Essays honoring the work of Catholic ethicist James F. Keenan.

Between Sickness and Health is about illness rather than disease, and recovery rather than cure. The book argues that illness is an experience, represented by the feeling that 'I am not myself'. From the book's phenomenological point of view, feelings of illness cannot be 'unreal' or 'fake', whatever their biological basis, nor need they be categorised as 'physical', 'psychosomatic' or 'psychiatric'. The book challenges the disease-centred ethos of medicine and medical education. It demonstrates that a clearer conception of illness, as (...) distinct from disease, is therapeutic. The feeling that 'I am once again myself' can return, in some degree, whatever state the body is in. Resilience becomes more available when it is seen as a set of personal skills that can be developed, rather than as an inborn trait. Possibilities of wellness are enhanced by recognising that medical and other therapies can either support or impede recovery, as can human relationships and the socio-political environment. The book's many clinical examples are drawn from the author's broad experience as a neurologist, rehabilitation physician and systemic family therapist. Between Sickness and Health will be useful for students, practitioners and academics, and also for anyone who has been or might one day be ill. (shrink)

We discuss in this essay the alternative techniques proposed for the isolation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) that attempt to satisfy moral issues surrounding killing embryos but show that these techniques are either redundant or do not achieve their intended aim. We discuss the difficulties associated with defining a human embryo and how the lack of clarity on this issue antagonises the ethical debate and impedes hESC research. We present scientific evidence showing that isolation of hESCs does not necessarily (...) "kill" human embryos. In addition, we argue that even those who accord inviolable moral status to the embryo should agree that hESC research is morally obligatory, as it is beneficial to the developmental potential of the embryo and society as a whole. (shrink)

Kant’s Transcendental Ideal (TI) is presented in a notoriously obscure section of the Critique of Pure Reason. Many readers know that Kant’s principal purpose in the TI is to show how reason fallaciously derives its concept of God from its idea of the world. But this argument is clothed in a language that is unfamiliar even to skilled commentators on Kant’s work. In this essay, I present the historical context of the proof, conduct a detailed exegesis of the proof, and (...) argue that Kant formulated the Transcendental Ideal in such a way as to avoid Spinozism—a point Kant later seems to have doubted could be avoided. I develop my case in light of some comments made in a lesser-known essay that Kant wrote for the 1795 contest of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin. (shrink)

This essay is intended to explore relations between work and subjectivity (that is, what concerns the individual subject: his or her suffering, pleasure, personal development, and so on). To this end, we shall draw on a body of theory and clinical practice that has been developing in France for some twenty years under the name of the `psychodynamics of work' and ask the three following questions. What is work? This question might seem trivial, but the clinical analysis of the relationship (...) between work and subjectivity shows that work is inseparable from suffering. Working inevitably means experiencing failure—in terms of one's know-how, technique and control of the work process. Is suffering simply an unfortunate consequence of work? We shall attempt to show that in fact it is also at the origin of intelligence and ingeniousness. Which subjectivity? Assuming that we recognise what work owes to subjectivity, we must also reverse the question and ask ourselves what subjectivity (individual development) owes to work. We shall attempt to show that work constitutes a decisive challenge for subjectivity, one that can enhance that subjectivity (self-fulfilment) or, conversely, destroy it (mental pathology). Here, we shall evoke the questions raised by mental pathologies generated by the new forms of work organisation. Subjectivity between work and action? Work is not simply an individual experience. We always work for someone. Working always means encountering others in social relations, or in other words, relations of domination and servitude. Under what conditions do men and women who work agree to cooperate with each other? What conditions allow us to ward off the violence threatening to emerge from the social relations of work? Work offers what is perhaps the most ordinary opportunity to learn about living together (in Aristotle's sense) and democracy. But it can also give rise to the worst—the instrumentalisation of human beings and barbarity. (shrink)

first-order HMM, the current tag t0 is predicted based on the previous tag t−1 (and the current word).1 The back- We present a new part-of-speech tagger that ward interaction between t0 and the next tag t+1 shows demonstrates the following ideas: (i) explicit up implicitly later, when t+1 is generated in turn. While unidirectional models are therefore able to capture both use of both preceding and following tag con-.

Forthcoming in U. Feest (ed.), Historical Perspectives on Erkl.

Upon entering clinical medicine in the 1940s, antibiotic therapy seemed to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerous environments where attempts (...) to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest—came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards. (shrink)

Upon entering clinical medicine in the 1940s, antibiotic therapy seemed to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerous environments where attempts (...) to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest—came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards. (shrink)

La notion catholique d'universalité hésite entre une conception spatiale, très ancienne, et une visée symbolique, confirmée par Vatican II, mais volontiers réinterprétée de nos jours en termes juridiques. Une lecture globale des Écritures, inspirée de l'Épître aux Éphésiens, a produit, après un modèle « intégraliste » de catholicité de la foi, une lecture eschatologique de la « récapitulation » de toute l'humanité dans l'Église corps du Christ, qui offre un échange réciproque entre toutes les cultures du monde et la vérité (...) évangélique. Propre à favoriser l'entrée du christianisme dans le processus de mondialisation, cette vision n'échappe pourtant pas au soupçon de dissimuler une violence dominatrice. Pour y parer, l'Église doit revenir au messianisme évangélique et le prendre pour forme d'un universel concret affranchi de tout exclusivisme, car, dans le Christ, Dieu communique sa sainteté à la multitude humaine et chacun est engendré unique en lien avec les autres à la façon dont le Christ est unique. Cet universalisme messianique est avant tout d'ordre pratique et créatif : c'est un style de vie qui repousse la violence des normes institutionnelles en situant les chrétiens aux frontières du lien qui tient ensemble les individus et les sociétés, par-delà toute idolâtrie et tout désenchantement. The Roman Catholic idea of universality hesitates between a spatial conception, very ancient, and a symbolical perspective, confirmed by Vatican II, but freely reinterpretated today in juridical terms. A global reading of the Scriptures, inspired by the Epistle to the Ephesians, has produced, after an “ integral” model of the catholicity of faith, an eschatological reading of the « recapitulation » of all humanity into the Church-body of Christ, which offers a reciprocal change between all cultures of the world and evangelical truth. This vision, proper for favoring the entrance of Christianity into the process of globalization, does not escape, however, a suspicion that it dissimulates a dominating violence. To ward this off, the Church should return to evangelical messianism and take it in the form of a concrete universal, free from all exclusivity, for in Christ, God communicates his holiness to the human multitude. Each one is engendered uniquely, in connection with others in the way that Christ is unique. This messianic universalism is, above all, of a practical and creative order It is a style of life that wards off the violence of institutional norms in situating Christians at the frontier of the connection that holds together individuals and societies, beyond all idolatry and disenchantment. (shrink)

As Plato’s tripartite division of the soul, Descartes’s criterion of clear and distinct ideas, and Kant’s notion of the categorical imperative attest, philosophy has traditionally been wedded to rationalism and its “intellectualist” view of persons. In this book Christopher Williams seeks to wean his fellow philosophers away from an overly rationalistic self-understanding by using resources that are available within the philosophical tradition itself, including some that anticipate strands of Nietzsche’s thought. The book begins by developing Hume’s critique of rationalism, (...) with reference especially to the section of the _Treatise_ that deals with the continuing existence of bodies and to his neglected essay “The Sceptic” where Hume reveals the importance of our embodiment through a comic portrayal of philosophers’ efforts to “correct our sentiments.” Then it moves on to ward off charges of irrationalism by showing that, although our powers of self-correction are more limited than the rationalist thinks they are, a Humean position is able both to sustain a commitment to reflection and to sensitize us to a version of irrationalism, manifest in monotheistic theologies, that is otherwise difficult to detect. The book concludes, more speculatively, with a comparison of persons to artworks in order to show how our aesthetic dimension is the source of some of the normative work previously assigned to rationalist reason. Ranging as it does across subfields from epistemology and history of philosophy to ethics and aesthetics, _A Cultivated Reason_ should appeal to a wide audience of philosophers and to scholars in other fields as well. (shrink)

As the editors fully perceived, the new critical edition of the so-called commentary of Bernardus Silvestris on the Aeneid of Vergil was but a stage in the development of a basic knowledge of this important work. We could not, with the data available to us, solve certain major problems relating to author and text. We could not, for example, confidently name the author, nor could we adequately describe the genesis of the work. Recently, two studies have appeared — the first (...) by E. R. Smits, the second by Christopher Baswell — which seek to address these questions. The present article will in the main be a critique of these studies. In my view the two scholars perform a valuable service in bringing forward new material to which others may react, but the principal suggestion of Smits must be rejected and the conclusions of Baswell require modification. (shrink)

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGDie Auseinandersetzung mit der Praxis des Bittgebets stellt keine Randthematik bei der Reflexion des theistischen Glaubens dar, sondern ist von erheblicher systematischer und existentieller Bedeutung. Eine rege Debatte über die Sinnhaftigkeit des Bittgebets ist gegenwärtig in der angelsächsischen Religionsphilosophie in Gang. Die Untersuchung präsentiert und würdigt kritisch die aktuellen Entwürfe zum Bittgebet von Eleonore Stump und Keith Ward. Beide Autoren erachten die traditionelle Konzeption des Bittgebets bei Thomas von Aquin für unbefriedigend und entwickeln ihre eigenen Entwürfe in Absetzung vom (...) Aquinaten. Da weder Stump noch Ward eine detaillierte Analyse des Bittgebets bei Thomas vorlegen, wird dieses in einem ersten Schritt vorgestellt. In einem zweiten Schritt erfolgt die Auseinandersetzung mit den von Stump und Ward vorgebrachten Einwänden. Abschließend werden Stärken und Schwächen des thomanischen Entwurfs erhoben.SUMMARYWhat petitionary prayer is about is not a marginal topic for theism but bears considerable systematic and existential value. A lively debate about the meaningfulness of petitionary prayer is under way in contemporary angloamerican philosophy of religion. The paper presents and discusses the accounts of petitionary prayer put forward by Eleonore Stump and Keith Ward. Both scholars consider the traditional account of petitionary prayer proposed by Thomas Aquinas as unsatisfactory and develop their own outlines in opposition to Aquinas. Regrettably neither Stump nor Ward provide us with a detailed analysis of Aquinas's understanding of petitionary prayer. Therefore the paper first presents at length the account of Aquinas. Then the objections Stump and Ward put forward against Aquinas are examined. Finally, strengths and weaknesses of Aquinas's understanding of petitionary prayer are worked out. (shrink)

erative clustering. First, we show formally that the common heuristic agglomerative clustering algorithms – Ward’s method, single-link, complete-link, and a variant of group-average – are each equivalent to a hierarchical model-based method. This interpretation gives a theoretical explanation of the empirical behavior of these algorithms, as well as a principled approach to resolving practical issues, such as number of clusters or the choice of method. Second, we show how a model-based viewpoint can suggest variations on these basic agglomerative algorithms. (...) We introduce adjusted complete-link, Mahalanobis-link, and line-link as variants, and demonstrate their utility. (shrink)

Audre Lorde’s account of the erotic is one of her most widely celebrated contributions to political theory and feminist activism, but her explanation of the term in her brief essay “Uses of the Erotic” is famously oblique and ambiguous. This article develops a detailed, textually grounded interpretation of Lorde’s erotic, based on an analysis of how Lorde’s essay brings together commitments expressed across her work. I describe four integral elements of Lorde’s erotic: feeling, knowledge, power, and concerted action. The erotic (...) is a way of feeling in the work a person does, which makes possible new knowledge about the self and the social environment— particularly to counteract epistemic oppression imposed by an unjust society. The erotic is a source of power by providing vision and energy for actions integrating a person’s multiple commitments and political interests. It facilitates concerted action and coalition by enhancing a person’s appreciation of their interests and values, while fostering embodied, personal connections that build trust on the basis of shared vulnerability. Thus, the erotic helps build coalitions where genuine differences of perspective and experience can be examined, in resistance against an oppressive society’s epistemic distortions. (shrink)

Discussions of sexual ethics often focus on the wrong of treating another as a mere object instead of as a person worthy of respect. On this view, the task of sexual ethics becomes putting the other’s subjectivity above their status as erotic object so as to avoid the harms of objectification. Ward and Anderson argue that such a view disregards the crucial, moral role that erotic objecthood plays in sexual encounters. Important moral features of intimacy are disclosed through the (...) experience of being an erotic object for another, as well as in perceiving another as an erotic object. Drawing on phenomenology, especially the insights of Simone de Beauvoir, Ward and Anderson argue that erotic encounters are shaped by the human condition of ambiguity, where being an object for others is intertwined with bodily agency. Because sexual agency is complex in this way, theories of sexual ethics and responsibility must widen their focus beyond transparent communication and authoritative expressions of will. (shrink)

Throughout her work, Audre Lorde maintains that her self-preservation in the face of oppression depends on acting from the recognition and valorization of her feelings as a deep source of knowledge. This claim, taken as a portrayal of agency, poses challenges to standard positions in ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology. This article examines the oppositional agency articulated by Lorde’s thought, locating feeling, poetry, and the power she calls “the erotic” within her avowed project of self-preservation. It then explores the implications (...) of taking seriously Lorde’s account, particularly for theorists examining ethics and epistemology under nonideal social conditions. For situations of sexual intimacy, for example, Lorde’s account unsettles prevailing assumptions about the role of consent in responsibility between sexual partners. I argue that obligations to solicit consent and respect refusal are not sufficient to acknowledge the value of agency in intimate encounters when agency is oppositional in the way Lorde describes. (shrink)

Despite the growing attention to oppression and resistance in social and political philosophy as well as ethics, philosophers continue to struggle to describe and appropriately attribute agency under non-ideal circumstances of oppression and structural injustice. This chapter identifies some features of new accounts of non-ideal agency and then examines a particular problem for such theories, what Serene Khader has called the agency dilemma. Under the agency dilemma, attempts to articulate the agency of subjects living under oppression must on the one (...) hand avoid overemphasizing constraints on agency, and thereby producing paternalistic theories that “deny agency” for oppressed subjects, and on the other hand avoid failing to fully appreciate the effects of oppression on agency, thereby missing crucial features of how oppression unjustly shapes a person’s lived possibilities. This chapter traces this dilemma to a preoccupation with ascribing agency, which produces problematic descriptive and political effects for theorizing agency under oppression: what the author calls an asymmetry problem and a disenfranchisement problem. Finally, the chapter proposes that the agency dilemma might be ameliorated if theorists scrutinize more closely how moral, epistemic, and political agency interact and overlap in life under oppression. (shrink)

In Minimal Rationality, Christopher Cherniak boldly challenges the myth of Man the the Rational Animal and the central role that the "perfectly rational...

Philosophy, as I use it here, is a conversation, one stretching back through various canonical European and Ancient Greek texts at least to Thales. Has this conversation progressed? The main objection to philosophy's having a linear progression is dissensus – the fact that philosophers all disagree but still accept each other as peers. In this chapter, I argue that we should conceive of philosophy as being capable of a branching kind of progression: philosophy progresses when it gives us more ways (...) of conceiving of ourselves. (shrink)

This book contains Volumes 1 and 2 of the original works.

Nietzsche distinguished between two forces in art: Apollonian, which represents order and reason, and Dionysian, which represents chaos and energy. Economists, Ward argues, have operated for too long under the assumption that their work reflects the scientific, Apollonian principals that inform physics when they simply do not apply to economics: 'constants' in economics stand in for variables, and the core scientific principles of prediction and replication are all but ignored by economists. Ward encourages economists to reintegrate the standard (...) rigor of the scientific method into their work while embracing the fact of the shape-shifting changeability of human beings. Economists can still aspire to scientific standards, as is demonstrated by the success of biology, in which there is considerable Dionysian variability. Economists must avoid the temptation to wish away dynamic complexity and diversity and must recognize, among other things, that the desire to take risks is fundamentally human. The second half of the book takes some first steps toward creating this new Dionysian Economics. (shrink)

Provides guiding principles and values for practising responsible global media ethics.

In canonical quantum gravity the wave function of the universe is static, leading to the so-called problem of time. We summarize here how Bohmian mechanics solves this problem.

Judgment -- Externals -- Perspective -- Death -- Desire -- Wealth and pleasure -- What others think -- Valuation -- Emotion -- Adversity -- Virtue -- Learning -- Stoicism and its critics.

Global Media Ethics is the first comprehensive cross-cultural exploration of the conceptual and practical issues facing media ethics in a global world. A team of leading journalism experts investigate the impact of major global trends on responsible journalism. The first full-length, truly global textbook on media ethics; Explores how current global changes in media promote and inhibit responsible journalism; Includes relevant and timely ethical discussions based on major trends in journalism and global media; Questions existing frameworks in media ethics in (...) light of the impact of global media; Contributors are leading experts in global journalism and communication. (shrink)

This study takes inquiry as the starting point for epistemological theorising. It uses this idea to develop new and systematic answers to some of the most fundamental questions in epistemology, including about the nature of core epistemic phenomena as well as their value and the extent to which we possess them.

A short definitive account of Keith Ward's theology, based on the philosophy of Personal Idealism. It records Ward's views about God, revelation, the kingdom of God, life after death, the incarnation, atonement, and Trinity. In summary, it is a concise and clear account of most central Christian doctrines, formed in the light of modern science and Idealist philosophy.

The coherence objection to the doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that it is impossible for one individual to have both the attributes of God and the attributes of a human being. This article examines Thomas Aquinas’s answer to this objection. I challenge the dominant, mereological interpretation of Aquinas’s position and, in light of this challenge, develop and defend a new alternative interpretation of Aquinas’s response to this important objection to Christian doctrine.

Are your students prepared? Are they ready to view the world through biblical lenses? Are they equipped to engage the world with scriptural discernment? Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption is a tool that helps teachers equip 11th or 12th grade students with a Christian understanding of all major academic disciplines and cultural arenas. Course goals: Define worldview and demonstrate how worldviews influence the way people think about all of life; Analyze a Biblical worldview in terms of Creation, Fall and Redemption; (...) Apply Creation, Fall and Redemption to real-life issues as well as to making positive contributions to life and culture. Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption Student Text was created to appeal to student interest and develop understanding. Application examples taken from history and recent events resonate with students, motivating them to apply Scripture to issues that are crucial to their spiritual growth. Apologetics is interwoven throughout the textbook, equipping students to defend the foundational teachings of the Bible against competing worldviews. At the same time, the framework of Creation, Fall, Redemption enables students to make distinctively Christian contributions to their culture. (shrink)

Do Hume and Kant hold strongly divergent views about the causal principle, viz. the principle that every event or change of state in nature must have a cause? It has traditionally been held that they do, and on the ground that while Hume claims that there is no justification for the principle’s acceptance, Kant claims that the principle can be shown to be necessary for the possibility of experience. However, I argue that, on Hume’s account of how we come to (...) believe in the existence of external objects, it is not possible for us to perceive any external object that is changing its state randomly or acausally. Accordingly, Hume is no position to deny that the causal principle can be justified, given he acknowledges, like Kant, that we do believe ourselves capable of perceiving events, or changes of state, in nature. Equally, Kant is no position to claim to have answered Hume’s scepticism about the causal principle given he acknowledges, like Hume, that the objects of the senses are, in reality, merely appearances and not things in themselves. (shrink)

Deviant causal chain problems arise in many settings. The most famous instance of the problem is the Gettier problem, but the problem also arises in the philosophy of action and perception. Usually, attempts to tackle these problems try to solve them individually. This paper takes a different approach: I propose a general solution to the problem. I begin by providing a solution to the deviant causal chain problem for skillful performance, and I argue that the solution can be extended to (...) solve the Gettier problem and the deviant causal chain problems for perception and intentional action. As I develop my solution to these problems, I also compare it with other solutions to bring out the advantages of my approach. I then explain why the solution generalizes: my solution provides us with an analysis of disposition manifestation, which is the key to ruling out deviance. I conclude by considering objections and giving my replies. (shrink)

Assertion is the central vehicle for the sharing of knowledge. Whether knowledge is shared successfully often depends on the quality of assertions: good assertions lead to successful knowledge sharing, while bad ones don't. In Sharing Knowledge, Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion investigate the relation between knowledge sharing and assertion, and develop an account of what it is to assert well. More specifically, they argue that the function of assertion is to share knowledge with others. It is this function that supports (...) a central norm of assertion according to which a good assertion is one that has the disposition to generate knowledge in others. The book uses this functionalist approach to motivate further norms of assertion on both the speaker and the hearer side and investigates ramifications of this view for other questions about assertion. (shrink)

Ian Ward argues that through a closer appreciation of the ethical and aesthetical dimensions of terror, as well as the historical, political and cultural, we can better comprehend modern expressions and experiences of terrorism.

Highlights of a difficult history -- The preliminary identification of our topic -- Approaches -- Bradley's protest -- James's disjunctive theory -- The source of Bradley's dissatisfaction -- Behaviourism and after -- Heirs of Bradley in the twentieth century -- The underlying metaphysical issue -- Explanatory tactics -- The basic distinction -- Metaphysical categories and taxonomies -- Adverbialism, multiple realizability, and natural kinds -- Adverbialism and levels of explanation -- Taxonomies and supervenience relations -- Rejecting the process : first view (...) -- Supervenience-failure -- The modal commitments of the process : first view -- The interference argument : a putative problem for adverbialist accounts -- Cognitive unison -- The problem with attitude based adverbialism -- Gilbert Ryle and Alan White -- White's argument against disposition-based adverbialism -- The cognitive unison theory -- Tasks -- Cognitive processes -- Potential service of a task -- Superordinate tasks -- Some features of the theory -- Divided attention -- Degrees of attention and merely partial attention -- The causal life of attention -- Mental causation -- How to respond to mental causation objections -- The causal role of attention -- Attention as an enabling condition -- Counterfactuals -- The causal relevance of attention per se -- Counterfactuals and causally relevant properties -- Objections to counterfactual analysis of causation and of causal relevance -- The extrinsicness of unison -- The privative character of unison and the problem of absence causation -- Causal exclusion -- Consequences for cognitive psychology -- Psychology and metaphysics -- The metaphysical commitments of the process-identifying project -- The diverse explanatory construals of current psychological results -- Reasons for deflation -- Inductively unreliable properties -- Questions without answers -- The positive payoff -- Philosophical work for the theory of attention -- Putting attention to philosophical work -- Attention and reference -- Attention and consciousness -- Prospects for optimism. (shrink)