C. Mureseanu presents in an essayistic approach the history of tolerance as a concept. Its very domain may be described as regarding the relations among human beings. The concept has been dealt with different approaches as the philosophical, moral and political one. The article focuses especially on the religious tolerance, and also on the opposition of the pair of terms: tolerance vs. intolerance.

The authors present a case study involving truth telling responsibilities in the setting of nonepileptic seizures. Specifically, over the course of several suspected nonepileptic seizures, a patient’s seizures stopped after he received a saline flush meant to precede the administration of anti-seizure medication. The patient and his surrogate believed he had received the medication each time, and the team wondered whether they should disclose the truth. Some worried that disclosure would reinforce the suspected psychogenic behavior, exacerbating the patient’s condition. In (...) this way, the case study presents a twist on the traditional truth telling archetype. While most truth telling cases center on navigating cultural differences or worries about emotional harm, this case presented concerns about medical harm in the form of exacerbating the patient’s condition. The authors describe the complex patient-family-team dynamic that preceded this ethical dilemma, describe the case, analyze the ethical issue, and describe the outcome. (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotional import of literary devices deployed in fiction. Reflecting on the often-favored approach in the analytic tradition that locates fictional characters, events, and narratives as sources of readers’ emotions, I attempt to broaden the scope of analysis by accounting for how literary devices trigger non-cognitive emotions. I argue that giving more expansive consideration to literary devices by which authors present content facilitates a better understanding of how fiction engages emotion. In doing so, I also explore the (...) somatic dimension of reading fiction. (shrink)

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a robust (...) argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

In ancient China, a revered Taoist sage named Zhuangzi told many parables. In Existential Psychology and the Way of the Tao, a selection of these parables will be featured. Following each parable, an eminent existential psychologist will share a personal and scholarly reflection on the meaning and relevance of the parable for psychotherapy and contemporary life. The major tenets of Zhuangzi's philosophy are featured. Taoist concepts of emptiness, stillness, Wu Wei (i.e. intentional non-intentionality), epistemology, dreams and the nature of reality, (...) character building in the midst of pain, meaning and the centrality of relationships, authenticity, self-care, the freedom that can come from one's willingness to confront death, spiritual freedom, and gradations of therapeutic care are topics highlighted in this book. (shrink)

This reconsideration of Hume’s classic essay “Of Miracles” via the lens of American pragmatist ways of thinking about history and power shifts our attention from Hume’s epistemic concerns about the legitimacy of witnesses and testimony to his distaste for sacred history, his critical stance regarding the social force of revelation, and his disdain for religious authority. To view Hume’s essay both as an articulation of a critical philosophy of history and as an exercise in moral dynamism (social power or, authority, (...) is a result of epistemic transactions), is to intervene in both Hume studies and Contemporary Pragmatism. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

What is post-truth? -- Science denial as a road map for understanding post-truth -- The roots of cognitive bias -- The decline of traditional media -- The rise of social media and the problem of fake news -- Did post-modernism lead to post-truth? -- Fighting post-truth.

Locke’s endorsement of prerogative, the power of the executive to exceed positive laws in emergencies, seems to contradict his political and theoretical aims in writing the Two Treatises of Government, particularly his vindication of the rule of law in a constitutional government. However, this article argues that prerogative and the rule of law are consistent in the ultimate ends that they serve, in spite of their significant differences as means. Prerogative is essential to the realization of the most fundamental duties (...) of government, including the preservation of society, because unforeseeable contingencies make it difficult and even counter-productive to rely exclusively on juridical means of fulfilling these duties. Prerogative compensates for the shortcomings of the law without abandoning the principles of legality altogether by allowing the executive to exercise extra-ordinary powers in accordance with the highest law of all: the good of the people as defined by the laws of nature. (shrink)

When read as Marsiglio asks us to read it, the Defensor minor looks a great deal less like a change of heart on its author's part than an extension and application of the principles that he had formulated fifteen years earlier in the Defensor pacis. The inconsistency some scholars have detected turns out to be based on a sort of false expectation about Marsiglio's political theory, namely, that it must ultimately advocate a single system of government or form of rule (...) in preference to others. For most other political theorists of the Latin Middle Ages this expectation would be warranted. But just as in so many other instances, Marsiglio frustrates our expectations: his approach is distinctive among his contemporaries for exactly the �generic� quality of its argument. This �generic� feature of his thought did not change with time. The Defensor minor illustrates how the �generic� framework can be applied as required in order to lend polemical support to a given temporal ruler. This means, quite simply, that the Defensor minor does not reflect any great change of heart about or pragmatic renunciation of Marsiglio's �true� republican principles. Certainly, Marsiglio's generic account of politics could be adapted in support of a republican regime, such as existed in many of the medieval Italian cities. (shrink)

The widespread use of stimulants among healthy individuals to improve cognition has received growing attention; however, public attitudes toward this practice are not well understood. We determined the effect of framing metaphors and context of use on public opinion toward cognitive enhancement. We recruited 3,727 participants from the United States to complete three surveys using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk between April and July 2017. Participants read vignettes describing an individual using cognitive enhancement, varying framing metaphors (fuel versus steroid), and context of (...) use (athletes versus students versus employees). The main outcome measure was the difference in respondent-assigned level of acceptability of the use of cognitive enhancement by others and by themselves between the contrasting vignettes. Participants were more likely to support the use of cognitive enhancement by others than by themselves and more when the use of enhancement by others was framed with a fuel metaphor than with a steroid metaphor. Metaphoric framing did not affect participants’ attitudes toward their own use. Participants supported the use of enhancement by employees more than by students or athletes. These results are discussed in relation to existing ethical and policy literature. (shrink)

A critical survey of the main philosophical theories about events and event talk, organized in three main sections: (i) Events and Other Categories (Events vs. Objects; Events vs. Facts; Events vs. Properties; Events vs. Times); (ii) Types of Events (Activities, Accomplishments, Achievements, and States; Static and Dynamic Events; Actions and Bodily Movements; Mental and Physical Events; Negative Events); (iii) Existence, Identity, and Indeterminacy.

At least from Bentham's time, the dominant interpretive approaches to Hobbes's Leviathan have tended to soften and blur the despotic message of that book. Writers of otherwise very different persuasions and pursuing very different intellectual agendas have sought to soften the way Hobbes's political theory has been understood. In the effort to insulate and preserve obviously valuable aspects of that theory, the elements of tyranny so significant to the text of Leviathan have been ignored, distorted, obscured and denied. The upshot (...) has been to portray Hobbes as no more than a harmless proto-liberal. (shrink)

In our papers on the rationality of magic, we distinghuished, for purposes of analysis, three levels of rationality. First and lowest (rationalitYl) the goal directed action of an agent with given aims and circumstances, where among his circumstances we included his knowledge and opinions. On this level the magician's treatment of illness by incantation is as rational as any traditional doctor's blood-letting or any modern one's use of anti-biotics. At the second level (rationalitY2) we add the element of rational thinking (...) or thinking which obeys some set of explicit rules, a level which is not found in magic in general, though it is sometimes given to specific details of magical thinking within the magical thought-system. It was the late Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard who observed that when considering magic in detail the magician may be as consistent or critical as anyone else; but when considering magic in general, or any system of thought in general, the magician could not be critical or even comprehend the criticism. Evans-Pritchard went even further: he was sceptical as to whether it could be done in a truly consistent manner: one cannot be critical of one's own system, he thought. On this level (rationalitY2) of discussion we have explained (earlier) why we prefer to wed Evans Pritchard's view of the magician's capacity for piece-meal rationality to Sir James Frazer's view that magic in general is pseudo-rational because it lacks standards of rational thinking. (shrink)

The eight essays and three responses collected in Rethinking Borders were commissioned from an exciting range of leading younger writers, artists and intellectuals whose work has raised significant questions about the border cultures in ...

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)

According to Hume, humans, unlike other group-living animals, cannot accommodate their natural sexual appetite naturally; this is a Rawlsian 'circumstance of justice'. Humans have to formulate conventions or artifices to govern their reproductive relations in order to maintain their group or social life. Hume implicitly addresses this issue in his discussion of chastity. The paper explicates his argument. This argument, and its underlying philosophical anthropology, is seen to embody a distinctive approach to a striking feature of the human condition -- (...) sexual relations are universal but not uniform. (shrink)

To preach the LORD'S word is to administer God's relief for this world's cardiac sclerosis with the shock of healing grace.

Preaching from the Revised Common Lectionary has its hazards. Living with the lectionary may nevertheless cultivate within us “a taste for holy conversation”: a deeper affinity for the God whom Christians prayerfully adore as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The article analyses different forms of the theoretical paradigm of German Begriffsgeschichte. It focuses on the coherently formalized proposal made by Reinhard Koselleck, showing its relevance for the main Italian schools of interpretation. Koselleck is able to move beyond the historicist framework of Begriffsgeschichte on the basis of a theory of the Sattelzeit or Schwellenzeit--located between the eve of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century--capable of orienting the reconstruction of the history of political concepts. This presupposition, which (...) refers to a theory of the 'Vorgriff' or historical conceptual reconstructions, draws upon and elaborates a key theme of the logic of the social sciences that was put forth by Max Weber. The possibility to adhere or not to this residual Weberian moment explains the two different modalities in which conceptual history has been interpreted in Italy: one pointing at the reconstruction of the conceptual framework of the nineteenth century, the other aiming at the philosophical-political reconstruction of the genesis, the historic limits and the crisis of the political concepts of Western modernity. (shrink)

This article focuses on one dimension of the interplay of national decline and urban corruption in Rousseau's thought -- what I call Rousseau's analysis of the moral economy of the modern city. It is perhaps fitting that E.P.Thompson has used the concept of 'moral economy' to describe a popular consensus embedded in patterns of deeply rooted assumptions, belief and conduct among the urban poor in eighteenth-century England. Food riots, rooted in a belief in the customary practice of sale of food (...) at fair prices even when production was low, were a response to prices designed to achieve the greatest profit the market allowed. (shrink)

Summary This article discusses and evaluates the historiographical work of a leading Oxford convert and Ultramontane, Thomas Allies (1813?1903). An evaluation of Allies by the criteria of the Ultramontane scholarship he endeavoured to practise allows the article to offer an illustration of the difficulty in establishing and maintaining an autonomous Catholic scholarship during the nineteenth century's secularising development of academic activity. It also allows substantial description of the patterns of nineteenth-century Catholic historical thought, noting the strength of its commitment to (...) providentialism and, in particular, its apocalyptic character. An examination of the influences brought to bear on the subject's thought during the formative period of his development as an historian, through his own study and his close friendship with John Henry Newman, indicates the reasons for Allies's ultimate failure either to create a clear and stimulating product of the Ultramontane historical vision or to achieve an academic or popular reputation as an historian. The article argues that an unresolved conflict, between Allies's inclination towards a providentialist historiography consistent with his commitment to a Catholic counter-culture and his willingness to accept, under Newman's guidance, contemporary secular historiographical norms, offers substantial explanation of this failure. (shrink)

The article considers the fundamental motivations and associated theological thought of those involved in the Non-Juring schism in the Church of England in the period after the Revolution of 1688. It indicates and exemplifies how that thought is to be related to wider intellectual conflicts of the period, considered as constituting an early phase of Enlightenment/Counter-Enlightenment debate. The works of the leading Non-Juror theologian, Henry Dodwell, and in particular his writings on the destiny of the soul, serve as an area (...) of focus. Extensive reference is also made to the equally prominent Non-Juror, Charles Leslie. (shrink)

Although it has become commonplace to regard Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis (completed in 1324) as a quintessential work of medieval Aristotelian political theory, this view has been challenged for various reasons in recent years. Some scholarship has pointed to the superficial quality of Marsiglio's appeal to Aristotle's �authority�. Others have emphasized Marsiglio's decisive reliance on sources and doctrines which were quite at odds with his overtly Aristotelian commitments. A revealing measure of the depth of his Aristotelianism is perhaps his (...) failure to cite Aristotle's authority at all in the Defensor Minor, an abbreviated version of the Defensor Pacis composed about 1340.4 At minimum, it seems necessary to reconsider the claim (pioneered already by Albertus Pighius in the sixteenth century) that Marsiglio was �homo magis aristotelicus quam christianus�.5 Indeed, it may be true to say that the assumption of Marsiglio's fidelity to Aristotle has acted as a filter, screening out interesting or original features of his thought because they are cloaked in outwardly Aristotelian language. In this paper, I would like to test this hypothesis with reference to Marsiglio's alleged application of the basic principles of Aristotelian moral psychology (in particular, Aristotle's doctrine of hexis) within the Defensor's account of the constituent parts of the political community. In both his Ethics and his Politics, Aristotle had employed the idea of hexis (often translated as �habit�, but more properly denoting �state� or �firm disposition�) to explain the way in which moral and civil virtues come to be instilled in persons. Thus, hexis served as the foundation for his conception of ethical and political education. Marsiglio seems to use the Latin rendering of hexis, habitus, in a very similar manner. He argues that the different parts of the community, ranging from the rulers and priests to the warriors and farmers, each have a set of characteristics unique to their function. These functional properties are, he says, a result of the differing kinds of habitus which typify each part of the community. (shrink)

Nicholas Oresme's mid-fourteenth-century treatise De moneta falls outside the conventional genres of late medieval scholastic writing: it is neither a commentary, a summa, nor a publicistic tract. Historians of political thought have largely shunned the work. Instead, De moneta has primarily been the object of attention among historians of economic thought. Despite the fact that De moneta certainly contains technical economic analysis of the nature of money in an Aristotelian mode, both the circumstances of its composition and the main lines (...) of its argument suggest that it deserves treatment as a profoundly political work. Oresme's intention is clearly to advise his countrymen in a pragmatic fashion about a matter of public policy. His specialized economic analysis is merely a propedeutic to his main point. In this sense, the political theory contained in De moneta merits serious attention as an attempt to bring economic concerns to bear on the duties of rulers and the needs of their subjects. (shrink)

My aim is not to diminish the importance of conciliarism as a contribution to Western political thought so much as to place it within its own appropriate context. I do not deny that conciliar theory played an important role in the history of �constitutionalism�, but I insist that conciliarism was a form of constitutional thought and practice deeply rooted in the mental world of the Latin Middle Ages and not directly germane to our own modern political framework and dilemmas. This (...) caveat ultimately separates Figgis and his recent advocates most deeply from my own viewpoint. (shrink)

Little attempt has been made to explore Machiavelli's attitude towards the psychological dimension of virtue. Yet such an exploration bears surprising fruit. Machiavelli proves to rely very heavily upon the psychological premises of his predecessors. In particular, he upholds the view that human action arises out of a set of personal characteristics which are firmly rooted and relatively insusceptible to variation or erasure. Thus, Machiavelli believes that how one behaves reflects the sort of psychological attributes with which one is endowed. (...) This position echoes the view maintained by the classical and Christian moralists of whom he is regarded as an implacable foe. To the extent that Machiavelli steps away from previous psychological teachings, he does so only in the political implications which he draws from the psychology of moral character. He concludes that psychology tends to favour republics over principalities: a republican regime is better prepared than a monarchy to cope with the limitations imposed by the fixed character traits of human beings. (shrink)

The New Testament relates the expectation of Jesus9 return to the Christian moral life. Attempts to predict the End are pointless, and Christians are summoned to patient confidence in a sovereign God and to perseverance in the face of evil.

Part I having argued that the history of the modern reception of Hobbes's Leviathan shows a pattern of distortion in the reading of its despotical character, Part II tries to reveal more clearly the ways in which Hobbes's political theory was a doctrine of tyranny. To this end, the essay uses Lockean political liberty as a negative heuristic to help reveal the oppressive principles in Leviathan, explores the conception of ‘arbitration’ in Hobbes to see how the utter surrender of liberty (...) and judgment lies at the root of his political theory, and speculates on the dreadful implications of the idea of absolute power in the hands of Hobbesian man. (shrink)

Just as humans can draw conclusions responsibly or irresponsibly, so too can computers. Machine learning systems that have been trained on data sets that include irresponsible judgments are likely to yield irresponsible predictions as outputs. In this paper I focus on a particular kind of inference a computer system might make: identification of the intentions with which a person acted on the basis of photographic evidence. Such inferences are liable to be morally objectionable, because of a way in which they (...) are presumptuous. After elaborating this moral concern, I explore the possibility that carefully procuring the training data for image recognition systems could ensure that the systems avoid the problem. The lesson of this paper extends beyond just the particular case of image recognition systems and the challenge of responsibly identifying a person’s intentions. Reflection on this particular case demonstrates the importance (as well as the difficulty) of evaluating machine learning systems and their training data from the standpoint of moral considerations that are not encompassed by ordinary assessments of predictive accuracy. (shrink)

What proper role should considerations of risk, particularly to research subjects, play when it comes to conducting research on human enhancement in the military context? We introduce the currently visible military enhancement techniques (1) and the standard discussion of risk for these (2), in particular what we refer to as the ‘Assumption’, which states that the demands for risk-avoidance are higher for enhancement than for therapy. We challenge the Assumption through the introduction of three categories of enhancements (3): therapeutic, preventive, (...) and pure enhancements. This demands a revision of the Assumption (4), alongside which we propose some further general principles bearing on how to balance risks and benefits in the context of military enhancement research. We identify a particular type of therapeutic enhancements as providing a more responsible path to human trials of the relevant interventions than pure enhancement applications. Finally, we discuss some possible objections to our line of thought (5). While acknowledging their potential insights, we ultimately find them to be unpersuasive, at least provided that our proposal is understood as fully non-coercive towards the candidates for such therapeutic enhancement trials. (shrink)

The flowering of creative and speculative philosophy that emerged in modern Europe--particularly in Germany--is a thrilling adventure story as well as an essential chapter in the history of philosophy. In this integrative narrative, Solomon provides an accessible introduction to the major authors and movements of modern European philosophy, including the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Rousseau, German Idealism, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and the Romantics, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Max Brentano, Meinong, Frege, Dilthey, Bergson, Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, hermeneutics, Sartre, Postmodernism, Structuralism, (...) Foucault, and Derrida. (shrink)