A few years ago, Peter Benson argued that unless claims in corrective justice are grounded on an independent, non‐distributive measure of entitlement, corrective justice collapses into distributive justice. More recently, Stephen Perry argued that the autonomy of corrective justice can be secured with something more modest, namely a free‐standing conception of harm. I argue, first, that Perry's account is closer to Benson's than we might at first think, and, second, that implicit in each is a view that we (...) ought to reject, namely that corrective justice can be autonomous only if there are rights or entitlements which the law does not confer but must, on pain of injustice, protect. In conclusion I defend the view that corrective justice takes as found the positive law's measure of those interests that merit protection in individuals' interactions with others, and explain what, on this account, is meant by holding that corrective justice is autonomous. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of curiosity from an epistemological point of view. First it motivates this exploration by explaining why epistemologists do and should care about what curiosity is. Then it surveys the relevant literature and develops a particular approach.

Through engaging interviews, testimonials, and anecdotes from photographers, curators, printers, and colleagues, Object Lesson: On the Influence of Richard Benson pays homage to a legendary figure whose name is synonymous with the evolving history and philosophy of photographic reproduction. From making platinum prints for Paul Strand and books with Lee Friedlander to his own experiments with inkjet and digital offset processes, and as a teacher and dean of the Yale School of Art, by the time of his death in (...) 2017, Benson had inspired over three decades of students and artisans through his mentorship and work. In words and images, Object Lesson stands as a testament to Benson's wit, wisdom, and incomparable obsession with how photographic images render and connect us to the world. (shrink)

As bearers of the divine image, all of us are storytellers and artists. However, few people today believe in truth that is not empirically knowable or verifiable, the sort of truth often trafficked through direct forms of communication. Drawing on the works of Soren Kierkegaard, Benson P. Fraser challenges this penchant for direct forms of knowledge by introducing the indirect approach, which he argues conveys more than mere knowledge, but the capability to live out what one takes to be (...) true. Dr. Fraser suggests that stories aimed at the heart are powerful instruments for personal and social change because they are not focused directly on the individual listener; rather, they give the individual room or distance to reconsider old meanings or ways of understanding. Indirect communication fosters human transformation by awaking an individual to attend to images or words that carry deep symbolic force and that modify or replace one's present ways of knowing, and ultimately make one capable of embodying what he or she believes. Through an examination of the indirect approach in Kierkegaard, Jesus, C. S. Lewis, and Flannery O'Connor, Fraser makes a strong case for the recovery of indirect strategies for communicating truth in our time"--Back cover. (shrink)

Political polarization is one of the most discussed challenges facing contemporary democracies and is often associated with a broader epistemic crisis. While inspiring a large literature in political science, polarization’s epistemic problems also have significance for normative democratic theory, and this study develops a new approach aimed at understanding them. In contrast to prominent accounts from political psychology—group polarization theory and cultural cognition theory—which argue that polarization leads individuals to form unreliable political beliefs, this study focuses on system-level diversity. It (...) argues that polarization’s epistemic harms are best located in its tendency to reduce the diversity of perspectives utilized in a democratic system and in how this weakens the system’s ability to identify and address problems of public concern. Understanding such harms is also argued to require a greater consideration of the political dynamics of polarization and issues of elite discourse, alongside political psychology. (shrink)

This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II. Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the (...) size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock. (shrink)

I discuss the relationship between different versions of the equivalence principle in general relativity, among them Einstein's equivalence principle, the weak equivalence principle, and the strong equivalence principle. I show that Einstein's version of the equivalence principle is intimately linked to his idea that in GR gravity and inertia are unified to a single field, quite like the electric and magnetic field had been unified in special relativistic electrodynamics. At the same time, what is now often called the strong equivalence (...) principle, related to the local validity of special relativity, can also be found in Einstein's writings, albeit by a different name and clearly separated from what he calls the equivalence principle. I discuss both the development of Einstein's thoughts on the different versions of the equivalence principle, their relationship to the relativity principle, as well as later reflections and variants proposed. (shrink)

Does a flourishing life involve pursuing passionate attachments? Can we choose what these passionate attachments will be? This book offers an original theory of how we can actively cultivate our passionate attachments. The author argues that not only do we have reason to view passionate attachments as susceptible to growth, change, and improvement, but we should view these entities as amenable to self-cultivation. He uses Pierre Hadot's and Michel Foucault's accounts of Hellenistic self-cultivation as vital conceptual tools to formulate a (...) theory of cultivating our passionate attachments. First, their accounts offer the conceptual resources for a philosophical theory of how we can cultivate our passionate attachments. Second, the exercises of self-cultivation they focus on allow us to outline a practical method though which we can cultivate our passionate character. Doing this brings out a significantly new dimension to the role of the passionate attachments in the flourishing life and offers theoretical and practical accounts of how we can cultivate them based on the Hellenistic conception of self-directed character change. Cultivating Our Passionate Attachments will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working in virtue ethics, moral philosophy, and ancient philosophy. (shrink)

In a penetrating analysis of student unrest, the Dean for Institute Relations at M.I.T (and former chief of the psychiatric services both there and at Wellesley College) isolates a major cause of campus conflict: the overwhelming, nonproductive mass of unstated academic and social norms that divert the student from creative intellectual effort and from the attempt to define and reach his goals as independently as he is able.

This contributed volume is the result of a July 2010 workshop at the University of Wuppertal Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Studies which brought together world-wide experts from physics, philosophy and history, in order to address a set of questions first posed in the 1950s: How do we compare spacetime theories? How do we judge, objectively, which is the “best” theory? Is there even a unique answer to this question? -/- The goal of the workshop, and of this book, (...) is to contribute to the development of a meta-theory of spacetime theories. Such a meta-theory would reveal insights about specific spacetime theories by distilling their essential similarities and differences, deliver a framework for a class of theories that could be helpful as a blueprint to build other meta-theories, and provide a higher-level viewpoint for judging which theory most accurately describes nature. But rather than drawing a map in broad strokes, the focus is on particularly rich regions in the “space of spacetime theories.” -/- This work will be of interest to physicists, as well as philosophers and historians of science working with or interested in General Relativity and/or Space, Time and Gravitation more generally. (shrink)

Epistemic questions have become an important area of debate within democratic theory. Epistemic democrats have revived epistemic justification of democracy, while social scientific research has speared a significant debate on voter knowledge. An area which has received less attention, however, is the epistemic case for markets. Market advocates have developed a number of epistemic critiques of democracy which suggest that most goods are better provided by markets than democratic institutions. Despite representing important challenges to democracy, these critiques have gone without (...) reply as democratic theorists have tended to exclude markets from consideration. This article responds to these critiques and argues that there are good epistemic grounds for granting a much greater role to democracy than its market critics have claimed. It argues that there is a broad range of goods, including important ethical goods, which are better provided by democracy than markets due to the particular epistemic burdens they create. (shrink)

I have been trying to understand the moral aspect of human nature for several decades. Several years ago, after publishing The Origins of Morality, an editor from Oxford Press suggested that I write up the theory and research I reviewed in this academic book in a manner that would be accessible to people with relatively little background knowledge in the area. A few years later, I launched this project, which ended up in this book. In it, I trace the grown (...) of my understanding of morality. (shrink)

The position that I seek to defend in this article is that the epistemological hegemony that is presently one of the defining characters of the relationship between Africa and the global North is a form of injustice which makes the talk of ‘global justice’ illusory. In arguing thus, I submit that denying the indigenous people of Africa an epistemology that is comparable to epistemologies from other geopolitical centres translates to questioning their humanity which is a form of injustice. I thus (...) proceed to argue that, as a precondition to an authentic discourse on the possibility of ‘global justice’; epistemic injustice must first be challenged and rejected. In so doing, I am defending the position that the acceptance and respect for the diversity of the peoples of this world and their epistemologies is imperative if genuine justice at global level is to be realised. (shrink)

本书共66篇日记,每篇都围绕"死亡"这个永恒的命题展开,作者结合自己病中的所见所闻所思所感,从不同的视角和事件切入,深入探讨了一个个关于人性的优劣,关于心灵的成长,关于生命的意义等方方面面的问题.

The surprising aspects of quantum information are due to two distinctly non-classical features of the quantum world: first, different quantum states need not be orthogonal and, second, quantum states may be entangled. Non-orthogonality leads to the blurring of classical distinctions. On the other hand, entanglement leads via non-locality to teleportation and other ``entanglement-assisted'' forms of communication that go beyond what is classically possible. In this article we attempt to understand these new possibilities via an analysis of the significance of entanglement (...) for the basic physical concepts of a ``particle'' and a ``localized physical system''. Classical particles can be individuated on the basis of qualitative differences in their sets of properties. But in entangled states the ``particle labels'' of the quantum formalism usually do not pick out such sets of individuating particle properties. It is sometimes nevertheless possible to think in terms of individual particles, which may be localized; but we argue that in general the structure of quantum mechanics is at odds with such a particle interpretation. This finally leads us to the conclusion that quantum mechanics is best seen as not belonging to the category of space-time theories, in which physical quantities are functions on space-time points. The resulting picture of the quantum world is relevant for our understanding of the way in which quantum theory is non-local, and it sheds light on the novel aspects of quantum information. (shrink)

Non-human animals are as a matter of routine used as means to human ends. They are killed for food, employed for labour or sport, and experimented on in the pursuit of human health, knowledge, comfort and beauty. Lip-service is paid to the obligation to cause no unnecessary suffering, but human necessity is interpreted so generously that this is a negligible constraint. The dominant traditions of Western thought, religious and secular, have provided legitimation of the low or non-existent moral status of (...) beasts. The rival tradition, which includes the Neo-Platonists, Plutarch and Montaigne, is eccentric and archaic. But the teleologies and hierarchies of orthodoxy are equally incredible now and owe their greater respectability and influence to the inertia of custom. Disregard for beasts is supported partly by the vestigial and unowned belief that they are intended for our use, partly by a more recent piece of lore which is not only thought to be compatible with, but is sometimes held to be integral to, an enlightened scientific outlook, namely that beasts are mere complex stimulus—response mechanisms. The latter is a vexatious obstacle to progress but despite that the state of scientific and philosophical knowledge is now enormously more propitious for a re-appraisal of the moral status of beasts. Two moral philosophers, Peter Singer and Stephen Clark, have recently published books in which such a re-appraisal is attempted. Here I try to compare and assess some of the main features of their very different approaches. (shrink)

This book discusses that imagination is as important to thinking and reasoning as it is to making and acting. By reexamining our philosophical and psychological heritage, it traces a framework, a conceptual topology, that underlies the most disparate theories: a framework that presents imagination as founded in the placement of appearances. It shows how this framework was progressively developed by thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant, and how it is reflected in more recent developments in theorists as different as (...) Peirce, Saussure, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, and Bachelard. The conceptual topology of imagination incorporates logic, mathematics, and science as well as production, play, and art. Recognizing this topology can move us past the confusions to a unifying view of imagination for the future. (shrink)

It is beyond doubt that the legal system established by the Nazi government in Germany between 1933-1945 represented a gross departure from the rule of law: the Nazis eradicated legal security and certainty; allowed for judicial and state arbitrariness; blocked epistemic access to what the law requires; issued unpredictable legal requirements; and so on. This introduction outlines the distorted nature of the Nazi legal system and looks at the main factors that contributed to this grave divergence.

A hallmark of Western culture is a massive moral confusion, rendering the very idea of virtue "exotic and incomprehensible." McInerny here drags the conversation back to the beginning, establishing the terms and the tools of what it means to think and to do what is moral. As he asserts, the virtuous life and the moral life are one and the same. To be moral is to be good, and the goodness of one's acts reflects the fundamentals of thought placed in (...) the service of a pursuit of a virtuous life. Why is the concept of a virtuous life so foreign to many? We do not know the basics of a moral life. As McInerny states, "To be good we have to know what that means." The two biggest judgments one will make during life pertain to knowing what is good, what is bad, and the difference between the two. This bleeds into a study of morality and ethics when it pertains to concrete acts, but in reality all aspects of our lives bear on these judgments. "Being ethical is not simply a state of mind, it is a state of being, a way of living one's life that reflects the fundamental principles of ethics [...] [it is one] who lives in a certain way." Nevertheless, the subject of this book focuses on ethics--namely, the goodness or badness of human acts. McInerny's great reason for writing this work is to teach the reader that he or she cannot properly tackle ethical questions (even if they are not identified as such) if one is not himself or herself actually ethical (living virtuously). Writing very much as a teacher of teachers, McInerny relies on the foundations of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, as well as his late brother, Ralph McInerny, to reiterate the principles of ethics that inform both thought and act. To speak of ethics, then, is to admit a commitment to virtue and how the theoretical distinction of good and bad is necessarily practical. Acting well will lead to thinking better, but McInerny notes that culture has lost sight of the former and thereby the coherency to address ethical questions. Being Ethical aims to correct this disconnect in forty-eight cogent lessons. Being Ethical is fundamentally intended to serve as a sequel to D. Q. McInerny's Being Logical (Random House, 2004), which has remained in print and has been translated into six languages. Its style lends itself to being used as a textbook in liberal studies. More generally, it is a refreshing presentation of this topic and timely and timeless exhortation to readers of the necessity of a love of virtue for ethical thought. For friends and students of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Ralph McInerny, this book bears a style and manner that is both familiar and much loved. (shrink)

On Dwelling explores the meaning of dwelling in places where we humans live and work—from our homes to the very planet we co-inhabit. Crossing boundaries and disciplines, it lays the groundwork for addressing place-based issues like migration, ethnic division, resource use, and human-caused peril to the earth itself.

In 1935, the Nazi government introduced what came to be known as the abrogation of the pro- hibition of analogy. This measure, a feature of the new penal law, required judges to stray from the letter of the written law and to consider instead whether an action was worthy of pun- ishment according to the ‘sound perception of the people’ and the ‘underlying principle’ of existing criminal statutes. In discussions of Nazi law, an almost unanimous conclusion is that a system (...) of criminal law ought not to contain legislation of this sort. This conclusion is often based on how the abro- gation relates to the normative claim that the law ought to be predictable. In particular, it has been argued that since the law ought to be predictable, and since this type of analogy legis- lation implied, caused or contributed to the diminution of the law’s predictability, this type of legislation ought to be prohibited. In this paper, we argue that this argument is not entirely correct. While we believe that the law ought to be predictable and that there is evidence for the claim that the Nazis’ intro- duction of analogical reasoning implied, caused, or contributed to a diminution of predictability, this fact is logically too weak to ground the conclusion that necessarily a penal system ought not to contain legislation of this kind. Despite the undeniable wickedness of the Nazi penal system, this type of analogical reasoning can be made consistent with the pre- dictability of the law. We argue that consistency of this sort depends on whether the use of analogy is supplemented by certain contextual background conditions. The occurrence of these conditions blocks an inference from the fact that the law ought to be predictable to the conclusion that a penal system ought not to allow for this type of analogical reasoning. (shrink)

The central task of this dissertation is to develop a new interpretation of Leibniz's famous claim that there are no purely extrinsic denominations . Though Leibniz regarded NPE as one of his most important doctrines, he nowhere offers an explicit statement as to what he meant by it. One interpretation of NPE, which enjoys a modest consensus among interpreters, is that all extrinsic denominations reduce to intrinsic denominations. According to the reductionist view, things only have intrinsic denominations as properties; extrinsic (...) denominations are not genuine properties of things. Critics of reductionism have argued that the textual case for it is inconclusive at best, and I share this assessment with them. However, in my opinion, a satisfactory non-reductionist understanding of NPE has not been offered. The goal of my dissertation is to provide such a non-reductionist account. I contend that NPE, far from being a claim of the reducibility of extrinsic denominations, is actually an assertion that extrinsic denominations are genuine properties of the things they denominate. ;To establish my reading of NPE, I examine a line of textual evidence to which interpreters have paid little attention: the way Leibniz argues for NPE. In some passages Leibniz derives NPE from his predicate-in-subject principle of truth. In others, he employs his doctrine of the interconnection of all things to reach NPE. Elsewhere, he bases NPE on the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Though, as mentioned, Leibniz never explicitly defines NPE, he does have much to say by way of explicit definition of each of these three principles. A consideration of what version of NPE could plausibly be drawn from them is thus a revealing way to proceed. In the case of each argument, I show that my interpretation of NPE is the conclusion naturally suggested by the given principle, while the reductionist version of NPE forms only an awkward, textually implausible fit with it. The result of the examination is an original and serious critique of the reductionist reading of NPE, as well as the development of a far more plausible understanding of that claim. (shrink)