© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] wonderful collection of most of van Inwagen’s recent essays on topics in fundamental ontology is certainly to be welcomed.1 Many of the essays are focused on articulating and arguing for van Inwagen’s preferred meta-ontology, which he calls neo-Quineanism. In addition to these essays, Existence also contains essays on the eliminability of variables, the status of fictional entities, the (...) nature of ontological categories, the nature of properties, mereology and change over time, the comparative merits of constituent and relational ontologies, a probing discussion of metaphysical issues in the philosophy of mind, as well as an interview with van Inwagen that describes his intellectual development and his assessment of his philosophical contributions. Each essay is written in van Inwagen’s characteristically charming and impeccable style. I... (shrink)

This is my contribution to an author-meets-critics session on Truth and Ontology.

In this paper, I formulate, elucidate, and defend a version of modal realism with overlap, the view that objects are literally present at more than one possible world. The version that I defend has several interesting features: (i) it is committed to an ontological distinction between regions of spacetime and material objects; (ii) it is committed to compositional pluralism, which is the doctrine that there is more than one fundamental part-whole relation; and (iii) it is the modal analogue of endurantism, (...) which is the doctrine that objects persist through time by being wholly present at each moment they are located. (shrink)

There are different ways to be. This paper explicates and defends this controversial thesis. Special attention is given to the meta-ontology of Martin Heidegger. -/- .

Dennis Ahern and David Soles raise substantial problems for the conventional interpretation of Mo Tzu as a utilitarian. Although they defend different interpretations, both scholars agree that Mo Tzu is committed to a divine command theory in some form, citing the same key passages where, supposedly, Mo Tzu explicitly endorses the divine command theory. In this paper, I defend the orthodox interpretation, insisting that Mo Tzu is a utilitarian. I show that the passages cited by Ahern and Soles do not (...) explicitly endorse the divine command theory and are compatible with the utilitarian interpretation; in fact, I argue that many of these passages must be understood in light of a utilitarian interpretation if they are to be rendered intelligible at all. After showing that motivation for the divine command interpretation is lacking, I argue that the only satisfactory alternative is to understand Mo Tzu as a consistent utilitarian. (shrink)

Folk stories featuring prosocial content are ubiquitous across cultures. One explanation for the ubiquity of such stories is that stories teach people about the local socioecology, including norms of prosociality, and stories featuring prosocial content may increase generosity in listeners. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 185 Hadza hunter-gatherers. We read participants a story in which the main character either swims with another person (control story) or rescues him from drowning (prosocial story). After hearing the story, participants played (...) a dictator game with dried meat sticks and then were given a recall test of facts presented in the story. There was moderate evidence for a small effect of the prosocial story: participants who heard the prosocial story gave an estimated 0.22 [90% HDI: −0.12–0.57] more meat sticks than those who heard the control story. However, the association between generosity and sex, marital status, and region of residence was stronger; men gave more than women, unmarried participants gave more than married participants, and participants living in a region with more exposure to markets gave more than participants living further from markets. There was no evidence that the prosocial story was more easily recalled than the control story. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that prosocial stories can increase prosociality in listeners, though the effect of hearing a single story is small. (shrink)

This chapter makes the argument for both the practicality and impracticality of philosophy as it relates to liberal education. An exploration of the history of science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reveals that a study of philosophy cultivates a skill set of logic and critical thinking that are crucial for those who study science and mathematics. It also situates philosophy as a unifying discipline for liberal education and STEM studies (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). The study of philosophy also (...) is impractical, as is liberal education, in that it does not prepare students for any specific profession. But it is this impracticality that makes philosophy, and liberal education, central to its identity and value: it creates an individual who is more empathic, open-minded, and self-aware that would not be possible if philosophy and liberal education were subordinated to some practical goal. (shrink)

Jakob von Uexküll’s (1864-1944) account of Umwelt has been proposed as a mediating concept to bridge the gap between ecological psychology’s realism about environmental information and enactivism’s emphasis on the organism’s active role in constructing the meaningful world it inhabits. If successful, this move would constitute a significant step towards establishing a single ecological-enactive framework for cognitive science. However, Uexküll’s thought itself contains different perspectives that are in tension with each other, and the concept of Umwelt is developed in representationalist (...) terms that conflict with the commitments of both enactivism and ecological psychology. One central issue shared by all these approaches is the problem of how a living being experiences its environment. In this paper, we will look at Uexküll’s reception in French philosophy and highlight the different ways in which the concept of Umwelt functions in the work of Georges Canguilhem, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gilles Deleuze. This analysis helps clarify different aspects of Uexküll’s thought and the deeper philosophical implications of importing his concepts into embodied cognitive science. This paper is part of a recent trend in which enactivism engages with continental philosophy in a way that both deepens and transcends the traditional links to phenomenology, including most recently the thought of Georg W. F. Hegel and Gilbert Simondon. However, no more than a brief outline and introduction to the potentials and challenges of this complex conceptual intersection can be given here. Our hope is that it serves to make more explicit the philosophical issues that are at stake for cognitive science in the question of experienced environments, while charting a useful course for future research. (shrink)

This essay addresses the complexities of the Roman Catholic position on war by evaluating recent documentary evidence, attending to the contemporary challenges of terrorism and humanitarian interventions. It presents two arguments. First, attending to traditional Catholic resources for assessing war, papal criticism of recent military action, and debates about a recent shift in Catholic just war logic, this essay argues that Catholic teaching on war has undergone a repositioning in a pacifist direction. Second, it contends that recent critiques of this (...) shift in position by scholars such as George Weigel and James Turner Johnson, however, are wrong to categorize this a “functional pacifism.” Though a development from within just war theory and pacifist reasoning, the Church's new stance does not operate as a type of pacifism, allowing too many possibilities for justified armed conflict to be labeled as “functional” pacifism. The essay concludes by examining the traditional Catholic theological commitments that place limits on any movement toward pacifism, precluding even a functionally pacifist position. (shrink)

Despite constituting one of the most pressing ethical issues of our time, most white Christian ethicists and theologians fail to engage the issue of white supremacy in their work. As one of the most influential and prolific Christian ethicists of the past half‐century, Stanley Hauerwas represents this tendency, and provides specific reasons for his silence. This essay analyzes those reasons, and argues that a commitment to Alasdair MacIntyre’s understandings of tradition and narrative frames his view on race and prevents his (...) engagement of racism. It then highlights the ways this reflects the broader trends of silence, abstraction, and colorblindness among white Christian ethicists when it comes to the issue. Identifying these failures, the essay concludes by suggesting that Hauerwas’s first published essay in 1969, on Black Power, provides resources for theologically engaging the problems of white supremacy today. (shrink)

Participants scoring high and low on a measure of repressive coping style (Mendolia, 2002) first learned a series of related word pairs (cue–target). Half of the cues were homographs. In the subsequent think/no-think phase (Anderson & Green, 2001), they responded with targets on some trials and suppressed thoughts of targets on others. Suppressed targets were always emotionally negative, as were targets associated with baseline cues reserved for the final test. Some participants were provided with emotionally benign or positive substitutes to (...) help them suppress, and these substitutes were related to different meanings of the homographic cues, compared to those established by the targets. On the final test, all cues were presented for target recall. Only the repressors significantly benefited from the provision of positive substitutes to aid forgetting of the negative targets, regardless of the nature of the cues. (shrink)

This essay addresses the complexities of the Roman Catholic position on war by evaluating recent documentary evidence, attending to the contemporary challenges of terrorism and humanitarian interventions. It presents two arguments. First, attending to traditional Catholic resources for assessing war, papal criticism of recent military action, and debates about a recent shift in Catholic just war logic, this essay argues that Catholic teaching on war has undergone a repositioning in a pacifist direction. Second, it contends that recent critiques of this (...) shift in position by scholars such as George Weigel and James Turner Johnson, however, are wrong to categorize this a “functional pacifism.” Though a development from within just war theory and pacifist reasoning, the Church's new stance does not operate as a type of pacifism, allowing too many possibilities for justified armed conflict to be labeled as “functional” pacifism. The essay concludes by examining the traditional Catholic theological commitments that place limits on any movement toward pacifism, precluding even a functionally pacifist position. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that to adequately capture the complicated relationship between Descartes' work and late medieval thought, philosophers need to think not only about his ideas but also about his presentation and choice of genre. Reading the Meditations as a mere discursive treatise containing a progressive and consistent set of arguments intended to establish a particular philosophical position fails to appreciate the eponymous genre that Descartes explicitly chose to employ in writing them. Instead, we argue that reading the (...) text in light of the long tradition of contemplative meditative literature opens up a radically new way of interpreting the Meditations as a “mystagogical” project of spiritual edification and epistemic and volitional transformation. During such a transformation, the meditator undergoes a series of revelatory experiences structurally similar to those we find in various so-called “mystical” or “mystagogical”literature, in the Christian West. We show how paying attention to these mystagogical aspects of the Meditations can open up new avenues for understanding the connection between the theoretical, practical, and theological aspects of Descartes' thought. Such a reading resolves a number of seemingly glaring problems and peculiarities in the Meditations including the Cartesian circle, and the tension in the Cartesian notion of the freedom of the will. We also argue that the odd detours the meditator takes in the Sixth Meditation through physiology are not mere digressions but rather mark an often overlooked aspect of the mystagogical story – the return to embodiment as a transformed self. Indeed, the overly intellectualist emphasis of contemporary scholars on both the contemplative aspects of mystagogical literature and the epistemological focus of Descartes' project in the Meditations have caused them to largely overlook the ways in which the aim of both medieval and Cartesian meditation involves a transformative re-orientation of the whole person and their understanding of the world – one which has practical, moral, and social consequences that have gone underexplored in discussions of these texts. (shrink)

Narrator Ron Howard tells us that Arrested Development is the “story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.” The cult classic follows Michael Bluth – the middle son of an inept, philandering, corrupt real estate developer, George Bluth Sr., who is arrested for white-collar crimes. Constantly faced with crises created by his eccentric family, Michael does his best to preserve the family business, put out fires, and (...) serve as a role model for his teenage son, George Michael. The Bluths’ misadventures raise the question, what, if anything, do adult children owe their parents? This chapter explores the relationships between the members of the Bluth family and argues that Arrested Development makes the case that, insofar as adult children “owe” their parents anything, such an obligation is grounded in a sense of friendship – a voluntarily entered relation that can be terminated at any time. As a result, Arrested Development challenges the often-unquestioned assumption that children owe their parents special consideration simply in virtue of the parent-child relationship. (shrink)

A Review of Heter & Greene's Punk Rock and Philosophy: Research and Destroy (Carus Books).

A post-Newtonian understanding of matter includes immaterial forces; thus, the concept of ‘physical’ has lost what usefulness it previously had and Cartesian dualism has, consequently, ceased to support a divide between the mental and the physical. A contemporary scientific understanding of mind that goes back at least as far as Priestley in the 18th century, not only includes immaterial components but identifies brain parts in which these components correlate with neural activity. What are we left with? The challenge is no (...) longer to figure out how a physical brain interacts with a nonphysical mind, but to try to unify theories of mind and theories of brain that to date do not share a single property. The challenge is enormous, but at least we can be quite clear about what its nature is, as there is no reason to be distracted by the idea of two distinct substances. In the present volume, many historical perspectives on the mind-body problem are discussed. In what follows, we follow major currents of thought regarding the mind-body problem so that it can be seen how we arrived at the modern conception that it makes sense only to talk about theory unification. (shrink)

Narrator Ron Howard tells us that Arrested Development is the “story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.” The cult-classic follows Michael Bluth – the middle son of an inept, philandering, corrupt real-estate developer, George Bluth Sr., who is arrested for white-collar crimes. Constantly faced with crises created by his eccentric family, Michael does his best to preserve the family business, put out fires, and serve as (...) a role model for his teenage son, George Michael. The Bluths’ misadventures raise the question, what, if anything, do adult children owe their parents? This chapter explores the relationships between the members of the Bluth family and argues that Arrested Development makes the case that, insofar as adult children “owe” their parents anything, such an obligation is grounded in a sense of friendship – a voluntarily entered relation that can be terminated at any time. As a result, Arrested Development challenges the often-unquestioned assumption that children owe their parents special consideration simply in virtue of the parent-child relationship. (shrink)

In this chapter we discuss the role of what we call "reasonableness" in a philosophy summer camp held at Southern Utah University. "Reasonableness," as we call it, is a more narrowly prescribed form of rationality - indeed one can be rational but unreasonable, but not the other way around. We discuss the importance and value of introducing philosophy to students before they get to college, and describe some of the challenges we face in introducing students in SW Utah to philosophy.

First, i would like to thank Drs. Gipps and de Haan for taking the time to formulate their commentaries; it is an honor to hear your perspectives on my work. Gipps presents a series of questions concerning my perspective, and seems interested in my view of rationality-based concepts. De Haan questions some of the similarities I see between our views and highlights several aspects of my perspective that she disagrees with. Both go beyond the current target article and engage with (...) my wider perspective. There is much that could be discussed further but I will keep my responses structured and brief.Gipps’s commentary is structured as a series of questions. I have structured my response around those same questions.My... (shrink)

This essay responds to James Turner Johnson's critiques of my argument in “‘Never Again War’: Recent Shifts in the Roman Catholic Just War Tradition and the Question of ‘Functional Pacifism.’” . It attends specifically to three of Johnson's objections and offers accounts of the meaning and use of the term “functional pacifism,” an understanding of classic just war thought as a tradition, and the concepts of peace and authority within just war and pacifist thought. It argues that my analysis of (...) the Catholic Church's movement toward pacifism but ultimate theological inability to embrace a functional pacifism still stands in spite of Johnson's critiques. In addition, it suggests that Johnson offers a thin pacifistic conception of peace and promotes a restricted notion of ecclesial authority and democratic government. (shrink)

This essay analyzes masculinity as an ecclesial strategy for maintaining cultural and political power. It begins by examining the masculine theology promoted by the German Christian Movement that gave religious justification for Nazism’s violence against those who did not conform to their masculine norms. Drawing on conceptions of ‘legitimation crisis’ and masculinities studies, it argues that the masculine theology of the German Christians, predicated on a desire for social and political relevancy, shares a similar logic with current American evangelical masculinity. (...) In conclusion, it turns to Dietrich Bonhoeffer for resources of ecclesial resistance to these masculine temptations for cultural relevancy and political power. (shrink)

_A smart philosophical look at the cult hit television show, _Arrested Development__ _Arrested Development_ earned six Emmy awards, a Golden Globe award, critical acclaim, and a loyal cult following—and then it was canceled. Fortunately, this book steps into the void left by the show's premature demise by exploring the fascinating philosophical issues at the heart of the quirky Bluths and their comic exploits. Whether it's reflecting on Gob's self-deception or digging into Tobias's double entendres, you'll watch your favorite scenes and (...) episodes of the show in a whole new way. Takes an entertaining look at the philosophical ideas and tensions in the show's plots and themes Gives you new insights about the Bluth family and other characters: Is George Michael's crush on his cousin unnatural? Is it immoral for Lindsay to lie about stealing clothes to hide the fact that she has a job? Are the pictures really of bunkers or balls? Lets you sound super-smart as you rattle off the names of great philosophers like Sartre and Aristotle to explain key characters and episodes of the show Packed with thought-provoking insights, _Arrested Development and Philosophy_ is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about their late, lamented TV show. And it'll keep you entertained until the long-awaited _Arrested Development_ movie finally comes out. (shrink)

In the past few years, a large number of new chemokines (chemotactic cytokines) and chemokine receptors have been discovered. The growth in knowledge about these molecules has been achieved largely through advances in bioinformatics and the expansion of expression sequence tag (EST) databases. It is now clear that chemokines are crucial in controlling both the development and functioning of leukocytes and that their role is not restricted to cell attraction, as originally assumed. In particular, recent findings provide strong support for (...) the idea that chemokines and their receptors are especially important in the control of viral infection and replication. Thus, specific chemokines are now known to enhance the cytotoxic activity of infected cells, thus inhibiting further virus replication. In addition, some chemokines orchestrate the recruitment of activated leukocytes to foci of infection to aid viral clearance. Viruses, in turn, have evolved various defences against chemokines. These range from the production of proteins that inhibit biological activity of the host chemokine to the hijacking of the chemokine system, whereby certain viruses utilize chemokine receptors for their entry. The latter viral defence can itself be blocked by chemokines. Altogether, these findings illustrate the central role of chemokines in many different phases of the immune response, particularly those aspects involving antiviral defence, a variety and versatility that was not fully appreciated even a few years ago. BioEssays 23:428–435, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In this introduction to the fourth part of an ongoing symposium on quietism, Perl, the editor of the sponsoring journal Common Knowledge, remarks on a new question raised in this latest grouping of articles. Can there be such a thing as a “mezza voce quietism”? Can there be activist quietists or quietist activists or active teachers of quietism without self-contradiction? Perl takes Gandhi and “passive resistance” as his own test case, concluding that Gandhi was a teacher of quietism and that (...) satyagraha was a type of moral education directed at those (first the South Africans, then, more momentously, the British in India) whose spirits were imperiled by their self-confident certainty and whose manners were spoiled by their indelicacy and intrusiveness. (shrink)

This paper serves as a call to philosophers both to create more precollege philosophy programs, and to push back against the instrumentalization of the value of philosophy. I do not intend to defend the intrinsic value of philosophy in this paper, though in an indirect way I will offer a defense of the value of precollege philosophy. I discuss the history, theory and practice behind the Utah Lyceum, a precollege philosophy summer camp program I helped create in rural Utah. I (...) argue that philosophy summer camps such as the Lyceum are in a unique position to push back against the increasing vocationalization of education by building a curriculum on what I call “reasonableness.” In short, reasonableness is a form of rationality that necessarily includes a social component. Focusing on this social aspect, I distinguish three levels at which philosophical dialogue occurs: interpersonally, intratextually, and intertextually. I argue that by employing this distinction we can facilitate better philosophical dialogue and better aid our students in becoming reasonable. (shrink)

We examine Twin Peaks' minor character Albert Rosenfeld's peculiar moral code. We make the case that Albert is the perfect exemplification of a perfect Kantian in an imperfect world.

Using Twin Peaks' Agent Dale Cooper as an example, we explore the paradox of fiction. Employing resources from Aimee Thomasson's account of fictional characters in conjunction with some research on parasocial interaction, we make offer a potential solution for the paradox.

There is something that it is like to be you, and I argue that there is something that it is like to experience the terminology that baristas employ in describing coffee. I argue that there is a world of experiential difference between those in the know and those who are not. Borrowing from David Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" I argue that while everyone likes what they like, one can still be mistaken in liking something of lower quality.

This chapter contains sections titled: What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher of Coffee? What Is It Like to Drink Coffee? Why Is the Unexamined Cup Not Worth Drinking?

Kris McDaniel argues that there are different ways in which things exist. For instance, past things don't exist in the same way as present things. Numbers don't exist in the same way as physical objects; nor do holes, which are real, but less real than what they are in. McDaniel's theory of being illuminates a wide range of metaphysical topics.

A central theme in the scholarly literature on Enlightenment Europe concerns the increased focus on the role of reason in the development of European thought, especially in the development of the new science by the natural philosophers. As a consequence, there is a tendency in both philosophical scholarship and teaching to bind philosophy and science tightly together. While there is certainly much that is correct in this approach, one motivation for pluralizing philosophy’s past is that this story leaves out a (...) great deal that is important in Enlightenment views of reason. We argue, using as an example the work of figures like Margaret Cavendish, that reason was significantly broader in scope—and that developments in science were paralleled by equally important advances in music, art, literature, medicine, philosophy, and other areas. In recognizing the lack of a sharp boundary between these areas, an inclusive canon of Enlightenment philosophy gives us this richer notion of reason. Integrating figures such as Cavendish into the canon helps us to see that the narrow focus on the scientific version of reason within Enlightenment scholarship creates a false distinction between science and the humanities and misses out on the humanistic ends for which we engage in philosophy. (shrink)