of literatures, including philosophical scholarship on equality, responsibility, the nature of well-being, and personal identity over time; the social choice literature within economics; applied economic literatures concerning the measurement of inequality and poverty; legal and policy-analysis scholarship on cost-benefit analysis, environmental justice, and the choice between regulation and taxation; and the burgeoning field of “happiness studies”. (shrink)

I distinguish two ways of explaining our capacity for ‘transparent’ knowledge of our own present beliefs, perceptions, and intentions: an inferential and a reflective approach. Alex Byrne (2011) has defended an inferential approach, but I argue that this approach faces a basic difficulty, and that a reflective approach avoids the difficulty. I conclude with a brief sketch and defence of a reflective approach to our transparent self-knowledge, and I show how this approach is connected with the thesis that we must (...) distinguish between a kind of self-knowledge that is of oneself as agent and another kind that is of oneself as patient. (shrink)

Manipulation cases have figured prominently in philosophical debates about whether moral responsibility is in some sense deeply historical. Meanwhile, some philosophers have thought that folk thinking about manipulated agents may shed some light on the various argumentative burdens facing participants in that debate. This paper argues that folk thinking is, to some extent, historical. Across three experiments, a substantial number of participants did not attribute moral responsibility to agents with manipulation in their histories. The results of these experiments challenge previous (...) research indicating that folk thinking is not historicist. Furthermore, perceptions of reduced free will, but not of a change in personal identity of the agent, account for the attenuation of moral responsibility when the agent was manipulated. To the extent that folk thinking is relevant to philosophical debates about the nature of moral responsibility, the results helpfully illuminate the dialectical burdens facing competing conceptions of responsible agency. (shrink)

This chapter examines key Confucian worries about the Aristotelian sophos as a model of human flourishing. How strong are these worries? Do Aristotelians have good replies to them? Could the Aristotelian sophos, and this figure's distinguishing feature, sophia, be more appealing to the Confucian than they initially appear?

In the mathematics education research literature, there is a growing body of scholarship on how mathematicians practice their craft. The purpose of this chapter is to survey some of this literature and explain how it can contribute to the philosophy of mathematical practice. We first describe how mathematics educators use empirical methodologies to investigate the behaviors of mathematicians and argue that findings from these studies can inform the philosophy of mathematical practice. We then illustrate this by summarizing research on mathematicians’ (...) understandings and mathematicians’ proof reading. (shrink)

What is it to know someone? Epistemologists rarely take up this question, though recent developments make such inquiry possible and desirable. This paper advances an account of how such interpersonal knowledge goes beyond mere propositional and qualitative knowledge about someone, giving a central place to second-personal treatment. It examines what such knowledge requires, and what makes it distinctive within epistemology as well as socially. It assesses its theoretic value for several issues in moral psychology, epistemic injustice, and philosophy of mind. (...) And it offers an account of the complex content in play if interpersonal knowledge is to be understood in terms of its mental states and their functions. (shrink)

In fragments of the lost Protrepticus, preserved in Iamblichus, Aristotle responds to Isocrates’ worries about the excessive demandingness of theoretical philosophy. Contrary to Isocrates, Aristotle holds that such philosophy is generally feasible for human beings. In defense of this claim, Aristotle offers the progress argument, which appeals to early Greek philosophers’ rapid success in attaining exact understanding. In this paper, I explore and evaluate this argument. After making clarificatory exegetical points, I examine the argument’s premises in light of pressing worries (...) that the argument reasonably faces in its immediate intellectual context, the dispute between Isocrates and Aristotle. I also relate the argument to modern concerns about philosophical progress. I contend that the argument withstands these worries, and thereby constitutes a reasonable Aristotelian response to the Isocratean challenge. (shrink)

Surprisingly little has been written about hedged assertion. Linguists often focus on semantic or syntactic theorizing about, for example, grammatical evidentials or epistemic modals, but pay far less attention to what hedging does at the level of action. By contrast, philosophers have focused extensively on normative issues regarding what epistemic position is required for proper assertion, yet they have almost exclusively considered unqualified declaratives. This essay considers the linguistic and normative issues side-by-side. We aim to bring some order and clarity (...) to thinking about hedging, so as to illuminate aspects of interest to both linguists and philosophers. In particular, we consider three broad questions. 1) The structural question: when one hedges, what is the speaker’s commitment weakened from? 2) The functional question: what is the best way to understand how a hedge weakens? And 3) the taxonomic question: are hedged assertions genuine assertions, another speech act, or what? (shrink)

Although many organizations around the world have engaged in corporate social responsibility programing, there is little evidence of social impact. This is a problematic omission since many programs carry the stigma of marketing ploys used to bolster organizational image or reduce consumer skepticism. To address this issue and build on existing scholarship, the purpose of this study was to evaluate a socially responsible youth employability program in the United Kingdom. The program was developed through the foundation of a professional British (...) soccer team to bolster employability and life skills for marginalized London youth. Program funding was provided by a large multinational bank as part of their CSR agenda. This evaluation was undertaken to understand the beneficiary impacts associated with program deployment. Results from the pre-intervention/post-intervention, sequential mixed-method evaluation show statistically significant differences among several “soft” beneficiary outcomes. However, results are mixed regarding whether the “hard” outcome of employment was achieved by program participants. Qualitative findings buttress these results, indicating a high level of motivation for work, attitude enhancement, and satisfaction with program delivery. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Prioritarianism is a moral view that ranks outcomes according to the sum of a strictly increasing and strictly concave transformation of individual well-being. Prioritarianism is ‘welfarist’ (namel...

In this chapter from a collection on the Stoici tradition, I explore Boethius’s works chronologically in order to elucidate his overall evaluation of Stoicism as a philosophy. It turns out that Boethius offers a "mixed review"' of Stoicism. Beginning with references to the Stoics in his logical works and then turning to the 'Consolation', I delineate the intelligible contours of Stoicism as Boethius sees it, including the positive impetus Stoicism provides toward a philosophical apprehension of reality as well as its (...) innate inadequacy for attaining the full measure of wisdom available to us through philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

In this article, I first show in what way Augustine's 'De doctrina Christiana' actually concerns liberal education, or at least includes it within its scope. Second, I articulate the new 'modus' of education, its new “mode” or “measure,” presented in 'De doctrina'. Third, I exemplify the modification of education by briefly considering Augustine’s treatment of rhetoric in Book IV of 'De doctrina'. Fourth and finally, I conclude with general remarks that attempt to situate the sort of education of which Augustine (...) speaks in 'De doctrina' among some current alternatives with which we are familiar. (shrink)

Anselm’s 'Proslogion' is, as he says in its Preface, 'unum argumentum', a single line of reasoning, that builds toward the following: “that God is truly,” “that he is the highest good who needs no other,” and that he is the one “whom all things need so that they may be and may be well.” This paper attempts to shed light on how Anselm carries out the threefold task that he sets for himself and way in which his procedure brings unity (...) to the work. Although I do not provide a full account of the unity of the 'Proslogion', I lay the groundwork for such an account by reflecting on the 'Proslogion' in light of the 'Symposium', with a view to bringing a pattern of thinking present in Plato’s work to bear on the 'Proslogion'—an intertextual approach that illuminates aspects of Anselm’s thinking and reveal the rich Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition within which he was working. In the 'Symposium', one discerns a pattern of thinking that consists of three “moments”: a comic moment, a tragic moment, and a philosophic moment. To follow this pattern in one’s inquiry is, as Socrates suggests, to practice 'ta erôtica', “erotics,” the art of erotic thinking. Familiarity with this pattern of erotic thinking helps make sense of Anselm’s thinking in the 'Proslogion', and in this paper I reveal how this is so. (shrink)