Merold Westphal’s new publication, Kierkegaard’s Concept of Faith, gives us an opportunity to explore the many ways in which Kierkegaard has influenced Westphal’s thinking as a whole. This present contribution seeks to show how Kierkegaard helps Westphal discover a concept of faith which holds no ‘reasonable’ foundation as it is entirely dependent upon two different aspects of revelation in tension with each other. Moreover, faith is seen as a willing assent by the believer, and thus it becomes a task and (...) not merely a proposition to behold or to which one’s life conforms. In addition to explicating this notion of faith within his work, this present contribution seeks to situate this faith within Westphal’s philosophy of religion, showing how it is integral to Westphal’s entire project. (shrink)

Of hermeneutics and style: how to read Westphal -- Recontextualization: a Westphalian aufhebung? -- Westphal and Hegel: judging religion through politics -- Hegelians in heaven, but on earth ...: an "unfounding," Kierkegaardian faith -- Religiousness: the expression of faith -- Faith seeking understanding: Westphal's postmodernism -- Intermediary conclusions: the believing soul's self-transcendence -- Radical eschatology: Westphal, Caputo, and onto-theology -- Comparative eschatology: Westphal's theology, Kearney's philosophy, and Ricoeurian detours -- Westphal as a theologian and why it matters.

This article critically examines the competitive, adversarial nature of the Western neoliberal style of democracy. Specifically, this article focuses on Amartya Sen’s notion of a “universal democracy” as a means of addressing socio-economic inequalities through Sen’s capability approach. Sen’s capability theory has become an acclaimed and widely used theory to evaluate and understand development and inequalities. However, we employ a distinctive critique by engaging Amartya Sen through Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of one dimensionality and the adversarial nature of Western democracy. We (...) further highlight how contemporary neoliberal society employ a particular, adversarial form of public participation. Through this, we underline the various neoliberal problemata, such as Western idealism, political passivity, and a “flattening of choice,” within contemporary democracies and locate how their competitive, winner-take-all nature has become essential to contemporary, Western democratic models. Consequently, we argue that democracy, as a functional concept and form of public engagement, should be fundamentally re-examined in order to address inequalities. (shrink)

Tsenay Serequeberhan’s hermeneutics has been crucial to the development of African philosophy. Initially employed as a pathway through the ethno- and professional philosophical debates, scholars have engaged how Serequeberhan’s hermeneutics grapples with one’s own place within a socio-historical world in service of liberation/self-determination. However, this scholarship mainly has focused on his adaptation of Gadamer’s ‘effective-historical consciousness’ for his own concept of heritage. This consequently leaves his concept of a ‘lived existence’ – which is equally crucial – under-examined. This paper probes (...) what a ‘lived existence’ entails and its essentiality when explicating how one even begins to authentically think, which is the groundwork to Serequeberhan’s hermeneutics. This deepens why his concept of heritage matters as a starting point for self-determination. Addressing this lacuna, this article asks, where does philosophy begin and where should it go, particularly when rationality has been historically denied? Serequeberhan’s point of departure to answer this question proposes Heidegger’s concept of thinking itself to arrive at a notion of existence; contrariwise to most African scholars who employ a Sartrean existentialism via Frantz Fanon. As such, this paper gives an in-depth exploration of Serequeberhan’s initial reading of Heidegger, and then unfolds how he appropriates Heidegger to craft his notion of ‘lived existence’. The upshot this is twofold: First, a broader understanding of Serequeberhan’s project, its non-existentialist view of existence; Second, it describes how he specifically tailors his ‘lived existence’ to undergird his hermeneutical approach to heritage as a prescriptive, activist project which dynamically addresses the postcolonial situation. (shrink)

Merold Westphal’s method often consists in recontextualizing, or appropriating, various sources in order to either make his own argument or to make other’s arguments seem self-evident. This method is especially noteworthy in his use of Aufhebung, a term which he initially discovers in his early work on Hegel. Westphal will eventually appropriate this term and, as this article will show, utilize it throughout his other academic works, particularly in his reading of Kierkegaard, for many an ‘anti-dialectical’ thinker. This article further (...) explores Westphal’s use of the term in order to reveal that his utilization of the term extends beyond Hegel’s own original intention and that, in doing so, Westphal creates something quite unique and separate from the term itself: a ‘Westphalian Aufhebung.’. (shrink)

The first edited collection to offer a systematic introduction to African phenomenology.

Clambering down slippery rocks to a swimming hole. Ducking the plume of smoke from a barbecue grill. Wishing for a breeze in a too-small dome tent. Scanning the sky for rain from a postage-stamp backyard. It is in these small moments of action—and inaction—that Justin Kimball captures our everyday attempts to relax. Indeed, one might argue that the events depicted are everyday life. Kimball’s compelling photographs depict ordinary people—parents and teens, grandparents and kids—in landscapes of leisure. These are not (...) the exclusive resorts and white sand beaches of the affluent; rather, they are the parks, campgrounds, and fishing piers where most Americans vacation. They are natural landscapes—inviting, green, and sometimes beautiful—but at the same time they are imperfect—muddy, crowded, and partially paved. There is nothing idyllic about these vacation spots; indeed, Kimball’s photographs make clear that daily life can never be fully left behind. The people in his pictures, though momentarily transformed by cascading water or the shade of towering trees, remain enmeshed in ties of family and obligation, shadowed by thoughts of home. It is Kimball’s particular genius to isolate these moments between duty and pleasure. Where We Find Ourselves enables viewers to identify with—and participate in—this bittersweet aspect of American leisure and the ambiguous contemporary relationship between people and nature. (shrink)

Since the time of Hippocrates, madness has typically been viewed through the lens of disease, dysfunction, and defect. In 'Madness', philosopher of science Justin Garson presents a radically different paradigm for conceiving of madness and the forms that it takes. In this paradigm, which he calls madness-as-strategy, madness is neither a disease nor a defect, but a designed feature, like the heart or lungs.

This paper argues for contrastivism about the deontic modals, 'ought', 'must', and 'may'. A simple contrastivist semantics that predicts the desired entailment relations among these modals is offered.

The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy is a collection of essays on important texts and figures in the history of Chinese thought. The essays cover both well-known texts such as the Analects and the Zhuangzi as well as many of the lesser-known thinkers in the classical and post-classical Chinese tradition. Most of the chapters focus on thinkers or texts in one of three important historical movements: Classical ("pre-Qin") Chinese philosophy, Chinese Buddhism, and the Confucian response to Buddhism ("neo-Confucianism" broadly construed).

This is a short overview of the biological functions debate in philosophy. While it was fairly comprehensive when it was written, my short book ​A Critical Overview of Biological Functions has largely supplanted it as a definitive and up-to-date overview of the debate, both because the book takes into account new developments since then, and because the length of the book allowed me to go into substantially more detail about existing views.

The downsides of monogamy are felt by most people engaged in long-term relationships, including restrictions on self-discovery, limits on friendship, sexual boredom, and a circumscribed understanding of intimacy. Yet, a "happily ever after" monogamy is assumed to be the ideal form of romantic love in many modern societies: a relationship that is morally ideal and will bring the most happiness to its two partners. -/- In Why It’s OK to Not Be Monogamous, Justin L. Clardy deeply questions these assumptions. (...) He rejects the claim that non-monogamy among honest, informed and consenting adults is morally impermissible. He shows instead how polyamorous relationships can actually be exemplars of moral virtue. The book discusses how social and political forces sustain and reward monogamous relationships. The book defines non-monogamy as a privative concept; a negation of monogamy. Looking at its prevalence in the United States, the book explains how common criticisms of non-monogamy come up short. Clardy argues, as some researchers have recently shown―monogamy relies on continually demonizing non-monogamy to sustain its moral status. Finally, the book concludes with a focus on equality, asking what justice for polyamorous individuals might look like. (shrink)

Most a posteriori arguments against the existence of God take the following form: (1) If God exists, the world would not be like this (where 'this' picks out some feature of the world like the existence of evil, etc.) (2) But the world is like this . (3) Therefore, God does not exist. Skeptical theists are theists who are skeptical of our ability to make judgments of the sort expressed by premise (1). According to skeptical theism, if there were a (...) God, it is likely that he would have reasons for acting that are beyond our ken, and thus we are not justified in making all-things-considered judgments about what the world would be like if there were a God. In particular, the fact that we don't see a good reason for X does not justify the conclusion that there is no good reason for X. 1 Thus, skeptical theism purports to undercut most a posteriori arguments against the existence of God. What follows is an account of the nature of skeptical theism, an application of skeptical theism to both the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness, and a review of the cases for and against skeptical theism. (shrink)

Leading researchers in the philosophy of mind present and explore cutting edge research in the exciting new field of experimental philosophy.

Both advocates and critics of experimental philosophy often describe it in narrow terms as being the empirical study of people’s intuitions about philosophical cases. This conception corresponds with a narrow origin story for the field—it grew out of a dissatisfaction with the uncritical use of philosophers’ own intuitions as evidence for philosophical claims. In contrast, a growing number of experimental philosophers have explicitly embraced a broad conception of the sub-discipline, which treats it as simply the use of empirical methods to (...) inform philosophical problems. And this conception has a corresponding broad origin story—the field grew out of a recognition that philosophers often make empirical claims and that empirical claims call for empirical support. In this paper, I argue that the broad conception should be accepted, offering support for the broad origin story. (shrink)

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

Using the latest cognitive and psychological scientific data and theory, this book answers the question "why would anyone believe in God?".

A crucial tenet of virtue-based or expertise-based theorizing about politics is that there are ways to identify and select morally and epistemically excellent people to hold office. This paper considers historical challenges to this task that come from within Greek and Confucian thought and political practice. Because of how difficult it is to assess character in ordinary settings, we argue that it is even more difficult to design institutions that select for virtue at the much wider political scale. Specifically, we (...) argue that the vast majority of proposals that purport to select for virtue are either (a) unlikely to be effective, (b) not implementable at the scale of most current nations, or (c) have already been incorporated into most democratic states. Thus defenders of meritocratic institutions should take more seriously the practical barriers that will almost certainly arise when trying to implement these proposals at scale. Historical proponents of meritocratic values were well aware of concerns about the feasibility of their political ideals, and we should be too. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on attributions of phenomenal consciousness, leaving to the side interesting questions about how people attribute other types of consciousness. While researchers are not in perfect agreement about how the concept of phenomenal consciousness should be understood, the standard line is that a creature is phenomenally conscious just in case it has phenomenally conscious mental states, and that a mental state is phenomenally conscious just in case it has phenomenal qualities. The chapter explores whether lay people employ the (...) concept of phenomenal consciousness. It begins by looking at the evidence for an affirmative answer to this question, focusing on Joshua Knobe and Jesse Prinz's article, Intuitions About Consciousness: Experimental Studies. The chapter explains the evidence for a negative answer to the target question, focusing on Justin Sytsma and Edouard machery's article, Two Conceptions of Subjective Experience. (shrink)

Contrastivism about ‘ought’ holds that ‘ought’ claims are relativized, at least implicitly, to sets of mutually exclusive but not necessarily jointly exhaustive alternatives. This kind of theory can solve puzzles that face other linguistic theories of ‘ought’, via the rejection or severe restriction of principles that let us make inferences between ‘ought’ claims. By rejecting or restricting these principles, however, the contrastivist takes on a burden of recapturing acceptable inferences that these principles let us make. This paper investigates the extent (...) to which a contrastivist can do this. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider two hypotheses that have informed recent work in experimental philosophy of mind. The first is a positive hypothesis put forward by Fiala, Arico, and Nichols : Categorization of an entity as an agent through fast, automatic, and domain-specific processing produces a disposition to ascribe a wide range of mental states to that entity. The second is a negative hypothesis put forward by Sytsma and Machery: The existence of phenomenally conscious mental states is not obvious from (...) first-person experience with states like seeing red and feeling pain. I argue that these hypotheses are not necessary at odds. Despite this, empirical results reported by Sytsma and Machery raise concerns for FAN's hypothesis, while results reported by FAN in response raise concerns for our hypothesis. I address these concerns in this essay, presenting the results of four new studies that support our negative hypothesis against FAN's challenge. (shrink)

Contemporary metaphysics is dominated by the view that every object belongs to a kind permanently in the sense that it cannot cease to belong to that kind without thereby ceasing to exist. For example, some philosophers think that a person is destroyed if they cease to be a person, a statue is destroyed if it ceases to be a statue, and so on. I believe that this standard view is false. Being a person, or a statue, or etc., is like (...) being a child: just as I did not cease to exist when I ceased to be a child, so people and statues need not cease to exist when they cease to be people and statues. Borrowing a term from Daniel Korman (who uses it in a similar but perhaps not identical way), I call this view phasalism because it entails that the kind-properties which ordinary objects instantiate are phase sortal properties, i.e., kind-properties that an object can instantiate for a temporary phase of its career. This dissertation is a partial defense of phasalism. I develop a phasalist metaphysics in detail, highlighting its virtues and rebutting objections along the way. After some stage-setting (Chapter 1), I defend a phasalist criterion of identity over time for ordinary objects (Chapter 2), as well as a phasalist account of the role that sortal properties play in the identity over time of ordinary objects (Chapter 3). Then I defend a phasalist-friendly approach to the identity over time of lumps, hunks, pieces, etc. of matter (Chapter 4). The material in these chapters amounts to a phasalist solution to certain material coincidence puzzles, such as the puzzle of the statue and the piece of clay. I go on to show that familiar puzzles about undetached parts (Chapter 5) and fission (Chapter 6) can be solved within the confines of my phasalist metaphysics as well. (shrink)

In "Saving One Another: Philodemus and Paul on Moral Formation in Community" Justin Reid Allison compares how the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Christian apostle Paul envisioned the members of their communities helping one another to grow into moral maturity. Allison establishes that Philodemus and Paul are more similar than previously noticed in their conception and practice of moral formation in community, and that these similarities offer a critical opportunity to consider important differences between the two as well. By (...) deepening the comparison to include differences alongside similarities, and to include theological and socio-economic facets of communal moral formation, Allison shows that Philodemus and Paul uniquely shed fresh light on one another's texts when understood in comparative perspective. (shrink)

Beliefs have genealogies. Can tracing a belief’s genealogy illuminate the epistemic quality of the belief? This paper sets out a general epistemology of genealogies. As it turns out, genealogies for beliefs come in two sorts: those that trace a belief to some mental event that doubles as evidence for the belief and those that do not. The former have the potential to undercut the belief, rebut the belief, or—importantly—both. The latter have the potential to reinforce the belief or rebut the (...) belief but—importantly—not undercut it. The ultimate conclusion is that there is a role for genealogies in the epistemic appraisal of our beliefs, but this role will be circumscribed by the availability of clear and compelling genealogies. (shrink)

Scholars have suggested that leaders’ ethical failures at the beginning of the twenty-first century have raised awareness about the importance of ethical leadership (EL). Yet, there has been no systematic effort to evaluate whether this awareness indeed led to changes in EL or how followers react to this leadership style over time. To address this gap, we examine the evolution in EL means, variability, and its associations with follower outcomes between 2004 and 2019. Our cross-temporal meta-analysis included 359 independent samples (...) from 314 studies published between 2005 and 2020 and focused on followers’ ratings of their leaders using the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS; Brown et al., in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117–134, 2005). Using cubic spline meta-regressions, our results indicated no global changes in EL mean levels and variability across the 15-year period. Nevertheless, country-level comparisons revealed different EL-trends in China (i.e. decrease) versus the United States (i.e. stable), and further moderation analyses highlighted the role of cultural value dimensions and national corruption rates. Finally, we also found that the relationship between EL and desirable follower outcomes (e.g. organizational citizenship behavior) became gradually stronger over time on a global level. These results provide a solid empirical basis to evaluate cross-temporal trends in EL and its (changing) impact on follower outcomes across the globe. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that when thinking about justice, political philosophers should pay more attention to social norms, not just the usual subjects of basic principles, rights, laws, and policies. I identify two widely-endorsed ideas about political philosophy that interfere with recognizing the importance of social norms—ideas I dub ‘compulsoriness’ and ‘institutionalism’—and argue for their rejection. I do this largely by focusing on questions about who can and should be an agent of justice. I argue that careful reflection on (...) these questions supports a kind of pluralism that reveals the importance of social norms, three types of which I discuss. (shrink)

This work analyses Marx's philosophy of nature and shows how it is the basis for his practical philosophy. Previous analysis of Marx's philosophy of nature has considered humans as only natural beings and social beings. But, Marx analyzed humans' relationship to the natural world and to themselves as natural, social, and material. This material feature of human action can server as a basis for social critique and as the foundation for a practical analysis. The first chapter of this book analyzes (...) Marx's philosophy of nature from his early to late works and argues that humans are natural begins that use nature to develop new capacities. This consideration is central in Marx's critiques of Hegel and Feuerbach. The second chapter discusses Marx's material critique of social forms and discusses why the distinction between material action and social action is a key component of Marx critique of capitalism. This chapter also discusses industrial history, ideology, wages, justice, and valorization. The third and final chapter builds on Marx's materialist analysis to develop a standard of practical action that takes human's material activity as its basis. This chapter also discusses classical historical materialist claims, liberal ethical theories, and a practical philosophic consideration of socialism. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive collection of essays that explores cutting-edge work in experimental philosophy, a radical new movement that applies quantitative and empirical methods to traditional topics of philosophical inquiry. Situates the discipline within Western philosophy and then surveys the work of experimental philosophers by sub-discipline Contains insights for a diverse range of fields, including linguistics, cognitive science, anthropology, economics, and psychology, as well as almost every area of professional philosophy today Edited by two rising scholars who take a broad (...) and inclusive approach to the field Offers a complete introduction for non-specialists and students to the central approaches, findings, challenges, and controversies in experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Moral luck is a puzzling aspect of our psychology: Why do we punish outcomes that were not intended (i.e. accidents)? Prevailing psychological accounts of moral luck characterize it as an accident or error, stemming either from a re‐evaluation of the agent's mental state or from negative affect aroused by the bad outcome itself. While these models have strong evidence in their favor, neither can account for the unique influence of accidental outcomes on punishment judgments, compared with other categories of moral (...) judgment. Why might punishment be particularly sensitive to moral luck? We suggest that such sensitivity is easily understood from the broader perspective of punishment's ultimate adaptive goal: Changing others’ behavior by exploiting their capacity to learn. This pedagogical perspective accounts for the exceptional influence of outcomes on punitive sentiments and makes predictions for additional moderators of punishment. We review evidence supporting the pedagogical hypothesis of punishment and discuss fruitful directions for future research. (shrink)

Tourism literature has shown there is a disagreement amongst academics conducting tourism research as to whether tourism is an academic community, academic study, and/or academic discipline. These three terms are used loosely and change in meaning depending upon the author, source, context, and discipline of the author(s). The following paper identifies tourism’s current position in academia using these three ideas of academic acceptance as tools to guide the discussion. Also guiding the discussion are ideas from tourism scholars and Kuhn’s ideas (...) of what constitutes a discipline. The discussion leads to a debate about “truths” in tourism research. Recommendations regarding the advancement of tourism in academia via theory construction in the academic field of tourism are presented. (shrink)

A philosphical exploration of perception explores Wittgenstein's work on visual meaning and his analysis of the concept of "seeing.".

This series helps practitioners to redefine and recreate their daily practice in ways that are healthier for both patients and practitioners. The books provide a welcome antidote to demoralisation and burn-out amongst practitioners, reversing cynicism and reviving our feeling of pride in health practice. The fifth book in this series, The Integrated Practitioner: Food for Thought, written for readers who prefer a more academic and reflective understanding of the themes of books 1-4. It incorporates the theoretical background for each of (...) the concepts discussed in the first four workbooks, giving context to, and providing an underpinning of, modern medical practice. (shrink)

Offers a concise, expert account of Aristotle's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.

This accessibly written book offers an approach to cultural engagement that is attentive to the hunger for meaning, beauty, and justice and governed by the gospel virtues of faith, love, and hope.

This book addresses a longstanding controversy concerning whether Frankfurt cases—thought experiments of a sort devised by Harry Frankfurt—are counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities (roughly, the principle that a person is morally responsible for what he did only if he could have avoided doing it). Frankfurt and many others contend that they are, but here it is argued that, far from being counterexamples to the principle, Frankfurt cases actually provide further confirmation of it, a conclusion that has important implications (...) for our understanding of free will and moral responsibility. (shrink)