How to explain the existence of evil if being by its very nature is good? My paper examines an interesting and perhaps signifi cant parallel between two exponents of the metaphysical tradition usually thought to stand widely apart, Thomas Aquinas and Hegel. I argue that Hegel’s system shares certain features of Aquinas’ convertibility thesis, that upon closer inspection will yield a set of interesting refl ections not only about the problem of evil, but also about the limits and possibilities of (...) metaphysical method. I discuss Aquinas’ thesis of the convertibility of being and good and how it determines his treatment of evil. I then construct a Hegelian version of convertibility and argue that Hegel’s system fails for similar reasons to provide a satisfactory account of the problem of evil. This leads to my central question: should the inadequacy of traditional approaches to evil call for a reversal or abandonment of metaphysics, or invite a deeper refl ection about reality that would not subsume the world’s darkness under what Hans Blumenberg once called “metaphysics of light”? (shrink)

How to explain the existence of evil if being by its very nature is good? My paper examines an interesting and perhaps significant parallel between two exponents of the metaphysical tradition usually thought to stand widely apart, Thomas Aquinas and Hegel. I argue that Hegel's system shares certain features of Aquinas' convertibility thesis, that upon closer inspection will yield a set of interesting reflections not only about the problem of evil, but also about the limits and possibilities of metaphysical method. (...) I discuss Aquinas' thesis of the convertibility of being and good and how it determines his treatment of evil. I then construct a Hegelian version of convertibility and argue that Hegel's system fails for similar reasons to provide a satisfactory account of the problem of evil. This leads to my central question: should the inadequacy of traditional approaches to evil call for a reversal or abandonment of metaphysics, or invite a deeper reflection about reality that would not subsume the world's darkness under what Hans Blumenberg once called "metaphysics of light"? (shrink)

How to explain the existence of evil if being by its very nature is good? My paper examines an interesting and perhaps significant parallel between two exponents of the metaphysical tradition usually thought to stand widely apart, Thomas Aquinas and Hegel. I argue that Hegel's system shares certain features of Aquinas' convertibility thesis, that upon closer inspection will yield a set of interesting reflections not only about the problem of evil, but also about the limits and possibilities of metaphysical method. (...) I discuss Aquinas' thesis of the convertibility of being and good and how it determines his treatment of evil. I then construct a Hegelian version of convertibility and argue that Hegel's system fails for similar reasons to provide a satisfactory account of the problem of evil. This leads to my central question: should the inadequacy of traditional approaches to evil call for a reversal or abandonment of metaphysics, or invite a deeper reflection about reality that would not subsume the world's darkness under what Hans Blumenberg once called "metaphysics of light"? (shrink)

Arendt Contra Sociology re-assesses the relationship between Hannah Arendt's work and the theoretical foundations of sociology, bringing her insights to bear on key themes within contemporary theoretical sociology. Departing from the view of Arendt as a political theorist who sought to rescue politics from society, and political theory from the social sciences, this book re-examines her distinctions between labour, fabrication and action as a theory of the fundamental ontology of human societies, revisiting her criticism of the tendency of many sociological (...) paradigms to conflate the activity of fabrication with that of action. (shrink)

Combating Hatred provides several practical case studies of teachers, administrators, and school board members who have successfully combated intolerance, prejudice, and hatred in their schools. Furin details innovative ways used in the case studies to create communities that sought the highest social justice values of respect and equality for everyone.

This chapter contains sections titled: Some Examples Principal Features of Whistle‐blowing Ethical Context Issues for Individuals Issues for Organizations Issues for Society Conclusion.

Pedagogical situations require white lies: in teaching philosophy we make decisions about what to omit, what to emphasise, and what to distort. This article considers when it is permissible to distort the historical record, arguing for a tempered respect for the historical facts. It focuses on the rationalist/empiricist distinction, which still frames most undergraduate early modern courses despite failing to capture the intellectual history of that period. It draws an analogy with Michael Strevens's view on idealisation in causal explanation to (...) distinguish between myths and caricatures. Myths are distortions of the historical record that undermine students' understanding of the past, despite having other pedagogical benefits. Caricatures are distortions that either increase or are indifferent to understanding of the past. Mythmaking, the article argues, is unjustified. (shrink)

Husserlian phenomenology, as the study of conscious experience, has often been accused of solipsism. Husserl’s method, it is argued, does not have the resources to provide an account of consciousness of other minds. This chapter will address this issue by providing a brief overview of the multiple angles from which Husserl approached the theme of intersubjectivity, with specific focus on the details of his account of the concrete interpersonal encounter – “empathy.” Husserl understood empathy as a direct, quasi-perceptual form of (...) intentionality through which the sense of the Other is constituted. Furthermore, his account of empathy is holistically integrated with his overall theory of intersubjectivity, including his discussions of the objectivity of nature, and the social, historical, and communal aspects of subjectivity. Husserl’s theory of empathy continues to cast a long shadow, influencing both the analytic and continental approaches to the problem of other minds, as well as contemporary account of social cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

This paper argues for a Husserlian account of phenomenal intentionality. Experience is intentional insofar as it presents a mind-independent, objective world. Its doing so is a matter of the way it hangs together, its having a certain structure. But in order for the intentionality in question to be properly understood as phenomenal intentionality, this structure must inhere in experience as a phenomenal feature. Husserl’s concept of horizon designates this intentionality-bestowing experiential structure, while his concept of motivation designates the unique phenomenal (...) character of this structure as it is experientially lived through. The way experience hangs together is itself a phenomenal feature of experience. (shrink)

Stimulated by our conversations at the 2018 International Philosophy of Nursing Society Conference and our shared interests, the coauthors present an argument for augmenting the broader discussion of “missed care” with our synthesized concept called structural missingness. We take the problem of missed care to be largely grounded on a particular economic construction of the healthcare system within an era of what some are calling the Capitalocene, capturing the pervasive influence of capitalism on nature, humanity and the world order. Our (...) perspective is that of the United States, however, extrapolations can be made to the social and healthcare systems in other countries. We are concerned with the underlying conditions that structurally reify inequality and ultimately undermine nursing practice. To situate the discussion, we briefly review existing literature on the contextualization of missed care. We understand contemporary circumstances of missed care as a function of the neoliberalization of healthcare, including the idea of nursing as a commodity. From this, we discuss the implications of missed care, which forms the basis of our critique. Synthesizing the term “structural missingness, we locate a moral imperative in the professional and disciplinary commitments of nursing to consider who and what have been left out. This moral imperative for the nursing profession, along with other social and health related professions, underscores our obligation to be involved in uncovering inequities and conceptualizing upstream solutions for structural missingness. (shrink)

This commentary provides a brief overview of the methods and results presented by Jennifer Kuzma, Pouya Najmaie, and Joel Larson in “Evaluating Oversight Systems for Emerging Technologies: A Case Study of Genetically Engineered Organisms.” It offers suggestions regarding how supplemental information might be used to gain additional insights into the authors' results and how future research could further enhance our understanding of the attributes and outcomes of regulatory oversight for genetically engineered organisms.

Although the relations between second formant (F2) onset and F2 vowel are extremely regular and contain important information about place of articulation of the voiced stops, they are not sufficient for its identification. Using quadratic discriminant analysis of a new data set, it is shown that F3 onset and F3 vowel can also contribute substantial additional information to help identify the consonants.

As a proponent of phoneme-like units in speech perception, I am very sympathetic to Merge's use of phoneme-oriented input. However, in the absence of any known way to provide input in exactly the form assumed, further consideration needs to be given to how the variation in the details of the specification of this input might affect Merge's (and Shortlist's) overall behavior.

Critical posthumanism as a philosophical, antifascist nonhierarchical imagination for nursing offers a liberatory passageway forward amidst environmental collapse, an epic pandemic, global authoritarianism, extreme health and wealth disparities, over‐reliance on technology and empirics, and unjust societal systems based in whiteness. Drawing upon philosophical and theoretical works from Black and Indigenous scholars, Haraway's idea of the Chthulucene, Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic thought, and Kaba's abolitionist organizing among others, we as activist nurse scholars continue the speculative discussion outlined in prior papers. Here (...) we further imagine how we can engage a radical philosophical mission of care for all beings human and non, walking and working alongside the people and communities nurses accompany, connected as we are on this dystopian celestial orb. Discussion is centred on critical analyses of traditional justice framing in nursing, and on the praxis possibilities found within rhizomatic thought, making kin, and just episteme while knitting filaments of nursing theory and history, humming song lyrics from collective memory, and critically dismantling received wisdoms to stumble toward a more emancipatory present future. (shrink)

The practice of viticulture in Israelite culture is the focus of Walsh's investigation. Viticulture, no less than drinking, marked the social sphere of Israelite practitioners, and so its details were often enlisted to describe social relations in the Hebrew Bible.

Current debates over so-called ‘scientific imperialism’, on one plausible reading, explore significant general issues about the proper boundaries between distinct disciplines. They raise questions about whether some forms of territorial expansion by scientific disciplines into other domains of inquiry are undesirable. Clearly there is a strong normative undercurrent here, as the use of the pejorative term ‘imperialism’ would indicate. However, we face a genuine puzzle here: why should we regard some forms of expansion as illegitimate? Why should any particular boundaries (...) between various disciplines be regarded as sacrosanct? In response we note that one striking feature of the examples upon which opponents of scientific imperialism focus (such as the use of economics for sociological explanations) is that that they involve cases where folk conceptions of morality and philosophical anthropology appear to be threatened. We suggest that rather than seeking a more general pluralist account of the proper boundaries between disciplines, we should consider the epistemic and normative implications of particular expansions. (shrink)

Editors' Introduction to the special issue of Research in Ethical Issues in Organisations, the proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics, hosted by the Discipline of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of New England in 2020.

A moral dilemma is a situation in which an agent ought to do each of two actions, Both of which he cannot do. If there are genuine moral dilemmas, The ethical theorist is presented with a problem: he must reject several very plausible principles of standard deontic logic. The main reasons usually given to show that there are moral dilemmas are examined, And it is argued that they are not sufficient. Several positive arguments are then presented, Arguments which try to (...) show that an adequate moral theory must rule out the possibility of genuine dilemmas. (shrink)

Habits of Whiteness offers a new way to talk about race and racism by focusing on racial habits and how to change them. According to Terrance MacMullan, the concept of racial whiteness has undermined attempts to create a truly democratic society in the United States. By getting to the core of the racism that lives on in unrecognized habits, MacMullan argues clearly and charitably for white folk to recognize the distance between their color-blind ideals and their actual behavior. Revitalizing (...) the work of W. E. B. Du Bois and John Dewey, MacMullan shows how it is possible to reconstruct racial habits and close the gap between people. This forthright and persuasive analysis of the impulses of whiteness ultimately reorganizes them into something more compatible with our country's increasingly multicultural heritage. (shrink)

I argue that recent advances in developmental biology demonstrate the inadequacy of suborganismal mechanism. The category of the organism, construed as a ’natural purpose’ should play an ineliminable role in explaining ontogenetic development and adaptive evolution. According to Kant the natural purposiveness of organisms cannot be demonstrated to be an objective principle in nature, nor can purposiveness figure in genuine explain. I attempt to argue, by appeal to recent work on self-organization, that the purposiveness of organisms is a natural phenomenon (...) and, by appeal to the apparatus of invariance explanation, that biological purposiveness provides genuine, ineliminable biological explanations. (edited). (shrink)

The philosophy of language pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, far from being inimical to the metaphysical concerns of philosophy, can be understood as complementing and perhaps even deepening the approach to metaphysics first employed by the Belgian Jesuit philosopher Joseph Marèchal: a ‘metaphysics of knowledge’ illuminating the deeper‐than‐conceptualist movement in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The relationship of words and reality was radically reconfigured in the linguistic turn inaugurated in the work of Wittgenstein, but that work itself still presupposes what might (...) be called the existential act of judgement, which was the foundation of Marèchal's Thomistic retrieval. (shrink)

This article offers an overview on current trends and future research possibilities within the philosophy of whiteness. It examines the sub-field of the philosophy of whiteness within the context of the larger field of the philosophy of race in order to assess the viability and relevance of this field of study. Some of the topics on whiteness examined in the article include the problems of white ignorance and privilege, the invisibility of white supremacist racism to white people, and how all (...) these problems can be understood either as examples of epistemologies of ignorance or as unexamined habits in the sense used by pragmatist philosophy. The article argues that the current state of this field calls for a greater emphasis on public intellectualism on whiteness that would incorporate many ideas that are widely accepted by critical race scholars into the under-informed public discourse on race and whiteness. It also argues that the increasing prevalence of negative liberty movements in the United States should be examined in light of established research on the philosophy of whiteness. (shrink)

This is a collection of sixteen essays by a diverse group of international scholars that offers a wide-ranging and contemporary perspective on the major aspects of Christian Wolff’s ethics. The volume focuses on Wolff’s German Ethics, arguably his most important and influential text on moral philosophy, but many of the chapters also consider the development of the basic tenets of Wolff’s moral theory in his later Latin writings. The contributions cover a range of topics, including the systematic structure of the (...) text itself and the relation between Wolff’s ethics and the preceding natural law tradition. Many chapters pay special attention to the core concepts of Wolff’s moral philosophy, such as obligation, perfection, the highest good, and happiness. Other notable topics include Wolff’s conception of moral judgment and moral education, as well as the role of psychology and anthropology in his ethical thought. The volume also contains discussion of the influence of Wolff’s ethics on subsequent figures such as C.A. Crusius, G.F. Meier, and Kant. As a whole, the volume seeks to establish the importance of Wolff’s German Ethics within the history of ethics as well as inspire others to engage with his thought. (shrink)

The most compelling extant accounts of explanation casts all explanations as causal. Yet there are sciences, theoretical population biology in particular, that explain their phenomena by appeal to statistical, non-causal properties of ensembles. I develop a generalised account of explanation. An explanation serves two functions: metaphysical and cognitive. The metaphysical function is discharged by identifying a counterfactually robust invariance relation between explanans event and explanandum. The cognitive function is discharged by providing an appropriate description of this relation. I offer examples (...) of explanations from portfolio theory and population genetics that meet this characterisation. In each case the invariance relation holds between a statistical property of an ensemble and a change in structure of the ensemble. In neither case, however, does the statistical property cause the outcome it explains. There are genuine statistical, non-causal scientific explanations. (shrink)