Humans hunt and kill many different species of animals, but whales are our biggest prey. In the North Atlantic, a male long-fi nned pilot whale (Globiceph- ala melaena), a large relative of the dolphins, can grow as large as 6.5 meters and weigh as much as 2.5 tons. As whales go, these are not particularly large, but there are more than 750,000 pilot whales in the North Atlantic, traveling in groups, “pods,” that range from just a few individuals to (...) a thousand or more. Each pod is led by an individual known as the “pilot,” who appears to set the course of travel for the rest of the group. This pilot is both an asset and a weakness to the pod. The average pilot whale will yield about a half ton of meat and blubber, and North Atlantic societies including Ireland, Iceland, and the Shetlands used to manipulate the pilot to drive the entire pod ashore. In the Faroe Islands, a group of 18 grassy rocks due north of Scotland, pilot whale hunts have continued for the last 1200 years, at least. The permanent residents of these islands, the Faroese, previously killed an average of 900 whales each year, yielding about 500 tons of meat and fat that was consumed by local residents. Hunts have declined in recent years. From 2001 to 2005, about 3400 whales were killed, yielding about 890 metric tons of blubber and 990 metric tons of meat. The whale kill, or grindadráp in the Faroese language, begins when a fi shing boat spots a pod close enough to a suitable shore, on a suitably clear day. A single boat, or even a small group of fi shermen, is not suffi cient to trap a.. (shrink)

In the mid-seventeenth century a movement of self-styled experimental philosophers emerged in Britain. Originating in the discipline of natural philosophy amongst Fellows of the fledgling Royal Society of London, it soon spread to medicine and by the eighteenth century had impacted moral and political philosophy and even aesthetics. Early modern experimental philosophers gave epistemic priority to observation and experiment over theorising and speculation. They decried the use of hypotheses and system-building without recourse to experiment and, in some quarters, developed a (...) philosophy of experiment. The movement spread to the Netherlands and France in the early eighteenth century and later impacted Germany. Its important role in early modern philosophy was subsequently eclipsed by the widespread adoption of the Kantian historiography of modern philosophy, which emphasised the distinction between rationalism and empiricism and had no place for the historical phenomenon of early modern experimental philosophy. The re-emergence of interest in early modern experimental philosophy roughly coincided with the development of contemporary x-phi and there are some important similarities between the two. (shrink)

Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism (...) about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. (shrink)

The chapter examines the views of John Locke on the study of human understanding, focusing on his work entitled An Essay concerning Human Understanding and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. It highlights Locke's use of the Stoic tripartite division of knowledge into natural philosophy, ethics, and logic, and his emphasis on the importance of the senses in the acquisition of sensitive knowledge of the natural world. The chapter also discusses the normative aims for the study of the understanding, and (...) the relation between understanding and the will. (shrink)

Provides an advanced overview of the issues that are informing research on the subject of British philosophy in the seventeenth century, while at the same time offering new directions for research to take. It covers the whole of the seventeenth century, ranging from Francis Bacon to John Locke and Isaac Newton. The book contains five parts: the introductory Part I examines the state of the discipline and the nature of its practitioners as the century unfolded; Part II discusses the leading (...) natural philosophers and the philosophy of nature, including Bacon, Boyle, and Newton; Part III covers knowledge and the human faculty of the understanding; Part IV explores the leading topics in British moral philosophy from the period; and Part V concerns political philosophy. In addition to dealing with canonical authors and celebrated texts, such as Thomas Hobbes and his Leviathan, it discusses many less-well-known figures and debates from the period whose importance is only now being appreciated. (shrink)

This chapter examines the main theories of material qualities developed by leading British philosophers during the seventeenth century, describes the taxonomy of qualities during this period, and analyzes the epistemological and metaphysical theses that influenced the development of the theory of material qualities in Great Britain. It also considers the relevant works of Thomas Hobbes, Walter Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and Isaac Newton.

This chapter examines John Locke's interest in and views on the Cartesian vortex theory.

The emergence of experimental philosophy was one of the most significant developments in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked in modern scholarship, despite being associated with leading figures such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, David Hume and Christian Wolff. Ranging from the early Royal Society of London in the seventeenth century to the uptake of experimental philosophy in Paris and Berlin in the eighteenth, this book provides new terms of reference for (...) understanding early modern philosophy and science, and its eventual eclipse in the shadow of post-Kantian notions of empiricism and rationalism. Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism is an integrated history of early modern experimental philosophy which challenges the rationalism and empiricism historiography that has dominated Anglophone history of philosophy for more than a century. (shrink)

First published in 1966, this book was written to serve as an introductory textbook in the philosophy of education, focusing on ethics and social philosophy. It presents a distinctive point of view both about education and ethical theory and arrived at a time when education was a matter of great public concern. It looks at questions such as 'What do we actually mean by education?' and provides a proper ethical foundation for education in a democratic society. The book will appeal (...) to both teachers and students of philosophy as well as education. (shrink)

This book presents the first integrated treatment of the philosophy of Robert Boyle, one of the leading English natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution.

This paper argues that, contrary to the claims of Alan Chalmers, Boyle understood his experimental work to be intimately related to his mechanical philosophy. Its central claim is that the mechanical philosophy has a heuristic structure that motivates and gives direction to Boyle's experimental programme. Boyle was able to delimit the scope of possible explanations of any phenomenon by positing both that all qualities are ultimately reducible to a select group of mechanical qualities and that all explanations of natural phenomena (...) are to be in terms of the operations of machines and are to appeal only to qualities that are already familiar. This is illustrated by his investigations into the Torricellian experiment. Boyle's explanation of the elevation of the mercurial cylinder by appeal to the spring of the air was an intermediate mechanical explanation. Boyle was convinced that the spring of the air was ultimately reducible to the mechanical qualities. This in turn had implications for his research into the cause of respiration. In a move that was both parsimonious and consistent with the broad requirements of the mechanical philosophy, Boyle was able to solve the problem of the cause of the inflow of air into the lungs by appeal to his research in pneumatics. This application of a mechanical explanation in pneumatics to physiology is just what one would expect if the mechanical philosophy was as universal as Boyle claimed it to be. Therefore, far from Boyle's experiments having a life of their own, they were clearly directed by and understood in terms of the mechanical philosophy.Keywords: Air-pump; Boyle; Chalmers; Experiment; Explanation; Mechanism. (shrink)

Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind is one of a handful of texts that began the physicalist revolution in the philosophy of mind. In this collection, distinguished philosophers examine what we still owe to it, how to expand it, as well as looking back on how it came about.

This paper argues that the construction of natural histories, as advocated by Francis Bacon, played a central role in John Locke's conception of method in natural philosophy. It presents new evidence in support of John Yolton's claim that "the emphasis upon compiling natural histories of bodies ... was the chief aspect of the Royal Society's programme that attracted Locke, and from which we need to understand his science of nature". Locke's exposure to the natural philosophy of Robert Boyle, the medical (...) philosophy of Thomas Sydenham, his interest in travel literature and his conception of the division of the sciences are examined. From this survey, a cumulative case is presented which establishes, independently of an in-depth exegesis of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the central role for Locke of the construction of natural histories in natural philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues that, while Locke’s unstable usage of the term ‘mind’ prevents us from claiming that he had a theory of mind, it can still be said that he made a contribution to the philosophy of mind in its contemporary sense. After establishing that it was the term ‘soul’ that predominated in early modern British philosophy, the paper turns to Locke’s three central notions of the soul, the understanding, and the person. It is argued that there are two stages (...) to the development of Locke’s view of the soul: a first philosophical stage and a later theological stage. The first stage is characterized by the application of the material/immaterial distinction. The second stage rejects the utility of this distinction. The two stages are not, however, incompatible, for the bridge between them is found in Locke’s conceptions of the understanding and personhood. While the latter theological stage was, in the end, of the greatest concern to Locke, it is in the earlier philosophical stage that we find his real contribution to what we now call the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

PREFACE The first three of these lectures, or rather an abbreviated version of them, were first given as the Lindsay Memorial Lectures at the University of ...

In this article I examine Skinner's objections to mentalism. I conclude that his only valid objections concern the "specious explanations" that mentalism might afford ? explanations that are incomplete, circular, or faulty in other ways. Unfortunately, the mere adoption of behavioristic terminology does not solve that problem. It camouflages the nature of "private events," while providing no protection from specious explanations. I argue that covert states and events are causally effective, and may be sufficiently different in their nature to deserve (...) a name other than "behavior."To call such events"mental"does not force a dualistic metaphysics: Such a distinction can be easily assimilated by an "emergent behaviorism." Emergent behaviorism would make explicit use of theories. It would be inductive and pragmatic, and would evaluate hypothetical constructs in terms of their utility in clarifying and solving the outstanding problems of the discipline. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive study of Robert Boyle’s writings on seminal principles or seeds. It examines the role of seeds in Boyle’s account of creation, the generation of plants and animals, spontaneous generation, the generation of minerals and disease. By an examination of all of Boyle’s major extant discussions of seeds it is argued that there were discernible changes in Boyle’s views over time. As the years progressed Boyle became more sceptical about the role of seminal principles in the (...) generation of minerals and he came to reject the spontaneous generation of insects and animals from putrefying matter. It is also argued that Boyle’s notion of a generative or ‘plastick’ principle creates a tension within his mechanical philosophy. He appeals to a plastick power in order to explain those phenomena of generation that are beyond the explanatory resources of the corpuscular hypothesis. However, when pressed to explain the nature of this power he either hints, somewhat paradoxically, that it too can be explained mechanically or admits his nescience. (shrink)

We examined Confucian moral philosophy, primarily the Analects, to determine how Confucian ethics could help managers regulate their own behavior (self-regulation) to maintain an ethical standard of practice. We found that some Confucian virtues relevant to self-regulation are common to Western concepts of management ethics such as benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Some are relatively unique, such as ritual propriety and filial piety. We identify seven Confucian principles and discuss how they apply to achieving ethical self-regulation in management. In addition, (...) we examined some of the unique Confucian practices to achieve self-regulation including ritual and music. We balanced the framework by exploring the potential problems in applying Confucian principles to develop ethical self-regulation including whistle blowing. Confucian moral philosophy offers an indigenous Chinese theoretical framework for developing ethical self-regulation in managers. This is relevant for managers and those who relate to managers in Confucian-oriented societies, such as China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. We recommend further research to examine if the application of the Confucian practices outlined here actually work in regulating the ethical behavior of managers in modern organizations. (shrink)

This chapter examines Francis Bacon's influence on Buffon's and Diderot's conceptions of natural history.

R S Peters; Education and the Educated Man, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 4, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 5–20, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.

This collection presents the first sustained examination of the nature and status of the idea of principles in early modern thought. Principles are almost ubiquitous in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the term appears in famous book titles, such as Newton’s _Principia_; the notion plays a central role in the thought of many leading philosophers, such as Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason; and many of the great discoveries of the period, such as the Law of Gravitational Attraction, were described as (...) principles. Ranging from mathematics and law to chemistry, from natural and moral philosophy to natural theology, and covering some of the leading thinkers of the period, this volume presents ten compelling new essays that illustrate the centrality and importance of the idea of principles in early modern thought. It contains chapters by leading scholars in the field, including the Leibniz scholar Daniel Garber and the historian of chemistry William R. Newman, as well as exciting, emerging scholars, such as the Newton scholar Kirsten Walsh and a leading expert on experimental philosophy, Alberto Vanzo. _The Idea of Principles in Early Modern Thought_ charts the terrain of one of the period’s central concepts for the first time, and opens up new lines for further research. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that farmers manage a complex farm system. In this article we seek answers to the following questions. How do farmers perceive and understand their farm system? Are they sufficiently aware of their farm system that they are able to represent it in the form of a map? The research reported describes how causal mapping was applied to sheep/beef farmers in New Zealand and shows that farmers can create maps of their farm systems in ways that allow (...) expression of both individual maps and the formation of group maps which represent the general character of farm systems. A group map was made for all the farmers studied and for subgroups using conventional, integrated, and organic management systems. The results are discussed in terms of the depth of meaning associated with individual elements of the map, map complexity and the limitations of causal mapping. Causal mapping has the potential to contribute to our knowledge of how farmers see their farm systems, and this can benefit farmers and other stakeholders concerned with the management of farms and their economic and environmental performance. (shrink)

Early modern experimental philosophers were opposed to speculation, and yet many endorsed speculative theories. This chapter gives a partial explanation of why this is so, using Robert Boyle’s acceptance and promotion of the corpuscular philosophy as a case study. It argues that, in addition to furnishing experimental evidence for the corpuscular hypothesis in his Forms and Qualities, Boyle attempted to establish its epistemic superiority over other speculative theories on the grounds that it is founded upon superior principles. In his ‘Excellency (...) and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis’, Boyle claims that the principles of the corpuscular philosophy are more intelligible, more parsimonious, ontologically primary, simpler and more comprehensive than those of its rivals. On grounds of comparative plausibility then, according to Boyle, the corpuscular philosophy is eminently preferable to its rivals. The final section of the chapter traces the legacy of Boyle’s appraisal of the epistemic status of the corpuscular philosophy in the writings of many of his compatriots from the mid-1660s to the Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers of 1728. (shrink)

This paper argues that the English philosopher John Locke, who has normally been thought to have had only an amateurish interest in botany, was far more involved in the botanical science of his day than has previously been known. Through the presentation of new evidence deriving from Locke’s own herbarium, his manuscript notes, journal and correspondence, it is established that Locke made a modest contribution to early modern botany. It is shown that Locke had close and ongoing relations with the (...) Bobarts, keepers of the Oxford Botanic Garden, and that Locke distributed seeds and plant parts to other botanists, seeds of which the progeny almost certainly ended up in the most important herbaria of the period. Furthermore, it is claimed that the depth of Locke’s interest in and practice of botany has a direct bearing on our understanding of his views on the correct method of natural philosophy and on the interpretation of his well known discussion of the nature of species in Book III of his Essay concerning human understanding. (shrink)

Layers in Husserl's Phenomenology situates Husserl firmly within the trajectory of later Continental thought and contributes to the recent reconsideration of Husserl as a legitimate precursor to the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida.

First published in 1981, this collection of essays was taken from Peters' larger work, Psychology and Ethical Development in order to provide a more focused volume on moral education for students. Peters' background in both psychology and philosophy makes the work distinctive, which is evident from the first two essays alone: 'Freud's theory of Moral Development in Relation to that of Piaget' and 'Moral Education and the Psychology of Character'. He also displays balance in his acceptance that reason and feeling (...) are both of great importance where the subject of moral education is concerned. Although written some time ago, the book discusses issues which are still of considerable interest and importance today. (shrink)

R S Peters; Education and Justification, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 11, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 28–38, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1.