Every generation re-writes history in its own way'. Re-writing History applies Collingwood's dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology for the past century or more, while some have been triggered by more recent changes in technology or social attitudes. Some issues are highly controversial, like the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths, like the deconstruction of the Celts and by extension the Picts. (...) Yet some traditional tenets of scholarship have gone unchallenged for too long, like the classical definition of civilization itself. But why should it matter? Surely it is in the order of things that each generation rejects received wisdom and adopts ideas that are radical or might offend previous generations? Is this not simply symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Or are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry and expression that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Re-writing History addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation, including issues of misinformation and airbrushing of politically-incorrect history. Its subject matter is the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the changes witnessed over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political and social as well as intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics in ivory towers, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate. (shrink)

Humans have changed the Earth so profoundly that we’ve ushered in the first new geologic period since the ice ages. So, what are we going to do about it? Ever since Nobel Prize–winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen coined the term "Anthropocene" to describe our current era—one in which human impact on the environment has pushed Earth into an entirely new geological epoch—arguments for and against the new designation have been raging. Finally, an official working group of scientists was created to (...) determine once and for all whether we humans have tossed one too many plastic bottles out the car window and wrought a change so profound as to be on par with the end of the last ice age. In summer 2016, the answer came back: Yes. In Making the Most of the Anthropocene, scientist Mark Denny tackles this hard truth head-on and considers burning questions: How did we reach our present technological and ecological state? How are we going to cope with our uncertain future? Will we come out of this, or are we doomed as a species? Is there anything we can do about what happens next? This book • explains what the Anthropocene is and why it is important • offers suggestions for minimizing harm instead of fretting about an impending environmental apocalypse • combines easy-to-grasp scientific, technological, economic, and anthropological analyses In Making the Most of the Anthopocene, there are no equations, no graphs, and no impenetrable jargon. Instead, you'll find a fascinating cast of characters, including journalists from outer space, peppered moths, and unjustly maligned Polynesians. In his bright, lively voice, Denny envisions a future that balances reaction and reason, one in which humanity emerges bloody but unbowed—and in which those of us who are prepared can make the most of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kiyozawa Manshi’s Two Theories of Evolution and Their Western InspirationDennis PROOIIntroductionIf one solely were to confine the scope of one’s inquiry into the defining trait of a “Tokyo School of Philosophy” to the years immediately following the founding of Tokyo University in 1877, it would be hard to escape the conclusion that philosophy there at the time was determined almost entirely by the dominant intellectual wind blowing through its (...) lecture halls, namely that of evolutionary theory. Katō Hiroyuki (1836–1916), president of the university from 1890 to 1893, was one of its staunchest advocates, doing much to foster the spread of ideas that would today be typified as “Social-Darwinian.”1 Inoue Enryō (1858–1919), undoubtedly the Meiji period’s most successful public philosopher, came to embrace many Spencerian ideas on evolution under the influence of Toyama Masakazu (1848–1900), a devout Spencerian, during his time as a student there (from 1881 to 1885).2 Ernest F. Fenollosa (1853–1908), an American philosopher who exerted great influence over the university’s young philosophical minds, was working on a synthesis of the Spencerian and Hegelian philosophical systems.3 He had been brought to Tokyo University by the Darwinian zoologist Edward S. Morse (1838–1925), who was himself instrumental in the spread of evolutionary ideas. This quick survey of Tokyo notables serves not only to establish the dominance of evolutionary theory, but also to show how in the context of late nineteenth-century Japan, “evolutionary theory” (shinkaron 進化論) is best understood as an umbrella term that could refer to a wide array of ideas—including, but certainly not limited to, Darwinian, Social-Darwinian, Spencerian, and Hegelian ones, or a mix of these—on the nature of (individual and social) change, development, and progress.Although the impact of 1859’s The Origin of Species made Darwin a figure impossible to ignore, by no means was evolutionary theory [End Page 77] equated with his theory of natural selection. For their ideas of evolution, many looked to Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), regarded by the Victorian English as the philosopher of evolution and whose system of synthetic philosophy presented positivist-leaning Meiji-era Japanese intellectuals with a definitive model of philosophical achievement. Spencer prided himself in having been the first to formulate the principle of evolution, remarking in the revised version of Social Statics (1892) that he had arrived at the general idea as early as 1850, many years before The Origin of Species had appeared in print.4 From Spencer’s point of view, Darwin had done no more than confirm a posteriori for biological organisms what was in fact an a priori law of evolution, established by Spencer in First Principles (1867) both inductively and deductively as the universal tendency of phenomena to pass from “an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity,” a process accompanied by “an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion.”5 Spencer’s nod to the materialist tradition by formulating his conception of evolution in terms of matter in motion in his own self-understanding placed him in the camp of English philosophy, which did not let itself be deluded by the wrong use of language and spurned the invocation of what from its perspective was superfluous metaphysics. The opposing camp of German philosophy—following William Hamilton (1788–1856), derided by Spencer as “absolute theorisers”—made abundant use of such metaphysics to defend a teleological understanding of evolution—the kind of understanding Darwin (with his emphasis on the non-teleological character of natural selection) and Spencer (with his focus on matter in motion) attempted to render obsolete.6Under the influence of Fenollosa, many students of philosophy at Tokyo University became attracted to the alternative German teleological model of evolution, the history of which via the German Romantics goes back to Leibniz’s attempt to reintroduce into physics the idea of final causes after these in that domain had been eliminated by Descartes.7 Descartes, to begin with, was the one to revolutionize natural philosophy by reducing the physical world to one of matter in motion ruled by efficient causation, imagining, much like Spencer two centuries later, that such a minimalist view of... (shrink)

I outline and develop a particular physicalist perspective on qualia, and suggest that it may be the basis of a correct account of the relationship of mental states to the physical world. Assume that a quale is a perspective on a physical state in the organism – the reality as known as distinct from the reality as such – but that the perspective, though it entails irreducible experiential knowledge, has no physical substance over that encompassed in the physical state itself. (...) Assume this physical state is also a brain state. The position is a useful one. First, reductionist physicalism is true, but experiential qualities are irreducible physical knowledge, and a required part of our physical world view. Second, experiences are not additional problems over those addressed externally, but only how these problems seem when known internally – an experience just is the physical state that underlies its external counterpart, and the same standard scientific account suffices to explain both, permitting a science of consciousness to develop by applying the same standard external–observer–based methods adopted in older scientific disciplines. Finally, challenges to physicalism associated with the ‘unbridgeable gap’, Leibniz's Law, Jackson's knowledge argument, and Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness are successfully countered. (shrink)

The Knowledge Argument is misconstructed. Knowing that it is ‘just obvious’ that Mary will learn something new on leaving her black and white room, we nevertheless assume she can acquire a complete knowledge of the physical inside it – thereby predetermining the outcome of the thought experiment in favour of a refutation of physicalism. If we reformulate the argument to leave the question of what she can learn in the room open, it becomes clear, not only that physicalism can survive (...) the Knowledge Argument, but also that there is only one perspective on the relationship between qualia and the physical that will permit it to do so. If physicalism is true, this perspective must be the correct view of the qualia-physical relationship – the solution to the mind-body problem, a conclusion supported by its ability to resolve a number of associated difficulties, including Kripke’s problem for proposed identities and Chalmers’ Hard Problem. (shrink)

Assume that a quale as we experience it is a perspective on an underlying physical state, rather than the physical state as such – the reality as known as distinct from the reality as such. Assume, further, that this inner perspective is integral to, and materially co-extensive with, the physical state itself. Assume, finally, that the physical state in question is known as a brain state of a particular kind by an external observer of the brain in which it occurs. (...) The result is a perspective in which a quale is entirely physical; a position that resolves several known difficulties for physicalism, including those associated with the explanatory gap, Jackson’s knowledge argument, and Chalmers’ hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

This hard-hitting expose; discusses the erosion of standards and values in the media world of newspapers, TV, and radio over the past 20 years—in particular those of integrity, independence, thought, and accuracy. The general public is becoming increasingly aware of the unsatisfactory state of affairs in media journalism, which is highlighted by the periodic distortions caused by the political ambitions of chief executives and tycoons, misleading headlines, and its extraordinary obsession with celebrity culture. This study is essential reading for the (...) majority of us who care about the destructive effects of spin, misrepresentation, deception, social and international prejudice, the purveying of half-truths in relation to crucial issues that affect our future, and the failure to report fully and accurately on matters that have a bearing on freedom and democracy. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a constitutionalized Harm Principle could ensure that people are not jailed unless they deserve it. I do not aim to outline every possible type of bad consequence beyond harm that might be sufficiently serious to justify criminalization. Instead, I focus on criminalization that is backed up with jail terms and I argue that wrongful harm to others provides the only moral and constitutional justification for sending people to jail. Imprisonment harms the prisoner, so she (...) should not be imprisoned unless she has caused proportionate harm to others. I argue that the sufficient conditions for sending an offender to jail are: (1) that the offender's actions have (or risk) bad consequences that are sufficiently harmful to make her commensurately deserving of penal detention; and (2) that the offender culpably (that is, with a state of mind somewhere along the intentional/reckless/gross negligence continuum) chose (aimed or attempted) to bring about those bad consequences or did so with reckless indifference. The lawmaker would need to demonstrate from the ex ante perspective that proposed offenses carrying jail sentences are a proportionate and fair way of dealing with the wrongs involved. Because jail (including short sentences of a few days) involves hard treatment (seriously harmful consequences for the prisoner) harm to others would be the only bad consequence of sufficient weight to justify a jail sentence. Jailing people for wrongful behavior that has harmless consequences would be an unjust and disproportionate response. In terms of understanding imprisonment (a physical deprivation of liberty) in the United States, it is better to refer to the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution than to the Due Process Clause. The Eighth Amendment, if read morally, could be invoked to strike down laws that carry prison sentences for wrongs that do not result in harm to others. This is because harming a person by subjecting her to the hard treatment that is involved in serving a jail term would be a disproportionate response unless the wrongdoer inflicted equivalent harm on others. I argue, that the Eighth Amendment should be interpreted in a way that accords with its overall moral aim or purpose. The Amendment's overall moral aim is to ensure that the state does not inflict unjust, oppressive, or disproportional punishments on its citizens. (shrink)

Gerard Manley Hopkins once said, “What you look hard at seems to look hard at you.” This phrase not only encapsulates the central emphasis of Hopkins’s poetry but also suggests a proper relationship between philosophy and art. The aesthetic experience of artworks can provide pivotal experiences for metaphysical interpretations, and I attempt to show that Hopkins’s poetry gives such a foundational and informative experience for philosophical investigations. Hopkins develops his poetic expressions based on what he calls the ability of language (...) to inscape and ingress profound experiences of reality. The metaphysics of Duns Scotus in which the particular embodies or transubstantiates the universal underlies these ideas and inspires Hopkins to write poetry. My point is not to say that a philosopher can offer the true meaning of Hopkins’s poetry and that, once we get the philosophical meaning, we can dismiss the poems. Rather, Hopkins’s poetry presents the kind of experiences that a philosopher can use to make meaningful metaphysical interpretations of the world. (shrink)

Talk at University of Turin, 'Kant, oltre Kant, May 5th 2023. --- -/- It is useful, while keeping in mind a holistic approach, to concentrate on a common theme in Kant’s text, which it will turn out is the quintessential element of his novel ‘way of thinking’, as he himself put it in preface of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. This common theme is the idea of synthesis, which is what holds together, and is the entryway (...) to, all the other familiar aspects of Kant’s thought: his concept of self-consciousness or how mind is involved in cognition, his ideas about the role of the imagination, his theory of knowledge and his metaphysics of experience, and not unimportantly, its relation to what is probably the most Kantian element here: the categories of the understanding as the first principles of knowledge. But the meaning of synthesis and its role in its various facets, though frequently the subject of discussion in papers and monographs alike, is hardly understood in contemporary Kant scholarship. Most readings of the text of the Deduction, the part in which Kant elucidates his concept of synthesis, exhibit a shallow, mechanical understanding of it. -/- A compounding factor is that synthesis can’t really be understood independently of the other aforementioned elements of Kant’s thought. Grasping the meaning of synthesis implies coming to grips with his concept of self-consciousness and the way both self-consciousness and the categories are intricately and intimately involved. Most interpretations consider these aspects too much as if they were indeed separable faculties or entities that serve separable functions, undercutting an important feature of Kant’s metaphysics: the possibility of a priori unified cognition, for which an indivisible self-legislating subject is responsible. Rather, they are expressions of various aspects of a singular function of the mind as the ground of possible unified knowledge. -/- One striking example of such a superficial reading of the text is the way the relation between figurative synthesis and intellectual synthesis—or in the case of the A-Deduction the threefold synthesis—is standardly interpreted, as if the two are independent or quasi-independent functions of different faculties of the mind, the imagination and the understanding. In this paper, I focus on the relation between figurative and intellectual synthesis, while arguing that failing to understand this properly, indeed the relation between the imagination and the understanding, leads to a vicious regress in the explanation of the ground of knowledge, for which a priori synthesis is specifically designed. In other words, failing to see the intimate relation between the imagination and the understanding, the very identity that lies at their root, risks losing sight of the primary aim of Kant’s thought: the possibility of a priori unified knowledge. (shrink)

The costs of the COVID-19 pandemic are yet to be calculated, but they include the loss of millions of lives and the destruction of countless livelihoods. What is certain is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has changed the way we live for the foreseeable future. It has forced many to live in ways they would have previously thought impossible. As well as challenging scientists and medical professionals to address urgent value conflicts in the short term, COVID-19 has raised slower-burning value questions (...) for corporations, public institutions, governments, and policymakers. In simple terms, the pandemic has brought what we care about into sharp relief, both collectively and individually. Whether this revaluation of our values will last beyond the current pandemic is unknown. Once COVID-19 has been tamed, will the desire to return to our previous lives be irresistible? Or will living under pandemic conditions have taught us something that will be incorporated into how we design our future lives and technologies? These are hard questions for the ethics of technology, which this volume aims to explore and address. (shrink)

Drugged bodies are commonly depicted as passive, suffering and abject, which makes it hard for them to be known in other ways. Wanting to get closer to these alternative bodies and their resourcefulness for living, I turned to body-mapping as an inventive method for telling different kinds of drug-using stories. Drawing on a research project with people who inject heroin and crack cocaine in London, UK, I employed body-mapping as a way of studying drugged bodies in their relation to others, (...) human and non-human, in the injecting event. I invited participants to draw their bodies in describing these otherwise hard-to-articulate experiences. Following Donna Haraway, I conceptualise body-mapping as a more-than-human mode of storytelling where different kinds of bodies can be known. Here, I look at three such bodies – sensing-bodies, temporal-bodies and environment-bodies – and argue that it is through being able to respond to such bodies that more hospitable ways of living with drugs can become possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"'Twas Nature Gnaw'd Them to This Resolution":Byron's Poetry and Mimetic DesireIan Dennis (bio)1. IntroductionWe all know Lord Byron, I presume. Know him as a paradigmatic object of cultural desire, as the quintessentially romantic individualist whose haughtily transgressive rejection of his society turned him into one of its most compelling models and objects, the endlessly provocative rival of a multitude of young men to follow—and they are still following—all (...) to differing degrees blind to or writhing in the anxieties of his influence. I myself belong to that somewhat smaller group that actually reads his poetry.Having passed through the little deification of celebrity, Byron was on something of a downslope of fame, and knew it, before he put the matter past all doubt by dying almost-young for liberty in Greece in 1824. Perhaps not surprisingly, given all this, he developed into something of an expert on desire. Almost alone among the major Romantics, he came to understand this most basic force in human experience not only as mediated and mimetic but as increasingly a function of a new kind of market whose commanding value was apparent autonomy from the market. It is not too hard to see how he figured this out. Those whom Byron defied adored him; those whose petty gratifications he evaded in spectacular suffering emulated him; those to whose desires he declared himself indifferent desired him—as few have ever been desired. For all his very real faults he was an intelligent man and an observant one. He reflected on what had happened to him.2. Reading Byron's Poetry for Nature and DesireIn his earlier poetry the natural scene, at least in Byron's privileged experiences of it, acts as an ally against other people. It is a source of his difference from and thus his indifference to the rest of us—an apparent replacement for, rather than object of, mediated desire. [End Page 115]Almost the first words of the preface to his fame-making Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) tell us that the poem was "written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe" and a coy disquisition on the identity of the Childe—who is and is not Byron—follows close on the heels of a spate of place-name dropping. They are sexy places, too, hard to get to, exotic, naturally beautiful, and dangerous. Soon the note of human pollution is of course sounded—man "mars" the beauties of Cintra that the hero is experiencing (1980–1993, 1.15)1—reminding us of the prototypical alliance between the alienated Romantic solitary and the unspoiled, or spoiled natural world, alike menaced by sociality, by the Other. This alliance is powerfully reinforced by an identification with the bovine victim of the Cadiz bull-ring, vivid sacrifice at the center of—in the young poet's chilling phrase—"the silent circle's peopled walls" (1.75). Does man scapegoat nature? There could hardly be a handier metaphor. And the Childe makes common cause.Mainly, though, "Dear Nature" is the particular solace of her "never-wean'd" favorite son, the one who never "pollutes her path," he who, as he rather complacently notes, "mark'd her when none other hath" (2.27). Byron does at least make good on such a claim by going to Albania, a wild, inaccessible place which he, with some justification, boasts "all admire, but many dread to view" (2.43). He writes some stirring descriptive poetry, leavened with occasional homilies on the smallness and nastiness of man and the grandeur and beauty of nature, sentiments that would not sound out of character on the lips of young backpacking, development-deploring kindred spirits of a later age. Again, it is to be remembered that the first besmirchment of the natural world to be complained of is not material, but social, in particular by the Romantic rebel's own society—not chemicals and chainsaws but the poisonous presence of overly familiar people and practices. The language of protest remains much the same after the products of industrial economic activity are added to the score, and indeed a good part of... (shrink)

In 2011, bioethicists turned their attention to the question of whether prisoners on death row ought to be allowed to be organ donors. The discussion began with a provocative anti‐procurement article by Arthur Caplan and prompted responses from an impressive lineup of commentators. In the 10 years since, the situation for death‐row inmates seeking to donate has hardly changed: U.S. prison authorities consistently refuse to allow death‐row procurement. We believe that it is time to revisit the issue. While Caplan's commentators (...) rebutted his narrow contention that organ procurement would undermine the goals of deterrence and retribution, none of them attempted to make a positive, nonconsequentialist case for organ donation as a right of death‐row inmates. That is the task we take up in this paper. After sketching and briefly defending a theory of punishment, we show how denial of organ donation is inconsistent with punishment's basic logic. (shrink)

A 14.2 megapixel camera with full 1080p video capabilities, the Nikon D3100 camera is both powerful and yet, accessible to first-time dSLR users. The Nikon D3100 Digital Field Guide will teach you how to get the most out of the advanced dSLR features of the Nikon D3100 as well as improve your basic photography skills. Chapter 1: Exploring the Nikon D3100. – This chapter covers the key components of the Nikon D3100 including basic layout, dials, switches, buttons, and navigation of (...) the viewfinder screen. Chapter 2: Nikon D3100 Essentials. – Learn the various modes for exposures, auto focus, white balance, and picture controls. Chapter 3: Exploring the Nikon D3100 Menus. – Learn to use the playback, shooting, setup and retouch menus to get the most out of the Nikon D3100's photographic potential. Chapter 4: Essential Photography Concepts. – Understand the basics of exposure, depth of field, and composition on your Nikon D3100 to take your photography to the next level. Chapter 5: Selecting and Using Lenses. – Learn lens basics and which lens to use to get the exact type of photos that you want. Chapter 6: Working With Light. – Create natural and beautiful photographs with your D3100 and this chapter's tips on soft light, hard light, natural light, and the use of flash to get the best possible photos. Chapter 7: Working With Live View and Video. – Learn the various video modes of the Nikon D3100 camera, and find tips and tricks for getting the best video possible with your dSLR. Chapter 8: Real World Applications. – Get professional pointers for capturing still-life, action, and abstract photos, as well as landscapes, sports, and architectural subjects with your Nikon D3100. Chapter 9: Viewing and In-Camera Editing. – Learn to view, download, and re-touch images with the Nikon D3100's easy to use editing interface. Appendix A: Accessories. – This Appendix brings together information about remote controls, tripods, monopods, and other accessories that will help you get the most out of your Nikon D3100. Appendix B: How to Use the Grey Card and Color Checker. – Learn how to produce photos with accurate white balance and color with these free-inside-the-book tools. This go-anywhere, full-color guide includes a free grey/color checker card to help you achieve accurate white balance and color in any situation. With the Nikon D3100 Digital Field Guide, you will gain a thorough understanding not only of the Nikon D3100, but also the basic fundamentals of capturing the best possible photos. (shrink)

There is hardly an analogy in the history of philosophy that has been referred to as often as the one that Kant himself draws in the second preface of the Critique of pure reason between Copernicus′ revolution in astronomy and his own revolution in metaphysics; and yet there is to the present day no detailed analysis thereof. The analogy is much more complex than meets the superficial eye: In the first passage , Kant does not draw a simple comparison to (...) Copernicus′ famous heliocentric hypothesis . In the second passage , Kant connects the reference to Copernicus with a reference to Newton by drawing an extremely rich analogy between the law of gravitation and the moral law of freedom. The revolution in metaphysics is related to the revolution in ethics; that famous analogy of Kant really is a Copernican-Newtonian analogy. (shrink)

Science has always strived for objectivity, for a ‘‘view from nowhere’’ that is not marred by ideology or personal preferences. That is a lofty ideal toward which perhaps it makes sense to strive, but it is hardly the reality. This collection of thirteen essays assembled by Denis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers ought to give much pause to scientists and the public at large, though historians, sociologists and philosophers of science will hardly be surprised by the material covered here.

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why physical processes give rise to consciousness (Chalmers 1995). Regardless of many attempts to solve the problem, there is still no commonly agreed solution. It is thus very likely that some radically new ideas are required if we are to make any progress. In this paper we turn to quantum theory to find out whether it has anything to offer in our attempts to understand the place of mind (...) and conscious experience in nature. In particular we will be focusing on the ontological interpretation of quantum theory proposed by Bohm and Hiley (1987, 1993), its further development by Hiley (Hiley and Callaghan 2012; Hiley, Dennis and de Gosson 2021), and its philosophical interpretation by Pylkkänen (2007, 2020). The ontological interpretation makes the radical proposal that quantum reality includes a new type of potential energy which contains active information. This proposal, if correct, constitutes a major change in our notion of matter. We are used to having in physics only mechanical concepts, such as position, momentum and force. Our intuition that it is not possible to understand how and why physical processes can give rise to consciousness is partly the result of our assuming that physical processes (including neurophysiological processes) are always mechanical. If, however, we are willing to change our view of physical reality by allowing non-mechanical, organic and holistic concepts such as active information to play a fundamental role, this, we argue, makes it possible to understand the relationship between physical and mental processes in a new way. It might even be a step toward solving the hard problem. (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)

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)

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)

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)

This paper extends several themes from recent work on norms of assertion. It does as much by applying those themes to the speech act of asking. In particular, it argues for the view that there is a species of asking which is governed by a certain norm, a norm to the effect that one should ask a question only if one doesn’t know its answer.

A fascinating recent turn in epistemology focuses on inquiring attitudes like wondering and being curious. Many have argued that these attitudes are governed by norms similar to those that govern our doxastic attitudes. Yet, to date, this work has only considered norms that might *prohibit* having certain inquiring attitudes (``norms of restriction''), while ignoring those that might *require* having them (``norms of expansion''). We aim to address that omission by offering a framework that generates norms of expansion for inquiring attitudes. (...) The framework draws on inferential erotetic logic, which we explain and augment with some theorems. We explore several of the norms that it yields - some sympathetically, others unsympathetically. (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.

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)

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)

Worries about scientific objectivity seem never-ending. Social critics and philosophers of science have argued that invocations of objectivity are often little more than attempts to boost the status of a claim, while calls for value neutrality may be used to suppress otherwise valid dissenting positions. Objectivity is used sometimes to advance democratic agendas, at other times to block them; sometimes for increasing the growth of knowledge, at others to resist it. Sandra Harding is not ready to throw out objectivity (...) quite yet. For all of its problems, she contends that objectivity is too powerful a concept simply to abandon. In Objectivity and Diversity, Harding calls for a science that is both more epistemically adequate and socially just, a science that would ask: How are the lives of the most economically and politically vulnerable groups affected by a particular piece of research? Do they have a say in whether and how the research is done? Should empirically reliable systems of indigenous knowledge count as "real science"? Ultimately, Harding argues for a shift from the ideal of a neutral, disinterested science to one that prizes fairness and responsibility. (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)

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.

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)

Einst galt die Erkenntnistheorie als Königsdisziplin der Philosophie. Heute ist sie gegenüber der Ontologie und Sprachphilosophie in den Hintergrund getreten. Wenn wir aber das Programm der Aufklärung fortführen und in einer rationalen Gesellschaft leben wollen, müssen wir die Epistemologie wiederbeleben. In diesem Buch werden zwei Kernfragen der Disziplin beleuchtet. Alle Wissenschaften setzen auf Schlüsse vom Speziellen auf das Allgemeine, von der Vergangenheit auf die Zukunft. Der erste Teil des Buches beschäftigt sich damit, wie solche Induktionsschlüsse gerechtfertigt werden können. Im zweiten (...) Teil geht um das Problem der empirischen Basis. Viele PhilosophInnen glauben, dass selbst die grundlegendsten empirischen Beobachtungen durch unsere theoretischen Hintergrundannahmen geprägt sind. Sind Wissenschaft und Erkenntnis also zirkuläre Unterfangen? (shrink)

This new textbook provides a clear, informative and rigorous guide for students taking Religious Studies GCSE with all the major exam boards. It covers the philosophy and ethics content of the key GCSE specifications and examines these themes from the perspectives of Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Islam. Throughout the book, emphasis is placed on the scriptural basis of each religious view and on other sources of authority in each religious tradition. The development of core ethical and doctrinal questions is explored, (...) and key thinkers and theologians are introduced to give a sound understanding of complex issues. Chapter by chapter, the book covers such topics as religious texts and sources of authority; the existence and nature of God; revelation and religious experience; the problem of evil; science and religion; death and life after death; human nature and personal relationships; human rights, conflict and crime; and global issues. There is also a dedicated chapter on study skills and exam techniques, and each chapter includes student-friendly features such as revision summaries, questions and activities. While the book has been designed with the new GCSE specifications and reforms in mind, it encourages students to see the full significance of these issues by going beyond the narrow confines of their own specification. As such, Religious Studies for GCSE will be the ideal companion for investigating this rich and fascinating area of human life. (shrink)

Kann "Gott" Thema einer vernunftigen, undogmatischen Philosophie sein? Wenn ja, in welcher Weise? Uber eine systematische Rekonstruktion des philosophischen Werkes von Simon L. Frank (1877-1950) werden diese Fragen erortert. Der erkenntnismetaphysische Grundansatz Franks vereinigt Transzendentalphilosophie und Phanomenologie. Er fuhrt zu einer "Fundamentalontologie", die durch ihre immanente Verbindung zur Anthropologie wesentlich personale Ontologie ist. Der Uberschritt zur philosophischen Theologie wird anhand des Begriffes "religioser Erfahrung" herausgearbeitet. Wissenschaftlichkeit sowie philosophische und religiose Adaquatheit dieses Unterfangens werden uberpruft. Dabei wird sowohl dem Verdacht auf (...) "Ontotheologie" als auch dem Vorwurf des "Pantheismus" kritisch nachgegangen. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the action of centripetal and centrifugal forces in utterances from the religious sphere, which reveal worldviews of the evangelical Christian segment regarding disability. For that, we selected a video available on YouTube, containing utterances by the hosts Tito Rocha and Leandro Quadros regarding disabilities, as well as the response of an internet user about the positioning of these individuals. The theoretical and methodological reflection is based on the dialogical orientation of language, considering dialogic relations, voices, and (...) centripetal and centrifugal forces. Additionally, we drew upon studies on worldviews, the inclusion of people with disabilities, religious discourse, and Christian theology. The results reveal that the discourses of the hosts reflect and refract a Christian worldview that unifies the understanding of disability due to divine punishment caused by sin. While the internet user’s comment presents movements of centralization and dispersion of this Christian perspective. (shrink)