[Open access] In this book symposium the author takes up questions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethical theory, and intellectual history raised by a group of scholarly interlocutors from a range of backgrounds. In the course of engaging with these issues, he discusses, inter alia, McDowell’s realism, Jonathon Lear’s work on the end of a world, Michael Oakeshott’s view of selfhood, Heidegger’s conception of Jemeinigkeit, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of truth.

While a number of classical pragmatists crafted their philosophies in conjunction with a careful study of Hegel's works, others saw their philosophies emerge in antagonism with proponents of Hegel. In this paper, we offer an instance of the latter case. Namely, we show that the impetus for Charles S. Peirce's early articulation and avowal of realism (the claim that some generals are real) was William Torrey Harris's claim that the formal laws of logic lacked universal validity. According to Harris, the (...) leading representative of Hegelism in the United States, the universal validity of the laws of logic rested on a nominalistic metaphysics that a Hegelian-realism showed to be false. In response to this charge, we articulate how Peirce's attempt to prove the universal validity of the laws of logic resulted in avowing a realism that differed from both nominalism and Harris's Hegelian-realism. (shrink)

Remarks to the effect that a correct answer depends upon a correct question —that from a misleading question there can result only a misleading answer—are common today. In fact, one might suspect that such common concentration on finding the right questions has something to do with what seems to be an uncommon lack of answers. This concentration on the importance of asking the right questions can be applied to the interpretation of biblical literature. For here, certainly, the questions asked are (...) often decisive. They guide the inquiry by setting the terms of the search and, in this sense, they determine at least the kind of answers that will be given. Further, they often disclose the presuppositions with which one is working. (shrink)

David Miller is the foremost exponent of the purist critical rationalist doctrine and here presents his mature views, discussing the role that logic and argument play in the growth of knowledge, criticizing the common understanding of argument as an instrument of justification, persuasion or discovery and instead advocating the critical rationalist view that only criticism matters. Miller patiently and thoroughly undoes the damage done by those writers who attack critical rationalism by invoking the sterile mythology of induction and justification (...) that it seeks to sweep away. In addition his new material on the debate on verisimilitude is essential reading for all working in this field. (shrink)

David Miller elegantly and provocatively reformulates critical rationalism—the revolutionary approach to epistemology advocated by Karl Popper—by answering its most important critics. He argues for an approach to rationality freed from the debilitating authoritarian dependence on reasons and justification. "Miller presents a particularly useful and stimulating account of critical rationalism. His work is both interesting and controversial... of interest to anyone with concerns in epistemology or the philosophy of science." —Canadian Philosophical Reviews.

In our age of globalization, we need a theory of global management consistent with our common human nature. The place to begin in developing such a theory is the philosophy of traditional cultures. The article focuses on African philosophy and its fruitfulness for contributing to a theory of management consistent with African traditional cultures. It also looks briefly at the Confucian and Platonic-Aristotelian traditions and notes points of agreement with African traditions. It concludes that the needed theory of global management (...) should regard the firm as a community, not a collection of individuals, and should understand the purpose of management as promoting the common good. (shrink)

Attacks nothing less than the currently prevailing worldphilosophy--humanism, which the author feels is exceedingly dangerous in itshidden assumptions.

"In the first study of its kind, David W. Johnson's "Watsuji on Nature" reconstructs the astonishing philosophy of nature of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), situating it in relation both to his reception of the thought of Heidegger and to his renewal of core ontological positions in classical Confucian and Buddhist philosophy. Johnson shows that for Watsuji we have our being in the lived experience of nature, one in which nature and culture compose a tightly interwoven texture called "fūdo". By fully (...) unfolding Watsuji's novel and radical claim that this is a setting that is neither fully external to human subjectivity nor merely a product of it, this book also sets out what still remains unthought in this concept, as well as in the relational structure that underwrites it. Johnson argues that what remains unarticulated is nothing less than the recovery of a reenchanted conception of nature and an elucidation of the wide-ranging implications of a relational conception of the self for questions about the disclosive character of experience, the distinction between fact and value, and the possibility of a place-based ecological ethics. In an engagingly lucid and deft analysis, "Watsuji on Nature" radically expands our appreciation of twentieth-century Japanese philosophy and shows what it has to offer to a global philosophical conversation"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In this paper we study abstract elementary classes using infinitary logics and prove a number of results relating them. For example, if is an a.e.c. with Löwenheim–Skolem number κ then is closed under L∞,κ+-elementary equivalence. If κ=ω and has finite character then is closed under L∞,ω-elementary equivalence. Analogous results are established for . Galois types, saturation, and categoricity are also studied. We prove, for example, that if is finitary and λ-categorical for some infinite λ then there is some σLω1,ω such (...) that and contain precisely the same models of cardinality at least λ. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph: Paksi and Héder’s Guide to Personal Knowledge (hereafter GPK and Guide) is, as the title suggests, a guide of the most important and original ideas of Michael Polanyi’s book Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958, hereafter PK). Is a guide to Personal Knowledge needed? I think the answer is a resounding “yes” for many new readers. To see why, let’s briefly review two common complaints about PK.

Before the early 1990s, accounts of classical American philosophy paid relatively little attention to the work and intellectual contributions of women philosophers. However, as early as 1991, a number of contemporary feminist philosophers and historians began to devote more focused attention to women philosophers whose intellectual achievements had been marginalized or forgotten. One woman philosopher whose contributions have still gone unnoticed is that of American logician, mathematician, and color theorist Christine Ladd-Franklin. This paper argues that Ladd-Franklin's feminist efforts to increase (...) the opportunities for women in professional academia were influenced not only by her work as a woman scientist and her reading of feminist literature but also by her understanding of pragmatism and her interaction with Charles Peirce. Specifically, Ladd-Franklin's arguments to increase academic research positions for women and her criticisms of male-only scientific societies point out how discrimination on the basis of gender violates Peirce's first rule of reason that one ought not block the road to inquiry and expose the unscientific nature of gender discrimination by contrasting the pragmatic meaning of acquiring a doctorate with the institutional practice of barring women from making intellectual contributions by denying them professorial positions. (shrink)

Within political theory there has been a recent surge of interest in the themes of loss, grief, and mourning. In this paper i address questions about the politics of mourning through a critical engagement of the work of Judith Butler. I argue that Butler's work remains tethered to an account of melancholic subjectivity derived from her early reading of Freud. These investments in melancholia compromise Butler's recent ethico-political interventions by obscuring the ambivalence of political engagements and the possibilities of achieving (...) and sustaining non-dogmatic identities. To overcome this impasse I argue for an alternative framing of mourning by turning to the psychoanalytic theory of Melanie Klein. An account of mourning that leans upon Klein's work cashes in on the ethical and political promises that are immanent yet unrealized in Butler's recent work while providing a new orientation for mourning in, and for, democratic politics. (shrink)

One dimension of a comprehensive semantic and semiotic theory is its explanation of how a wide-variety of linguistic expressions designate singular objects. The bulk of scholarship on Peirce's theory of proper names has aligned his theory with the so called new theory of reference by drawing connections between proper names qua rhematic indexical legisigns and various aspects of Kripke's theory of names.2 Recent scholarship has navigated away from indexing Kripke-Peirce affinities and has begun the process of articulating a semiotic or (...) pragmatic theory of names that is distinctly Peircean. For example.. (shrink)

Take a hypothetical sequence of human beings ordered by height from tallest to shortest. Make sure there is no more than a difference of a millimeter between each person and make sure the tallest person is clearly tall and the shortest person is clearly not tall. Now consider the following argument: P1 A person of height n is tall ; P2 For any height n, if n is tall, then n–1mm is tall ; C Therefore, a person of height n (...) = 1mm is tall. P1 and P2 are intuitively true, C is intuitively false, yet the argument is deductively valid (the conclusion follows... (shrink)

Brimming with visual examples of concepts, derivation rules, and proof strategies, this introductory text is ideal for students with no previous experience in logic. Students will learn translation both from formal language into English and from English into formal language; how to use truth trees and truth tables to test propositions for logical properties; and how to construct and strategically use derivation rules in proofs.

This essay presents the use-first-and-investigate-later (UFAIL) approach to technological use through two case studies: the atomic bomb in World War II and chemical defoliants during the Vietnam War. The methodology of UFAIL is as follows: despite limited understanding of an array of potential effects (medical, environmental, etc.), technology users employ a commitment to ex post facto investigations of these effects. In generalizing these cases, the essay argues (a) that failure to check rapid technological uptake will result in continued disaster and (...) (b) the abatement of the negative consequences of UFAIL is a more tempered approach to the infiltration of technologies into society by rigorous and preemptive investigation into the potential effects of a technology. (shrink)

Two experiments using a realistic version of the selection task examined the relationship between participants' probability estimates of finding a counter example and their selections. Experiment 1 used everyday categories in the context of a scenario to determine whether or not the number of instances in a category affected the estimated probability of a counter-example. Experiment 2 modified the scenario in order to alter participants' estimates of finding a specific counter-example. Unlike Kirby 1994a, but consistent with his proposals, both studies (...) showed that probability estimates significantly predicted selection. Overall results point to the value of understanding selections in terms of their subjective expected utility. (shrink)

This paper attempts to reconcile two ideas that seem fundamentally opposed to one another: the reality of the self and the doctrine of no-self. Buddhism offers a form of spiritual equanimity that turns on the denial of a self. Nonetheless, there seem to be good reasons to hold onto the reality of the self. The existence of a self enables us to account for praise and blame, the hopes for oneself that motivate actions, and attachments to the selves of others (...) in bonds of love and affection. I show how it may be possible to reconcile the reality of the self with a particular interpretation of the no-self doctrine by engaging with the work of thinkers from the phenomenological tradition such as Merleau-Ponty, Zahavi, Gallagher, and Petitmengin. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remains loosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty's cognitive dimensions, and treat loyalty as (...) an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a noncognitive, care-based view of identification, of what privileged psychic subset provides the source of self-determination in actions and attitudes. The author provides an extended analysis of "caring," and then applies it to debates between Frankfurtians, on the one hand, and Watsonians, on the other, about the nature of identification, then defends the view against objections.

David Hume's writings on history, politics and philosophy have shaped thought to this day. His bold scepticism ranged from common notions of the 'self' to criticism of standard theistic proofs. He insisted on grounding understandings of popular religious beliefs in human psychology rather than divine revelation, and he aimed to disentangle philosophy from religion in order to allow the former to pursue its own ends. In this book, Professors David W Purdie and Peter S Fosl decipher some of (...) Hume's most challenging texts for the modern reader, while preserving the sharp intellect and undaunted nerve for which Hume is famous. Hume's spirit is brought alive for contemporary times and his writing is made accessible for its intended audience: the general public."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Gadamer’s notion of dialogical truth relies on the claim that self and world “belong together” as aspects of a single, unitary phenomenon, one which is made manifest in language. This view has difficulty, however, accounting for that which is untruthful. To get past this obstacle I suggest that we turn to Nishida’s work, which shows how we can bring self and world together into a kind of harmony such that the cultivation of perception makes possible truthful expression.

If we want to see justice done with regard to responsibility, then we must either (i) allow that people are never morally responsible, (iia) show that luck is not ubiquitous or at least that (iib) ubiquitous luck is not moral, or (iii) show that ascriptions of responsibility can retain justice despite the omnipresence of luck. This paper defends (iii); ascriptions of responsibility can be just even though luck is ubiquitous.

Many philosophers have taken there to be an important relation between personal identity and several of our practical concerns (among them moral responsibility, compensation, and self-concern). I articulate four natural methodological assumptions made by those wanting to construct a theory of the relation between identity and practical concerns, and I point out powerful objections to each assumption, objections constituting serious methodological obstacles to the overall project. I then attempt to offer replies to each general objection in a way that leaves (...) the project intact, albeit significantly changed. Perhaps the most important change stems from the recognition that the practical concerns motivating investigation into personal identity turn out to be not univocal, as is typically thought, such that each of the different practical concerns may actually be related to personal identity in very different ways. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's existential, republican concept of politics spurned Carl Schmitt's idea that enmity constituted the essence of the political. Famously, she isolated the political sphere from social conflict, sovereign regimes, and the realm of military violence. While some critics are now interested in applying Arendt's more abstract political ideas to international affairs, it has not been acknowledged that her original reconceptualization of politics was in fact driven by her analysis of global war, and in particular, the startling new challenges raised (...) by nuclear warfare. Arendt's early, unpublished manuscript on the nature of politics contains important reflections on the nature of war and empire. Surprisingly, these reflections tentatively explore the relationship between war and political freedom. A close reading of this work on war can help explain both her later, more radical non-violent concept of political action, and the difficulties she faced integrating her existential republicanism within the global context of conflict in the Cold War. (shrink)

This essay critically develops Watsuji’s nondual ontology of the self. Watsuji shows that the self is constituted by its relational contact with others and by its immersion in a wider geo-cultural environment. Yet Watsuji himself had difficulty in smoothly bringing together and integrating these notions. By showing how these domains work together to constitute the self, I bring into view the unity at the ground of Watsuji’s thought and the implications of this account for key ideas in Heidegger’s philosophy and (...) for environmental ethics. (shrink)

Sir Austin Bradford Hill’s ‘aspects of causation’ represent some of the most influential thoughts on the subject of proximate causation in health and disease. Hill compiled a list of features that, when present and known, indicate an increasing likelihood that exposure to a factor causes—or contributes to the causation of—a disease. The items of Hill’s list were not labelled ‘criteria’, as this would have inferred every item being necessary for causation. Hence, criteria that are necessary for causation in health, disease (...) and intervention processes, whether known, knowable, or not, remain undetermined and deserve exploration. To move beyond this position, this paper aims to explore factors that are necessary in the constitution of causative relationships between health, disease processes, and intervention. To this end, disease is viewed as a causative pathway through the often overlapping stages of aetiology, pathology and patho-physiology. Intervention is viewed as a second, independent causative pathway, capable of causing changes in health for benefit or harm. For the natural course of a disease pathway to change, we argue that intervention must not only occupy the same time and space, but must also share a common form; the point at which the two pathways converge and interact. This improved conceptualisation may be used to facilitate the interpretation of clinical observations and inform future research, particularly enabling predictions of the mechanistic relationship between health, disease and intervention. (shrink)

Hume: General Philosophy makes available the most significant essays published on the work of David Hume. It brings together an extensive array of often difficult to obtain essays in a convenient and accessible format for researchers, teachers and student alike. Featuring a full-length introduction form the editor, it is an indispensable international reference work.

ABSTRACT:Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remains loosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty's cognitive dimensions, and treat loyalty as (...) an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice. (shrink)

The interest in and enthusiasm for urban agriculture (UA) in urban communities, the non-profit sector, and governmental institutions has grown exponentially over the past decade. Part of the appeal of UA is its potential to improve the civic health of a community, advancing what some call food democracy. Yet despite the increasing presence of the language of civic agriculture or food democracy, UA organizations and practitioners often still focus on practical, shorter-term projects in an effort both to increase local involvement (...) and to attract funding from groups focused on quantifiable deliverables. As such, it seems difficult to move beyond the rhetoric of food democracy towards significant forms of popular participation and deliberation within particular communities. In this paper we provide a theoretical framework—deep democracy—that helps to contextualize nascent attempts at civic agriculture or food democracy within a broader struggle for democratic practices and relationships. We argue that urban agriculture efforts are well positioned to help citizens cultivate lasting relationships across lines of difference and amidst significant power differentials—relationships that could form the basis of a community’s collective capacity to shape its future. We analyze the theory of deep democracy through recent experiences with UA in Denver, Colorado, and we identify ways in which UA can extend its reach and impact by focusing more consciously on its political or civic potential. (shrink)

Agricultural decision making is characterized by two challenges common to multiple arenas: linking science to decision making and linking science and decision making across multiple levels. The U.S. agricultural research, education, and extension system was designed to address these challenges. By investigating this system, this study deepens the understanding of science and decision making, specifically exploring the notion of boundary organizations in two significant ways. First, it provides a preliminary test of the hypothesis that boundary organizations mediate between the shifting (...) domains of science and policy, finding that they are instrumental in creating and maintaining an integrated system of assessment and decision making for addressing depletion of the High Plains Aquifer. Second, it extends the concept of boundary organization beyond the science-policy dimension to incorporate the dimension of levels of organization—not only bridging science and policy but linking science and policy across different levels. (shrink)

This book discusses the development of Edward Tolman's purposive behaviourism from the 1920s to the 1950s, highlighting the tension between his references to cognitive processes and the dominant behaviourist trends. It shows how Tolman incorporated concepts from European scholars, including Egon Brunswik and the Gestalt psychologists, to justify a more purposive form of behaviourism and how the theory evolved in response to the criticisms of his contemporaries. The manuscript also discusses Tolman's political activities, culminating in his role in the California (...) loyalty oath controversy in the 1950s. Tolman was involved in a number of progressive causes during his lifetime, activities that drew the attention of both state legislators in California and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It treats Tolman's theoretical and political activities as emanating from the same source, a desire to understand the learning process in a scientific manner and to apply these concepts to improve the human condition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 25 (2005) 9-14 [Access article in PDF] Religious Identity and Openness in a Pluralistic World David W. Chappell Soka University Guiding Issues How do I understand my own identity as a religious person in light of the fact that I am open to the validity of the beliefs held by other traditions?Has my understanding of my own religious tradition been transformed, purified, and enriched by the (...) ways in which I have come to understand the other traditions?Have I been changed by the dialogue, or do I remain the same? What difference has the dialogue made in my life, personally or theologically?How would I respond to this topic from the point of view that I am a religious person engaged in a specific area of expertise (environment, philosophy, etc.)? Thesis The increased mobility and diversity of relationships in the contemporary world has often made religious identity a complex issue, hardening it for some people and diffusing it for others. But in either case, I wish to challenge the view that highlights beliefs as a key to defining identity and instead propose that many other factors might be more important, and that in religious life identity is a secondary issue. Being Christian I was born, baptized, and raised in the Christian tradition. My father was a United Church of Canada minister and I became a United Church of Canada minister, while my mother was a Baptist and my brother became a Baptist minister. Religious values were important in my upbringing and throughout my adult life. While I have maintained a concern for ultimate values, however, my own beliefs have undergone radical changes. I am sure that many in the Christian community would say that I am no longer a Christian, but I have never taken that view and have never taken the step to renounce my ordination as a Christian minister. Instead, I question the assumption that beliefs are the best way to define a religious life or religious identity. [End Page 9]In 1961 I had the good fortune to go to McGill University to study with Wilfred Smith, and from him I have learned not to focus on the "beliefs" of others—namely, intellectual constructs—but on the "faith" of others as much more encompassing and important. Some religious communities—like the Jain and the Confucian—do not care about one's beliefs, only about one's practice, both ritually and morally. Wilfred Smith called it orthopraxy, rather than orthodoxy, and it provides an alternative means of marking religious identity.Why should I feel bound by the efforts of Emperor Constantine when he convened a church council in 325 CE to define Christian identity or by subsequent efforts of church institutions to do the same? Today, my Christian identity is nurtured and expressed by a constellation of moral values and cosmic trust, of faith and actions, that are connected to the early Jesus movement, especially as articulated by John Dominic Crossan. Living as we do in the modern era, we have very different beliefs about history and cosmology from these early Christians, as John Robinson discussed forty years ago in his book Honest to God. My affection for Christian church life and the early Jesus movement involves other factors than the concerns of those who formed Christian creeds. The Trinitarian doctrine makes sense as a conglomeration made from the conceptualization of several historical experiences important in the early Christian community, but the Trinitarian concept does not clarify or enhance my contemporary experience.In spite of the Trinitarian formulation, I still honor and value the powerful and enduring influence of my Christian upbringing. As a result, I have not renounced the name "Christian" or my ordination as a Christian minister, even though I have grown increasingly away from them. I am still the second son of Lynsin and Mary Chappell. Even though my parents may seem to be dead and gone, they are still alive for me. I treasure them and I still live my life in their embrace, as well as in the embrace of the fellowship of... (shrink)

This essay draws on Nishida’s ontology to shed light on some problems with Merleau-Ponty’s view of truth, a view that has difficulty accounting for the expression in language of that which is distorted, mistaken, or untruthful. To get past these difficulties, it is suggested that we turn to the more dynamic and developmental vision of the continuity of being found in Nishida’s work.

In this paper, I attempt to show that the moral/conventional distinction simply cannot bear the sort of weight many theorists have placed on it for determining the moral and criminal responsibility of psychopaths. After revealing the fractured nature of the distinction, I go on to suggest how one aspect of it may remain relevant—in a way that has previously been unappreciated—to discussions of the responsibility of psychopaths. In particular, after offering an alternative explanation of the available data on psychopaths and (...) their judgments of various sorts of norm transgressions, I put forward a hybrid theory of their responsibility, suggesting how they might be criminally responsible, while nevertheless failing to meet the conditions for an important arena of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Some psychiatrists believe that “demoralization syndrome” is a diagnosable cognitive disorder characterized in its extreme form by morbid existential distress. If they are right, then it should be an important part of our thinking about end of life decisionmaking. A demoralized patient would be unable to think reliably about the remainder of her life, and therefore incompetent to decide to commit physician‐assisted suicide.

Causation is important when considering: how an organism maintains health; why disease arises in a healthy person; and, how one may intervene to change the course of a disease. This paper explores the form of causative relationships in health, disease and intervention, with particular regard to the pathological and biopsychosocial models. Consistent with the philosophical view of dispositionalism, we believe that objects are the fundamental relata of causation. By accepting the broad scope of the biopsychosocial model, we argue that psychological (...) and social constructs be considered objects. We think that this ‘biopsychosocial dispositionalism’ offers the flexibility required to describe causation throughout health, disease and intervention pathways. When constructing mechanistic chains to describe causative pathways, we argue that an object will causally connect with others through actions; transfers of energy from one object to another, initiated by the manifestation of one or more dispositional property. Finally, our analysis of causative interactions utilises the concept that a common form of interaction exists between disease and intervention pathways. This common form will always be an object, but the mode of interaction will vary with each disease. We describe how intervention may act through objects being shared between converging mechanistic chains, or through the removal and/or insertion of objects in such chains. We believe that this analysis provides novel insight to the forms of causative transactions that can occur. In addition, we hope that the findings of this analysis represent the first step towards developing a framework for appraising the composition of mechanistic theories. (shrink)