Philosophical debates about the metaphysics of time typically revolve around two contrasting views of time. On the A-theory, time is something that itself undergoes change, as captured by the idea of the passage of time; on the B-theory, all there is to time is events standing in before/after or simultaneity relations to each other, and these temporal relations are unchanging. Philosophers typically regard the A-theory as being supported by our experience of time, and they take it that the B-theory clashes (...) with how we experience time and therefore faces the burden of having to explain away that clash. In this paper, we investigate empirically whether these intuitions about the experience of time are shared by the general public. We asked directly for people’s subjective reports of their experience of time—in particular, whether they believe themselves to have a phenomenology as of time’s passing—and we probed their understanding of what time’s passage in fact is. We find that a majority of participants do share the aforementioned intuitions, but interestingly a minority do not. (shrink)

This contains an extended and wide ranging bibliography, beginning with the seventeenth century, of works relevant to the problem of miracles and Hume’s essay. It is especially useful for the problem in its historical setting.

A major and timely re-examination of key areas in the social and political thought of Hegel and Marx. The editors' extensive introduction surveys the development of the connection from the Young Hegelians through the main Marxist thinkers to contemporary debates. Leading scholars including Terrell Carver, Chris Arthur, and Gary Browning debate themes such as: the nature of the connection itself scientific method political economy the Hegelian basis to Marxs' "Doctoral Dissertation" human needs history and international relations.

Although ethics education within the business curriculum has been receiving attention, much is unknown about the effectiveness of such education, particularly when it is integrated into the curriculum. This study looks at selected short-term effects produced by one form of integrated ethics instruction in an introductory marketing course in a graduate business MBA program in the United States. Specifically, students were introduced to an examination of consumer culture as a unifying framework to explore the ethics of decision making. As a (...) consequence of taking the course, students are hypothesized to hold less favorable attitudes toward consumer culture (love of money, materialism, possession satisfaction index, prestige sensitivity) relative to the attitudes held at the start of the course. Interestingly, few attitudinal changes are observed. Where changes in attitudes are observed, the relationships are in the opposite direction to that hypothesized. (shrink)

Although ethics education within the business curriculum has been receiving attention, much is unknown about the effectiveness of such education, particularly when it is integrated into the curriculum. This study looks at selected short‐term effects produced by one form of integrated ethics instruction in an introductory marketing course in a graduate business MBA program in the United States. Specifically, students were introduced to an examination of consumer culture as a unifying framework to explore the ethics of decision making. As a (...) consequence of taking the course, students are hypothesized to hold less favorable attitudes toward consumer culture (love of money, materialism, possession satisfaction index, prestige sensitivity) relative to the attitudes held at the start of the course. Interestingly, few attitudinal changes are observed. Where changes in attitudes are observed, the relationships are in the opposite direction to that hypothesized. (shrink)

Recent models of consciousness are reviewed which explore the relationship of consciousness to physical laws; many of these also explore the relationship of consciousness to biological findings. Issues investigated by these models are discussed, with the issues framed in a general way in order to provide a comparison between the models. In Part I the issues discussed are: (1) What is the causal relationship between consciousness and the physical world (physicalism, dualism, etc.)? and (2) What physical characteristics are associated with (...) the interface between brain/physical world and consciousness? (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between the novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand (TheFountainhead,AtlasShrugged) and the broader conservative movement in the twentieth-century United States. Although Rand was often dismissed as a lightweight popularizer, her works of radical individualism advanced bold arguments about the moral status of capitalism, and thus touched upon a core issue of conservative identity. Because Rand represented such a forthright pro-capitalist position, her career highlights the shifting fortunes of capitalism on the right. In the 1940s, she was an inspiration to (...) those who struggled against the New Deal and hoped to bring about a new, market-friendly political order. As a second generation of conservatives built upon these sentiments and attempted to tie them to a defense of Christian tradition, Rand's status began to erode. Yet by the late 1960s, Rand's once-revolutionary defense of capitalism had become routine, although she herself remained a controversial figure. The essay traces the ways in which Rand's ideas were assimilated and modified by key intellectuals on the right, including William F. Buckley, Jr, Whittaker Chambers, and Gary Wills. It identifies the relationship between capitalism and Christianity as a fundamental dilemma for conservative and right-wing thinkers. By treating Rand as an intellectual and cultural leader of significant import, the essay broadens our understanding of the American right beyond the confines of conservatism, and re-establishes the primacy of the 1930s, and 1940s, to its ideological formation. Responding to a paucity of scholarship on Rand, the essay offers an analysis and summary of Rand's ideas, and argues that despite her outsider status, Rand's work both embodied and shaped fundamental themes of right-wing thought throughout the century. (shrink)

Friendships have important influences on children's well-being and future adjustment, and interpersonal forgiveness has been suggested as a crucial means for children to maintain friendships. However, existing measures of preadolescent children's forgiveness are restricted by developmental limitations to reporting emotional responses via questionnaire and inconsistent interpretations of the term “forgive.” This paper describes development and testing of concurrent and discriminant validity of a pictorial measure of children's emotional forgiveness, the Children's Forgiveness Card Set. In Study 1, 148 Australian children aged (...) 8–13 years responded to a hypothetical transgression in which apology was manipulated and completed the CFCS and extant measures of forgiveness and socially desirable responding. Following an exploratory factor analysis to clarify the structure of the CFCS, the CFCS correlated moderately with other forgiveness measures and did not correlate with socially desirable responding. Apology predicted CFCS responding among older children. In Study 2 an exploratory factor analysis broadly replicated the structure of the CFCS among a sample of N = 198 North American children aged 5–14 years. We also fitted an exploratory bi-factor model to the Study 2 data which clarified which cards best measured general forgiveness, or positive or hostile aspects of responding to transgressions. Apology once again predicted the CFCS, this time regardless of age. The CFCS appears a potentially valid measure of children's emotional forgiveness. Potential applications and differences between explicit and latent forgiveness in children are discussed. (shrink)

_Brill's Companion to Leo Strauss’ Writings on Classical Political Thought_ offers clear, accessible essays to assist a new generation of readers in their introduction to Strauss’ writings on the ancients, and to deepen the understanding of those familiar with his work.

I examine Bernard Lonergan's approach to the problem of evil. I look to determine whether his solution, which is based on the conjugate forms of faith, hope, and charity, and culminates in a heuristic where forgiveness plays an essential role in moving beyond the problem of evil is adequate. I examine the distinction between basic sin, moral evil, and physical evil as well as his claim that from the viewpoint of the unrestricted act of understanding the non-systematic vanishes.

In this article, I explicate Husserl’s phenomenology of the person as found in Ideen II by examining the most important aspects of persons in this work. In the first section, I explicate the concept of the surrounding world (Umwelt) with special attention to the difference between the different attitudes (Einstellungen) that help determine the sense of constituted objects of experience. In the second section, I investigate Husserl’s description of the person as a founded, higher order, spiritual (geistig) objectivity. I consider (...) this description of the person by examining the symmetry between the organization of Ideen II as a whole and the order of the constitution of the person. In the final section, I look at the relationship between the constitution of the person and the spiritual (geistig) world. (shrink)

“What is appreciation?” is a basic question in the philosophy of art, and the analogy between appreciating a work of art and getting a joke can help us answer it. We first propose a subjective account of aesthetic appreciation (I). Then we consider jokes (II). The difference between getting a joke and not, or what it is to get it right, can often be objectively articulated. Such explanations cannot substitute for the joke itself, and indeed may undermine the very power (...) of the joke to evoke an appropriate response. Sometimes the discourse of art critics can have a similar effect. We therefore explore the analogy between getting jokes and appreciating works of art (III), and find it unexpectedly strong. Finally (IV), we consider Wittgensteinian grounds for thinking as we do, considering the language game of joke-telling, the relevance of seeing aspects, and giving reasons. (shrink)

External cues and internal configuration states are the likely instigators of involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and déjà vu experience. Indeed, Barzykowski and Moulin discuss relevant neuroscientific evidence in this direction. A complementary line of enquiry and evidence is the study of inhibition and its role in memory retrieval, and particularly how its (dys)function may contribute to IAMs and déjà vu.

Proponents of moral enhancement present this biotechnology as a viable solution to social and political problems. The projected imperative to enhance ourselves morally is a direct response to our p...

De-Signing Design: Cartographies of Theory and Practice throws new light on the terrain between theory and practice in transdisciplinary discourses of design and art. The collection brings together a selection of essays on spatiality, difference, cultural aesthetics, and identity in the expanded field of place-making and being.

David Chalmers (2022) argues that reality as we encounter it in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is just as real as the everyday physical world. We may not agree with Chalmers’s prop...

This essay examines the funeral sermon given by the Baptist theologian Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) for his friend and deacon Beeby Wallis in 1792 as a vantage-point from which to pursue reflection on Fuller’s concept of heaven and the beatific vision. The sermon has two main themes: the rest and rewards of those who die in Christ. The essay examines how Fuller interprets both of these phrases and then, looking at the rest of Fuller’s corpus, notes that ultimately God himself is (...) the believer’s reward. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham came to know Jacques-Pierre Brissot when he was in London between midwinter 1782–3 and summer 1784. They shared some opinions: Brissot indeed saw Bentham to some extent as his mentor. There was never complete accord, however; and Brissot's increasingly radical political views were not at that stage shared by Bentham. In any case, their ways parted with Bentham's prolonged sojourn with his brother in Russia between 1785 and 1788. It was revolution in France that brought renewed contact, though (...) no further personal encounters. By the winter of 1788–9 Bentham was writing, with France in mind, an increasingly elaborate work on parliamentary procedure; and by the spring Brissot was (much more expeditiously) writing and publishing his account of the subject. One element in that work dealt with an issue on which Bentham vigorously opposed Brissot; for it included a strongly argued case for a declaration of rights – something Bentham had already attacked in 1776. He renewed that attack in a letter to Brissot in the late summer of 1789. By the autumn, however, writing to Brissot again, he raised a subject on which the two could sympathise – the importance of asserting popular sovereignty in the new French constitution. That sovereignty, Bentham insisted, must extend to the administration of justice – royal authority must be rigourously excluded from control of the judiciary. The judicial establishment in France was to be Bentham's predominant concern between the winter of 1789–90 and the following summer, and he now had assistance, especially from Etienne Dumont, in translating and publicizing his work. Brissot was probably – though there is no direct evidence – aware of these efforts. In the autumn Bentham's principal concern was the promotion in France of his scheme for a model prison – the Panopticon. That cause was helped by the cordial reception in the National Assembly of his judicial reform proposals. By then he was again in touch with Brissot, whose support he now sought for the Panopticon project – at first with some success. No progress was made in 1793, however, as Brissot's revolutionary career reached first its apogee and then its disastrous end. Many years later, as Bentham's life drew to a close, Brissot's Mémoires served to remind him of their uneasy partnership in the years of revolution. (shrink)

Bourdieu’s concept of habitus clivé illuminates Indigenous Australians’ experiences in tertiary environments for both Aboriginal students and Aboriginal staff. Habitus formed through family, schooling and social class is also shaped by urban, regional or rural upbringing, creating a durable sense of self. Aboriginal people in Australia live in all of these places, often in marginalised circumstances. Bourdieu’s more specific concept of habitus clivé, or divided self, is less well known than habitus, but offers value in giving expression to Indigenous people’s (...) experiences within a dominant White society. The complexity of participation and educational change is explored here through the experiences of three authors’ intersecting positionalities within the Australian academy. Developing more nuanced scholarly language reduces the imposition of perspectives that see Indigenous people as objects within western frameworks. Scholarly understanding and respect for Australia’s first peoples’ concepts and cultural practices would engage more appropriately and fairly with Aboriginal knowledge and society. Habitus clivé chronicles one version of habitus that can be changed or be reconfirmed but not easily or by fiat. Understanding the concept can be learned, however. Educational opportunity, glorified in today’s higher education, means little for Aboriginal people without long-term strategies addressing existentially and culturally split habitus. (shrink)

Although first published in 1969, the methodological views advanced in Quentin Skinner's “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” remain relevant today. In his article Skinner suggests that it would be inappropriate to even attempt to write the history of any idea or concept. In support of this view, Skinner advances two arguments, one derived from the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and the other from that of J. L. Austin. In this paper I focus on the first of (...) these arguments. I claim that the conclusion which Skinner draws from this particular argument does not necessarily follow and that an alternative assessment of the methodological significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for historians of ideas is possible. On this alternative view, far from ruling out conceptual history, an appeal to the view of meaning set out in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations leads to a quite different conclusion, namely that the writing of such a history is arguably a necessary precondition for the elucidation of the meaning of a number of the core concepts in the canon of the history of political thought. Skinner's views have changed somewhat since 1969. Indeed, from the mid 1970s onwards he came to relax the strict opposition to the idea of conceptual history to which he was then committed. The paper concludes by noting that this evolution in Skinner's thinking has made him much more sympathetic than anybody reading “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” would have imagined to the research project of the Begriffgeschichte School of conceptual history. (shrink)

Although first published in 1969, the methodological views advanced in Quentin Skinner's “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” remain relevant today. In his article Skinner suggests that it would be inappropriate to even attempt to write the history of any idea or concept. In support of this view, Skinner advances two arguments, one derived from the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and the other from that of J. L. Austin.In this paper I focus on the first of these (...) arguments. I claim that the conclusion which Skinner draws from this particular argument does not necessarily follow and that an alternative assessment of the methodological significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for historians of ideas is possible. On this alternative view, far from ruling out conceptual history, an appeal to the view of meaning set out in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations leads to a quite different conclusion, namely that the writing of such a history is arguably a necessary precondition for the elucidation of the meaning of a number of the core concepts in the canon of the history of political thought.Skinner's views have changed somewhat since 1969. Indeed, from the mid 1970s onwards he came to relax the strict opposition to the idea of conceptual history to which he was then committed. The paper concludes by noting that this evolution in Skinner's thinking has made him much more sympathetic than anybody reading “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” would have imagined to the research project of the Begriffgeschichte School of conceptual history. (shrink)

It is well known that G.E Moore brought about a revival of Realism with his classic “The Refutation of Idealism.” Three decades later W.T. Stace wrote an unfortunately less famous paper, “The Refutation of Realism.” In that paper, Stace claims that “we do not know that a single entity exists unperceived.” This paper provides an interpretation of Stace's argument and maintains that it has yet to be adequately addressed by contemporary epistemology.

This paper offers a critique of Derrida's deconstruction of the promise on the grounds that it does not adequately account for the ethical constitution of the promise in the pragmatic context of face-to-face dialogue. Instead, Derrida focuses on the way in which the promise opens the horizon of interpretation or readability for an indefinite community of readers. Derrida's view is explicated at length, drawing on Limited Inc, Le monolinguisme de l'autre: ou, la prosthèse d'origine, and 'Avances', the Preface to Serge (...) Margel's Le tombeau du dieu artisan. Paul Ricoeur's interpretation of the promise as an attestation of my availability to the other person is presented as a more justifiable grounding of ethics. Key Words: attestation • community • Derrida • ethics • pragmatics • promise • Ricoeur. (shrink)

Plato's Euthyphro is a dialogue about the virtue of piety. It is also one of the aporetic dialogues, ending in apparent failure to discover what piety is. It is common to understand the dialogue as teaching lessons about other things, about definition, for instance, or about the logic of refutation. About piety, however, it is thought to teach us only negatively, showing a few of the many things which piety is not.My thesis, on the contrary, is that there is a (...) positive account of the nature of piety in the dialogue; it is, moreover, an account which cannot be separated from the other lessons which the dialogue teaches. I shall find it necessary to expose the structure of the logical lessons in order to develop my account of the holy. (shrink)