What is the role of conscious experience in the epistemology of perceptual knowledge: how should we characterise what is going on in seeing that o is F in order to illuminate the contribution of seeing o to their status as cases of knowing that o is F? My proposal is that seeing o involves conscious acquaintance with o itself, the concrete worldly source of the truth that o is F, in a way that may make it evident to the subject (...) that o is an instance of ‘x is F’ as she understands this, and hence evident that o is F. Seeing that o is F is thus a way of its being evident that o is F and is therefore a way of knowing that o is F. (shrink)

Bill Brewer presents an original view of the role of conscious experience in the acquisition of empirical knowledge. He argues that perceptual experiences must provide reasons for empirical beliefs if there are to be any determinate beliefs at all about particular objects in the world. This fresh approach to epistemology turns away from the search for necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge and works instead from a theory of understanding in a particular area.

Early modern empiricists thought that the nature of perceptual experience is given by citing the object presented to the mind in that experience. Hallucination and illusion suggest that this requires untenable mind-dependent objects. Current orthodoxy replaces the appeal to direct objects with the claim that perceptual experience is characterized instead by its representational content. This paper argues that the move to content is problematic, and reclaims the early modern empiricist insight as perfectly consistent, even in cases of illusion, with the (...) realist contention that these direct objects of perception are the persisting mind-independent physical objects we all know and love. (shrink)

A taped conversational interview with Daniel Dennett and Bill Uzgalis covers a wide range of topics arising from Dennett’s thoughts about computing and human beings. The background of Dennett’s work is explored as are his views about mind-brain identity theory, artificial intelligence, functionalism, human exceptionalism, animal culture, language, pain, freedom and determinism, and quality of life.

We perceive a world of mind-independent macroscopic material objects such as stones, tables, trees, and animals. Our experience is the joint upshot of the way these things are and our route through them, along with the various relevant circumstances of perception; and it depends on the normal operation of our perceptual systems. How should we characterise our perceptual experience so as to respect its basis and explain its role in grounding empirical thought and knowledge? I offered an answer to this (...) question in Perception and its objects. Here I aim to clarify some of my central arguments and to develop and defend the position further in the light of subsequent critical discussion. (shrink)

Physical objects are such things as stones, tables, trees, people and other animals: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world we live in. therefore expresses a commonsense commitment to physical realism: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world we live in exist, and are as they are, quite independently of anyone.

In The Varieties of Reference (1982), Gareth Evans claims that considerations having to do with certain basic ways we have of gaining knowledge of our own physical states and properties provide "the most powerful antidote to a Cartesian conception of the self" (220). In this chapter, I start with a discussion and evaluation of Evans' own argument, which is, I think, in the end unconvincing. Then I raise the possibility of a more direct application of similar considerations in defence of (...) common sense anti-Cartesianism. Progress in this direction depends upon a far more psychologically informed understanding of normal and abnormal bodily awareness than is generally found in philosophical discussions of these issues. In the context of my attempt at some such understanding, I go on to assess the potential of this more direct line of argument. (shrink)

The first truly introductory text on Lyotard, this book situates Lyotard's interventions in the postmodern debate in the wider context of his rethinking of the politics of representation. Bill Readings examines Lyotard's relationship to structuralism, Marxism and semiotics, and contrasts his work with the literary deconstruction of Paul de Man; he positions Lyotard's work so as to draw out the implications of poststructurlaism's attention to _difference_ in reading. Lyotard's willingness to question the political and examine the relationship between art (...) and politics is shown to undermine the charge that deconstruction abdicates political and social articulation. (shrink)

It is close to current orthodoxy that perceptual experience is to be characterized, at least in part, by its representational content, roughly, by the way it represents things as being in the world around the perceiver. Call this basic idea the content view.

Psychiatry is unique in medicine in being on the border between science and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', while the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. The new interdisciplinary field of 'philosophy of psychiatry' has developed to explore the range of issues relevant to this border country. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry is a unique textbook which provides a detailed introduction to (...) the field, a framework for study and skill development, and an overview of current research. It focuses on case studies in 5 key topic areas. Each case study is supported by selected readings from both philosophy and mental health, thinking skills exercises, self-test questions, key learning points and detailed guides to further reading. (shrink)

A timely new edition of the classic journalism guide, now featuring updated material on the importance of reporting in the age of media mistrust and fake news--and how journalists can use technology while also navigating its challenges. More than two decades ago, the Committee of Concerned Journalists gathered some of America's most influential newspeople to ask the question "What is journalism for?" Through exhaustive research, surveys, interviews, and public forums, they identified the essential elements that define journalism and its role (...) in our society. The result is one of the most important books on the media ever written, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard, the Society of Professional Journalists Award, and the Bart Richards Award from Penn State University. Updated with new material covering the ways journalists can deftly leverage technology to their advantage, especially given the shifting revenue architecture--with "clickbait" fading away and consumers paying a higher premium for quality reporting--this fourth edition of The Elements of Journalism is an essential read for journalists, students, and anybody hoping to stay informed in contentious times. (shrink)

Previous research has identified a relationship between acts of cruelty to animals other than humans and involvement in other forms of antisocial behavior. The current study sought to extend these findings by examining this relationship among a sample of college students using a self-report delinquency methodology. In addition, the current study explored the relationship between a history of observing or engaging in acts of animal cruelty and attitudes of sensitivity/concern regarding the treatment of nonhuman animals. College students enrolled in an (...) Introduction to Psychology course comprised the sample. Results indicated that those participants who observed acts of animal cruelty and those who participated in acts of animal cruelty had higher scores on a self-report delinquency scale than did those who had never observed or participated in acts of animal cruelty. Observation of acts of animal cruelty interacted with sex to predict attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Observation of animal cruelty and par ticipation in animal cruelty affected delinquency scores independently. The current study discusses implications and directions for future research. (shrink)

I take it for granted that sense experiential states provide reasons for empirical beliefs; indeed this claim forms the first premise of my central argument for (CC). 1 The subsequent stages of the argument are intended to establish that a person has such a reason for believing something about the way things are in the world around him only if he is in some mental state or other with a conceptual content: a conceptual state. Thus, given that sense experiential states (...) do provide reasons for empirical beliefs, they must have conceptual content. (shrink)

From time to time we explain what people do by referring to their habits. We explain somebody’s putting the kettle on in the morning as done through “force of habit”. We explain somebody’s missing a turning by saying that she carried straight on “out of habit”. And we explain somebody’s biting her nails as a manifestation of “a bad habit”. These are all examples of what will be referred to here as habit explanations. Roughly speaking, they explain by referring to (...) a pattern of a particular kind of behaviour which is regularly performed in characteristic circumstances, and has become automatic for that agent due to this repetition. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Place of Habit in Human Life Habits in Current Philosophy of Action The Habit ‐ Friendly Tradition Analyzing Habit Philosophy of Habit: Benefits and Challenges References.

Is the God of Calvin a fountain of blessing, or a forceful tyrant? Is Calvin's view of God coercive, leaving no place for the human qua human in redemption? These are perennial questions about Calvin's theology which have been given new life by Gift theologians such as John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Stephen Webb.J. Todd Billings addresses these questions by exploring Calvin's theology of `participation in Christ'. He argues that Calvin's theology of `participation' gives a positive place to the human, (...) such that grace fulfils rather than destroys nature, affirming a differentiated union of God and humanity in creation and redemption. Calvin's trinitarian theology of participation extends to his view of prayer, sacraments, the law, and the ecclesial and civil orders. In light of Calvin's doctrine of participation, Billings reframes the critiques of Calvin in the Gift discussion and opens up new possibilities for contemporary theology, ecumenical theology, and Calvin scholarship as well. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a number of different relationships between two kinds of obligation: those which have individuals as their subject, and those which have groups of individuals as their subject. I use the name collective obligations to refer to obligations of the second sort. I argue that there are collective obligations, in this sense; that such obligations can give rise to and explain obligations which fall on individuals; that because of these facts collective obligations are not simply reducible (...) to individual obligations; and that collective obligations supervene on individual obligations, without being reducible to them. The sort of supervenience I have in mind here is what is sometimes called ‘global supervenience’. In other words, there cannot be two worlds which differ in respect of the collective obligations which exist in them without also differing in respect of the individual obligations which exist in them. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge has argued, famously, that ‘we’ are violating the rights of the global poor insofar as we uphold an unjust international order which provides a legal and economic framework within which individuals and groups can and do deprive such individuals of their lives, liberty and property. I argue here that Pogge’s claim that we are violating a negative duty can only be made good on the basis of a substantive theory of collective action; and that it can only provide (...) substantive ethical guidance when combined with an account of how collective action gives rise to forward-looking responsibility and/or accountability on an individual level. I consider accounts of these two topics given in work by Peter French and Christopher Kutz; and I argue that neither of them give Pogge what he needs. Although there is a sense in which 'we' can be said to be violating the rights of the worst off, the sense in which this is true does not generate any plausible action-guiding claims for individuals. (shrink)

Introduction -- What is journalism for? -- Truth: the first and most confusing principle -- Who journalists work for -- Journalism of verification -- Independence from faction -- Monitor power and offer voice to the voiceless -- Journalism as a public forum -- Engagement and relevance -- Make the news comprehensive and proportional -- Journalists have a responsibility to conscience -- The rights and responsibilities of citizens.

On an act utilitarian view it is morally permissible if not obligatory to choose to perform an action which contributes as much as any other action to the total happiness of all those capable of enjoying happiness. As the view has just been stated, however, there is some question of how we are to understand the phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. For even leaving aside the possibility that animals or spirits might be included, there is still the matter (...) of the size of the population of humans “capable of enjoying happiness”. Furthermore, among our ethical decisions themselves are decisions which would cause a decrease or increase in population and which in perhaps even more specific ways determine the applicability of this phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. According to the socalled classical or total utilitarian principle, the phrase in question is understood as describing some population whose existence will enable one to maximize the net amount of happiness. For on the classical principle what one is obligated to do is simply to maximize net happiness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture by Richard B. MillerBill BarbieriFriends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture Richard B. Miller new york: columbia university press, 2016. 416 pp. $60.00In his studies on casuistry, war and peace, pediatric ethics, and other occasional topics Richard B. Miller has for some time been a leading source of creative impulses in the field of religious (...) ethics, so it is a welcome event to have this volume organizing past essays of his into a thematically cohesive presentation. His book sets out a vision of the character and concerns of religious ethics that helps counter critics, such as Stanley Hauerwas, who have expressed skepticism about the field.The governing conception of Friends and Other Strangers is that the study of religious ethics is properly shaped by attending to how "our lives ineluctably oscillate between experiences of intimacy and otherness" (5). Accordingly, Miller seeks to guide the field beyond either a one-sided focus on matters of friendship and special relations or a preoccupation with alterity and heterology. To grasp how the dialectic of intimacy and alterity shapes the normative character of personal and public life, he recommends religious ethicists should employ "the category of culture as an organizing rubric" (6).In the book's initial section Miller elaborates on his view of the enterprise of religious ethics and its place in the broader intellectual landscape. In a discussion drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and James Gustafson, Miller first offers his account of the characteristic concerns and history of the field. He then presents the case for a "cultural turn" in religious ethics, arguing not only that practitioners would benefit from incorporating anthropology and cultural studies into their work but that they should extend their ambit to normative questions throughout the academy. Responding to the problems of ethnocentrism and the moral authority of outsiders in criticizing cultural practices, Miller rounds out the section by proposing constructive norms for nonchauvinistic social criticism in multicultural contexts.Among the remaining essays are several that showcase Miller's appreciation of Augustine as a principal source of ethical insight. In a chapter scrutinizing the case for replacing disembodied patterns of moral reasoning with an "ethics of empathy," he proposes that Augustine's ethics of love can sharpen our grasp of both the possibilities and pitfalls of empathy as a moral value. Writing on friendship and evil, Miller invokes the Augustinian "theocentric imaginary" as a guide to how intimacy and alterity are balanced in friendship. And taking [End Page 194] up the ethics and social psychology of war, he presents Augustine's writings on the morality of killing as a source for just war standards that can be applied in cross-cultural normative criticism. That Augustine's seminal reflections on time and memory do not appear in a further chapter on "the moral and political burdens of memory" is a slight disappointment, no doubt attributable to the chapter's origins as a review essay.Other topics tellingly subjected to Miller's characteristically nuanced and sharp analysis include indignation and solidarity, responsibilities to children, and democracy and public reason. A bonus chapter collects six lengthy reviews of recent books—five on topics related to Islam—touted by Miller as exemplary in their embodiment of a cultural turn in religious ethics.Given its endorsement of a "cultural turn" in ethics, the book would have benefited from deeper reflection on discrete meanings of "culture," "cultures," and their various cognates. In addition, the individual chapters, originating in diverse settings, are not all equally well integrated into the book's governing themes. Overall, however, Miller's book amply succeeds in its Geertzian task of presenting both a model of and a model for the field of religious ethics. A fine distillation of the thought of a leading figure in the guild, it is essential reading for serious students of ethics.Bill BarbieriCatholic UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Asks how exactly perceptual experiences do provide reasons for empirical beliefs. My answer is that they furnish the subject with certain essentially experiential demonstrative contents—‘that is thus’ —his grasp of which provides him with a reason to endorse them in belief. For a person's grasp of such contents, as referring to the mind‐independent objects that they do, and predicating the mind‐independent properties that they do, essentially involves his appreciation of them as the joint upshot of the way things are anyway, (...) in the mind‐independent world around him, and his current point of view upon them and other relevant circumstances of perception. That is to say, he necessarily understands that his current apprehension that things are thus is in part due to the very fact that they are. He therefore recognizes the relevant content ashis apprehension of the facts, his epistemic opennessto the way things mind‐independently are out there. (shrink)

How do legal texts determine legal content? A standard answer to this question—sometimes called “the standard picture”—is that legal texts communicate something and what they communicate is identical to legal content. Mark Greenberg criticizes the standard picture and offers in its place his own “moral impact theory.” My goal here is to respond to Greenberg by showing how the standard picture better explains legal practice than the moral impact theory does. To that end, I first clarify certain aspects of the (...) moral impact theory. I then critique the theory, focusing on its inability to explain (i) why practitioners reason about legal content as they do and (ii) why they agree on legal content as often as they do. Finally, I refine the standard picture and demonstrate how it explains what the moral impact theory cannot. (shrink)

TheConstitution of Manby George Combe (1828) was probably the most influential phrenological work of the nineteenth century. It not only offered an exposition of the phrenological theory of the mind, but also presented Combe's vision of universal human progress through the inheritance of acquired mental attributes. In the decades before the publication of Darwin'sOrigin of Species, theConstitutionwas probably the single most important vehicle for the dissemination of naturalistic progressivism in the English-speaking world. Although there is a significant literature on the (...) social and cultural context of phrenology, the role of heredity in Combe's thought has been less thoroughly explored, although both John van Wyhe and Victor L. Hilts have linked Combe's views on heredity with the transformist theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. In this paper I examine the origin, nature and significance of his ideas and argue that Combe's hereditarianism was not directly related to Lamarckian transformism but formed part of a wider discourse on heredity in the early nineteenth century. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that non-agent collectives, including what one might call the ‘global collective’ consisting of the world’s population taken as a whole, cannot be the bearers of non-distributive moral obligations on pain of violating the principle that ‘ought implies can’. I argue that one prominent line of argument for this conclusion fails because it illicitly relies on a formulation of the ‘ought implies can’ principle which is inapt for contexts which allow for the possibility of non-distributive plural predications (...) of agency, which are precisely the contexts in which we might expect non-agents to be obligation-bearers. (shrink)

Over the past ten years, we have worked in a collaboration between educators and computer scientists at the University of Illinois to imagine futures for education in the context of what is loosely called “artificial intelligence.” Unhappy with the first generation of digital learning environments, our agenda has been to design alternatives and research their implementation. Our starting point has been to ask, what is the nature of machine intelligence, and what are its limits and potentials in education? This paper (...) offers some tentative answers, first conceptually, and then practically in an overview of the results of a number of experimental implementations documented in greater detail elsewhere. Our key finding is that artificial intelligence—in the context of the practices of electronic computing developing over the past three quarters of a century—will never in any sense “take over” the role of teacher, because how it works and what it does are so profoundly different from human intelligence. However, within the limits that we describe in this paper, it offers the potential to transform education in ways that—counterintuitively perhaps—make education more human, not less. (shrink)

Several philosophers think there are important analogies between emotions and perceptual states. Furthermore, considerations about the rational assessibility of emotions have led philosophers—in some cases, the very same philosophers—to think that the content of emotions must be propositional content. If one finds it plausible that perceptual states have propositional contents, then there is no obvious tension between these views. However, this view of perception has recently been attacked by philosophers who hold that the content of perception is object‐like. I shall (...) argue for a view about the content of emotions and perceptual states which will enable us to hold both that emotional content is analogous to perceptual content and that both emotions and perceptual states can have propositional contents. This will involve arguing for a pluralist view of perceptual content, on which perceptual states can have both contents which are proposition‐like and contents which are object‐like. I shall also address two significant objections to the claim that emotions can have proposition‐like contents. Meeting one of these objections will involve taking on a further commitment: the pluralist account of perceptual content will have to be one on which the contents of perception can be non‐conceptual. (shrink)

This dossier article contains four short and varied contributions from activists and other service and healthcare providers who have been agitating and working on the frontlines of HIV/AIDS in Ireland since the early 1980s. The dossier contains: (1) a history, by Bill Foley, of the early collective efforts of a group of gay men to provoke government action and healthcare under the umbrella of Gay Health Action (GHA) (2) a speech delivered by Dr. Erin Nugent to government officials on (...) the re-branding of HIV Ireland in 2015; (3) a brief history, recounted by Noel Donnellan, of ACT UP Dublin since it was revitalized in 2016 by a small cohort of dedicated activists from a dormant group into a vibrant collective that has achieved great legislative change with regards to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP); and (4) a polemic, written by Thomas Strong, on living with HIV as a queer man in Ireland that demonstrates the ways in which HIV stigma not only thrives in but molds and shapes twenty-first-century gay men’s communities, both in real life and online. (shrink)

Recent literature portrays caring as a psychological, social, and ethical orientation associated with female gender identity. This essay focuses on Giliigan's influential view that “care” is a broad theme of moral development which is under-represented in dominant theories of human development such as Kohlberg's theory. An alternative hypothesis is proposed portraying care development as a set of circumscribed coping strategies tailored to dealingwith sexism. While these strategies are practically effective and partially “liberated,” from the moral point of view, they also (...) reflect the debilitating influences of sexist socialization even at the highest level. Gilligan and her colleagues seem to misidentify these inadequacies of mature care. This alternative hypothesis is briefly related to the critical and feminist tradition. Then it is supported with Gilligan's own research and interpretive text. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a well-known objection to subsistence rights developed by Onora O'Neill - namely, that such rights would generate obligations without an obligation-bearer, can be answered if we take such rights to impose an obligation on the world's population, taken collectively.

In this paper I attempt to show how an appeal to a particular kind of collective obligation - a collective obligation falling on an unstructured collective consisting of the world’s population as a whole – can be used to undermine recently influential objections to the idea that there is a human right to health which have been put forward by Gopal Sreenivasan and Onora O’Neill. -/- I take this result to be significant both for its own sake and because it (...) helps to answer a challenge often put to Those who argue for the existence of collective obligations: namely, to explain why the question of whether there are any such obligations might matter from a practical point of view. One way of introducing the objection is to focus on questions of agency. Here I'll argue both that there can be obligations on groups that are not themselves collective agents, and that these can play an important explanatory and clarifcatory role in accounting for obligations which fall on individuals. (shrink)

Several philosophers think there are important analogies between emotions and perceptual states. Furthermore, considerations about the rational assessibility of emotions have led philosophers—in some cases, the very same philosophers—to think that the content of emotions must be propositional content. If one finds it plausible that perceptual states have propositional contents, then there is no obvious tension between these views. However, this view of perception has recently been attacked by philosophers who hold that the content of perception is object-like. I shall (...) argue for a view about the content of emotions and perceptual states which will enable us to hold both that emotional content is analogous to perceptual content and that both emotions and perceptual states can have propositional contents. This will involve arguing for a pluralist view of perceptual content, on which perceptual states can have both contents which are proposition-like and contents which are object-like. I shall also address two significant objections to the claim that emotions can have proposition-like contents. Meeting one of these objections will involve taking on a further commitment: the pluralist account of perceptual content will have to be one on which the contents of perception can be non-conceptual. (shrink)

Nature and Narrative is the launch volume in a new series of books entitled International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. The series will aim to build links between the sciences and humanities in psychiatry. Our ability to decipher mental disorders depends to a unique extent on both the sciences and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', and the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. Psychiatry, (...) if it is to develop as a balanced discipline, must draw on input from both of these spheres. Nature (for causes) and Narrative (for meanings) will help define the series as a whole by touching on a range of issues relevant to this 'border country'. With contributions from an international star-studded cast, representing the field of psychiatry, psychology and philosophy, this volume will set the scene for this new interdisciplinary field. This will be of interest to all those with practical experience of mental health issues, whether as providers or as users/consumers of services, as well as to philosophers, social scientists, and bioethicists. (shrink)

In Rogues, Jacques Derrida once again examines some central concepts in political theory and ethics, in the context of the post-9/11world and the present American drive to reforge global hegemony. The book is important not only for what it says about the concepts of sovereignty, unconditionality, law, and justice, but also for engaging in an extended way with the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and especially Kant. Bill Martin argues that Derrida’s thought is vitally significant for radical politics. He compares (...) Rogues, as (arguably) Derrida’s last major work (to appear before his passing in October 2004) with Sartre’s last book, Hope Now. Lastly, Martin memorializes Derrida, whom he knew as teacher and friend, as “a kind and generous man who stood for many good things,” and hereflects on the philosophical trajectory that extends from Sartre to Derrida. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that the fact that punishment involves an intention to cause suffering undermines expressive justifications of punishment. I argue that while punishment must involve harsh treatment, harsh treatment need not involve an intention to cause suffering. Expressivists should adopt this conception of harsh treatment.