In this paper, I defend the claim that an object can have a property only if it exists from two arguments, both of which turn on how to understand Plantinga’s notion of the α-transform of a property.

Theories of phenomenal intentionality have been claimed to resolve certain worries about the indeterminacy of mental content that rival, externalist theories face. Thus far, however, such claims have been largely programmatic. This paper aims to improve on prior arguments in favor of phenomenal intentionality by using attention and Gestalt principles as specific examples of factors that influence the phenomenal character of perceptual experience in ways that thereby help determine perceptual content. Some reasons are then offered for rejecting an alternative interpretation (...) of these examples, according to which the phenomenal effects of attention and Gestalt principles play no role in the determination of perceptual content. (shrink)

While anti-exceptionalism about logic is now a popular topic within the philosophy of logic, there’s still a lack of clarity over what the proposal amounts to. currently, it is most common to conceive of AEL as the proposal that logic is continuous with the sciences. Yet, as we show here, this conception of AEL is unhelpful due to both its lack of precision, and its distortion of the current debates. Rather, AEL is better understood as the rejection of certain traditional (...) properties of logic. The picture that results is not of one singular position, but rather a cluster of often connected positions with distinct motivations, understood in terms of their rejection of clusters of the various traditional properties. In order to show the fruitfulness of this new conception of AEL, we distinguish between two prominent versions of the position, metaphysical and epistemological AEL, and show how the two positions need not stand or fall together. (shrink)

Letκ, λ be regular uncountable cardinals such that λ >κ+is not a successor of a singular cardinal of low cofinality. We construct a generic extension withs(κ) = λ starting from a ground model in whicho(κ) = λ and prove that assuming ¬0¶,s(κ) = λ implies thato(κ) ≥ λ in the core model.

According to Fogelin’s account of deep disagreements, disputes caused by a clash in framework propositions are necessarily rationally irresolvable. Fogelin’s thesis is a claim about real-life, and not purely hypothetical, arguments: there are such disagreements, and they are incapable of rational resolution. Surprisingly then, few attempts have been made to find such disputes in order to test Fogelin’s thesis. This paper aims to rectify that failure. Firstly, it clarifies Fogelin’s concept of deep disagreement and shows there are several different breeds (...) of such disagreements. Thus, to fully assess Fogelin’s thesis, it will be necessary to seek out cases of each breed to evaluate their rational irresolvability. Secondly, it begins this task by looking at a significant debate within the logical literature over the truth of contradictions. We demonstrate that, while the debate exemplifies a breed of deep disagreement, the parties involved can supply one another with rationally compelling reasons. (shrink)

E. E. Constance Jones was one of the first women to study philosophy at the University of Cambridge. This paper focuses on her claim from her first major work, Elements of Logic as a Science of Propositions, that each thing has a unique existence. Jones’s claim follows from claims about tropes and haecceities; but, I suggest, it’s not claims about tropes and haecceities that lead her to accept it. Rather, I suggest, it’s claims about what she calls the denomination of (...) names and the quantitiveness of things that lead her to accept it. Her claim that each thing has a unique existence thus fits within her more general views in Elements of Logic. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We argue that Roberts’s argument for the thesis that absolute velocity is not measurable in a Newtonian world is unsound, because it depends on an analysis of measurement that is not extensionally adequate. We propose an alternative analysis of measurement, one that is extensionally adequate and entails that absolute velocity is measured in at least one Newtonian world. If our analysis is correct, then this Newtonian world is a counterexample to the widely endorsed thesis that if a property varies (...) under the symmetries of a theory then, according to that theory, the property could not be measured. Thus, our paper shows that the debate over the measurability of symmetry-variant properties is more unsettled than previously supposed. (shrink)

According to Fogelin’s account of deep disagreements, disputes caused by a clash in framework propositions are necessarily rationally irresolvable. Fogelin’s thesis is a claim about real-life, and not purely hypothetical, arguments: there are such disagreements, and they are incapable of rational resolution. Surprisingly then, few attempts have been made to find such disputes in order to test Fogelin’s thesis. This paper aims to rectify that failure. Firstly, it clarifies Fogelin’s concept of deep disagreement and shows there are several different breeds (...) of such disagreements. Thus, to fully assess Fogelin’s thesis, it will be necessary to seek out cases of each breed to evaluate their rational irresolvability. Secondly, it begins this task by looking at a significant debate within the logical literature over the truth of contradictions. We demonstrate that, while the debate exemplifies a breed of deep disagreement, the parties involved can supply one another with rationally compelling reasons. (shrink)

Considerable attention recently has been paid to anti-exceptionalism about logic, the thesis that logic is more similar to the sciences in important respects than traditionally thought. One of AEL’s prominent claims is that logic’s methodology is similar to that of the recognised sciences, with part of this proposal being that logics provide explanations in some sense. However, insufficient attention has been given to what this proposal amounts to, and the challenges that arise in providing an account of explanations in logic. (...) This paper clarifies these challenges, and shows how the practice-based approach is best placed to meet them. (shrink)

Stel dat een inbreker bij jou thuis alleen de lijsten van de kunstwerken zou wegnemen, en niet de werken zelf. Wat zou er veranderen in je omgang met de kunst? Met dat gedachte-experiment opent de Franse filosoof Jacques Derrida het essay Parergon. Parergon betekent bijzaak in het Grieks. Zoals bijvoorbeeld de lijst van het schilderij, of het kader van een opgehangen foto. Ze behoren niet tot het kunstwerk. En toch zijn ze van groot belang voor hoe het werk bekeken wordt. (...) De belangwekkende tekst van Derrida uit 1974 geeft een centrale rol aan de bijzaak van het kader. Met filosofische acrobatie maneuvreert de denker tussen de grote klassiekers van de kunstfilosofie: Plato, Kant, Hegel en Heidegger. Hij gaat op een speelse manier met hun erfenis om. Woorden worden omgedraaid. Passages die op het eerste gezicht bijzaak lijken, maakt hij tot hoofdrolspelers van zijn betoog. Dit boek presenteert Derridas belangrijkste tekst over beeldende kunst voor de eerste keer in Nederlandse vertaling. Het boek is vormgegeven door de spraakmakende ontwerpster Ines Cox. Vertaler Ben Overlaet schreef een nawoord dat de tekst van de nodige filosofische en historische context voorziet. (shrink)

Behavior oftentimes allows for many possible interpretations in terms of mental states, such as goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions. Reasoning about the relation between behavior and mental states is therefore considered to be an effortful process. We argue that people use simple strategies to deal with high cognitive demands of mental state inference. To test this hypothesis, we developed a computational cognitive model, which was able to simulate previous empirical findings: In two-player games, people apply simple strategies at first. They (...) only start revising their strategies when these do not pay off. The model could simulate these findings by recursively attributing its own problem solving skills to the other player, thus increasing the complexity of its own inferences. The model was validated by means of a comparison with findings from a developmental study in which the children demonstrated similar strategic developments. (shrink)

Behavior oftentimes allows for many possible interpretations in terms of mental states, such as goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions. Reasoning about the relation between behavior and mental states is therefore considered to be an effortful process. We argue that people use simple strategies to deal with high cognitive demands of mental state inference. To test this hypothesis, we developed a computational cognitive model, which was able to simulate previous empirical findings: In two-player games, people apply simple strategies at first. They (...) only start revising their strategies when these do not pay off. The model could simulate these findings by recursively attributing its own problem solving skills to the other player, thus increasing the complexity of its own inferences. The model was validated by means of a comparison with findings from a developmental study in which the children demonstrated similar strategic developments. (shrink)

Behavior oftentimes allows for many possible interpretations in terms of mental states, such as goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions. Reasoning about the relation between behavior and mental states is therefore considered to be an effortful process. We argue that people use simple strategies to deal with high cognitive demands of mental state inference. To test this hypothesis, we developed a computational cognitive model, which was able to simulate previous empirical findings: In two-player games, people apply simple strategies at first. They (...) only start revising their strategies when these do not pay off. The model could simulate these findings by recursively attributing its own problem solving skills to the other player, thus increasing the complexity of its own inferences. The model was validated by means of a comparison with findings from a developmental study in which the children demonstrated similar strategic developments. (shrink)

In this book, Ben Lazare Mijuskovic uses both an interdisciplinary and History of Ideas approach to discuss four forms of intertwined theories of human consciousness and reflexive self-consciousness (Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel; Schopenhauer’s subconscious irrational Will; Brentano and Husserl’s transcendent intentionality; and Freud’s dynamic ego). Mijuskovic explores these theories within the context of psychological issues, where the discussion is undergirded by the conflict between loneliness and intimacy. He also explores them in the context of ethics, where the (...) dynamic is between the values of good and evil. The book historically traces these issues in both a personal as well as a political framework. (shrink)

Mill’s harm principle is commonly supposed to rest on a distinction between self-regarding conduct, which is not liable to interference, and other-regarding conduct, which is. As critics have noted, this distinction is difficult to draw. Furthermore, some of Mill’s own applications of the principle, such as his forbidding of slavery contracts, do not appear to fit with it. This article proposes that the self-regarding/other-regarding distinction is not in fact fundamental to Mill’s harm principle. The sphere of protected liberty includes not (...) only self-regarding conduct, but also actions that affect only consenting others. On the other hand, the occasional permissibility of interfering with self-regarding conduct can plausibly be explained by reference to the agent’s consent. Thus, the more important distinction appears to be that between consensual and non-consensual harm, rather than that between the self-regarding and non-self-regarding action. That is, interference can be justified in order to prevent non-consensual harms, but not to prevent consensual harms. It is argued that the harm principle, thus reformulated, both captures Mill’s intentions and is a substantively plausible position. (shrink)

This essay engages the question whether it makes sense to talk about friendship between human beings and robots. Encountering the question of human and robot friendship, many might initially dismiss the possibility of such relationships out of hand. But such dismissals, it seems, based solely on the basis of species membership, are nothing more than unjustifiable speciesism. Mitias’s analysis of friendship is helpful, but makes the conditions for friendship demanding. Nevertheless, his framework implies that human and robot friendships are possible.

In this book, Ben-Yami reassesses the way Descartes developed and justified some of his revolutionary philosophical ideas. The first part of the book shows that one of Descartes' most innovative and influential ideas was that of representation without resemblance. Ben-Yami shows how Descartes transfers insights originating in his work on analytic geometry to his theory of perception. The second part shows how Descartes was influenced by the technology of the period, notably clockwork automata, in holding life to be a mechanical (...) phenomenon, reducing the soul to the mind and considering it immaterial. Ben-Yami explores the later role of the digital computer in Turing's criticism of Descartes' ideas. The last part discusses the Meditations: far from starting everything afresh without presupposing anything that can be doubted, Descartes' innovations in the dream argument, the cogito and elsewhere are modifications of old ideas based upon considerations issuing from his separately developed theories, formed under the influence of the technology, mathematics and science of his age. (shrink)

I build a canonical model for constant domain basic first-order logic (BQLCD), the constant domain first-order extension of Visser’s basic propositional logic, and use the canonical model to verify that BQLCD satisfies the disjunction and existence properties.

There are cases of ineffable learning — i. e., cases where an agent learns something, but becomes certain of nothing that she can express — where it is rational to update by Jeffrey conditionalization. But there are likewise cases of ineffable learning where updating by Jeffrey conditionalization is irrational. In this paper, we first characterize a novel class of cases where it is irrational to update by Jeffrey conditionalization. Then we use the d-separation criterion to develop a causal understanding of (...) when and when not to Jeffrey conditionalize that bars updating by Jeffrey conditionalization in these cases. Finally, we reflect on how the possibility of so-called “unfaithful” causal systems bears on the normative force of the causal updating norm that we advocate. (shrink)

This paper examines the task of understanding dialogues in terms of the mental states of the participating agents. We present a motivating example that clarifies the challenges this problem involves and then outline a theory of dialogue interpretation based on abductive inference of these unobserved beliefs and goals, incremental construction of explanations, and reliance on domain-independent knowledge. After this, we describe UMBRA, an implementation of the theory that embodies these assumptions. We report experiments with the system that demonstrate its ability (...) to accurately infer the conversants’ mental states even when some speech acts are unavailable. We conclude by reviewing related research on dialogue and discussing avenues for future study. (shrink)

This book explores the role of causal constraints in science, shifting our attention from causal relations between individual events--the focus of most philosophical treatments of causation--to a broad family of concepts and principles generating constraints on possible change. Yemima Ben-Menahem looks at determinism, locality, stability, symmetry principles, conservation laws, and the principle of least action-causal constraints that serve to distinguish events and processes that our best scientific theories mandate or allow from those they rule out. Ben-Menahem's approach reveals that causation (...) is just as relevant to explaining why certain events fail to occur as it is to explaining events that do occur. She investigates the conceptual differences between, and interrelations of, members of the causal family, thereby clarifying problems at the heart of the philosophy of science. Ben-Menahem argues that the distinction between determinism and stability is pertinent to the philosophy of history and the foundations of statistical mechanics, and that the interplay of determinism and locality is crucial for understanding quantum mechanics. Providing historical perspective, she traces the causal constraints of contemporary science to traditional intuitions about causation, and demonstrates how the teleological appearance of some constraints is explained away in current scientific theories such as quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The metaphor of “gene editing” has been employed widely in popular discussions of CRISPR technology. The editing metaphor obscures the physical mechanism of action in CRISPR techniques, and understates the present frequency of off-target effects. However, the editing metaphor may be a useful means to think about approaches to regulating the future use of CRISPR. Conceiving of CRISPR as an information technology recalls the highly computational, information-oriented context of genomic research in which CRISPR has emerged. More importantly, the editing metaphor, (...) while currently inaccurate, anticipates a future moment when CRISPR technology will be ubiquitous and extremely reliable. Contemporary deliberations about the regulation of CRISPR should keep in mind that the technology may become more powerful—and more susceptible to misuse—as the overall state of genomic science advances and applications of CRISPR become less expensive and more refined. (shrink)

Interference is paternalistic when it restricts an individual’s freedom for their own good. Anti-paternalists, such as John Stuart Mill, object to this for various reasons, including that the individual is usually a better judge of her own interests than the would-be paternalist. However, Wilkinson argues that a Parfitian reductivist approach to personal identity opens the door to what he calls ‘identity-relative paternalism’ where someone’s present action is restricted for the sake of a different future self.1 This is an interesting argument, (...) but it is not clear whether it involves permissible paternalism. At the risk of stating the obvious, permissible paternalism must be both permissible and paternalistic. Wilkinson’s identity-relative paternalism could be either, but not obviously both. If the present and future selves are different individuals, then interference is potentially permissible but no longer paternalistic. Alternatively, they are identical, in which case the interference is genuine paternalism, but cannot be justified by appeal to their distinctness. Wilkinson may escape this dilemma by invoking Parfit, who challenges the common notion that identity is all or nothing.2 According to Parfit’s revisionary view, the present and future self may share some connections but not others. However, once we have identified these similarities and differences, there is no further question whether or not they …. (shrink)

The sixteen essays written in honour of Jonathan Barnes for this volume reflect the impressive scope of his contributions to philosophy. Six are on knowledge, five on logic and metaphysics, five on ethics. The volume ranges widely over ancient philosophy, while also finding room for two contemporary papers on truth and vagueness. Aristotle is prominent in eight of the essays; Plato, Sextus Empiricus, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and ancient Greek medical writers are also discussed. The contributors include some of the (...) most distinguished scholars of our time. (shrink)

Social experimental research commonly employs media to elicit responses from research subjects. This use of media is broadly protected under fair use exemptions to copyright, and creators of content used in experiments are generally not afforded any formal consideration or protections in existing research ethics frameworks. Online social networking sites are an emerging and important setting for social experiments, and in this context the material used to elicit responses is often content produced by other users. This article argues that users (...) may have a reasonable interest in controlling the use of their content in experiments conducted in online social networks. Matters of risk and autonomy in research ethics are explored by analogy to active debates in law over adhesion contracts, moral rights, and the right to be forgotten. The article concludes by considering practical difficulties in identifying and protecting the interests of creators. (shrink)

In After Finitude, Quentin Meillassoux speculates from the principle of noncontradiction’s a priori enclosure toward a standpoint of absolute contingency. Based on his propositions, I argue that his thinking continues to reproduce a contradiction between the finitude of the subject and the infinitude of the noumenal world. Accordingly, I eschew the principle of noncontradiction in favor of a principle of contradiction derived from Hermann Levin Goldschmidt’s Contradiction Set Free. Goldschmidt formulates contradiction as an Either-And-Or whereby the two contradictory terms share (...) a space between them in which there elapses a continuous process of negotiation. If the relation between finitude and infinitude is an Either-And-Or, then there is an interpenetration between the finite and the infinite, between bounded subject and noumenal world. Goldschmidt’s method reinvigorates the contradiction with which Meillassoux is grappling and introduces a more immanent mode of infinitude that echoes certain Spinozist and pre-Spinozist strains of Jewish thought. (shrink)

To what extent do we know our own minds when making decisions? Variants of this question have preoccupied researchers in a wide range of domains, from mainstream experimental psychology to cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. A pervasive view places a heavy explanatory burden on an intelligent cognitive unconscious, with many theories assigning causally effective roles to unconscious influences. This article presents a novel framework for evaluating these claims and reviews evidence from three major bodies of research in which unconscious factors (...) have been studied: multiple-cue judgment, deliberation without attention, and decisions under uncertainty. Studies of priming and the role of awareness in movement and perception are also given brief consideration. The review highlights that inadequate procedures for assessing awareness, failures to consider artifactual explanations of “landmark” results, and a tendency to uncritically accept conclusions that fit with our intuitions have all contributed to unconscious influences being ascribed inflated and erroneous explanatory power in theories of decision making. The review concludes by recommending that future research should focus on tasks in which participants' attention is diverted away from the experimenter's hypothesis, rather than the highly reflective tasks that are currently often employed. (shrink)

I show that the logic $\textsf {TJK}^{d+}$, one of the strongest logics currently known to support the naive theory of truth, is obtained from the Kripke semantics for constant domain intuitionistic logic by dropping the requirement that the accessibility relation is reflexive and only allowing reflexive worlds to serve as counterexamples to logical consequence. In addition, I provide a simplified natural deduction system for $\textsf {TJK}^{d+}$, in which a restricted form of conditional proof is used to establish conditionals.

Ben-Yami presents Wittgenstein’s explicit criticism of the Platonic identification of an explanation with a definition and the alternative forms of explanation he employed. He then discusses a few predecessors of Wittgenstein’s criticisms and the Fregean background against which he wrote. Next, the idea of family resemblance is introduced, and objections answered. Wittgenstein’s endorsement of vagueness and the indeterminacy of sense are presented, as well as the open texture of concepts. Common misunderstandings are addressed along the way. Wittgenstein’s ideas, as is (...) then shown, have far-reaching implications for knowledge of meaning and the nature of logic, and with them to the nature of the philosophical project and its possible achievements. (shrink)

This essay resists steering an unhappy third-way between avowedly “critical” approaches to happiness (Freud, Žižek) and more “positive” perspectives (Benjamin, Badiou), and instead turns the tables. In the first half, focusing upon Thomas Mann’s short story “The Will to Happiness,” it examines neurotic hedonism—a more sophisticated variant of the hysteric’s old game of deriving satisfaction from unsatisfied desire itself—and some of the “necessary fictions” which undergird it. In the second half, it explores what it might mean, at least in theory, (...) to move beyond neurotic hedonism by embracing a different perspective: dialectical pessimism. This pessimistic outlook is allied to the activity of critique, but it also requires a specific conception of the self; namely, the self as the “manure” (Gramsci) of history. How can the very idea of happiness be rethought from this “excremental” perspective? (shrink)

The latest book in a series that seeks to illuminate Francis Bacon's art and motivations and open up fresh and stimulating ways of understanding his paintings.

In an essay entitled ‘The Nobility of Sight’, Hans Jonas argues that ‘[s] ince the days of Greek philosophy sight has been recognized as the most excellent of senses’ (Jonas, 1954, p.507). Seeking to account for the historical elevation of vision over other forms of sensory engagement with the world, Jonas contends that ‘[t]he unique distinction of sight consists in what we may call the image performance, where “image” implies three characteristics: (1) simultaneity in the presentation of a manifold; (2) (...) neutralization of the causality of sense-affection; (3) distance in the spatial and mental senses’ (ibid.). In the case of (1), what distinguishes sight from other senses is the fact that it can give us both dynamic and static reality: our eyes can survey a whole field of possible percepts as well as focus directly upon a fixed object (ibid., pp.508–9). In the case of (2), what further marks out vision is that it does not require the perceiver and the object of perception to be directly engaged — the ‘dynamic’ relation between the two is, in Jonas’ words, ‘neutralized’ (ibid., p.514). And in the case of (3), seeing’s inimitability is also guaranteed by its being ‘the only sense in which the advantage lies not in proximity but in distance: the best view is by no means the closest view’ (ibid., pp.517–8). (shrink)

This article examines public involvement in the six-year administrative review of an application by Waukesha, Wisconsin, to draw water from Lake Michigan to replace its radium-contaminated local water supply. The article shows that public positions on the proposal inverted the typical relationship between partisanship and environmental attitudes, prompting both supporters and opponents to ignore scientific evidence and the central matter of water safety. In successive rounds of state and regional administrative review, these political stances induced administrators to engage in increasingly (...) legalistic forms of assessment. Although Waukesha’s application was approved in 2016, such administrative dynamics may limit the ability of the recently enacted Great Lakes Compact to address current and prospective water safety problems in the region. The case typifies an emerging pattern in water governance in the United States: contentious administrative politics drive cooperative agreements to resemble adversarial proceedings, limiting their ability to adapt to new environmental problems. (shrink)

The article offers a brief set of definitions of metaphysical and epistemological principles underlying three distinct theories of consciousness and then relates these paradigms to a triad of contemporary therapeutic modalities. Accordingly, it connects materialism, empiricism, determinism and a passive interpretation of the “mind”=brain to medication interventions and behavioral and cognitive treatments. In this context, the paper proceeds to argue that these treatment approaches are theoretically incapable of addressing the dominant issue of man’s loneliness, and his struggle to escape from (...) it, as the most basic universal drivein human beings. Next, it discusses the dualist, idealist, and rationalist assumptions of an active reflexive, self-consciousness, which has dominated insight-oriented treatment methodologies since Freud. And, finally, it treats the Hesperian and Sartre an phenomenological andexistential descriptions of awareness as grounded in the transcen­dent principle of intentionality emphasizing the aspects of the freedom of consciousness. Lastly, it claims that the first view stresses the temporal present; the second the past; and the third the future. (shrink)

I argue that Kant’s four Paralogistic conclusions concerning (a) substantiality; (b1) unity and (b2) immortality, in the famous “Achillesargument”; (c) personal identity; and (d) metaphysical idealism, in the first edition Critique of Pure Reason (1781), are all connectedby being grounded in a common underlying rational principle, an a priori (universal and necessary) presupposition, namely, that boththe mind and its essential attribute of thinking are immaterial and unextended, i.e., simple. Consequently, despite Kant’s predilectionfor architectonic divisions and separations, I show that in (...) fact the simplicity assumption grounds all four Paralogisms and reinforcesKant’s corresponding commitments to the principles of continuity and coherence. Further, I maintain that Kant, under the influence ofhis earlier Leibnizian and subjective idealist leanings, continued to be guided in the first edition Critique, not only in the Paralogismsbut also in certain sections of the Analytic, by emphasizing unconscious activities, which once more reinforced his commitments to aparadigm of the simplicity, unity, and identity of self-consciousness or apperception. (shrink)

There has been much argument over whether procreative selection is obligatory or wrong. Rebecca Bennett has recently challenged the assumption that procreative choices are properly moral choices, arguing that these views express mere preferences. This article challenges Bennett's view on two fronts. First, I argue that the Non-Identity Problem does not show that there cannot be harmless wrongs – though this would require us to abandon the intuitively attractive ‘person-affecting principle’, that may be a lesser cost than abandoning some more (...) firmly-held intuition. But, even if we accept Bennett's claim that these choices are not moral, that does not show them to be mere personal preferences. I argue that there is a class of non-moral ‘categorical preferences’ that have much the same implications as moral preferences. If a moral preference for able-bodied children is problematic, then so is a non-moral categorical preference. Thus, showing that these preferences are not moral does not show that they are not problematic, since they may still be categorical. (shrink)

abstract This paper examines the problem of selecting a number of candidates to receive a good (admission) from a pool in which there are more qualified applicants than places. I observe that it is rarely possible to order all candidates according to some relevant criterion, such as academic merit, since these standards are inevitably somewhat vague. This means that we are often faced with the task of making selections between near‐enough equal candidates. I survey one particular line of response, which (...) says that we should allow our choice of borderline candidates to be guided by non‐relevant criteria such as gender‐balancing. I argue that this would not, as commonly objected, be a case of sex discrimination if it is to be applied either in favour of men or women. Nonetheless, I argue that such policies are problematic because they violate the demand for publicity, which is required for legitimacy and to assure everyone that discrimination has not in fact taken place. Instead, I suggest that, if we are concerned to avoid discrimination, there may be a case for using lotteries as tie‐breakers, not on grounds of fairness but to prevent taint of bias. (shrink)

The urban poise is dependent on a particular notion of urban planning: a myriad of actions that can adjust civic life in many places to provoke it towards greater self-esteem. Urban planning is not consecrated by a drawing in the shape of a plan alone, but it must respect the elevation of the stance of an urban spectacle as seen from the sidewalk. The coercion of civic indicators is reappraised by delighting in the figurative stance of the informant city. Small (...) things are done in the city within its existing urban structure so that an edge is applied to what already exists. City blocks might be fractionally altered, holes in the skyline reamed out smooth, and points located strategically so that they can carry their attendant responsibilities. The method is marginally parasitic, for it exists by requiring something else to exist that it cannot readily harbor.Ten points and places of vulnerability have been chosen in the city that poke at its underbelly. Whilst the poises are given names and specific sites, their viability could be felt equally in a different city using changed names. The Appliance House franchises its intention to various matters of civic consequence, ranging from the weather to shopping to the monumental respect for the dead. Each poise is considered integrally related to the wholeness of the city. If any of the Poises becomes disassociated from the city or from other Poises, the prime tenet of urban existence will have been ignored: the over-exertion of one component of urban life will take place at the expense of somebody else. Ben Nicholson is studio professor of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His Appliance House will be published later this year. (shrink)

In an earlier article, I argued that David Estlund's notion of ‘normative consent’ could provide justification for an opt-out system of organ donation that does not involve presumptions about the deceased donor's consent. Where it would be wrong of someone to refuse their consent, then the fact that they have not actually given it is irrelevant, though an explicit denial of consent may still be binding. My argument has recently been criticised by Potts et al, who argue that such a (...) policy would involve taking organs from people whose organs should not be taken and would be a recipe for totalitarianism. The present response seeks to rebut both the ethical and political objections. I argue that people can indeed be under a moral obligation to donate their organs, even if they are not technically dead at the time and their donation does not save anyone else's life. Moreover, I argue that an opt-out system—unlike mandatory donation—is not totalitarian because it preserves the right of individuals to act morally wrongly, by opting out when they have no good moral reason to do so. The policy I propose is neither immoral nor totalitarian. (shrink)

Originally published in 1972, the emphasis of this book is on psychological and cultural understanding of education, in terms of persons and relationships, rather than processes. The book: Deals with issues of continuing relevance for educational thought and practice, such as the education and training of teachers and diminishing the gap between schooling and education. Considers the nature and function of educational research, the conflict between arts and sciences in education and the concept of guidance. Examines teaching in its interpersonal (...) context, and at the revolt of youth and the sexual revolution. Assesses the influence of Freud, Winifred Mercier, William Boyd and Herbert Read. (shrink)