This interview reconsiders Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto 21 years after it was first published. It asks what has become of the three boundary breakdowns around which the Manifesto was structured - those between animals and humans, animal-humans and machines, and the ‘physical and non-physical’. Against this backdrop, this interview examines the connection between the Cyborg Manifesto and Haraway’s more recent writings on companion species, along with what it means to read or write a ‘manifesto’ today. Recent notions of the ‘posthuman’ (...) are also placed into question. (shrink)

This paper uses Michel Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics as a starting point for thinking historically about neoliberalism. Foucault’s lectures offer a rich and detailed account of the emergence of neoliberalism, but this account is far from complete. This paper addresses some of the blind-spots in Foucault’s lectures by focusing on the space between the decline of classical liberalism at the end of the 19th century and the subsequent attempt to develop a ‘positive’ or ‘ordo’ liberalism in post-war Germany. The primary (...) concern of this paper is to chart the emergence of a new or neo- liberalism in the writings of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek through the 1920s and 1930s. These writings, which are barely considered by Foucault, are important as they redefine the liberal project against the political economy of the late 19th century and, in particular, against the threat of socialism. In conclusion, it is argued that by returning to the work of Mises and Hayek it is possible to develop a critical sociology of neoliberalism, one that not only engages with the writings of these two thinkers but which also exposes the fracture lines that exist within the neoliberal project, and reconsiders the political positions that neoliberalism initially sought to reject. (shrink)

Given the growing prominence of nudge economics both within and beyond the academy, it is a timely moment to reassess the philosophical and political arguments that sit at its core, and in particular what Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein call libertarian paternalism. The first half of this paper provides a detailed account of the main features of this form of paternalism, before moving, in the second half, to a critical evaluation of the nudge agenda that questions, among other things, the (...) gendered basis of paternalistic governance; the idea of ‘nudging for good’; and the political values that underpin nudge. The final section of this paper builds on the existing work of John McMahon by asking whether libertarian paternalism should be understood as a new, hybrid form of neoliberalism, or, rather, as a post-neoliberal form of governance that has emerged out of, and flourished in, the post-crisis situation. (shrink)

This article expands Michel Foucault's genealogy of liberalism and neoliberalism by analysing the concept of competition. It addresses four key liberal conceptions of competition in turn: the idea of competition as a destructive but progressive and thus necessary force ; economic theories of market equilibrium that theorize competition mathematically ; socio-biological ideas of competition as something natural ; and sociological arguments that see competition as adding value to the social. From this starting point, the article considers the ways in which (...) three main trajectories of neoliberal thought that emerged from the early 1920s onwards – Austrian, German and American – developed and responded to these conceptualizations of competition. In conclusion, it is argued that this history of the concept of competition leads to a new understanding of the tensions that lie at the heart of neoliberal thought, and which are largely missing from Foucault's account. (shrink)

This article uses the work of Friedrich Kittler to address the ways in which media technologies underpin and structure the basis of ‘human’ existence and understanding. Kittler’s ‘media materialism’ is explored through four main influences: the information theory of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, the media analysis of Marshall McLuhan, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse. These figures are used, in turn, to draw into question the materiality of information technology, and, following (...) this, to develop a post-human approach to media analysis. The final section of this article considers the challenges such an approach poses to the humanistic bias of mainstream sociology and media studies. (shrink)

This article examines the role of concepts in the so-called 'new' empiricism that is currently emerging from the writings of Gilles Deleuze. It asks what concepts are, and how they might be put to work to present the 'pure difference' of the empirical world. In addressing these questions, a number of parallels and contrasts are drawn between the writings of Deleuze and Max Weber. It is shown that many of Deleuze's key arguments about concepts- in particular, that they are pedagogical, (...) multiple, networked and problem-oriented in basis - are anticipated by Weber's sociological methodology of concept formation. This leads, finally, to a consideration of whether the creation of concepts as a practice belongs primarily within the domain of philosophy (as argued by Deleuze), or if it is a key part of social scientific work more generally. (shrink)

This review article of The Making of Modern Liberalism and Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics centres on the different trajectories of liberal and neoliberal thought that are mapped out by these two works. It is argued that to achieve an understanding of the meeting points, continuities and discontinuities between liberalism and neoliberalism it is necessary to examine the economic and political bases of these forms of governmental reason. By doing so, it is suggested (...) that it is possible to develop a fuller understanding of what was/is new about neoliberalism as both a political and an epistemological project. (shrink)

This brief response to Will Davies clarifies and expands a number of the core arguments of the article ‘The Emergence of Neoliberalism: Thinking through and Beyond Michel Foucault’s Lectures on Biopolitics’ : 3–27). It is argued that it is a mistake to treat Foucault as a neoliberal because his lectures on biopolitics centred on the emergence of different trajectories of neoliberal reason. Instead, Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism can be read as a critical history, one that is partial and incomplete but (...) which nonetheless can be used as a starting point to think historically and critically about neoliberalism. It is suggested that a more nuanced history of neoliberalism, however, can be developed by paying closer attention to the complex relationship between neoliberal reason and the earlier liberal ideas of the 19th century – in particular those of John Stuart Mill. Finally, a claim is made for the value of historical analysis for understanding and responding to the challenges of the post-crisis present, to a situation in which neoliberal ideas appear to have a near-hegemonic grip over popular politics and discourse. (shrink)

This article takes the fiftieth anniversary of the death of American sociologist C. Wright Mills as a cue to revisit his legacy but also the value of sociology today. It argues that the enduring relevance of Mills’ work is his cultivation of a sociological sensibility, which is both an attentive and sensuous craft and also a moral and political project. The article returns to some of the key aspects of Mills’ life and work, and focuses, in particular, on his influential (...) book The Sociological Imagination. Revisiting the opening and closing chapters of this book – entitled ‘The Promise’ and ‘On Intellectual Craftsmanship’ – this article argues that the contemporary social imagination needs to offer its students the capacity to open out to the world through a heightened sensory attentiveness, which in turn makes possible a different kind of social imaginary. In this way Mills’ gift to the future is a sociological sensibility furnished by its tradition, but one also that is constantly re-tuned to the circumstances and problems of the present. (shrink)

This review article assesses the core arguments of Quinn Slobodian’s Crack-Up Capitalism. In this book, Slobodian identifies and analyses territorial forms that are central to the creation of capitalist zones of exception that, to a large extent, sit outside the reach of political democracy: ‘islands’, ‘phyles’, and ‘franchise nations’. This article argues that Slobodian’s analysis of these territorial forms – which have been designed to enable the extraction, accumulation and protection of capital to the benefit of the super-rich – is (...) a valuable addition to the existing literature on neoliberalism and libertarianism. However, further conceptual and theoretical work is needed to connect these territorial forms to existing analyses of capitalism, sovereignty and exception that address long-standing historical and political tensions between capitalism and democracy. (shrink)

While Max Weber is commonly treated as a social theorist or a theorist of social stratification, relatively little attention has been paid to the theory of the social that is developed in his work. In view of this, this article turns to Weber’s most explicit theorization of the social: the section of Economy and Society entitled ‘Class, Status, Party’. In this work, Weber treats class as a non-social form, in contrast to status groups and parties, which are seen to emerge (...) through communal or associative modes of socialization. Given this, it is argued that it is a mistake to reduce ‘Class, Status, Party’ to an argument about social stratification. Rather, this work is a general theorization of the social in relation to the spheres of economics and politics. Read in this way, Weber’s work is presented as a possible resource for rejuvenating social theory that goes beyond study of class or ‘societal’ structures, and which privileges analysis of social relationships (including those that go beyond nation-state boundaries) in the competition for social and political power. (shrink)

This article addresses a little-known event in the history of neoliberalism: a conference at Stanford University held in 1982 to reconsider Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means’ The Modern Corporation and Private Property 50 years after its initial publication. This event is important as it is where key members of the neoliberal thought collective sought to define and defend the powers and freedoms of the corporation. First, this article outlines the political commitments of Berle and Means by considering the core arguments (...) of The Modern Corporation and Private Property; second, it addresses key papers from the event published subsequently in the Journal of Law and Economics; and third, it analyses the neoliberal defence of the corporation that emerged from these papers, and reflects on the limitations of the work of Berle and Means for developing a response to their neoliberal critics. (shrink)

The introduction provides a short outline of Kittler’s biographical background and briefly discusses the stages of his work: The initial discourse-analytical stage of the late 1970s that centered primarily on literary text; the media-theoretical stage of the 1980s and early 1990s that focused in particular on electric and electronic media; and a current stage dedicated to rewriting the origin of one the most basic cultural technologies: the alphanumeric notation system.

This review of Wendy Brown’s Undoing the Demos considers the claim that contemporary processes of neoliberalism are damaging the core principles of democracy. It is argued that Brown is right to follow Foucault in defining neoliberalism as a form of political rationality, but that core arguments of the book could be developed further through attention to the following points: the operation of neoliberal politics and practices outside of the US context; the position of Austrian thought within the history of neoliberal (...) reason; the problematic status of homo economicus within neoliberal thought; why the ‘soft power’ of neoliberalism has proved so effective; and how a Marxist theory of capital might be developed alongside Foucauldian critique of neoliberalism. (shrink)

This commentary responds to Nicholas Gane’s article on the early history of neoliberalism. Gane contends that many histories, Foucault’s in particular, do not account for the very earliest period of neoliberal thought, during the 1920s, which was dominated by Ludwig von Mises. Gane also argues that by ignoring this period, critical scholars have misidentified the critical distantiation from John Stuart Mill that was definitive for early neoliberalism. In response to Gane, this piece argues, partly in (...) defence of Foucault, that the key moments in the history of neoliberalism concern the penetration of economic rationalities into the state. Hence, while the history of economics has intrinsic merits, figures such as Mill may be less significant for the shaping of political rationalities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 313-316 [Access article in PDF] Normativity and Pathology Mike Gane Keywords: positivism, sociology, pathology, normativity. THE STRENGTH OF VICTORIA MARGREE'S contribution to the examination of the thematic of pathology and its Nietzschean/Canguilhemian variation is that it reveals the challenging complexity of this theme. My comments on this contribution are developed from an interest in the ways that the concern with pathology was (...) part of the initial program of the social sciences, particularly sociology, as it was inaugurated by Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim in its formative period. Margree touches on the importance of social analysis at the end of her paper; my comments work to some extent in the opposite direction—from the social to the psychological. My concerns lead me to contest a number of her epistemological positions, particularly those concerning the notion of positivism and "objective" analysis.For the first positivist philosophers, positivism was primarily a method; in fact it embraced the set of methods developed by the sciences to obtain the highest degree of objectivity. It was explicitly opposed to methodological reductionism, arguing that each science had specific methods applicable to its own domain. Canguilhem was certainly against methodological reductionism (Renard 1996, 127), but Margree's conception of positivism in psychology as biological reductionism is quite a different and is a later-derived variation of positivism. As such perhaps it should not be conflated with early notions of pathology. Sociological positivism as developed in Durkheim's methodology, although different in many aspects from that of Comte, retained the idea that scientific objectivity was to be the result of epistemological procedures, not what might be called ontological reduction to a physical level of the object. Durkheim tries to clarify the rules governing the analysis of abnormal forms and to define social dysfunction and teratology. The general field of abnormal forms or pathology in the analysis of social life fell into decline after Durkheim and was abandoned in favor of the study of social deviance. The very idea of a study of social pathology itself was critiqued by Szasz and Foucault in particular as a new form of power, which came into existence at the end of the eighteenth century as an essential component of the disciplinary society. Foucault was himself clearly indebted to Canguilhem, and he made this evident on several occasions, such as his lectures at the Collège de France Les Anormaux given in 1974 and 1975 (Foucault 1999). Thus, although the field of pathology and abnormal forms continues in psychology it has been abandoned in sociology, leaving only traces (such as the concept of anomie) in the works of some thinkers such as Baudrillard, whose usage may be ironic more than an attempt to revive the terrain. Could it be that Canguilhem and Foucault [End Page 313] have then more or less swept the field clear of such scientism, even though the reconceptualization in terms of normativity suggested by Canguilhem has not been widely taken on? Indeed there may be important differences between the conceptualization of Canguilhem and Foucault (after all, as Margree points out, Canguilhem can be read as attempting to invert the relation between normativity and normative, not to withdraw from the terrain altogether). Foucault seems to approach a position elaborated in sociology earlier by Max Weber in his rejection of the attempt to use the field of pathology as a way of evading moral choices. Canguilhem discusses responsibility in "Thérapeutique, expérimentation, responsibilité" (1983, 391), noting the importance of professionalization and legal controls on professional practice.The fundamental issues posed by the project of social science continue to be haunted by the same set of problems as established in analysis of pathological phenomena, whether it be conceived in terms of order and disorder (chaos), social breakdown, radical evil, "failed states," even deviation or noncompliance with "correct" forms of language or behavior (harassment, racism, child abuse) and so on, or pathology (perversion, dysfunction, disease, illness, abnormalities). The question in part is: is there anything lost by replacing pathology with more political, religious, moral, and legal terminologies? From Foucault's point... (shrink)

This paper is an essay in counterfactual epistemology. What if experience have high-level contents, to the effect that something is a lemon or that someone is sad? I survey the consequences for epistemology of such a scenario, and conclude that many of the striking consequences could be reached even if our experiences don't have high-level contents.

Modern science began as natural philosophy, an admixture of philosophy and science. It was then killed off by Newton, as a result of his claim to have derived his law of gravitation from the phenomena by induction. But this post-Newtonian conception of science, which holds that theories are accepted on the basis of evidence, is untenable, as the long-standing insolubility of the problem of induction indicates. Persistent acceptance of unified theories only in physics, when endless equally empirically successful disunified rivals (...) are available, means that physics makes a persistent, problematic metaphysical assumption about the universe: that all disunified theories are false. This assumption, precisely because it is problematic, needs to be explicitly articulated within physics, so that it can be critically assessed and, we may hope, improved. The outcome is a new conception of science—aim-oriented empiricism—that puts science and philosophy together again, and amounts to a modern version of natural philosophy. Furthermore, aim-oriented empiricism leads to the solution to the problem of induction. Natural philosophy pursued within the methodological framework of aim-oriented empiricism is shown to meet standards of intellectual rigour that science without metaphysics cannot meet. (shrink)

I propose a revision of Cantor’s account of set size that understands comparisons of set size fundamentally in terms of surjections rather than injections. This revised account is equivalent to Cantor's account if the Axiom of Choice is true, but its consequences differ from those of Cantor’s if the Axiom of Choice is false. I argue that the revised account is an intuitive generalization of Cantor’s account, blocks paradoxes—most notably, that a set can be partitioned into a set that is (...) bigger than it—that can arise from Cantor’s account if the Axiom of Choice is false, illuminates the debate over whether the Axiom of Choice is true, is a mathematically fruitful alternative to Cantor’s account, and sheds philosophical light on one of the oldest unsolved problems in set theory. (shrink)

Centring on human perception, attunement to others, and a transcendent conception of the good, Iris Murdoch's intervention in moral philosophy remains an insightful and evocative source for ethical theory. Discerning some pervasive dualisms that hamper its coherence and development, I suggest that her work finds a generative conversation partner in the contemporary metaphysician, William Desmond. Desmond's thought offers promising avenues to overcome these dualisms by repositioning the source and nature of value and by theorising an anti-reductive, relational ontology. Staging a (...) constructive encounter between these two thinkers that preserves Murdoch's distinct prioritisation of attention and individuality within a Desmond-inspired metaphysics, I present a synthetic ethical approach that promotes the ideal of attending to an other—in the givenness of its particularity, manifold surplus, and constitutive relationality—as good in itself. (shrink)

A doctrine of intelligent design through evolution is not going to find many friends. It is destined to encounter opposition on all sides. Among scientists the backlog of evolution will have little patience for intelligent design. Among religiousists, many who form intelligent design have their doubts about evolution. In the general public s mind there is a diametrical opposition between evolution and intelligent design: one excludes the other. This book will argue that this view of the matter is not correct, (...) and that in actuality one can regard evolution itself as a pathway to intelligent design. We would do well to go beyond The Origin of Species and taking as our guide such works as W. Wentworth Thomson s On Growth and Form acknowledging that evolutionary adaptation can result in solutions of a sort that intelligence could readily ratify. Accordingly, what the present book seeks is a naturalization of Intelligent Design that sees such design as itself the result of natural and evolutionary processes.". (shrink)

Here I show that the one-variable fragment of several first-order relevant logics corresponds to certain S5ish extensions of the underlying propositional relevant logic. In particular, given a fairly standard translation between modal and one-variable languages and a permuting propositional relevant logic L, a formula $$\mathcal {A}$$ A of the one-variable fragment is a theorem of LQ (QL) iff its translation is a theorem of L5 (L.5). The proof is model-theoretic. In one direction, semantics based on the Mares-Goldblatt [15] semantics for (...) quantified L are transformed into ternary (plus two binary) relational semantics for S5-like extensions of L (for a general presentation, see Seki [26, 27]). In the other direction, a valuation is given for the full first-order relevant logic based on L into a model for a suitable S5 extension of L. I also discuss this work’s relation to finding a complete axiomatization of the constant domain, non-general frame ternary relational semantics for which RQ is incomplete [11]. (shrink)

There is an extensive literature on time travel in both philosophy and physics. Part of the great interest of the topic stems from the fact that reasons have been given both for thinking that time travel is physically possible—and for thinking that it is logically impossible! This entry deals primarily with philosophical issues; issues related to the physics of time travel are covered in the separate entries on time travel and modern physics and time machines. We begin with the definitional (...) question: what is time travel? We then turn to the major objection to the possibility of backwards time travel: the Grandfather paradox. Next, issues concerning causation are discussed—and then, issues in the metaphysics of time and change. We end with a discussion of the question why, if backwards time travel will ever occur, we have not been visited by time travellers from the future. (shrink)

Pragmatic processes crucially rely on background or contextual information supplied by the hearer, which may significantly affect the outcome of the comprehension process. Construed as a branch of cognitive psychology, pragmatics is the study of the cognitive systems apart from the I‐language and the parser which enable speaker and hearer (or communicator and audience) to co‐ordinate on the intended interpretation, and this is how we propose to treat it here. This chapter considers some of Noam Chomsky's suggestions about how the (...) cognitive systems underlying human abilities might be investigated. It discusses his reasons and consider how far this skepticism may be due to his particular conception of pragmatics. The chapter outlines an approach to pragmatics that seems to be compatible with his general methodology and is based on an alternative conception of pragmatics that we sketch out. (shrink)

The aim of the Schematism chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason is to solve the problem posed by the “inhomogeneity” of intuitions and categories: the sensible properties of objects represented in intuition are of a different kind than the properties represented by categories. Kant's solution is to introduce what he calls “transcendental schemata,” which mediate the subsumption of objects under categories. I reconstruct Kant's solution in terms of two substantive premises, which I call Subsumption Sufficiency (i.e., that subsuming an (...) object under a transcendental schema is sufficient to subsume it under the corresponding category) and Real Possibility (i.e., that it is really possible to subsume objects under each of the transcendental schemata). These two principles, together with a trivial modal one (the Subsumption-Possibility Link), entail that it is possible to subsume objects under categories; in other words, the argument of the Schematism is valid. The main work of the paper consists in reconstructing Kant's arguments for, and explanations of, these premises. I argue that they hinge on Kant's claim that transcendental schemata are “time-determinations,” which I interpret to mean: rules for reflexively representing the temporal relations among our own representational states. On the basis of this reading, I reconstruct Kant's argument for Subsumption Sufficiency, category by category. I also explain why Real Possibility follows almost immediately. Granting Kant the argument up to this point in the Critique, the argument of the Schematism is sound. (shrink)

The ‘interpretive turn’ in twentieth-century hermeneutics rests on the general ontological claim that human reality is the reality of self-interpreting animals. But under the circumstances of advanced modernity, there are aspects of human life, or spheres of human thought and action, that appear to contradict this general thesis, in that they do not present themselves as the doings of self-interpreting animals at all. Of these, the predominant one is the sphere of work or 'productive' action. In face of historical circumstances (...) in which work presents itself as bereft of the meanings that concern self-interpreting animals, hermeneutic philosophy faces a choice: Does it exempt work from the realm of self-interpretive activity, making it an exception to the general ontological thesis; or does it seek to retrieve the hermeneutic provenance of productive action? With a focus on the writings of Gadamer and Ricoeur, the chapter shows that philosophical hermeneutics has vacillated on this issue and it suggests that retrieval of the self-interpretive dimension of productive action is a central task for hermeneutics today. (shrink)

Commentators have shown a steady interest in the role of feeling in Kant’s moral and practical philosophy over the last few decades. Much attention has been given to the notion of ‘moral feeling’ in general, as well as to what Kant calls the ‘feeling of respect’ for the moral law. My focus in this essay is on the role of feeling in practical judgment. My claim in what follows is that the act of judging in the practical domain—i.e., determining what (...) one ought to do, or what action one ought to perform, in a specific case—crucially involves feeling. Put more simply: I argue that practical judgment has an essentially affective dimension. The upshot of the account I will give is that it provides us with a richer and more complex account of moral feeling than has previously been appreciated in the literature. While it is recognized that feeling plays a certain role in moral motivation, what I hope to demonstrate here is that feeling is involved much earlier in the exercise of moral agency. Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do. (shrink)

What is the meaning of life? Does anything really matter? In the past few decades these questions, perennially associated with philosophy in the popular consciousness, have rightly retaken their place as central topics in the academy. In this major contribution, Nicholas Waghorn provides a sustained and rigorous elucidation of what it would take for lives to have significance. Bracketing issues about ways our lives could have more or less meaning, the focus is rather on the idea of ultimate meaning, (...) the issue of whether a life can attain meaning that cannot be called into question. Waghorn sheds light on this most fundamental of existential problems through a detailed yet comprehensive examination of the notion of nothing, embracing classic and cutting-edge literature from both the analytic and Continental traditions. Central figures such as Heidegger, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Nozick and Nagel are drawn upon to anchor the discussion in some of the most influential discussion of recent philosophical history. In the process of relating our ideas concerning nothing to the problem of life's meaning, Waghorn's book touches upon a number of fundamental themes, including reflexivity and its relation to our conceptual limits, whether religion has any role to play in the question of life's meaning, and the nature and constraints of philosophical methodology. A number of major philosophical traditions are addressed, including phenomenology, poststructuralism, and classical and paraconsistent logics. In addition to providing the most thorough current discussion of ultimate meaning, it will serve to introduce readers to philosophical debates concerning the notion of nothing, and the appendix engaging religion will be of value to both philosophers and theologians. (shrink)

According to Fumerton in his "How Does Perception Justify Belief?", it is misleading or wrong to say that perception is a source of justification for beliefs about the external world. Moreover, reliability does not have an essential role to play here either. I agree, and I explain why in section 1, using novel considerations about evil demon scenarios in which we are radically deceived. According to Fumerton, when it comes to how sensations or experiences supply justification, they do not do (...) so on their own, and instead only do so only in conjunction with support for background beliefs about how the sensations or experiences are best explained. Here I disagree. In section 2, I first clarify the question of whether sensations or experiences provide justification on their own. I then respond to Fumerton’s arguments that use considerations about concept-possession and about how to close possible gaps between experience and truth. In section 3, I develop my main concern about his positive view, where that concern also brings out some of the merits of the view that experiences do justify beliefs about the external world on their own. (shrink)

This chapter discusses ontological commitment to properties, understood as ontological correlates of predicates. We examine the issue in four metaontological settings, beginning with an influential Quinean paradigm on which ontology concerns what there is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably avoids ontological commitment to properties. Our remaining three settings correspond to the most prominent departures from the Quinean paradigm. Firstly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with a primitive, non-quantificational notion of existence. Ontology then concerns what exists. We argue (...) that this strengthens the Quinean case against ontological commitment to properties while also newly distinguishing between stronger and weaker forms of nominalism. Secondly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with the ideology of fundamentality. Ontology then centrally concerns what’s fundamental. We argue that this leaves ontological commitment to properties wide open although Bradleyan regress threatens. Thirdly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with primitive higher-order quantifiers. Ontology then expands to concern what there higher-order is and what there first-order is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably incurs ontological commitment to properties. (shrink)

Participation in religious liturgies and rituals is a pervasive and complex human activity. This book discusses the nature of liturgical activity and the various dimensions of such activity. Nicholas Wolterstorff focuses on understanding what liturgical agents actually do and shows religious practice as a rich area for philosophical reflection.

Over the years Nicholas Rescher has published various essays on religious issues from a philosophical point of view. The chapters of the present volume collect these together, joining to them four further pieces which appear here for the first time (Chapters 3, 7, and 8). While these studies certainly do not constitute a system of religious philosophy, they do combine to give a vivid picture of a well-defined point of view on the subject-the viewpoint of a Roman Catholic philosopher (...) who, in the longstanding manner of this tradition, seeks to harmonize the commitments of faith with the fruits of inquiry proceeding under the auspices of reason. (shrink)