Philosophy at the Gymnasium sets Greek moral philosophy in its original context-Athenian gyms-to understand how training for the body sparked training for the mind. It explores Socratic dialogue set in gyms, civic and mental health in Plato's works, and Olympic victors as Aristotle's model for the happy life.

Contrary to the scholarly consensus, Augustine and the Dialogue argues that Augustine's dialogues, with their inconclusive debates and dramatic shifts in focus, betray a sophisticated pedagogical method which combines strategies for 'un-learning' and self-reflection with a willingness to proceed via provisional answers. By shifting the focus from doctrinal content to questions of method, Kenyon seeks to reframe scholarly discussions of Augustine's earliest surviving body of works. This approach shows the young Augustine not refuting so much as appropriating Academic skeptical (...) practices. It also shows that the dialogues' few scriptural references, e.g. Wisdom 11:20's 'measure, number, weight', come at key structural points. This helps articulate the dialogues' larger project of cultivating virtue and their approach to philosophy as a form of purification. Augustine is shown to be at home with pluralistic approaches, and Kenyon holds up his methodology as an attractive model for thinking through problems of the liberal academy today. (shrink)

One cannot understand the literary form of a dialogue without understanding its philosophical project and vice versa. This dissertation seeks to establish how Augustine's Cassiciacum dialogues work as dialogues. Each of these works, Contra Academicos, De beata vita and De ordine, pursues two streams of inquiry: one dialectical, one self-reflexive. The first uses aporetic debates to identify problems with individuals' current beliefs. The second reflects on the act of debate as an instance of rational activity and through this draws attention (...) to features of human rationality. The goal of all this is to change how the inquirer thinks about himself, to bring him to see some final theory as plausible ( probabile). We find all the elements of this method in earlier authors: aporia in Plato, self-reflection in Plotinus, plausible conclusions in Cicero. But in Augustine these are fused into a system, one which structures all seven of his dialogues. This study situates Augustine against this philosophical tradition and provides a fresh start for future work on his texts. Chapter 1 argues that standing scholarly debates have imposed an unhelpful set of concerns on the dialogues. Chapters 2 through 4 set out the basic literary and philosophical project of each dialogue. Chapter 5 argues that the three dialogues, taken as a set, are programmatic for a particular kind of philosophical undertaking, one which can be traced through Augustine's subsequent works. (shrink)

Early educators are in a bind. Teacher education programs are calling on them more and more to help students practice critical thinking and develop intellectual character ; yet school funding depends on meeting Common Core standards, which do not explicitly assess critical thinking until the high-school level. Add to that an over-engineered content curriculum, and thinking becomes a luxury that is quickly lost amid more immediate concerns. As a result, we are raising a generation of “excellent sheep” who flourish amid (...) standardized tests but are increasingly unable to think for themselves. The problem, we suggest, is that today’s teachers are in such a rush to give students the answers that they are not allowing them time to ask the questions. As a result, students cannot find the “deep structure” of issues. Bodies of knowledge thus strike them as disconnected facts, quickly forgotten. The solution, as suggested by recent work in cognitive science, is to teach critical thinking through teaching content. In what follows, we propose a way of organically integrating content and thinking through games, story books and art. With this, we put children into the driver’s seat, encouraging them to ask their own questions, to propose their own answers and to join their peers in joint inquiry through dialogue. In a word, we propose teaching children philosophy as early as possible. Tom Wartenberg has made considerable progress with his picture-book philosophy curriculum designed for elementary schools. But what of younger children? Combining the resources of Rollins College’s Philosophy Department and Child Development and Student Research Center, we set out to find “how low can we go?” Over four terms’ of trial and error, we have adapted and distilled Wartenberg’s methods into a model that works for the Center’s 4-year-olds, and we have tested this model on a larger scale through a one-term collaboration with the Winter Park Day Nursery. (shrink)

Can you be brave if you’re afraid? Why do we “know better” and do things anyway? What makes a family? Philosophers have wrestled with such questions for centuries. They are also the stuff of playground debates. Ethics for the Very Young uses the perplexities of young children’s lives to spark philosophical dialogue. Its lessons scaffold discussion through executive function games (Telephone, Red Light Green Light), dialogic reading of picture books and Reggio Emilia’s art-based inquiry. In the process, children develop skills (...) of dialogue and critical thinking through increased selective attention, self-control, cognitive flexibility and perspective taking. While the elements of this method are familiar, they are here fused into an organic whole grounded in the history of philosophy and defended by current work in developmental psychology. Building on Wartenberg’s Big Ideas for Little Kids, the present curriculum uses a series of 23 picture books to frame discussions of character, bravery, self-control, friendship, the greater good, respect and care. Its goal is not to “teach morals” but to help children articulate and develop their own perspectives through dialogue with each other. Each lesson presents teachers’ reflections on how this exploration of life's enduring questions transformed their school’s culture. (shrink)

Ethical philosophy was born in the gyms of Athens. This book returns a body of abstract thought to its original context, to understand how training for the body sparked training for the mind. We will use archaeology to reconstruct the reality of ancient athletics and literary texts to critique philosophers’ idealized versions of this reality. We will explore a cluster of questions about the nature of happiness (eudaimonia), the role of human excellence (arete) in this life and what forms of (...) training (askesis) may help up secure these goals. Along the way, we will join philosophers in attempting to define individual types of excellence: courage, moderation, justice, wisdom. We will think about the role of friendship and erotic love in a well lived life, and we will evaluate concepts of mental “health” and strategies for spiritual “exercise”. While our society tends to separate the body and the mind, recent work in Positive Psychology is reaffirming many insights of Greek philosophy through modern empirical study. If Philosophy at the Gym sounds like a contradiction, then that’s where its value lies: it invites readers to wrestle with central questions of ancient ethics, while providing toeholds in the current science of purpose, mindset and flow. This introduction to Greek ethics will be useful for those starting or about to start college or anyone else looking for a framework to think about what they want out of life and what they’re doing about it. (shrink)

The philosophy for children (P4C) and public philosophy movements seek to extend philosophy to traditionally marginalized groups. Yet public perceptions of philosophy as an elite activity provide an obstacle to this work. Such perceptions rest, in part, on further assumptions about what philosophy is and how it is conducted. To address these concerns, I look to the early philosophical dialogues of Augustine of Hippo (Contra Academicos, De beata vita, De ordine, Soliloquia), which present an experimental philosophical community composed of teenagers, (...) illiterate adults, and Augustine’s own mother. I begin with the question, “who can do philosophy?” and walk through the dialogues’ discussion of race, gender, educational background, age, and class. I then turn to teaching techniques on display in the dialogues’ discussions, which flesh out what philosophical study looks like for nonelite students. I close by using my own experience of teaching nonelite students to reflect on how Augustine’s experimental philosophical community can help reframe thinking about P4C and public philosophy today. (shrink)

Every soul has an unconscious knowledge of the ultimate truth of things, a premise long taught by all great spiritual teachers, East and West, regularly experienced by those who follow the spiritual path. In the quest to help reestablish that universal connection, editor J. Douglas Kenyon has culled from the pages of Atlantis rising magazine this compilation of concise and well-illustrated articles by world-class researchers and theoreticians."--Back cover.

An energy condition, in the context of a wide class of spacetime theories, is, crudely speaking, a relation one demands the stress-energy tensor of matter satisfy in order to try to capture the idea that "energy should be positive". The remarkable fact I will discuss in this paper is that such simple, general, almost trivial seeming propositions have profound and far-reaching import for our understanding of the structure of relativistic spacetimes. It is therefore especially surprising when one also learns that (...) we have no clear understanding of the nature of these conditions, what theoretical status they have with respect to fundamental physics, what epistemic status they may have, when we should and should not expect them to be satisfied, and even in many cases how they and their consequences should be interpreted physically. Or so I shall argue, by a detailed analysis of the technical and conceptual character of all the standard conditions used in physics today, including examination of their consequences and the circumstances in which they are believed to be violated. (shrink)

Beyond Human is an informative and accessible guide for all those interested in the developing sciences of genetic engineering, bioprinting, and human cloning. Illustrating the ideas with reference to well-known science fiction films and novels, the author provides a unique insight into and understanding of how genetic manipulation, cloning, and other novel bio-technologies will one day allow us to redesign our species. It also addresses the legitimate concerns about "playing God", while at the same time embracing the positive aspects of (...) the scientific trajectory that will lead to our transhuman future. (shrink)

Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are notoriously uninterested in truth-telling. They also often appear uninterested even in constructing plausible falsehoods. What stands out above all is the brazenness and frequency with which they repeat known falsehoods. In spite of this, they are not always greeted with incredulity. Indeed, Republicans continue to express trust Donald Trump in remarkable numbers. The only way to properly make sense of what Trump and Johnson are doing, we argue, is to give a greater role to (...) audience relativity – and in some cases, audience participation – in notions like bullshitting and bald-faced lying. In this paper, we develop a new understanding of bullshitting, one that includes bald-faced lying, and recognizes that different communicative acts may be directed at different audiences with a single utterance. In addition, we argue for recognition of the category of bald-faced bullshitting, a particular speciality of both Trump and Johnson, and one especially useful to authoritarian leaders. (shrink)

Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind. After explaining my view, I defend it against a variety of objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland.

The standard way of representing an epistemic state in formal philosophy is in terms of a set of sentences, corresponding to the agent’s beliefs, and an ordering of those sentences, reflecting how well entrenched they are in the agent’s epistemic state. We argue that this wide-spread representational view – a view that we identify as a “Quinean dogma” – is incapable of making certain crucial distinctions. We propose, as a remedy, that any adequate representation of epistemic states must also include (...) the agent’s research agenda, i.e., the list of question that are open or closed at any given point in time. If the argument of the paper is sound, a person’s questions and practical interests, on the one hand, and her beliefs and theoretical values, on the other, are more tightly interwoven than has previously been assumed to be the case in formal epistemology. (shrink)

We argue that two well-known examples (strawberry distribution and Konigsberg bridges) generally considered genuine cases of distinctively _mathematical_ explanation can also be understood as cases of distinctively _generic_ explanation. The latter answer resemblance questions (e.g., why did neither person A nor B manage to cross all bridges) by appealing to ‘generic task laws’ instead of mathematical necessity (as is done in distinctively mathematical explanations). We submit that distinctively generic explanations derive their explanatory force from their role in ontological unification. Additionally, (...) we argue that distinctively generic explanations are better seen as standardly mathematical instead of distinctively mathematical. Finally, we compare and contrast our proposal with the work of Christopher Pincock on abstract explanations in science and the views of Michael Strevens on abstract causal event explanations. (shrink)

1891. The recovered manuscript of Aristotle's Constitutional History of Athens, now for the first time given to the world from the unique text in the British...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Seeing from somewhere in particular -- Embracing binocularity -- Creativity and gratitude -- Technology as vlaue-free and as value-laden -- Nobody's against true enhancement -- Comprehending persons as subjectss and as objects -- Respecting persons as subjects and as objects.

We have argued that the counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) violates the plausible adequacy condition that an act that would harm an agent cannot leave her much better off than an alternative act that would benefit her. In a recent paper in this journal, however, Neil Feit objects that our argument presupposes questionable counterfactual backtracking. He also argues that CCA proponents can justifiably reject the condition by invoking so-called plural harm and benefit. In this reply, we argue (...) that Feit’s lines of criticism are both unsuccessful. (shrink)

In this paper, we put forward two novel arguments against the counterfactual comparative account (CCA) of harm and benefit. In both arguments, the central theme is that CCA conflicts with plausible judgements about benefit and prudence.

Chapter 1: Then . . . -- Chapter 2: In Search of the Fellowship's Ethical Pulse -- Chapter 3: The Fellowship's Roots -- Chapter 4: Development of the General Council -- Chapter 5: Building Blocks of a Pentecostal Worldview -- Chapter 6: Interracial Roots (prior to 1914) -- Chapter 7: Withdrawal and Separation (1914-38) -- Chapter 8: The Struggle for Inclusion (1939-62) -- Chapter 9: Adjusting to a Changing Society (1955-75) -- Chapter 10: Becoming a Church for All Peoples (1960-80s) (...) -- Chapter 11: Race Relations: A Reactionary Ethic -- Chapter 12: Women Forerunners (prior to 1914) -- Chapter 13: The Formative Years (1914-26) -- Chapter 14: The Exclusive Establishment (1927-76) -- Chapter 15: Decline and Thaw (1977-80s) -- Chapter 16: Women in Ministry: A Dogmatic Ethic -- Chapter 17: The Pacifist Years (through 1919) -- Chapter 18: Transitional Years (1920-38) -- Chapter 19: Changing Perspectives in Wartime (1939-53) -- Chapter 20: Settling on a Loyal Priesthood (1954-80s) -- Chapter 21: Attitudes toward War: A Pragmatic Ethic -- Chapter 22: In Search of a Pentecostal Ethic -- Chapter 23: . . . And Now. (shrink)

Divine command theory is experiencing something of a renaissance, inspired in large part by Robert Adams’s 1999 masterpiece Finite and Infinite Goods. I argue here that divine commands are not always necessary for actions to be morally obligatory. I make the case that the DCT-ist’s own commitments put pressure on her to concede the existence of some moral obligations that in no way depend on divine commands. Focusing on Robert Adams’s theistic framework for ethics, I argue that Adams’s views about (...) good, evil, reasons, and the nature of moral obligation suggest that there can be moral obligations that exist independently of any divine commands. My argument proceeds through the development of an example in which there is a moral obligation that is not even partially grounded in a divine command. I focus primarily on Adams’s view because, many contemporary divine command theorists work in a broadly Adams-ian framework, so the argument that I advance here poses a challenge for many contemporary versions of DCT. (shrink)

The “new natural lawyers” (NNLs) are a prolific group of philosophers, theologians, and political theorists that includes John Finnis, Robert George, Patrick Lee, Gerard Bradley, and Germain Grisez, among others. These thinkers have devoted themselves to developing and defending a traditional sexual ethic according to which homosexual sexual acts are immoral per se and marriage ought to remain an exclusively heterosexual institution. The sterility objection holds that the NNLs are guilty of making an arbitrary and irrational distinction between same-sex couples (...) and sterile heterosexual couples. The NNLs believe that it is a necessary condition for two people’s being morally and legally entitled to get married that they be able to perform sexual acts that are “suited to procreating.” But sterile heterosexual couples are incapable of performing such acts. Therefore, it should follow from the NNLs’ own premises that sterile heterosexual couples are not entitled to marry. But the NNLs do not draw this conclusion. Instead, they maintain that sterile heterosexuals can marry while denying that the same is true of same-sex couples. The sterility objection claims the NNLs are being inconsistent in treating the two kinds of couples differently. Although the sterility objection has been endorsed by recent critics, I don’t think it has yet been adequately defended. The NNLs have responded by arguing that there is a sense in which the sex acts of sterile heterosexual couples are as suited to reproduction as those of fertile heterosexuals. Thus they maintain that the distinction they draw between the two kinds of couple has a rational basis. A successful defense of the sterility objection must show that this response on the part of the NNLs fails. Such is the task I undertake in this paper. I argue that the NNLs’ response fails because acts of penile-vaginal intercourse between sterile heterosexuals lack the actual causal power to produce conception that sexual acts need to be considered truly reproductive, and because their assumption that penile-vaginal intercourse always functions reproductively is bad biology. (shrink)

Research on adolescent wellbeing in Developmental Language Disorder has previously been examined through measures of parent or self-reported wellbeing, but never has a study included both and enabled comparison between the two. The current study reports parent and self rated wellbeing of adolescents with DLD and Low Language ability, as well as their typically developing peers. It also examines consistency between raters and factors influencing correspondence. Adolescents aged 10–11 with DLD, LL or TD were recruited from eight UK primary schools. (...) A battery of standardized language, psychosocial and wellbeing assessments, including the KIDSCREEN-27 were administered. Adolescent ratings of wellbeing were similar across groups on three of the five wellbeing dimensions, but those with DLD had lower self-reported Autonomy and Parental Relations than their TD peers, and both the DLD and LL group had lower School Environment scores than their TD peers. By parental report, the DLD and LL group were considered to have lower wellbeing on all five wellbeing dimensions relative to their TD peers. Paired sample t-test analyses indicated a high level of variance between parent and adolescent reported wellbeing for multiple wellbeing domains, especially Psychological Wellbeing. Importantly, predictors of the level of agreement between parent and adolescent reported psychological wellbeing differed between groups: cognitive reappraisal and sociability predicted this level of agreement for adolescents with LL, while social competence predicted agreement in DLD and TD. This study emphasizes the necessity of allowing adolescents of all language abilities to report their own wellbeing, as their perspective does not align with that of their parents. It also highlights the importance of including the full spectrum of need when investigating the impact of language ability on consistency between proxy and self-reported wellbeing. (shrink)

In everyday life we often act adequately, yet without deliberation. For instance, we immediately obtain and maintain an appropriate distance from others in an elevator. The notion of normativity implied here is a very basic one, namely distinguishing adequate from inadequate, correct from incorrect, or better from worse in the context of a particular situation. In the first part of this paper I investigate such ‘situated normativity’ by focusing on unreflective expert action. More particularly, I use Wittgenstein’s examples of craftsmen (...) (tailors and architects) absorbed in action to introduce situated normativity. Situated normativity can be understood as the normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective skillful action. I develop Wittgenstein’s insight that a peculiar type of affective behaviour, ‘directed discontent’, is essential for getting things right without reflection. Directed discontent is a reaction of appreciation in action and is introduced as a paradigmatic expression of situated normativity. In the second part I discuss Wittgenstein’s ideas on the normativity of what he calls ‘blind’ rule-following and the ‘bedrock’ of immediate action. What matters for understanding the normativity of (even ‘blind’) rule-following, is not that one has the capacity for linguistic articulation or reflection but that one is reliably participating in a communal custom. In the third part I further investigate the complex relationships between unreflective skillful action, perception, emotion, and normativity. Part of this entails an account of the link between normativity at the level of the expert’s socio-cultural practice and the individual’s situated and lived normativity. (shrink)

There have through history been many attempts to define 'life' but there is no generally accepted definition of 'life' at this date. As a result, some have come to believe that defining 'life' is not a fruitful endeavour. This seems to be a minority view, however, since the quest to find or create a definition of 'life' is as active as ever.

Learned, exigent, original, and timely, Erik Roraback's The Power of the Impossible: On Community and the Creative Life presents authoritative readings of what important theorists from Spinoza to Bataille, Blanchot, Nancy, Žižek, and others have had to say about community and the individual, with sections along the way on how those theorists might lead us to approach work by Henry James, James Joyce, Ralph Ellison, Dante Alighieri, and, surprisingly, the great tennis player, Ivan Lendl. Roraback also develops on the (...) basis of his theorists his own persuasive concept of an impossible/possible global community yet to come that would facilitate individual creativity as well as contest the repressive hegemony of finance capitalism and technology, especially digital technology. (J. Hillis Miller, The University of California at Irvine). (shrink)