This is the first collection of all of the major philosophical works of Cadwallader Colden, one of the most accomplished intellectual and political figures in the American colonies before the Revolution. As Lieutenant Governor of New York he was intimately involved in the tumultuous political life of the times, and he represented the colonial government to the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. His History of the Five Indian Nations was the first English history of the Iroquois and (...) a popular book both in the colonies and in Europe. A prolific letter writer, Colden corresponded with many of the major intellectuals of his day, including Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson. He also wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including philosophy, history, the natural sciences, and mathematics. Although several of Colden's works have been available in anthologies, until now there has never been a collection of all of his philosophical writings. This anthology includes The Principles of Action in Matter, the Introduction to Phylosophy, the Introduction to The History of the Five Indian Nations, and the complete correspondence with Samuel Johnson on the subject of materialism and idealism. Also included is the first publication of Principles of Morality, written in 1745, but never published till now. For students of American philosophy, as well as those interested in the intellectual history of the colonial period, this is an essential work. (shrink)

There are two central distinctions upon which the present argument is predicated. First is the distinction between two correlative aspects of what is involved in a value-judgment or in an “experiencing” of value: actualized-value and value-ideal. This we find to be a distinction without which all attempt at clear talk about “value” is so hopelessly ambiguous as to be unintelligible. Second is the distinction between property-platonism and platonism-proper. After these two sets of distinctions have been explicated, our thesis will be (...) pursued: Moore is not a value-platonist-proper at all, because his famous “non-natural” property, goodness, is not a value-ideal. Moore is merely a value-property-platonist. (shrink)

This brings us not only to the conclusion of my list of eight features proposed as being common to all or most value experience, but also to a reminder of its purpose. First, I hope that, in the spirit of Husserl's dictum, “to the things themselves,” this proposal will initiate a discussion of a “basic research” type of question, namely: What are the main features of value experience? Second, I hope that the fruits of such a discussion might eventually contribute (...) to the working out of a metatheory for value inquiry: a theory about criteria of adequacy for any general theory of value.In a paper of this scope it is obvious that one cannot even begin to discuss all the points and subpoints made in the manner in which they deserve. Much less can one defend all, or even any, of its claims with the kind of logical rigor and linguistic fastidiousness which have come to be the norm in most Anglo-American philosophy today. As a counterbalance to a tendency in some professional circles to making adherence to this norm the end of, rather than merely a means for, philosophic understanding, I have offered this paper after the spirit of Socrates and Plato, who certainly appreciated appropriate logical rigor and linguistic tidiness. Philosophy was nevertheless always for them first and foremost a mutual adventure of exploration into value through significant dialogue. Thus, rather than submitting one more piece of logic or language to the microscope, it has been my purpose to go exploring this time with a telescope. I cordially invite other seekers to join me and to challenge my findings. (shrink)

Judith Butler's (2006) account of vulnerability, resonant with other accounts offered by feminist theorists of embodiment (such as Margrit Shildrick [2000] and Rosalyn Diprose [2002]), underscores a "conception of the human . . . in which we are, from the start, given over to the other, one in which we are, from the start, even prior to individuation itself and, by virtue of bodily requirements, given over to some set of primary others" (31). She is concerned with how this state (...) of being—"not only constituted by our relations but also dispossessed by them as well" (24)—becomes recognized, or not, in the political production and recognition of vulnerability, and the suffering that occurs in the violent .. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Eighteenth‐Century Beginnings: Cadwallader Colden and Benjamin Franklin Transcendentalism: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lydia Maria Child The Rise of Pragmatism: Peirce, James, and Dewey Interaction in Practice: Jane Addams and W. E. B. Du Bois The Challenge of Logical Positivism: Quine and Contemporary Voices.

A Return to Moral and Religious Philosophy in Early America concentrates especially on three philosophical positions that dominated early American philosophy, Puritanism and Idealism, the Enlightenment or Age of Realism, and Transcendentalism. This book focuses primarily but not exclusively on the best representatives of each. Jonathan Edwards was the most brilliant and philosophically minded of early Puritan thinkers; his thinking was colored by metaphysical idealism. Thomas Jefferson gave us the best of the Age of Reason, but other Enlightenment thinker like (...) Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, and Tom Pain are considered where relevant. Ralph Waldo Emerson is presented as the best of that romantic individualism known as Transcendentalism. Briefer references are made to other early American thinkers like Samuel Johnson, John Witherspoon, Cadwallader Colden, John Adams, James Madison, Henry David Thorough, and Theodore Parker. Considerable quoted material, especially from the central figures, is included. A moral and religious interpretative framework for binding all of this together into a coherent story is provided. (shrink)

This paper provides suggestions for educators who have a desire to learn about, or are already committed to, challenging ableism and disablism. As philosophy teachers, we have the opportunity to facilitate student reflection regarding disability, which puts students in a position to make decisions about whether to retain their habitual ways of comporting themselves toward disabled people or to begin the process of forming new perceptual practices. I contend that existential phenomenology, as formulated by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Linda Martín Alcoff, (...) provides insights regarding the habitual formation of perceptual practices that are useful for thinking about ways that perception may be informed by ableism and disablism. Jessica Cadwallader demonstrates how their insights can be usefully applied to thinking about perceptions of disability. Through analysis of past encounters with people with disabilities, Cadwallader suggests that students change their habitual ways of responding to people with disabilities. While such reflections may be valuable for making habitual perceptual practices explicit, I would suggest that this is only a condition for the possibility of changing ablist perceptual practices rather than the change itself. Students are likely to enter the classroom lacking the insight that they are even engaging in perceptual practices informed by cultural narratives rather than simply perceiving people with impairments as they are. I argue that an approach to teaching on disability that thematizes perceptual practices regarding disability, and takes experiences of disabled people into account, would be more effective than the one Cadwallader describes. Understanding the ways that people with disabilities experience being constructed as a problem through ableist perceptual practices could help students recognize their own potential to impact others in positive and negative ways. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce was acknowledged by William James as the founder of pragmatism; however, while James’ appreciation for psychology is well taken into account in his philosophy, the role that psychological inquiry played in Peirce’s thought remains largely unexplored. Few excellent studies indicate Peirce as the first American experimental psychologist (Cadwallader 1974, 1975; Fisch 1986) and as the first to perform a truly modern experiment in psycho-physics (Hacking 1988). Nonetheless, Peirce’s commitment to psycho-physics fails to be fully integrated with (...) the broader project of his philosophy. This integration is crucial to gain a better understanding of the complexity of Peirce’s system of thought and of his position in the psychologistic-antipsychologistic divide. On the logical side, making Peirce’s position on psychology explicit leads to investigating his material logic; on the psychological side, Peirce’s scientific approach to psychology has its theoretical foundation in Kant and further marks the distinction between Peirce’s pragmatism and James’. (shrink)

This volume contains all of the presidential addresses given before the American Society for Value Inquiry since its first meeting in 1970. Contributions are by Richard Brandt*, Virgil Aldrich*, John W. Davis*, the late Robert S. Hartman*, James B. Wilbur*, the late William H. Werkmeister, Robert E. Carter, the late William T. Blackstone, Gene James, Eva Hauel Cadwallader, Richard T. Hull, Norman Bowie*, Stephen White*, Burton Leiser+, Abraham Edel, Sidney Axinn, Robert Ginsberg, Patricia Werhane, Lisa M. Newton, Thomas Magnell, (...) Sander Lee, John M. Abbarno, Ruth Miller Lucier, and Tom Regan*. Autobiographical sketches* by all of the living contributors and one recently deceased, biographical statements of the remainder, together with photographic portraits of all the contributors*, make this volume a unique record of value inquiry during the past quarter century. __. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.1 (2006) 102-117 [Access article in PDF] Gossip and Literary Narrative Blakey Vermeule Northwestern University Since its murky origins in Grub Street, a specter has haunted the novel—the specter of gossip. In its higher-minded mood, literary narratives have been very snobbish about gossip and the snobbishness is unfair. Even the most casual reader of social fiction will recognize that gossiping is what characters do most passionately. (...) However, they can neither admit nor be aware of it. Only minor or morally compromised characters are allowed to indulge in its pleasures. Matronly middle-aged women, chatty maids, little girls, and effeminate fops are the ones who gossip; their more reflective counterparts—the men and women designated as heroes and heroines—only briefly tolerate such idle chatter. Gossip is derided, decried, condemned, and maligned. It is womanish, low, slavish, servantish, silly, pert, loose, wanton, jiggetty, mean. It is the "tittle-tattle of Highbury" in Austen's Emma, an activity for the old maid Miss Bates and her even older, blind, and senile mother. In Middlemarch, although the world is "apparently a huge whispering-gallery," the greatest gossip of all is Mrs. Cadwallader, a matron with a mind like "phosphorous, biting at everything" (Spacks, p. 194). In Richardson's Clarissa, Lovelace—a man not known for his indifference to social information—airily dismisses gossip as "the female go-round." (In novels, the male equivalents of the "female go-round" tend to be such despised modes of exchange as business letters, gambling, chess, and games of chance.) Gossip has always been a part of charivari with the power to turn the world upside down. It also has the power to destroy lives (Les Liasons Dangereuses) and to derail love (when it becomes the "prejudice" of Pride and Prejudice). If it ever innocent, it is only because it is meaningless.Gossip is all of these things even—especially—when it powers the [End Page 102] whole narrative. This paradox is evident almost anywhere we choose to look. Social novelists view the stuff of direct, unmediated social information as so intense that it requires special handling—even disavowal. I will briefly survey examples from French, English, and Russian fiction. The first is a lurid and overheated speech by Henri de Marsay, the peculiar hero of Balzac's short novel, The Girl with the Golden Eyes (1815). De Marsay is a dissipated aristocrat in love with a mysterious young girl who, he finds out much later, is the sexual slave of de Marsay's long-lost sister. But first, after a night of passion that "had begun with a slow trickle of pleasures and ended in overflowing torrents," de Marsay realizes, when his lover accidentally lets slip the name of his rival, that the person he is competing with is female. The next day he becomes consumed with a bitter plan to kill his faithless lover. He reflects to his friend Paul "Upon my honor, man is a clown dancing on the edge of a cliff. We're told about the immorality of Les Liaisons dangereuses, and some book with the name of a chambermaid. But there is one ghastly, dirty, dreadful, corrupting book that is always open and never closed, the great book of the world—not to mention another book, a thousand times more dangerous, that consists of everything passed on by word of mouth between men or women behind their fans at the ball."1 Even though de Marsay is a corrupt aristocrat, his sentiments are little different from those the narrator expresses in the book's opening chapter, a panoptic survey of Parisian life as a glorious mosaic of infection, rot, and moral disease.In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff's new tenant Lockwood breaks his self-imposed exile from social life by pressing the housekeeper Nellie Dean to do what housekeepers do best and launch into an aggrieved saga about her master's family. He wants her to serve up the gossip hot. "I ate..., hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation, or lull me to sleep... (shrink)

Surgeons have often been portrayed in literature on one of two extremes: the cold, distant scientist or the benign, caring humanist. Two characters in American literature who illustrate those extremes, both surgeons in the military, are Herman Melville's Cadwallader Cuticle and Richard Hooker's Hawkeye Pierce. Cuticle is interested only in the science of his craft, while Pierce maintains the compassion so central to the art of healing, even in the midst of war.

Searchlight on Values is a profound work on a profound subject. As William H. Werkmeister writes in his introduction, “Dr. Cadwallader has given us a sensitive, well balanced, and evaluative account of Nicolai Hartmann’s Value Platonism” ; “Her book, therefore, serves well not only as a judicious evaluation of Hartmann’s Ethics but also as a critical introduction to his value theory as a whole. Seen in this perspective Dr. Cadwallader’s book is a significant contribution to value theoretical discussions (...) in general”. (shrink)

Searchlight on Values is a profound work on a profound subject. As William H. Werkmeister writes in his introduction, “Dr. Cadwallader has given us a sensitive, well balanced, and evaluative account of Nicolai Hartmann’s Value Platonism” ; “Her book, therefore, serves well not only as a judicious evaluation of Hartmann’s Ethics but also as a critical introduction to his value theory as a whole. Seen in this perspective Dr. Cadwallader’s book is a significant contribution to value theoretical discussions (...) in general”. (shrink)

Although Nicolai Hartmann's Ethics is one of the most important works on ethics in this century, it is still little known in the English-speaking world, and most probably suffers from the same negligence on the European continent. Eva Cadwallader's book, I hope, will succeed in generating some interest in Hartmann's Ethics. Her book is a very competent exposition of Hartmann's Platonistic theory of values. It is also a critical study. She takes great pains to bring out the exact points (...) of some of Hartmann's highly subtle theses, assesses some of his arguments in order to bring out their strengths and weaknesses, and compares Hartmann's Platonism to other contemporary Platonistic theories, especially G. E. Moore's. On the whole she succeeds, in my view, in making a variety of value Platonism a credible philosophical thesis. Nicolai Hartmann's Platonism--in value theory as much as in his general ontology--is a most unusual combination of seemingly incompatible theses. Cadwallader distinguishes between various theses defended by value Platonists, and shows perspicuously which of them Hartmann accepts and which of them he rejects. A particularly interesting aspect of Hartmann's theory is his combination of Platonism with an open-ended pluralism of values, an axiological fallibilism, a sort of axiological relativism and a rejection of the view that moral issues can always be "objectively" resolved. In fact, although as a Platonist Hartmann maintains that values have an objective Ansichsein, he also insists that there are "objective" conflicts among values--which provides him with one ground for rejecting the resolutionism thesis. Generally, Platonism is combined with a cognitivist theory of values. Here again Hartmann's position is unconventional. He shares with Max Scheler the view that values are "apprehended" in appropriate emotional experiences, and he also argues for the objectivity of values in a Kantian sort of transcendental manner. Cadwallader discusses these aspects of Hartmann's theory in great detail and with competence. In his Introduction to the book, Werkmeister points out Hartmann's differing attitudes towards ethical and aesthetic values.--J. N. Mohanty, Temple University. (shrink)