This paper was written for a workshop, Chance and Contingency in Indian Philosophy, that was held at Yale University in May 2017. It examines the role that chance plays by focusing on the popular maxim of the crow and the palm tree. It argues that while representatives of different schools of thought were aware of the possibility of purely random occurrences, they dealt with it very differently. For some like the Vedāntins chance provided proof of their positions, while for (...) others, Naiyāyikas and Buddhists, chance was a challenge, particularly to their theories of inference. (shrink)

_Lectures from the late period of Fichte’s career, never before available in English._.

This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of formal systems that direct employees toward ethical acts and informal systems that direct employees toward fraudulent behavior. We study the effect of these forces on deception, a key component of fraud. The results provide support for an interactive effect of these formal and informal systems. The effectiveness of formal systems is greater when there is a strong informal “push” to do wrong; conversely, in the absence of a strong (...) push to do wrong, the strength of formal systems has little impact on fraudulent behavior. These results help to explain why the implementation of formal systems within organizations has been met with mixed results and identifies when formal systems designed to promote ethical behavior will be most efficacious. (shrink)

Religion was an important subject of Dilthey's philosophical reflections. In this essay, I examine this largely untouched thematic area, focusing in particular on one period in his career. My thesis is that the core of Dilthey's philosophy of religion is what I call the "immanence thesis." This is a claim that Dilthey employs in interpreting various phenomena of religious life. Dilthey's view is that religious myths and symbols are ways of articulating the immanent "meaning" or "sense" of historical life. This (...) thesis ties various strands in Dilthey's philosophy of religion into a coherent whole. (shrink)

As soon as we attend to the subject, either by asking questions or by making statements about it, we ipso facto make the subject the object of our attention. The question then is whether we can get behind the subject as object and attain the subject as subject. Is the project not self-refuting? For an answer I invoke the parallel case of insight into insight. We cannot imagine the act of insight and so cannot understand it directly, but we can (...) construct symbols of insight, understand them, and thus indirectly achieve some understanding of it. Lonergan made five attempts to achieve insight into insight; the article examines them one by one and applies them to our parallel case in order to conclude that there is a meaningful sense in which we may attain and speak of the subject as subject. (shrink)

Since time immemorial, the most varied divinatory practices have flourished in India. Their prognostications were supplied by the interpretation of quite diverse omina and portenta: Thus “meteors” (lightning, rain or comets) earthquakes, the flight and cries of crows and other birds, the degree of clarity of a subject's image reflected in melted butter (gharta), lines and marks on a body, the direction taken by smoke rising from the altar once the rite had condensed a certain magic power from it (prabhāva), (...) dreams, all were thought to furnish the diviner with presages. As the abundant lists of the Garga samhitā and the Brhat Sarnmitā testify, for a conscience attentive to the intersigns there is no reality, even the most insignificant, that does not lend itself directly or by contiguity to systematic interpretation. (shrink)

Sheds new light on Heidegger's early theological development.

Kant, Fichte, and the Legacy of Transcendental Idealism contains ten new essays by leading and rising scholars from the United States, Europe, and Asia who explore the historical development and conceptual contours of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy.

This book provides the first systematic, book-length defence of natural law ideas in ethics, politics and jurisprudence since John Finnis's influential Natural Law and Natural Rights. Incorporating insights from recent work in ethical, legal and social theory, it presents a robust and original account of the natural law tradition, challenging common perceptions of natural law as a set of timeless standards imposed on humans from above. Natural law, Jonathan Crowe argues, is objective and normative, but nonetheless historically extended, socially embodied (...) and dependent on contingent facts about human nature. It reflects the ongoing human quest to work out how best to live flourishing lives, given the natures we have and the social environments we inhabit. The nature and purpose of law can only be adequately understood within this wider context of value. Timely, wide-ranging and clearly written, this volume will appeal to those working in law, philosophy and religious studies. (shrink)

This work approaches international law as more than merely information contained in international legal norms, & does not view international law as a body of ...

This paper illuminates Leibniz’s conception of faith and its relationship to reason. Given Leibniz’s commitment to natural religion, we might expect his view of faith to be deflationary. We show, however, that Leibniz’s conception of faith involves a significant non-rational element. We approach the issue by considering the way in which Leibniz positions himself between the views of two of his contemporaries, Bayle and Locke. Unlike Bayle, but like Locke, Leibniz argues that reason and faith are in conformity. Nevertheless, in (...) contrast to the account that he finds in Locke’s Essay, Leibniz does not reduce faith to a species of reasonable belief. Instead, he insists that, while faith must be grounded in reason, true or divine faith also requires a supernatural infusion of grace. (shrink)

As the gap between the need for and supply of human organs continues to widen, the aim of securing additional sources of these “gifts of the body” has become a seemingly overriding moral imperative, one that could—and some argue, should—override the widespread ban on organ markets. As a medical practice, organ transplantation entails the inherent risk that one human being, a donor, will become little more than a means to the end of healing for another human being and that he (...) or she will come to have a purely instrumental value. With the establishment of organ markets, not only will the harms of instrumentalization be a reality—the ends of medicine will be further compromised and confused. (shrink)

Throughout his long and controversial career, Martin Heidegger developed a substantial contribution to the phenomenology of religion. In Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religion, Benjamin D. Crowe examines the key concepts and developmental phases that characterized Heidegger's work. Crowe shows that Heidegger's account of the meaning and structure of religious life belongs to his larger project of exposing and criticizing the fundamental assumptions of late modern culture. He reveals Heidegger as a realist through careful readings of his views on religious attitudes and (...) activities. Crowe challenges interpretations of Heidegger's early efforts in the phenomenology of religion and later writings on religion, including discussions of Greek religion and Hölderlin's poetry. This book is sure to spark discussion and debate as Heidegger's work in religion and the philosophy of religion becomes increasingly important to scholars and beyond. (shrink)

Worship is a topic that is rarely considered by philosophers of religion. In a recent paper, Tim Bayne and Yujin Nagasawa challenge this trend by offering an analysis of worship and by considering some difficulties attendant on the claim that worship is obligatory. I argue that their case for there being these difficulties is insufficiently supported. I offer two reasons that a theist might provide for the claim that worship is obligatory: a divine command, and the demands of justice with (...) respect to God's redemption of humanity. I also challenge the soundness of some of the analogies they employ in their argument. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 24 Accounts of non-naturalist moral perception have been advertised as an empiricist-friendly epistemological alternative to moral rationalism. I argue that these accounts of moral perception conceal a core commitment of rationalism—to substantive a priori justification—and embody its most objectionable feature—namely, “mysteriousness.” Thus, accounts of non-naturalist moral perception do not amount to an interesting alternative to moral rationalism.

Self‐management programmes provide strategies to optimise health while educating and providing resources for living with enduring illnesses. The current paper describes the development of a community‐based programme that combines a transdiagnostic approach to self‐management with mindfulness to enhance psychological coping for older people with long‐term multimorbidity. The six steps of intervention mapping (IM) were used to develop the programme. From a needs assessment, the objectives of the programme were formulated; the theoretical underpinnings then aligned to the objectives, which informed programme (...) design, decisions on implementation, programme adoption and evaluation steps. Bandura's social cognitive theory informed the methods and practical strategies of delivery. Among the features addressed with participants are transdiagnostic dimensions such as fatigue, pain, breathlessness, sleep disturbances. The programme utilises mindfulness to aid coping and ameliorate the psychological distresses associated with chronicity. Findings from an initial feasibility study and subsequent pilot assisted in conceptualising our programme. In conclusion, applying IM gave the planners confidence the programme is robust and evidence‐based with clearly articulated links between the behavioural goals and design elements to obtain the desired outcomes. (shrink)

Two epistemological critiques of non-naturalism are not always carefully distinguished. According to the Causal Objection, the fact that moral properties cannot cause our moral beliefs implies that it would be a coincidence if many of them were true. According to the Evolutionary Objection, the fact that evolutionary pressures have influenced our moral beliefs implies a similar coincidence. After distinguishing these epistemological critiques, I provide an extensive defense of the Causal Objection that also strengthens the Evolutionary Objection. In particular, I formulate (...) a “Master Causal Objection” featuring the controversial premise that non-naturalism can provide no adequate explanation for moral knowledge. I defend this premise by first narrowing down the range of candidate explanations to conceptual, constitutive, and evolutionary explanations, and then considering and eliminating each of these in turn. My discussion of evolutionary explanations suggests that non-naturalists must refute the Causal Objection in order to refute the Evolutionary Objection. (shrink)