This volume provides a rigorous philosophical investigation of the rationales, challenges, and promises of the coming Space Age. Over the past decade, space exploration has made significant and accelerating progress, and its potential has attracted growing attention from science, states, businesses, innovators, as well as the media and society more generally. However, philosophical theorizing concerning the premises, values, meanings, and impacts of space exploration is still in its infancy, and this potentially immense field of study is far from mainstream yet. (...) This book advances outer space philosophy by integrating key scientific and societal debates sparked by recent developments in space research and activities with conceptual, existential, ethical, aesthetic, and political themes and concerns. It maps various regions of philosophical exploration, reflection, and speculation regarding humanity's present and future irradiation into outer space, to promote a broad, rich, and nuanced societal debate regarding this transformative enterprise, which is as stimulating as it can be disorienting. This book will be a fascinating philosophical and ethical exploration for academics, researchers and students interested in philosophy, space studies, science and technology studies, future studies, and sustainability. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author's solution was narrative storytelling, featuring the voices of people experiencing a conflict in the world, a conflict that opened up a philosophical question. He begins with a hook story, like that of CH and his shopping for a good quality stereo system, one that requires him to make use of an obscure and counterintuitive piece of practical reasoning. The story of Dr. Shukor and the Fatwa Council presents the central conflict posed by the problem of (...) vagueness in real‐life decisions. Decisions about the meaning of central words in scripture would affect generations of Muslim astronauts in the future. The design of a piece of academic writing is to make a case for a claim using evidence and argument against an epistemically adversarial reader. One of the essential features of good narrative storytelling is change in fortune over time. (shrink)

Astronauts often report experiences of awe and wonder while traveling in space. This paper addresses the question of whether awe and wonder can be scientifically investigated in a simulated space travel scenario using a neurophenomenological method. To answer this question, we created a mixed-reality simulation similar to the environment of the International Space Station. Portals opened to display simulations of Earth or Deep Space. However, the challenge still remained of how to best capture the resulting experience of participants. We could (...) use psychological methods, neuroscientific methods or philosophical methods. Each of these approaches offer many benefits, but each is also limited. Neurophenomenology capitalises on and integrates all three methods. We employed questionnaires from psychology, electroencephalography, electrocardiography, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy from neuroscience, and a phenomenological interview technique from philosophy. This neurophenomenological method enabled extensive insight in experiencers and non-experiencers of awe and wonder in a simulated space scenario that otherwise would not have been possible. Traditional empirical analyses were completed, followed by individual differences analyses using interview transcriptions paired with physiological responses. Experiencers of AW showed differences in theta and beta activity throughout the brain compared to non-experiencers. Questionnaires indicated that non-experiencers of AW gave more positive responses of religious and spiritual practices than experiencers of AW. Interviews showed that awe and wonder were more likely to occur when watching the simulated Earth view instead of the Deep Space view. Our study is a successful example of neurophenomenology, a powerful and promising interdisciplinary approach for future studies of complex states of experience. (shrink)

The strangeness of modern physics has sparked several popular books--such as The Tao of Physics--that explore its affinity with Eastern mysticism. But the founders of quantum mechanics were educated in the classical traditions of Western civilization and Western philosophy. In Nature Loves to Hide, physicist Shimon Malin takes readers on a fascinating tour of quantum theory--one that turns to Western philosophical thought to clarify this strange yet inescapable explanation of reality. Malin translates quantum mechanics into plain English, explaining its origins (...) and workings against the backdrop of the famous debate between Niels Bohr and the skeptical Albert Einstein. Then he moves on to build a philosophical framework that can account for the quantum nature of reality. He shows, for instance, how Platonic and Neoplatonic thought resonates with quantum theory. He draws out the linkage between the concepts of Neoplatonism and the more recent process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. The universe, Whitehead wrote, is an organic whole, composed not of lifeless objects, but "elementary experiences." Beginning with Whitehead's insight, Malin shows how this concept of "throbs of experience" expresses quantum reality, with its subatomic uncertainties, its constituents that are waves and also particles, its emphasis on acts of measurement. Once any educated person could explain the universe as a vast Newtonian web of cause and effect, but since quantum theory, reality again appears to be richer and more mysterious than we had thought. Writing with broad humanistic insight and deep knowledge of science, and using delightful conversations with fictional astronauts Peter and Julie to explain more difficult concepts, Shimon Malin offers a profound new understanding of the nature of reality--one that shows a deep continuity with aspects of our Western philosophical tradition going back 2500 years, and that feels more deeply satisfying, and truer, than the clockwork universe of Newton. (shrink)

Born in 1923 and recently deceased after a long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease, Matthew Lipman wrote this brief but detailed autobiography just before his illness made it impossible to write any more. It begins with memories of earliest childhood and his preoccupation with the possibility of being able to fly, moves through the years in which his family struggled with the effects of the Great Depression, through his service in the military during World War II, his discovery of the joy (...) and beauty of philosophy, his quick academic rise at Columbia University, his sojourn in Paris, and his early and later career. “I feel for philosophy,” he writes in the last paragraph of this, his last book, “what an astronaut might feel at the sight of the earth’s sphere, all green and brown and blue, as it appears from a space station.” He then expresses the hope that Philosophy for Children “will build a better and more reasonable world for our children and their children to inhabit: a world that looks as beautiful from across the street as it does from the distance of space.” (170) Lipman’s memoir is a modest testimony to an extraordinary life-trajectory, and an exemplification of the philosopher as one with the form of double-vision—seeing life from outer space and from across the street—that is perhaps philosophy’s most profound vocation. (shrink)

In this study I critically discuss the religious philosophy of Nikolai F. Fyodorov. Beforehand I will offer a synoptic overview of its key components. The thought of Fyodorov may serve as a model for case study work in regard to two crucial questions: (1) What is the relation between the past and the future? and (2) What is the relation between faith and science? These questions receive their spiritual, theological and philosophical answers through Fyodorov’s reflection on the (3) overcoming of (...) death. In offering his answers Fyodorov taps into the innermost depths of Christian spirituality which is interpreted in ways which are not always ‘Orthodox’ in the conventional sense. On one hand he offers a vision which prophetically yet idiosyncratically anticipates the “resurrection of all by all” (viz. Philosophy of the Common Task): this in itself calls for a radical revision of humanity’s guiding ethical, political and cultural principles (viz. Supramoralism). On the other hand, he expounds visionary proposals for the role science has to play precisely within the project of resurrecting the deceased and restoring free conscious life to all being (viz. Regulation). Fyodorov is acclaimed as one of the pioneering anticipators of climatology, rocket and space astronautics, cryonics, genetic engineering, cloning and body re-design; also, he is endorsed as the forerunner of Russian cosmism and influencer of transhumanism. His thought is radical, maximalist and limital. As well, it is informed by the purity of a moral saintliness. Inasmuch his philosophical vision may help us re-examine our own understanding of the relation of the past to the future, as well as the relation of faith to science, and, to re-address the predicament of dying. For the same reason it allows us to metacritically examine the neuralgic points of Fyodorov’s proposals. Lastly, I strive to reflect the mentioned problematic within a historical perspective, hermeneutically, hoping to provide orientation points for further discussion. (shrink)

This book is for those who, like the astronauts, cannot look at this view of our planet without asking "WHY?" The search conducted within these pages is a logical journey into the fields of biology, psychology, physics, parapsychology, yogic science, and Eastern and Western religious philosophies. Are they merely viewing different aspects of the same Truth?

As space travel and intentions to colonise other planets are becoming the norm in public debate and scholarship, we must also confront the technical and survival challenges that emerge from these hostile environments. This paper aims to evaluate the various arguments proposed to meet the challenges of human space travel and extraterrestrial planetary colonisation. In particular, two primary solutions have been present in the literature as the most straightforward solutions to the rigours of extraterrestrial survival and flourishing: (1) geoengineering, where (...) the environment is modified to become hospitable to its inhabitants, and (2) human (bio)enhancement where the genetic heritage of humans is modified to make them more resilient to the difficulties they may encounter as well as to permit them to thrive in non-terrestrial environments. Both positions have strong arguments supporting them but also severe philosophical and practical drawbacks when exposed to different circumstances. This paper aims to show that a principled stance where one position is accepted wholesale necessarily comes at the opportunity cost of the other where the other might be better suited, practically and morally. This paper concludes that case-by-case evaluations of the solutions to space travel and extraterrestrial colonisation are necessary to ensure moral congruency and the survival and flourishing of astronauts now and into the future. (shrink)

Shaun Gallagher, Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis, discusses the results of a neurophenomenological study in which a research team used simulation to replicate experiences of astronauts during space travel. Many astronauts described deeply aesthetic, spiritual, or religious experiences of awe and wonder. Gallagher also discusses how using an approach that incorporated neuroscience, hermeneutics, phenomenology, psychology, heart rate, and phenomenological interviews allowed him to replicate the specific experiences in a significant number of (...) subjects. (shrink)

Ender Wiggins, the title character of Ender’s Game, spends much of the book playing games of one sort or another. These games range from simple role-playing games with his siblings (“buggers and astronauts”) to battle room contests to a strange fantasy game in which he must kill a giant and confront his deepest fears. Finally, at the end of the book, Ender and his Battle School classmates play one final “game” that leads to them (unknowingly) destroying the bugger homeworld and (...) wiping out nearly the entire species. The games that Ender plays undoubtedly prove crucial to his development as a military commander. It is worth asking, however, whether these games help Ender develop into a morally good person—a person who takes seriously the concerns and interests of other people. This question is one with deep relevance for our own lives, since games and sports play a major role in shaping the way the both children and adults approach the world. In this essay, I'll take a closer look at the role that games play in Ender's moral development. I'll begin by offering a preliminary definition of game, according to which games are a specific type of goal-directed, rule governed activity. I’ll then consider how games relate to play, which is a sort of activity done for its own sake. These distinctions will be fleshed out with examples taken from the book, which clearly demonstrate that not every game is a type of play. I'll then discuss the impact that games have on Ender's moral character—the combination of qualities that lead him to make good (or bad) moral choices in his life outside of game-playing. I'll argue that Ender's experiences show that the relationship between good games and the development of good character Is a complex one, and that there is certainly no guarantee that a well-designed, challenging game will be the sort of activity that builds good character. I'll conclude by briefly discussing the lessons that Ender's games have for the more mundane games that most of us are used to playing. (shrink)

This book examines the various norms for the logic and methodology of science, placing them in the context of the cognitive interests and explanatory ideals that motivate science. Various themes in the philosophy of science are examined, including the views of K. Popper, T. Kuhn, and L. Laudan. Characteristic cases of scientific theories are examined in order to illustrate and justify the proposed norms. These include, on the one hand, the emergence of the science of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton from (...) the older metaphysical style of explanation to be found in Aristotle and, on the other hand, Darwin's theory of natural selection. Also included are characteristic cases of pseudoscience, including creation science, Lysenkoism, Velikovsky, UFOs and ancient astronauts, astrology, parapsychology, and various kinds of alternative medicine. From these examples and the more theoretical discussion, there emerges a series of norms for demarcating science and pseudoscience. Various aspects of the scientific method are examined in detail, including the role of hypotheses, the logical structure of theories, and how these relate to the experimental methods of John Stuart Mill. collection; for example, what do we say about observational reports of the existence of UFOs? In this context there is a discussion of some of the issues raised in the so-called science wars. It is concluded that the sociology of science can at times be helpful to the scientific community in improving their methods of investigation. (shrink)

We intend to analyze the relationship between Hans Blumenberg and Hannah Arendt around their anthropological perspectives to complement the vision of the former based on the particular way that the philosopher has of connecting with the practical and political world and, also to think about the implications that the anthropological perspective provided by Blumenberg has for practical reflection. In this sense, we focus on two themes: their reflection on the metaphor and the anthropological reading of the astronautical company. We will (...) link these topics with the development of a contempo- rary anthropology, that is to say, although it is not possible to achieve a substantialist definition of the human being, even so, the question about our own occurrence is fun- damental; in this case, the access route to anthropological doubt will be the metaphor. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of (...) the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life with ease and which will struggle to assimilate this new knowledge about our place in the universe? Some religions as currently practiced appear to only be viable on Earth. Other religions could be practiced on distant worlds but nevertheless identify both Earth as a place and humankind as a species of singular spiritual religious importance, while some religions could be practiced equally well anywhere in the universe by any sentient beings. Weintraub guides readers on an invigorating tour of the world's most widely practiced religions. It reveals what, if anything, each religion has to say about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe. (shrink)

Sometimes I dream that I am an astronaut. I land my spaceship on a distant planet. When I tell me children on that planet that on earth school is compulsory and that we have homework every evening, they split their sides laughing. And so I decide to stay with them for a long, long time… Well anyway… until the summer holidays. Each state of the mind is irreducible. The mere act of giving it a name, that is of classifying it, (...) implies a falsification of it. From all this, it would be possible to deduce that there is no science in Tlon, let alone rational thought. The paradox, however, is that sciences exist, in countless number… The metaphysicians of Tlon are not looking for truth, nor even for an approximation of it; they are after a kind of amazement. They consider metaphysics a branch of fantastic literature. They know that a system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to some one of them. Even the phrase ‘all the aspects’ can be rejected, since it presupposes the impossible inclusion of the present moment, and of past moments. (shrink)

Sometimes I dream that I am an astronaut. I land my spaceship on a distant planet. When I tell me children on that planet that on earth school is compulsory and that we have homework every evening, they split their sides laughing. And so I decide to stay with them for a long, long time… Well anyway… until the summer holidays. Each state of the mind is irreducible. The mere act of giving it a name, that is of classifying it, (...) implies a falsification of it. From all this, it would be possible to deduce that there is no science in Tlon, let alone rational thought. The paradox, however, is that sciences exist, in countless number… The metaphysicians of Tlon are not looking for truth, nor even for an approximation of it; they are after a kind of amazement. They consider metaphysics a branch of fantastic literature. They know that a system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to some one of them. Even the phrase ‘all the aspects’ can be rejected, since it presupposes the impossible inclusion of the present moment, and of past moments. (shrink)

In case of that human civilization was viewed as an integrated organism, the Periodic Table of the Civilizations (PTOC in short) has been formulated and recommended based on the development level and periodicity of core elements of human civilization. It divides the frontier process of the human civilization from the birth of humankind to the end of twenty-first century into 4 periods and 16 stages, and in which four periods include that of primitive culture, agricultural civilization, industrial civilization and knowledge (...) civilization orderly, and each period includes four stages, that is, start, developing, maturing and transition stages sequentially. There are three approaches for the arrangements of the PTOC, that is, simple, vertical and horizontal tables. The big period of earth civilization refers to that from the primitive culture to the knowledge civilization, and then big period of space civilization will begin with the astronautic civilization. The first modernization witnesses the great changes and transformation from the traditional agricultural to the modern industrial civilization, and then second modernization from the modern industrial to the higher modern knowledge civilization. The periodic table, coordinate system and roadmap of human civilization and world modernization have been formulated to describe the relationship between them. (shrink)

What are the primary characteristics that define what it means to be human? And what happens to those characteristics in the face of technology past, present, and future? The three essays in Image, by leading philosophers of religion Mark Taylor, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Thomas Carlson, play at this intersection of the human and the technological, building out from Heidegger's notion that humans master the world by picturing or representing the real.Taylor's essay traces a history of capitalism, dwelling on the lack (...) of humility, particularly in the face of our own mortality, that is the persistent failure of humans, before turning to art as a possible way to bring us back to earth and recover humility before it is too late. Rubenstein zeroes in on the delusions of imaginative conquest associated with space travel. Through a genealogy of the modern "view from space" from the iconic Earth rise photo of 1968 up to the new privatized American space race, Rubenstein provides an analysis of the perils of the one-world and the false unity it projects. In his essay, Carlson takes as his starting point the surveillance capitalism of facial recognition technology. He dives deep into Heidegger to meditate on the elimination of individuals through totalizing gestures and the relationship between such elimination and our encounters with mortality. Each of these essays, in its own way, reflects on the nature of imagination, the character of technological vision in contemporary culture, and the implications of these for the kinds of sociality and love that condition our human experience. (shrink)

Purpose: A poetic work of fiction haunts the base of the Statue of Liberty. The act overshadowed the original tribute to the Civil War victory and the Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln's praises of the Black American military fell silent. Eurocentrists shrouded centuries of genius and scaled-down Black American mastery. Sagas of barrier-breaking Olympians, military heroes, Wild West pioneers, and inventors ended as forgotten footnotes. Today, countries around the world fetishize Black American history and culture to the point of ethnocide. The (...) real-time case study of Woni Spotts explores the phenomenon. Until ancient traditions evolve with authenticity, global cultures will wither and die. The presented research chronicles over half a millennium of archives. Lists with names, dates, and genealogies seal the Black American legacy in stone. Methodology: The presented research for case studies draws from archival data, dated events, news articles, and an interview with Woni Spotts. The case studies generated three lists. Fifty sports and competitions were dated and cataloged. The athletes were analyzed by a genealogist. Forty music and dance genres were cataloged by publishing or recording dates. The artists were analyzed by a genealogist. Copyright infringements were noted. Inventors were researched for U.S. patents. NASA astronauts and inventors were analyzed by a genealogist. Findings: The presented research showed centuries of untold, reframed, stigmatized, and fetishized Black American history and culture. In the case studies, foreigners of African descent (Africans, Caribbeans, Central Americans, and South Americans) practiced ethnocidal behavior in concert with European descendants. Prolific abolitionists, patriots, politicians, and inventors were written out of history. Superstar athletes were obstructed or outshined by fictional Recommendations: Case studies showed centuries of fragmented narratives created biases and distortions. Black Americans were written out of history, reframed as background characters, stigmatized with skewed statistics, and fetishized globally to the point of ethnocide. The presented research stands as a vital resource for preservationists. Music and dance genre architects were solidified by publishing and recording dates. Athletic events, inventions, and NASA scientists were recorded. (shrink)

The first published paper on pulsars was entitled, by its five co-authors, “Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source”. (Hewish, et al. 1968). The publication of this paper preceded by some months the coining of the word ‘pulsar’ to refer to such pulsating radio sources. Does it seem odd to talk of observing pulsars? It might seem so since much effort has subsequently gone into identifying pulsars with optically visible stars using conventional light, not radio, telescopes. We can say that (...) the moons of Jupiter are observable since either we can see them through a telescope or, at some future date, astronauts will be able to travel close enough to Jupiter to see its moons without visual aids. (shrink)

Ender Wiggin spends much of Ender's Game playing games of one sort or another. These range from simple role‐playing games with his siblings (“buggers and astronauts”), to battleroom contests, to the strange free play Giant's Drink video game in which he must kill a giant and confront his deepest fears. This chapter examines the role that games play in Ender's development as both a military commander and as a human being. It considers a number of interrelated questions: What is a (...) game? Is it really appropriate to call Battle School activities “games,” given how serious they are? What is the relationship between a good game and the development of a good person?. (shrink)

The central aim of the inquiry begun in this text is to reach a semantic characterisationof philosophical discourse, that is, to describe the »language«, or the code, ofphilosophy. This inquiry contains an examination of the views on the nature andpurpose of philosophy held by Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but manyother philosophers, semioticians, linguists and literary theorists are brought into thediscussion.In the first part of the text, the view is expressed that, with regard to the peculiarphenomena that characterize philosophy , (...) a theory of philosophy itself is needed, but such that would notitself be caught in the same kind of discourse. Then some methodological restrictionsare introduced: mainly, that the »philosophy« to be dealt with is the classicalcontinental philosophy, which is percieved as a body of texts. The aim of the inquiryis then formulated as the description of the code by which these texts are organized;the method of the inquiry is specified as a deductive-hypothetical one. In the end,an outline of a semantic theory is offered, as a basis for this description.The second part of the text starts the examination of Kant’s and Wittgenstein’sphilosophical views and their views on philosophy. Kant’s theory of knowledge ispresented as one which asserts the primary role of subjective a priori forms whichshape what we know as »reality«, and is therefore opposed to Wittgenstein’s picturetheory of language, where language simply mirrors what is given. The conclusion isreached, however, that both Kant and Wittgenstein propose a parallel dichotomybetween that which can be known/said, and the thing-in-itself or the mystical, andwith regard to this they both claim that the aims of philosophy as seen traditionallymust be reconcieved to a great extent.The inquiry is continued in an another article. (shrink)

This paper develops Bernard Williams’s suggestion that for philosophy to ignore its history is for it to assume that its history is vindicatory. The paper aims to offer a fruitful line of inquiry into the question whether philosophy has a vindicatory history by providing a map of possible answers to it. It first distinguishes three types of history: the history of discovery, the history of progress, and the history of change. It then suggests that much of philosophy lacks a vindicatory (...) history, for reasons that reflect philosophy’s character as a humanistic discipline. On this basis, the paper reconstructs Williams’s conception of what it means for philosophy to engage with its own history. The paper concludes that it is a mistake to think that a vindicatory history is what we would really like to have, and that in fact, the resulting picture gives philosophy several reasons to engage with its own history. (shrink)

Reason and Value collects 15 new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the work of Joseph Raz. Raz has made major contributions in a wide range of areas, including jurisprudence, political philosophy, and the theory of practical reason; but all of his work displays a deep engagement with central themes in moral philosophy. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. Especially significant are his (...) explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value, which constitute a sustained and penetrating treatment of a set of issues at the very center of moral philosophy as it is practiced today. The contributors to the volume acknowledge the importance of Raz's contributions by engaging critically with his positions and offering independent perspectives on the topics that he has addressed. The volume aims both to honour Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and to contribute to an enhanced appreciation of the significance of his work for the subject. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy uses experimental research methods from psychology and cognitive science in order to investigate both philosophical and metaphilosophical questions. It explores philosophical questions about the nature of the psychological world - the very structure or meaning of our concepts of things, and about the nature of the non-psychological world - the things themselves. It also explores metaphilosophical questions about the nature of philosophical inquiry and its proper methodology. This book provides a detailed and provocative introduction to this innovative field, (...) focusing on the relationship between experimental philosophy and the aims and methods of more traditional analytic philosophy. Special attention is paid to carefully examining experimental philosophy's quite different philosophical programs, their individual strengths and weaknesses, and the different kinds of contributions that they can make to our philosophical understanding. Clear and accessible throughout, it situates experimental philosophy within both a contemporary and historical context, explains its aims and methods, examines and critically evaluates its most significant claims and arguments, and engages with its critics. (shrink)

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THe INDUCTIVE SCIENCES. PART II. OF KNOWLEDGE. ' . VOL. II. ...

Philosophy of Experimental Biology explores some central philosophical issues concerning scientific research in experimental biology, including genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, developmental biology, neurobiology, and microbiology. It seeks to make sense of the explanatory strategies, concepts, ways of reasoning, approaches to discovery and problem solving, tools, models and experimental systems deployed by scientific life science researchers and also integrates developments in historical scholarship, in particular the New Experimentalism. It concludes that historical explanations of scientific change that are based on local laboratory (...) practice need to be supplemented with an account of the epistemic norms and standards that are operative in science. This book should be of interest to philosophers and historians of science as well as to scientists. (shrink)

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of homeopathy from the perspective of the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science. In this context, Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend’s solution to the problem will be given respectively and their criteria will be applied to homeopathy, aiming to shed some light on the controversy over its scientific status. It then examines homeopathy under the lens of demarcation criteria to conclude that homeopathy is regarded as science by Feyerabend and is considered as pseudoscience by (...) Popper and Kuhn. By offering adequate tools for the analysis of the foundations, structure and implications of homeopathy, demarcation issue can help to clarify this medical controversy. The main argument of this article is that a final decision on homeopathy, whose scientific status changes depending on the criteria of the philosophers mentioned, cannot be given. (shrink)

This paper offers an explanation of how philosophy of science in the second half of the 20th century came to be so conspicuously silent on the problem of how to explain the applicability of mathematics. It examines the idea of the early logicists that the analyticity of mathematics accounts for its applicability, and how this idea was transformed during Carnap's efforts to establish a consistent and substantial philosophy of mathematics within the larger framework of Logical Empiricism. I argue that at (...) the end point of this development, philosophical discussion of the applicability problem was terminated although important aspects of the logicists' original response to the applicability problem had had to be sacrificed along the way. (shrink)

Utilitarianism, the great reforming philosophy of the nineteenth century, has today acquired the reputation for being a crassly calculating, impersonal philosophy unfit to serve as a guide to moral conduct. Yet what may disqualify utilitarianism as a personal philosophy makes it an eminently suitable guide for public officials in the pursuit of their professional responsibilities. Robert E. Goodin, a philosopher with many books on political theory, public policy and applied ethics to his credit, defends utilitarianism against its critics and shows (...) how it can be applied most effectively over a wide range of public policies. In discussions of such issues as paternalism, social welfare policy, international ethics, nuclear armaments, and international responses to the environment crisis, he demonstrates what a flexible tool his brand of utilitarianism can be in confronting the dilemmas of public policy in the real world. (shrink)

EDITORS INTRODUCTION The present volume includes a series of papers dealing with the main methodological problems of general study of law as discussed in ...

Contemporary philosophers—analytic as well as continental—tend to feel uneasy about Ernst Tugendhat, who, though he positions himself in the analytic field, poses questions in the Heideggerian style. Tugendhat was one of Martin Heidegger's last pupils and his least obedient, pursuing a new and controversial critical technique. Tugendhat took Heidegger's destruction of Being as presence and developed it in analytic philosophy, more specifically in semantics. Only formal semantics, according to Tugendhat, could answer the questions left open by Heidegger. Yet in doing (...) this, Tugendhat discovered the latent "hermeneutic nature of analytic philosophy"—its post-metaphysical dimension—in which "there are no facts, but only true propositions." What Tugendhat seeks to answer is this: What is the meaning of thought following the linguistic turn? Because of the rift between analytic and continental philosophers, very few studies have been written on Tugendhat, and he has been omitted altogether from several histories of philosophy. Now that these two schools have begun to reconcile, Tugendhat has become an example of a philosopher who, in the words of Richard Rorty, "built bridges between continents and between centuries." Tugendhat is known more for his philosophical turn than for his phenomenological studies or for his position within analytic philosophy, and this creates some confusion regarding his philosophical propensities. Is Tugendhat analytic or continental? Is he a follower of Wittgenstein or Heidegger? Does he belong in the culture of analysis or in that of tradition? Santiago Zabala presents Tugendhat as an example of merged horizons, promoting a philosophical historiography that is concerned more with dialogue and less with classification. In doing so, he places us squarely within a dialogic culture of the future and proves that any such labels impoverish philosophical research. (shrink)

Logical Atomism is a philosophy that sought to account for the world in all its various aspects by relating it to the structure of the language in which we articulate information. In _The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,_ Bertrand Russell, with input from his young student Ludwig Wittgenstein, developed the concept and argues for a reformed language based on pure logic. Despite Russell’s own future doubts surrounding the concept, this founding and definitive work in analytical philosophy by one of the world’s (...) most significant philosophers is a remarkable attempt to establish a novel way of thinking. (shrink)

Is philosophy a unique discipline, or are its methods more like those of other sciences than many philosophers think? Timothy Williamson explains clearly and concisely how contemporary philosophers think and work, and reflects on their powers and limitations.

What can--and what can't--philosophy do? What are its ethical risks--and its possible rewards? How does it differ from science? In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline , Bernard Williams addresses these questions and presents a striking vision of philosophy as fundamentally different from science in its aims and methods even though there is still in philosophy "something that counts as getting it right." Written with his distinctive combination of rigor, imagination, depth, and humanism, the book amply demonstrates why Williams was one (...) of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Spanning his career from his first publication to one of his last lectures, the book's previously unpublished or uncollected essays address metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, as well as the scope and limits of philosophy itself. The essays are unified by Williams's constant concern that philosophy maintain contact with the human problems that animate it in the first place. As the book's editor, A. W. Moore, writes in his introduction, the title essay is "a kind of manifesto for Williams's conception of his own life's work." It is where he most directly asks "what philosophy can and cannot contribute to the project of making sense of things"--answering that what philosophy can best help make sense of is "being human." Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline is one of three posthumous books by Williams to be published by Princeton University Press. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument was published in the fall of 2005. The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy is being published shortly after the present volume. (shrink)

Experimental moral philosophy emerged as a methodology in the last decade of the twentieth century, as a branch of the larger experimental philosophy (X-Phi) approach. Experimental moral philosophy is the empirical study of moral intuitions, judgments, and behaviors. Like other forms of experimental philosophy, it involves gathering data using experimental methods and using these data to substantiate, undermine, or revise philosophical theories. In this case, the theories in question concern the nature of moral reasoning and judgment; the extent and sources (...) of moral obligations; the nature of a good person and a good life; even the scope and nature of moral theory itself. This entry begins with a brief look at the historical uses of empirical data in moral theory and goes on to ask what, if anything, is distinctive about experimental moral philosophy—how should we distinguish it from related work in empirical moral psychology? After discussing some strategies for answering this question, the entry examines two of the main projects within experimental moral philosophy, and then discusses some of the most prominent areas of research within the field. As we will see, in some cases experimental moral philosophy has opened up new avenues of investigation, while in other cases it has influenced longstanding debates within moral theory. (shrink)

Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account is the first book-length treatment of philosophical issues and implications in current cellular and molecular neuroscience. John Bickle articulates a philosophical justification for investigating "lower level" neuroscientific research and describes a set of experimental details that have recently yielded the reduction of memory consolidation to the molecular mechanisms of long-term potentiation (LTP). These empirical details suggest answers to recent philosophical disputes over the nature and possibility of psycho-neural scientific reduction, including the multiple realization (...) challenge, mental causation, and relations across explanatory levels. Bickle concludes by examining recent work in cellular neuroscience pertaining to features of conscious experience, including the cellular basis of working memory, the effects of explicit selective attention on single-cell activity in visual cortex, and sensory experiences induced by cortical microstimulation. (shrink)

Biologists study life in its various physical forms, while philosophers of biology seek answers to questions about the nature, purpose, and impact of this research. What permits us to distinguish between living and nonliving things even though both are made of the same minerals? Is the complex structure of organisms proof that a creative force is working its will in the physical universe, or are existing life-forms the random result of an evolutionary process working itself out over eons of time? (...) What moral and social questions arise regarding modern advances in biotechnology? What is more relevant to human nature: genetics or sociocultural influences? Is Darwinism the death-knell of God? These are just some of the vital questions addressed by a distinguished group of philosophers and scientists which includes: Aristotle, Francisco J. Ayala, , Michael Benton, Tom Bethell, Joe Cain, David Castle, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Michael Denton, A.G.N. Flew, Stephen Jay Gould, J.B.S. Haldane, John F. Haught, D. W. E. Hone, James W. Kirchner, James Lovelock, Jane Maienschein, Ernst Mayr, Gregory M. Mikkelson, Leslie Orgal, William Paley, the Prince of Wales, Christopher Pynes, Richard A. Richards, Mark Ridley, Holmes Rolston III, Michael Ruse, Lee Silver, Elliott Sober, Kim Sterelny, Derek Turner, and Edward O. Wilson. This second edition contains material on design without selection, testing macroevolutionary claims, recent biotechnological issues, key ecological concerns, the Gaia hypothesis, genetically modified foods, and the so-called intelligent design movement. (shrink)