Max Wertheimer, in his classic Productive Thinking, linked understanding to transfer: Understanding is important because it provides the ability to generalize the solution of one problem to apply to another. Recent work in human and machine learning has led to the development of a new class of generalization mechanism, called here analysis‐based generalization, which can be used to provide a concrete account of the linkage Wertheimer suggested: these mechanisms all, in different ways, use understanding of examples in the generalization process. (...) In this paper I review this class of mechanism, and describe a method for causal attribution that can produce the analyses of examples that the generalization methods require, in the domain of simple procedures in human‐computer interaction. This causal analysis method is linked with analysis‐based generalization to form EXPL, an implemented model which is a concrete, though limited, instontiation of Wertheimer s scheme. EXPL constructs an understanding of an example procedure and generalizes it on the basis of that understanding. Results of an empirical study suggest that some of EXPL's attribution heuristics are used by people, and that while a subclass of analysis‐based methods, called superstitious methods, seem to provide a more plausible account of people's generalization under the conditions of the study than a contrasting class of rationalistic methods, at least some participants appear to use methods from both classes. The results also show that explanation‐based methods, which rely on comprehensive domain theories, must be used in conjunction with a means for extending the domain theory. If thus enhanced, explanation‐based methods are able to mimic the effects of other analysis‐based methods, and can provide a good account of the data, though combinations of other methods must also be considered. Finally, I return to Wertheimer s ideas to argue that none of the current analysis‐based generalization methods fully captures Wertheimer s notion of understanding. Proper choice among different possible analyses of an example is crucial for Wertheimer, but I argue that this problem may be beyond the reach of learning systems. (shrink)

Marcuse’s Challenge to Education, a collection of essays by scholars who have explicated his theories accompanied by unpublished lecture notes by Marcuse himself, examines his ground-breaking critique of education as well as his own pedagogical alternatives. This compilation provides an overview of the various themes of Marcuse's challenges to traditional education and connections with ideas of other radical thinkers ranging from Bloch and Freire to Freud and Lacan.

Lewis thought concessive knowledge attributions (e.g., ‘I know that Harry is a zebra, but it might be that he’s just a cleverly disguised mule’) caused serious trouble for fallibilists. As he saw it, CKAs are overt statements of the fallibilist view and they are contradictory. Dougherty and Rysiew have argued that CKAs are pragmatically defective rather than semantically defective. Stanley thinks that their pragmatic response to Lewis fails, but the fallibilist cause is not lost because Lewis was (...) wrong about the commitments of fallibilism. There are problems with Dougherty and Rysiew’s response to Stanley and there are problems with Stanley’s response to Lewis. I’ll offer a defense of fallibilism of my own and show that fallibilists needn’t worry about CKAs. (shrink)

Catherine Malabou, Antonio Negri, John D. Caputo, Bruno Bosteels, Mark C. Taylor, and Slavoj Zizek join seven others--including William Desmond, Katrin Pahl, Adrian Johnston, Edith Wyschogrod, and Thomas A. Lewis--to apply Hegel's thought to twenty-first-century philosophy, politics, and religion. Doing away with claims that the evolution of thought and history is at an end, these thinkers safeguard Hegel's innovations against irrelevance and, importantly, reset the distinction of secular and sacred. These original contributions focus on Hegelian analysis and the transformative (...) value of the philosopher's thought in relation to our current "turn to religion." Malabou develops Hegel's motif of confession in relation to forgiveness; Negri writes of Hegel's philosophy of right; Caputo reaffirms the radical theology made possible by Hegel; and Bosteels critiques fashionable readings of the philosopher and argues against the reducibility of his dialectic. Taylor reclaims Hegel's absolute as a process of infinite restlessness, and Zizek revisits the religious implications of Hegel's concept of letting go. Mirroring the philosopher's own trajectory, these essays progress dialectically through politics, theology, art, literature, philosophy, and science, traversing cutting-edge theoretical discourse and illuminating the ways in which Hegel inhabits them. (shrink)

Edited by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce, _Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation _is the fifth volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected papers. Containing some of Marcuse’s most important work, this book presents for the first time his unique syntheses of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical social theory, directed toward human emancipation and social transformation. Within philosophy, Marcuse engaged with disparate and often conflicting philosophical perspectives - ranging from Heidegger and phenomenology, to Hegel, Marx, and Freud - to create unique philosophical insights, often (...) overlooked in favor of his theoretical and political interventions with the New Left, the subject of previous volumes. This collection assembles significant, and in some cases unknown texts from the Herbert Marcuse archives in Frankfurt, including: critiques of positivism and idealism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and the tradition of German philosophy philosophical essays from the 1930s and 1940s that attempt to reconstruct philosophy on a materialist base Marcuse’s unique attempts to bring together Freud and philosophy philosophical reflections on death, human aggression, war, and peace Marcuse’s later critical philosophical perspectives on science, technology, society, religion, and ecology. A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s work in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century politics and philosophy. An Afterword by Andrew Feenberg provides a personal memory of Marcuse as scholar, teacher and activist, and summarizes the lasting relevance of his radical thought. (shrink)

Edited by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce, _Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation _is the fifth volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected papers. Containing some of Marcuse’s most important work, this book presents for the first time his unique syntheses of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical social theory, directed toward human emancipation and social transformation. Within philosophy, Marcuse engaged with disparate and often conflicting philosophical perspectives - ranging from Heidegger and phenomenology, to Hegel, Marx, and Freud - to create unique philosophical insights, often (...) overlooked in favor of his theoretical and political interventions with the New Left, the subject of previous volumes. This collection assembles significant, and in some cases unknown texts from the Herbert Marcuse archives in Frankfurt, including: critiques of positivism and idealism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and the tradition of German philosophy philosophical essays from the 1930s and 1940s that attempt to reconstruct philosophy on a materialist base Marcuse’s unique attempts to bring together Freud and philosophy philosophical reflections on death, human aggression, war, and peace Marcuse’s later critical philosophical perspectives on science, technology, society, religion, and ecology. A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s work in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century politics and philosophy. An Afterword by Andrew Feenberg provides a personal memory of Marcuse as scholar, teacher and activist, and summarizes the lasting relevance of his radical thought. (shrink)

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) recently provided two recommendations about predictive genetic testing of children. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium's Pediatrics Working Group compared these recommendations, focusing on operational and ethical issues specific to decision making for children. Content analysis of the statements addresses two issues: (1) how these recommendations characterize and analyze locus of decision making, as well as the risks and benefits of testing, and (2) whether the guidelines conflict or (...) come to different but compatible conclusions because they consider different testing scenarios. These statements differ in ethically significant ways. AAP/ACMG analyzes risks and benefits using best interests of the child and recommends that, absent ameliorative interventions available during childhood, clinicians should generally decline to order testing. Parents authorize focused tests. ACMG analyzes risks and benefits using the interests of the child and other family members and recommends that sequencing results be examined for additional variants that can lead to ameliorative interventions, regardless of age, which laboratories should report to clinicians who should contextualize the results. Parents must accept additional analysis. The ethical arguments in these statements appear to be in tension with each other. (shrink)

There is much to like about the idea that justification should be understood in terms of normality or normic support (Smith 2016, Goodman and Salow 2018). The view does a nice job explaining why we should think that lottery beliefs differ in justificatory status from mundane perceptual or testimonial beliefs. And it seems to do that in a way that is friendly to a broadly internalist approach to justification. In spite of its attractions, we think that the normic support view (...) faces two serious challenges. The first is that it delivers the wrong result in preface cases. These cases suggest that the view is either too sceptical or too externalist. The second is that the view struggles with certain kinds of Moorean absurdities. It turns out that these problems can easily be avoided. If we think of normality as a condition on *knowledge*, we can characterise justification in terms of its connection to knowledge and thereby avoid the difficulties discussed here. The resulting view does an equally good job explaining why we should think that our perceptual and testimonial beliefs are justified when lottery beliefs cannot be. Thus, it seems that little could be lost and much could be gained by revising the proposal and adopting a view on which it is knowledge, not justification, that depends directly upon normality. (shrink)

This paper looks at whether it is possible to unify the requirements of rationality with the demands of normative reasons. It might seem impossible to do because one depends upon the agent’s perspective and the other upon features of the situation. Enter Reasons Perspectivism. Reasons perspectivists think they can show that rationality does consist in responding correctly to reasons by placing epistemic constraints on these reasons. They think that if normative reasons are subject to the right epistemic constraints, rational requirements (...) will correspond to the demands generated by normative reasons. While this proposal is prima facie plausible, it cannot ultimately unify reasons and rationality. There is no epistemic constraint that can do what reasons perspectivists would need it to do. Some constraints are too strict. The rest are too slack. This points to a general problem with the reasons-first program. Once we recognize that the agent’s epistemic position helps determine what she should do, we have to reject the idea that the features of the agent’s situation can help determine what we should do. Either rationality crowds out reasons and their demands or the reasons will make unreasonable demands. (shrink)

A theory of rational belief should get the cases right. It should also reach its verdicts using the right theoretical assumptions. Leading theories seem to predict the wrong things. With only one exception, they don't accommodate principles that we should use to explain these verdicts. We offer a theory of rational belief that combines an attractive picture of epistemic desirability with plausible principles connecting desirability to rationality. On our view, it's rational to believe when it's sufficiently likely that you'd know (...) because believing when it's sufficiently likely that you'd know minimises expected objective epistemic undesirability. (shrink)

What is knowledge? Why is it valuable? How much of it do we have, and what ways of thinking are good ways to use to get more of it? These are just a few questions that are asked in epistemology, roughly, the philosophical theory of knowledge. This is Epistemology is a comprehensive introduction to the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and scope of human knowledge. Exploring both classic debates and contemporary issues in epistemology, this rigorous yet accessible textbook provides (...) readers with the foundation necessary to start doing epistemology. Organized around 11 key subtopics, and assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this volume exposes readers to diverse, often contentious perspectives—guiding readers through crucial debates including Hume’s problem of induction, Descartes’ engagement with radical skepticism, rationalist and empiricist evaluations of a priori justification, and many more. The authors avoid complex technical terms and jargon in favor of an easy-to-follow, informal writing style with engaging chapters designed to stimulate student interest and encourage class discussion. Throughout the text, a wealth of up-to-date references and links to online resources are provided to enable further investigation of an array of epistemological topics. A balanced and authoritative addition to the acclaimed This is Philosophy series, This is Epistemology is a perfect primary textbook for philosophy undergraduates, and a valuable resource for general readers with interest in this important branch of philosophy. (shrink)

A theory of what we should believe should include a theory of what we should believe when we are uncertain about what we should believe and/or uncertain about the factors that determine what we should believe. In this paper, I present a novel theory of what we should believe that gives normative externalists a way of responding to a suite of objections having to do with various kinds of error, ignorance, and uncertainty. This theory is inspired by recent work in (...) ethical theory in which non-consequentialists 'consequentialize' their theories and then use the tools of decision-theory to give us an account of what we ought (in some sense) to do when we're uncertain about what we ought (in some primary sense) to do. On my proposal, because what we ought to do is acquire knowledge and avoid ignorance, we ought to believe iff the probability of coming to know is sufficiently high. This view has a number of important virtues. Among them, it gives us a unified story about how defeaters defeat (a theory developed with Julien Dutant), explains puzzling intuitions about the differences between lottery cases, preface cases, and cases of perceptual knowledge, and provides externalists (and internalists!) with a general framework for thinking about subjective normativity. It's also relatively brief. (shrink)

In addition to treatments of questions of methodology and implications for life and practice, the Handbook includes sections devoted to the major scientific ...

Abstract: On one formulation, epistemological disjunctivism is the view that our perceptual beliefs constitute knowledge when they are based on reasons that provide them with factive support. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible unless we assume that we have such reasons to support our perceptual beliefs. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual experience could furnish us with these reasons unless we assume that the traditional view of experience (...) is mistaken. For reasons explained here, I think that the epistemological argument for metaphysical disjunctivism rests on mistaken assumptions about reasons and their rational role. Neither disjunctivist view is needed to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to Lewis's work in metaphysics and epistemology. Topics covered include properties, ontology, possibility, truthmaking, probability, the mind-body problem, vision, belief, and knowledge. The purpose of this collection, and the volumes that precede and follow it, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher. The volume will serve as a useful work of reference for teachers and students of philosophy.

This volume introduces readers to emergence theory, outlines the major arguments in its defence, and summarizes the most powerful objections against it. It provides the clearest explication yet of this exciting new theory of science, which challenges the reductionist approach by proposing the continuous emergence of novel phenomena.

We examine two leading theories of rational belief, the Lockean view and the explanationist view. The first is appealing because it fits with some independently plausible claims about the ways that rational persons pursue their aims. The second is appealing because it seems to account for intuitions that cause trouble for the Lockean view. While fitting the intuitive data is desirable, we are troubled that the explanationist view seems to clash with our theoretical beliefs about what rationality must be like. (...) We think that upon further examination, the intuitive appeal of the explanationist view starts to diminish. We also think that these further intuitions that spell trouble for the explanationist spell trouble for any theory that is not expectationist. We propose a novel expectationist theory of rational belief that improves upon the Lockean and the explanationist views. We think that recent defences of the Lockean view contain an important insight. A substantive theory of rational response should be based on a suitable theory of prizes and a suitable theory of how we should pursue prizes in the face of uncertainty. Most theories of rational belief typically take for granted a truth-centred picture of epistemic prizes (e.g., that epistemic desirability and undesirability can be fully understood in terms of accuracy) and then differ in terms of how they recommend pursuing prizes so understood. We think the Lockeans embrace plausible principles of how prizes should be pursued. We trace the difficulties that this view faces to veritistic assumptions about prizes. We suggest that some prizes are epistemically loaded in that a complete description of the prize will itself make reference to our epistemic states or standards. We argue that knowledge matters to rational belief and choice because in the epistemic domain, knowledge is the prize. We see this in practical domains, too. In some choice settings, what's desired is desired, in part, because it involves a kind of connection to reality only knowledge provides. (shrink)

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

There has been a considerable amount of debate about the norms of belief, but little discussion to date about what the reasons associated with these norms demand from us. By working out an account of what reasons demand, we can better understand the nature of justification.

We argue that there is nothing that can do the work that normative reasons are expected to do. A currently popular view is that in any given situation, a set of normative reasons (understood as a set of facts, typically about the agent’s situation) always determines the ways we prospectively should or should not respond. We discuss an example that we think shows no such collection of facts could have this normative significance. A radical response might be to dispense with (...) reasons and explain the facts about the ways we should respond using something else entirely (e.g., expected value). We think a more fruitful approach is to explore the possibility of using decision-theoretic tools in a reasons-centred framework. (shrink)

First published in 1997, Alain Badiou's _Deleuze: The Clamor of Being_ cast Gilles Deleuze as a secret philosopher of the One. In this work, Clayton Crockett rehabilitates Deleuze's position within contemporary political and philosophical thought, advancing an original reading of the thinker's major works and a constructive conception of his philosophical ontology. Through close readings of Deleuze's _Difference and Repetition_, _Capitalism and Schizophrenia_ (with Felix Guattari), and _Cinema 2_, Crockett argues that Deleuze is anything but the austere, quietistic, and (...) aristocratic intellectual Badiou had portrayed. Instead, Crockett underscores Deleuze's radical aesthetics and innovative scientific, political, and mathematical forms of thought. He also refutes the notion Deleuze retreated from politics toward the end of his life. Using Badiou's critique as a foil, Crockett maintains the profound continuity of Deleuze's work and builds a general interpretation of his more obscure formulations. (shrink)

The internalism-externalism debate is one of the oldest debates in epistemology. Internalists assert that the justification of our beliefs can only depend on facts internal to us, while externalists insist that justification can depend on additional, for example environmental, factors. Clayton Littlejohn proposes and defends a new strategy for resolving this debate. Focussing on the connections between practical and theoretical reason, he explores the question of whether the priority of the good to the right might be used to defend (...) an epistemological version of consequentialism, and proceeds to formulate a new 'deontological externalist' view. On this view, the justificatory status of a belief depends upon whether it is fit for the purposes of practical reasoning. Only beliefs that meet externalist standards are fit for such a purpose. If we want to understand how a wide range of norms (e.g., moral norms) apply to rational agents regardless of what their evidence or outlook is like, we have to embrace an externalist account of the justification. (shrink)

Must rational thinkers have consistent sets of beliefs? I shall argue that it can be rational for a thinker to believe a set of propositions known to be inconsistent. If this is right, an important test for a theory of rational belief is that it allows for the right kinds of inconsistency. One problem we face in trying to resolve disagreements about putative rational requirements is that parties to the disagreement might be working with different conceptions of the relevant attitudes. (...) My aim is modest. I hope to show that there is at least one important notion of belief such that a thinker might rationally hold a collection of beliefs (so understood) even when the thinker knows their contents entail a contradiction. (shrink)

The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to (...) a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack. (shrink)

This is a defence of externalism about knowledge and also about justification. In this paper, I argue that an important virtue of externalism about these notions is that externalism about justification helps to explain the value of (i.e., importance of) knowledge. I also develop and expand upon some of my earlier arguments for externalism that drew upon what's now known as 'morally loaded cases'. The virtue of externalism is that it's the only view that can both allow for certain kinds (...) of categorical normative requirements while also vindicating the idea that we ought to be guided by the beliefs that we ought to have. (Internalists either have to deny that we ought to be guided by the beliefs that we ought to have (which isn't very internalist!) or, failing that, revise our views about the existence of certain kinds of categorical requirements and tell us that we ought to be guided by our beliefs to do evil things (which isn't very nice!).). (shrink)

In the 1960s, the strict opposition between the religious and the secular began to break down, blurring the distinction between political philosophy and political theology. This collapse contributed to the decline of modern liberalism, which supported a neutral, value-free space for capitalism. It also deeply unsettled political, religious, and philosophical realms, forced to confront the conceptual stakes of a return to religion. Gamely intervening in a contest that defies simple resolutions, Clayton Crockett conceives of the postmodern convergence of the (...) secular and the religious as a basis for emancipatory political thought. Engaging themes of sovereignty, democracy, potentiality, law, and event from a religious and political point of view, Crockett articulates a theological vision that responds to our contemporary world and its theo-political realities. Specifically, he claims we should think about God and the state in terms of potentiality rather than sovereign power. Deploying new concepts, such as Slavoj Žižek's idea of parallax and Catherine Malabou's notion of plasticity, his argument engages with debates over the nature and status of religion, ideology, and messianism. Tangling with the work of Derrida, Deleuze, Spinoza, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, and Catherine Keller, Crockett concludes with a reconsideration of democracy as a form of political thought and religious practice, underscoring its ties to modern liberal capitalism while also envisioning a more authentic democracy unconstrained by those ties. (shrink)

A questão relacionada ao método, na obra de Michel Foucault, é uma problemática na qual alguns pesquisadores têm se debruçado, tendo em vista a diversidade dos caminhos de pesquisa trilhados ao longo de sua produção intelectual. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo, através de uma discussão teórica, pretende colocar em pauta o conceito de anarqueologia, desenvolvido pelo filósofo francês no curso Do governo dos vivos, de 1980. A hipótese que se pretende desdobrar é a de que o conceito em voga se (...) inscreve em um percurso teórico-metodológico particular, abarcando um encadeamento dos três domínios ou eixos (ser-saber, ser-poder, ser-consigo) da obra de Foucault, viabilizando assim certa reformulação da interpretação foucaultiana acerca do sujeito. (shrink)

There are many different oughts. There is a moral ought, a prudential ought, an epistemic ought, the legal ought, the ought of etiquette, and so on. These oughts can prescribe incompatible actions. What I morally ought to do may be different from what I self-interestedly ought to do. Philosophers have claimed that these conflicts are resolved by an authoritative ought, or by facts about what one ought to do simpliciter or all-things-considered. However, the only coherent notion of an ought simpliciter (...) has preposterous first-order normative commitments. It is more reasonable to reject the ought simpliciter in favor of the form of normative pluralism advocated in (Tiffany 2007). (shrink)

Clayton Crockett and Jeffrey Robbins describe a number of the intellectual developments and movements that preceded and influenced radical theology. They pay special attention to the hermeneutics of suspicion of Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche; the phenomenology of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty; and the linguistic structuralism of Saussure. Crockett and Robbins pay close attention to the role of Derrida’s lecture, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” in 1966 before moving on to the Death of (...) God movement. They emphasize the way Tillich’s thought was radicalized by G. Vahanian, Altizer, Daly, and others in combination with Tillich’s theology of culture and existential theology and Bonhoeffer’s influence on the early Death of God thinkers. Finally, Crockett and Robbins discuss radical theology’s hybridization with deconstruction in the work of Raschke, Mark C. Taylor, and Winquist and hybridizing RT with deconstruction. (shrink)

David Lewis (1941-2001) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His contributions spanned philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. In On the Plurality of Worlds, he defended his challenging metaphysical position, "modal realism." He was also the author of the books Convention, Counterfactuals, Parts of Classes, and several volumes of collected papers.

In the 1960s, the strict opposition between the religious and the secular began to break down, blurring the distinction between political philosophy and political theology. This collapse contributed to the decline of modern liberalism, which supported a neutral, value-free space for capitalism. It also deeply unsettled political, religious, and philosophical realms, forced to confront the conceptual stakes of a return to religion. Gamely intervening in a contest that defies simple resolutions, Clayton Crockett conceives of the postmodern convergence of the (...) secular and the religious as a basis for emancipatory political thought. Engaging themes of sovereignty, democracy, potentiality, law, and event from a religious and political point of view, Crockett articulates a theological vision that responds to our contemporary world and its theo-political realities. Specifically, he claims we should think about God and the state in terms of potentiality rather than sovereign power. Deploying new concepts, such as Slavoj Žižek's idea of parallax and Catherine Malabou's notion of plasticity, his argument engages with debates over the nature and status of religion, ideology, and messianism. Tangling with the work of Derrida, Deleuze, Spinoza, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, and Catherine Keller, Crockett concludes with a reconsideration of democracy as a form of political thought and religious practice, underscoring its ties to modern liberal capitalism while also envisioning a more authentic democracy unconstrained by those ties. (shrink)

A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed the second-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what (...) reasons can become available. The importance of second-personal thought for action is heterogenous. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

What is the future of Continental philosophy of religion? These forward-looking essays address the new thinkers and movements that have gained prominence since the generation of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Levinas and how they will reshape Continental philosophy of religion in the years to come. They look at the ways concepts such as liberation, sovereignty, and post-colonialism have engaged this new generation with political theology and the new pathways of thought that have opened in the wake of speculative realism and (...) recent findings in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Readers will discover new directions in this challenging and important area of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Enhanced by many innovative exercises, examples, and pedagogical features, The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims, Second Edition, explores the essentials of critical reasoning, argumentation, logic, and argumentative essay writing while also incorporating material on important topics that most other texts leave out. Author Lewis Vaughn offers comprehensive treatments of core topics, including an introduction to claims and arguments, discussions of propositional and categorical logic, and full coverage of the basics of inductive reasoning. Building (...) on this solid foundation, he also delves into areas neglected by other texts, adding extensive material on "inference to the best explanation" and on scientific reasoning; a thorough look at the evaluation of evidence and credibility; and a chapter on the psychological and social factors that can impede critical thinking. Additional notable elements are a chapter on moral reasoning, advice on how to evaluate Internet sources, and guidelines for evaluating occult, paranormal, or supernatural claims. The Power of Critical Thinking, Second Edition, integrates many pedagogical features including hundreds of diverse exercises, examples, and illustrations; progressive, stand-alone writing modules; numerous text boxes; step-by-step guidelines for evaluating claims, arguments, and explanations; a glossary of important terms; and many reminders, summaries, and review notes throughout. The text is supplemented by a companion website at www.oup.com/us/criticalthinking (offering a student study guide and more), and an Instructor's Manual with Test Questions (available both in print and on a CD). This unique text features a modular structure that allows instructors to teach the chapters in almost any order. Written in a student-friendly style and enhanced by humor where appropriate, it is ideal for courses in critical thinking, introduction to logic, informal logic, argumentative writing, and introduction to argumentation. New to the Second Edition * Full-color throughout and an expanded art program (37 more photos and illustrations) * A new writing module--an annotated sample student paper--and five additional essays for analysis * A new section on evaluating news reports and advertising * Timely discussions of intelligent design and population (nonintervention) studies * Expanded coverage of experts and authors and reasons to doubt their reliability * More "Field Problems" and exercise questions * Chapter objectives and key terms with definitions for each chapter. (shrink)

Ever since 1942, when Carl Hempel declared that historical events are explained by subsuming them under laws governing the occurrence of similar events, philosophers have debated the validity of explanations based on "covering laws." In _The Logic of Historical Explanation_, Clayton Roberts provides a key to understanding the role of covering laws in historical explanation. He does so by distinguishing between their use at the macro- and micro- levels, a distinction that no other scholar has made. Roberts contends that (...) the positivists were right to believe that covering laws are indispensable in historical explanations but wrong to think that these laws apply to macro-events. Similarly, the humanists were right to declare that historians do not explain the occurrence of macro-events by subsuming them under covering laws but wrong to deny the role of covering laws in tracing the course of events leading to the macro-event. Roberts resolves this debate by showing that, though useless in explaining macro-events, covering laws are indispensable in connecting the steps in an explanatory narrative. He then sets forth the logic of an explanatory narrative, explores the nature of rational explanation, and distinguishes the logic of historical interpretation from the logic of historical explanation. (shrink)