If you’ve read the first five hundred pages of this book, you’ve read most of it (we assume that ‘most’ requires more than ‘more than half’). The set of natural numbers n such that the first n pages are most of this book is nonempty. Therefore, by the least number principle, it has a least member k. What is k? We do not know. We have no idea how to find out. The obstacle is something about the term ‘most’. It (...) is recognisably the same feature as the feature of ‘heap’ that prevents us from finding an answer to the question ‘How many grains make a heap?’ and the feature of many other expressions that prevents us from finding answers to similar questions involving them. Call this feature, whatever its underlying nature, vagueness. (shrink)

Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure writing, but by (...) the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives. (shrink)

Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure writing, but by (...) the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives. (shrink)

According to James McCawley (1981) and Richard Larson and Gabriel Segal (1995), the following sentence is three-ways ambiguous: -/- Harry wants to be the mayor of Kenai. -/- According to them also, the three-way ambiguity cannot be accommodated on the Russellian view that definite descriptions are quantified noun phrases. In order to capture the three-way ambiguity of the sentence, these authors propose that definite descriptions must be ambiguous: sometimes they are predicate expressions; sometimes they are Russellian quantified noun phrases. After (...) explaining why the McCawley-Larson-Segal solution contains an obvious flaw, I discuss how an effort to correct the flaw brings to light certain puzzles about the individuation of desires, about quantifying in, and about the disambiguation of desire ascriptions. (shrink)

Machine ethics is the field that strives to develop ‘artificial moral agents’ (AMAs), artificial systems that can autonomously make moral decisions. Some authors have questioned the feasibility of machine ethics, by questioning whether artificial systems can possess moral competence, or the capacity to reach morally right decisions in various situations. This paper explores this question by drawing on the work of several moral philosophers (McDowell, Wiggins, Hampshire, and Nussbaum) who have characterised moral competence in a manner inspired by Aristotle. Although (...) disparate in many ways, these philosophers all emphasise what may be called ‘moral sensitivity’ as a precondition for moral competence. Moral sensitivity is the uncodified, practical skill to recognise, in a range of situations, which features of the situations are morally relevant, and how they are relevant. This paper argues that the main types of AMAs currently proposed are incapable of full moral sensitivity. First, top-down AMAs that proceed from fixed rule-sets are too rigid to respond appropriately to the wide range of qualitatively unique factors that moral sensitivity gives access to. Second, bottom-up AMAs that learn moral behaviour from examples are at risk of generalising from these examples in undesirable ways, as they lack embedding in what Wittgenstein calls a ‘form of life’, which allows humans to appropriately learn from moral examples. The paper concludes that AMAs are unlikely to possess full moral competence, but closes by suggesting that they may still be feasible in restricted domains of public morality, where moral sensitivity plays a smaller role. (shrink)

Mounting evidence documents the extraordinary toll on human health resulting from the consumption of unhealthy food products and physical inactivity. In response to America's growing obesity problem, local policymakers have been looking for legal strategies that can be adopted in their communities to encourage healthful behaviors. In order to provide practical tools to policymakers, this article examines four possible venues for local policy change to improve the health of a community: the school environment the built environment () community facilities and (...) the point of sale environment. Finally, the article examines the use of taxes or fees as a means of paying for nutrition policy work as well as potentially reducing the consumption of unhealthy products. This article illustrates that local laws and policies can be a valuable tool in changing a community's environment in order to improve nutritional options and increase opportunities for physical activity. (shrink)

Mounting evidence documents the extraordinary toll on human health resulting from the consumption of unhealthy food products and physical inactivity. Diseases related to poor nutrition – such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some cancers – are among the leading causes of disability and death in the United States. Poor diet and lack of exercise come second only to tobacco use in actual causes of preventable death in this country. It is estimated that 6% of all adult health care, 7% (...) of Medicare, and 11% of Medicaid expenditures are attributable to obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the direct medical cost associated with physical inactivity was nearly $76.6 billion in 2000.In response to America's growing obesity problem, local policymakers have been looking for legal strategies to adopt in their communities to encourage healthful behaviors. Taking the lead from the successful tobacco control movement, nutrition advocates are seeking strategies to “denormalize” unhealthy behaviors, rather than pursuing education-based approaches that encourage individuals to change their own personal behavior. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.1 (2006) 45-71 [Access article in PDF] Presencing "Communion" in Chaïm Perelman's New Rhetoric Richard Graff Wendy Winn Department of RhetoricUniversity of MinnesotaOver the second half of his long and distinguished career, Chaïm Perelman reiterated the central themes of his theory of rhetoric many times. As the audience for his work expanded, Perelman was repeatedly invited to summarize the principles presented in La nouvelle rhétorique, his (...) magnum opus authored in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, which appeared in 1958. On these occasions, he would often attempt to clarify or refine the major concepts presented in that treatise. Nevertheless, even today many aspects of Perelman's work remain enigmatic. In outline, The New Rhetoric itself conveys a sense of structural and theoretical clarity, but for many readers this first impression evaporates when they confront the complexity and detail of the work's exposition. In the preface to their new study of Perelman, Alan Gross and Ray Dearin observe:The New Rhetoric is difficult to read, a task made even more difficult for American audiences because virtually all its examples and illustrations are from a literature in a foreign language.... Moreover, Perelman's later attempts to achieve clarity, in The Realm of Rhetoric, and numerous shorter articles, are equally puzzling. Consequently, some of Perelman's best ideas are virtually buried in a very long work, and therefore largely lost even to the most careful readers. In addition, on such central issues as the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy Perelman remains maddeningly obscure. (2003, ix) While Perelman's status as a pioneering figure in the rejuvenation of rhetorical study in Continental Europe is secure, as is his placement among the canonical twentieth-century theorists by American scholars, such difficulties constitute an impediment to contemporary understanding and future appreciation of his achievement; and the sprawling character of The New Rhetoric certainly has not helped to counteract the less [End Page 45] sympathetic reception his work has received in some corners of rhetorical and argumentation studies.1Gross and Dearin's volume joins several other recent studies that have contributed to the untangling of Perelman's thought and to the profitable application of his ideas.2 Still, some of Perelman's "best ideas" remain buried and sorely in need of excavation. Chief among these are considerations prompted by Perelman's use of the evocative yet mysterious term "communion." Although communion appears repeatedly among the panoply of concepts and argumentative techniques described in The New Rhetoric, explicit discussion of it there is brief and scattered, and the subject receives only glancing mention in Perelman's subsequent publications. In turn, communion has been all but ignored in the scholarship responding to or extending Perelman's work.3 This is even the case in studies where one would expect to see more serious engagement with Perelman's ideas on the subject—notably, in those that consider the status of values in argumentation and the role of rhetoric in the constitution and maintenance of community.4In this essay, we offer a detailed analysis of Perelman's conception of communion and, in the course of endowing the concept with greater "presence," aim to show its rich implications for these areas of inquiry. We argue that the idea of communion is a vital, if understated, component of Perelman's proposed "new rhetoric." Like other aspects of Perelman's theory, however, it is an expansive and somewhat slippery notion. In The New Rhetoric, communion is used in a very general sense as the term denoting a community's agreement on questions of value, but also, more narrowly, as an objective sought in certain forms of discourse and as an effect of specific linguistic-stylistic devices. The exegesis needed to indicate the subtle links between these senses will enable us to describe the manner in which Perelman endeavored to integrate the technical lore inherited from the classical tradition of rhetoric with a broadly social and determinedly pluralisticconception of argumentation.We begin by examining communion in relation to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's ideas... (shrink)

The International Research Library of Philosophy collects in book form a wide range of important and influential essays in philosophy, drawn predominantly from English-language journals. Each volume in the library deals with a field of enquiry which has received significant attention in philosophy in the last 25 years and is edited by a philosopher noted in that field.

Only a few studies explore the lifeworld of the spouses of persons affected by early-onset Alzheimer disease. The aim of this study is to explore the lifeworld of spouses when their partners are diagnosed with AD, focusing on spouses’ lived experience. The study employs an interpretative phenomenological framework. Ten in-depth interviews are performed. The results show that spouses’ lifeworld changes with the diagnosis. They experience an imprisoned existence in which added obligations, fear, and worry keep them trapped at home, both (...) physically and mentally. In their longing for freedom, new strategies and attitudes helps the spouses to create an extended “lived space” with their partner. The findings stress the importance of paying attention to the lifeworld of spouses and making clinical recommendations on this basis. Most importantly, the lifeworld perspective has implications for how we understand what care is. We hope to challenge all different healthcare professionals and invite them to discuss the deep meaning of care and the definition of being professional in encounters with vulnerable others from a lifeworld perspective. (shrink)

Znaczenie kolegiów jezuickich w rozwoju szkolnictwa na ziemiach Rzeczypospolitej, podobnie jak wkład członków Towarzystwa Jezusowego w postęp naukowy, tak polski jak i europejski pozostają bezsprzeczne. Warto wszak zwrócić uwagę na fakt propagowania przez jezuitów wiedzy na temat Dalekiego Wschodu, misji chrystianizacyjnych prowadzonych w Indiach, Chinach i Japonii, a także społeczne, kulturowe i polityczne konsekwencje działań podjętych przez nich w tym zakresie. Szczególne znaczenie ma tutaj działalność poszczególnych kolegiów, które kształcąc na dość wysokim poziomie, stawały się miejscem wzrastania powołań kapłańskich, a (...) co za tym idzie także powołań misyjnych. Relacje i listy z krajów Dalekiego Wschodu nie pozostały bez wpływu na decyzje podejmowane przez poszczególnych uczniów, którzy pragnęli wzorem jezuickich świętych i męczenników głosić Ewangelię wśród mieszkańców Indii, Chin oraz Japonii. Misje chrystianizacyjne, jak i dzieje oraz kultura krajów Dalekiego Wschodu interesowały wszak nie tylko uczniów kolegiów, ale o wiele szersze grono osób, chcących poszerzyć swoją wiedzą. Celom tym służyły polskie tłumaczenia autorów jezuickich, którzy w swoich dziełach opisywali Daleki Wschód. Ponadto wśród metod propagowania wiedzy niezwykle ważne miejsce zajmowały widowiska parateatralne i spektakle sceniczne, w których pojawiały się wątki orientalne. Zarówno one, jak i wspomniane działania translatorskie obejmowały swoim zasięgiem niezwykle szerokie grono osób, co w późniejszym czasie przełożyło się na znaczący wzrost zainteresowania Dalekim Wschodem, w konsekwencji zaś pojawieniem się mody na tzw. „chińszczyznę”. Celem niniejszego artykuł jest zatem prześledzenie wskazanych powyżej wątków, które – jak łatwo można zauważyć – pozostają w ciągu przyczynowo-skutkowym. W konsekwencji można zatem stwierdzić, że rola kolegiów jezuickich, jako ośrodków, z których wyszedł impuls propagowania wiedzy o krajach Dalekiego Wschodu wydaje się być niepodważalna. (shrink)

Oddajemy czytelnikom kolejny numer „Rocznika Filozoficznego Ignatianum”. Prawie w całości poświęcony został on Mikołajowi Zebrzydowskiemu. Stan badań na jego temat zarysowany został w pierwszym tekście autorstwa Elżbiety E. Wróbel i Tomasza Graffa. Drugi z wymienionych autorów w osobnym artykule przedstawił także problematykę związaną z rozwojem majątku Floriana Zebrzydowskiego w miarę wzrostu jego znaczenia politycznego na dworze króla Zygmunta Augusta. Szczególny nacisk położono na studium przypadku (_case study_). Autor analizuje bowiem nabycie przez Zebrzydowskiego dóbr w Radoczy koło Wadowic, ukazując perspektywę konieczności (...) podjęcia dalszych badań nad powiększeniem majątku Floriana Zebrzydowskiego i jego rodziny. Artykuł wieńczy aneks, wraz z edycją w języku łacińskim i polskim tłumaczeniu dokumentu, w którym „Zygmunt August nadaje Florianowi Zebrzydowskiemu prawo zbudowania tamy na rzece Skawie i poprowadzenia stamtąd wody fosą przez ziemie dóbr Wadowice dla zbudowania stawów rybnych w dobrach Radocza”_._. (shrink)

Artykuł ukazuje w ujęciu problemowym stan badań nad postacią Mikołaja Zebrzydowskiego (1553–1620) oraz jego rodziny do roku 2022. Zwrócono uwagę na najważniejsze publikacje dotyczące jego biografii, fundacji oraz działalności politycznej. Zauważono, że dotychczasowa historiografia zajmowała się Zebrzydowskim głównie w kontekście rokoszu sandomierskiego, fundacji klasztoru, kalwarii oraz fundacji w rodowych Zebrzydowicach. Natomiast genealogią rodziny Zebrzydowskich, ich majątkiem oraz powiązaniami z innymi rodami zajmowano się sporadycznie. Nieco szerzej analizowano działalność Floriana Zebrzydowskiego, ojca Mikołaja, jednak głównie jako teoretyka wojskowości. Autorzy podkreślają szczególnie znaczenie (...) rocznicy 400-lecia śmierci wojewody krakowskiego, która przypadła na rok 2020. Przyczyniła się ona do intensyfikacji badań nad biografią Mikołaja Zebrzydowskiego i jego rodziną, co zaowocowało m.in. wydaniem dwóch monografii: szkicu biograficznego oraz pracy zbiorowej. W podsumowaniu artykułu nakreślono perspektywy badawcze dotyczące biografii wojewody krakowskiego i jego rodziny, zauważając m.in. konieczność rozszerzenia kwerend w archiwach krajowych i zagranicznych. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of undergoing a presymptomatic genetic test for the hereditary and fatal Huntington’s disease, using a case study approach. The study was based on 18 interviews with a young woman and her husband from the decision to undergo the test, to receiving the results and trying to adapt to them, which were analysed using a life history approach. The findings show that the process of undergoing a presymptomatic test involves several closely (...) connected ethical and medical questions, such as the reason for the test, the consequences of the test results and how health-care services can be developed to support people in this situation. (shrink)

A growing number of cities and counties have emerged as leaders in the fight against obesity in the United States and have enacted innovative policies to address this epidemic. Much of this local strategy focuses on how retail food establishments — namely, chain restaurants, corner stores, supermarkets, farmers markets, and mobile vendors – affect public health. Recognizing the enormous influence a community’s food environment has on the quality and quantity of what people eat, cities and counties have sought to encourage (...) food retail establishments to promote healthier options through regulations and incentives. (shrink)

A growing number of cities and counties have emerged as leaders in the fight against obesity in the United States and have enacted innovative policies to address this epidemic. Much of this local strategy focuses on how retail food establishments — namely, chain restaurants, corner stores, supermarkets, farmers markets, and mobile vendors – affect public health. Recognizing the enormous influence a community’s food environment has on the quality and quantity of what people eat, cities and counties have sought to encourage (...) food retail establishments to promote healthier options through regulations and incentives. (shrink)

Book V of Eriugena’s Periphyseon presents new critical problems because of the lack of the Rheims manuscript, which contains the author’s own revisions. The text which has been called Versio Prima in the first four books of Jeauneau’s new edition is lacking for the fnal volume. Working from a transcription of the second portion of the Clauis Physicae, the epitome of the Periphyseon by Honorius Augustodunensis, the author reports that the unpublished Clauis II contains a text of Periphyseon V that (...) is analogous to Versio Prima. This article first compares the transcription from Clauis II to Lucentini’s notes on Honorius’ work, then it analyses the difference between Clauis II and Versio Secunda in Periphyseon V. The relationship is found to be the same as that between the primitive text of Periphyseon in books I-IV and Eriugena’s revised version . Consequently, Clauis II should be recognized as an essential witness to the early text of Periphyseon V. (shrink)

In recent decades, deliberation about public issues has become a central theme in citizenship education. In line with an increasing philosophical and political appreciation of the importance of deliberation within democracy, schools, as training grounds for democratic citizenship, should foster high-level deliberative skills. However, when this insight is translated into practical formats, these formats suffer from a number of shortcomings. Specifically, they can be criticised on philosophical grounds for advantaging select societal groups, and on empirical grounds for facilitating groupthink mechanisms. (...) This paper aims to address these shortcomings by suggesting a role for debating techniques within deliberative education. Because debating stimulates the contestation of diverse opinions, it may counteract the silencing of minority viewpoints and the proliferation of groupthink. At the same time, debating-based formats must be closely regulated in order to not imperil compromise formation. A concrete format is presented that balances these considerations and may therefore contribute to more effective deliberation in the classroom. (shrink)

Artykuł ukazuje problematykę rozwoju majątku Floriana Zebrzydowskiego h. Radwan (zm. 1566), jednego z najbardziej zaufanych dworzan, wojskowych i urzędników Zygmunta Augusta. Stosując metodę indukcyjną, zwrócono uwagę na niemal nieznane dotychczas w historiografii wejście przez Zebrzydowskiego w posiadanie majątku we wsi Radocza k. Wadowic w księstwie zatorskim. Jako współwłaściciel tej wsi Zebrzydowski procesował się w latach 1549–1550 z Jakubem Frydrychowskim. Z kolei dokumentem z 1551 roku król nadał Zebrzydowskiemu przywilej budowania tamy/ fosy na rz. Skawie w celu doprowadzania wody do majątku (...) w Radoczy, co było niezbędne m.in. do zbudowania stawów rybnych (edycja wraz z tłumaczeniem w Aneksie). Osiem lat później Florian Zebrzydowski przeprowadził transakcję majątkową dotyczącą Radoczy z Felicją Frydrychowską i jej mężem Stanisławem Milanowskim. Nie udało się jednak ustalić, kiedy dostojnik pozbył się majątku w tej wsi, jednak źródła z okresu ostatnich lat jego życia i kolejnych dziesięcioleci wymieniające właścicieli Radoczy nie wspominają już o Zebrzydowskich. Przy okazji ustaleń dotyczących Radoczy ukazano także przykładowe inne transakcje majątkowe, w których brał udział Zebrzydowski. Studium miało za zadanie zasygnalizować konieczność podjęcia szerszych badań nad rozwojem majątku Floriana Zebrzydowskiego w powiązaniu ze sprawami majątkowymi jego rodziny, szkicując tym samym nowe perspektywy badawcze. (shrink)

Taking a series of period courses arranged in chronological order seems the natural and obvious way for students to learn history. But an odd thing happens when these courses are not connected to one another, as they rarely are in the college curriculum. Since students experience each course as a self-contained unit, they have no incentive to remember one period once they move on to the next. Describing a course he taught in a required literary history sequence, the author is (...) struck not only by his students' inability to make connections with the previous course in the sequence but also by their evident surprise at being asked to recall what they had studied in any previous course. This essay—a guest column in Common Knowledge—goes on to generalize the implications of the incident, arguing that, paradoxically, the effect of period courses is to erase the sense of historical sequence, continuity, and contrast from students' minds and thereby to erase history itself. The point is not that there is something wrong with dividing history into period courses—some such division is unavoidable and necessary—but that unless period courses are connected, students will come away with an ahistorical view of history. (shrink)

Limited Inc. is a major work in the philosophy of language by the celebrated French thinker Jacques Derrida. The book's two essays, 'Limited Inc.' and 'Signature Event Context, ' constitute key statements of the Derridean theory of deconstruction. They are perhaps the clearest exposition to be found of Derrida's most controversial idea.

Wellek is surely right in arguing that the New Critics did not intend to behave as formalists, but I think he needs to explain why they came so close to doing so in spite of themselves. One explanation may lie in a sphere Wellek mentions but might have probed even more fully, the long-standing Romantic and modernist revolt against the culture of science, positivism, and utilitarianism. In Culture and Society, 1780-1950 , Raymond Williams argues that the Romantic reaction against industrial-utilitarian (...) society led to a specialization of literature that attenuated literature's claims in a self-defeating way. Instead of contesting the realm of objective knowledge, the defenders of literature conceded this territory to science and commerce, either celebrating literature for its very freedom from such knowledge or claiming for it some alternate form of knowledge that could not be made rationally respectable. One could argue that the same pattern of misplaced reaction is seen in the New Criticism, that its revolt against the utilitarian, "Platonic" drives of science and positivism took the form of an attempt to divest literature of objective "truth of correspondence." Having equated this kind of truth with the most reductive forms of scientism, moralism, and propagandizing, the New Critics made it difficult to justify their own ambitious claims for the humanistic knowledge embodied in literature. Their way of reacting against the depravities of technological culture continues to be a common one today and can even be found in such adversaries of the New Critics as the cultural revolutionaries, the phenomenologists, and the deconstructionists—all of whom express the paradigms of our modern "adversary culture." It is an understandable and even perhaps an admirable reaction, but it has led to distortions in our conception of the humanities—one of which is the aggravation of that very dissociation of sensibility into scientific and poetic components that we all say we want to have done with. Gerald Graff, chairman of the English department at Northwestern University, is the author of Poetic Statement and Critical Dogma and, most recently, Literature against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society. He responds in this article to René Wellek's "The New Criticism: Pro and Contra," published in Summer 1978 in Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

This article aims to present Queen Jadwiga’ actual influence on nominations for episcopal sees during her reign and joint rule with Władysław Jagiełło. Until now, except for Krzysztof Ożóg, researchers expressed only a marginal interest in the subject. The author cites relevant views contained in all major studies on Jadwiga’s reign as well as analyses all available sources, mainly printed ones, both papal documents and chronicles, with special regard to the works of Jan Długosz. Using the induction method, the author (...) analyses 22 nominations for episcopal sees. Contrary to the views expressed in the literature of the subject, Jadwiga did not influence all episcopal nominations she has been attributed with. Nonetheless, in some cases we may argue that she exerted noticeable pressure; in other instances it was probably only more or less subtle. In all analysed nominations, whenever her role was clearly proved in sources, we may notice that Jadwiga was invariably cooperative in the common ecclesiastical policy which she pursued together with her husband. For example, both took advantage of the Holy Sees’ vulnerability in the era of the Occidental Schism, which allowed them to push their own candidates for episcopal seats. The present analysis revealed that with regard to the majority of most prestigious bishoprics in the Kingdom of Poland it was Jagiełło who had key influence on candidates for episcopal nominations, building his own political power base. At the same time, certain episcopal promotions, especially those in Ruthenia, Moldova and Mazovia, were reported inadequately and in few sources, hence Jadwiga’s and Władysław’s influence on the nominations of bishops can only be hypothetically determined. (shrink)

Graff observes that the significance of dina de-malkhuta dina and its interpretation ids vital for an understanding of modern Jewish life as well as the relationship of Diaspora Jews to the Jewish community in the state of Israel.