Introduction:Can nature be controlled?. Autonomous nature -- Greco-Roman concepts of nature -- Christianity and nature -- Nature personified : Renaissance ideas of nature -- Controlling nature. Vexing nature : Francis Bacon and the origins of experimentation -- Natural law : Spinoza on natura naturans and natura naturata -- Laws of nature :Lleibniz and Newton -- Epilogue : rambunctious nature in the twenty-first century.

In this paper I will present a puzzle about epistemic akrasia, and I will use that puzzle to motivate accepting some non-standard views about the nature of epistemological judgment. The puzzle is that while it seems obvious that epistemic akrasia must be irrational, the claim that epistemic akrasia is always irrational amounts to the claim that a certain sort of justified false belief—a justified false belief about what one ought to believe—is impossible. But justified false beliefs seem to be possible (...) in any domain, and it’s hard to see why beliefs about what one ought to believe should be an exception. I will argue that when we get clearer about what sort of psychological state epistemic akrasia is, we can resolve the puzzle in favor of the intuitive view that epistemic akrasia is always irrational. (shrink)

How do we transmit or distribute knowledge, as distinct from generating or producing it? In this book John Greco examines the interpersonal relations and social structures which enable and inhibit the sharing of knowledge within and across epistemic communities. Drawing on resources from moral theory, the philosophy of language, action theory and the cognitive sciences, he considers the role of interpersonal trust in transmitting knowledge, and argues that sharing knowledge involves a kind of shared agency similar to giving a (...) gift or passing a ball. He also explains why transmitting knowledge is easy in some social contexts, such as those involving friendship or caregiving, but impossible in contexts characterized by suspicion and competition rather than by trust and cooperation. His book explores phenomena that have been undertheorized by traditional epistemology, and throws new light on existing problems in social epistemology and the epistemology of testimony. (shrink)

Emotion is at the centre of our personal and social lives. To love or to hate, to be frightened or grateful is not just a matter of how we feel on the inside: our emotional responses direct our thoughts and actions, unleash our imaginations, and structure our relationships with others. Yet the role of emotion in human life has long been disputed. Is emotion reason?s friend or its foe? From where do the emotions really arise? Why do we need them (...) at all? In this accessible and carefully argued introduction, Carolyn Price focuses on some central questions about the nature and function of emotion. She explores the ways in which emotion contrasts with belief and considers how our emotional responses relate to our values, our likes and our needs. And she investigates some of the different ways in which emotional responses can be judged as fitting or misplaced, rational or irrational, authentic or inauthentic, sentimental or profound. Throughout, she develops a particular view of emotion as a complex and diverse phenomenon, which reflects both our common evolutionary past and our different cultural and personal histories. Engagingly written with lots of examples to illuminate our understanding, this book provides the ideal introduction to the topic for students and scholars and anyone interested in delving further into the intricate web of human emotion. (shrink)

The first handbook on the topic of religious epistemology introduces and discusses topics fundamental to the epistemology of religious belief.

This chapter reviews a number of related problems in the epistemology of testimony, and suggests some dilemmas for any theory of knowledge that tries to solve them. Here a common theme emerges: It can seem that any theory must make testimonial knowledge either too hard or too easy, and that therefore no adequate account of testimonial knowledge is possible. The chapter then puts forward a proposal for making progress. Specifically, an important function of the concept of knowledge is to govern (...) the acquisition and distribution of quality information within an epistemic community. Testimonial exchanges paradigmatically serve in the distribution role, but sometimes serve in the acquisition role. The resulting position, it is argued, explains why testimonial knowledge is sometimes easy to get, and sometimes much harder. (shrink)

This book investigates the role of inference in argumentation, considering how arguments support standpoints on the basis of different loci. The authors propose and illustrate a model for the analysis of the standpoint-argument connection, called Argumentum Model of Topics. A prominent feature of the AMT is that it distinguishes, within each and every single argumentation, between an inferential-procedural component, on which the reasoning process is based; and a material-contextual component, which anchors the argument in the interlocutors’ cultural and factual common (...) ground. The AMT explains how these components differ and how they are intertwined within each single argument. This model is introduced in Part II of the book, following a careful reconstruction of the enormously rich tradition of studies on inference in argumentation, from the antiquity to contemporary authors, without neglecting medieval and post-medieval contributions. The AMT is a contemporary model grounded in a dialogue with such tradition, whose crucial aspects are illuminated in this book. (shrink)

When we say that someone knows something we are making a value judgment—we are saying that there is something intellectually good or right about the person’s belief, or about the way she believes it, or perhaps about her. We are saying, for example, that her belief is intellectually better than someone else’s mere opinion. Notice that we might make this sort of value judgment even if the two persons agree. Suppose that two people agree that the earth is the third (...) planet from the sun. Nevertheless, we might think that one person knows this while the other person merely believes it. If so, we are making a value judgment—we are saying that there is something intellectually better going on in the case of knowledge. Another way to put the point is to say that knowledge is a normative notion. There is something normatively better about the case of knowledge, as opposed to the case of mere opinion, or even the case of true opinion. Finally, saying that someone knows something is not the only sort of value judgment we can make about her belief. Even if we agree that some belief falls short of knowledge, we might nevertheless judge that it is justified, or rational, or reasonable, or responsible. In each such case, we are saying that there is something normatively better about the case in question, as opposed to the case of mere opinion, or even the case of true opinion. (shrink)

Although we tend to associate social transformation with major events, historical turning points, or revolutionary upheaval, Revolutionary Routines argues that seemingly minor everyday habits are the key to meaningful change. Through its account of influential socio-political processes – such as the resurgence of fascism and white supremacy, the crafting of new technologies of governance, and the operation of digital media and algorithms – this book rethinks not only how change works, but also what counts as change. Drawing examples from the (...) affective politics of Trumpism and Brexit, nudge theory and behaviour change, social media and the international refugee crisis, and the networked activism of Occupy and Black Lives Matter, Carolyn Pedwell argues that minor gestures may be as significant as major happenings, revealing the powerful potential in our ability to remake shared habits and imaginatively reinhabit everyday life. Revolutionary Routines offers a new understanding of the logics of habit and the nature of social change, power, and progressive politics, illustrating diverse forms of consciousness and co-operation through which political solidarities might take shape. (shrink)

Get ready -- Discover -- Be present -- Appreciate -- Get set, go! -- Renew.

Recent interest in the epistemology of testimony can be traced to C. A. J. Coady's Testimony: A Philosophical Study (1992) and then a collection of papers edited by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, Knowing from Words (1994). These two volumes framed several issues in the epistemology of testimony and largely set the agenda for work in that area over the next two decades. -/- One major issue in this literature is whether testimonial knowledge can be "reduced" to some other (...) kind of knowledge: Is testimonial knowledge sui generis, requiring its own distinctive treatment, or is testimonial knowledge merely an instance of, for example, inductive knowledge, requiring no special epistemology over and above that required for inductive knowledge in general? One way that testimonial knowledge might be special is that it involves social elements that make it distinctive. This possibility raises further issues that have been prominent in the literature: In what ways is testimonial knowledge a social phenomenon, and what are the consequences of this for the epistemology of testimony and for epistemology more generally? (shrink)

Philosophical theories about parental licensing tend to pay insufficient attention to forms of discrimination that may be inherent in, or result from, a system of parental licensing. By situating these theories in relation to the status quo on parental licensing, we aim to show how many of them reinforce what philosophers have called “biologism”: the privileging of families formed through biological reproduction over families formed in other ways. Much of our discussion focuses on biologism, although we also touch on other (...) forms of discrimination that parental licensing can cause or exacerbate, such as classism, sexism, homophobia, racism, and ableism. We firmly believe that any adequate proposal in favour of parental licensing must take worries about discrimination seriously. Unfortunately, most philosophical proposals fail to do so. (shrink)

Emerging Adults' Religiousness and Spirituality seeks to understand how the developmental process of meaning-making encompasses American emerging adults' religiousness and spirituality. This volume does not focus on disentangling religion and spirituality conceptually, but rather emphasizes their centrality in the psychology of human development. It highlights the range of experiences and perspectives of emerging adults in the U.S. grounded in social context, social position, and religious or spiritual identification. Chapters are written by an interdisciplinary group of authors and explore topics such (...) as the benefits and detriments of religiousness and spirituality to emerging adults; contexts and socializing agents such as parents and peers, the media, religious communities, and universities; and variations of religiousness and spirituality concerning gender, sexuality, culture, and social position. (shrink)

It's standard in epistemology to approach questions about knowledge and rational belief using idealized, simplified models. But while the practice of constructing idealized models in epistemology is old, metaepistemological reflection on that practice is not. Greco argues that the fact that epistemologists build idealized models isn't merely a metaepistemological observation that can leave first-order epistemological debates untouched. Rather, once we view epistemology through the lens of idealization and model-building, the landscape looks quite different. Constructing idealized models is likely the (...) best epistemologists can do. Once one starts using epistemological categories like belief, knowledge, and confidence, the realm of idealization and model-building is entered. We can object to a model of knowledge by pointing to a better model, but in the absence of a better model, the fact that a framework for epistemologizing theorizing involves simplifications, approximations, and other inaccuracies-the fact of its status as an idealized model-is not in itself objectionable. Once we accept that theorizing in epistemological terms is inescapably idealized, a number of intriguing possibilities open up. Greco defends a package of epistemological views that might otherwise have looked indefensibly dismissive of our cognitive limitations-a package according to which we know a wide variety of facts with certainty, including what our evidence is, what we know and don't know, and what follows from our knowledge. (shrink)

An examination of the Scientific Revolution that shows how the mechanistic world view of modern science has sanctioned the exploitation of nature, unrestrained commercial expansion, and a new socioeconomic order that subordinates women.

There are two attitudes regarding the historical situation of understanding commonly held today. On the one hand, we believe that we only achieve a real, worthwhile understanding of a topic when our thinking manages to break free from the dogmas of the past. We believe that this transcendence of the historical situation of thought is both possible and desirable. We applaud those whose thought appears to us to proceed unhinged by traditional dogmas, whether those dogmas be old habits of scientific (...) thought or traditional ideas about social life. We celebrate as epistemic heroes those who discover their own way of thinking. On the other hand, many are quick to accept as a general rule that one’s understanding is inevitably bound to one’s particular historical and cultural situation. Nobody understands things in a historical vacuum. Accordingly, we believe that there is no transcending the historicity of the understanding and thus no epistemic heroes to applaud. This chapter examines Gadamer's argument in “The Elevation of the Historicity of Understanding" (a central section in "Truth and Method") as a critique of both of these alternatives -- alternatives that can be traced back to the historical epochs of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. I argue that, for Gadamer, both of these historical models of understanding misconstrue the way that understanding is grounded in historical consciousness. (shrink)

Some of the oldest and deepest questions in philosophy fall under the umbrella of consciousness and mind: What is the mind and how is it related to the body? What provides our thoughts with content? How is consciousness related to the natural world? Do we have distinctive causal powers? Analytic philosophers have made significant progress on these and related problems in the last century. Given the high volume of work on such topics, this chapter is necessarily selective. It offers major (...) touchstones but is slanted in favor of work that touches base with the sciences. The chapter starts by describing the progression of thought on the mind-body problem, from dualism and behaviorism to non-reductive materialism. It then describes the problem of intentionality, with a focus on partial solutions from Dretske and Millikan, ending with a brief discussion of 4E theories of mental content. The section on the problem of consciousness starts with the well-known knowledge and modal arguments before describing some attempted initial solutions, such as eliminative materialism and panpsychism. Finally, there is a brief section on agency and free will, which focuses on the link between free will and consciousness. (shrink)

Much recent research has sought to uncover the neural basis of moral judgment. However, it has remained unclear whether "moral judgments" are sufficiently homogenous to be studied scientifically as a unified category. We tested this assumption by using fMRI to examine the neural correlates of moral judgments within three moral areas: (physical) harm, dishonesty, and (sexual) disgust. We found that the judgment ofmoral wrongness was subserved by distinct neural systems for each of the different moral areas and that these differences (...) were much more robust than differences in wrongness judgments within a moral area. Dishonest, disgusting, and harmful moral transgression recruited networks of brain regions associated with mentalizing, affective processing, and action understanding, respectively. Dorsal medial pFC was the only region activated by all scenarios judged to be morally wrong in comparison with neutral scenarios. However, this region was also activated by dishonest and harmful scenarios judged not to be morally wrong, suggestive of a domain-general role that is neither peculiar to nor predictive of moral decisions. These results suggest that moral judgment is not a wholly unified faculty in the human brain, but rather, instantiated in dissociable neural systems that are engaged differentially depending on the type of transgression being judged. (shrink)

A summary of the philosophical literature on trust.

How can head teachers live up to expectations? What makes them fail? What keeps the profession in good standing in the taxpayer's eye, and what undermines it? This book sets out a new vision for school leadership, moving beyond leadership styles and best practice to reflect on the intrinsic motivation in becoming a leader within a school setting, and proposing a way for the profession to develop and maintain ethical standards. Chapters explore the 2017-18 Commission on Ethical Leadership in Schools, (...) considering the core principles and behaviours we should expect from our school leaders, and providing a clear, ethical code for thinking about and reinforcing ethical standards in schools. (shrink)

Fundamental terms in the field of ecology are ambiguous, with multiple meanings associated with them. While this could lead to confusion, discord, or even tests that violate core assumptions of a given theory or model, this ambiguity could also be a feature that allows for new knowledge creation through the interconnected nature of concepts. We approached this debate from a quantitative perspective, and investigated the cost of ambiguity related to definitions of ecological units in ecology related to the general term (...) “community.” We did a meta-analysis of tests associated with two bodies of literature, Hubbell’s unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography and Diamond’s assembly rules, that rely on a specific ecological unit that assumes that species are existing within a local area and that they have overlapping resource needs. We predicted that if ambiguous terminology is widespread, then researchers will have tested them with many different ecological units, that in addition some of these ecological units will violate the core assumptions of the theory, and finally that the overall level of support for a theory will be stronger if appropriate ecological units were used. We found that indeed multiple different ecological units were used in the literature to test both theories, with 65 percent appropriate ecological units for neutral theory tests, and only 6 percent for assembly rule tests. Finally, there was some evidence that the support for a theory depended on whether appropriate ecological units were used for neutral tests, but there was not enough data for the assembly rule tests. These results thus show that ambiguous terminology in ecology is having measurable effects on research and is not of solely philosophical concern. We advocate that authors be explicit in their writing and outline core assumptions of theories, that researchers apply these consistently in their tests, and that readers be attentive to what is written and cognizant of their potential biases. (shrink)

Silvana Greco propone, per la prima volta, un’analisi approfondita della Philosophie sociale, pubblicata a Parigi alla fine del giugno 1793 da Moses Dobruska (1753- 1794), uomo d’affari, letterato e filosofo sociale. Nato in Moravia da una famiglia ebraica, affiliata alla setta ereticale dei sabbatiani, Dobruska si convertì in giovane età al cattolicesimo, compì una notevole ascesa sociale alla corte asburgica di Vienna ed emigrò poi in Francia, per aderire alla Rivoluzione. Durante il soggiorno parigino prese il nome di Junius (...) Frey, fu assai attivo tra le fila dei giacobini ma riuscì a sopravvivere solo di poco alla propria Philosophie. Accusato di cospirare per conto di potenze straniere, fu ghigliottinato il 5 aprile 1794, al culmine del Terrore, nello stesso giorno in cui anche Georges Jacques Danton saliva sulla forca. Quando apparve, la Philosophie sociale suscitò un notevole interesse, tanto da venir apprezzata nientemeno che da Immanuel Kant. Greco mostra come il lavoro di Dobruska abbia avuto anche altri lettori celebri, che per vari motivi omisero di menzionare, tra le loro fonti, un outsider di dubbia reputazione, su cui pesava una condanna tanto ingiusta quanto infamante. Dalla Philosophie sociale derivano alcuni concetti chiave delle discipline sociali, come le conosciamo oggi. Iniziatore entusiasta e sfortunato, talvolta brillante teorico, Moses Dobruska merita un ruolo a sé nella storia del pensiero sociologico. (shrink)

Doctoral graduates in philosophy are an excellent source of information about the discipline: they are at the cutting edge of research trends, have an inside view of researchfocused departments, and their employment prospects provide early insights on the future health of the discipline. We report on the results of a survey sent to recent PhD graduates and current students, as well as data gathering efforts by Academic Placement Data and Analysis that have taken place over the past ten years. In (...) this report we especially focus on demographic representation, program ratings, academic job placement, and non-academic careers. (shrink)

In this adventurous contribution to the project of combining philosophy and biology to understand the mind, Carolyn Price investigates what it means to say that mental states--like thoughts, wishes, and perceptual experiences--are about things in the natural world. Her insight into this deep philosophical problem offers a novel teleological account of intentional content, grounded in and shaped by a carefully constructed theory of functions. Along the way she defends her view from recent objections to teleological theories and indicates how (...) it might be applied to notable problems in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Attention is essential to the life of the mind, a central topic in cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology. Traditional debates in philosophy stand to benefit from greater understanding of the phenomenon, whether on the nature of the self, the foundation of knowledge, the natural basis of consciousness, or the origins of action and responsibility. This book is at the crossroads of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, offering a new theoretical stance on the concept of attention and how it intersects (...) with other functions of the mind, such as perception, consciousness, and action. It presents attention as directed by a subject, essential for perception, but not consciousness or action. By taking seriously the existence of a subject it stands against current trends in philosophy and cognitive science. This book offers an account of the subject and its role in attention that will both help motivate a subject-centered account and avoid some of the common criticisms regarding its existence. It engages with work by many philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, including Block, Campbell, Dickie, Husserl, James, Koch, Mack and Rock, Merleau-Ponty, Treisman, and Wu. (shrink)

The power of new medical technologies, the cultural authority of physicians, and the gendered power dynamics of many patient-physician relationships can all inhibit women's reproductive freedom. Often these factors interfere with women's ability to trust themselves to choose and act in ways that are consistent with their own goals and values. In this book Carolyn McLeod introduces to the reproductive ethics literature the idea that in reproductive health care women's self-trust can be undermined in ways that threaten their autonomy. (...) Understanding the importance of self-trust for autonomy, McLeod argues, is crucial to understanding the limits on women's reproductive freedom. -/- McLeod brings feminist insights in philosophical moral psychology to reproductive ethics, and to health-care ethics more broadly. She identifies the social environments in which self-trust is formed and encouraged. She also shows how women's experiences of reproductive health care can enrich our understanding of self-trust and autonomy as philosophical concepts. The book's theoretical components are grounded in women's concrete experiences. The cases discussed, which involve miscarriage, infertility treatment, and prenatal diagnosis, show that what many women feel toward themselves in reproductive contexts is analogous to what we feel toward others when we trust or distrust them. -/- McLeod also discusses what health-care providers can do to minimize the barriers to women's self-trust in reproductive health care, and why they have a duty to do so as part of their larger duty to respect patient autonomy. (shrink)

The process of adopting a child is “not for the faint of heart.” This is what we were told the first time we, as a couple, began this process. Part of the challenge lies in fulfilling the licensing requirements for adoption, which, beyond the usual home study, can include mandatory participation in parenting classes. The question naturally arises for many people who are subjected to these requirements whether they are morally justified. We tackle this question in this paper. In our (...) view, while strong reasons exist in favour of licensing adoptive parents, these reasons support the licensing not only of adoptive parents, but of all or some subset of so-called “natural” parents as well. We therefore conclude that the status quo with respect to parental licensing, according to which only adoptive parents need to be licensed, is morally unjustified. (shrink)

Explores Gadamer's hermeneutic theory of understanding and puts this theory into conversation with a number of social epistemologies, including feminist epistemology.

The Strange Genius of Mr. O is at once the biography of a remarkably odd celebrity--a gaunt, opium-addicted Scottish orator who lectured in a toga--and a tour of the fledgling United States. James Ogilvie arrived in the United States in 1793 as an educated, impoverished, and deeply ambitious teacher. By the time he returned to Britain in 1819, he was a celebrity known simply as "Mr. O" who counted the nation's leading politicians, writers, and intellectuals among his admirers. Following Ogilvie (...) on lecture tours from the Atlantic coast as far west as frontier Kentucky, Eastman reconstructs his path to renown, explaining how and why Ogilvie mattered to the citizens of the early republic. His example inspired countless men and more than a few women to become amateur orators and helped inaugurate America's golden age of oratory. At a time when Americans were eager for national unity, Ogilvie and his audiences hoped that eloquence might knit a divided public together--that educated, elevated oratory might provide a bedrock for citizenship and civic belonging. In Eastman's hands, Ogilvie's remarkable life story has as much to tell us about a fascinating man as it has to reveal about the nation he helped fashion. (shrink)

Subjunctive Aesthetics argues for the importance of ecocritical approaches within Mexican Studies. This monograph engages with established and up-and-coming Latin American ecocritical scholars who argue that Latin America offers an important corrective to Anglocentric approaches to the Anthropocene by foregrounding colonialism and empire.

As discussions concerning attention progress from cognition to norms—from the individual to the social—we are left with the question: what is “social” attention? It is typically discussed in scientific papers as attention by an individual in a social setting. This book expands on earlier work to explore something more fundamentally social: attention by a social group, which I will call “collective attention.” (Contact for draft of Chapter 2: The Power of Attention.).