Examines the political dimensions of Aristophanes’ comic poetry. This original and wide-ranging collection of essays offers, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of the political dimensions of that madcap comic poet Aristophanes. Rejecting the claim that Aristophanes is little more than a mere comedian, the contributors to this fascinating volume demonstrate that Aristophanes deserves to be placed in the ranks of the greatest Greek political thinkers. As these essays reveal, all of Aristophanes’ plays treat issues of fundamental political importance, (...) from war and peace, poverty and wealth, the relation between the sexes, demagoguery and democracy to the role of philosophy and poetry in political society. Accessible to students as well as scholars, The Political Theory of Aristophanes can be utilized easily in the classroom, but at the same time serve as a valuable source for those conducting more advanced research. Whether the field is political philosophy, classical studies, history, or literary criticism, this work will make it necessary to reconceptualize how we understand this great Athenian poet and force us to recognize the political ramifications and underpinnings of his uproarious comedies. Jeremy J. Mhire is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Louisiana Tech University. Bryan-Paul Frost is James A. and Kaye L. Crocker Endowed Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the coeditor (with Jeffrey Sikkenga) of History of American Political Thought. (shrink)

Alexandre Koj_ve offers a systematic discussion of key themes such as right, justice, law, equality, and autonomy in which he presages our contemporary world of economic globalization and international law. Edited and translated by Bryan-Paul Frost, this is the authoritative English language edition of a monumental work in political philosophy.

SINCE ITS PUBLICATION IN 1981, Alexandre Kojève’s Esquisse d’une phénoménologie du droit has received scant scholarly attention. Except for a brief note on the book by Michael S. Roth, and some scattered references here and there, the Esquisse has been eclipsed by Kojève’s Introduction à la lecture de Hegel and by his debate and longstanding correspondence with Leo Strauss in the latter’s On Tyranny. Despite the renown of these two books, the Esquisse is an indispensable work in Kojève’s corpus as (...) a whole. As the Esquisse was written after the Introduction, Kojève clarifies and elaborates upon many of the themes he raises there; and as the Esquisse was written before his response to Strauss’s On Tyranny, it helps to set the stage for this important philosophic debate. Furthermore, the Esquisse is clearly Kojève’s most political work, by which I mean that he most fully articulates his understanding of right, justice, and the universal and homogeneous empire. The Esquisse is his only book that is not an interpretation of the history of philosophy and political thought, and this means that Kojève’s own voice can be heard with an unrivalled clarity: the oft asked question whether Kojève is sincerely attempting to interpret another philosopher or is masking his own thoughts behind that interpretation simply does not apply in this case. Although the title of the book states that it is a provisional exposition, the Esquisse is certainly more unified or systematic than the Introduction, and Kojève declared that he was satisfied with it. Lastly, the Esquisse is also a highly accessible work, not being as abstract as some of his other epistemological writings. All in all, it is extremely puzzling why political scientists have not paid more attention to the Esquisse. (shrink)

How are we to understand Cato the Younger? To be sure, this question implies that there is something important we can learn by studying the life of Cato the Younger, that we can garner fundamental political insights by understanding his actions and thoughts. Although this essay will be a modest attempt to articulate some of these insights by presenting a paradigm with which Cato's life can be understood, the very fact that Cato commands the attention of a diverse number of (...) diplomats, philosophers and poets should make us as political scientists and historians at least somewhat interested in his life as a whole. (shrink)

Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers regardless of the historical era or political persuasion.

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines what obstacles they confronted as teachers and how they overcame them in conveying truth to their students in an age dominated by ideological thinking.

Is knowledge definable as justified true belief? We argue that one can legitimately answer positively or negatively, depending on whether or not one’s true belief is justified by what we call adequate reasons. To facilitate our argument we introduce a simple propositional logic of reason-based belief, and give an axiomatic characterization of the notion of adequacy for reasons. We show that this logic is sufficiently flexible to accommodate various useful features, including quantification over reasons. We use our framework to contrast (...) two notions of JTB: one internalist, the other externalist. We argue that Gettier cases essentially challenge the internalist notion but not the externalist one. Our approach commits us to a form of infallibilism about knowledge, but it also leaves us with a puzzle, namely whether knowledge involves the possession of only adequate reasons, or leaves room for some inadequate reasons. We favor the latter position, which reflects a milder and more realistic version of infallibilism. (shrink)

This article utilizes the case of Ms H. to examine the contrasting ways that surrogate decision makers move from simply hearing information about the patient to actually knowing and understanding the patient’s medical condition. The focus of the case is on a family’s request to actually see the patient’s wounds instead of being told about the wounds, and the role of clinical ethicists in facilitating this request. We argue that clinical ethicists have an important role to play in the work (...) of converting information into knowledge and that this can serve as a valuable way forward in the midst of seemingly intractable conflicts in the medical setting. (shrink)

An ethics consultant’s scope of practice is best understood as equipping stakeholders to achieve closure over time following after the ethics consultation. This is in contrast to Autumn Fiester’s position in the article, “Neglected Ends: Clinical Ethics Consultation and the Prospects for Closure,” where she claims that moral closure is a necessary condition for the proper completion of an ethics consultation case.

I will discuss two themes that can be found in Mark Sagoff's most recent book, Price, Principle, and the Environment. Built from pieces fashioned in his entertaining and incisive critical es...

Issues of interest, identity and values intertwine in environmental conflicts, creating challenges that cannot generally be overcome using rationalities grounded in generalised argumentation and abstraction. To address the growing need to engage interests and identities along with plural values in the conservation of biodiversity and ecological systems, we introduce the concept of ‘appropriateness of actions’ and ground it in a relational understanding of environmental ethics. A determination of appropriateness for actions comes from combining outputs from value elicitation with those of (...) interest and identity negotiation in ways that are salient to specific people and their relationships to specific places. Drawing on the Blue Mountain Forest Partnership in the Pacific Northwest, we propose factors of success for supporting appropriate actions: 1) understanding context and identifying key stakeholders; 2) surfacing a diversity of interests and building system-level trust; 3) building empathy for different identities grounded in specific places; 4) eliciting diverse values and seeking to understand their links to worldviews and knowledge systems and; 5) seeking out appropriate actions. (shrink)

These comments, which take the form of criticism and response, were the basis of a zoom conversation at the Eastern APA, January 2021. Josh is putting them up on philpapers (with permission from all involved) in case they are helpful to people interested in the themes of this book.

Demands for absolute or near certainty are a common way for those with a political agenda to undermine science and to delay action. Through our combined experience in science, philosophy and cultural theory, we are acquainted with these attempts to undermine science. We want to help readers figure out how to evaluate their merits or lack thereof.

In a postmodern culturism, everything is relative, in this way, nothing can be affirmed as absolute truth. Taking into account that culturism is the belief that some cultures are superior than others, this essay proposes the idea that a postmodern culturism is the belief, superior to others, that all cultures are to be revered. Within a postmodern culturism, the essay proposes the analysis of three common arguments through a specific epistemological perspective, rationalism: empirical data and the primacy of reason. The (...) analyzed arguments are: first, all cultures ought to be equally revered; second, western logic is different to the ancestral logic; third, all ancestral cultures have wisdom. The article concludes that these arguments do not withstand the rational analysis. (shrink)

Human cooperation is highly unusual. We live in large groups composed mostly of non-relatives. Evolutionists have proposed a number of explanations for this pattern, including cultural group selection and extensions of more general processes such as reciprocity, kin selection, and multi-level selection acting on genes. Evolutionary processes are consilient; they affect several different empirical domains, such as patterns of behavior and the proximal drivers of that behavior. In this target article, we sketch the evidence from five domains that bear on (...) the explanatory adequacy of cultural group selection and competing hypotheses to explain human cooperation. Does cultural transmission constitute an inheritance system that can evolve in a Darwinian fashion? Are the norms that underpin institutions among the cultural traits so transmitted? Do we observe sufficient variation at the level of groups of considerable size for group selection to be a plausible process? Do human groups compete, and do success and failure in competition depend upon cultural variation? Do we observe adaptations for cooperation in humans that most plausibly arose by cultural group selection? If the answer to one of these questions is “no,” then we must look to other hypotheses. We present evidence, including quantitative evidence, that the answer to all of the questions is “yes” and argue that we must take the cultural group selection hypothesis seriously. If culturally transmitted systems of rules that limit individual deviance organize cooperation in human societies, then it is not clear that any extant alternative to cultural group selection can be a complete explanation. (shrink)

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

Este artigo investiga as diferentes concepções de “Sujeito” de acordo com o corpus teórico do filósofo Paul B. Preciado. As categorias analisadas são: os processos subjetivos e técnicos de sujeição social e servidão maquínica na era farmacopornográfica; o sujeito Playboy e petrosexorracial; a Multidão, seus múltiplos devires e as micropolíticas de resistência à opressão; a metamorfose dos sujeitos em agentes revolucionários e os simbiontes políticos, postulados por Preciado em seu mais recente livro publicado, Dysphoria mundi. Como Preciado articula todas (...) estas concepções, considerando ainda as linhas de fuga da submissão, isto é, o horizonte filosófico de resistência onto-epístemo-política, metamorfose e até a possível superação da dominação capitalística? Os procedimentos metodológicos foram baseados na pesquisa bibliográfica (livros, artigos e crônicas), de modo a evidenciar o contraste, as semelhanças, diferenças e interstícios entre a teoria de Preciado e as suas principais referências. Os resultados obtidos indicam uma linearidade consistente entre-categorias, os desafios em materializar as teorias revolucionárias na realidade cotidiana, bem como estratégias práticas que contribuem para a organização ontopolítica proposta por Preciado. (shrink)

Historical convergence and personal relationships -- Critical reason with an emancipatory goal -- Anthropological differences among Tillich, Adorno, and Horkeimer -- Metaphysics and norms in critical social theory -- Religion and critical theory -- Appendix: Translation of Adorno's Entwurf contra Paulum.

In almost every clinical interaction, clinicians must navigate interpersonal challenges with near‐instantaneous responses to patients. Yet medical ethics has largely overlooked these small, interpersonal exchanges, instead focusing on “big” ethical problems, such as euthanasia, brain death, or genetic modification. In 1995, Paul Komesaroff proposed the concept of microethics as a nonprinciplist approach to ethics that focuses on “what happens in every interaction between every doctor and every patient.” We aim to develop a microethics framework to guide everyday clinical encounters, (...) with a special focus on communication with patients and family members. We will advance three core insights: First, communication is an ethical act in ways seldom considered. Second, microethics is an essential lens through which to view the ethics of communication. Third, virtue can bridge reflective and automatic processes. Our intuitionist framework for microethics is thus based on this understanding of the role of virtue, and we propose six virtues that contribute to the goal of healing communication. (shrink)

In this contribution in honour of Paul Busch, we criticise the claims of many expositions that the time-energy uncertainty principle allows both a violation of energy conservation and particle creation, provided that this happens for a sufficiently short time. But we agree that there are grains of truth in these claims: which we make precise and justify using perturbation theory.

In this contribution in honour of Paul Busch, we criticise the claims of many expositions that the time-energy uncertainty principle allows both a violation of energy conservation, and particle creation, provided that this happens for a sufficiently short time. But we agree that there are grains of truth in these claims: which we make precise and justify using perturbation theory.

Paul Gewirtz has suggested that contemporary Chinese society lacks a shared framework. A Rortian might describe this by saying that China lacks a “final vocabulary” of “thick terms” with which to resolve ethical disagreements. I briefly examine the strengths and weaknesses of Confucianism and Legalism as potential sources of such a final vocabulary, but most of this essay focuses on Zhuangzian Daoism. Zhuangzi 莊子 provides many stories and metaphors that can inspire advocates of political pluralism. However, I suggest that (...) Zhuangzi is ultimately an “ironist” in Rorty’s sense. Many intellectuals assume there is something progressive and liberating about broadly ironic stances like relativism and skepticism. Ethically, though, irony is “the night in which all cows are black”: since it regards all positions as equally undermined, an ironic stance cannot be enlisted in support of tolerance or humanitarianism or in opposition to absolutism or cruelty. (shrink)

SUMMARYSir John Harington's 1591 translation of ‘Ludovico’ Ariosto's Orlando Furioso has been much maligned for its free translation, digressive notes, and the translator's obtrusive presence. This essay addresses the question of Harington's accommodation of his audience using Paul Ricoeur's notion of ‘linguistic hospitality’ to consider how Harington invites English readers to engage with the Italian poem. Harington's exegetical notes and paratextual aids serve as a privileged site or ‘third text’ between the source and target texts to adapt Ariosto for (...) English readers. The translator's anglicising strategies are grounded in contemporary Elizabethan reading practices, while also emulating the exegetical apparatus that accompanied the Italian reception of Ariosto's poem. Domestication strategies Harington employs include the anticipation of his audience's cultural biases, an emphasis on historical events of interest to English readers, and the inclusion of personal details that create cultural bridges between the reader, the translator, and the Italian author. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics and Natural Law: The Relationship in Catholic TeachingJ. Bryan Hehir (bio)In the discipline of Catholic moral theology, bioethics (traditionally described as medical ethics) has held a major place. The systematic development of bioethics has drawn principally upon a natural law ethic, supported by broader religious arguments. The purpose of this essay is to examine the status and role of natural law in Catholic teaching as it bears (...) upon bioethics.Natural Law and Catholic TheologyThe role of natural law in Catholic theology is rooted in a prior conviction about the complementary relationship of faith and reason. The conviction finds initial expression in patristic authors, then preeminently in Thomas Aquinas and consistently in modern papal teaching of the twentieth century. Flowing from this conviction, as a premise of Catholic theology and teaching, is the [End Page 333] notion that a second source of moral wisdom exists along side the revealed wisdom of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. This second source of wisdom is the product of rational reflection upon human nature and experience. In the tradition of natural law ethics (expressed in a plurality of versions), such reflection affirms an objective moral order, accessible to reason and based upon a conception of the person as both spiritual and social. The spiritual nature, expressed in the capacity for reflection and free choice, is the foundation of the natural law ethic, providing the human person a unique status in the created order. The social nature of the person locates each human being in a framework of social relationships, articulated in a complex of rights and duties and finding expression in three basic communities: the family, civil society, and the human community.The fully developed framework of a natural law ethic has five dimensions. It yields a theory of society, a doctrine of the state, a charter of duties and rights, a jurisprudence, and an applied ethic. At each level of this framework, the natural law ethic is contested by other contemporary philosophical positions. In this article, space demands that stress must be placed on the natural law affirmations without trying to engage the critics.The centrality of the social nature of the person yields a theory of society that is organic in character, laying strong emphasis on the social fabric of existence. Hence the theory has traditionally emphasized both order and justice more strongly than claims of freedom. The doctrine of the state, in contemporary natural law arguments, supports a limited yet activist state, limited by constitutional restraints and human rights claims, yet activist in its conception of a broad range of social obligations, particularly to the poor. The charter of rights affirms a range of both political-civil and socio-economic rights; the traditional natural law emphasis on a structure of duties has been complemented in the twentieth century by its stress on the role of human rights. The jurisprudential theory of natural law has been its most prominent aspect; it affirms a moral grounding for civil law, but distinguishes precisely between the comprehensive nature of moral law and the more limited scope of civil law, restricted to the maintenance of public order in society. Finally, the natural law framework finds expression in Catholic teaching in three areas of applied ethics: social ethics (civil society and international relations), sexual ethics, and bioethics.History and StatusWhile a natural law ethic has been a staple of Catholic social and bioethical teaching, it has not held similar status in the wider arena of contemporary philosophical or theological ethics. Through the 1950s, therefore, one could find a strong consensus supporting natural law within the Catholic community and ongoing debates within the wider world of philosophy and bioethics. Since the 1960s, any description of the status and role of natural law must consider the debates within Roman Catholicism itself about the role and status of natural law. [End Page 334]It is possible to distinguish two stages of these internal arguments in the church. In the period from 1960 to 1990, three events in Catholicism directly influenced the standing of a natural law position: John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem In Terris (1963), Paul XI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), and the teaching of... (shrink)

Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter turns, in two contrasting ways, on the role of experts. On the one hand, Caplan uses the opinions of economists as a benchmark for identifying error in public opinion, finding such error systematic and pervasive. On the other hand, in considering remedies, he largely discounts the ability of policymakers to use expert advice and their own expertise to resist misguided public pressure. Although Caplan’s use of expert opinion as a benchmark, in (...) principle, is acceptable, he overstates what we can conclude from that exercise with his data. There are, however, alternative grounds for a more tentative, yet broadly similar, assessment of the prevalence of error in mass opinion. (shrink)

The train has stopped in the night. It is the end of winter, 1920; it is very cold, about 25 degress below zero, some hundred kilometers west of Irkutsk. Along the train soldiers mount guard; ahead, a party of the detachment is clearing the track. Many of the soldiers have makeshift bandages around their wrists and feet: the Siberian frost has taken its toll. There is no question, however, of withdrawing the guard or stopping the work. This train is (...) the most precious treasure of the Soviet. Republic, transporting the greater part of the State gold reserves: 355 m. tons. Previously housed in the vaults of the Kazan Bank in Tartary by the Tsarist government, it was removed in 1918 by admiral Kolchak; the greatest coup in history! Not that it brought the admiral any good luck: in Siberia, at the height of the civil war, the richest man in the world was only able to get a few shipments of gold through to Vladivostok, to pay his debts to the Americans and buy arms from them. And then Kolchak died: he was shot on February 7th, the gold now returning to Kazan. (shrink)

_Ideology and Utopia_ argues that ideologies are mental fictions whose function is to veil the true nature of a given society. They originate unconsciously in the minds of those who seek to stabilise a social order. Utopias are wish dreams that inspire the collective action of opposition groups which aim at the entire transformation of society. Mannheim shows these two opposing elements to dominate not only our social thought but even unexpectedly to penetrate into the most scientific theories in philosophy, (...) history and the social sciences. This new edition contains a new preface by Bryan S. Turner which describes Mannheim's work and critically assesses its relevance to modern sociology. The book is published with a comprehensive bibliography of Mannheim's major works. (shrink)

Dr. Caleb Williams Saleeby was the author of Parenthood and Race Culture, one of the first monographs on eugenics and the book that popularized the term “racial poison.” The goal of eradicating the racial poisons and the harm they caused — particularly infant morbidity and mortality — provided common ground for early 20th century reformers, and their concerns fed the growing support for legal prohibition of alcohol.