Kant had a notion of our determined and freely-choosing behavior which illuminates basic assumptions of contemporary ideologies. A myopic embracement of only one or the other behavior has been superseded by a new entanglement which renders moot ordinary political classifications. Fascism had typically affirmed the radical freedom of an Uebermensch as well as a superior race and racism; Marxist communism a radical determinism as well as inevitable class warfare. But during the Cold War, especially since the 1960s, there arose in (...) open societies a virulent assimilation of the two ideologies. Understood as a species of the"New Left", the ideology has effectively combined name-calling ad hominem attacks of "racism" with"elite white classes" to politicize dialogue and to suppress objective pursuits of truth as well as to foster ethnic identity and provide an unprecedented apologetics for global conflict. (shrink)

It is argued, against Richard T. De George, that while clarification of concepts, implications, and presuppositions in business ethics largely relies on a neutral territory of reason, determination of what moral intuitions are correct depends on non-neutral ethical theories. The latter posit ethics in business to varying degrees. Thus while the Kantian and utilitarian ethical theories are, for De George, proper (philosophical) approaches to business ethics, they are as reliant on affirming and encouraging moral sentiments outside parameters of pure reason (...) as theological approaches. And hence if theological approaches can make no unique contribution by virtue of relying on more than reason or experience alone, then philosophical approaches can make no distinctive contribution either. Either both are viable or neither are. Oscillation between the mutually dependent notions of business ethics and ethics in business obfuscates what the field of business ethics is and renders De George's position inadequate. (shrink)

Medieval Modal Logic & Science uses modal reasoning in a new way to fortify the relationships between science, ethics, and politics. Robert C. Trundle accomplishes this by analyzing the role of modal logic in the work of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, then applying these themes to contemporary issues. He incorporates Augustine's ideas involving thought and consciousness, and Aquinas's reasoning to a First Cause. The author also deals with Augustine's ties to Aristotelian modalities of thought regarding science (...) and logic, reassessing the commonly held belief in Augustine's Platonism to not be a mistake as much as a simplistic view of his philosophy. Trundle links contemporary issues in epistemology, morality, theology, and logic, making several useful connections between ancient and medieval studies in modal logic and modern concerns. These applications of modal theory illuminate many puzzles in the works of Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Whitehead, and Kuhn. (shrink)

Religion can be politicized to become a murderous ideology and ideology can be interpreted messianically to become a virtual religion. With the caveat that a religio-ideological capitalism pertains only to a minority of conservative Americans and that most Americans are not ideological, ideological capitalism has had an inordinate influence on America’s social-political praxis. This praxis has suffered from the ideology where “ideology” denotes inter alia: 1) a system of belief whose believers are intolerant of anything less than fervent adherence to (...) the cause, 2) treat that cause as overriding common civility, 3) view civility itself as a reward for backing the ideology, 4) suppress or ignore evidence against the ideological belief, and 5) try to silence the disbelief expressed in open societies, where suppression is limited, by schemes ranging from deception and ad hominem attacks to manipulating public officials. These tactics are not characteristic of, or encouraged by, the theological doctrines of the major religions in America such as Judaism and Judeo-Christianity that forthrightly admit of faith. Faith-based religions are the only antidote prima facie to the fatal hubris of a corporate ideology that is morphing pragmatism into a relativistic post-modern constructionism for marketing, packaging and reinventing America. (shrink)

Connections of beauty to science, whereby scientific truth informs truth about art, is denied by a Humean-Kantian-positivist tradition. Its denial of even scientifictheories being known to be true proceeds pari passu with denying any known truth in the less rigorous sciences such as aesthetics that, for Aristotle, studiesbeauty’s cause. Related to causation is a modern problem of “knowing we know”: knowledge in science presupposes a causal principle whose truth is not known when expressed as a truth-functional conditional. But by conditionals (...) that are modal, among other things, this and other knotty epistemological problems may be resolved – resulting axiologically in claims about art that may be as certifiably true as the truths in biology, psychology and medicine that inform those claims. (shrink)

This is a study of how the thinkingof the Ancient Greek philosophers has a relevance to society today. The book looks at individual philosophers and explores their thoughts, the problems with their ideas, and the implication of these ideas for morality and politics, human nature, education and art and science. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are examined in depth.

The Polish logician Jan Lukasiewicz and the American theologian Cornelius Van Til are famous for challenging Aristotle’s Principle of Contradiction.Whereas apparent contradictions such as God and physical reality being both One and Not One (Many) are accepted in terms of an idealism held by Van Til, the Principle’s violations in theology and science reflect a realism held by Lukasiewicz. Lukasiewicz is favored for explaining why the Principle’s violation may be rational for a scientific and theological realism.

This book is of vital interest to anyone who yearns to know how science, theology, ethics, art, and politics do really afford objective truths. Not only that, but how these truths in seemingly clashing areas are interrelated by common sense and rooted in our incontrovertible consciousness of Being itself. Being itself, as the basis for truth, is defended against truth-denying modern philosophers who, having headed in the wrong direction with tragic costs of murderous ideologies, have completely misunderstood the simple origin (...) of truth in the realist tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, Étienne Gilson, and others. Their profoundness is not bamboozled by the covert and corrupting sophism of today’s teachings. Anyone interested in surmounting these teachings that include political correctness and a false divide of fact from value, which paralyze the very modern ethics that helped to create them, should read this book. The book reveals how ethics, art, and politics can be as true as the sciences that inform them. (shrink)

Camus's apparent flirtation with Catholicism is rooted in his notion of absurdity. Paradoxically, an absurdity of existence both unites us to the world and alienates us from it. Whereas the alienation was avoided by a traditional philosophy that improperly imposed reason on reality, ultimate reality was construed by religion as a God who passes understanding. And though limitations on understanding are embodied by such things as a paradox of Christ who is both man and not man, Camus's profound insights on (...) man's absurd condition may have been remiss because he imposed an understanding of rational philosophy on religion. (shrink)

We investigate whether there can be scientific truth if this truth depends ’inter alia’ on a true causal principle and if the principle strictly implies ’nature’s God’ ’qua’ a ’first cause’. If there is this ’cause’, then how does one know whether it or a natural cause was the cause of a phenomenon? Responses to this question involve examining critiques of the causal principle by Hume and Kant as well as by distinguishing logical from physical possibilities.

_Integrated Truth and Existential Phenomenology: A Thomistic Response to Iconic Anti-Realists in Science_ relates existential phenomenology to a modal reasoning for establishing a Thomistic integration of objective truths in science, theology, ethics, art and politics.

Our psychobiological nature is characterized paradoxically by our limitedly having and not having free will — our having this will and being subject to causes understood scientifically. Both characteristics are necessary for an intelligible ethics, politics, and political science. In particular, political science as a science must admit of our behavior being partially caused and of political rights and responsibilities in virtue of our limited free will. Admitting of either only this will or only the determinism is a central error (...) of modern totalitarian ideology. (shrink)

I now understand why the invitation to contribute an article on “chaos theory” invoked both my excitement and reticience. Let me first explain my excitement in terms of intriguing developments generated by the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite. Since COBE strengthened an “inflationary” Big Bang Theory wherein the structure of the universe was induced by random statistical fluctuations, there are implications inter alia of thermodynamics for chaotic fluctuations in both the structure and biological systems formed from it. I shall then explain (...) my reticence concerning a chaosladen cosmology. Though it seems to call for an epistemological revision of deterministic scientific truth, the cosmology is as likely as one influenced by quantum mechanics to lead to either a pseudo-scientific connection of indeterminism to freedom and purpose or their dogmatic exclusion as possible “realities” by the natural and social sciences. What I will be concerned about are the conflation of physics with metaphysics and the need to metaphysically articulate the continuity between a primordial quantum fluctuation, biological “possibilities,” and human freedom. (shrink)

Wittgenstein and Heidegger were not merely pioneering leaders of different philosophical schools. They both disavowed a Judeo-Christian God and influenced trends opposed to traditional metaphysical arguments. Therefore, we may suppose that they had a major role in relegating medieval arguments for God to archaic syllogistic pedantries. But I will argue that a conditional premise in Thomas’ Second-Way argument not only finds expression in modal logic, since it specifies necessarily if there is no God, there is no world, but involves a (...) natural sort of reasoning. Its ordinariness bears on Wittgenstein and Heidegger because they had extraordinary moods induced by considering the world’s possible nonexistence. Taken with their expressed disbelief in God when they consider the nonexistence, these things suggest a surreptitious embracement of Thomas’ reasoning. This fact both strengthens and makes it relevant to a pervasive twentieth-century “angst.”. (shrink)

A perennial influence on the aesthetics of fashion, fostered by Plato and Aristotle, is challenged today by a prevalent social constructionism. The latter embraces an impracticable biodenial as well as an incoherent epistemic relativism, reminiscent of Greek Sophism, whereby truth-claims about good fashion may be both true and false either in the same culture at different times or at the same time in different cultures. But a normative aesthetics of Aristotle and Plato, that affirms an epistemic realism, roots women's fashion (...) in their psychobiological nature. The relation of this nature to their sex proceeds paripassu with an erogeneity proper to women's fashion. The case for this fashion as a mode of art that fulfills the complementary natures of men as well as women is not merely coherent. Beyond the coherence, the case is evidenced by the healthfulness of good art that ranges from its beneficial effects in architecture to medical findings on beautiful music such as Bach, Mozart, Celtic and Indian. (shrink)

A perennial influence on the aesthetics of fashion, fostered by Plato and Aristotle, is challenged today by a prevalent social constructionism. The latter embraces an impracticable biodenial as well as an incoherent epistemic relativism, reminiscent of Greek Sophism, whereby truth-claims about good fashion may be both true and false either in the same culture at different times or at the same time in different cultures. But a normative aesthetics of Aristotle and Plato, that affirms an epistemic realism, roots women's fashion (...) in their psychobiological nature. The relation of this nature to their sex proceeds paripassu with an erogeneity proper to women's fashion. The case for this fashion as a mode of art that fulfills the complementary natures of men as well as women is not merely coherent. Beyond the coherence, the case is evidenced by the healthfulness of good art that ranges from its beneficial effects in architecture to medical findings on beautiful music such as Bach, Mozart, Celtic and Indian. (shrink)

Mass ideology is unique to modern society and rooted in early modern philosophy. Traditionally, knowledge had been viewed as resting on metaphysics. Rejecting metaphysical truth evoked questions about the source of "truth." For nineteenth-century ideologists, "truth" comes either from dominating classes in a progressively determined history or from a post-Copernican freedom of the superior man to create it. In From Physics to Politics Robert C. Trundle, Jr. uncovers the relation of modern philosophy to political ideology. And in rooting (...) truth in human nature and Nature by modal reasoning, he resolves the problem of politicized truth. Our concepts of scientific truth, logic, and necessity are essentially connected. Modern philosophy restricts our understanding of necessity to the political dreams and aspirations of Enlightenment intellectuals. As a result, these intellectuals refuse to acknowledge as factual or meaningful whatever is not intelligible within the practical goals of establishing science as a system of enlightened ideas. The effect of these ideas is that in our time metaphysical principles, speculative truths, our understanding of science, and the nature of logic have become subordinated to ideological dreams. Fascism, Nazism, Marxism, political correctness, and moral relativism are not historical aberrations but essential consequences. Trundle's work is groundbreaking and daring, and his underlying thesis demonstrates why scientific truth demands a modal defense. The defense not only integrates science, ethics, and politics, but shows how "truth" may be ascribed to moral and scientific principles in contrast to a modern philosophical tradition. Since this tradition is the origin of political ideology, it has led to an irrational politicization of truth. The book will appeal particularly to those interested in political history, histories of philosophy, the philosophy of sciences, and ethics. Robert C. Trundle, Jr. is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Scientific Research Society of Sigma Xi, an affiliate scholar for Idealistic Studies, and has served as reader for University de Laval's Laval Theologique et Philosphique. His publications include over three dozen articles in Res Publica, Logique et Analyse, Thought, Philosphy in Science, and New Horizons in the Philosophy of Science. His books include Beyond Absurdity (with R. Puligandla), Ancient Greek Philosophy, and Medieval Reasoning. He is currently professor in the department of social sciences and philosophy at Northern Kentucky University. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between eugenics, disability, and dehumanization, with a focus on forms of eugenics beyond Nazi eugenics.

Doing Greek Philosophy conveys a vivid sense of dynamism and continuity of the Greek philosophical tradition and illustrates how interaction between Greek philosophers creates and sustains that tradition. It concentrates on a set of inter-related challenges and problems that emerged early in the tradition and moves on to the subsequent reactions to them.

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

Der Wandel der kulturellen Verhältnisse führt zu einer Zuspitzung des Verhältnisses von Gesellschaft und Rechtssystem. In diesem Prozess gestaltet New Political Ecology (NPE) Umwelt und Rechtssystem und ist zugleich evolutiv ausgerichtet. NPE erfährt Evolution in der Zeit als Überfluss und in eigenartiger Vernetzung als knappes Gut. Diese Verbindung basiert auf Zusammenhängen, die bisher noch nicht systematisch bearbeitet worden sind. Dabei geht es ganz wesentlich auch um das Verhältnis von Staat und moderner Risikogesellschaft. Wissenschaftlicher Fortschritt erweist sich vor diesem Hintergrund selbst (...) als ein evolutiver Prozess. (shrink)

Drawing on a passage from Ramsey's Truth and Probability, we formulate a simple, plausible constraint on evaluating the accuracy of credences: the Calibration Test. We show that any additive, continuous accuracy measure that passes the Calibration Test will be strictly proper. Strictly proper accuracy measures are known to support the touchstone results of accuracy-first epistemology, for example vindications of probabilism and conditionalization. We show that our use of Calibration is an improvement on previous such appeals by showing how it answers (...) or sidesteps problems that have been raised for previous work in this area. (shrink)

The paper offers an analysis of Protagoras’ fr. DK 80 B 1 and rejects the traditional reading of Protagoras as relativist. By considering the ipsissima verba that Protagoras makes use of in his passage, it is argued that alternative interpretations are possible, of which epistemological reism and psychological individualism are proposed. On a more general level, it is discussed to what extent Protagoras’ fragment contains descriptive rather than normative claim.

Initiated by Robert Wesson, _Evolution and Human Values_ is a collection of newly written essays designed to bring interdisciplinary insight to that area of thought where human evolution intersects with human values. The disciplines brought to bear on the subject are diverse - philosophy, psychiatry, behavioral science, biology, anthropology, psychology, biochemistry, and sociology. Yet, as organized by co-editor Patricia A. Williams, the volume falls coherently into three related sections. Entitled Evolutionary Ethics, the first section brings contemporary research to an (...) area first explored by Herbert Spencer. Evolutionary ethics looks to the theory of evolution by natural selection to find values for human living. The second section, Evolved Ethics, discusses the evolution of language and religion and their impact on moral thought and feeling. Evolved ethics was partly Charles Darwin's subject in _The Descent of Man._ The last section bears the title Scientific Ethics. A nascent field, scientific ethics asks about the evolution of human nature and the implications of that nature for ethical theory and social policy. Together, the essays collected here provide important contemporary insights into what it is - and what it may be - to be human. (shrink)

Die Meisterwerke der Moralistik haben Millionen von Menschen als philosophische Lebensbegleiter gedient. Doch worum geht es in der Moralistik eigentlich? 0Die Moralistik befasst sich mit der Natur des Menschen und mit Möglichkeiten kluger, individueller Selbstbehauptung. Sie führt die antiken Ansätze einer philosophischen Klugheitslehre fort und besetzt damit einen in der neuzeitlichen Ethik vernachlässigten Teil der praktischen Philosophie. Ihre Meisterwerke vermitteln uns Menschenkenntnis und soziale Orientierung und stehen uns auf dem Weg eines gelingenden Lebens beratend zur Seite. In ihnen liegt der (...) Ursprung der modernen Philosophie der Lebenskunst. Das Buch stellt sowohl die Entwicklung der Moralistik als auch ihr philosophisches Anliegen anschaulich und gut lesbar dar. (shrink)