Research has demonstrated large differences in the degree to which direct and indirect measures predict each other and variables including behavioural approach and attentional bias. We investigated whether individual differences in the co-variance of “implicit” and “explicit” spider fear exist, and whether this covariation exerts an effect on spider fear-related outcomes. One hundred and thirty-two undergraduate students completed direct and indirect measures of spider fear/avoidance, self-report questionnaires of psychopathology, an attentional bias task, and a proxy Behavioural Approach Task. TwoStep cluster (...) analysis using implicit and explicit spider fear as criterion variables resulted in three clusters: low explicit/low implicit; average explicit/high implicit; and high explicit/low implicit. Clusters with higher explicit fear demonstrated greater disgust propensity and sensitivity and less willingness to approach a spider. No differences between clusters emerged on anticipatory approach anxiety or attentional bias. We discuss results in terms of dual-systems and cognitive–behavioural models of fear. (shrink)

This book moves toward building a new and more comprehensive theory of literature, philosophy, psychology, and art. The extremely popular work of Ken Wilber, unites the best of both western and eastern thought and affirms that the stages of consciousness, more refined than that of the reasoning mind, do exist.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to depart (...) significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to depart (...) significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

Henry E. Allison presents a comprehensive commentary on Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Allison pays special attention to the structure of the work and its historical and intellectual context. He argues that, despite its relative brevity, the Groundwork is the single most important work in modern moral philosophy.

According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I (...) clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation. (shrink)

According to a dominant view of stigma, a person is stigmatized within a community if sufficiently many people within that community hold a bad view of her. I call this the 'Bad View Model'. In this paper, I argue against the Bad View Model on the grounds that such beliefs are neither necessary nor sufficient for stigma, and that the account cannot explain the distinctive phenomenology of stigma, including certain vulnerabilities to shame. I then develop an alternative that explains these (...) features of stigma, which I call the 'Shaming Model'. On this view, a person is stigmatized within a community if she is shamed by members of that community, and this is explained by their belief that she has deviated from some social norm and/or standard. (shrink)

Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy is a depressing read. He writes many pages about how suffering is the norm, and any happiness we feel is merely a temporary alleviation of suffering. Even so, his account of suffering rings true to many readers. What are we to do with our lives if Schopenhauer is right, and we are doomed to suffer? In this paper, I use William James’ pragmatic method to find practical implications of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. I provide a model for how we (...) are to live our lives in a suffering world, a model that provides means to reduce suffering. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

Recently, bioethicists and the UNCRPD have advocated for supported medical decision-making on behalf of patients with intellectual disabilities. But what does supported decision-making really entail? One compelling framework is Anita Silvers and Leslie Francis’ mental prosthesis account, which envisions supported decision-making as a process in which trustees act as mere appendages for the patient’s will; the trustee provides the cognitive tools the patient requires to realize her conception of her own good. We argue that supported decision-making would be better understood (...) as a collaborative process, giving patients with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to make decisions in a respectful relationship with trusted others. We offer an alternative account of supported decision-making where the primary constraint is to protect the patient from domination by the trustee. This is advantageous in its preservation of the prospects for genuine collaboration, for the mental prosthesis approach ultimately reinforces a problematic ideal of isolated patient self-determination. (shrink)

How should we interpret the popular objection that stigmatised subjects are not treated as individuals? The Eidelson View claims that stigma, because of its connection to stereotypes, violates an instance of the general requirement to respect autonomy. The Self-Presentation View claims that stigma inhibits the functioning of certain morally important capacities, notably the capacity for self-presentation. I argue that even if we are right to think that stigma violates a requirement to respect autonomy, this is insufficient to account for the (...) full weight of the charge that stigmatised subjects are not treated as individuals. We need the Self-Presentation View to explain a special threat to agency. I then address the worry that focusing on a concern with being treated as individuals opens the door to the suggestion that treating as superior can be just as morally troubling as stigma. This objection is fatal for the Eidelson View. But the Self-Presentation View has a number of resources for deflating the worry. We should not exclude the possibility of a moral symmetry between some cases of stigma and some cases of treating as superior. Rather, we should provide a nuanced account of the circumstances in which either phenomenon is detrimental for self-presentation. (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that we should be suspicious about shame. For example, Nussbaum endorses the view that shame is a largely irrational or unreasonable emotion rooted in infantile narcissism. This claim has also been used to support the view that we should largely abandon shaming as a social activity. If we are worried about the emotion of shame, so the thought goes, we should also worry about acts which encourage shame. I argue that this line of reasoning does not license (...) the leap from the critique of shame to the critique of shaming. This is because shaming does not always aim to inflict shame on its targets. Many acts of shaming (which I label ‘performative shaming’) should simply be understood as aiming to serve their characteristic function of shoring up social norms and standards. (shrink)

Is conceptual engineering feasible? Answering that question requires a theory of semantic change, which is sometimes thought elusive. Fortunately, much is known about semantic change as it occurs in the wild. While usage is chaotic and complex, changes in a word’s use can produce changes in its meaning. There are several under-appreciated empirical constraints on how meanings change that stem from the following observation: word use finely reflects equilibrium between various communicative pressures. Much of the relevant work in linguistics has (...) employed the methods of empirical pragmatics and diachronic semantics. In this way, the study of meaning change can be brought to bear on the conceptual engineer’s normative project. The picture that emerges tells against the sorts of engineering projects most likely to appeal to philosophers. Some may stand to succeed, but they have significantly different contours than the typical ones. (shrink)

In "Saving One Another: Philodemus and Paul on Moral Formation in Community" Justin Reid Allison compares how the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Christian apostle Paul envisioned the members of their communities helping one another to grow into moral maturity. Allison establishes that Philodemus and Paul are more similar than previously noticed in their conception and practice of moral formation in community, and that these similarities offer a critical opportunity to consider important differences between the two as well. (...) By deepening the comparison to include differences alongside similarities, and to include theological and socio-economic facets of communal moral formation, Allison shows that Philodemus and Paul uniquely shed fresh light on one another's texts when understood in comparative perspective. (shrink)

The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China makes an innovative contribution to studies of language by historicizing the Chinese notion that words have "meaning" (content independent of instances of use). Rather than presuming that the concept of word-meaning had always existed, Jane Geaney explains how and why it arose in China. To account for why a normative term (yi, "duty, morality, appropriateness") came to be used for "meanings" found in dictionaries, Geaney examines interrelated patterns of word usage threading through (...) and across a wide range of genres. These patterns show that by the first millennium, as textual production exploded—and as radically different writing forms (in Buddhist sutras) were encountered—yi already functioned as an externally accessible "model" for semantic interpretation of texts and sayings. The book has far-reaching implications. Because the idea of word-meaning is fundamental to theorizing, the book illuminates not only semantic ideas and the normativity of language in Early China, but also aspects of early Chinese philosophy and intellectual history. As the internet supplants one form of media (print), thereby reducing knowledge to vast digital databases, so too, this book explains, two thousand years ago a culture that prized oral and visual balance became an "empire of the text.". (shrink)

In _Vibrant Matter_ the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we (...) to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the_ _effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. (shrink)

How would Hume have addressed William Molyneux’s question to Locke: would a man born blind but able to distinguish between a sphere and cube by touch, immediately on acquiring sight, distinguish these figures visually? As a central issue in eighteenth-century epistemology and psychology, one would expect Hume to have dealt with it in his Treatise and, like Locke and Berkeley, answered in the negative. After offering a possible reason for Hume’s neglect of this problem, the paper argues that Hume’s focus (...) on the problem of a vacuum and a relational theory of space would have prompted a response more akin to Leibniz than Molyneux. The paper first analyzes Hume’s position, then discusses the central features of Hume’s account of extension. It argues that this account commits Hume to the thesis that both visual and tangible ideas of space are three-dimensional and, if developed, would lead to a positive answer to Molyneux’s question. (shrink)

Firms and industries increasingly subscribe to voluntary codes of conduct. These self-regulatory governance systems can be effective in establishing a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. However, these codes can also be largely symbolic, reactive measures to quell public criticism. Cross-sector alliances (between for-profit and nonprofit actors) present a learning platform for infusing participants with greater incentives to be socially responsible. They can provide multinationals new capabilities that allow them to more closely ally social responsibility with economic performance. This paper (...) examines learning facilitators in cross-sector alliances that enrich corporate understanding of stakeholder concerns. It suggests that these organizational learning experiments can translate into globally responsible practices and processes that improve the content and effectiveness of voluntary corporate codes. (shrink)

So considered, Hume is viewed as a naturalist, whose project in the first three parts of the first book of the Treatise is to provide an account of the ...

Animalism in its basic form is the view that we are animals. Whether it is a thesis about anything else – like what the conditions of our persistence through time are or whether we're wholly material things – depends on the facts about the persistence conditions and ontology of animals. Thus, I will argue, there are different varieties of animalism, differing with respect to which other theses are taken in conjunction with animalism in its basic form. The different varieties of (...) animalism vary in credibility: some varieties are supported by arguments that are irrelevant to others, and some varieties are susceptible to objections that others can resist. Adequately distinguishing between varieties of animalism is thus an important preliminary to assessing them. In this paper, I'll present and argue for a taxonomy of the most distinctive varieties. (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Design offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics, challenging the discipline to broaden its scope to include the quotidian objects and experiences of our everyday lives and concerns ...

Featuring 80 Americans--from the famous to the unknown--this series of insightful observations completes the thought that the book's title introduces. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they arrive at their own personal beliefs but also how they share them with others.

This paper defends a hylomorphic version of animalism according to which human persons survive as immaterial, bodiless animals after death. According to the hylomorphism under consideration, human persons have souls that survive death, and according to the animalism under consideration, human persons are necessarily animals. One might think this implies that human persons don't survive their deaths since if they were to survive their deaths, they would be immaterial animals after death, but necessarily animals are material. This paper shows that (...) the hylomorphic animalist can overcome this problem in a way that respects the intuition that animals are material. In addition, the paper defends the hylomorphic animalist survivalist from the objection that her view introduces an insoluble mereological puzzle. (shrink)

This is part of a complete set of Jane Austen's novels collating the editions published during the author's lifetime and previously unpublished manuscripts. The books are illustrated with 19th century plates and incorporate revisions by experts in the light of subsequent research.

This landmark book is now reissued in a new edition that has been vastly rewritten and updated to respond to recent Kantian literature.

Ducks lay eggs' is a true sentence, and `ducks are female' is a false one. Similarly, `mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus' is obviously true, whereas `mosquitoes don't carry the West Nile virus' is patently false. This is so despite the egg-laying ducks' being a subset of the female ones and despite the number of mosquitoes that don't carry the virus being ninety-nine times the number that do. Puzzling facts such as these have made generic sentences defy adequate semantic treatment. (...) However complex the truth conditions of generics appear to be, though, young children grasp generics more quickly and readily than seemingly simpler quantifiers such as `all' and `some'. I present an account of generics that not only illuminates the strange truth conditions of generics, but also explains how young children find them so comparatively easy to acquire. I then argue that generics give voice to our most cognitively primitive generalizations and that this hypothesis accounts for a variety of facts ranging from acquisition patterns to cross-linguistic data concerning the phonological articulation of operators. I go on to develop an account of the nature of these cognitively fundamental generalizations and argue that this account explains the strange truth-conditional behavior of generics. (shrink)

The Internet and electronic communication technologies have taken the psychological field by storm. From the innovations of new web interventions for easier access to care to the increased ease of client scheduling and communication, these developments have greatly advanced mental health care. However, these advantages are also laced with ethical implications that warrant attention. Without judicious consideration, social media use by psychotherapists can lead to inadvertent self-disclosures to clients that risk damaging the therapeutic alliance, interfering with therapeutic processes, and placing (...) both the client and clinician at risk. A better understanding of the ethical implications of social media use is warranted so that guidelines for appropriate use can be developed and implemented. This article highlights the potential risks associated with social media use by psychotherapists and, in absence of formalized guidelines, offers recommendations for best practices. (shrink)

We contend that empathy is best viewed as a kind of analogical thinking of the sort described in the multiconstraint theory of analogy proposed by Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard (1995). Our account of empathy reveals the Theory-theory/Simulation theory debate to be based on a false assumption and formulated in terms too simple to capture the nature of mental state ascription. Empathy is always simulation, but may simultaneously include theory-application. By properly specifying the analogical processes of empathy and their constraints, (...) we are able to show how the amount of theory needed to empathize is determined. (shrink)

Jane Duran's Worlds of Knowing begins to fill an enormous gap in the literature of feminist epistemology: a wide-ranging, cross-cultural primer on worldviews and epistemologies of various cultures and their appropriations by indigenous feminist movements in those cultures. It is the much needed epistemological counterpart to work on cross-cultural feminist social and political philosophy. This project is absolutely breath-taking in scope, yet a manageable read for anyone with some background in feminist theory, history, or anthropology. Duran draws many comparisons (...) and connections to Western philosophical and feminist ideas, yet avoids facile or imperialistic over-universalization. Her book is powerful, comprehensive, and brave. It will prove an enormously useful resource for scholars in women's studies, philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, and history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, and: Anne Conway: A Woman PhilosopherJane DuranWomen Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, by Jacqueline Broad; 204 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. $65.00. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher, by Sarah Hutton; 280 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. $75.00.Recent work on women philosophers has, in general, approached the topic from two vantage points: on the one hand, a number of anthologies have (...) been published, wherein commentators present a small portion of the woman thinker's work, often without the background necessary for a fuller understanding. On the other hand, some few women philosophers have been the subject of full-length works, but these have tended, by and large, to be women thinkers of the twentieth century, with whose work we are already familiar. Two recent books, one by Jacqueline Broad and the other by Sarah Hutton, go a long way toward improving the situation.Work by Eileen O'Neill, Sarah Hutton and Margaret Atherton, among others, has helped familiarize us with the notion that the seventeenth century—that era so commonly associated with Descartes and the rise of modern philosophy—was also a time of rich theorizing by women philosophers. Jacqueline Broad's book possesses many virtues: it has the finely-tuned style of the careful historian, while at the same time not failing to demonstrate acquaintance with a range of contemporary feminist commentary. Part of the problem in addressing women thinkers of the past is another version of what we are now tempted to call the essentialism problem: does it make sense to think that there is a style that might be demarcated as "feminine," or that might, in some way, pertain uniquely to women theorists? These are difficult issues, but a partial response to the question is to try to remember that it is not for no reason that women thinkers have, indeed, been left out of the canon. As Broad herself says, women philosophers "are now mere footnotes to the standard historical-intellectual accounts of the early modern period" (p. 1).Broad does a superb job of navigating between the need to set out the plain tenets of the thinker's philosophy, and the desire to try to tie it into these larger questions. In six chapters, she addresses the work of Elizabeth of Bohemia, [End Page 200] Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn The chapters on Elizabeth, Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell are particularly strong—here part of the difficulty is that we do have familiar commentaries addressing the work of these women, and it is hard to try to see them in a new light. We are accustomed, for example, to think of Elizabeth merely as Descartes's correspondent. As is the case with information that is currently coming to bear on the question of Harriet Taylor Mill's input into the work of John Stuart Mill, it is difficult for us to see Elizabeth as a thinker in her own right, or, indeed, to give her the credit that Descartes himself gave her; as Broad notes, he had described her as "the only person I have so far found who has completely understood all my previous works" (p. 13). Margaret Cavendish's reputation has suffered from the somewhat scattered approach of her writings, and Broad cites her "reputation for eccentricity" (p. 38). Nevertheless, the sheer volume of her work and its allusion to the problems addressed by the Cambridge Platonists (areas also worked on by Anne Conway) demands that she be taken far more seriously than she has in the past. Astell has become known largely for her more overtly feminist works, such as A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, but she was also the author of several other pieces addressing issues in metaphysics, and again the amount of her work and its citation during her own time would militate against the notion that it should not receive thorough examination.Broad does a wonderful job of setting out the main philosophical questions found in these theorists' works, and she excels at pitting their views against those of the various male philosophers whose work—according to... (shrink)

This paper sets out to launch a challenge to the usual ‘modernist’ view of the relationship between ecology and ethics. Two ‘post-modern’ interpretations of this relationship are considered. The first ‘deep’ interpretation holds that ecology reveals that nature has intrinsic value. The second interpretation derives from the work of Michel Foucault. The aim of his critique is to reveal how certain values are taken for granted by the acceptance of certain scientific models, and how the acceptance of those models as (...) true makes it impossible to articulate alternative values. I end by suggesting, contra Foucault, that phenomenological enquiry could serve to articulate alternative and perhaps more eco-friendly values. (shrink)