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

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

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DHARMA AND DESTRUCTION: BUDDHIST INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE Christopher Ives Stonehill College Photographs ofgentle monks in saffron, the cottageindustry ofbooks on mindfulness, and the Dalai Lama's response to the Chinese invasion of Tibet have all helped portray Buddhism as the "religion of nonviolence." This representation ofBuddhism finds support in Buddhist texts, doctrines, and ritual practices, which often advocate ahimsa, nonharming or non-violence. The historical record, however, belies the (...) portrayal of Buddhism as a "religion of nonviolence." By reinterpreting early doctrines of ahimsa, Buddhist thinkers have legitimated violence in particular situations, practitioners have committed acts of violence, and Buddhist institutions have lent support to other institutions—social, political, and governmental —engaged in violence. In this paper I will examine Buddhist perpetration andjustifications ofviolence,1 with particularfocus on Japan, arguing that, historically, Buddhists' desire for institutional security has taken precedence over total rejection of violence. 1 I have restricted my discussion to the killing of other human beings. I do not consider suicide andthe killing ofnon-human animals. For a discussion ofBuddhism, (self-)sacrifice, and suicide in relation to Girard's theory, see Charles D. Orzech, '"Provoked Suicide' and the Victim's Behavior." 152Christopher Ives Non-violence The doctrine of ahimsa figures prominently in early and Theravadan Buddhism. The first ofthe five moral precepts (panca silani) in Buddhism is ahimsa, and in the Dhammapada the historical Buddha purportedly states, All are afraid of the rod. Of death all are afraid. Having made oneself the example, One should neither slay nor cause to slay. (Ross 202) The Buddhaalso sketches the consequences ofhurting orharming (himsa): Who with a rod does hurt Beings who desire ease [of nibbana], While himself looking for ease— He, having departed, ease does not get. Theravadan monastic codes and practices, such as the uposatha biweekly confession of moral transgressions and recitation of the 227 rules in the Patimokkha (Skt. Pratimoksa), are closely tiedto ahimsa. One ofthe Patimokkha's four "offenses of defeat" (parajika dharmas), for which the punishment is immediate expulsion of the monk or nun from the order, is killing another human being (Prebish 11). Mahayana texts continue this exhortation against violence. For example, in the Dasabhimika-sutra we read that a Buddhist "must not hate any being and cannot kill a living creature even in thought."2 Early Buddhist texts include depictions ofthe ideal Buddhist king, the cakravartin-raja or "monarch who turns the wheel [of the Dharma],"3 as an exemplar of nonviolence. Contemporary Buddhist activist Sulak Sivaraksa expresses it, this king is a "an ideal ruler, a world-conquering monarch, who subdued the earth through righteousness rather than war" (Sulak 129), and whose ten main duties include striving for peace and ruling with nonviolent benevolence (129). For well over 2000 years 2 Cited in Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine, p. 199; quoted by Kraft, 5. In much ofthe first section of this paper I am indebted to Ken Kraft's introduction to his volume. 3 The metaphor ofturning the wheel refers to the historical Buddha's teaching ofthe Dharma and the later propagation of it by others. Dharma and Deconstruction153 Buddhists have lifted up Indian king Ashoka (c. 272-236) as an instantiation of this ideal. The early Buddhist doctrine of ahimsa should not, however, be construed as compassionate altruism. Luis Gómez and other scholars have delineated how ahimsa at first did not express some sort of underlying altruistic concern for the well-being of others. Vegetarianism and other ways of avoiding himsa, harming or violence, derived from ancient Indian ritual taboos againstblood and otherbodily liquids (Gómez 36). Buddhists ethicized and psychologized earlier notions of physical pollution, and advocated abstention fromviolenceprimarily as ameans ofself-cultivation, as a way to keep the mind pure, like an unstained cloth (36). (Scholars have even argued that the positive expression oíahimsa, the practice ofdirecting metta (loving-kindness) to others, originally had as much or more to do with the spiritual benefits accrued by the person directing the metta as it did with the well-being of the person receiving it. Only later was ahimsa furtherreinterpreted as positive regard forothers, as seen in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. Violence in Buddhist History At numerous times over... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social TheoryChristopher IvesThe Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. 228 pp.In recent decades, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, and other "Engaged Buddhists" have been responding to a range of social, political, and economic issues. To date, however, they have not coupled their wide-ranging and (...) sustained praxis with an equal measure of systematic, rigorous theory. Granted, facing such urgent problems as war, poverty, and environmental degradation, few if any of us would urge them to put their activism on hold until they clarify their theoretical foundations. Yet given how these Buddhists have diverged on such issues as abortion, homosexuality, intoxicants, possible legitimate uses of violence, and sexual contact between Buddhist teachers and students, further theoretical labor would sharpen their praxis and develop Buddhist social ethics.In this respect, David Loy's The Great Awakening deserves a close read. Though not pursuing the degree of systematic theorizing implied by the subtitle, A Buddhist Social Theory, Loy takes a significant step in that direction. After expounding on Buddhist dukkha (suffering) and linking it to "social dukkha" (ch. 1), Loy offers discerning treatment of poverty (ch. 2), globalization (ch. 3), corporations (ch. 4), the "war on terror" (ch. 5), crime and punishment (ch. 6), violence (ch. 7), technology (ch. 8), and worldviews that exacerbate or help resolve our environmental crisis (ch.9). [End Page 170]Drawing on two of his previous books, Nonduality and Lack and Transcendence, Loy deploys the constructs of nonduality and lack to grapple with these issues. Working over the "three marks of existence" (suffering, impermanence, and no-self), Loy sketches adroitly how the vague recognition that we lack any substantial self or soul leads us to engage in fearful "reality projects," attempts to "ground" ourselves "by modifying the world" (p. 164) or by objectifying ourselves as something real in the world (p. 22). This response to "lack" is exacerbated by dualistic ways of knowing: "The sense of duality between ourselves and the world feeds our insecurity and therefore our preoccupation with power, which we seek in order to secure ourselves. The unfortunate fact that we never feel secure enough is experienced as a lack of sufficient power" (p. 29). Overall, Loy's presentation of the cause of suffering (dukkha) in terms of lack, fear, reality projects, and dualism augments well the traditional Buddhist focus on clinging and ignorance of impermanence.Loy develops his analysis by expounding on the three types of suffering outlined in the Pali canon and their connection to social dukkha. He amplifies the construct of the "three poisons" (greed, ill will, and delusion) by highlighting their "institutionalization" and the ways in which capitalism promotes and spreads these mental states (pp. 80–86). And, proceeding along this trajectory, he expands the scope of the traditional antidotes to the three poisons: "Collectively as well as individually, institutionally as well as personally, greed must be transformed into generosity, ill will into loving-kindness, ignorance into wisdom" (p. 29). Loy also deploys Buddhist critiques of dualistic conceptualization to point out that the problem of poverty concerns not only the lack of material things needed for physical well-being but several other dimensions: "the craving for wealth as haunted by fear of poverty, global poverty as necessary to monetarize and commodify the 'undeveloped' world, and poverty as a necessary benchmark for the wealthy to appreciate their own achievements" (p. 196).Other parts of the book deserving close attention are Loy's social interpretation of the five precepts (p. 38), his sketch of the common ground between Christianity and Buddhism (pp. 117–119), and his presentation of karma, about which he writes, "we construct ourselves by what we choose to do. My sense of self is a precipitate of my habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Just as my body is composed of the food I eat, so my character is built by my conscious decisions" (p. 7). And contrary to those who construe contemporary Engaged Buddhism as the first form of Buddhism to engage itself significantly with sociopolitical problems, Loy astutely... (shrink)

Despite the importance of Ichikawa's writings, this volume is the first by any scholar to outline his critique.

In Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness, Taigen Dan Leighton has written a rich introduction to the teachings of Dongshan Liangjie, one of the Chinese founders of the Caodong branch of Chan/Zen Buddhism. Drawing on his expertise as both a scholar and a Zen teacher, Leighton analyzes Dongshan's Recorded Sayings, especially its encounter dialogues, the teaching poem "Jewel Mirror Samādhi," and the doctrine of the five degrees, while also taking up anecdotes about Dongshan that appear in (...) koan collections. Given the historical fog surrounding classical Chan figures and their texts, Leighton's focus is "not the literal historical personage of Dongshan, but... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social TheoryChristopher IvesThe Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. 228 pp.In recent decades, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, and other "Engaged Buddhists" have been responding to a range of social, political, and economic issues. To date, however, they have not coupled their wide-ranging and (...) sustained praxis with an equal measure of systematic, rigorous theory. Granted, facing such urgent problems as war, poverty, and environmental degradation, few if any of us would urge them to put their activism on hold until they clarify their theoretical foundations. Yet given how these Buddhists have diverged on such issues as abortion, homosexuality, intoxicants, possible legitimate uses of violence, and sexual contact between Buddhist teachers and students, further theoretical labor would sharpen their praxis and develop Buddhist social ethics.In this respect, David Loy's The Great Awakening deserves a close read. Though not pursuing the degree of systematic theorizing implied by the subtitle, A Buddhist Social Theory, Loy takes a significant step in that direction. After expounding on Buddhist dukkha (suffering) and linking it to "social dukkha" (ch. 1), Loy offers discerning treatment of poverty (ch. 2), globalization (ch. 3), corporations (ch. 4), the "war on terror" (ch. 5), crime and punishment (ch. 6), violence (ch. 7), technology (ch. 8), and worldviews that exacerbate or help resolve our environmental crisis (ch.9). [End Page 170]Drawing on two of his previous books, Nonduality and Lack and Transcendence, Loy deploys the constructs of nonduality and lack to grapple with these issues. Working over the "three marks of existence" (suffering, impermanence, and no-self), Loy sketches adroitly how the vague recognition that we lack any substantial self or soul leads us to engage in fearful "reality projects," attempts to "ground" ourselves "by modifying the world" (p. 164) or by objectifying ourselves as something real in the world (p. 22). This response to "lack" is exacerbated by dualistic ways of knowing: "The sense of duality between ourselves and the world feeds our insecurity and therefore our preoccupation with power, which we seek in order to secure ourselves. The unfortunate fact that we never feel secure enough is experienced as a lack of sufficient power" (p. 29). Overall, Loy's presentation of the cause of suffering (dukkha) in terms of lack, fear, reality projects, and dualism augments well the traditional Buddhist focus on clinging and ignorance of impermanence.Loy develops his analysis by expounding on the three types of suffering outlined in the Pali canon and their connection to social dukkha. He amplifies the construct of the "three poisons" (greed, ill will, and delusion) by highlighting their "institutionalization" and the ways in which capitalism promotes and spreads these mental states (pp. 80–86). And, proceeding along this trajectory, he expands the scope of the traditional antidotes to the three poisons: "Collectively as well as individually, institutionally as well as personally, greed must be transformed into generosity, ill will into loving-kindness, ignorance into wisdom" (p. 29). Loy also deploys Buddhist critiques of dualistic conceptualization to point out that the problem of poverty concerns not only the lack of material things needed for physical well-being but several other dimensions: "the craving for wealth as haunted by fear of poverty, global poverty as necessary to monetarize and commodify the 'undeveloped' world, and poverty as a necessary benchmark for the wealthy to appreciate their own achievements" (p. 196).Other parts of the book deserving close attention are Loy's social interpretation of the five precepts (p. 38), his sketch of the common ground between Christianity and Buddhism (pp. 117–119), and his presentation of karma, about which he writes, "we construct ourselves by what we choose to do. My sense of self is a precipitate of my habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Just as my body is composed of the food I eat, so my character is built by my conscious decisions" (p. 7). And contrary to those who construe contemporary Engaged Buddhism as the first form of Buddhism to engage itself significantly with sociopolitical problems, Loy astutely... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Thought and Legacy of Masao AbeChristopher IvesMasao Abe stands as the most important Buddhist in modern interfaith dialogue and the main transmitter of Zen thought to the West following the death of D. T. Suzuki. His most widely read work, Zen and Western Thought, edited by William LaFleur, won an award in 1987 from the American Academy of Religion as the best recent publication in the “constructive and (...) reflective” category. Abe followed that influential volume with further collections of essays edited by Steven Heine: Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue, Zen and Comparative Studies, and Zen and the Modern World. Abe also wrote widely in Japanese, with his most mature thought finding expression in several volumes he published later in life: Kongen no shuppatsu (Starting from the Root), Kyogi to kyomu (Falsehood and Nihility), and Hibutsu hima (Neither Buddha nor Devil).Abe also made significant contributions to the study of the renowned Sōtō Zen thinker Dōgen (1200–1253). With Norman Waddell he translated a number of fascicles of Dōgen’s Shōbō-genzō, which appeared in The Eastern Buddhist and were then compiled as The Heart of Dōgen’s Shōbō-genzō. Abe published his own essays on Dōgen, again with Heine’s editorial help, in the volume Dōgen: His Philosophy and Religion. In such journals as International Philosophical Quarterly, Abe also published essays on Nishida Kitarō and other Kyoto school thinkers, and with me he translated Nishida’s seminal work, Zen no Kenkyū (An Inquiry into the Good).In the 1980s, Abe and his main Christian dialogue partner, process theologian John Cobb, started the North American Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter. They were also instrumental in the founding of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Records of Abe’s dialogue with Christian and Jewish thinkers can be found in such volumes as The Emptying God, which John Cobb and I coedited, and in a follow-up volume I edited alone, Divine Emptiness and Historical Fullness.In terms of his legacy, Abe may ultimately be seen less as a purely Zen thinker than as a Japanese philosopher of religion indebted to his teacher, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, the Zen and Pure Land traditions, and the Kyoto school of philosophy, while also influenced by Christian mysticism and theology, process philosophy, German idealism, and strands of existentialism and nihilism.Many people engaged in interfaith dialogue and comparative religious philosophy have benefited from Abe’s way of contrasting Non-Being and Buddhist Nothingness [End Page 103] (mu), as well as his rich treatment of Nietzsche’s nihilism, negation in Tillich’s theology, and Whitehead’s metaphysics. And I think I’m not alone in having wrestled with his claims about the reversibility of time.But central to Abe’s thought, and in all likelihood his legacy, is the Buddhist construct of śūnyatā, usually translated by him as Emptiness. Abe crafted a specific representation of śūnyatā that he repeated in a range of writings and conferences—so much so that Nagatomi Masatoshi, when he was teaching at Harvard, referred to Abe as “Mr. Sunyata.” Though at times his readers may have wanted Abe to revise or elaborate certain parts of his presentation of śūnyatā, I think we may actually have benefited from how he stuck with his discourse, for he provided us with a fairly fixed and consistent point of reference around which to organize our own thoughts, comparisons, and critiques.In terms of specifics, Abe advanced śūnyatā as the metaphysical and spiritual foundation of all religions, including monotheistic traditions, and as the optimal basis on which humanity could, while dealing with antireligious ideologies and interreligious conflict, help ground a new global community beyond nation-states. In “Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata,” probably his most widely read essay, he makes these and related arguments after examining the Christian notion of kenosis—divine self-emptying—as a fruitful point of comparison with śūnyatā. Along the way he echoes the Buddhist call for people to “empty” themselves and thereby break through karma, turn ignorance into wisdom, and deliver themselves beyond the realm of ordinary discriminating thought—including dualistic ethical reflection—and into the depth dimension of śūnyatā.In this engagement with... (shrink)

Plato's Atlantis Story is a revised edition of Gill's previous volume, Plato: The Atlantis Story, originally published by Bristol Press in 1980. This revised edition includes a new interpretive introduction, comprehensive bibliography, an original translation, Greek text with commentary, a glossary of Greek terms, an index of ancient passages, and a handful of helpful figures that portray the geography of Atlantis as well as the geography of the world as conceived by the Greeks. All the bases have certainly been covered, (...) and this wealth of resources should appeal to readers at any level of study. The nearly fifty-page interpretive introduction, however, will be of significant interest to scholars, and it will be... (shrink)

Ives, Rosslyn Review(s) of: Arguably, by Christopher Hitchens Atlantic Books London, 2011.

Existential phenomenology, explains Anna Westin, is the study of what we engage with normally … [g]iving particular critical intention to the ordinary encounters we experience as humans … [it] situ...

Qui pourrait pretendre encore aujourd'hui qu'il n'existe pas de philosophie hors de l'Occident La philosophie chinoise prend son envol aux alentours des VIe-IVe siecles avant Jesus- Christ, au moment ou l'humanite se trouve engagee dans la periode anale au cours de laquelle les anciennes conceptions du monde seront profondement bouleversees. Alors que la tradition philosophique occidentale a elabore sa metaphysique sur les bases d'une onto-theologie renvoyant autant a la revelation biblique qu'a l'ontologie positive parmenidienne, la Chine a analyse le reel (...) en termes d'interactions, de relations reciproques et de transformations continues ou les concepts sont definis sous un angle cosmologique. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BUDDHISM AND MIMETIC THEORY: A RESPONSE TO CHRISTOPHER IVES Leo D. Lefebure Fordham University ChristopherIves offers avery clearandthoughtful exploration ofthe relation between Dharma and Destruction. His discussion helps us to understand the historical relation between institutions and violence in various Buddhist traditions. His overview of the historical record is quite compelling, offering us an important counterpoint and corrective to the widespread images of Buddhist peacemakers in the (...) popular media. From the beginning, the Buddhist tradition has had a mixed record in its understanding and practice of the first moral precept, nonviolence. The encounter between Buddhist perspectives and mimetic theory poses interesting challenges for both partners to the discussion. Mimetic theory offers Buddhists an analysis ofthe construction ofdesire and the self that in many ways complements traditional Buddhist perspectives. It also offers a naming ofthe mechanisms of violence in the formation of societies that may be helpful for Buddhists' social analyses. Buddhism for its part offers mimetic theory a centuries-old tradition of reflection on the role of desire in the construction of an illusory self as well as a body of practical wisdom on non-violence that, even if it has not always been put into practice, challenges and instructs the human community today. The popular images of Buddhist peacemakers are, after all, deeply rooted in the early Buddhist tradition and powerfully represented by contemporary figures such as the Dalai Lama, Mahaghosananda (the Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism and Thich Nhat Hanh (a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist leader who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize). 176Leo D. Lefebure I approach this discussion not as a professional scholar of Buddhism but as a Christian theologian who has been involved in Buddhist-Christian dialogue and who is interested in both Buddhism and mimetic theory, as well as in the relations between these two trajectories today. One model for further discussion would be to take the historical data that Ives has set forth and then apply mimetic theory, asking to what degree mimetic theory can illumine the dynamics and developments of Buddhist history. Using Bernard Lonergan's image of the scissors, which Charles Heflingmentionedin his discussion inthis conference, this approach would cast Buddhism in the role of providing the lower blade of the scissors, the data to be understood, and mimetic theory would provide the upper blade of the scissors, the analytic concepts to understand the data and to make judgments and decisions. In this method, Buddhism would be relatively passive and mimetic theory would be more active. I am sure that there is ample material in Buddhist history that lends itselfto mimetic analysis (one can think ofthe traditional treatment ofthe so-called "outcasts" in Japanese society). One could, as James Alison noted in his opening address, go on endlessly, even obsessively applyingmimetic concepts to different areas of human experience. I am not sure this qualifies as true dialogue, however. It risks continuing the older Orientalist assumption that only Western concepts are capable of understanding Asia's experience and that Asians themselves have relatively little to contribute.1 For a true dialogue, the voices ofboth traditions must play a rather more active role. Both traditions can furnish material for both the upper and the lower blades of the scissors. In Lonergan's terminology, we aremovingbeyondinterpretation, which seeks understanding, and beyond history, which for Lonergan asks what is going forward in history, to the distinct functional specialization of dialectic (Lonergan 125?30). This discipline reflects upon the underlying values at work in historical processes and the assumptions behind these values. In this inquiry we ask about the status of differences of perspective: to what degree are they complementary and where are they contradictory? I would like to organize the discussion between Buddhist perspectives and mimetic theory around the three central points of mimetic theory, which René Girard himself has described as his three most important discoveries: (1) the mimetic construction of desire as the source of human identity, (2) the surrogate victim mechanism as the central dynamic of 1 On Orientalism, see Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). A Response to Christopher Ives177 primal religion and culture, and (3) biblical revelation as the unique, unparalleled unmasking of the surrogate victim mechanism... (shrink)

This essay will criticize Peter Lamarque’s claim in The Opacity of Narrative that reading for ‘opacity’ is the way to read literature as literature. I will summarize the idea of ‘opacity’ and consider the plausibility of this claim through an examination of Lamarque’s related comments on translation. The argument for ‘opacity’, although it insists on the importance of attention to a work’s form in the apprehension of its content, involves, at the same time, a certain obliviousness to form, indicated in (...) the first instance by an unpersuasive conflation of lyric poetry and prose fiction. Through a comparison of opposing approaches to the translation of a novel written in verse, and an analysis of why the translation of poetry is generally understood to be more challenging than the translation of prose, I will argue that reading for ‘opacity’ does not adequately capture what it means to read literature as literature. (shrink)

In this monograph on Luce Irigay, Kelly Ives explores the French thinker's ideas on the politics of sexual difference.

What is poetry’s so-called ‘form-content unity’? In this paper, I argue that the idea of ‘form-content unity’, as derived from A. C. Bradley’s 1901 lecture, has been misconstrued by Peter Kivy, who believes that it is confused and vague. I argue that it has also been misconstrued, however, by the philosophers who find the idea insightful and instructive and present themselves as defending and developing it against Kivy’s criticisms. Crucially, Bradley’s argument emphasizes that hearing is necessary to any ‘poetic’ reading (...) of a metrical poem, but this focus on sound and metre tends to be ignored. A precision of terminology—particularly a reformulation of the paraphrase ‘form-content unity’—offers an improved understanding of Bradley’s claims. The lecture, I argue, properly understood, in fact supports the call for a shift of attention away from understanding poems as ‘form-content unities’ in the philosophy of poetry. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper we set forth what we believe to be a relatively controversial argument, claiming that ‘bioethics’ needs to undergo a fundamental change in the way it is practised. This change, we argue, requires philosophical bioethicists to adopt reflexive practices when applying their analyses in public forums, acknowledging openly that bioethics is an embedded socio‐cultural practice, shaped by the ever‐changing intuitions of individual philosophers, which cannot be viewed as a detached intellectual endeavour. This said, we argue that in (...) order to manage the personal, social and cultural embeddedness of bioethics, philosophical bioethicists should openly acknowledge how their practices are constructed and should, in their writing, explicitly deal with issues of bias and conflict of interest, just as empirical scientists are required to do. (shrink)

In this chapter, we seek to offer a fresh perspective on whether or not doctors should be “licensed to kill”. As that phrase indicates, we metaphorically refer to the adventures of fictional spy James Bond, although we hope, in doing so, that readers will not think that we are belittling the serious topic with which the chapter is concerned. Having surveyed some of the familiar arguments for and against allowing medically-assisted dying, we advance a new proposal, which seeks to strike (...) a compromise between such arguments. Our exploratory model builds on an analogy with armed response police units as they operate in England, and specifically with situations in which such officers are found to have killed someone in the course of their duties. Rather than confer immunity prospectively (as proponents of assisted dying often seek) or deny immunity completely (as opponents insist), our policy would provide a potential retrospective excuse. (shrink)

This study takes inquiry as the starting point for epistemological theorising. It uses this idea to develop new and systematic answers to some of the most fundamental questions in epistemology, including about the nature of core epistemic phenomena as well as their value and the extent to which we possess them.

The coherence objection to the doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that it is impossible for one individual to have both the attributes of God and the attributes of a human being. This article examines Thomas Aquinas’s answer to this objection. I challenge the dominant, mereological interpretation of Aquinas’s position and, in light of this challenge, develop and defend a new alternative interpretation of Aquinas’s response to this important objection to Christian doctrine.

Assertion is the central vehicle for the sharing of knowledge. Whether knowledge is shared successfully often depends on the quality of assertions: good assertions lead to successful knowledge sharing, while bad ones don't. In Sharing Knowledge, Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion investigate the relation between knowledge sharing and assertion, and develop an account of what it is to assert well. More specifically, they argue that the function of assertion is to share knowledge with others. It is this function that supports (...) a central norm of assertion according to which a good assertion is one that has the disposition to generate knowledge in others. The book uses this functionalist approach to motivate further norms of assertion on both the speaker and the hearer side and investigates ramifications of this view for other questions about assertion. (shrink)

In this paper, we present the first stage of an empirical bioethics project exploring the moral sources of paternal responsibilities and rights. In doing so, we present both (1) data on men's normative constructions of fatherhood and (2) the first of a two-stage methodological approach to empirical bioethics. Using data gathered from 12 focus groups run with UK men who have had a variety of different fathering experiences (n = 50), we examine men's perspectives on how paternal responsibilities and rights (...) are generated and the significance of the genetic connection within the father–child relationship. We do not attempt to explore men's experiences of fatherhood or their fathering practices; and neither is the analysis driven from a particular sociological perspective. Rather, we explore men's normative constructions of fatherhood in order to present accessible data that might be of significance to the philosophical/moral debate on the sources of paternal rights and responsibilities. (shrink)

Highlights of a difficult history -- The preliminary identification of our topic -- Approaches -- Bradley's protest -- James's disjunctive theory -- The source of Bradley's dissatisfaction -- Behaviourism and after -- Heirs of Bradley in the twentieth century -- The underlying metaphysical issue -- Explanatory tactics -- The basic distinction -- Metaphysical categories and taxonomies -- Adverbialism, multiple realizability, and natural kinds -- Adverbialism and levels of explanation -- Taxonomies and supervenience relations -- Rejecting the process : first view (...) -- Supervenience-failure -- The modal commitments of the process : first view -- The interference argument : a putative problem for adverbialist accounts -- Cognitive unison -- The problem with attitude based adverbialism -- Gilbert Ryle and Alan White -- White's argument against disposition-based adverbialism -- The cognitive unison theory -- Tasks -- Cognitive processes -- Potential service of a task -- Superordinate tasks -- Some features of the theory -- Divided attention -- Degrees of attention and merely partial attention -- The causal life of attention -- Mental causation -- How to respond to mental causation objections -- The causal role of attention -- Attention as an enabling condition -- Counterfactuals -- The causal relevance of attention per se -- Counterfactuals and causally relevant properties -- Objections to counterfactual analysis of causation and of causal relevance -- The extrinsicness of unison -- The privative character of unison and the problem of absence causation -- Causal exclusion -- Consequences for cognitive psychology -- Psychology and metaphysics -- The metaphysical commitments of the process-identifying project -- The diverse explanatory construals of current psychological results -- Reasons for deflation -- Inductively unreliable properties -- Questions without answers -- The positive payoff -- Philosophical work for the theory of attention -- Putting attention to philosophical work -- Attention and reference -- Attention and consciousness -- Prospects for optimism. (shrink)

The ethics of autonomous cars and automated driving have been a subject of discussion in research for a number of years :28–58, 2016). As levels of automation progress, with partially automated driving already becoming standard in new cars from a number of manufacturers, the question of ethical and legal standards becomes virulent. For exam-ple, while automated and autonomous cars, being equipped with appropriate detection sensors, processors, and intelligent mapping material, have a chance of being much safer than human-driven cars in (...) many regards, situations will arise in which accidents cannot be completely avoided. Such situations will have to be dealt with when programming the software of these vehicles. In several instances, internationally, regulations have been passed, based on legal considerations of road safety, mostly. However, to date, there have been few, if any, cases of a broader ethics code for autonomous or automated driving preceding actual regulation and being based on a broadly composed ethics committee of independent experts. In July 2016, the German Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Alexander Dobrindt, appointed a national ethics committee for automated and connected driving, which began its work in September 2016. In June 2017, this committee presented a code of ethics which was published in German and in English. It consists of 20 ethical guidelines. Having been a member of this committee, I will present the main ethical topics of these guidelines and the discussions that lay behind them. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of the historicity of love requires an appreciation of the irreplaceability of the beloved. I do this through a consideration of ideas that were first put forward by Robert Kraut in “Love De Re” (1986). I also evaluate Amelie Rorty's criticisms of Kraut's thesis in “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It Alteration Finds” (1986). I argue that Rorty fundamentally misunderstands Kraut's Kripkean analogy, and (...) I go on to criticize her claim that concern over the proper object of love should be best understood as a concern over constancy. This leads me to an elaboration of the distinct senses in which love can be seen as historical. I end with a further defense of the irreplaceability of the beloved and a discussion of the relevance of recent debates over the importance of personal identity for an adequate account of the historical dimension of love. (shrink)

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Le Morvan and Stock claim that the kantian ideal of treating people always as ends in themselves and never merely as a means is in direct and insurmountable conflict with the current medical practice of allowing practitioners at the bottom of their “learning curve” to “practise their skills” on patients. In this response, I take up the challenge they issue is and try to reconcile this conflict. The kantian ideal (...) offered in the paper is an incomplete characterisation of Kant’s moral philosophy, and the formula of humanity is considered in isolation without taking into account other salient kantian principles. I also suggest that their argument based on “necessary for the patient” assumes too narrow a reading of “necessary”. This reply is intended as an extension to, rather than a criticism of, their work. (shrink)

This handbook article gives a critical overview of recent discussions of epistemic authority. It favors an account that brings into balance the dictates of rational deference with the ideals of intellectual self-governance. A plausible starting point is the conjecture that neither should rational deference to authorities collapse into total epistemic submission, nor the ideal of mature intellectual self-governance be conflated with (illusions of) epistemic autarky.

Suppose you ask yourself whether your father's record collection includes a certain recording of The Trout and venture to find out. At that time, you embark on an inquiry into whether your father owns the relevant recording. Your inquiry is a project with a specific goal: finding out whether your father owns the recording. This fact about your inquiry generalizes: inquiry is a goal-directed enterprise. A specific inquiry can be individuated by the question it aims to answer and by who (...) aims to answer the question. Your inquiry into whether your father owns the recording differs from your inquiry into how many records your father owns because different questions are being asked. Your inquiry into whether your father owns the recording differs from my inquiry into whether he does because different people are inquiring. The goal of inquiry into a given question by an agent, α, can be characterized, neutrally, as α's having the answer to that question. I will here focus only on inquiries into whether questions and characterize the goal of inquiry into whether φ by α as α's having the answer to the question whether φ. (shrink)

Christopher Hookway presents a series of essays on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1913), the 'founder of pragmatism' and one of the most important and original American philosophers.

How does good combine with bad? Most creatures are neither so blessed as to only enjoy good nor so cursed as to only suffer bad. Rather, the good and bad they receive throughout their lives combine to produce their overall quality of life. But it’s not just whole lives that have combined good and bad. Many stretches within contain both positive and negative occurrences whose value is joined to form the overall quality of that span of time. In a single (...) morning someone might wake up, brush their teeth, stub their toe groggily lumbering down the stairs, and have a sip of coffee that’s tasty but so hot they burn their tongue. These events are good and bad for them to various degrees, and their value comes together to form an overall value for them of that morning. A single moment, even, can have combined value from distinct pockets of good and bad that occur simultaneously. The tastiness of the coffee is good, but the pain of the heat is bad. They combine to form an overall value of the sipping moment – negative if the pain outweighed the flavor. Thus, wellbeing and illbeing combine. But how? How can someone rightly chastise themselves for sipping the overly hot coffee when it was, in fact, good because it was tasty? To pose the question starkly, a life can be bad, even so bad to not be worth living, and yet it can have many instances of good, where these goods are, in themselves, pure of any negativity. But how can good make something bad? (shrink)

This paper is built around a single, simple idea. It is widely agreed that there is a distinctive kind of awareness each of us has of his own bodily actions. This action-awareness is different from any perceptual awareness a subject may have of his own actions; it can exist in the absence of such perceptual awareness. The single, simple idea around which this paper is built is that the distinctive awareness that subjects have of their own mental actions is a (...) form of action-awareness. Subjects’ awareness of their own mental actions is a species of the same genus that also includes the distinctive awareness of bodily actions. More specifically, I claim. (shrink)

Conditionalization is a widely endorsed rule for updating one’s beliefs. But a sea of complaints have been raised about it, including worries regarding how the rule handles error correction, changing desiderata of theory choice, evidence loss, self-locating beliefs, learning about new theories, and confirmation. In light of such worries, a number of authors have suggested replacing Conditionalization with a different rule — one that appeals to what I’ll call “ur-priors”. But different authors have understood the rule in different ways, and (...) these different understandings solve different problems. In this paper, I aim to map out the terrain regarding these issues. I survey the different problems that might motivate the adoption of such a rule, flesh out the different understandings of the rule that have been proposed, and assess their pros and cons. I conclude by suggesting that one particular batch of proposals, proposals that appeal to what I’ll call “loaded evidential standards”, are especially promising. (shrink)

Deference principles are principles that describe when, and to what extent, it’s rational to defer to others. Recently, some authors have used such principles to argue for Evidential Uniqueness, the claim that for every batch of evidence, there’s a unique doxastic state that it’s permissible for subjects with that total evidence to have. This paper has two aims. The first aim is to assess these deference-based arguments for Evidential Uniqueness. I’ll show that these arguments only work given a particular kind (...) of deference principle, and I’ll argue that there are reasons to reject these kinds of principles. The second aim of this paper is to spell out what a plausible generalized deference principle looks like. I’ll start by offering a principled rationale for taking deference to constrain rational belief. Then I’ll flesh out the kind of deference principle suggested by this rationale. Finally, I’ll show that this principle is both more plausible and more general than the principles used in the deference-based arguments for Evidential Uniqueness. (shrink)

Essentialists claim that at least some individuals or kinds have essences. This raises an important but little-discussed question: how do we come to know what the essence of something is? This paper examines Aristotle’s answer to this question. One influential interpretation (viz., the Explanationist Interpretation) is carefully expounded, criticized, and then refined. Particular attention is given to what Aristotle says about this issue in DA I.1, APo II.2, and APo II.8. It is argued that the epistemological claim put forward in (...) DA I.1 differs from that put forward in APo II.2 and II.8, contrary to what has been claimed by Explanationists, and that each of these distinct epistemological claims rests on a distinct non-epistemological thesis about essence. Consequently, an ‘Enriched Explanationist Interpretation’ is developed which takes into account both of the aforementioned elements in Aristotle’s epistemology of essence. The paper concludes by highlighting an insight the preceding exegetical discussion offers to contemporary essentialists seeking to explain how we come to know what something’s essence is. (shrink)

"Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Plato's retelling of the discourses between Socrates and his friends on such subjects (...) as love and desire, truth and illusion, spiritual transcendence and the qualities of a good ruler, profoundly affected the ways in which we view human relationships, society and leadership - and shaped the whole tradition of Western philosophy."--Publisher's website. (shrink)