Pessimism is, roughly, the view that life is not worth living. In chapter 46 of the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer provides an oft-neglected argument for this view. The argument is that a life is worth living only if it does not contain any uncompensated evils; but since all our lives happen to contain such evils, none of them are worth living. The now standard interpretation of this argument (endorsed by Kuno Fischer and Christopher (...) Janaway) proceeds from the claim that the value—or rather valuelessness—of life’s goods makes compensation impossible. But this interpretation is neither philosophically attractive nor faithful to the text. In this paper, I develop and defend an alternative interpretation (suggested by Wilhelm Windelband and Mark Migotti) according to which it is instead the actual temporal arrangement of life’s goods and evils that makes compensation impossible. (shrink)

This encyclopedia is the first of its kind in bringing together philosophy and the social sciences. It is not only about the philosophy of the social sciences but, going beyond that, it is also about the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. -/- The subject of this encyclopedia is purposefully multi- and inter-disciplinary. Knowledge boundaries are both delineated and crossed over. The goal is to convey a clear sense of how philosophy looks at the social sciences and to (...) class='Hi'>mark out a detailed picture of how the two are interrelated: interwoven at certain times but also differentiated and contrasted at others. The Entries cover topics of central significance but also those that are both controversial and on the cutting-edge, underlining the unique mark of this Encyclopedia: the interrelationship between philosophy and the social sciences, especially as it is found in fresh ideas and unprecedented hybrid disciplinary areas. -/- The Encyclopedia serves a further dual purpose: it contributes to the renewal of the philosophy of the social sciences and helps to promote novel modes of thinking about some of its classic problems. (shrink)

This encyclopedia is the first of its kind in bringing together philosophy and the social sciences. It is not only about the philosophy of the social sciences but, going beyond that, it is also about the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. The subject of this encyclopedia is purposefully multi- and inter-disciplinary. Knowledge boundaries are both delineated and crossed over. The goal is to convey a clear sense of how philosophy looks at the social sciences and to mark (...) out a detailed picture of how the two are interrelated: interwoven at certain times but also differentiated and contrasted at others. The Entries cover topics of central significance but also those that are both controversial and on the cutting-edge, underlining the unique mark of this Encyclopedia: the interrelationship between philosophy and the social sciences, especially as it is found in fresh ideas and unprecedented hybrid disciplinary areas. The Encyclopedia serves a further dual purpose: it contributes to the renewal of the philosophy of the social sciences and helps to promote novel modes of thinking about some of its classic problems. (shrink)

This paper puts forward the model of 'microcosm-macrocosm' isomorphism encapsulated in certain philosophical views on the form of university education. The human being as a 'microcosm' should reflect internally the external 'macrocosm'. Higher Education is a socially instituted attempt to guide human beings into forming themselves as microcosms of the whole world in its diversity. By getting to know the surrounding world, they re-enact it intellectually. Such a re-enacting is a guiding theme in certain philosophies of education studied here. It (...) is with the Neo-Humanist tradition culminating in Humboldt's reforms that an additional step was taken: the university should become itself the reflecting 'microcosm'. This role is nowadays taken up by unconventional LLE, though with far-reaching changes. The paper is divided into four interconnected Sections each one developing a specific manifestation of the micro-macro relationship. The main thesis is that: (I) contemporary schemes of never-ending higher education or of so-called 'transformative learning' and of 'universities-multiversities' have their intellectual underpinnings either in similarity or in direct contrast to specific predecessors. Inherent tensions found in these predecessors have left their mark on this micro-macrocosmic model to the extent that it is present in them; (II) the proposed analysis in terms of this model enhances significantly our in-depth understanding of some latent aspects in current trends in LLE and related innovative university schemes; at the same time this model helps us structure appropriately and without anachronisms our humanisticly-inspired critical response to them for abandoning the ideal of the 'wholeness' of the human person. (shrink)

This paper puts forward the model of ‘microcosm‐macrocosm’ isomorphism encapsulated in certain philosophical views on the form of university education. The human being as a ‘microcosm’ should reflect internally the external ‘macrocosm’. Higher Education is a socially instituted attempt to guide human beings into forming themselves as microcosms of the whole world in its diversity. By getting to know the surrounding world, they re‐enact it intellectually. Such a re‐enacting is a guiding theme in certain philosophies of education studied here. It (...) is with the Neo‐Humanist tradition culminating in Humboldt's reforms that an additional step was taken: the university should become itself the reflecting ‘microcosm’. This role is nowadays taken up by unconventional LLE, though with far‐reaching changes. The paper is divided into four interconnected Sections each one developing a specific manifestation of the micro‐macro relationship. The main thesis is that: (I) contemporary schemes of never‐ending higher education or of so‐called ‘transformative learning’ and of ‘universities‐multiversities’ have their intellectual underpinnings either in similarity or in direct contrast to specific predecessors. Inherent tensions found in these predecessors have left their mark on this micro‐macrocosmic model to the extent that it is present in them; (II) the proposed analysis in terms of this model enhances significantly our in‐depth understanding of some latent aspects in current trends in LLE and related innovative university schemes; at the same time this model helps us structure appropriately and without anachronisms our humanisticly‐inspired critical response to them for abandoning the ideal of the ‘wholeness’ of the human person. (shrink)

According to the Substituted Judgment Standard a surrogate decision maker ought to make the decision that the incompetent patient would have made, had he or she been competent. This standard has received a fair amount of criticism, but the objections raised are often wide of the mark. In this article we discuss three objections based on empirical research, and explain why these do not give us reason to abandon the Substituted Judgment Standard.

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

Stephen Tracy's neat demonstration that IG I3 35—authorizing the building of a temple and appointment of a priestess for Athena Nike—was cut by the man responsible for the Promachos accounts at first seemed decisive for the traditional c. 448 B.C. against my radical down-dating. Ira Mark then argued that this decree provided for the naiskos and altar of his Stage III in the 440s: the marble temple belonged to Stage IV over twenty years later. Despite these two powerful interventions (...) the matter is not closed. David Gill has, I fancy, convincingly refuted Mark on archaeological and architectural grounds. And there is still more to be said from the epigraphic angle. IG I 36, cut on the back of the stele, looks like a delayed rider to 35. But just how delayed was it? It arranged for the regular payment of the priestess's salary by the kolakretai in office in the month Thargelion. On the traditional view the gap would be close to a quarter of a century, since 36 is firmly dated 424/3 B.C. This is quite extraordinary, though reasons have been found for it. More serious perhaps is some neglected epigraphic evidence. We have eighteen other examples in fifth-century Attic epigraphy where decrees are followed on the same stone by other texts; but virtually all the gaps are short, never more than a few years. The relevant texts are IG I 4, 11/12, 41, 42/43, 52 A–B, 59, 61, 66, 68, 71, 72, 73, 89, 93, 101, 127/II1, 156, 1454. It is true that 42/43 are dated c. 445–442 and c. 435–427 B.C. in IG I, but this is quite arbitrary. (shrink)

Stephen Tracy's neat demonstration that IG I3 35—authorizing the building of a temple and appointment of a priestess for Athena Nike—was cut by the man responsible for the Promachos accounts at first seemed decisive for the traditional c. 448 B.C. against my radical down-dating. Ira Mark then argued that this decree provided for the naiskos and altar of his Stage III in the 440s: the marble temple belonged to Stage IV over twenty years later. Despite these two powerful interventions (...) the matter is not closed. David Gill has, I fancy, convincingly refuted Mark on archaeological and architectural grounds. And there is still more to be said from the epigraphic angle. IG I 36, cut on the back of the stele, looks like a delayed rider to 35. But just how delayed was it? It arranged for the regular payment of the priestess's salary by the kolakretai in office in the month Thargelion. On the traditional view the gap would be close to a quarter of a century, since 36 is firmly dated 424/3 B.C. This is quite extraordinary, though reasons have been found for it. More serious perhaps is some neglected epigraphic evidence. We have eighteen other examples in fifth-century Attic epigraphy where decrees are followed on the same stone by other texts; but virtually all the gaps are short, never more than a few years. The relevant texts are IG I 4, 11/12, 41, 42/43, 52 A–B, 59, 61, 66, 68, 71, 72, 73, 89, 93, 101, 127/II1, 156, 1454. It is true that 42/43 are dated c. 445–442 and c. 435–427 B.C. in IG I, but this is quite arbitrary. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

This essay presents and analyzes the recent work of four prominent contemporary Jewish ethicists: Eugene Borowitz, David Novak, Byron Sherwin, and Walter Wurzburger. These authors are united in their affirmation of covenant as the central category of Jewish moral obligation and their concern to construct a Jewish ethic out of the classical sources of Judaism. Yet, as an individual analysis of their books will show, they adopt markedly different views of the authority of traditional Jewish law , the respective (...) roles of individual and community in moral deliberation, and the degree to which changing historical circumstances alter moral truths. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments THE RHETORICAL CASE AGAINST A THEORY OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE by Mark Kipperman In the last twenty years or so, attacks on naive realist theories of science —from the historicism of Kuhn to the outright anarchism of Feyerabend — have encouraged a perhaps equally simplistic notion of science as mere model-making, a metaphoric discourse analogous to poetry. From another direction, liberal defenders of science as (...) a liberal art, like Jacob Bronowski, would subsume both science and poetry under what we might call "liberal discourse in general," the unrestricted, trudiseeking, world-building acts of human imagination. But all such attempts —relativist, historicist, or liberal truth-seeker — to "reconcile" literature and science misunderstand both the meaning of metaphor and the meaning of truth in the humanities. If we are truly to value, understand, and preserve the uniqueness of literary discourse, we must argue that science and literature not only cannot be "reconciled" but also that they must not be. Despite my title, I intend to argue not that a theory of literature and science is impossible, but mat any theory that attempts to show that both activities can be significantly unified in a larger historical or linguistic structure will miss the point of their incompatibility as human activities. A study of literature and science should display not their theoretical unity but their rhetorical diversity, where rhetoric is understood as die study of language's purposiveness in respect to human action, language's purposiveness in persuading its audience to see and to build this kind ofworld rather than that one. While both literature and science may both use 76 Mark Kipperman77 metaphor and share similar linguistic structures, die rhetorical directions of the two activities are not only different, they are opposed. To construct a theory, as Heidegger points out in his essay "Science and Reflection," means to step back, as is implied by the etymology of the Greek théôrein, to behold the appearance from the outside; and in our world to theorize is to behold as an object, as science does.1 Theories of literature and science that invoke linguistics or historiography may well show — indeed, precisely because the standpoint of theory is adopted, probably will show — that science's own linguistic structure looks very much like literature's. But here, having adopted die dieoretical standpoint, we are already acting as scientists, treating both science and literature as objects of observation. If we act as rhetoricians, we stand inside the scientific or literary arguments and ask what their language is trying to persuade us of, and what their activities are trying to do. After the work of Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Mary Hesse, it would be difficult to deny that science, from the point of view of epistemology or historiography, creates like art a series ofhistorically evolving metaphors, models, redefinitions. And, ofcourse, I do not deny the utility ofa literary critical language that on its side shares the historiographie or analytic subtlety of a science. But if the question is a dieory not of science and criticism, but of science and belles lettres, I believe a note of caution is called for. The worlds created by scientific and literary languages are so different that their common use of metaphor is less significant than the divergence of their aims and results. Even Kuhn has warned against applying his historiographie theory of science to the arts in the face of their diverse sociological, educational, and "normal" practical activity.2 Briefly, the aim ofscientific rhetoric is to persuade us that it reflects only a world ofobjects; die aim of literature is to persuade us that it reflects a world of human speech, representations, actions. The aim ofliterary argument is to reveal truth within this public sphere. Science's language of lawfulness argues that it is pre-Adamic, repeating but not distorting nature as physis— in Aristotle's words, nature as things that come into being through "necessity" or that "have their origin in themselves." Literary language takes its place among human artifacts that come into being through deliberation, argument, production, or action, and so belongs to the historical manifestation of nature and human nature in which it originates.3 But does not science... (shrink)

In Beyond Enchantment, Mark Kipperman attempts to define the dialectic in philosophical idealism between the actively creative mind and the horizon of the world. Through an analysis of the texts of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling and then an examination of works by Coleridge, Shelley, and Byron, he shows that this dialectic operates not only explicitly in philosophical texts but also implicitly in the structure of Romantic long poems.

Based on conversation analysis, this study investigates central practices in what is defined as a caring interview, in the context of welfare administration. Caring refers to a helpful interviewing in reformulations of questions, taking interviewees’ difficulties to answer into consideration; a caring attitude in the framing of questions, showing understanding of clients’ circumstances and professional’s enactment of expertise in assessments of clients’ disabilities and care needs. Data include a corpus of 43 recorded interviews in which officials at the Swedish Social (...) Insurance Agency interview clients who have applied for benefits. The study adds to research on interactional sensitivity, polar questions and epistemic stance in institutional interaction. The study shows how the interviewer prioritizes confirming polar questions, takes responsibilities of knowing into account and reduces the epistemic gap to the interviewee in practices of a caring interview. This makes the interviewing markedly different from standardized and bureaucratic interviewing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On PartnershipRyan Schwarz, Duncan Smith-Rohrberg Maru, Dan Schwarz, Bibhav Acharya, Bijay Acharya, Ruma Rajbhandari, Jason Andrews, Gregory Karelas, Ranju Sharma, and Mark ArnoldyRecently, Bayalpata Hospital, in the rural district of Achham, Nepal almost collapsed under the weight of its own staff's discontent. The hospital had been largely abandoned until 2009 when our organization, Nyaya Health, renovated and opened it in partnership with the Nepali government. Since then, the (...) hospital has seen great progress and has experienced widespread community support. Nonetheless, earlier this year, a broad-based staff revolt occurred, led primarily by our senior clinical staff members, raising concerns that Nyaya's management policies were ineffective, and wages and benefits were too low. The unrest included everything from a strike, limiting services to our patients, to aggression against non-strikers and slander and racist comments in public media against the Nyaya Health Board of Directors. Ultimately, the conflict was resolved, though not without the departure of our three most senior clinicians. The incident deeply damaged staff morale [End Page 101] and impeded basic services to our patients, and from our perspective as a leadership and management team, it was deeply troubling and spiritually challenging. We have learned much in the wake of the strike, but here we focus more narrowly on the concept of partnerships in our work by examining the recent strike and the two key issues that lead to it: wages and benefits, and management policies at Bayalpata Hospital.In grappling with the recent staff crisis, some of our leadership team expressed concerns that we would never be able to develop a true partnership in Achham if our senior-level employees led strikes against the organization. The leaders of the strike were our most well-educated and high-ranking staff. They were also individuals who had come to work for us specifically citing the moral imperative of our work, and their pride in helping to serve the poorest of the poor. One leadership team member asked, "What is 'partnership' then? We came into this work with the premise that we would work together, with our partnership built around the right to health—but who are our partners if they lead strikes damaging the very services our collective mission aims to offer?"Another leadership team member commented, "The first time I visited Achham I was invited for tea at Meena's* house (one of Nyaya's midwives). We arrived at her house and Meena greeted us warmly. She showed us in to a small room: there was no furniture, but there was an immaculately swept mat which we joined her on. We drank tea, seated on her rug, and listened to her tell us how she had come to live in the house, how she had come to work for Nyaya, and her pride in now being able to provide both for her own children, as well as, the children of her relatives. As the only employed family member, she now had the challenge of providing for all of them. When we question our partnership, I'm taken back to Meena's warm, but extremely poor, home. She has worked for Nyaya for almost four years. She has helped our organization provide free care to over 75,000 people. Is this not a type of 'partnership'?"Allow us to offer some background on the issue of wages—Meena has been with our team since 2008, and has been paid about $2,500 per year—a generous wage compared to other employers in the region. Meena was one of the striking staff members. Among other concerns about the way the hospital was being run, she and other staff asked indignantly why we couldn't provide them with higher wages, better benefits, and more resources, both for her and the hospital. Notably, Meena's salary (and the rest of our staff's) was well above her equivalent in other, more urban hospitals (to compensate for the extremely remote area in which we work), and in a district where most families are farmers, our staff's salaries occupy the highest income bracket in the region. Nonetheless, as is common throughout the world in both rich and poor areas... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 296-311 [Access article in PDF] Byron As Cad Ian Jobling I AS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT and intriguing poets of the romantic period, Byron has been the subject of much recent critical commentary. However, no matter how excellent some of this scholarship is, the reader who is familiar with evolutionary psychology, the science that has tried to explain the biological underpinnings (...) of human nature, inevitably comes away from it with a feeling of dissatisfaction. In spite of the obvious relevance of biological theories of human behavior to the most basic issues of literary interpretation, only a handful of literary critics, and no Byron critics, have attempted to use these theories to understand the creation and reception of literary texts. All literary criticism relies on assumptions about human nature; because most critics are unfamiliar with evolutionary psychology, these assumptions are almost never clarified and justified. By familiarizing themselves with evolutionary psychology, literary critics can replace their vague, commonsensical, and often empirically unsupported assumptions about human nature with more precise and empirically valid theories.Much recent research on the evolution of sexuality has focused on "cad" and "dad" mating strategies in men. Cads seek to maximize their reproductive success by maximizing the number of their sexual partners and by avoiding parental investment; dads are committed to long-term, monogamous relationships with women and make substantial parental investment in their children. The personality traits of cads—aggressiveness, rebelliousness, criminality, and sexual promiscuity—bear a close resemblance both to Byron's own personality traits and to those of the Byronic hero. Understanding the cad mating strategy [End Page 296] enables us to better understand Byron's personality as well as the conflicts between his personality and the culture of his time that shaped his literary production and reception. II Evolutionary psychology uses the principles of evolutionary biology as a guide to the study of human cognition and behavior. The types of psychological traits that will succeed evolutionarily are those that maximize an organism's ability to transmit its genes to the next generation, or what evolutionary psychologists call its "fitness," by successfully reproducing and by helping kin who share its genes to reproduce. Our psychological design did not evolve in the environment that we now inhabit but on the African savannah of the Pleistocene era; therefore, evolved human psychology is best understood not in relation to the lifestyle of the citizens of modern nation-states, but to that of hunter-gatherers. 1Recent research on human sexuality has suggested that humans have evolved to pursue two different types of mating strategies: short-term and long-term. On the one hand, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that, unlike most mammals, humans are designed for long-term sexual relationships with substantial male parental investment in children. Human infants require a great deal of parental care, and children reared in father-absent households suffer much higher mortality rates than those who are reared in father-present households, especially in preindustrial societies. 2 The sexual psychology of women also indicates that human sexuality has been shaped by long-term sexual relationships. A number of studies both in the United States and across cultures have shown that women regularly report being attracted to men who are socially respected, financially well-off, ambitious, industrious, dependable, emotionally stable, and romantic, 3 all qualities that indicate the ability and willingness to sustain long-term, parentally investing relationships with women.However, there are also aspects of both men's and women's sexuality that show that we did not evolve exclusively to pursue long-term mating. The evidence for the importance of short-term mating in human evolution is most obvious in men, who consistently show a marked desire for sexual variety. For example, in a survey, male college students said that they would, on average, like to have six partners in the coming year, and men fantasize about having sex with multiple partners (Buss, [End Page 297] ED, pp. 76-83). The fitness advantage of short-term sexual relationships to men is obvious: men can have more offspring the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"'Twas Nature Gnaw'd Them to This Resolution":Byron's Poetry and Mimetic DesireIan Dennis (bio)1. IntroductionWe all know Lord Byron, I presume. Know him as a paradigmatic object of cultural desire, as the quintessentially romantic individualist whose haughtily transgressive rejection of his society turned him into one of its most compelling models and objects, the endlessly provocative rival of a multitude of young men to follow—and they are still (...) following—all to differing degrees blind to or writhing in the anxieties of his influence. I myself belong to that somewhat smaller group that actually reads his poetry.Having passed through the little deification of celebrity, Byron was on something of a downslope of fame, and knew it, before he put the matter past all doubt by dying almost-young for liberty in Greece in 1824. Perhaps not surprisingly, given all this, he developed into something of an expert on desire. Almost alone among the major Romantics, he came to understand this most basic force in human experience not only as mediated and mimetic but as increasingly a function of a new kind of market whose commanding value was apparent autonomy from the market. It is not too hard to see how he figured this out. Those whom Byron defied adored him; those whose petty gratifications he evaded in spectacular suffering emulated him; those to whose desires he declared himself indifferent desired him—as few have ever been desired. For all his very real faults he was an intelligent man and an observant one. He reflected on what had happened to him.2. Reading Byron's Poetry for Nature and DesireIn his earlier poetry the natural scene, at least in Byron's privileged experiences of it, acts as an ally against other people. It is a source of his difference from and thus his indifference to the rest of us—an apparent replacement for, rather than object of, mediated desire. [End Page 115]Almost the first words of the preface to his fame-making Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) tell us that the poem was "written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe" and a coy disquisition on the identity of the Childe—who is and is not Byron—follows close on the heels of a spate of place-name dropping. They are sexy places, too, hard to get to, exotic, naturally beautiful, and dangerous. Soon the note of human pollution is of course sounded—man "mars" the beauties of Cintra that the hero is experiencing (1980–1993, 1.15)1—reminding us of the prototypical alliance between the alienated Romantic solitary and the unspoiled, or spoiled natural world, alike menaced by sociality, by the Other. This alliance is powerfully reinforced by an identification with the bovine victim of the Cadiz bull-ring, vivid sacrifice at the center of—in the young poet's chilling phrase—"the silent circle's peopled walls" (1.75). Does man scapegoat nature? There could hardly be a handier metaphor. And the Childe makes common cause.Mainly, though, "Dear Nature" is the particular solace of her "never-wean'd" favorite son, the one who never "pollutes her path," he who, as he rather complacently notes, "mark'd her when none other hath" (2.27). Byron does at least make good on such a claim by going to Albania, a wild, inaccessible place which he, with some justification, boasts "all admire, but many dread to view" (2.43). He writes some stirring descriptive poetry, leavened with occasional homilies on the smallness and nastiness of man and the grandeur and beauty of nature, sentiments that would not sound out of character on the lips of young backpacking, development-deploring kindred spirits of a later age. Again, it is to be remembered that the first besmirchment of the natural world to be complained of is not material, but social, in particular by the Romantic rebel's own society—not chemicals and chainsaws but the poisonous presence of overly familiar people and practices. The language of protest remains much the same after the products of industrial economic activity are added to the score, and indeed a good part of... (shrink)

Reflexive Methodology established itself as a groundbreaking success, providing researchers with an invaluable guide to a central problem in research methodology – how to put field research and interpretations in perspective, paying attention to the interpretive, political, and rhetorical nature of empirical research. Now thoroughly updated, the Second Edition includes a new chapter on positivism, social constructionism, and critical realism, and offers new conclusions on the applications of methodology. It provides further illustrations and updates that build on the acclaimed and (...) successful First Edition. (shrink)

Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Trenton Merricks has recently raised three objections to combining pluralism with a generic way of being enjoyed by absolutely everything there is: first, that the resulting view contradicts the pluralist’s core intuition; second, that it is especially vulnerable to the charge—due to Peter van Inwagen—that it posits a difference in being where there is simply a difference in kind; and, third, that it is in tension with various (...) historically influential motivations for pluralism. I reply to each of these objections in turn. My replies will help to bring out the true nature of the pluralist’s basic commitments. (shrink)

The distinction between qualitative and non-qualitative properties should be familiar from discussions of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles: two otherwise exactly similar individuals, Castor and Pollux, might share all their qualitative properties yet differ with respect to their non-qualitative properties—for while Castor has the property being identical to Castor, Pollux does not. But while this distinction is familiar, there has not been much critical attention devoted to spelling out its precise nature. I argue that the class of non-qualitative (...) properties is broader than it is often taken to be. When properly construed, it will not only include properties such as being identical to Castor, which somehow make reference to particular individuals, it will also include more general properties such as identity, composition, set membership, as well as various peculiarly ontological properties. Given that some of these more general properties help to explain objective similarity, we have reason to believe that there are fundamental non-qualitative properties. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

This study situates Romantic literature in a historical narrative that runs from the Fall of the Bastille to Waterloo, and places Romantic texts against contemporary events like the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of European imperialism in Africa and Asia that mark the period from 1789 to 1832. At the same time, this study considers the relation of the Romantic epic to narratives of universal history from Hegel to Marx. A central concern is the appearance of (...) the Romantic hero as a Promethean subject of history in the bourgeois social revolutions of the age. Napoleon's career provides a paradigm for the bildungsroman of the Romantic subject; while the life of Goethe expresses this dynamic life-history as an aesthetic narrative. Taken together, then, these narratives define the milieu in which the Romantic subject is constituted, and delineate the parameters of the revolutionary transformations of modernity. ;The concept of modernity as a process of development came into currency as a description of the radical changes undergone by European society during the emergence of industrial capitalism, the democratization of the public sphere, and the rise of a world-imperial order. The Romantic period thus constitutes an event like the postmodern break in which the narratives through which history is mediated to individuals are shattered by a traumatic shift in modes of cultural production. Romantic epics like Faust, Part II, Jerusalem, Don Juan and The Excursion respond to this crisis of representation by reinserting historical experience into an overarching narrative of development that describes the evolution of the representative individual or collective subject, "Man," in his fall into alienation and self-division in social forms, and his rise toward utopian self-unification as a figure of desire for restored human community. The contradictions of modernity are thus reproduced in the Romantic epic, which both projects the totalized form of an emancipatory metanarrative and records the deconstruction of that narrative by social change. Romanticism, then, is a displaced ideological afterimage of the inception of modernity as it is experienced by Romantic writers in all its apocalyptic violence and utopian promise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MARCHING AND RISING: THE RITUALS OF SMALL DIFFERENCES AND GREAT VIOLENCE Byron Bland Center ofInternational Strategic Arms Control What is really needed is the decommissioning of mind-sets in Northern Ireland. (Report of the International Body on Arms Decommissioning: The Mitchell Report, January 24, 1996) The 1996 Orange Marching season brought a major setback to peace process in Northern Ireland. On the Garvaghy Road in the Drumcree community of (...) Portadown, Protestants and Catholics displayed the mutual intolerance and intransigence for which they are notorious. Within each camp, a contagion of ill-will took hold, metamorphosing ancient malice into modern hatred. A volatile fog, toxic with recriminations and threats, descended upon the countryside. The battlelines drawn at Drumcree energized other historical points ofconfrontation across the province. Just as the plucked string of a musical instrument sets the all the others vibrating harmoniously, so the cord struck in Portadown sounded the key to a counterpoint that seemed almost primordial. As the tragic notes of the final measures faded, a numbing silence enveloped a society once again stunned by the violence unleashed within its soul. It was as if the North of Ireland looked at the prospect of peace and announced that it was not going to take it lying down. A strangely 102Byron Bland irrational logic seemed to drive events. Viewed from afar, it never should have happened. Neither Protestants nor Catholics stood to gain anything of tangible value. Only in retrospect—from the finale once the standoff had energized every potential division backwards—do substantive political issues emerge. However, this collapsing of events obscures the interactive process from which this mishap arose and leaves the central and confounding mystery unsolved: how did a dispute about nothing so quickly become a conflict about everything? The answer to this enigma lies in the mimetic theory of René Girard. Sinn Fèin Party Chairman Mitchel McLaughlin parsed correctly, but not insightfully, the social dynamics of this explosive situation. Shortly before the July marching season, he affirmed the right of Protestants to march. Nevertheless, he maintained, Catholics would tolerate no triumphalism. The problem is, of course, that Protestants don't march in the abstract. They march down specific streets, passing through particular communities, toward specified locations. Their Lambeg drums boom out a terrifying cadence. Their Bowler hats, black-thorn canes, and orange sashes shout a silent message for all to hear. Without triumphalism, an Orange march is simply a pointless stroll. It is nothing—a non-event, a momentous occasion that did not happen. Orange triumphalism needs serious nationalist resistance to be more than ludicrous display ofparanoid-driven pomposity. Orange "marching" must provoke a Catholic "rising." It has to find a contumacious partner before the mimetic choreography of "not any inch" can proceed. Only then can the thundering beat of the Lambeg drum transform the contestants into violent doubles, each captivated by a spellbinding obsession with the other. From the pounding rhythms spring forth entranced rivals who are much more than mere competitors. Caught in a tragedy replayed thousands of times, Catholics and Protestants stare across the bloody boundary of small differences that separates them. Their opposition defines the mirrored sameness of their common Irishness as utterly alien. With melodramatic anticipation, both await the moment when violence seals off the expelled other and circumscribes the sacred realm of our metaphysical identity. Fully enshrined, the Protestants and Catholics of Ulster feel the fullness of their humanity. They are now complete, but sadly they are no longer whole. MarchingandRising103 History is a weapon, a poker you keep in your pocket to beat the present senseless and so reorder its alignment to the past andjustify present murder. (Kevin Toolis, Rebel Hearts) Marching and drumming make an Orange parade. The practice first entered Ireland with the arrival of "King Billy"—William of Orange in 1690. His troops—the vanguard of Protestantism—marched to the cadence ofkettle drums strapped to the backs ofhorses. When they routed the Catholic army of James II at the Battle of the Boyne, marching and drumming entered the lexicon of Protestant dominance. When the Orangemen hit the streets, they take on the identity of King Billy's Protestant troops. They triumph over the Catholics in... (shrink)

According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

Prologue, invitation to thinking about God In the Hebrew Bible? -- Part I, questions about God? -- Why does God in the Bible have a body? -- What do God's body parts in the Bible mean? -- Why is God angry in the Bible? -- Does God in the Bible have gender or sexuality? -- Part II, questions about God in the world? -- What can creation tell us about God? -- Who-or what-is the Satan? -- Why do people suffer (...) according to the Hebrew Bible? -- Epilogue, God in the Bible and beyond. (shrink)

A social conception of science -- The pursuit of forms -- Beyond the doctrine of signs -- Structures of mediation -- Signs in action -- Prospects of communication -- From a rhetorical point of view.

En ética de poblaciones, se apela a ciertas perspectivas léxicas y de nivel crítico totalistas para evitar la conclusión repugnante. Dado que la conclusión muy repugnante es una condición de adecuación más débil, podría pensarse que estas perspectivas también nos permitirán evitar esta conclusión. En este artículo argumento que no es así. Primero, muestro que estas perspectivas léxicas no evitan la conclusión muy repugnante. Después, muestro que las perspectivas de rango crítico totalistas tampoco la evitan. Finalmente, aclaro qué perspectivas nos (...) permiten evitar esta conclusión. (shrink)

This paper briefly summarizes current thinking in engineering ethics education, argues that much of that ethical instruction runs the risk of being only superficially effective, and explores some of the underlying systemic barriers within academia that contribute to this result. This is not to criticize or discourage efforts to improve ethics instruction. Rather it is to point to some more fundamental problems that still must be addressed in order to realize the full potential of enhanced ethics instruction. Issues discussed will (...) include: intellectual engagement versus emotional engagement; the gravitational pull of curricular structures; the nature of engineering faculty; and the “engineer-ization” of ethics. (shrink)

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

A consensus exists among contemporary philosophers of biology about the history of their field. According to the received view, mainstream philosophy of science in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s focused on physics and general epistemology, neglecting analyses of the 'special sciences', including biology. The subdiscipline of philosophy of biology emerged (and could only have emerged) after the decline of logical positivism in the 1960s and 70s. In this article, I present bibliometric data from four major philosophy of science journals (Erkenntnis, (...) Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science), covering 1930-59, which challenge this view. (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

Este artículo explora ciertas conexiones entre la representación de la mortalidad en el retrato y el tratamiento filosófico de nuestra necesidad de ser reconocidos por los demás. En primer lugar, se examina la conexión que establece Georg Simmel en su estudio filosófico sobre Rembrandt entre la capacidad del artista para representar en sus retratos individuos irrepetibles, y su capacidad para capturar la finitud de los mismos en tanto que seres mortales. Tras señalar que ninguna de las explicaciones de Simmel sobre (...) el carácter trágico de los sujetos de los retratos de Rembrandt resulta completamente satisfactoria, recupero los escritos de Rousseau sobre nuestra necesidad de ser reconocidos por los otros, para argumentar que consideramos que los otros son insustituibles porque son capaces de satisfacer esta necesidad ; y que es, precisamente, a esta clase de insustituibilidad a la que apunta Simmel al enlazar los conceptos de individualidad y mortalidad en sus escritos sobre los retratos de Rembrandt. A partir de este punto, sostengo que las ideas anteriores son, de hecho, centrales para la comprensión de la escritura psicoanalítica de Melanie Klein, y, en particular, al planteamiento de Klein sobre la percepción de las otras personas por parte de los niños, que relaciona con sus ansiedades acerca de la posibilidad de la pérdida irreparable de esas personas; su planteamiento de que la condición de persona del otro se debe a que los percibimos como fuentes de reconocimiento; y su análisis de la pintura de retratos como una actividad con la que abordar estas ansiedades. (shrink)

This paper offers a new way to make sense of disagreement expansion from a polylogical perspective by incorporating various places in addition to players and positions into the analysis. The concepts build on prior implicit ideas about disagreement space by suggesting how to more fully account for argumentative context, and its construction, in large-scale complex controversies. As a basis for our polylogical analysis, we use a New York Times news story reporting on an oil train explosion—a significant point in the (...) broader controversy over producing oil and gas via hydraulic fracturing. (shrink)

Abstract1 This article examines Peirce's semiotic philosophy and its development in the light of his characterisations of "representationism" and "presentationism". In his definitions of these positions, Peirce overtly pits the representationists, who treat percepts as representatives, against the presentationists, according to whom percepts do not stand for hidden realities. The article shows that Peirce's early writings—in particular the essay "On the Doctrine of Immediate Perception" and certain key texts from the period 1868–9—advocate an inferentialist approach clearly associated with representationism. However, (...) although Peirce continues to deny the cognitive import of first impressions throughout his philosophical career, the new view of perception that emerges in the early 1900s indicates a significant move in the direction of a presentationist point of view, a development partly corresponding to changes in his theory of categories. The strongest evidence for this reading is found in Peirce's contention that the percept is not a sign. The discussion concludes with considerations of possible objections and alternatives to the proposed interpretation in addition to some reflections on the consequences and relevance of Peirce's turn toward presentationism. (shrink)

Science has become a central political concern with massive increases in public investment, but resources are embedded in a complex web of expectations that vary between countries and regions. This book outlines an insightful understanding of science policy as both concerning the governance of science itself through priority-setting, funding, organization and articulation with polity, society and economy, and its extra-organizational connections in terms of higher education, innovation and national policy concerns. The New Global Politics of Science examines how science and (...) innovation have become truly global, and the consequences of this for scientists, policymakers and citizens. This book provides an overview of how research policies have evolved in different countries and contexts. It also examines how science research has been aligned with nation-building and state-formation, enmeshed in meta-governance, and how this relates to economic growth. Analysing how knowledge policies have been forged in their specific historical and geographical settings, this book will be an invaluable tool for scholars and policymakers in the fields of science, innovation and public policy. (shrink)

The Commens Papers (http://www.commens.org/papers) publishes preprints, reports, and communications that deal with the philosophy, scientific contributions, and life of C. S. Peirce. The Commens Papers are primarily meant for scholarly products that lack other means of publication, but which the author wishes to bring to the attention of the research community. The papers must meet editorial approval, but they are not fully peer reviewed. -/- The Commens Papers accepts a broad variety of intellectual products in various formats, including: Conference papers, (...) Manuscripts made available for comments and criticism before submission for peer review, Reports of original research, such as archival research, Catalogues or other systematic summaries of (parts of) Peirce’s writings, Reports from scientific meetings Lectures, as text, video, or audio, Posters presented at academic conferences . (shrink)

In this article it is suggested that the discourse entailing the realization of a dystopia of totalitarian surveillance, far from being a grounded fact, on the contrary, works as a screen sheltering us from the fact that we are reaching a point where we are nothing more than depersonalized, emptied forms of interest neither to corporations nor to each other; instead, we are moving towards the liquification of subjectivity as such. When our user data is “taken hostage” we are emptied (...) of personal features, submitted to a process of dissolution rather than prying surveillance. It is tempting to suggest that the various repetitions of the Orwellian theme is a basic fantasy protecting us from the ever increasing gaps in the global virtual order; working to cover up the real of digital capitalism following a desperate logic by which only nightmares suffice. What if the furthering of the digital paradigm, with its potential to add yet another layer of virtuality to experience leads, not to an increase of (Orwellian) control, but on the contrary overturns the house of cards of (symbolic) reality, exposing the core of the illusions of the self and the subject? (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is often associated with a certain political mode of relating to another, where a person is a locus of enforceable demands. I claim that Rousseau also articulated an affective mode of relating to another, where a person is seen as the locus of a kind of value that cannot be demanded. These are not isolated sides of a distinction, for the political mode constitutes a solution to certain problems that the affective mode encounters in common social circumstances, allowing (...) us to see how these modes might be distinct while the political nevertheless shapes the affective. I contrast this approach with that of some contemporary Kantian writers on affective phenomena who, for reasons rooted in Kant’s moral philosophy, have modeled affective ways of relating to others on duty. I claim that Rousseau’s writing provides us with a way of capturing the correct insight of these accounts—that some of our emotional responses to others are ways of appreciating their personhood—while avoiding the characteristic implausibilities of their close association between the affective and the political. (shrink)