Pierre Trémaux’s 1865 ideas on speciation have been unjustly derided following his acceptance by Marx and rejection by Engels, and almost nobody has read his ideas in a charitable light. Here we offer an interpretation based on translating the term sol as “habitat”, in order to show that Trémaux proposed a theory of allopatric speciation before Wagner and a punctuated equilibrium theory before Gould and Eldredge, and translate the relevant discussion from the French. We believe he may have influenced Darwin’s (...) revision to the third edition of the Origin on rates of evolution, and suggest that Gould’s dismissal of Trémaux is motivated by concern that others might think punctuated equilibrium theory was tainted by a connection with Trémaux. (shrink)

NATURES AND FUTURES FOR POLITICAL THEORY John S. Nelson What are the problematics, histories, forms, aims, conditions, methods, and topics proper to political theory? Plainly, these change from one context to another; and yet they may ...

Struever argues that White's emphasis on language, use of tropology, and adherence to formalism render his theory ahistorical. However, like White, she fails to define either her terms or her rationale for contrasting tropological with topological rhetoric, fails to take responsibility for our times, and fails to delineate clearly her views on the dynamics of history. What is required is further research and elaboration of White's tropal philosophy. A program for this study includes the clarification of a rhetoric for inquiry, (...) of tropes, and of elective affinity. These concepts should then be applied systematically to the disciplines of social science and to philosophy of history. White's concept of irony must also be isolated, sorted, and examined for its resistance to isolation and sorting. Finally, one must address the principles of politics which underlie these concepts, this text, and ultimately texts in general. (shrink)

(1988). Approaches, opportunities and priorities in the rhetoric of political inquiry: A critical synthesis. Social Epistemology: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 21-42.

_Investigates the philosophical relationship between Levinas and Heidegger in a nonpolemical context, engaging some of philosophy’s most pressing issues._.

In response to a growing perception that America's youth lack the necessary values to grow and develop into adulthood in a socially healthy manner, character education has emerged as a rapidly growing proactive approach that serves to develop good character among young people. The authors examine several of the virtues thought to underlie good character from Character Counts!, a popular character education program, and emphasize the cultural complexities involved when promoting character education in a pluralistic society. 2012 APA, all rights (...) reserved). (shrink)

2. Thesis 2 I accept insofar as it asserts the relation of possibility to actuality to be a fundamental aspect of things. This relation is sui generis.

The problem of reference is central to the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, and epistemology yet it remains largely unresolved. Naming and Reference explains the reference of lexical terms, with particular emphasis placed on proper names, demonstrative pronouns and personal pronouns. It examines such specific issues as: how to account for the reference of names that are empty or speculative, which abound in science and philosophy, and how to account for intentional reference as in "he took Mary to be Jane." (...) Naming and Reference begins with a survey of the history of the subject within a philosophical and critical setting, from Locke, Brentano, Peirce, Frege, Russell, Strawson, Tarski, Carnap and Quine up to Kripke and Fodor. The rest of the book is devoted to an algorithmic theory of reference derived from Peirce's idea that signification is a three-way relationship involving a term, an object and an interpretant. The theory rounds out the causal notion of reference, while at the same time preserving Frege's distinction between sense and reference, and making a place for indexical terms. Through the use of various computer models, R. J. Nelson explores the meaning and reference of words to objects and the relationship of these phenomena to perception, belief and truth. The models used are parallel, connectionist computational models rather than the sequential models of mid-century artificial intelligence. The aim, in opposition to nativist and mental representation theories, is to account for the genesis of semantically interpretable symbols, not to assume them. (shrink)

We must agree, I think, with Frank Ebersole that there is something preposterous in supposing that the God of religious belief, the God who handed down tablets to Moses on Mt. Sinai, etc., should be proven to exist by the ontological argument. Indeed, when we place the one, the ontological argument, by the side of the other, the God of religious belief, there seems hardly to be any connection between them. But if we agree to this perception of things, what (...) sense can we make of the ontological argument, for example, the “pull” that it sometimes exerts on us? (shrink)

There are, no doubt, a variety of reasons, good and bad, why anyone might want to treat a worker's labour, and most people, consciously or unconsciously do, as a commodity.

This book is a defense of Hume's philosophical principles in the Treatise of Human Nature. Nelson shows that Hume's new philosophy was a uniquely original and profound masterpiece in philosophical literature, worthy of serious study and acceptance. It is argued that Dialoguesis a reflective philosophical autobiography of Hume himself.

BackgroundIn response to COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Uganda adopted public health measures to contain its spread in the country. Some of the initial measures included refusal to repatriate citizens studying in China, mandatory institutional quarantine, and social distancing. Despite being a public health emergency, the measures adopted deserve critical appraisal using an ethics and human rights approach. The goal of this paper is to formulate an ethics and human rights criteria for evaluating public health measures and use it to (...) reflect on the ethical propriety of those adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19.Main bodyWe begin by illustrating the value of ethics and human rights considerations for public health measures including during emergencies. We then summarize Uganda’s social and economic circumstances and some of the measures adopted to contain the spread of COVID-19. After reviewing some of the ethics and human rights considerations for public health, we reflect upon the ethical propriety of some of Uganda’s responses to COVID-19. We use content analysis to identify the measures adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19, the ethics and human rights considerations commonly recommended for public health responses and their importance. Our study found that some of the measures adopted violate ethics and human rights principles. We argue that even though some human rights can sometimes be legitimately derogated and limited to meet public health goals during public health emergencies, measures that infringe on human rights should satisfy certain ethics and human rights criteria. Some of these criteria include being effective, strictly necessary, proportionate to the magnitude of the threat, reasonable in the circumstances, equitable, and least restrictive. We reflect on Uganda’s initial measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 and argue that many of them fell short of these criteria, and potentially limit their effectiveness.ConclusionThe ethical legitimacy of public health measures is valuable in itself and for enhancing effectiveness of the measures. Such legitimacy depends on the extent to which they conform to ethics and human rights principles recommended for public health measures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Missing Shade of Blue Re-viewed John 0. Nelson It is obviously important for Hume's purposes in the Treatise to maintain that simple ideas are always founded in precedent, resembling impressions;1 andhe explicitly, overandover, doesso, evensometimes being so carried away by this first principle ofhis science of man (T 7) or so careless as to say that not just all simple ideas but all ideas are founded (...) in precedent, resembling impressions. At the same time, as often noted, Hume explicitly maintains that it is possible for there to be a simple idea having no precedent, corresponding impression. He argues: There is however one contradictory phaenomenon, which may prove, that 'tis not absolutely impossible for ideas to go before their correspondent impressions... Suppose... a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become perfectly well acquainted with colours of all kinds, excepting one particular shade of blue... Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, beplac'd before him... Now Iask, whether 'tis possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himselfthe idea ofthat particular shade, tho' it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there arefew but will be ofopinion that he can; and this may serve as a proof, that the simple ideas are not always derived from the correspondent impressions. (T 5) Nowjust prior to this concession (as Cummins calls it ), Hume has said that the full examination ofthis question [the causal relationship between ideas and impression] is the subject of the present treatise; and therefore we shall here content ourselves with establishing one general proposition, That all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent. (T 4) Volume XV Number 2 353 JOHN O. NELSON And just after the same concession, that a simple idea may be raised up which does not have a prior, correspondent impression, Hume says that it still remains true, that all our simple ideas proceed either mediately or immediately, from their correspondent impressions (T 7). Thus we have Hume explicitly asserting, it seems, both that all simple ideas have precedent correspondent impressions and that they do not. But this, on the face ofit, is an arrant contradiction! Can Hume have Homerically nodded? We have been quoting from the Treatise, but Hume makes the very same contradictory-seeming claims in the Enquiryl A thinker of Hume's acumen might nod for a page or two's quarter hour but not for all of nine years! Moreover, in both places Hume refers to the phenomenon of the impression-less idea ofblue as a contradictory phenomenon, indicating clearly enough that he was himself aware of there seeming to be an inconsistency here in his contentions. What can possibly be going on? Is Hume deliberately being paradoxical? Perhaps trying, for sensation's sake, to shock the reader and so increase sales of his work, as some commentators in the past might have wished to say? But this would be at the expense ofhis own contentions and principles and not the reader's, and not even Hume's bitterest foes and most malicious critics — so far as I know — have ever proposed that Hume would, figuratively speaking, like Oedipus, gouge out his own eyes, even in order to increase sales of the Treatise, nor does it make the slightest sense to think he would. The mystery deepens when we remember that Hume has said, in defining the program of the Treatise, that his intention is to establish the one general proposition that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondentto them (T4). What astrange way, we want to exclaim, to show that all our simple ideas are derived from correspondent simple impressions by almost immediately afterwards arguing that it is possible to have an idea that has had no correspondent, precedent impression! Such an egregious nonsequitur mightbe expected ofan absolutely incompetent beginner in philosophy, but we are speaking of David Hume, generally recognized as the profoundest and most acute of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:347 THE ROLE OF PART XII IN HUME'S DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION Anyone appreciative of Hume's greatness as a philosopher will want to suppose that the Dialogues both form a coherent whole and express Hume's own views on natural religion or religion based on reason (as opposed to religion based on revelation). In the last connection, given what we know of Hume's epistemology, life, and correspondence, one would be (...) inclined to suppose that he would reject out of hand the claims of revealed religion and contend that if there existed an acceptable religion it would have to be some form of natural religion. But insofar as natural religion claimed to establish scientifically the existence and nature of God one would envisage Hume dissenting. Now as long as we restrict our gaze to Parts I-XI of the Dialogues we seem to be able, easily enough, to satisfy all these suppositions. In Part IV, under the name of 'mysticism, ' revealed religion is summarily and facetiously dismissed as 2 indistinguishable from atheism. Demea's apparently permanent departure from the discussion at the conclusion of Part XI as much as says, symbolically, that revealed religion is not a serious contender for one's belief. Its a priori arguments -- the argument from sufficient reason and the ontological argument -- are almost as shortly attacked and dismissed (D 188-192). Also quite in keeping with Hume's philosophical view on knowledge of matters of fact is, on the other hand, the lengthy and detailed examination he bestows on the empiricist argument from design. That Philo, ostensibly his spokesman, is however able to uncover all kinds of logical short-comings in its claims to scientifically 348 establish the existence and nature of God does not surprise us; it coheres perfectly with our preconceived picture of Hume the skeptic, and his system as restricting science to numbers and quantities or, in the term's looser sense, to human nature and its more immediate surroundings. In short, Parts I-XI seem to be all of one Humean whole. But at first and even second glance Part XII notoriously seems to tear our hopes to find coherence and a plausible representation of Hume to tatters. There are, for one thing, those mocking sentences that seem to paint Hume in the colors of a devout, believing Christian, 'avid' for revelation. Thus, at the end of Part XII, apparently expressing Hume's deepest convictions, Philo says that "a person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity" and immediately afterwards, "To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian" (D 227, 228). For another thing, in Part XII Hume seems to be completely reversing his refutations in Parts I-XI of the argument from design's claims to establish the existence and nature of God. Thus, where in Part II he had Philo reject the use of causal reasoning in the establishment of a Mind as the first cause of the universe on the relevantly Humean grounds that, to do so, "it were requisite, that we had experience of the origin of worlds" (D 150), in Part XII he has Philo, apparently speaking for himself (Hume), argue that "as there are also considerable differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference in the causes; and in particular ought to attribute a much higher degree of power and energy to the supreme cause than any we have ever observed in mankind. 349 Here then the existence of a DEITY is plainly ascertained by reason" (D 217). Indeed, all forms of the argument of design, purely analogical as well as causal, seem resurrected in Part XII, although they were one and all hanged and buried in Parts I-XI. Moreover, it seems that in Part XII Hume via Philo is saying that science itself leads us "to acknowledge a first intelligent Author" (D 214-215). Before proceeding to deal with certain other incoherencies with which Part XII seems to confront us let us address ourselves to the two that I have so far... (shrink)

Let me first explain what I am not attacking in this paper. I am not attacking, for instance, the right of free speech or any of the other specific rights listed in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights or the United Nations' Charter. I am, rather, attacking any specific right's being called a ‘human right’. I mean to show that any such designation is not only fraudulent but, in case anyone might want to say that there can be noble lies, (...) grossly wicked, amounting indeed to genocide. (shrink)

My final aim in this paper is to show that Descartes is not guilty, as is so often maintained, of circular argumentation in the Meditations. But first it is important to uncover and remove certain tenacious misconceptions and confusions concerning what goes on in the Meditations which lend credence to the charge of circular argumentation. In this connection Mr. Harry Frankfurt's recent article, “Memory and the Cartesian Circle,” is peculiarly instructive; for it presents not only a completely untenable defence of (...) Descartes but one that, implicitly at least, rests on the very misconceptions that give substance to the notion of a Cartesian Circle. With the intention, then, of clearing the ground for the construction of my own defence of Descartes, I shall spend the first part of this paper examining Frankfurt's central thesis, the errors contained in it, and their sources. This thesis is contained in his statement, which I shall henceforth designate by the letter “J,” “Descartes did not attempt to justify present clear and distinct perceptions.”. (shrink)

In his recent work, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Barry Stroud proposes to carry out an in-depth critique of the attempt by philosophers to invalidate all knowledge of an external world on the basis of Descartes' dream argument. His more particular aims in this endeavour are to uncover significant features of any such scepticism and to disclose in the process fundamental aspects of ‘human knowledge’ itself. Thus, among other features of knowledge that his study discloses, he thinks, is, echoing Kant, (...) the idea ‘that a completely general distinction between everything we get through the senses, on the one hand, and what is true or not true of the external world, on the other, would cut us off forever from knowledge of the world around us.’ And a significant feature of Cartesian dream scepticism he believes to have uncovered is that its ‘effectiveness’ rests upon the philosopher's traditional assumption of an objectively existent world that is understandable ‘from a detached “external” viewpoint.’. (shrink)

The author argues that, Although zeno's paradoxes on motion cannot be resolved in their own terms, They are nonetheless illegitimate. Examining the paradox of achilles and the tortoise, He finds that the mechanism of zeno's argument consists in an equivocal concept of motion characterized at once by a constant rate and by proportionate segments of movement. He then contends it is illegitimate to treat the concept of motion and its subconcepts like the postulates of a deductive system. However, That the (...) common theory of meaning presupposed by zeno's paradoxes is erroneous would have to be demonstrated metaphysically. (staff). (shrink)

Now it cannot be denied, I think, that this argument has the appearance of being sound, that is, both true in its premises and valid in its conclusion. But one surely ought to harbor suspicions concerning an argument which establishes the most momentous of all conclusions upon nothing more than a few propositions. In this paper I shall attempt to show that these suspicions are well-founded by pointing out that the above "proof" derives whatever force it has from an equivocation.

There are, no doubt, a variety of reasons, good and bad, why anyone might want to treat a worker's labour, and most people, consciously or unconsciously do, as a commodity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited John 0. Nelson More than a dozen years ago, in the pages of The Philosophical Quarterly,1 this writer contested Sraffa and Keynes' claim, advanced in the introduction to their edition ofthe Abstract? that it was Hume and not Adam Smith (as traditionally supposed) who was the author of that work. The traditional view, which might be called the Adam Smith authorship-theory, (...) was largely inspired by and seemed nailed shut by Hume's reference to a "Mr Smith" in a letter to Francis Hutcheson, datedMarch 4, 1740.3There appeared tobe goodreasonsforidentifying this "Mr Smith" with Adam Smith and then the latter with the undivulged author of the Abstract. It was known, for instance, that previous to March 4, 1740, Adam Smith had been a student of Hutcheson's and that Hutcheson was in the habit of setting his students the task of writing abstracts of newly published philosophical works.4 Since Hutcheson had originallylooked with favor on both the Treatise and its author,5 it had to seem more than likely that he had set his students the task ofwriting an abstract ofthe newly published Treatise ofHume. It was known, too, that Adam Smith was in possession of a copy ofthe Treatise soon after the date of H.6 Who, then, might be the "Mr Smith" adverted to in H's "My Bookseller has sent to Mr Smith a Copy of my Book, which I hope he has receive, as well as your Letter," except that same student of Hutcheson's, Adam Smith? What other Smith might have been known to Hutcheson, whom Hume could have wanted to refer to? No other Smith appeared to fit the bill. But why should Hume have wanted to refer in his correspondence with Hutcheson to an obscure, sixteen-year-old student ofHutcheson's, besides going to the trouble of having his bookseller send him a copy of the Treatise, unless that student had in some way made himselfnot only known to Hume but so highly regarded that Hume would want to favor him, presumably at his own expense, with a copy ofthe Treatise? The only tenable answer had to seem to be that this same student had composed such a perceptive and laudatory précis of the Treatise for Hutcheson that the latter had shown it to Hume and Hume, in the honest attempt to excite interest and sales of that languishing work, had seen to its publication as the Abstractl These are the reasonings Volume XVII Number 1 83 JOHN O. NELSON and considerations that inspired and seemed to confirm the Adam Smith authorship-theory.7 As can be perceived, these reasonings and considerations all revolve around the reference to a "Mr Smith"in H andthe identification of that Smith with Adam Smith. When, therefore, Sraffa and Keynes in the introduction to their edition oftheAbstract pointed out that there existed another Smith who might arguably be the Mr Smith referred toin H, namely, the DubUn publisher oftwo ofHutcheson's works, John Smith "at the Philosopher's Head on the Blind Quay," its major prop being seemingly knocked out from under it, the Adam Smith authorship-theory crashed—at least in the eyes of the general world—to the ground. And in thelatter's place, various ofits supporting reasons being given a lease on life, such as Hume's well-known endeavors and desires to excite interest in this first work of his, the Hume authorship-theory, so to speak, seated itself. In my previous venture into this subject, "Has the Authorship of An Abstract ofa Treatise ofHuman Nature Really Been Decided?"8 I tried, I believe with some success, to show that Sraffa and Keynes' arguments were not so unanswerable as they were generally taken to be and that, in fact, they presented various difficulties which the traditional theory avoided. But what then occasions this new excursion into these troubled waters? What more is to be said that I did not say in "Decided"? In "Decided" I presented various arguments and considerations that showed that it was unlikely either that Hume was the author of theAbstract or that the Mr Smith referred to in H... (shrink)

In this essay I try, first, to show that Lockean passages in Book I can be given a Berkeleian interpretation. I take two passages that have, in particular, been cited as allowing only a Lockean interpretation and show how they can be more coherently construed as Berkeleian in their intended meaning. In the process of this demonstration I show that only a Berkeleian interpretation is tenable for Book I. Second, I defend the Berkeleian interpretation against several charges; for instance, a (...) charge of textual inconsistency. I do, however, acknowledge in the process that in the Enquiry and subsequently Hume abandons Berkeley for Locke. I then offer an explanation of why he did and lastly I try to show that though Hume is thereby committed to an inconsistency he provides a way for justifying his (and our) conversational commitment to that inconsistency. (shrink)

In this essay I try, first, to show that Lockean passages in Book I can be given a Berkeleian interpretation. I take two passages that have, in particular, been cited as allowing only a Lockean interpretation and show how they can be more coherently construed as Berkeleian in their intended meaning. In the process of this demonstration I show that only a Berkeleian interpretation is tenable for Book I. Second, I defend the Berkeleian interpretation against several charges; for instance, a (...) charge of textual inconsistency. I do, however, acknowledge in the process that in the Enquiry and subsequently Hume abandons Berkeley for Locke. I then offer an explanation of why he did and lastly I try to show that though Hume is thereby committed to an inconsistency he provides a way for justifying his (and our) conversational commitment to that inconsistency. (shrink)

I TRY TO EXPLAIN WHY THE "ESSAY OF MIRACLES" DID NOT APPEAR IN THE "TREATISE" BUT DID IN THE "ENQUIRY". I ARGUE THAT THE ESSAY WAS ORIGINALLY DIRECTED AGAINST REVEALED KNOWLEDGE; SO DIRECTED, IT FITTED INTO THE TIGHTLY ORGANIZED PROGRAM OF THE "TREATISE", BUT HAD TO BE SUPPRESSED FOR PRUDENTIAL REASONS. RECONSTRUCTED AS AN ESSAY DIRECTED MERELY AGAINST NON-SCRIPTURAL MIRACLES ITS APPEARANCE IN THE "ENQUIRY" PRESENTED NO PHILOSOPHICAL OR PRUDENTIAL DIFFICULTIES.

People consistently act in ways that harm the environment, even when believing their actions are environmentally friendly. A case in point is a biased judgment termed the negative footprint illusion, which arises when people believe that the addition of “eco-friendly” items to conventional items, reduces the total carbon footprint of the whole item-set, whereas the carbon footprint is, in fact, increased because eco-friendly items still contribute to the overall carbon footprint. Previous research suggests this illusion is the manifestation of an (...) “averaging-bias.” We present two studies that explore whether people’s susceptibility to the negative footprint illusion is associated with individual differences in: environment-specific reasoning dispositions measured in terms of compensatory green beliefs and environmental concerns; or general analytic reasoning dispositions measured in terms of actively open-minded thinking, avoidance of impulsivity and reflective reasoning. A negative footprint illusion was demonstrated when participants rated the carbon footprint of conventional buildings combined with eco-friendly buildings and conventional cars combined with eco-friendly cars. However, the illusion was not identified in participants’ ratings of the carbon footprint of apples. In Studies 1 and 2, environment-specific dispositions were found to be unrelated to the negative footprint illusion. Regarding reflective thinking dispositions, reduced susceptibility to the negative footprint illusion was only associated with actively open-minded thinking measured on a 7-item scale and 17-item scale. Our findings provide partial support for the existence of a negative footprint illusion and reveal a role of individual variation in reflective reasoning dispositions in accounting for a limited element of differential susceptibility to this illusion. (shrink)

Studies the context of Giordano Bruni's Eroici furori in the light of two traditional literary forms; prose commentaries on verses, and Platonic love treatises.

U.S. federal research funding is generally justified by promises of public benefits, but the specific natures and distribution of such benefits often remain vague and ambiguous. Furthermore, the metrics by which outcomes are reported often do not necessarily or strongly imply the achievement of public benefits. These ambiguities and discontinuities make it difficult to assess the public outcomes of federal research programs. This study maps the terms in which the purposes and the outcomes of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy -a relatively (...) young and innovatively structured federal research agency-have been discussed and reported. I find that ARPA-E’s creation and funding have been justified with reference to a broad repertoire of economic, environmental, and national security values, but that the agency has been evaluated only through intermediate scientific and economic metrics and study of internal organizational structure. I suggest that these means of assessment elide ARPA-E’s lack of the financial scale, long time horizon, built-in customer, and radical vision which have been historically important to high-impact federal innovation, and I recommend the tracking of metrics more directly related to ARPA-E’s public value purposes as the agency grows older. This discussion illustrates the inadequacy of currently widespread metrics and conventional wisdom for the design and assessment of societally relevant research. (shrink)

Pre-analytically at least some of our inductions seem to be possessed of rational justification. This comment would apply, for instance, to my present induction, ‘If that climber high on the Flatirons falls he will be killed,’ not to mention such more momentous inductions as, ‘If a full-scale nuclear war breaks out there will be greater destruction than in World War II.’ Notoriously, however, a few Humean reflections seem to strip even the most plausible of our inductions of all possible rational (...) justification, leaving them mere bare psychological faits accomplis: in effect, section V of the Enquiry's ‘Sceptical Solution of these Doubts.’. (shrink)

The limited objectives of this paper are to show that A), what seem to be merely superficial incoherencies in Rorty’s preferred pragmatism [according to which, “the only constraints on inquiry are conversational ones”] really are not but B), along with every assertion of Rorty’s defining his system and its consequences, belie an intrinsic incoherency resulting from that system’s intended conflation of “correspondence truth” and “pragmatic truth.” Then C), I shall argue that should we ask of a philosophy that denies to (...) its own statements of purported fact correspondence truth what use it is, the answer has to be, “Worse than no use at all”---at least, if like Rorty’s preferred pragmatism it demonstrably concludes in the conceptual annihilation of all inquiry. (shrink)

The limited objectives of this paper are to show that A), what seem to be merely superficial incoherencies in Rorty’s preferred pragmatism [according to which, “the only constraints on inquiry are conversational ones”] really are not but B), along with every assertion of Rorty’s defining his system and its consequences, belie an intrinsic incoherency resulting from that system’s intended conflation of “correspondence truth” and “pragmatic truth.” Then C), I shall argue that should we ask of a philosophy that denies to (...) its own statements of purported fact correspondence truth what use it is, the answer has to be, “Worse than no use at all”---at least, if like Rorty’s preferred pragmatism it demonstrably concludes in the conceptual annihilation of all inquiry. (shrink)

As theorists, developers, and practitioners of the anticipatory governance of emerging technologies, we applaud Ankeny et al.’s...

In his preface to Wittgenstein: Language and World, Canfield briefly explains the plan of the work. Feeling that "Wittgenstein's later work remains, after decades of study, in significant part poorly grasped or misinterpreted," and that "to make Wittgenstein's thought available, what is needed are in-depth examinations of his major concepts," he proposes to undertake a part of that task by examining in detail the "two connected ideas, that of a 'criterion', or standard by which one judges truth, and that of (...) a 'grammatical' proposition or remark." These are connected ideas because "statements of criteria are themselves grammatical remarks." In the same place Canfield claims that the positions he will set forth on criteria and grammatical remarks are not intended "to be of exegetical interest only" but to represent the truth in these matters. (shrink)

Kant's "supreme principle of morality," which he calls the "categorical imperative," is often applied by him to specific cases to reach conclusions about particular moral duties, e.g., to abstain from suicide, to not make lying promises, to render assistance to others. There are a number of such applications in the first part of his Metaphysik der Sitten , entitled the Rechtslehre, that have had less attention paid to them. In the Rechtslehre Kant is concerned with state-created laws enforced by punishment, (...) that will serve to guarantee the rights of citizens. This makes the application process somewhat different from the more familiar examples from Kant's earlier Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, which are concerned with the agent's inner decision process and the self-constraint of moral motivation. The present essay examines in some detail Kant's argument to show that there should be no such thing as an hereditary aristocracy, and compares it with the argument against making a lying promise in the Grundlegung. There are significant similarities and differences, and there are also significant connections to the ideas of John Rawls in A Theory of Justice . More briefly discussed are Kant's arguments in the Rechtslehre concerning punishment and the right of property. The whole discussion is intended as an introduction to the issues concerning the application of the categorical imperative in contexts where the result is external state-enforced laws, rather than an internal morally motivated moral decision. The issue in the former is said to be what persons abstractly considered could give their consent to in advance, where Kant makes a key distinction between a priori considerations having to do with agent liberty which lead to a moral decision concerning citizen rights, and empirical considerations having to do with happiness, which do not lead to conclusions concerning citizen rights. (shrink)

We think of modern liberalism as the novel product of a world reinvented on a secular basis after 1945. In The Theology of Liberalism, one of the country's most important political theorists argues that we could hardly be more wrong. Eric Nelson contends that the tradition of liberal political philosophy founded by John Rawls is, however unwittingly, the product of ancient theological debates about justice and evil. Once we understand this, he suggests, we can recognize the deep incoherence (...) of various forms of liberal political philosophy that have emerged in Rawls's wake.--. (shrink)

In September 2010 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the nation's elite academic hospitals located in East Baltimore, Maryland, Paul Warren Pardus entered the facility to visit his mother, a patient. During a discussion with her doctor in a hospital hallway, Pardus became “overwhelmed” about the care and condition of his mother, pulled a handgun from his waistband, and shot the doctor in the chest. Pardus then locked himself and his mother in her room, shot and killed her, and (...) committed suicide.Dr. Gabe Kelen, a national expert on emergency preparedness and director of the Johns Hopkins emergency department, admitted several years later that this tragic event “really got us thinking in a very serious way.” Together with colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, Kelen conducted research on the threat and impact of “active shooters” in health care settings. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to Eric Nelson’s claim that the most prominent versions of a positive concept of freedom all reduce to negative notions. I argue that in his otherwise scholarly and well-argued article, Nelson confuses a conceptual dispute with a normative one based on moral or political principle. Further, I point out that the traditional critique of positive conceptions of liberty, which rests on skepticism about perfectionist conceptions of political value, is lost if we see the (...) debate in the way Nelson lays it out. When these issues are disentangled, I suggest that there is indeed conceptual space for uniquely “positive” conceptions of freedom, and I suggest that the idea of “autonomy” can be taken for such a notion and indeed represents a value worth taking seriously in current discussions of justice. (shrink)