In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.4 (2006) 21-38 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Attractions to Violence and the Limits of EducationPaul DuncumThe effects of violent media fare upon young people are of great concern for educators and parents alike. Recently, some visual art educators have attempted to deal with the issue under the rubric of visual culture. 1 Adopting a critical position toward media violence, they have developed programs that (...) attempt to encourage in their students a view of citizenship that rejects an easy use of violence as the solution to resolving real life issues. In consideration of these attempts, this article examines media violence—not to comment upon the efforts of other art educators but to point to the exceptionally difficult, perhaps intractable, forces faced by any form of educational intervention.There can be no doubting that violence—defined as involving intentional physical harm—is highly popular in mass media entertainment and is increasingly gory. Tartar refers to Shakespeare's term "violent delights" 2 as an oxymoron, but delight in violence is exactly what many people appear to find. There appears to be no contradiction in Shakespeare's term—Shakespeare being no stranger to the idea—only a succinctly expressed observation of a particular taste that is both long-standing and nowadays evident in an increasingly visceral, violent mass media.This article addresses three questions: First, what is it about displays of violence that is so appealing? Where is the pleasure in watching bodies being blown apart? Where is the delight in watching barbarous torture, slaughter, and death? What is the lure, the attraction? Or, since one of my arguments will be that there are qualitatively different kinds of violence, is it more appropriate to ask what are the attractions of violence? Second, why are violent spectacles becoming more and more intense? Why are representations of violence becoming increasingly visceral? Third, what are we doing to ourselves by exposing ourselves to so much violent mass media? [End Page 21] What is the societal significance, the real world consequences, of being attracted to violent imagery?There are many kinds of violent spectacles. This article deals exclusively with violence in current mediated popular forms of entertainment, principally television, film, video, and computer games. It is not narrowly concerned with intentionally aestheticized images, for example, through the use of slow motion or when the soundtrack to images of mass slaughter switches from the mayhem on screen to the souring beauties of operatic singing. Such images are included here, but the article deals with an inclusive range of representations of violence typically found in some degree to be pleasurable by large sections of the public. Specifically, four kinds of violence are examined: comic, transgressive, retaliatory, and gratuitous.Of course, not everyone is attracted to violence, and most popular entertainment is not violent. 3 The best-selling video games are violent, 4 but violent films and videos are far outweighed by nonviolent fare, especially comedies. 5 Nevertheless, much media fare is violent. Studies conducted in the mid-to-late 1990s concluded that 60 percent of U.S. television programs contained violence, 40 percent of which was offered as humorous. 6 By the age of eighteen a child has seen around 200,000 violent acts on television, including 40,000 murders. 7 This includes 3 to 5 violent acts per hour on prime time and 20 to 25 per hour during Saturday morning cartoons.Sensory AttractionProfessional critics of film and video often talk about the aesthetic qualities of media violence—for example, of "balletic spectacle" and "orgiastic energy." 8 The New York Times film critic's review of Sam Peckinpah's 1969 film The Wild Bunch, a milestone in cinematic violence, wrote of the climatic massacre as a "blood ballet" and that the director "first highlights the horror of the mindless slaughter and then—and this is what really carries horror—makes it beautiful, almost abstract." 9 Virtually the same words were used recently by eminent U.S. film critic Roger Ebert with regard to Tarrantino's exceptionally... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concept, ContextsPaul DuncumExploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concept, Contexts, edited by Matthew Rampley. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, 257 pp., $32.00 paper.I review this new introductory text in light of its competition as a textbook for undergraduates and as an introduction for graduate students. Other such texts include Barnard, Elkins, Mirzeoff, Walker and Chaplin, and Sturken and Cartwright,1 which appears to be the most widely (...) used. Rampley's anthology stands up well among these competitors, especially for those who wish to transition from art to contemporary popular visual culture rather more gently than other texts that, for many students, might come as too abrupt a disjuncture from mainstream practice in schools of art and design. As Matthew Rampley states in his excellent introduction, if the book has an original contribution to make, it is to situate an acknowledgment of traditional practices and issues into the makeup of visual culture studies. Unlike other texts, mentioned above, which tend to stress screen and print media, Rampley's agenda is to remind readers of the historical origins of many recent developments as well as the contribution of cultural forms other than two-dimensional ones. Thus, chapters are included that trace the history and continuing contribution of traditional media; art, design, craft, and architecture each receive individual chapters. MacDonald, for example, describes the complex meanings of craft and its relationship to fine art and design from classical times to today, as well as summarizes the characteristics and politics of craft today. Furthermore, the influence of technology is charted principally through conventional art, and the chapters on photography, film, and fashion are likewise cast largely in terms of historical accounts of whether these forms should be considered to be art.The historical bias is equally evident in the pictures used to illustrate the text. While, for example, there are contemporary popular images, such [End Page 118] as a cover of the Sun newspaper and a photograph of Punks, there are as many crossover images—postcards of famous art portraits and a Michelangelo on a T shirt—as well as many conventional artworks. Delacroix, Corbert, Rauschenberg, David, Fuseli, and Van Goyen are each featured. Some of the popular images are also historical, such as George Mêlées 1902 classic film Voyage to Moon and advertisements from the1930s.Sometimes the historical material takes up much of the space, with recent developments given only cursory treatment, and sometimes the material is dealt with in ways that seem rather old-fashioned to this reader. For example, Glyn Davis's chapter on photography and film is primarily a potted historical account of the relationships between these two cultural forms and art. Further, Davis does not just describe the arguments for and against their inclusion as art but is clearly engaged with these issues himself, an engagement that many proponents of visual culture would find rather quaint—that is, rather less interesting than the particular contribution that these forms make to contemporary life and for whom the question, "Is it art?" is no longer of any particular interest. This art orientation also colors Davis's view of Hollywood films. Clearly preferring "art" films, he completely ignores the role of popular film in exploring the fears, anxieties, beliefs, and so on of the wider public. By contrast, Richard Williams argues against architecture as a form of art, with its limited concerns with aesthetics, style, and canonical buildings, in favor of architecture as discourse and spatial experience. He is more interested in the reception of architecture than its production—first with architecture as signs, as meanings that are mutable, contingent, and arbitrary; and, secondly, as ordinary urban lived experience, with how architecture is but one element within the experience of urban environments.Typical of the avoidance of technical terms in the book as a whole, Williams beautifully describes the difference between structuralism and poststructuralism without once mentioning either of these terms, and in a chapter on architecture he manages to use the term "postmodern" only once. Similarly, in Neil Mulholland's chapter on representation and realism, cultural border crossing and indigenization are both described, albeit briefly, though without recourse to these terms... (shrink)

Essays drawing upon a range of disciplines to present arguments that help unravel the complex nature of aesthetic understanding and its relevance to contemporary education.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Aesthetics of Cultural StudiesPaul DuncumThe Aesthetics of Cultural Studies, edited by Michael Bérube. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, 208 pp., $26.95 paper, $67.95 cloth.This new anthology of ten chapters and a chapter-length introduction by the editor is primarily intended to act as a corrective to the view that cultural studies is uninterested in aesthetics. Contributors argue that while some cultural studies scholars have given this impression, either abandoning (...) the term "aesthetics" or explicitly rejecting the tradition of philosophical aesthetics, cultural studies has been, from its origins in England in the early 1960s, deeply concerned with aesthetic issues. Cultural studies is properly understood, contributors argue, as being born out of a desire to extend aesthetic considerations to a wider range of artifacts and experiences than had hitherto been allowable within the modernist philosophical tradition of aesthetics derived from Kant. Contributors deal with many debates within the field of cultural studies—unsurprisingly mostly to do with turf wars within universities—but I will focus here specifically on what they have to say about aesthetics, though I cannot do justice to the multiplicity of views developed by different authors.Since contributors are primarily from North America, where cultural studies has mainly taken root in the English departments of universities, the cultural form most commonly discussed is literature. Exceptions include David Sanjek's chapter, which focuses on popular music, and Steven Rubio's chapter, which deals playfully with phenomenological intertextuality between classical music and popular cartoons. Most of the issues addressed by contributors also apply to other traditional arts, though not, I will argue below, to many contemporary forms of popular cultural experience.Contributors are especially concerned to defend themselves against charges that, in Rorty's view, cultural studies equates to "expressions of political resentment clothed in jargon," or in George Levine's characterization of this position, as "seeing the text as a kind of enemy to be arrested," where the text is reduced to context and the truth of art is denied in favor of the truth of politics (as cited in Rita Felski's chapter). For such critics, cultural studies equates with ideology critique and represents the death of aesthetics. Not so, according to each of these authors. John Frow, for example, argues that from its inception it was not aesthetics per se that cultural studies objected to but the then normative discourse of aesthetics that was positioned above politics.Several authors are concerned to establish the credentials of cultural studies as a unique way of approaching culture and not just any running together of culture and politics. Felski complains of a "semantic drift," which sees cultural studies mischaracterized and condemned for sins that rightly belong to other fields.Complicating a search for the uniqueness of cultural studies, however, is Jonathan Sterne's contribution in what seems a significantly revisionist position. He claims that in cultural studies culture has had to carry too heavy a burden. Culture has been a conduit to politics, he argues; studying culture has been a way of studying politics by other means, and he suggests that sometimes culture can simply be enjoyed for its own sake and not subject to analysis. David Shumway, too, at times just wants to enjoy culture. In the everyday course of living this is surely right, though it is hardly at the center of the scholarly cultural studies' enterprise. As other contributors argue, cultural studies has always seen the need for striking a balance between aesthetics and [End Page 113] ideology. Sterne's unease with cultural studies for seeing aesthetics primarily in instrumental terms—a way of getting at politics—nevertheless serves as a corrective to the idea that cultural studies scholars have a hard time understanding pleasure.Most contributors acknowledge the influence of Raymond Williams—as well they might—and several cite, even at length, from the chapter "Aesthetic and Other Situations" from his 1977 book Marxism and Literature.1 Here Williams succinctly laid out the theoretical framework for many of the authors of this anthology. It is worth considering some of the key threads of Bérube's book through the prism of this chapter.Williams begins by making aesthetics problematic... (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr’s computational theory of vision is not intentional, claiming that the formal scientific theory does not include description of visual content. They also argue that the theory is internalist in the sense of not describing things physically external to the perceiver. They argue that these claims hold for computational theories of vision in general. Beyond theories of vision, they argue that representational content does not figure as a topic within formal computational theories (...) in cognitive science. I demonstrate that Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims about Marr’s theory are false. Marr’s computational theory contains a mathematical theory of visual content, based on empirical psychophysical evidence. It also contains mathematical descriptions of distal physical surfaces and objects, and of their optic projection to the perceiver. Much computational research on vision contains these types of intentional and externalist components within the formal, mathematical, theories. Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims demonstrate inadequate study and understanding of Marr’s work and other research in this area. Computational theories of vision, by containing empirically based mathematical theories of visual content, to this extent present naturalizations of semantics. (shrink)

Paul Thom's book presents Kilwardby's science of logic as a body of demonstrative knowledge about inferences and their validity, about the semantics of non-modal and modal propositions, and about the logic of genus and species. This science is thoroughly intensional. It grounds the logic of inference on "that in virtue of which" the inference holds. It bases the truth conditions of propositions on relations between conceptual entities. It explains the logic of genus and species through the notion of essence. (...) Thom interprets this science as a formal logic of intensions with its own proof theory and semantics. This comprehensive reconstruction of Kilwardby's logic shows the medieval master to be one of the most interesting logicians of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

De milieuproblematiek staat pas sinds kort op de agenda als een fenomeen dat de mensheid bedreigt. Toch blijkt het negentiende-eeuwse gedachtegoed van Karl Marx verrassende inzichten te bieden om deze actuele problemen te duiden. Marx laat zien dat het menselijk ingrijpen in de natuur leidt tot zelfvervreemding: de mens ondermijnt zijn bestaan als een wezen dat zelf deel uitmaakt van de natuur. Deze zelfvervreemding cumuleert in de kapitalistische samenleving. Marx lezend zien we dat de milieuproblematiek geen historische vergissing is, maar (...) fundamenteel samenhangt met de mens als redelijk wezen. Onze beheersingsrede heeft geleid tot de vervreemding van de natuur. Toch geeft dezelfde rede die de mens de vrijheid biedt zich boven het ecologische evenwicht te verheffen, hem de mogelijkheid zich te verzoenen met de natuur. Marx verwijst naar dit dubbele gezicht van de rede als hij stelt dat het 'rijk van de vrijheid' in de schoot van het kapitalisme wordt geboren. In dit boek onderzoekt Paul Cobben welke aanzetten de huidige samenleving biedt om vorm te geven aan de verzoening met de natuur. Paul Cobben is emeritus hoogleraar geschiedenis van de moderne filosofie aan Tilburg University. Momenteel is hij gastonderzoeker aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam en redacteur van de serie 'Critical Studies in German Idealism'. Van zijn hand verscheen o.a. 'Value in Capitalist Society. Rethinking Marx's Criticism of Capitalism' (2015)."-- Publisher information. (shrink)

The Renaissance was a period of great intellectual change and innovation as philosophers rediscovered the philosophy of classical antiquity and passed it on to the modern age. Renaissance philosophy is distinct both from the medieval scholasticism, based on revelation and authority, and from philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who transformed it into new philosophical systems. Despite the importance of the Renaissance to the development of philosophy over time, it has remained largely understudied by historians of philosophy and professional (...) philosophers. This anthology aims to correct this by providing scholars and students of philosophy with representative translations of the most important philosophers of the Renaissance. Its purpose is to help readers appreciate philosophy in the Renaissance and its importance in the history of philosophy. The anthology includes translations from philosophers from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and it ranges from works on moral and political philosophy, to metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy, thereby providing historians and students of philosophy with a sense for the nature, breadth, and complexity of philosophy in the Renaissance. Each translation is accompanied by an introduction by a historian of Renaissance philosophy, as well as select secondary sources, in order to encourage further study. (shrink)

The relationship between abstract formal procedures and the activities of actual physical systems has proved to be surprisingly subtle and controversial, and there are a number of competing accounts of when a physical system can be properly said to implement a mathematical formalism and hence perform a computation. I defend an account wherein computational descriptions of physical systems are high-level normative interpretations motivated by our pragmatic concerns. Furthermore, the criteria of utility and success vary according to our diverse purposes and (...) pragmatic goals. Hence there is no independent or uniform fact to the matter, and I advance the ‘anti-realist’ conclusion that computational descriptions of physical systems are not founded upon deep ontological distinctions, but rather upon interest-relative human conventions. Hence physical computation is a ‘conventional’ rather than a ‘natural’ kind. (shrink)

We sometimes strive to achieve difficult goals when our evidence suggests that success is unlikely – not just because it will require strength of will, but because we are targets of prejudice and discrimination or because success will require unusual ability. Optimism about one’s prospects can be useful for persevering in these cases. That said, excessive optimism can be dangerous; when our evidence is unfavourable, we should be at most agnostic about whether we will succeed. This paper explores the nature (...) and rational significance of agnostic practical commitments. Most importantly, the rationality of striving against the odds can depend on investing in a plan for failure: a plan B. I aim to make headway on an account of what backup plans are, how they are related to primary plans, and whether the standard norms of plan rationality apply to our agnostic commitments. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology contains 19 previously unpublished chapters by today's leading figures in the field. These chapters function not only as a survey of key areas, but as original scholarship on a range of vital topics. Written accessibly for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional philosophers, the Handbook explains the main ideas and problems of contemporary epistemology while avoiding overly technical detail.

The hatchet and the seed -- A tree with deep roots -- The critical tools -- A field crystallizes -- Destruction of nature -- Construction of nature -- Degradation and marginalization -- Conservation and control -- Environmental conflict -- Environmental identity and social movement -- Where to now?

Le philosophe, collègue et ami de Michel Foucault, fait le portrait de ce dernier et présente les grands thèmes de sa pensée philosophique et politique.

The first sustained phenomenological approach to modern art, taking a new approach and drawing upon an unsual selection of thinkers.

This edition includes a new introduction by Peter J. Gomes that reflects on the impact of this book in the years since it was written.

Many faces of consciousness -- Ethics, religion, and the identity of self -- States of mind -- Why hearts don't love and brains don't pump -- EEG : a window on the mind -- Dynamic patterns as shadows of thought -- Networks, waves, and resonant binding -- The limits of science : What do we really know? -- Modern physics, cosmology, and consciousness -- The weird behavior of quantum systems -- Ontological interpretations of quantum mechanics -- Does the brain create (...) the mind? (shrink)

The demand for a cause : not-always-thinking -- A face for distraction -- Kafka (diaspora) -- Heidegger (dissipation) -- Benjamin (entertainment) -- Epilogue : distraction and politics.

In this work, Paul Bartha proposes a normative theory of analogical arguments and raises questions and proposes answers regarding the criteria for evaluating analogical arguments, the philosophical justification for analogical reasoning, and the place of scientific analogies in the context of theoretical confirmation.

In the latest edition of their popular overview text, Erickson and Murphy continue to provide a comprehensive, affordable, and accessible introduction to anthropological theory from antiquity to the present.

This discussion of Sergio Tenenbaum’s excellent book, Rational Powers in Action, focuses on two noteworthy aspects of the big picture. First, questions are raised about Tenenbaum’s methodology of giving primacy to cases in which the agent has all the requisite background knowledge, including knowledge of a means that will be sufficient for achieving her end, and no significant false beliefs. Second, the implications of Tenenbaum’s views concerning the rational constraints on revising our ends are examined.

This introduction provides a brief overview of the issues and arguments that arise in Hume's _Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_ (1779). It also provides a few brief comments relating to the historical context in which this text should be interpreted , as well as an account of the place of the _Dialogues_ in relation to Hume's other philosophical works.

Offering a unique and wide-ranging examination of the theory of knowledge, the new edition of this comprehensive collection deftly blends readings from the foremost classical sources with the work of important contemporary philosophical thinkers. Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches, 3/e, offers philosophical examinations of epistemology from ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus); medieval philosophy (Augustine, Aquinas); early modern philosophy (Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Kant); classical pragmatism and Anglo-American empiricism (James, Russell, Ayer, Lewis, Carnap, Quine, (...) Rorty); and other influential Anglo-American philosophers (Chisholm, Kripke, Moore, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Putnam). Organized chronologically and thematically, Human Knowledge, 3/e, features exceptionally broad coverage and nontechnical selections that are easily accessible to students. An ideal text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in epistemology, it is enhanced by the editors' substantial general introduction, section overviews, and up-to-date bibliographies. The third edition offers expanded selections on contemporary epistemology and adds selections by Thomas Reid, Richard Rorty, David B. Annis, Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, Ernest Sosa, Barry Stroud, and Louise M. Antony. Human Knowledge, 3/e, offers an unparalleled introduction to our ancient struggle to understand our own intellectual experience. (shrink)

In The Paradigm of Recognition. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death Paul Cobben elaborates a paradigm of recognition based on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.

This paper considers the question of “atheism” as it arises in Hume’s _Dialogues_. It argues that the concept of “atheism” involves several signficiant ambiguities that are indicative of philosophical and interpretive disagreements of a more substantial nature. It defends the view that Philo’s general sceptical orientation accurately represents Hume’s own “irreligious” and “atheistic” commitments, both in the _Dialogues_ and in his other (“earlier”) writings. While Hume was plainly a “speculative atheist”, his “practical atheism” was targeted more narrowly against “superstition” - (...) as opposed to deism or religion of a more “philosophical” kind. (shrink)

By Parallel Reasoning is the first comprehensive philosophical examination of analogical reasoning in more than forty years designed to formulate and justify standards for the critical evaluation of analogical arguments. It proposes a normative theory with special focus on the use of analogies in mathematics and science. In recent decades, research on analogy has been dominated by computational theories whose objective has been to model analogical reasoning as a psychological process. These theories have devoted little attention to normative questions. In (...) this book Bartha proposes that a good analogical argument must articulate a clear relationship that is capable of generalization. This idea leads to a set of distinct models for the critical analysis of prominent forms of analogical argument. The same core principle makes it possible to relate analogical reasoning to norms and values of scientific practice. Reasoning by analogy is justified because it strikes an optimal balance between conservative values, such as simplicity and coherence, and progressive values, such as fruitfulness and theoretical unification. Analogical arguments are also justified by appeal to symmetry--like cases are to be treated alike. In elaborating the connection between analogy and these broad epistemic principles, By Parallel Reasoning offers a novel contribution to explaining how analogies can play an important role in the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. (shrink)

Paul Abela presents a powerful, experience-sensitive form of realism about the relation between mind and world, based on an innovative interpretation of Kant. Abela breaks with tradition in taking seriously Kant's claim that his Transcendental Idealism yields a form of empirical realism, and giving a realist analysis of major themes of the Critique of Pure Reason. Abela's blending of Kantian scholarship with contemporary epistemology offers a new way of resolving philosophical debates about realism.

According to the subset account of realization, a property, F, is realized by another property, G, whenever F is individuated by a non-empty proper subset of the causal powers by which G is individuated (and F is not a conjunctive property of which G is a conjunct). This account is especially attractive because it seems both to explain the way in which realized properties are nothing over and above their realizers, and to provide for the causal efficacy of realized properties. (...) It therefore seems to provide a way around the causal exclusion problem. There is reason to doubt, however, that the subset account can achieve both tasks. The problem arises when we look closely at the relation between properties and causal powers, specifically, at the idea that properties confer powers on the things that have them. If realizers are to be ontically prior to what they realize, then we must regard the conferral of powers by properties as a substantive relation of determination. This relation of conferral is at the heart of a kind of exclusion problem, analogous to the familiar causal exclusion problem. I argue that the subset account cannot adequately answer this new exclusion problem, and is for that reason ill-suited to be the backbone of a non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Between Deleuze and Derrida is the first book to explore and compare the work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, two leading philosophers of French post-structuralism. This is done via a number of key themes, including the philosophy of difference, language, memory, time, event, and love, as well as relating these themes to their respective approaches to Philosophy, Literature, Politics and Mathematics. Contributors: Eric Alliez, Branka Arsic, Gregg Lambert, Leonard Lawlor, Alphonso Lingis, Tamsin Lorraine, Jeff Nealon, Paul Patton, Arkady (...) Plotnitsky, John Protevi, Daniel W. Smith. (shrink)

1 Adaptationism is a research strategy that seeks to identify adaptations and the specific selective forces that drove their evolution in past environments. Since the mid-1970s, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould and geneticist Richard Lewontin have been critical of adaptationism, especially as applied toward understanding human behavior and cognition. Perhaps the most prominent criticism they made was that adaptationist explanations were analogous to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. Since storytelling is an inherent part of science, the criticism refers to the acceptance (...) of stories without sufficient empirical evidence. In particular, Gould, Lewontin, and their colleagues argue that adaptationists often use inappropriate evidentiary standards for identifying adaptations and their functions, and that they often fail to consider alternative hypotheses to adaptation. Playing prominently in both of these criticisms are the concepts of constraint, spandrel, and exaptation. In this article we discuss the standards of evidence that could be used to identify adaptations and when and how they may be appropriately used. Moreover, building an empirical case that certain features of a trait are best explained by exaptation, spandrel, or constraint requires demonstrating that the trait's features cannot be better accounted for by adaptationist hypotheses. Thus, we argue that the testing of alternatives requires the consideration, testing, and systematic rejection of adaptationist hypotheses. Where possible, we illustrate our points with examples taken from human behavior and cognition. Key Words: adaptation; ADHD; brain allometry; constraint; epistemology; evolutionary psychology; exaptation; female orgasm ; optimization; special design; waist-hip ratio. Footnotes1 The authors contributed equally to this paper. Order of authorship was determined alphabetically. Correspondence may be addressed to any of the authors. (shrink)

De Finetti would claim that we can make sense of a draw in which each positive integer has equal probability of winning. This requires a uniform probability distribution over the natural numbers, violating countable additivity. Countable additivity thus appears not to be a fundamental constraint on subjective probability. It does, however, seem mandated by Dutch Book arguments similar to those that support the other axioms of the probability calculus as compulsory for subjective interpretations. These two lines of reasoning can be (...) reconciled through a slight generalization of the Dutch Book framework. Countable additivity may indeed be abandoned for de Finetti's lottery, but this poses no serious threat to its adoption in most applications of subjective probability. Introduction The de Finetti lottery Two objections to equiprobability 3.1 The ‘No random mechanism’ argument 3.2 The Dutch Book argument Equiprobability and relative betting quotients The re-labelling paradox 5.1 The paradox 5.2 Resolution: from symmetry to relative probability Beyond the de Finetti lottery. (shrink)

In the third and final part of his A Theory of Determinism (TD) Ted Honderich addresses the fundamental question concerning “the consequences of determinism.” The critical question he aims to answer is what follows if determinism is true? This question is, of course, intimately bound up with the problem of free will and, in particular, with the question of whether or not the truth of determinism is compatible or incompatible with the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility. It is (...) Honderich’s aim to provide a solution to “the problem of the consequences of determinism” and a key element of this is his articulation and defence of an alternative response to the implications of determinism that collapses the familiar Compatibilist/Incompatibilist dichotomy. Honderich offers us a third way – the response of “Affirmation” (HFY 125-6). Although his account of Affirmation has application and relevance to issues and features beyond freedom and responsibility, my primary concern in this essay will be to examine Honderich’s theory of “Affirmation” as it concerns the free will problem. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant claims that transcendental idealism yields a form of realism at the empirical level. Polite silence might best describe the reception this assertion has garnered among even sympathetic interpreters. This book challenges that prejudice, offering a controversial presentation and rehabilitation of Kant's empirical realism that places his realist credentials at the centre of the account of representation he offers in the Critique of Pure Reason. This interpretation ranges over the major themes contained in the Analytic of Principles and relevant (...) portions of the Dialectic. Kant's analysis of the conditions necessary for determinate representation is shown to involve a realist understanding of the relation of mind and world. The realist character of Kant's account of empirical truth, and his commitment to the unity of nature, are defended against competing empiricist, pragmatist, and methodological readings. This title links Kant studies to contemporary philosophical debates, and will appeal to scholars and students of Kant, as well as epistemologists, metaphysicians, and philosophers of science interested in a powerful, experience-sensitive, form of realism. (shrink)