Ever since the rhetorical turn in education, education scholars have recognized the importance of rhetoric in constructing and mediating human society. They have turned to rhetorical theory to come to terms with this rhetorically mediated reality and to engage students as critical citizens within it. Much of this work draws on rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke, but much of Burke’s work remains unexplored in this area. We argue that his theories can be part of a user’s guide to educate students about (...) rhetoric’s function in society, to educate them about the opportunities and pitfalls that rhetoric brings. In this essay, we offer his dramatistic pentad as part of this larger user’s guide. The pentad identifies the logical elements of action and provides a model that explains the “grammar of motives”. It also provides a method for analyzing statements of motives, which rhetorical critics have long used to describe and explain strategic constructions of motives. Although the pentad is relatively easy to teach and to understand, its application to particular discourses can reveal complex relationships among the elements of action, laying bare their operation within the grammar of motives. We claim that the pentad offers lessons for students to engage with important societal issues, lessons about the limitations of any one construction of motives and how to overcome those limitations. (shrink)

From the Disney 'Teacher of the Year' and New York Times bestselling author comes a road map to enrich students' learning experiences, revised and updated for today's teachers and parents. After publishing the New York Times bestseller The Essential 55 (over 1 million copies sold), award-winning teacher Ron Clark took his rules on the road and traveled to schools and districts in 50 states. He met amazing teachers, administrators, students, parents, and all kinds of people involved in bringing up great (...) kids. These are the eleven qualities he describes in The Excellent 11: Enthusiasm, Adventure, Creativity, Reflection, Balance, Compassion, Confidence, Humor, Common Sense, Appreciation, and Resilience. Ron has filled this book with hundreds of suggestions, stories, and wonderfully funny anecdotes. You'll be smiling as you read--and finding the inspiration to change lives, one student at a time"--Back cover. (shrink)

In his précis of a recent book, Richard Joyce writes, “My contention…is that…any epistemological benefit-of-the-doubt that might have been extended to moral beliefs…will be neutralized by the availability of an empirically confirmed moral genealogy that nowhere…presupposes their truth.” Such reasoning – falling under the heading “Genealogical Debunking Arguments” – is now commonplace. But how might “the availability of an empirically confirmed moral genealogy that nowhere… presupposes” the truth of our moral beliefs “neutralize” whatever “epistemological benefit-of-the-doubt that might have been extended (...) to” them? In this article, I argue that there appears to be no satisfactory answer to this question. The problem is quite general, applying to all arguments with the structure of Genealogical Debunking Arguments aimed at realism about a domain meeting two conditions. The Benacerraf-Field Challenge for mathematical realism affords an important special case. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of modal metaphysics has been vindicated. Quine's arguments to the contrary supposedly confused analyticity with metaphysical necessity, and rigid with non-rigid designators.2 But even if modal metaphysics is intelligible, it could be misconceived. It could be that metaphysical necessity is not absolute necessity – the strictest real notion of necessity – and that no proposition of traditional metaphysical interest is necessary in every real sense. If there were nothing otherwise “uniquely metaphysically significant” about (...) metaphysical necessity, then paradigmatic metaphysical necessities would be necessary in one sense of “necessary”, not necessary in another, and that would be it. The question of whether they were necessary simpliciter would be like the question of whether the Parallel Postulate is true simpliciter – understood as a pure mathematical conjecture, rather than as a hypothesis about physical spacetime. In a sense, the latter question has no objective answer. In this article, I argue that paradigmatic questions of modal metaphysics are like the Parallel Postulate question. I then discuss the deflationary ramifications of this argument. I conclude with an alternative conception of the space of possibility. According to this conception, there is no objective boundary between possibility and impossibility. Along the way, I sketch an analogy between modal metaphysics and set theory. (shrink)

This paper examines three views of what an omission or an instance of refraining is. The view advanced is that in many cases, an omission is simply an absence of an action of some type. However, generally one’s not doing a certain thing counts as an omission only if there is some norm, standard, or ideal that calls for one’s doing that thing.

The distinction between perception and cognition frames countless debates in philosophy and cognitive science. But what, if anything, does this distinction actually amount to? In this introductory article, we summarize recent work on this question. We first briefly consider the possibility that a perception-cognition border should be eliminated from our scientific ontology, and then introduce and critically examine five positive approaches to marking a perception–cognition border, framed in terms of phenomenology, revisability, modularity, format, and stimulus-dependence.

ABSTRACT Glen Pettigrove wishes to accommodate the thought that exemplary instances of love, forgiveness and ambition need not be strictly proportional to the value present in their objects and that agents who are excellent may value the same things somewhat differently from one another or differently over time. To make room for these attractive ideas, he sketches an approach according to which (i) the virtuous agent’s particular modus operandi constitutes an important locus of value and (ii) the value of virtue (...) is sui generis. I note that the principle of universalizability threatens his project. I sketch a way to reject this principle that agrees with the thesis that an agent’s modus operandi may be an important locus of value but puts pressure on the thesis that the value of virtue is sui generis. I question whether Pettigrove needs the second thesis. (shrink)

This is an amended version of material that first appeared in A. Clark, Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Parallel Distributed Processing (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989), Ch. 1, 2, and 6. It appears in German translation in Metzinger,T (Ed) DAS LEIB-SEELE-PROBLEM IN DER ZWEITEN HELFTE DES 20 JAHRHUNDERTS (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. 1999).

This essential guide to paradoxes takes the reader on a lively tour of puzzles that have taxed thinkers from Zeno to Galileo and Lewis Carroll to Bertrand Russell. Michael Clark uncovers an array of conundrums, such as Achilles and the Tortoise, Theseus' Ship, Hempel's Raven, and the Prisoners' Dilemma, taking in subjects as diverse as knowledge, ethics, science, art and politics. Clark discusses each paradox in non-technical terms, considering its significance and looking at likely solutions.

Samuel Clarke was by far the most gifted and influential Newtonian philosopher of his generation, and A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, which constituted the 1704 Boyle Lectures, was one of the most important works of the first half of the eighteenth century, generating a great deal of controversy about the relation between space and God, the nature of divine necessary existence, the adequacy of the Cosmological Argument, agent causation, and the immateriality of the soul. Together (...) with the other texts presented in this edition, it also provides the best introduction to Clarke's philosophical views, which, in addition to their intrinsic interest, are historically important for the light they shed both on the philosophical positions within the Newtonian circle and on the exchange between Clarke and Leibniz, the most famous philosophical controversy of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

In Freedom: An Impossible Reality, Ray Tallis argues that we escape imprisonment by causal determinism, and thus gain free will, by the virtual distance from natural laws afforded us by intentionality, a human capacity that he claims cannot be naturalized. I respond that we can’t know in advance that intentionality will never be subsumed by science, and that our capacities to entertain possibilities and decide among them are natural cognitive endowments that supervene on generally reliable neural processes. Moreover, any disconnection (...) from the multi-level determinants that account for human behavior cannot augment, but would likely undermine, effective human agency. Our full inclusion in nature, understood in terms of a pragmatic, explanatory determinism, is therefore not a prison from which we need to escape. (shrink)

I this article, I introduce the notion of pluralism about an area, and use it to argue that the questions at the center of our normative lives are not settled by the facts -- even the normative facts. One upshot of the discussion is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension. Another is that the concept of objectivity, not realism, should take center stage.

Dennett depicts human minds as both deeply different from, yet profoundly continuous with, the minds of other animals and simple agents. His treatments of mind, consciousness, free will and human agency all reflect this distinctive dual perspective. There is, on the one hand, the (in)famous Intentional Stance, relative to which humans, dogs, insects and even the lowly thermostat (e.g. Dennett (1998) p.327) are all pronounced capable of believing and desiring in essentially the same theoretical sense. And there is, on the (...) other hand, a noteworthy (and increasing) insistence that human minds are special in that they exhibit a distinctive kind of “informational organization”: one that confers consciousness (Dennett (1998) p.347), and creates the space for agency, purpose, self-control (Dennett (1984) p.100), and “significant suffering” (Dennett (1998) p.351). What follows is a critical examination of this dual perspective, and of Dennett’s account of the key factor that makes us special - human language and our immersion in the sea of culture (Dennett (1998) p.146, (1996) p.130, (in press) p.7). In particular, I shall ask whether Dennett’s dual perspective masks a deeper tension in his accounts of consciousness and personhood, and whether the appeal to the transformative power of human language and culture can bear the heavy explanatory burden Dennett places upon it. These turn out to be significant challenges but ones which also help clarify the scope and power of this complex, multi-layered account. I end by commenting briefly on the wider significance of Dennett’s project as a major contribution to current debates concerning the continuity (or otherwise) of evolved cognitive strategies and the essentially hybrid (biological and non-biological) nature of human minds and persons. (shrink)

Many religious people are alarmed about features of the current age - violence in the media, a pervasive hedonism, a marginalization of religion, and widespread abortion. These concerns influence politics, but just as there should be a separation between church and state, so should there be a balance between religious commitments and secular arguments calling for social reforms. Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom except (...) on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. The book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate co-operation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends. Audi offers a balanced and sophisticated treatment of the relations between religion and politics in a modern, secular society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Role of Malebranche in Ernest Renan's Philosophical Development BENJAMIN ROUNTREE RENANHASBEENCALLEDwith some justification the "Malebranche du dix-neuvi~me si~cle." 1 In his praise of the seventeenth-century philosopher, Renan was unconciously inclined to call attention to the similarities between himself and Malebranche by pointing out qualities which they were apt to share. A thinker as sinuous as Renan was bound to appreciate the power of subtle reasoning in such (...) a work as the admirable Recherche de la V~rit6. In a certain sense Renan is even the heir of a spirit to which Malebranche gave fresh impetus. Like Malebranche, he inveighed against pedants, dilettantes, and idolators of antiquity; he turned his back on tradition to favor modem thought over ancient, and placed his faith in a world governed by knowledge and reason in which progress and human perfectibility promise man happiness. In his basic optimism, in his belief that man is capable of knowing truth, in his somewhat pantheistic mysticism, Renan joins hands with Malebranche across the eighteenth century. How well did Renan know Malebranche? What did he think of him? Did his opinion of him undergo any evolution? To find the answers to these questions one must go back to about 1840, when Renan, a.t seventeen, began his study of Malebranche. By the time he was twenty, Renan, under the guidance of M. Gosselin, who little suspected how great a contribution Malebranche would make to Renan's decision to leave the Church, was reading the philosopher with enthusiastic regularity. Indeed, the Oratorian had become "l'objet perp6tuel" of his reflections, he tells us. The speculative terminology of the Entretiens sur la M6taphysique and the M6ditations chrgtiennes echoed through his class compositions and notebooks. His ideas on the general action of Providence in the universe were already similar to those of this philosopher, who, "illustre" and "saint," soon became for him a kind of spiritual hero, a hero whose exemplary intellectual zeal drew Renan instinctively ever more deeply into the contemplative life, into.the fervent and determined quest for "Truth." This "penseur hardi" was destined to excite Renan's own paradoxical mind as "le plus beau r~veur et le plus terrible logicien" ever to exist.~ 1L. L~vy-Bruhl, "La Religion de Renan," Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique (A~pril,1923), p. 344. Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d'en]ance et de ieunesse, in Les Oeuvres completes d'Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann=L~vy, 1947), II, 843-846. All future references to Renan will be made from this edition unless otherwise specified. See also Lewis F. Mott, Ernest Renan (New York: D. Appleton, 1921), pp. 15-16; Jean Pommier, Renan (Paris: Perrin, 1923), p. 37; La Jeunesse clSricale d'Ernest Renan (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1933), p. 138; "Les Lectures de Renan au sSminaire,"La Revue d'histoire litt6raire de la France (1934), p. 93. [47] 48 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY For a moment Malebranche, like Pascal, even helped delay Renan's loss of faith. The attempt of a Christian to satisfy the intelligence through vigorous application of Cartesian rationalism to theology and science fascinated the young student in 1843 as he read the Conversations chr~tiennes and the Recherche de la Vdritd. He eagerly believed that reason leads one to knowledge of God, that the search for Truth is the search for God. Thus, equating the Diety to Truth and retaining his belief in a providence evident in immutable natural law, Renan continued to accept the Catholic dogma, the Bible and revealed truth in a "general sense," as he says in his Souvenirs. After Renan's first soul-shattering year of philosophy Malebranche still stood alongside Pascal and Bossuet as a model of piety, as a "grand esprit," a profound intelligence capable of remaining genuinely Christian, a powerful thinker "qui dit sa messe route sa vie." a He appeared as one solution to Renan's own growing spiritual problem, for Malebranche's example seemed a way of retaining intellectual independence without leaving the Church. Here was a priest, Renan thought, who, in a time of steadily increasing ecclesiastical authority, had been able to live "peacefully" even as a member of a religious congregation without... (shrink)

In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that the human mind is not bound inside the head but extends into body and environment.

The paper draws on three years' fieldwork and twelve years' familiarity withfeminist witches in New Zealand. These women are thoughtful and articulate about their magical practice, and it is their theories about how magic works and the function of ritual‐making which are the paper's central concern. Scholarly theories and debates about magic and ritual have frequently been dichotomously constructed: science versus magic, the symbolists versus the intellectualists, causality versus participation, ritual as action versus belief as thought, and so on. The (...) witches who are the focus of this study do not explain their ritual practice in such dichotomized terms. Their spells, forexample, incorporate expressive, dramaticand aesthetic components and values, along with an explicit instrumental purpose. For these witches, magic is not anti‐science or pseudoscience: it sits alongside science as another wayofaddressingaproblem. The paper discusses feminist witches' theories and practices in the light of anthropological theories about ritual and magic, explores the role of symbols and energy in magic, and demonstrates how these witchesuse ritual for empowerment and healing. (shrink)

This article discusses Neo-Pagan journeys to archaeological or heritage sites (such as ancient temples and stone circles) associated with pre-Christian religions and deities. It argues that within the rationale of a Neo-Pagan worldview, several common binaries dissolve and reveal themselves as continuities at sacred sites: human body and earth body, the past and the present, inner and outer worlds, self and other, human and deity. In the course of Pagans’ bodily performances at sites, inner and outer landscapes co-create and flow (...) into one another: the lived body becomes a fundamental text and starting point for knowledge. Through somatic modes of attention - by attending to and with their bodies in surroundings that frequently include the embodied presence of others - Neo-pagan pilgrims experience themselves not as isolated subjectivities but as sharing an intersubjective milieu with other pilgrims and with the Earth itself. For women in particular, journeys to sacred sites potentially contribute to a radical re-inscription of the female body by exposing women to alternative representations of the feminine and by providing contexts in which the feminine can be re-imagined, re-experienced and performed differently through symbolic activity and ritual. In Butlerian terms, women potentially perform gender differently at sacred sites. (shrink)

Paul Pietroski argues that evolutionary/teleological theories of content offer implausible content ascriptions in certain cases, and that this provides grounds for rejecting this class of theories. He uses a fictional example to illustrate. A close look at the example shows it fails to provoke the intuitions Pietroski is relying on - these require relatively sophisticated representers while his representers are simple, comparable to known actual organisms for which the required intuitions do not arise. Could Pietroski make his point with an (...) amended example? I argue that the scenario required would be both evolutionarily unlikely, and such as to make intuitions unreliable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We focus on the core institution of the capital market and the institutional work of professional service firms that provide ratings on corporate issuers, initially in a bid to maintain this institution, which suffered when those involved relied solely on information from the issuers themselves. Through our analysis we identify a new type of decoupling—complicit decoupling. Complicit decoupling evolves over time, beginning with the creation of a new practice, here corporate ratings as a form of policing work, which emerges to (...) help to maintain a core institution. This practice is then adopted, implemented and later becomes decoupled. Exposure does not undermine the legitimacy of the practice because external actors collude in the ‘window dressing’ and, because it has become normalized, only partial repairs are enacted. It is by nature field-level institutional work, benefiting the majority of the field and inherently involves a violation of promise keeping. We conclude with implications for managers and behavioral ethics researchers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We focus on the core institution of the capital market and the institutional work of professional service firms that provide ratings on corporate issuers, initially in a bid to maintain this institution, which suffered when those involved relied solely on information from the issuers themselves. Through our analysis we identify a new type of decoupling—complicit decoupling. Complicit decoupling evolves over time, beginning with the creation of a new practice, here corporate ratings as a form of policing work, which emerges to (...) help to maintain a core institution. This practice is then adopted, implemented and later becomes decoupled. Exposure does not undermine the legitimacy of the practice because external actors collude in the ‘window dressing’ and, because it has become normalized, only partial repairs are enacted. It is by nature field-level institutional work, benefiting the majority of the field and inherently involves a violation of promise keeping. We conclude with implications for managers and behavioral ethics researchers. (shrink)

Jung was fascinated by the east. Through his commentaries on such texts as the I Ching and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and through his essays on such topics as Zen, meditation and the symbolism of the mandala, Jung attempted to build a bridge of understanding between western psychology and the ancient ideas and practices of eastern religion. By doing so he hoped to relate traditional eastern thought to modern western concerns. John Clarke's latest book seeks to uncover (...) Jung's dialogue with the east. The book will appeal to all those who wish to broaden their understanding of Jung's thought as well as to those who value eastern ways of thinking and who believe that by engaging with it westerners have much to gain both intellectually and spiritually. (shrink)

Critical theory and critical thinking emphasize the power of self-reflection and educative analysis where students in higher education become motivated to change their present societal reality by being strategic and action orientated. Central to these theories is the enlistment of strategies that utilize educational vehicles infused with critical thinking to engage students in the process of intensive evaluation of the theory, values, knowledge and skiIls of their respective fields with the often transformative impact upon a student’s worldviews. This article reviews (...) the theoretical and historical tenets of ctitical theory and its interdependence and reinforcing relationship with critical thinking. An illustration is offered that represents the cyclical and often transformative relationship between critical theory and critical thinking. Along with a definition of critical thinking there is a discussion of the difference between critical thinking and other forms of thinking. Last, at the core of the article will be suggestions for designing trans disciplinary teaching methods based upon Freire’s critical consciousness with an emphasis upon an instructor’s self-evaluative, liberating stance towards education. Strategies will be introduced that engage students in the act of intensive critical thinking becomes transformative. (shrink)

Although Aristotle (Metaphysics, Book IV, Chapter 2) was perhaps the first person to consider the part-whole relationship to be a proper subject matter for philosophic inquiry, the Polish logician Stanislow Lesniewski [15] is generally given credit for the first formal treatment of the subject matter in his Mereology.1 Woodger [30] and Tarski [24] made use of a specific adaptation of Lesniewski's work as a basis for a formal theory of physical things and their parts. The term 'calculus of individuals' was (...) introduced by Leonard and Goodman [14] in their presentation of a system very similar to Tarski's adaptation of Lesniewski's Mereology. Contemporaneously with Lesniewski's development of his Mereology, Whitehead [27] and [28] was developing a theory of extensive abstraction based on the two-place predicate, 'x extends over y\ which is the converse of 'x is a part of y\ This system, according to Russell [22], was to have been the fourth volume of their Pήncipia Mathematica, the never-published volume on geometry. Both Lesniewski [15] and Tarski [25] have recognized the similarities between Whitehead's early work and Lesniewski's Mereology. Between the publication of Whitehead's early work and the publication of Process and Reality [29], Theodore de Laguna [7] published a suggestive alternative basis for Whitehead's theory. This led Whitehead, in Process and Reality, to publish a revised form of his theory based on the two-place predicate, 'x is extensionally connected with y\ It is the purpose of this paper to present a calculus of individuals based on this new Whiteheadian primitive predicate. (shrink)

The notion that metaphorical statements are strictly false suggests that all statements, even those that seemed ‘literal’, are false, as none can ‘literally’ reflect reality. Statements about what we perceive or could perceive rely on evoking sensory images of such ‘visibles’, even though we have no direct access to what others, may perceive. In addition to what is visible, we must also deal with ‘invisibilia’ (both the fantasms that respectable moderns now reject and the realities that lie beyond or before (...) all sentient experience). Talking about such distant or long-ago realities must always be ‘metaphorical’, as they cannot have any of the merely ‘subjective’ properties of experience, nor do they explain those latter properties. Is there some way of confirming the brute conviction that there is a ‘real and intelligible world’, and that we can find it out or describe it ‘literally’? May ‘Reason’ be a route to understanding? But this too is an illusion: we seem never in practice to escape contradictions and had perhaps better turn again to consider the worlds of experience to which we are confined. What we experience is conditioned by our imagination: whether that metaphorical imagination points beyond experience remains uncertain. (shrink)

On the text and translation of the De mysteriis -- Iamblichus the man -- The De mysteriis : a defence of theurgy, and an answer to Porphyry's letter to Anebo -- Iamblichus's knowledge of Egyptian religion and mythology -- The nature and contents of De mysteriis -- Iamblichus, De mysteriis : text and translation.

Species : visions and values -- Fantasies : seeing without what was within -- Prestiges : illusions in magic and art -- Glamours : demons and virtual worlds -- Images : the reformation of the eyes -- Apparitions : the discernment of spirits -- Sights : King Saul and King Macbeth -- Seemings : philosophical scepticism -- Dreams : the epistemology of sleep -- Signs : vision and the new philosophy.

The motivating question of this paper is: ‘How are our beliefs in the theorems of mathematics justified?’ This is distinguished from the question ‘How are our mathematical beliefs reliably true?’ We examine an influential answer, outlined by Russell, championed by Gödel, and developed by those searching for new axioms to settle undecidables, that our mathematical beliefs are justified by ‘intuitions’, as our scientific beliefs are justified by observations. On this view, axioms are analogous to laws of nature. They are postulated (...) to best systematize the data to be explained. We argue that there is a decisive difference between the cases. There is agreement on the data to be systematized in the scientific case that has no analog in the mathematical one. There is virtual consensus over observations, but conspicuous dispute over intuitions. In this respect, mathematics more closely resembles stereotypical philosophy. We conclude by distinguishing two ideas that have long been associated -- realism (the idea that there is an independent reality) and objectivity (the idea that in a disagreement, only one of us can be right). We argue that, while realism is true of mathematics and philosophy, these domains fail to be objective. One upshot of the discussion is that even questions of fundamental physics may fail to be objective in roughly the sense that the question, ‘Is the Parallel Postulate is true?’, understood as one of pure mathematics, fails to be. Another is a kind of pragmatism. Factual questions in mathematics, modality, logic, and evaluative areas go proxy for non-factual practical ones. -/- . (shrink)

Background In May 2020, England moved to an opt-out organ donation system, meaning adults are presumed to be an organ donor unless within an excluded group or have opted-out. This change aims to improve organ donation rates following brain or circulatory death. Healthcare staff in the UK are supportive of organ donation, however, both healthcare staff and the public have raised concerns and ethical issues regarding the change. The #options survey was completed by NHS organisations with the aim of understanding (...) awareness and support of the change. This paper analyses the free-text responses from the survey. Methods The #options survey was registered as a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) portfolio trial [IRAS 275992] 14 February 2020, and was completed between July and December 2020 across NHS organisations in the North-East and North Cumbria, and North Thames. The survey contained 16 questions of which three were free-text, covering reasons against, additional information required and family discussions. The responses to these questions were thematically analysed. Results The #options survey received 5789 responses from NHS staff with 1404 individuals leaving 1657 free-text responses for analysis. The family discussion question elicited the largest number of responses (66%), followed by those against the legislation (19%), and those requiring more information (15%). Analysis revealed six main themes with 22 sub-themes. Conclusions The overall #options survey indicated NHS staff are supportive of the legislative change. Analysis of the free-text responses indicates that the views of the NHS staff who are against the change reflect the reasons, misconceptions, and misunderstandings of the public. Additional concerns included the rationale for the change, informed decision making, easy access to information and information regarding organ donation processes. Educational materials and interventions need to be developed for NHS staff to address the concepts of autonomy and consent, organ donation processes, and promote family conversations. Wider public awareness campaigns should continue to promote the positives and refute the negatives thus reducing misconceptions and misunderstandings. Trial registration National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) [IRAS 275992]. (shrink)

William Norris Clarke, S.J., one of the leading Thomist scholars in the United States, came to the Philippines recently and delivered a series of lectures in the Ateneo de Manila University and the University of Santo Tomas on various philosophical topics inspired by the thought of St. Thomas. Fr. Clarke is now a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in Fordham University. He was co-founder and editor (l961-85) of the International Philosophical Quarterly and is the author of some 60 articles, (...) plus the following books: The Philosophical Approach to God, The Universe as Journey, Person and Being, Explorations in Metaphysics: Being—God—Person, and The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Fall, 2000).He continues to fulfill his mission of propagating the thoughts of St. Thomas—-the “creative retrieval of St. Thomas,” as he puts it—-in and out of the U.S.An brief excerpt from this interview was originally published in Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture1/3, 1997. (shrink)

In this bold, challenging book, D. S. Clarke outlines reasons for accepting panpsychism and defends the doctrine against its critics.

Develops an interpretation of Marx's work as the basis of a critique of both orthodox Marxism and of both modern economics and sociology. The core of this book is an analysis of Marx's theory of alienated labour as the basis of Marx's critique of liberal social theory. This leads to both an original interpretation of Marx's work and to the liberal foundations of the subjects of economics and sociology. This critique is developed through an account of revolution, and of the (...) parallel revolution in sociology carried through by Max Weber. The conclusion relates the critique to the subsequent developments in both Marxism and sociology. (shrink)

Some recent accounts of blameworthiness present this property as response-dependent: an agent is blameworthy, they say, if and only if, and (if so) in virtue of the fact that, it is fitting to respond to her with a certain blaming emotion. Given the explanatory aim of these views, the selected emotion cannot be said simply to appraise its object as blameworthy. We argue that articulation of the appraisal in other terms suggested by proponents yields a failure of the coextension required (...) by the accounts. We then address the promise to explain why the conditions that render one blameworthy are as they are. According to proponents, these conditions render one blameworthy because they render fitting the selected emotion. But why do just these conditions do the latter? We find no good answer to this question from proponents of the accounts. While we do not contend that blameworthiness is response-independent, we are unconvinced that it is response-dependent. (shrink)

A comprehensive theory of agency will encompass not just acting but also omitting to act and refraining from acting. Some theorists maintain that a causal theory can be applied to acting, omitting, and refraining in a perfectly uniform manner, for each omission or instance of refraining can be identified with some garden-variety action. Here it is argued that in plenty of cases this strategy fails. Sufficient conditions for omitting or refraining are offered that do not require there to be, in (...) every case, anything that is an omission or act of refraining. Disjoining these with a causal theory of action would leave us with a view of agency that is less uniform than what might have been preferred; but diversity in the subject matter, it is suggested, might preclude any more uniform theory. (shrink)

The rise of dimensional analysis in the latter part of the nineteenth century occurred largely in the context of electromagnetism. It soon appeared that the subject, albeit seemingly straightforward, was in fact wrought with difficulties. These revealed deep conceptual issues regarding the character of physical quantities. Usually, whether or not these problems actually constituted inconsistencies was itself a matter of debate. In one instance, however, regarding the electrostatic dimensions of the magnetic pole, all protagonists agreed that the matter required attention. (...) A controversy ensued in 1882. Its resolution partly relied on the realization that it arose from differences between the scientific cultures prevalent on the Continent versus in Great Britain. These cultural differences concerned the possible relevance of the medium in which interactions involving magnetic poles take place, as well as the understanding of permeability in Ampère’s model of magnetism. The controversy around the electrostatic dimensions of the magnetic pole entailed crucial issues that were soon to play just as central a part in a wider debate about the dimensions of electromagnetic quantities in different systems of units. Why the latter topic was never raised during the 1882 controversy provides insights into the early understanding of dimensional analysis. (shrink)

What are values? -- What are rules? -- Why are rules useful? -- Breaking the rules -- What is a law? -- Why are laws helpful? -- Committing a crime -- Respecting rules at school -- Respecting rules at home -- Making a difference -- Glossary and index.