New materialism is one of the most important emerging trends in the humanities and social sciences, but it is also one of the least understood. This is because, as a term of ongoing contest...

Some 20 years ago Todd and colleagues proposed that rhythm perception is mediated by the conjunction of a sensory representation of the auditory input and a motor representation of the body (Todd, 1994a, 1995 ), and that a sense of motion from sound is mediated by the vestibular system (Todd, 1992a, 1993b ). These ideas were developed into a sensory-motor theory of rhythm and beat induction (Todd et al., 1999 ). A neurological substrate was proposed which might form the biological (...) basis of the theory (Todd et al., 2002 ). The theory was implemented as a computational model and a number of experiments conducted to test it. In the following time there have been several key developments. One is the demonstration that the vestibular system is primal to rhythm perception, and in related work several experiments have provided further evidence that rhythm perception is body dependent. Another is independent advances in imaging, which have revealed the brain areas associated with both vestibular processing and rhythm perception. A third is the finding that vestibular receptors contribute to auditory evoked potentials (Todd et al., 2014a, b ). These behavioral and neurobiological developments demand a theoretical overview which could provide a new synthesis over the domain of rhythm perception. In this paper we suggest four propositions as the basis for such a synthesis. (1) Rhythm perception is a form of vestibular perception; (2) Rhythm perception evokes both external and internal guidance of somatotopic representations; (3) A link from the limbic system to the internal guidance pathway mediates the “dance habit”; (4) The vestibular reward mechanism is innate. The new synthesis provides an explanation for a number of phenomena not often considered by rhythm researchers. We discuss these along with possible computational implementations and alternative models and propose a number of new directions for future research. (shrink)

An open question regarding how people develop their models of the world is how new candidates are generated for consideration out of infinitely many possibilities. We discuss the role that evolutionary mechanisms play in this process. Specifically, we argue that when it comes to developing a global world model, innovation is necessarily incremental, involving the generation and selection among random local mutations and recombinations of (parts of) one's current model. We argue that, by narrowing and guiding exploration, this feature of (...) cognitive search is what allows human learners to discover better theories, without ever grappling directly with the problem of finding a “global optimum,” or best possible world model. We suggest this aspect of cognitive processing works analogously to how blind variation and selection mechanisms drive biological evolution. We propose algorithms developed for program synthesis provide candidate mechanisms for how human minds might achieve this. We discuss objections and implications of this perspective, finally suggesting that a better process-level understanding of how humans incrementally explore compositional theory spaces can shed light on how we think, and provide explanatory traction on fundamental cognitive biases, including anchoring, probability matching, and confirmation bias. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

The contribution of inherited non‐genetic factors to complex diseases is of great current interest. The ways in which mothers and fathers can affect their offspring's health clearly differ as a result of the intimate interactions between mother and offspring during pre‐ and postnatal life. There is, however, potential for some overlap in mechanisms, particularly epigenetic mechanisms. A small number of epidemiological studies and animal models have investigated the non‐genetic contribution of the parents to offspring health. Discovering new mechanisms of disease (...) inheritance is technically difficult, especially in genetically, socially and environmentally heterogeneous human populations. Therefore, rigorous experimental design, appropriate sample numbers and the use of high‐throughput technologies are necessary to provide convincing evidence. Based on recent examples from the literature, here we propose several ways to improve human studies that aim to identify the underlying mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance of metabolic disease. (shrink)

One of the major contributions which Christopher Hookway has made to pragmatist epistemology is a critical exploration of the role that affective dispositions play in inquiry. According to Hookway, a well-functioning rational inquirer must rely upon a set of pre-reflective and affective dispositions which are not themselves fully available to rational evaluation. Despite their pre-reflective nature, on the pragmatist account these affective dispositions provide us with judgments and evaluations which are in many cases more reliable than those provided by (...) explicit rational reflection. -/- This chapter presents and defends Hookway’s account of the epistemic importance of our affective dispositions. The first section presents three roles which affective dispositions play within inquiry. The second section considers the concern that affective dispositions should be considered impositions upon our epistemic agency. In response, Hookway suggests that we must identify with our affective dispositions, and two interpretations of this claim are offered. The third section considers the possibility that the confidence we have in our affective dispositions might be appropriately shaken if we recognize that they are not shared by other inquirers. The chapter concludes by suggesting that Hookway’s position can overcome this worry by developing his notion of critical self-trust in three distinct ways. (shrink)

A philosophical question divides the field of addiction research. Can a psychological disorder count as an addiction absent a common underlying physical basis (neurological or genetic) for every case of the disorder in the category? Or is it appropriate to categorize a disorder as an addiction if the symptoms of and diagnostic criteria for it are sufficiently similar to those of other disorders also classified as addictions—regardless of whether there is some underlying physical basis common to each case of the (...) disorder? The question concerns the scope and validity of the scientific concept of addiction and, more broadly, what is required for a psychological concept to count as scientific. The case of pathological gambling (PG) raises this question nicely. ‘‘Should pathological gambling be considered an addiction?’’ asks Howard Shaffer (2003, 176). He specifies the question further (2003, 177–178): ‘‘When clinicians and scientists identify a behavior pattern as an addiction, even if they can identify it reliably according to DSM criteria, how do they know that it is indeed an addiction?’’ He warns that, as it stands, ‘‘the concept of addiction represents a troublesome tautology’’ (2003, 178): a subject S is addicted if and only if S engages in repetitive behavior with negative consequences against S’s better judgment. The problem with this concept is that it provides no way to distinguish behavior that cannot be controlled from behavior that is merely in fact not controlled. This ‘‘lay’’ concept is of little scientific value, Shaffer (2003, 179) argues, saying that ‘‘for addiction to emerge as a viable scientific construct . . . investigators need to establish a ‘gold standard’ against which the presence or absence of the disorder can be judged.’’ PG has no such gold standard, says Shaffer. What would such a gold standard be? Shaffer suggests ‘‘neurogenetic or biobehavioral attributes’’ (ibid.).. (shrink)

This article uses Christopher Southgate's work and engagement with other scholars on the topic of evolutionary theodicy as a case study in the dialogue of science and Christian theology. A typology is outlined of ways in which the voices of science and the Christian tradition may be related in a science–theology dialogue, and examples of each position on the typology are given from the literature on evolution and natural evil. The main focus is on Southgate's evolutionary theodicy and the (...) alternative proposal by Neil Messer. By bringing these two accounts into dialogue, some key methodological issues are brought into focus, enabling some conclusions to be drawn about the range and limits of fruitful methodological possibilities for dialogues between science and Christian theology. (shrink)

Christopher Franklin argues that the hard luck view, which I have recently defended, is misnamed: the arguments turn on absence of control and not on luck. He also argues that my objections to agent-causal libertarianism depend on a demand, for a contrastive explanation that guarantees the choice the agent makes, which would be question-begging in the dialectical context. In response to the first objection, I argue that though Franklin may be right that it is absence of control that matters (...) to freedom and not luck, we often are unable to discern whether an agent lacks sufficient control without asking whether the event is lucky for the agent; hence we cannot dispense with worries about luck in favor of concern about control. In response to the second worry, I argue that though Franklin is right in claiming that there is a perfectly good explanation regarding how the agent-causal power is exercised, it is not an adequate explanation given the context, because the same kind of explanation is available on event-causal theories. Agent-causal libertarians aim to avoid the luck objection which they acknowledge is powerful against event-causal libertarians; if it is true that they can offer nothing more than the latter kinds of theories in the way of control over actions, they fail in their aim. (shrink)

Introduction : war, politics, democracy -- Democratic security -- Citizens and soldiers : the difference uniforms make -- A modest case for symmetry : are soldiers morally equal? -- Leaders and the gambles of war : against political luck -- War, democracy, and sSecrecy : secret law -- Must a democracy be ruthless? : torture and existential politics -- Humanitarian intervention and the new democratic holy wars -- Drones and democracy -- Democracy and the death of norms -- Democratic states (...) in victory : vae victis? -- Looking backward : democratic transitions and the choice of justice. (shrink)

For more than 60 years, Chomsky has been an intellectual Colossus bestriding the worlds of language, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences, and focusing attention on the whole field and emphasizing the crucial importance of domains overlooked by the mainstream. One such area is the study of first‐language acquisition. This chapter considers “atypical acquisition” to cover two conceptually related situations. First, it covers a variety of cases where there is an obvious “poverty of the stimulus” in that children either receive or (...) perceive no linguistic input at the essential early stages referred to as critical periods. Second, it covers where there is rather the opposite situation. The chapter presents atypicality in language acquisition that stems from the learner's atypical neurological profile rather than environmental or input properties. It focuses on Developmental Language Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and the case of the polyglot‐savant Christopher to exemplify atypical acquisition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ConclusionNeil PickeringAs mentioned in my Introduction, and I am delighted to repeat now, the commentaries provided by Calvin Ho and Chua Hong Choon are both excellent. In reading them, some further thoughts were raised for me, and I briefly reflect on these now.In his legal commentary, Calvin Ho makes a plausible argument that Mr. T has the capacity (and hence the right) to make decisions in his current state (...) about his healthcare, and refers to two legal tests of decision-making competency laid down in the Singapore Mental Capacity Act (2008), which he believes Mr. T would pass. A question arises from each of the legal tests which Ho described.The first test involves the question of whether there is any “impairment of, or disturbance in the functioning of Mr. T’s mind or brain”. The claim made by Ho is that there is no impairment or dysfunction of Mr. T’s mind or brain. But, this raises a question: what are the functions of the mind? Christopher Boorse suggested that “We may surely assume … that the main function of perceptual and intellectual processes is to give us knowledge about the world” and against this standard “schizophrenia and all other psychoses with thought disorders look objectively unhealthy”.1 Further — and here is the specific point of discussion in relation to Mr. T — does his continuing denial that he is ill (his lack of insight) also constitute such a dysfunction? Is one function of our mind to tell us things about the functioning of our minds — to correct errors, spot illusions and self-deceptions, and respond to beliefs which are odd? If so, then perhaps Mr. T’s lack of insight indicates the presence of a dysfunction.The second test which (mainly for the sake of completeness) Calvin Ho refers to comprises a list of requirements for decision-making capacity. These are relevant if a dysfunction is identified by the first test. These are:(1). Understand information given to him;(2). Retain that information long enough to make the decision;(3). Use or weigh up that information as part of the process of decision-making; and(4). Communicate his decision.These requirements are familiar from other accounts of decision [End Page 222] making capacity, but at least some of these accounts have added a further requirement, “the ability to appreciate the nature of the situation and its likely consequences”.2 This is not merely the ability to understand what one is being told but also the ability “to apply the information abstractly understood to [one’s] own situation”. Potentially, Mr. T would fail this test. He frequently lacks insight into the fact that he is unwell, that is to say, he does not seem to appreciate that the information he is being given is true of him.I turn now to the clinical commentary by Dr. Chua. What chiefly struck me from this was the determination to engage with the patient as a person. Medication is not the first resort; rather, many other interpersonal approaches can and should be tried first. Medication is of course one aspect of treatment — and in some cases, any hope of any sort of engagement with a patient may rely upon some medical intervention succeeding. Perhaps Mr. T will turn out to be a patient of this kind, who can only be engaged in conversation about his experiences and the state of his mind if he has first taken a course of pills. But it has, over a number of years of speaking to psychiatrist colleagues, been borne in upon me that the psychiatrist himself or herself is a fundamental element of mental healthcare. The psychiatrist is not merely a route to help, the dispenser of prescriptions for pills, but someone with whom the patient can talk to and explore his or her experiences. In short, part of the therapeutic relationship which psychiatrists seek to establish is just a personal relationship. I am sure this is simply obvious to most clinicians and indeed to those who suffer from mental ill health and their caregivers. But sometimes, the obvious is worth pointing out.Indeed, the desire to engage with Mr. T as a person... (shrink)

The concepts of health and disease are foundational to biomedical ethics. This essay critiques two widely used approaches to understanding health and disease: the World Health Organization definition of health as "complete physical, mental and social well-being," and the attempts by Thomas Szasz and Christopher Boorse to define health and disease in objective, value-free terms. Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Barth, I argue that in Christian perspective, health must be understood in terms of the goods and goals (...) toward which human life is directed, which must themselves be understood in terms of God's good purposes made known in Christ. We are called to "will to be healthy" and resist disease, but understanding what this entails in particular concrete situations requires skills and habits of attentiveness to God's command, cultivated in the context of the Christian community and its practices. (shrink)

No existing normative decision theory adequately handles risk. Expected Utility Theory is overly restrictive in prohibiting a range of reasonable preferences. And theories designed to accommodate such preferences (for example, Buchak's (2013) Risk‐Weighted Expected Utility Theory) violate the Betweenness axiom, which requires that you are indifferent to randomizing over two options between which you are already indifferent. Betweenness has been overlooked by philosophers, and we argue that it is a compelling normative constraint. Furthermore, neither Expected nor Risk‐Weighted Expected Utility Theory (...) allow for stakes‐sensitive risk‐attitudes—they require that risk matters in the same way whether you are gambling for loose change or millions of dollars. We provide a novel normative interpretation of Weighted‐Linear Utility Theory that solves all of these problems. (shrink)

Christopher Peacocke, in A Study of Concepts, motivates his account of possession conditions for concepts by means of an alleged parallel with the conditions under which numbers are abstracted to give the numerosity of a predicate. There are, however, logical mistakes in Peacocke.

The present study tests a gestalt explanation for the gambler's fallacy which posits that runs in random events will be expected to reverse only when the run is open or ongoing. This is contrasted with the law of small numbers explanation suggesting that people expect random outcomes to balance out generally. Sixty-one university students placed hypothetical guesses and bets on a series of coin tosses. Either heads or tails were dominant . In a closed run condition the run ended prior (...) to the critical trial , and in an open run condition the run remained open . As hypothesised, participants showed the gambler's fallacy in the open run condition, but not in the closed run condition. This difference is not due to differential memory for the outcomes. Men, and people with more previous experience gambling, were also found to be more prone to the gambler's fallacy. It is argued that the gestalt explanation best explains the results. (shrink)

Widely regarded as one of the most important and influential sports books of all time, C. L. R. James's _Beyond a Boundary_ is—among other things—a pioneering study of popular culture, an analysis of resistance to empire and racism, and a personal reflection on the history of colonialism and its effects in the Caribbean. More than fifty years after the publication of James's classic text, the contributors to _Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket_ investigate _Beyond a Boundary_'s production and reception and its implication (...) for debates about sports, gender, aesthetics, race, popular culture, politics, imperialism, and English and Caribbean identity. Including a previously unseen first draft of _Beyond a Boundary_'s conclusion alongside contributions from James's key collaborator Selma James and from Michael Brearley, former captain of the English Test cricket team, _Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket_ provides a thorough and nuanced examination of James's groundbreaking work and its lasting impact. Contributors. Anima Adjepong, David Austin, Hilary McD. Beckles, Michael Brearley, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, David Featherstone, Christopher Gair, Paget Henry, Christian Høgsbjerg, C. L. R. James, Selma James, Roy McCree, Minkah Makalani, Clem Seecharan, Andrew Smith, Neil Washbourne, Claire Westall. (shrink)

First published in 1989, Looking Back on the End of the World raises provocative questions about the possibilities of critical knowledge in social systems that seem to have "surpassed history." Unlike recent works that make history end with the consumer, or project the conflict between the capitalist and the oppressed into the future, the writers in these essays perform a much more basic task: they argue that we can now think through the "end of the world." The idea of a (...) "unified world," they claim, has given way to new sensibilities about history. The essays evaluate current negative obsessions such as apocalypse and the elimination of difference, and offer positive approaches to the "gamble of thinking" required in a society without traditional subjects and institutions. Capitalism, the book argues, has changed all the rules of the game, and any nostalgia for "starting" from the familiar in terms of intellectual critique is doomed. Collectively, the authors sketch the unfamiliarity of the new, those moments when our categories dissolve in the face of connections and relations that announce all sorts of "ends." And other things besides. (shrink)

The response mode bias, in which subjects exhibit different risk attitudes when assessing certainty equivalents versus indifference probabilities, is a well-known phenomenon in the assessment of utility functions. In this empirical study, we develop and apply a cardinal measure of risk attitudes to analyze not only the existence, but also the strength of this phenomenon. Since probability levels involved in decision problems are already known to have a strong impact on behavior, we use this approach to study the impact of (...) probabilities on the extent of the response mode bias. We find that the direction in which probabilities influence measured risk aversion is the opposite in the certainty equivalence (CE) method versus in the probability equivalence (PE) method. Utilizing the CE elicitation approach leads to an increase of risk seeking for gambles involving high probabilities. For the PE method, subjects tend to behave risk averse with gambles of high probabilities. This behavior is reversed in the gain domain. This “tailwhip” effect is consistently replicated in several experiments, involving both loss and gain domains of lotteries. (shrink)

This essay examines several works that contribute to an understanding of the nature of contemporary Chinese capitalism and its historical development. Core issues include the character of the bureaucracy, which has had a distinctive relationship to capital formation, and the character of the working class. The periodisation of Chinese capitalism and the relation between the pre- and post-reform periods are pressing political and analytical concerns. This essay suggests the advantages of a clearer focus on the dynamics of depoliticisation in understanding (...) the transition. The contemporary left-intelligentsia in China has in large part pinned its hopes on achieving some form of ideological hegemony within theccp, maintaining that it still operates within its revolutionary tradition. This represents a questionable strategic gamble. Acknowledging the important contributions made by Au’s book and other recent characterisations of China’s political economy from the left, this essay suggests that there remains much to be done. (shrink)

I offer a brief review of, and critical response to, Neil Levy’s fascinating recent book Hard Luck, where he argues that no one is ever free or morally responsible not because of determinism or indeterminism, but because of luck. Two of Levy’s central arguments in defending his free will nihilism concern the nature and role of explanation in a theory of moral responsibility and the nature of akrasia. With respect to explanation, Levy argues that an adequate theory of moral (...) responsibility must be able provide contrastive explanations of why an agent performs one action rather than another, and that libertarians lack the resources to provide such explanations. With respect to akrasia, Levy argues that it is impossible to be directly morally responsible for akratic actions. In response I argue that any sense of contrastive explanation that can reasonably be thought to be a requirement on an adequate theory of moral responsibility is a sense that agent-causal libertarians can secure. I then argue that the agent-causal theory of free will offers an alternative and attractive understanding of motivation and self-control that makes it plausible to think that we can be morally responsible for akratic actions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Figures of Entanglement: Diffractive Readings of Barad, New Materialism, and Rhetorical Theory and Criticism ed. by Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. HananSavannah Greer DowningFigures of Entanglement: Diffractive Readings of Barad, New Materialism, and Rhetorical Theory and Criticism. Edited by Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. Hanan. Routledge, 2021. xvi + 122 pp. $168 (hardcover), $47.16 (electronic book). ISBN: 9780367903794.Rhetorical scholars have turned to (...) various new materialist frameworks to shift the discipline's historically anthropocentric focus and fully engage matter's rhetoricity. While all such frameworks attempt to challenge "the anthropocentric assumption that nonhuman matter is intrinsically passive or non-agential and thus external to or separable from (human) meaning," Figures of Entanglement enters this burgeoning conversation by centering the unique contributions of Karen Barad (xi, x). Readers may recognize this collection from a 2016 special issue of Review of Communication. Yet, with a new foreword by editors Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. Hanan and an afterword by Laurie Gries, this collection makes Barad's distinct approach to matter's rhetoricity even more apparent, underscoring its fruitful potential for new materialist rhetorics invested in ethical, political transformation.In the book's foreword Gamble and Hanan differentiate Barad's per-formative new materialism from "vital" as well as what they refer to as "negative" new materialisms to show the generative potential of Barad's framework and the notion of entanglement (x). Other new materialisms tend to be "inclusionary"—add matter and stir—and fail to complicate "the human" itself and its differences (xiv, xi). First, vital and negative new materialisms maintain a distinction between being and knowing, allowing humans to emerge with a unique capacity to "objectively observe and know the existence of something essential, determinate, and unchanging about [End Page 395] reality that precedes and remains unaffected by both its own activities and our observations of it" (xi). On the contrary, Barad's performative approach suggests that "no aspect of reality—including human thought, meaning, and observation—is in any sense external to matter or ever remains entirely unchanged by matter's ongoing performances" (x). Here, humans are not "outside" of observation, but all observation "human or otherwise" co-constitutes what is observed (xi). Second, failing to interrogate "the human" in an attempt to observe matter's vitality is an ethical flaw that makes other approaches less capable of grappling with difference: they have been charged with "erasing associations between race, gender, and matter" and (re)producing a homogenizing, "Western-colonialist notion of humanness" (xiv). In contrast, Barad's is a "thoroughly relational," performative new materialism (1).Barad's concept of "entanglement" draws attention to the indeterminacy of matter and meaning, but it is accompanied by an ethical imperative to examine how difference, human or otherwise, is produced and the implications of power imbalances that arise through these enactments. For Barad, the notion of entanglement does not dissolve difference; difference is what matters. Indeed, they give us a way of thinking about how performative intra-actions produce difference through material-discursive practices, or apparatuses—differences that may be expected but are not inevitable. Rhetorical scholars are therefore invited to interrogate the production of boundaries that cause harm and reconfigure them, rather than assume the discreteness of boundaries from the start. Gamble and Hanan thus make a convincing case for how Barad's work may contribute to important scholarship in decolonial and critical rhetorics for which vital and negative new materialisms are less equipped.Gamble and Hanan utilize the introduction to show how Barad's per-formative new materialism both "supports and affirms" rhetorical materialism, or rhetoric's materiality, and enriches it (5). Ushered in by Michael Calvin McGee, "standard" rhetorical materialism worked to challenge the centuries-old debate about rhetoric's secondary, supplementary status vis-à-vis philosophy by recognizing rhetoric as part of a "shifting and dynamic material history" (6). Building upon this view, Ronald Walter Greene utilizes Foucault's notion of the apparatus to demonstrate how even the "material history" McGee called our attention to is itself "produced by apparatuses"—history is not "outside" of meaning (6). Instead, rhetoric's materiality is a "publicity effect" produced through technologies of rhetoric and intersecting power... (shrink)

This book is about fundamental questions in normative ethics. It begins with the idea that we often respond to ethical theories according to how principled or pragmatic they are. It clarifies this contrast and then uses it to shed light on old debates in ethics, such as debates about the rival merits of consequentialist and deontological views. Using the idea that principled views seem most appealing in dilemmas of acquiescence, it goes on to develop a novel theory of pattern-based reasons. (...) These are reasons to play one’s part in some larger pattern of action because of the goodness or rightness of that pattern. Existing accounts of pattern-based reasons usually assume that such reasons can exist only in cooperative contexts. This book rejects that assumption, and claims instead that we can have pattern-based reasons even when the other agents involved in the pattern are wholly unwilling to cooperate. The result is a pluralist teleological structure for ethics, with similarities to some forms of Rule Consequentialism. Woodard claims that this structure achieves an attractive balance between the two virtues of being pragmatic and being principled. (shrink)

This volume presents a selection of essays by the leading philosopher Christopher S. Hill. Together, they address central philosophical issues related to four key concerns: the nature of truth; the relation between experiences and brain states; the relation between experiences and representational states; and problems concerning knowledge.

Why think that conscious experience of reality is any more epistemically valuable than testimony about it? I argue that conscious experience of reality is epistemically valuable because it provides cognitive contact with reality. Cognitive contact with reality is a goal of experiential inquiry which does not reduce to the goal of getting true beliefs or propositional knowledge. Such inquiry has awareness of the truth-makers of one’s true beliefs as its proper goal. As such, one reason why conscious experience of reality (...) is more epistemically valuable than testimony about reality is that it gives us more epistemic goods than only true belief or propositional knowledge. I defend this view from two rival accounts. First, that while conscious experience of reality has greater value than testimony, its value is only eudaimonic. Second, that while it has greater epistemic value than testimony, this value is not distinctive: for it only promotes truth better than testimony. (shrink)

Introduction -- Suspension -- Hegel and Schelling -- Outline of the whole -- The surge of reason : faculty epistemology in Kant and Fichte -- The first critique's basic distinction -- The third critique -- Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre -- Ascendant reason : the early Schelling -- Of the I -- The treatises -- Metastatic reason : Schelling's nature philosophy -- Organic reason : ideas for a philosophy of nature -- Rational nature : on the world-soul -- Inhibition of nature : the (...) Erster entwurf -- Synthetic reason : the system of transcendental idealism -- The idea of system -- The synthetic method -- History and art -- Reason as reflection and speculation : Hegel's collaboration with Schelling -- The differenzschrift -- Krug's pen -- The sacred abyss : Schelling's identity philosophy -- The darstellung -- System of philosophy in general -- Space, time, and suspension : Hegel's absolute knowing -- The phenomenology's critique of Schelling -- Absolute knowing -- Suspended reason : Hegel on the certainty and truth of reason -- Empty idealism -- Observing nature -- Observing self-consciousness -- Self-actualizing reason -- The project of individuality -- Reason on the periphery : Schelling's freedom essay -- Reason as peripheral -- Pantheism and freedom -- God as existing -- Longing for ground -- The possibility of evil -- The actuality of evil -- System, ground, and indifference -- Reason's systematic excess -- Hegel's system -- The myth of totalizing reason -- The philosophy of nature -- History -- Reason's systematic excess -- Schelling's positive philosophy -- The natural history of reason -- The critique of Hegel -- Now what? (shrink)

This paper surveys some of the questions that arise when we consider how entanglement and relativity are related via the notion of non-locality. We begin by reviewing the role of entangled states in Bell inequality violation and question whether the associated notions of non-locality lead to problems with relativity. The use of entanglement and wavefunction collapse in Einstein's famous incompleteness argument is then considered, before we go on to see how the issue of non-locality is transformed if one considers quantum (...) mechanics without collapse to be a complete theory, as in the Everett interpretation. (shrink)

A critical interrogation of elements of Hobbes's political and natural philosophy and its capacity to enrich our understanding of the natural of democratic life.

The last several decades have witnessed a vibrant discussion about the proper political role of religion in pluralistic liberal democracies. An important part of that discussion has been a dispute about the role that religious and secular reasons properly play in the justification of state coercion. Most of the theorists who have participated in that discussion have endorsed a restrictive understanding of the justificatory role available to religious reasons. Most importantly, advocates of that restrictive understanding deny that state coercion that (...) depends for its justification on religious considerations is morally legitimate. This standard, restrictive view can be formulated in various importantly different ways. All versions affirm certain core claims—that we ought to respect each human being and that proper respect for each human being requires that state coercion be justified to the coerced. But thereafter advocates of the standard view disagree about how to fill in the details. In this paper, I will focus on one "detail" that is both central to the standard view and also a source of much disagreement among its advocates, viz., what makes it the case that state coercion is justified to the coerced? (shrink)