Nietzsche's use of metaphor has been widely noted but rarely focused to explore specific images in great detail. A Nietzschean Bestiary gathers essays devoted to the most notorious and celebrated beasts in Nietzsche's work. The essays illustrate Nietzsche's ample use of animal imagery, and link it to the dual philosophical purposes of recovering and revivifying human animality, which plays a significant role in his call for de-deifying nature.

The volume consists of twenty-one essays, many of which were part of a conference organized by the editors. Although the authors were apparently given the opportunity to revise their presentations, the collection retains the vibrancy of oral presentations. This seems entirely fitting given that the collection focuses on a short, cheerful book, one in which scholars are distinguished from professors. The collection’s organization somewhat follows the structure of EH. Like Nietzsche’s book, Martin and Large’s collection begins with their introduction, which (...) is followed by Daniel Conway’s discussion of the intercalated passage. “Why I am So Wise,” arguably the closest EH... (shrink)

Brian Leftow offers a theist theory of necessity and possibility, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. He argues that necessities of logic and mathematics are determined by God's nature, but that it is events in God's mind - his imagination and choice - that account for necessary truths about concrete creatures.

The Fundamental Principles of Christian Ethics is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1896. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become (...) rare and historical knowledge for the future. (shrink)

Excerpt from Relativity The four chapters which follow are four lectures delivered before the Edinburgh Mathematical Colloquium on the subject of Relativity. As many of the audience had their chief interests in other branches of mathematical science, it was necessary to start ab initio. The best method appeared to be to treat the subject in the historical order; I have brought it down to the stage in which it was left by Minkowski. If I have stimulated any of my audience (...) to pursue the matter further, I shall be amply repaid for any trouble that I have taken. I wish to express my thanks to the Edinburgh Mathematical Society for the honour that they have conferred on me in inviting me to give these lectures. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest Western philosphers and one of the greatest theologians of the Christian church. In this book we at last have a modern, comprehensive presentation of the total thought of Aquinas. Books on Aquinas invariably deal with either his philosophy or his theology. But Aquinas himself made no arbitrary division between his philosophical and his theological thought, and this book allows readers to see him as a whole. It introduces the full range of Aquinas' thinking; (...) and it relates his thinking to writers both earlier and later than Aquinas himself. (shrink)

Reproduction of the original: The Life of Thomas Paine by Moncure Daniel Conway.

This chapter contains sections titled: Life as Will to Power Nietzsche contra “English Darwinism” Life as Self‐Overcoming The Case of Nietzsche The Law of Life Concluding Critical Remarks.

Long before the viewers of Ridley Scott's Alien catch their first, fleeting glimpse of the terrifying alien, they have already made the acquaintance of the alienated human beings aboard the USCSS Nostromo. The plot of Ridley Scott's Alien is well known to science fiction buffs and film enthusiasts more generally. In fact, the human members of the crew of the Nostromo exhibit “alienation”, a condition identified by Karl Marx in the “Estranged Labor” section of his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of (...) 1844. So long as the capitalist mode of production remains viable and authoritative, Marx insists, workers will suffer the indignities associated with alienated labor. In the transition from Alien to Aliens, the added s makes a huge difference. Alienated from their (admittedly clueless) leadership, their cloudy mission objectives, and one another, and overly dependent on their military hardware, the Colonial Marines are no match for the coordinated attack of the alien species. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The view that phenomenally conscious robots are on the horizon often rests on a certain philosophical view about consciousness, one we call “nomological behaviorism.” The view entails that, as a matter of nomological necessity, if a robot had exactly the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as a phenomenally conscious being, then the robot would be phenomenally conscious; indeed it would have all and only the states of phenomenal consciousness that the phenomenally conscious being in question has. We experimentally (...) investigate whether the folk think that certain (hypothetical) robots made of silicon and steel would have the same conscious states as certain familiar biological beings with the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as the robots. Our findings provide evidence that the folk largely reject the view that silicon-based robots would have the sensations that they, the folk, attribute to the biological beings in question. (shrink)

Our aim here is to lay the groundwork for formal tree-ring analysis combining data from dendrochronology with formal techniques from semantics. We will present the basic syntax of, and basic compositional semantics of tree-ring structures.

Infallibilism leads to skepticism, and fallibilism is plagued by the threshold problem. Within this narrative, the pragmatic turn in epistemology has been marketed as a way for fallibilists to address the threshold problem. In contrast, pragmatic versions of infallibilism have been left unexplored. However, I propose that going pragmatic offers the infallibilist a way to address its main problem, the skeptical problem. Pragmatic infallibilism, however, is committed to a shifty view of epistemic certainty, where the strength of a subject’s epistemic (...) state can vary depending upon the practical context. Pragmatic views of epistemic strength are quite radical so the argumentative goal of my discussion is to argue for its plausibility, thereby arguing for the plausibility of pragmatic infallibilism. To do so, I discuss the role that the framing of decision problems and the construction of our deliberative attitudes have in our theories of rational choice. And I explore a way in which these necessary components of a normative theory of rationality can be used to motivate pragmatic views of evidential support. Finally, since the plausibility of our pragmatic account will depend upon the plausibility of a constructive account of rational choice, I conclude by comparing the adequacy of the constructive account with orthodox Bayesian and knowledge-based accounts. (shrink)

This book uses computer modeling to investigate trends in what is published in leading philosophy journals over the last century and a half. The notable trends include the rise of realism from a fringe view to the mainstream metaphysical outlook, the increase in specialization, and the increasing depth of integration between philosophy and physical sciences. It also contains a guide to how to do similar investigations, and discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. -/- Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and (...) scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. -/- Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era. (shrink)

This chapter explores a way in which visual processing may involve innate constraints and attempts to show how such processing overcomes one enduring challenge to nativism. In particular, many challenges to nativist theories in other areas of cognitive psychology have focused on the later development of such abilities, and have argued that such development is in conflict with innate origins. Innateness, in these contexts, is seen as antidevelopmental, associated instead with static processes and principles. In contrast, certain perceptual models demonstrate (...) how the very same mental processes can both be innately specified and yet develop richly in response to experience with the environment. This process is entirely unmysterious, as shown in certain formal theories of visual perception, including those that appeal to spontaneous endogenous stimulation and those based on Bayesian inference. (shrink)

The popularity of direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry services has exploded over the past five years, with as many as 250 direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry testing companies currently operating and estimates that 1 in 5 Americans are customers of one or more of those companies. Marketing of genetic ancestry testing has consistently linked the results of DNA testing to a consumer’s racial and ethnic identity, and, because of that, can help consumers find out “who they really are.” We argue that the “biologization” of (...) race and ethnicity promoted in such marketing violates norms of marketing ethics. In particular, we show that this marketing technique violates a number of the core commitments and values of the American Marketing Association Statement of Ethics. (shrink)

Pt. I. Zeno and the metaphysics of quantity. Zeno's paradox of measure -- Tractarian nominalism -- Logical atoms and combinatorial possibility -- Strict coherence, sigma coherence, and the metaphysics of quantity -- pt. II. Coherent degrees of belief. Higher-order degrees of belief -- A mistake in dynamic coherence arguments? -- Dynamic coherence and probability kinematics -- Updating, supposing, and MAXENT -- The structure of radical probabilism -- Diachronic coherence and radical probabilism -- pt. III. Induction. Carnapian inductive logic for Markov (...) chains -- Carnapian inductive logic and Bayesian statistics -- Bayesian projectability. (shrink)

This book examines John Locke as a theorist of migration, immigration, and the movement of peoples. It outlines the contours of the public discourse surrounding migration in the seventeenth century and situates Locke's in-depth involvement in these debates. The volume presents a variety of undercurrents in Locke's writing - his ideas on populationism, naturalization, colonization and the right to withdrawal, the plight of refugees, and territorial rights - which have great import in present-day debates about migration. Departing from the popular (...) extant literature that sees Locke advocating for a strong right to exclude foreigners, the author proposes a Lockean theory of immigration that recognizes the fundamental right to emigrate, thus, catering to an age wrought with terrorism, xenophobia and economic inequality. A unique and compelling contribution, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political theory, political philosophy, history of international politics, international relations, international political economy, public policy, seventeenth century English history, migration and citizenship studies, and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Written by an international team of contributors, this book offers a fresh set of interpretations of Fear and Trembling, which remains Kierkegaard's most influential and popular book. The chapters provide incisive accounts of the psychological and epistemological presuppositions of Fear and Trembling; of religious experience and the existential dimension of faith; of Kierkegaard's understanding of the relationship between faith and knowledge; of the purported and real conflicts between ethics and religion; of Kierkegaard's interpretation of the value of hope, trust, love (...) and other virtues; of Kierkegaard's debts to German idealism and Protestant theology; and of his seminal contributions to the fields of psychology, existential phenomenology and literary theory. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of Kierkegaard studies, the history of philosophy, theology and religious studies. (shrink)

This Handbook is therefore meant to be useful to someone wanting to learn about Aquinas's philosophy and theology while also looking for help in philosophical ...

In his seminal work, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman suggests that the common view of human intelligence is far too narrow and that emotions play a much greater role in thought, decision-making and individual success than is commonly acknowledged. The importance of emotion to human experience cannot be denied, yet the relationship between law and emotion is one that has largely been ignored until recent years. However, the last two decades have seen a rapidly expanding interest among scholars of all disciplines (...) into the way in which law and the emotions interact, including the law's response to emotion and the extent to which emotions pervade the practice of the law. In The Emotional Dynamics of Law and Legal Discourse a group of leading scholars from both sides of the Atlantic explore these issues across key areas of private law, public law, criminal justice and dispute resolution, illustrating how emotion infuses all areas of legal thought. The collection argues for a more positive view of the role of emotion in the context of legal discourse and demonstrates ways in which the law could, in the words of Goleman, become more emotionally intelligent. (shrink)

The Senate filibuster is among the most criticized political institutions in the United States. This paper examines the ethics of filibustering. The way filibustering currently proceeds in the Senate, I argue, is morally indefensible. Yet, there is a way filibustering could proceed that is both defensible and desirable from a normative perspective. This is because filibustering—if it is properly institutionalized—allows minority parties in the legislature to protect and advance their interests in a manner that avoids shortcomings faced by other institutions (...) proposed to accomplish these goals, such as supermajority rule and judicial review. (shrink)

This commentary on Adam Pautz's excellent book, Perception, explores the consequences of “spatial illusionism,” the view that the spatial properties presented in experience aren't instantiated in the extra-mental world. First, I consider whether spatial illusionism entails that our ordinary beliefs about the physical world are mostly false. I then argue that spatial illusionism threatens to undermine two arguments Pautz's defends in Perception: his argument that sense data theory is incompatible with physicalism, and his central argument against the internal physical state (...) view of perception. (shrink)

Pareto principles are at the core of ethics and decision theory. The Strong Pareto principle says that if one thing is better than another for someone and at least as good for everyone else, then the one is overall better than the other. But a host of famous figures express it differently, with ‘not worse’ in place of ‘at least as good.’ In the presence of parity (or incommensurability), this results in a strictly stronger Pareto principle, which I call Super‐Strong (...) Pareto. Super‐Strong Pareto, however, yields cyclic betterness and is therefore false. I point out a number of influential arguments—concerning population ethics, collective action problems, and decision‐making in the face of parity and uncertainty—that crucially rely on Super‐Strong Pareto and are therefore unsound. I then turn to the most influential argument against the possibility of parity—Broome's collapsing argument—and argue that it likewise relies on Super‐Strong Pareto reasoning and is therefore question‐begging. Finally, I turn to the much‐neglected question of how to justify Strong Pareto. The answer I arrive at, which emphasizes tie‐breaking, yields a striking insight, namely that Super‐Strong Pareto amounts to the denial of insensitivity to mild sweetening. That is what makes it problematic in the presence of parity. (shrink)

The essay offers a philosophical reconstruction of Nietzsche’s theory of the will, focusing on (1) Nietzsche’s account of the phenomenology of “willing” an action, the experience we have which leads us (causally) to conceive of ourselves as exercising our will; (2) Nietzsche’s arguments that the experiences picked out by the phenomenology are not causally connected to the resulting action (at least not in a way sufficient to underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility); and (3) Nietzsche’s account of the actual causal genesis (...) of action. Particular attention is given to passages from Daybreak, Beyond Good and Evil and Twilight of the Idols and a revised version of my earlier account of Nietzsche’s epiphenomenalism is defended. Finally, recent work in empirical psychology (Libet, Wegner) is shown to support Nietzsche’s skepticism that our “feeling” of will is a reliable guide to the causation of action. (shrink)

One of the most neglected aspects of Bentham's thought is his opposition to war. His views on this subject have been sketched out in a number of studies, but they have never been examined in any detail. Interested scholars have tended to base their assessments on a narrow range of sources. Most have relied on the four brief essays, collectively entitled ‘Principles of International Law’, which were published in John Bowring's edition of Bentham's Works. More particularly, they have leaned heavily (...) on just one of these essays, ‘A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace’. The aim of this paper is to present a much fuller picture of Bentham's views by supplementing relevant material in the international law essays with ideas drawn from Bentham's other works and unpublished papers. (shrink)

General jurisprudence-that branch of legal philosophy concerned with the nature of law and adjudication-has been relatively unaffected by the "naturalistic" strains so evident, for example, in the epistemology, philosophy of mind and moral philosophy of the past forty years. This paper sketches three ways in which naturalism might affect jurisprudential inquiry. The paper serves as a kind of precis of the main themes in my book NATURALIZING JURISPRUDENCE: ESSAYS ON AMERICAN LEGAL REALISM AND NATURALISM IN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY (Oxford University Press, (...) 2007). (shrink)

[Brian P. McLaughlin] In recent years, some philosophers have claimed that we can know a priori that certain external world skeptical hypotheses are false on the basis of a priori knowledge that we are in certain kinds of mental states, and a priori knowledge that those mental states are individuated by contingent environmental factors. Appealing to a distinction between weak and strong a priority, I argue that weakly a priori arguments of this sort would beg the question of whether (...) the skeptical hypothesis under assessment is true, and that the prospect of a sound strongly a priori argument of this sort seems dim. \\\ [David Owens] Contemporary discussion of scepticism focuses on the possibility that most or all of our beliefs might be false. I argue that the hypothesis of massive falsity and the associated 'problem of the external world' are inessential to the scepticisms of Descartes and Hume. What drives Cartesian and Humean scepticism is the demand for certainty: any possibility of error, however local, must be ruled out before we can claim either justified belief or knowledge. Contemporary philosophers have ignored this form of scepticism because they doubt that the demand for certainty can be motivated. But Descartes provides a sound motivation for this demand in the Meditations. (shrink)

Marx did not have a normative theory, that is, a theory that purported to justify, discursively and systematically, his normative opinions, to show them to be rationally obligatory or objectively valid. In this regard, Marx was obviously not alone: almost everyone, including those who lead what are widely regarded as exemplary ‘moral’ lives, decide and act on the basis of normative intuitions and inclinations that fall far short of a theory. Yet self-proclaimed Marxists like G. A. Cohen and Jurgen Habermas (...) have reintroduced a kind of normative theory into the Marxian tradition that Marx himself would have ridiculed. This essay defends Marx’s position and tries to explain the collapse of Western Marxism into bourgeois practical philosophy, i.e., philosophizing about what ought to be done that is unthreatening to capitalist relations of production. (shrink)

This chapter provides a general overview of the issues surrounding so-called semantic monsters. In section 1, I outline the basics of Kaplan’s framework and spell out how and why the topic of “monsters” arises within that framework. In Section 2, I distinguish four notions of a monster that are discussed in the literature, and show why, although they can pull apart in different frameworks or with different assumptions, they all coincide within Kaplan’s framework. In Section 3, I discuss one notion (...) that has spun off into the linguistics literature, namely “indexical shift”. In Section 4, I emphasize the connection between monsters and the compositionality of asserted content in Kaplan’s original discussion. Section 5 discusses monsters and the more general idea of re-interpretation or meaning-shift. Section 6 closes with a brief survey of where monsters may dwell, and pointers to avenues for future research. (shrink)

Those who vote intelligently vote for principles as much as they do for policy. The problem is that bodies of principle tend to be incompatible with each other. In fact, they normally conflict, head-on. Conservatism and socialism are two obvious examples here. My point, therefore, is that, with this type of incompatibility, it is difficult to see how any coalition could be maintained for long without a considerable sacrifice of principle – not to say integrity – by at least one (...) of the parties to it. (shrink)