First published in 1986, Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft remains the only analysis of indigenous discourse about an African belief system undertaken from within the framework of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Taking as its point of departure W. V. O. Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, the book investigates questions of Yoruba epistemology and of how knowledge is conceived in an oral culture.

The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...) to critically evaluate this new excuse maneuver as a response to the New Evil Demon problem. -/- Their response attempts to give us reason to reject the idea that victims of the New Evil Demon have justification for believing as they do. I shall argue that this approach is ultimately unsuccessful, however much of value can be learned from these attempts. In particular, progress in the debate can be made by following those who advance the excuse maneuver and make explicit the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic norms. By doing so, the questions being debated are clarified, as is the methodology being used to attempt to answer them. (shrink)

There are various equivalent formulations of the Church-Turing thesis. A common one is that every effective computation can be carried out by a Turing machine. The Church-Turing thesis is often misunderstood, particularly in recent writing in the philosophy of mind.

It is common to account for our senses on the basis of our sensory organs. One way of glossing why Aristotle famously counted five senses—and why his count became common sense in the West and elsewhere—is because there are five rather obvious organs of sense. In more modern accounts, this organ criterion of the senses has transformed into a neurobiological criterion; that is to say, part of what it means to be a sense is to have an associated organ with (...) appropriate physiological properties. For example, part of the claim that humans have a sense of vision is that we have a non-vestigial organ (the eye) that has cells (photoreceptors) especially sensitive to the properties of electromagnetic radiation. However, the nature of this “organ criterion” is a point of some contention. Is it a sufficient criterion? Necessary? To be called “vision” need the organ mediating it give rise to “visual experiences”? This chapter will consider the neurobiological criterion as it was originally presented in Aristotle and later reconceptualized in 19th-century neurophysiologist Johannes Müller’s “Law of Specific Nerve Energies.” By understanding the role of neurobiology in these accounts, we will be able to explore the deficiencies of contemporary accounts that downplay neurobiology in differentiating the senses. We will consider one of these accounts in detail: Alva Noë’s recent arguments in favor of an enactive approach to perceptual psychology. (shrink)

1.1 Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Tangent Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Vector Fields, Integral Curves, and Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4 Tensors and Tensor Fields on Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.5 The Action of Smooth Maps on Tensor Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.6 Lie Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.7 Derivative Operators and Geodesics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1.8 Curvature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 1.9 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 1.10 Hypersurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1.11 Volume Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.. (shrink)

В книге собраны статьи по актуальным вопросам политической теории, которые находятся в центре дискуссий отечественных и зарубежных философов и обществоведов. Книга имеет полемический характер и предназначена всем.

For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns.

It is worthwhile comparing Hylomorphic and Animalistic accounts of personal identity since they both identify the human animal and the human person.The topics of comparison will be three: The first is accounting for our intuitions in cerebrum transplant and irreversible coma cases. Hylomorphism, unlike animalism, appears to capture “commonsense” beliefs here, preserves the maxim that identity matters, and does not run afoul of the Only x and y rule. The next topic of comparison reveals how the rival explanations of transplants (...) and comas are both at odds with some compelling biological assumptions. The third issue deals with our practical concerns, most notably, the possibility of an afterlife. It turns out that the hylomorphic treatment of Purgatory raises the spectra of the “too many thinkers” problem and some considerable unfairness. Contrary to expectations, an animalist insistence on uninterrupted bodily continuity between this life and the next does not involve deceptive body snatching. (shrink)

The sixteen essays in this volume confront the current debate about the relationship between philosophy and its history. On the one hand intellectual historians commonly accuse philosophers of writing bad - anachronistic - history of philosophy, and on the other, philosophers have accused intellectual historians of writing bad - antiquarian - history of philosophy. The essays here address this controversy and ask what purpose the history of philosophy should serve. Part I contains more purely theoretical and methodological discussion, of such (...) questions as whether there are 'timeless' philosophical problems, whether the issues of one epoch are commensurable with those of another, and what style is appropriate to the historiography of the subject. The essays in Part II consider a number of case-histories. They present important revisionist scholarship and original contributions on topics drawn from ancient, early modern and more recent philosophy. All the essays have been specially commissioned, and the contributors include many of the leading figures in the field. The volume as a whole will be of vital interest to everyone concerned with the study of philosophy and of its history. (shrink)

Iyengar Yoga Wisdom & Practice" is a practical and an inspiring anthology of Iyengar's insights into yoga, life and the path to peace and happiness. Yoga practice lies at the heart of the book, and it is illustrated with over 60 new step-by-step sequences of yoga postures specially shot in India and accompanied by Iyengar's illuminating observations on technique, their significance, and their benefits. This book not only presents Iyengar's practical advice on how to perform key yoga postures, but also (...) draws on a wide range of other material taken from interviews and world lecture tours, to the many texts Iyengar has written about yoga and about his own life's journey. (shrink)