The environmental elbow room model of free will posits the unshared proportion of environmental variance in twins is a measure of the degree to which free will may be exercised with respect to one’s life outcomes for a trait. This model attempts to unify the behavioral genetic study of socially important psychological characteristics such as intelligence and academic achievement with Dennett’s broadly compatibilist elbow room notion of free will. We demonstrate that the philosophy and genetics underlying the environmental elbow room (...) model are both fundamentally flawed. Philosophically the degree to which an outcome might be predicted in a given situation does not give any sense of whether the course of action to achieve an outcome was free or unfree. With respect to genetics, quantities such as heritability and its environmental complement, even when they do reflect the actions of independently identifiable causes are not indicative of the chain of decisions one would have to evaluate to judge if an action was freely chosen. We show the contemporary human behavioral genetics focus on heritability is wholly misplaced for purposes of making decisions about policy and free will alike. Variance components sample a single instance of the distribution of variation arising from different sources and do not constrain outcomes in other contexts. The claim that the high heritability of a trait, life outcomes included, makes us less free to change it is similar in key ways to Jensenism’s contention that high heritability makes social change impossible. (shrink)

Recent, well-publicized accounting scandals have shown that the penalties outsiders impose on those found culpable of earnings management can be severe. However, less is known about how colleagues within internal labor markets respond when they believe fellow managers have managed earnings. Designers of responsibility accounting systems need to understand the reputational costs managers impose on one another within internal labor markets. In an experimental study, 159 evening MBA students were asked to assume the role of a manager in a company (...) and respond to a scenario in which another manager (the target manager) has the opportunity to engage in earnings management. Participants provided causal attributions, assessed the morality of the target manager, and indicated whether they would change their judgments about the target manager's reputation. The study manipulated three between-subjects factors: (1) whether the target manager chose to engage in earnings management, (2) whether the company's budgetary control system was rigid or flexible, and (3) whether the target manager's work history was average or above average. We found that causal attributions are affected more by the budgetary systems when the target did not manage earnings than when the manager did. We also found that morality judgments were significantly associated with the target manager's behavior, but not with the budgetary system. In addition, participants' judgments about the target manager's reputation were more strongly associated with morality judgments than with causal attributions. We discuss implications of the role of reputation in management control systems design. (shrink)

Background: Nurses, social workers, and medical residents are ethically mandated to engage in policy advocacy to promote the health and well-being of patients and increase access to care. Yet, no instrument exists to measure their level of engagement in policy advocacy. Research objective: To describe the development and validation of the Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale, designed to measure frontline healthcare professionals’ engagement in policy advocacy with respect to a broad range of issues, including patients’ ethical rights, quality of care, culturally (...) competent care, preventive care, affordability/accessibility of care, mental healthcare, and community-based care. Research design: Cross-sectional data were gathered to estimate the content and construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability of the Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale. Participants and context: In all, 97 nurses, 94 social workers, and 104 medical residents were recruited from eight acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles County. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was obtained via Qualtrics and covered purposes, risks and benefits; voluntary participation; confidentiality; and compensation. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained from the University of Southern California and all hospitals. Findings: Results supported the validity of the concept and the instrument. In confirmatory factor analysis, seven items loaded onto one component with indices indicating adequate model fit. A Pearson correlation coefficient of.36 supported the scale’s test–retest stability. Cronbach’s α of.93 indicated strong internal consistency. Discussion: The Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in this initial test. Findings should be considered within the context of the study’s limitations, which include a low response rate and limited geographic scope. Conclusion: The Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale appears to be the first validated scale to measure frontline healthcare professionals’ engagement in policy advocacy. With it, researchers can analyze variations in professionals’ levels of policy advocacy engagement, understand what factors are associated with it, and remedy barriers that might exist to their provision of it. (shrink)

Over the last decade, numerous interventions and techniques that aim to engender, strengthen, and expand compassion have been created, proliferating an evidence base for the benefits of compassion meditation training. However, to date, little research has been conducted to examine individual variation in the learning, beliefs, practices, and subjective experiences of compassion meditation. This mixed-method study examines changes in novice meditators’ knowledge and contemplative experiences before, during, and after taking an intensive course in CBCT®, a contemplative intervention that is increasingly (...) used for both inter- and intrapersonal flourishing. The participants in this study were Christian healthcare chaplains completing a 1-year residency in Clinical Pastoral Education who learned CBCT as part of their professional chaplaincy training curriculum. Prior to and upon completion of training, we surveyed participants to assess their beliefs about the malleability of compassion, types of engagement in compassion meditation, and perceptions of the impact of taking CBCT. We also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of participants to gain a qualitative understanding of their subjective experiences of learning and practicing compassion meditation, a key component of CBCT. We found that participants reported increases in the extent to which they believed compassion to be malleable after studying CBCT. We also found high levels of variability of individual ways of practicing and considered the implications of this for the study of contemplative learning processes. This multi-methodological approach yielded novel insights into how compassion practice and compassion-related outcomes interrelate, insights that can inform the basic scientific understanding of the experience of learning and enacting compassion meditation as a means of strengthening compassion itself. (shrink)

This anthology on creativity represents a lifetime of reading and study by the late Charles Dewey Tenney, a philosopher who had been a student of Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard. In a series of fourteen essays Tenney considers the various factors that can be identified in creativity, followed by the recorded testimony of philosophers, artists, historians, explorers, scientists and others, both theorists and practitioners. The contributors extend in time from Aristotle and Sophocles to Buckminster Fuller and May Sarton. They (...) include such diverse thinkers as Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Lewis Carroll, Julian Huxley, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Gertrude Stein, Henry Nelson Wieman and Alfred North Whitehead. In all, more than 300 of the world's most creative individuals are included. Contents: Discovery, Invention and Creation; Roots of Discovery; Environs of Discovery; Agents of Discovery; Hinderances to Discovery; Observation and Discovery; Reason in Discovery; Reverie Discovery; Imagination in Discovery; Sensibility and Discovery; Method in Discovery; Artistry in Discovery; Diffusion; and Foresight and Discovery. (shrink)

In [2] Hempel and Oppenheim give a definition of “explanation” for a certain formal language. In [1] Eberle, Kaplan, and Montague prove five theorems demonstrating that the Hempel and Oppenheim definition is not restrictive enough. In [3] Kim proposes two further conditions to supplement the Hempel and Oppenheim definition in order to avoid the objections posed in [1]. In this paper it is shown that the definition of Hempel and Oppenheim supplemented by Kim's conditions is open to a trivialization (...) very analogous to that given in [1]. (shrink)

The principal question asked in this paper is: in the case of attributive usage, is the definite description to be analyzed as Russell said or is it to be treated as a referring expression, functioning semantically as a proper name? It answers by defending the former alternative.

The Description for this book, Sacred Tears: Sentimentality in Victorian Literature, will be forthcoming.

Sahip olduğu akademik imkânların ve başta İngilizce olmak üzere birçok dilde uluslararası yayınların çokluğu nedeniyle Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’ndeki İslam çalışmaları yoğun, üretken ve dünya genelinde ilgiyle takip edilen bir alandır. Ancak Batı’daki üniversitelerin genelinde olduğu gibi Amerikan üniversitelerinde de İslam felsefesi/tarihi çalışmaları oldukça zayıftır. Bu makalede öncelikle geçmişten günümüze İslam çalışmalarının ABD’deki durumu tasviri bir metotla ortaya konulmakta ve İslam Felsefesinin ABD’deki İslam çalışmaları içerisindeki zayıf konumu sorgulanmaktadır. İkinci olarak Post-Oryantalist süreçte İslam Felsefesi çalışmalarında öne çıkan isimler ve çalışmaları değerlendirilmektedir. (...) Sonuç olarak ABD üniversite sisteminin genel yapısının gereği olarak İslam Felsefesi çalışmaları nicelik bakımından Avrupa ve İslam coğrafyasından daha zayıf olduğu görülmektedir. Bu durumu iki şekilde açıklamak mümkündür. Birincisi alanın Amerikan devlet felsefesinin temel ilkesi olan bilgi-güç hedefi ve alanın politik çıkarlarıyla ilişkisinin zayıflığıdır. Bu durum Post-Oryantalist eğilimin arka planını da oluşturmaktadır. İkincisi ise fenomenolojist yönteme olan ilginin artması ve Amerikan yükseköğretim sisteminde hâkim olan kozmopolitanizm ve interdisiplinerci yaklaşımlardır.Özet: Dünyanın önde gelen üniversitelerinde İslam çalışmaları ve bu çalışmalar içerisinde yer alan İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının önemli bir akademik ilgi alanı olduğu görülmektedir. Bu ilgi ABD’de de yaklaşık 150 yıllık bir geçmişe sahiptir. Son yıllarda Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nde İslam çalışmalarında sadece ciddi bir artış değil aynı zamanda çeşitlenme de söz konusu olmuştur. ABD’deki İslam çalışmaları ve özelde İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının durumunu birlikte ele alan akademik araştırmalar ise henüz bulunmamaktadır. Son gelişmeleri de dikkate alarak alanla ilgili araştırmaların sürdürülmesi ve İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının da noksan bırakılan izinin sürülmesi gerekmektedir. Bu noktadan hareketle bu makale çalışması, üniversite müfredatlarıyla ilgili araştırmalar, web taramaları ve yazılı materyaller üzerinden gerçekleştirilecek ve ilgili kitaplar, makaleler ve diğer kaynaklar taranarak konu hakkında deskriptif bilgiler sunulacaktır. Bu yöntemin tercih edilme nedeni derinlemesine bir araştırmadan daha çok genel resmi ortaya koymak ve mevcut durum hakkında bilgi vermektir. Sahanın genişliği ve kaynakların çeşitliliği ve konunun daha özel ve yoğun bir çalışma gerektiren yapısı nedeniyle diğer yöntemler tercih edilmemiştir Çalışma iki ana başlıktan oluşmaktadır. Birincisi ABD’deki İslam çalışmalarının konumu ile ilgilidir. Bu başlık altında 18. yüzyıldan itibaren İslam çalışmalarının ABD’deki seyri hakkında bilgi verilmekte ve İslam çalışmalarının günümüzdeki konumu detaylandırılmaktadır. İkinci başlık İslam Felsefesi çalışmalarının İslam çalışmaları içerisindeki ve ABD akademilerindeki konumuyla ilgilidir. Bu başlık altında İslam Felsefesi çalışmalarının geçmişten günümüze kadar gelinen süreçte geçirdiği evreler tasvir edilmekte ve bazı isimlerin ve eserlerinin değerlendirmesi yapılmaktır. İncelemeler sonucunda ABD’deki İslam çalışmalarının geçmişinin yaklaşık 150 yıla tekabül etmesine rağmen yeterli seviyeye ulaşmadığı görüldü. Hâlbuki sahip olduğu Müslüman nüfus, akademik imkânlar ve başta İngilizce olmak üzere birçok dilde uluslararası yayınların çokluğu nedeniyle ABD’deki İslam çalışmalarının beklenenden daha yoğun, üretken olması beklenirdi. Ancak buna rağmen Daha çok Fenomenolojist ve İnterdisipliner yaklaşımın tercih edildiği Amerikan üniversitelerinin akademik kadro çeşitliliği ve başta İngilizce olmak üzere farklı dillerdeki yayın yelpazesinin genişliği ve son yıllarda yeni bir durum olan sosyal medyaya açık akademik faaliyetler ABD’nin İslam çalışmaları alanındaki etkinliğini giderek arttırmaktadır. Geçmişte İslam çalışmalarında öncü rolü oynayan İngiltere, Fransa, Almanya ve Hollanda gibi ülkelerde öteden beri oryantalist eğilimi temsil eden bu tür çalışmalar günümüz ABD üniversitelerinde interdisipliner ve multidisipliner bir format kazarak devam etmektedir. ABD’deki İslam çalışmaları üzerinde yoğunlaşan akademik çalışmalara göre İslam çalışmalarına yön veren en önemli etken oryantalist eğilimlerdir. Bunun yanında 11 Eylül olaylarının sonucunda da artan bir ilgiden söz etmek gerekmektedir. Bu ilgi sadece alanda yeni istihdam imkânlarının oluşmasına değil aynı zamanda araştırmacı sayısının da artmasına neden olmuştur. Çalışmamın ikinci kısmını oluşturan ABD üniversitelerindeki İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının genel durumuna bakılacak olursa bu çalışmaların sosyoloji, antropoloji ve kültür çalışmaları gibi alanlarda görülen çeşitliliğe de sahip olduğunu söylemek oldukça zordur. ABD üniversitelerindeki İslam felsefesi çalışmaları İslam çalışmaları genel çatısı altında sürdürülmektedir. Bu alandaki çalışmalar başlarda daha çok oryantalist eğilimi temsil eden Philip Hittî, Leo Strauss, Muhsin Mehdî, Fazlurrahmân, İsmâil Râci Fârukî, Mâcid Haddûrî, Moshe Pearlmann, gibi önemli isimler tarafından sürdürülmekteydi. Günümüzde Charles Butterworth, Seyyid Hüseyin Nasr, Oliver Leaman, Dimitri Gutas, Robert Wisnovsky, Frank Griffel, John Walbridge ve daha birçok isim yeni eğilimin temsilcileri olarak alanla ilgili çalışmalarını sürdürmektedir. Bu araştırmacılar, Amerikan akademik siteminin bir sonucu olarak sadece İslam felsefesi değil aynı zamanda İslam bilim tarihi, İslam tarihi ve medeniyeti, İslam ve Batı vb. alanlarda da yayınlar yapmakta ve İslam çalışmalarının sürdürüldüğü çeşitli üniversitelerde dersler vermekte ve lisansüstü seviyede öğrenciler yetiştirmektedir. Bu noktadan hareketle diyebiliriz ki İslam felsefesi çalışmaları ise diğer İslam çalışmalarına kıyasla daha da zayıftır. Bu durumun sebeplerini şu şekilde açıklamak mümkündür:1-Amerikan devlet felsefesinin temel ilkesi olan bilgi-güç hedefi ve alanın politik çıkarlarıyla ilişkisinin zayıflığı. Bilimlerle kurulan bu politik çıkar ilişkisi Post-Oryantalist eğilimin arka planını da oluşturmaktadır. 2-Amerikan Üniversitelerinde fenomenolojist yönteme olan ilginin artması ve Amerikan yükseköğretim sisteminde hâkim olan kozmopolitanizm ve interdisiplinerci yaklaşımlar.3-Amerikan üniversitelerindeki Yakın Doğu, Ortadoğu ve İslam Çalışmalarında İslam felsefesi dersleri felsefenin ya da felsefe tarihinin bir parçası olarak müfredatta yer alması. Amerikan üniversitelerinde standart müfredat sistemi yaygın olmadığından İslam felsefesi ile ilgili dersler bölümden daha çok ders veren hocanın ilgisine ve isteğine bağlı olarak verilmektedir.4-Kıta Avrupası’nda görülen katı oryantalist eğilimlerin nisbeten azlığı ve ABD devlet politikalarının gereği olarak şekillenen havuz usulü müfredat.5-Bazı İslam felsefesi uzmanlarının alanı terk ederek daha çok aktüel tartışmalara yönelmesi ve daha çok Müslümanların geri kalmışlığı sorunundan hareketle üretilen problemlere odaklanması. Son olarak İslam felsefesi çalışmaları Müslümanların genelinin ilgilendiği bir disiplin olmadığı için üniversite dışında İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının yürütüldüğü kurumsal yapılar ABD’de de henüz teşekkül etmemiştir. Bazı bölümlerde İslam Felsefesi İslam düşüncesi tarihinin bir alt dalı olarak varlığını sürdürmektedir. Ancak İslam felsefesi müstakil bir alan olarak kendisine henüz ABD üniversitelerinde yer bulamamıştır. USA’da artan İslam çalışmalarının yeterli düzeyde olmasa da dünyadaki islam çalışmalarına yön verebilecek noktaya ulaştığını söylemek mümkündür. (shrink)

Rosemary Hennessy, Materialist Feminism and the Politics of DiscourseRichard J. Bernstein, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish QuestionDavid Ames Curtis, The Castoriadis ReaderDavid Ames Curtis, World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis and the ImaginationMorris Kaplan, Sexual Justice: Democratic Citizenship and the Politics of Desire.

Roderick Chisholm famously held that our knowledge of the world is supported entirely by a foundation of self‐justifying statements, none of which logically implies the existence of any physical object in that world. The only contingent statements to be found in the foundation, he maintained, are those that are “about our own psychological states and the ways we are ‘appeared to’.” It is a view that, as Chisholm was well aware, tallies poorly with our ordinary practice of justifying statements. We (...) are typically happy to justify statements by ultimate appeal to what we have seen or heard; that is, by ultimate appeal to statements that logically imply that certain things in the world are as we take them to be. This essay examines how Chisholm sought to explain away this apparent disconfirmation of foundationalism by ordinary practice—in effect, how Chisholm responded to one of the chief criticisms of foundationalism launched by J. L. Austin. My suggestion will be that, when the dust clears, it is Austin who comes out ahead. (shrink)

... Difficulty of distinguishing between Varieties and Species — Origin of Domestic ... and Origin— Principle of Selection anciently followed, its Effects— ...

The publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 ignited a public storm he neither wanted nor enjoyed. Having offered his book as a contribution to science, Darwin discovered to his dismay that it was received as an affront by many scientists and as a sacrilege by clergy and Christian citizens. To answer the criticism that his theory was a theory only, and a wild one at that, he published two volumes in 1868 to demonstrate that evolution was (...) obvious to anyone who cared to look at a bull in a pasture or a dog on a hearth. In response to those who insisted that species were distinct since creation, Darwin pointed to breeders of pigs and pigeons. In reply to those who protested that human intervention is one thing and natural selection another, he argued, "If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing." To counter those who scorned his descriptions of species in exotic places, he submitted local evidence of cabbages and cauliflower. Based on a wide array of sources, from ancient pictographs to Polish roosters, from skins and from skeletons, from scientific journals and breeding manuals, Darwin assembled a mass of proof--and a hypothesis about species reversion that risked his reputation anew. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a two-volume compilation of his thorough and intensive research and the revolutionary conclusions that resulted. The first portion of his work is dedicated to a meticulous analysis of various aspects of plant and animal life, including an inventory of varieties and their physical and behavioral characteristics, investigation of the impact of a species' surrounding environment and the role that both natural and forced changes in this environment have had. Darwin then turns to a richly detailed discussion of the roles of inheritance and crossing in the development of species. A wealth of illustrations further support and enhance his findings. This fascinating, invaluable, and courageous undertaking eventually formed the foundation for our current understanding of evolution. "In science as in politics the victors tend to write the history books. As a result, the record of the past is edited, intentionally or unintentionally, so that it focuses mainly on the precursors of contemporary orthodoxy. Such a focus may accurately represent the genealogy of modern ideas, but it almost inevitably misrepresents the historical experience of their progenitors... Even the powerful, persuasive, and ultimately triumphant theory of evolution by natural selection required not only defense, but repeated buttressing and revision. Variation showed Darwin hard at work on this rearguard action, using the materials he had at hand... His information was gleaned from the observations of fanciers, breeders, and amateur naturalists, as well as from the treatises of those on the cutting edge of zoology and botany. As hindsight narrows the historical spotlight, it imposes its own sense of hierarchy on the preoccupations of the past. But Darwin was interested in all of these topics, valued all of these sources, and belonged, to a greater or lesser extent, to all of these communities."--from the Introduction. (shrink)

Nearly everyone has wronged another. Who among us has not longed to be forgiven? Who has not struggled to forgive? Charles Griswold has written the first comprehensive philosophical book on forgiveness in both its interpersonal and political contexts, as well as its relation to reconciliation. Having examined the place of forgiveness in ancient philosophy and in modern thought, he discusses what forgiveness is, what conditions the parties to it must meet, its relation to revenge and hatred, when it is (...) permissible and whether it is obligatory, and why it is a virtue. Griswold argues that forgiveness is inappropriate in politics, and analyzes the nature and limits of political apology with reference to historical examples. The book concludes with an examination of the relation between memory, narrative, and truth. (shrink)

This book proposes a new paradigm for the interpretation of Plato's early and middle dialogues. Rejecting the usual assumption of a distinct 'Socratic' period in the development of Plato's thought, this view regards the earlier works as deliberate preparation for the exposition of Plato's mature philosophy. Differences between the dialogues do not represent different stages in Plato's own thinking but rather different aspects and moments in the presentation of a new and unfamiliar view of reality. Once the fictional character of (...) the Socratic genre is recognised, there is no reason to regard Plato's early dialogues as representing the philosophy of the historical Socrates. The result is a unified interpretation of all of the dialogues down to the Republic and the Phaedrus. (shrink)

This edited volume is a comprehensive presentation of views on the relations between metaphysics and logic from Aristotle through twentieth century philosophers who contributed to the return of metaphysics in the analytic tradition. The collection combines interest in logic and its history with interest in analytical metaphysics and the history of metaphysical thought. By so doing, it adds both to the historical understanding of metaphysical problems and to contemporary research in the field. Throughout the volume, essays focus on metaphysica generalis, (...) or the systematic study of the most general categories of being. Beginning with Aristotle and his Categories , the volume goes on to trace metaphyscis and logic through the late ancient and Arabic traditions, examining the views of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham. Moving into the early modern period, contributors engage with Leibniz's metaphysics, Kant's critique of metaphysics, the relation between logic and ontology in Hegel, and Bolzano's views. Subsequent chapters address: Charles S. Peirce's logic and metaphysics; the relevance of set-theory to metaphysics; Meinong's theory of objects; Husserl's formal ontology; early analytic philosophy; C.I. Lewis and his relation to Russell; and the relations between Frege, Carnap, and Heidegger. Surveying metaphysics through to the contemporary age, essays explore W.V. Quine's attitude towards metaphysics; Wilfrid Sellars's relation to antidescriptivism as it connects to Kripke's; the views of Putnam and Kaplan; Peter F. Strawson's and David M. Armstrong's metaphysics; Trope theory; and its relation to Popper's conception of three worlds. The volume ends with a chapter on transcendental philosophy as ontology. In each chapter, contributors approach their topics not merely in an historical and exegetical fashion, but also engage critically with the thought of the philosophers whose work they discuss, offering synthesis and original philosophical thought in the volume, in addition to very extensive and well-informed analysis and interpretation of important philosophical texts. The volume will serve as an essential reference for scholars of metaphysics and logic. (shrink)

Henrich, Dieter: Theorieformen moderner Kunsttheorie. ISer, Wolfgang: Interpretationsperspektiven moderner Kunsttheorie. GAdamer, Hans G.: Zur Fragwurdigkeit des asthetischen BewuSStseins. INgarden, Roman: Prinzipien einer erkenntnistheoretischen Betrachtung der asthetischen Erfahrung.. KUhn, Helmut: Die Ontogenese der Kunst. ARnheim, Rudolf: Gestaltpsychologie und kunstlerische Form. [ubersetzt von Jurgen Schlaeger]. GOmbrich, Ernst H.: Norm und Form. KUhns, Richard: Psychoanalytische Theorie als Kunstphilosophie. [ubersetzt von Dieter Henrich]. GEhlen, Arnold: uber einige Kategorien des entlasteten, zumal des asthetischen Verhaltens. SImmel, Georg: Soziologische Asthetik. LUkács, Georg: Kunst und objektive Wahrheit. ADorno, (...) Theodor W.: ErpreSSte Versohnung. ZU Georg Lukács: "Wider den miSSverstandenen Realismus. MEad, George H.: Asthetische Erfahrung. [ubersetzt von Jens Kulenkampff]. MOrris, Charles W.: Asthetik und Zeichentheorie. [ubersetzt von Roland Posner]. RItchie, Benbow: Die formale Struktur des asthetischen Gegenstands. [ubersetzt von Jens Kulenkampff]. CReed-Hungerland, Isabel: uber die Ausdruckskraft ikonischer Zeichen. [ubersetzt von Jens Kulenkampff]. ECo, Umberto: Die asthetische Botschaft. [ubersetzt in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Autor von Jurgen Trabant]. MOles, Abraham A.: Informationelle Poetik - Strukturen der poetischen Nachricht - Empfindungsebenen. [ubersetzt von Hans Ronge]. CAvell, Stanley: Welt durch die Kamera gesehen. [ubersetzt von Lore Iser]. KAplan, Abraham: Referenz in der Kunst. [ubersetzt von Jens Kulenkampff]. ZIff, Paul: Was es heiSSt zu definieren, was ein Kunstwerk ist. [ubersetzt von Jens Kulenkampff]. URmson, James O.: Darstellung auf der Buhne. [ubersetzt von Jens Kulenkampff]. GOodman, Nelson: Kunst und Erkenntnis. [ubersetzt von Jens Schlaeger]. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon (...) those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time. (shrink)

This book examines the theoretical structure of Buddhist accounts of morality, defends them against objections, and discusses their implications for free will, the justification of punishment, and other issues.

This previously-unpublished essay by the late Charles W. Mills (1951–2021) seeks to demonstrate the racially-structured character of the universe created by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Written long before the popular film series, the essay critically examines Tolkien's novels and comments on the nature of fictional creation. Mills argues that Tolkien designs a racial hierarchy in the novels that recapitulates the central racist myth of European thought.

Science, material, idealism, pragmaticism, history of scientific thought.

In this award-winning study of the _Phaedrus_, Charles Griswold focuses on the theme of "self-knowledge." Relying on the principle that form and content are equally important to the dialogue's meaning, Griswold shows how the concept of self-knowledge unifies the profusion of issues set forth by Plato. Included are a new preface and an updated comprehensive bibliography of works on the _Phaedrus_.

Introduction to Hegel's thought for the student and general reader, emphasizing in particular his social and political thought and his continuing relevance to contemporary problems.

In reflecting on the relation between early empiricist conceptions of the mind and more experimentally motivated materialist philosophies of mind in the mid-eighteenth century, I suggest that we take seriously the existence of what I shall call ‘phantom philosophical projects’. A canonical empiricist like Locke goes out of his way to state that their project to investigate and articulate the ‘logic of ideas’ is not a scientific project: “I shall not at present meddle with the Physical consideration of the Mind” (...) (Essay, I.i.2). An equally prominent thinker, Immanuel Kant, seems to make an elementary mistake, given such a clear statement, when he claims that Locke’s project was a “physiology of the understanding,” in the Preface to the A edition of the first Critique). A first question, then, would be: what is this physiology of the understanding, if it was not Locke’s project? Did anyone undertake such a project? If not, what would it have resembled? My second and related case comes out of a remark the Hieronymus Gaub makes in a letter to Charles Bonnet of 1761: criticizing materialist accounts of mind and mind-body relations such as La Mettrie’s, Gaub suggests that what is needed is a thorough study of the “mechanics of the soul,” and that Bonnet could write such a study. What is the mechanics of the soul, especially given that it is presented as a non-materialist project? To what extent does it resemble the purported “physiology of the understanding”? And more generally, what do both of these phantom projects have to do with a process we might describe as a ‘naturalization of the soul’? (shrink)

Counterfactual imaginings are known to have far reaching implications. In the present experiment, we ask if imagining events from one's past can affect memory for childhood events. We draw on the social psychology literature showing that imagining a future event increases the subjective likelihood that the event will occur. The concepts of cognitive availability and the source monitoring framework provide reasons to expect that imagination may inflate confidence that a childhood event occurred. However, people routinely produce myriad counterfactual imaginings (i.e., (...) daydreams and fantasies) but usually do not confuse them with past experiences. To determine the effects of imagining a childhood event, we pretested subjects on how confident they were that a number of childhood events had happened, asked them to imagine some of those events, and then gathered new confidence measures. For each of the target items, imagination inflated confidence that the event had occurred in childhood. We discuss implications for situations in which imagination is used as an aid in searching for presumably lost memories. (shrink)

: In response to the preceding commentary by Jerry Menikoff in this issue of the Journal , the authors argue that Fried's central concern is not that randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are conducted without consent, but rather that various aspects of the design and conduct of RCTs are in tension with physicians' duties of personal care to their patients. Although Fried does argue that the existence of equipoise cannot justify failure to obtain consent from research subjects, informed consent by itself (...) does not supplant ill subjects' rights to personalized judgment and care embodied in Fried's equipoise. (shrink)

Most modern analytic philosophers have ignored works of Indian philosophy such as Vasubandhu's 'Treasury of Metaphysics'. This neglect is unjustified. The account of the nature of the physical world given in the 'Treasury' is a one-category ontology of dharmas, which are simple, momentary tropes. They include basic physical tropes, the most fundamental level of the physical world, as well as higher-level tropes, including sensible properties such as colours, which are known as derived form. I argue that the relationship between the (...) basic physical tropes and derived form is one of supervenience. Vasubandhu's theory is a powerful and flexible one, which can be adapted so as to be consistent with modern science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Copy of a Book Is Not a Token of a TypeDavid Socher (bio)Masons butter their bricks, gardeners deadhead their roses, and who am I to quibble over terms? However, philosophers routinely speak of tokens and types, as if, so it seems to me, they are bringing a greater measure of precision to the table. Here I shall quibble. I shall try to lead the reader to realize that (...) those philosophers are neither being especially precise nor are they following Charles S. Peirce; instead, they are merely lending a false air of scientific respectability to the matter at hand. (Although these are broad strokes and I here tip my hand to a larger purpose, in what remains I'll stick to my title proposition.)In hearing or seeing a word, we hear sound, or see ink or chalk (or perhaps a hand gesture.) The sound or ink is said to be a "word-token," and the word itself that the speaker or writer thereby used is called a "word-type." Word-types are the things comprising our vocabulary, and their tokens are physical events or objects. Such is the reigning conception of the ontology of words, in analytic Anglo-American philosophy, for a hundred years. However, if David Kaplan1 carries the day, the time has come for a title bout and a new champ. And if he succeeds, then what follows may become mostly of antiquarian interest, a side trip down memory lane. I don't here join battle for or against the traditional account. A second issue I decline to engage concerns a little-noticed baby step or side-shuffle: commonly logicians speak of "tokens" and "types" for any linguistic expression of any length, apparently unaware they are extending the scope of a pair of terms introduced to only apply to words. (On the face of it, a linguistic expression as such doesn't really have a use on par with the use of a word.) A third issue [End Page 23] I decline to discuss is the propriety of that dubious contemporary giant step where brain processes are said to come in tokens and types. Perhaps this is a mere barbarism.So what is my main issue? It is this: Given, pace Kaplan, that we accept the traditional conception that words come in token and type, we ought not casually say the same of books, as, for example, Hornsby does in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy: "Following Peirce it can be said, for example, that there are three tokens of the word 'the' (that type) in the previous sentence, and that the actual book you're now reading is a token of the type Oxford Companion to Philosophy."2I now present some facts of speech, writing, and publishing to help dissipate the temptation to speak of the copies of a publication as tokens of a type.The purpose of printPrint mimics speech and handwriting. One can only receive words through a physical medium.3 In listening to talk and in reading handwritten letters, one gets the speaker or writer's words through the physical medium he or she directly produced. Not so in reading print: there, the printed words stand in for the author's physical words, or for a narrator's or character's words; or they present words of an abstract thing such as an amendment, advertisement, or contract, or of a concrete thing like a street sign or loudspeaker. In any case, whether or not an item is published, it is within such an item that the words are used—that is, that the types are invoked.When I signal a waiter for the check I produce a token, when an infant uses his only word to call out "mama," he produces a token; when in his second inaugural Lincoln admonished the nation to pursue reconstruction, "with malice towards none, with charity to all," he produced eight word tokens to invoke seven word types, twice invoking the word type "with." These two ways of counting words apply equally to Lincoln's phrase, his pronouncement of it, any publication or duplication of it, as well as any particular copies of such... (shrink)

In his Logical Investigations Edmund Husserl criticizes John Stuart Mill’s account of meaning as connotation, especially Mill’s failure to separate the distinction between connotative and non-connotative names from the distinction between the meaningful and the meaningless. According to Husserl, both connotative and non-connotative names have meaning or “signification”, that is, what Gottlob Frege calls the sense (“Sinn”) of an expression. The distinction between connotative and non-connotative names is a distinction between two kinds of meaning (or sense), attributive and non-attributive meaning (...) (“attributive und nicht-attributive Bedeutung”). Attributive (connotative) names denote (refer to) objects through their attributes, whereas a non-attributive name means a thing directly (“direkt”). In this paper I examine the concepts of attributive and non-attributive meaning by means of the semiotic theory of Charles S. Peirce, and compare Peirce’s account with the views of Frege, Husserl, Alexius Meinong, and David Kaplan and Gareth Evans. (shrink)

In this essay I renew the case for Conditional Excluded Middle in light of recent developments in the semantics of the subjunctive conditional. I argue that Michael Tooley's recent backward causation counterexample to the Stalnaker-Lewis comparative world similarity semantics undermines the strongest argument against CXM, and I offer a new, principled argument for the validity of CXM that is in no way undermined by Tooley's counterexample. Finally, I formulate a simple semantics for the subjunctive conditional that is consistent with both (...) CXM and Tooley's counterexample. (shrink)