This article addresses some philological and structural-narrative issues concerning the suttas on Mara the Bad in Agama literature. Included is a translation of the Mara Samyukta of the Bieyi za ahan jing, which includes such famous passages as the suicide without further rebirth of Godhika.

This article is part of a series on the Shorter Chinese Sa?yukta-?gama. Continuing the investigation from previous research on the provenance of the BZA, it is concluded that the attribution of the BZA to the K??yap?ya school is mistaken. A comparison of the BZA’s?akra-sa?yukta with the P?li Sakka-sa?yutta shows that, with minor exceptions, the narrative content of both sa?yuttas is identical though the number of suttas varies. Finally, the article completes the translation of the?akra-sa?yukta, the first part of which appeared (...) in BSR 25. (shrink)

This study provides an overview of what is known about the shorter Chinese Samyukta Agama and also an annotated translation of its first 22 suttas, which corresponds to the Pali Bhikkhu Samyutta. Recent research suggests that T.100 belongs to the corpus of Sarvastivada Literature. The annotations resolve some unique expressions, correct some mistakes found in the textus receptus, and point out significant differences between the versions of the suttas. The text base for Chinese is the CBETA/Taisho edition, for Pali the (...) Chatta Sangayana edition published by the Vipassana Research Institute, if not indicated otherwise. The paper is a first result of the Bieyi za ahan jing-Project 1 at the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taiwan, which aims at a digital edition and translation of the complete work. (shrink)

23 out of the 364 s?tras of the Shorter Chinese Sa?yukt?gama and many more of the Longer Chinese Sa?yukt?gama have no known direct counterpart in P?li, Sanskrit or Tibetan. These s?tras are especially suitable to introduce common problems regarding the relationship of early Indian s?tras and their Chinese translation. While usually the existence of an Indian parallel helps researchers to narrow down the range of likely forms of names and words, in the absence of Indian versions our understanding of translations (...) and transcriptions becomes all the more conjectural.?gama texts without a P?li counterpart must also be suspected to be later additions to the collection and we have to deduce from form and content of the s?tra as well as its position in the collection, when, where and why the text came into being. The article introduces these problems as they appear in two BZA sutras, both of which are translated below. (shrink)

Der Einsatz empirischer Forschungsmethoden in der Medizinethik hat zu Forderungen nach einem gewandelten Selbstverständnis der Medizinethik geführt, die sich mehr als eine integrierte Disziplin aus Sozialwissenschaften und Ethik verstehen solle. Dagegen wird hier die These vertreten, dass über Sinn und Unsinn des Einsatzes empirischer Methoden zunächst eine moralphilosophische Diskussion erforderlich ist. Medizinethiker müssen ausweisen können, welche empirischen Forschungsresultate zur Beantwortung normativer Fragen erforderlich sind. Ein solcher Ausweis beruht seinerseits jedoch auf normativen Annahmen, die ihrerseits moralphilosophischer Legitimation bedürfen. Der Beitrag untersucht (...) daher den Einsatz empirischer Methoden in der Medizinethik im Hinblick auf Verhältnis von ethischem Grundlagendiskurs und Methodologie der angewandten Ethik. Abschließend wird gefragt, ob nicht ein Großteil von empirischen Studien in der Medizinethik aus forschungsethischen Gründen problematisch ist. (shrink)

The work of Lawrence Kohlberg has become the central focus in both the research and applied dimensions of moral education. While teachers and academics are generally familiar with Kohlberg's account of his six stages of moral development, his hints about a highest and culminating seventh stage have had no sustained critique. This essay attempts to provide a detailed account and critique of all of Kohlberg's writings dealing with stage seven, from a philosophical standpoint. This essay critiques Kohlberg's analysis of Moore's (...) naturalistic fallacy, and rejects his attempt to disarm the fallacy by adopting a strategy of ?parallelism?, or ?complementarity?. I argue that it might be better to accept the fact that one cannot derive an ought from an is, and then to view ought-claims as selected or preferred is-claims. This allows morality to remain sui generis, and the support for a moral choice must arise from the complete ?story? or world-view in which it is embedded. Stage seven is not just any ?whole story?, however, but the best or ideal whole story. As well, it serves as the answer to the fundamental ethical question, ?but why should I be moral in the first place?? Stage seven gains its justificatory power from its stance of empathetic identification of the moral agent with others, and with the cosmos as a whole, as thinkers as varied as Marcus Aurelius and Teilhard de Chardin have suggested. If stage seven is, as Kohlberg argues, an ethics of love, and if the first six stages are to be thought of as comprising an ethics of justice, then what is to be done if they conflict? Kohlberg deals with this question, and eventually decides in favour of justice, even given the seventh stage as somehow the ground of all normativity in his system. I argue that he cannot consistently adopt a parallelist thesis here, but needs to recognize the normatively fundamental character of his own seventh stage. It serves as his ?whole story?, on which the previous six stages all rest. Kohlberg's own thesis forces him to retain an ethics of justice only until one reaches the level of agape. Then, as with all higher stages, the lower stages are not abandoned, but are taken up and enriched by the thinking and acting which emerge from the higher stage perspective. Neither justice nor agape can stand alone as sufficient basis for an adequate ethics. But it is agape that is the more fundamental, and which enriches justice without rejecting its generally overwhelming claims. Stage seven consciousness simply reminds one that justice is not enough, even though it does constitute the largest part of ethics. (shrink)

Cicero and Boethius did more than anyone else to transmit the insights of Greek philosophy to the Latin culture of Western Europe which has played so influential a part in our civilisation to this day. Cicero's treatise On Fate, though surviving only in a fragmentary and mutilated state, records contributions to the discussion of a central philosophical issue, that of free will and determinism, which are comparable in importance to those of twentieth-century philosophers and indeed sometimes anticipate them. Study of (...) the treatise has been hindered by the lack of a combined Latin text and English translation based on a clear understanding of the arguments; Dr Sharples' text is intended to meet this need. The last book of Boethius' Consolation is linked with Cicero's treatise by its theme, the relation of divine foreknowledge to human freedom. Text with translation and commentary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Evaluation of Implicit AnthropologiesJochen Fahrenberg (bio) and Marcus Cheetham (bio)Keywordsmind-body, philosophical assumptions, human natureThe three commentaries and the reviewer’s notes contain valuable reflections and expand on number of important points. There is general agreement that surprisingly little is known about psychologists’, psychotherapists’, clinicians’, and other professionals’ philosophical assumptions about human nature. It is conceivable that these implicit anthropologies represent a potential source of bias in research and (...) practice and that further research is therefore justified.Doctor Walach emphasizes the pluralism of world views, which is evident in the questionnaire response patterns. The findings contradict the assumption that monism, immanence, and a scientific worldview are predominant preconceptions. Instead, psychology students mostly favor ontological or methodological dualism, and con-firm that they have spiritual beliefs or indeed some belief in paranormal phenomena. From this, Dr. Walach extends his thought-provoking perspective to folk psychology, as opposed to mainstream psychology, and reflects on the influence of individual beliefs on scientific culture. It is especially from this perspective that the investigation of certain key concepts and belief systems should be given every encouragement.Doctors Wells and Rackley were particularly interested in the implicit anthropologies of clinicians. They are inclined to attribute individual differences in understanding and interaction with patients to “psychological” traits or to momentary experience rather than to philosophical beliefs. The latter view was supported by the majority of students in our investigation. With respect to psychotherapists and clinicians, our article contained only a short reference to the interviews conducted by Wider. The majority of the forty-two professionals taking part in this pilot study assumed that there may be such differential biases in their fields, but they conceded that the momentary clinical condition and pragmatic necessities would often override such biases. An empirical investigation to differentiate psychological, pragmatic–clinical, and philosophical factors and the associated bias would be an ambitious project; very careful interviews and perhaps participant observation would be necessary. But before undertaking such a study, further descriptive studies and the development of testable hypotheses are required.Doctor Brendel referred to the intricacies of the mind–body problem. We agree that many of the recent philosophical writings show nonreductive physicalism to be among the highly favored conceptions. (We do not know whether this discourse represents the majority opinion of philosophers, psychologists, clinicians, or even neuroscientists.) [End Page 213] The inclusion of this specific conception in the multiple-choice item list would require the inclusion of a specific vocabulary and some definitions that are controversial, even among the proponents of nonreductive physicalism. We decided to restrict the wide spectrum of concepts to five categories. Doctor Brendel goes on to voice explicit support for the conceptualization proposed by Horgan, who recommended a pragmatic approach and the use of double vocabularies. He suggests that context-related features in a given instance would suffice for selecting the most appropriate explanation. It is, however, conceivable that close examination of the decision process would reveal criteria containing or stemming from philosophical assumptions.Doctor Walach makes reference to the complementarity principle, which has a certain intellectual appeal when cross-category relationships are considered, and is not restricted to the domain of physics. Compared with a double-language dualism, the complementarity principle postulates that both frames of reference are fundamentally different in categories, exhaustive within their specific explanation scheme, but are essentially incomplete if, for example, brain and consciousness are viewed as a whole.Pertinent methodological aspects were already addressed in the article and endnote. However, the appropriateness of a questionnaire with which to assess philosophical standpoints will continue to be met with concern and require careful consideration. It is clear that there is no other practical method for gathering in a population like first-year students of psychology representative data about ontological beliefs, religious attitudes, or assumptions on human nature.Doctors Wells and Rackley noted discrepancies in the response to two items relating to spiritual existence after death and the cessation of consciousness with biological death. The two statements seem to be contradictory and the observed inconsistencies point to possible misunderstandings, response tendencies, context-dependent effects, or other shortcomings well-known in research using personality questionnaires. However, the assumed postmortal existence... (shrink)

Philosophy in Minutes distils 200 of the most important philosophical ideas into easily digestible, bite-sized sections. The core information for every topic - including debates such as the role of philosophy in science and religion, key thinkers from Aristotle to Marx, and introductions to morality and ethics - is explained in straightforward language, using illustrations to make the concepts easy to understand and remember. Whether you are perplexed by existentialism or pondering the notion of free will, this accessible small-format book (...) will help any reader to quickly grasp the basics of this highly nuanced subject. Chapters include: Truth and logic, Marxism, Communism and Socialism, Ontology, Philosophy and literature, Existence of God, Feminist theory, Consciousness, The future of philosophy. (shrink)

Quick, accessible, compact guide to understanding key political concepts. Contents include: Liberty, Justice, Equality, Human rights, Social contract, Democracy, Monarchy, Anarchism, Capitalism, Socialism, Nationalism and Globalisation.

The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state.--The concept of essence.--The affirmative character of culture.--Philosophy and critical theory.--On hedonism.--Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber.--Love mystified; a critique of Norman O. Brown and a reply to Herbert Marcuse by Norman O. Brown.--Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society.

Marcus Giaquinto tells the compelling story of one of the great intellectual adventures of the modern era: the attempt to find firm foundations for mathematics. From the late nineteenth century to the present day, this project has stimulated some of the most original and influential work in logic and philosophy.

This paper develops a non-relativist version of contextualism about knowledge. It is argued that a plausible contextualism must take into account three features of our practice of attributing knowledge: (1) knowledge-attributions follow a default-and-challenge pattern; (2) there are preconditions for a belief's enjoying the status of being justified by default (e.g. being orthodox); and (3) for an error-possibility to be a serious challenge, there has to be positive evidence that the possibility might be realized in the given situation. It is (...) argued that standard "semantic" versions of contextualism (e.g. those of Lewis, Cohen, DeRose) fail to take these features into account, which makes them overly hospitable to the sceptic, and that Williams' version of contextualism, although incorporating (1), fails to do justice to (2) and (3). According to the contextualism developed here, although epistemic standards vary with the context, the truth-value of particular knowledge-attributions does not. Contexts here are understood as being constituted by two elements: an epistemic practice (a rule-governed social practice such as a scientific discipline, the law, a craft etc., in which knowledge-claims are evaluated according to specific standards) and the "facts of the matter" (i.e. those facts which, together with the epistemic standards in question, determine which error-possibilities are relevant and thus have to be eliminated for a knowledge-claim to be true). If there are several epistemic practices, and thus several contexts, in which a knowledge-claim can be evaluated, it is the "strictest" practice that counts. In this way, the counterintuitive consequence of other versions of contextualism that the same knowledge-claim can be true in one context, but false in another, can be avoided. At the same time, scepticism can be resisted since even in the "strictest" epistemic practices, error-possibilities become relevant only when backed by positive evidence that they might in fact obtain. (shrink)

In its first part, this paper deals with some passages of the Eneads in which the notions of consciousness and unconsciousness may be found. In spite of not having terms that correspond exactly to these in Greek, it is clear that Plotinus had very refined notions related to them, going up to indicate that consciousness might not be the epistemological function that defines humans. The multiple aspects of the phyché hyposthesis in Plotinus enables this separation between consciousness and the essence (...) of men. In its second part, this paper describes cosmological elements of the notions of consciousness and unconsciousness in Plotinus, since the celestial bodies are admitted as living beings. This paper indicates, finally, some problems related to astrology in Plotinus concerned with the notion of consciousness of the stars. (shrink)

A personal account of a great Roman Emperor's life lessons.

Liberalism is often claimed to be at odds with feminism and critical race theory (CRT). This article argues, to the contrary, that Rawlsian liberalism supports the central commitments of both. Section 1 argues that Rawlsian liberalism supports intersectional feminism. Section 2 argues that the same is true of CRT. Section 3 then uses Young’s ‘Five Faces of Oppression’—a classic work widely utilized in feminism and CRT to understand and contest many varieties of oppression—to illustrate how Rawlsian liberalism supports diverse feminist (...) and CRT projects, and why it may be critical to achieve solidarity between feminism, CRT, and Rawlsian liberalism. Finally, Section 4 responds to five objections. (shrink)

Alex Byrne contends that women are (simply) adult human females, claiming that this thesis has considerably greater initial appeal than the justified true belief (JTB) theory of knowledge. This paper refutes Byrne’s thesis in the same way the JTB theory of knowledge is widely thought to have been refuted: through simple counterexamples. Lessons are drawn. One lesson is that women need not be human. A second lesson is that biology and physical phenotypes are both irrelevant to whether someone is a (...) woman, and indeed, female in a gendered sense. A third lesson is that trans women, cis women, alien women, and robot women are all women because to be a woman is to be an adult gendered female. This paper does not purport to settle complex normative questions of ethics or justice, including whether the ordinary meaning of “woman” ought to be retained or changed—though I do note plausible implications for these debates. This paper does purport to settle what the ordinary meaning of “woman” is, and in that regard contribute to important conceptual ground-clearing regarding what constitutes an ameliorative or revisionary definition of “woman.”. (shrink)

To thousands of young people, Marx is the prophet, Mao the sword, and Marcuse the ideological spokesman of the Radical New Left. In The Meaning of Marcuse, Dr. Robert W. Marks, Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, provides a detailed analysis of Marcuse's most important books--Reason and revolution, Eros and civilization, One-dimensional man, An essay on liberation--and offers the first comprehensive overview of this major 20th century thinker.

This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)

Visual thinking -- visual imagination or perception of diagrams and symbol arrays, and mental operations on them -- is omnipresent in mathematics. Is this visual thinking merely a psychological aid, facilitating grasp of what is gathered by other means? Or does it also have epistemological functions, as a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof? By examining the many kinds of visual representation in mathematics and the diverse ways in which they are used, Marcus Giaquinto argues that visual thinking (...) in mathematics is rarely just a superfluous aid; it usually has epistemological value, often as a means of discovery. Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis. He shows how we can discern abstract general truths by means of specific images, how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, and how visual means can help us grasp abstract structures. Visual Thinking in Mathematics reopens the investigation of earlier thinkers from Plato to Kant into the nature and epistemology of an individual's basic mathematical beliefs and abilities, in the new light shed by the maturing cognitive sciences. Clear and concise throughout, it will appeal to scholars and students of philosophy, mathematics, and psychology, as well as anyone with an interest in mathematical thinking. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that Platonic Forms are angels. I make this identification by claiming that Platonic Forms have the characteristics of angels, in particular, that Platonic Forms are alive. I offer four arguments for this claim. First, it seems that engaging in self-directed action is a sufficient condition for being alive. The Forms are, as teleological activities, self-directed actions. Second, bodies receive their being from their Forms, and some bodies are essentially alive. Third, in the Good, all (...) the types of goodness, including life, are identical. The Forms are appearances of the Good. Fourth, since the Good imparts as much goodness as it can, the Forms are alive unless there is some bar to their being alive. There are good reasons to think that there is no such bar. I then show that ethical vices do not give body to human form, but give body to other forms—those that are evil angels. Lastly, I provide a survey of the relationships that various religious traditions posit between ethical vice and the demonic. (shrink)

According to the standard interpretation of Einstein’s field equations, gravity consists of mass-energy curving spacetime, and an additional physical force or entity—denoted by Λ (the ‘cosmological constant’)—is responsible for the Universe’s metric-expansion. Although General Relativity’s direct predictions have been systematically confirmed, the dominant cosmological model thought to follow from it—the ΛCDM (Lambda cold dark matter) model of the Universe’s history and composition—faces considerable challenges, including various observational anomalies and experimental failures to detect dark matter, dark energy, or inflation-field candidates. This (...) paper shows that Einstein’s Equivalence Principle entails two possible physical interpretations of General Relativity’s field equations. Although the field equations facially appear to support the standard interpretation—that gravity consists of mass-energy curving spacetime—the field equations can be equivalently understood as holding that gravitational effects instead result from mass-energy accelerating the metric-expansion of a second-order spacetime fabric superimposed upon an absolute, first-order Euclidean space, resulting in the observational appearance of spacetime curvature. This alternative interpretation of relativity is shown to be empirically equivalent to the standard interpretation of relativity, albeit with a changing value for Λ (which is similar to how Λ is understood in the conception of Λ as ‘quintessence’, but in this case takes Λ to be gravity). The reconceptualization is then shown to potentially resolve major observational anomalies for the ΛCDM model, including recent observations conflicting with ΛCDM predictions, as well as failures to directly detect dark matter, dark energy, and inflation field/particle candidates. (shrink)

Is there a language of transcendence which does not fall under the well-worn categories of monism, theism, pantheism, biblical or pagan monotheism, personal or tripersonal God, or an impersonal absolute, conceived as immanent and/or transcendent? The present set of studies from different fields of research centers on the question whether it is possible to speak at all of transcendence or a divinity, and if it is, under what limitations does such speech proceed. In current discussion in theology and in philosophy (...) of religion, there is a pervasive awareness that the inherited terms and alternatives, developed in the western tradition, no longer facilitate an adequate understanding of the divine. Increasing familiarity with the languages of 'immanence' and 'transcendence' (under erasure) in Hindu and Buddhist thought has further jumbled our coordinates, while holding out the promise of a more subtle and vital engagement with the matter itself of religious inquiry. A further long-established distinction, between 'personal' and 'impersonal, ' also takes on rich new hues in Asian contexts, where the very notion of 'person' may undergo unsettling critiques. Transgressing the categories of 'personal' and 'impersonal' points to the mystical depth of religious traditions, emphasizes their openness and reintegrates essential elements of both perspectives. Advancing with curiosity and caution, all the contributors take seriously the diversity of historical religious traditions, while nevertheless searching for a fresh language that may connect these traditions and provide a common ground of understanding. (shrink)

The dominant theory of the evolution of moral cognition across a variety of fields is that moral cognition is a biological adaptation to foster social cooperation. This chapter argues, to the contrary, that moral cognition is likely an evolutionary exaptation: a form of cognition where neurobiological capacities selected for in our evolutionary history for a variety of different reasons—many unrelated to social cooperation—were put to a new, prosocial use after the fact through individual rationality, learning, and the development and transmission (...) of social norms. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the emerging behavioral neuroscience of moral cognition. It then outlines a novel theory of moral cognition that I have previously argued explains these findings better than alternatives. Finally, it shows how the evidence for this theory of moral cognition and human evolutionary history together suggest that moral cognition is likely not a biological adaptation. Instead, like reading sheet music or riding a bicycle, moral cognition is something that individuals learn to do—in this case, in response to sociocultural norms created in our ancestral history and passed down through the ages to enable cooperative living. (shrink)

This paper shows that several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" that physical (...) information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player). According to this theory, every possible physical “timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers. Although Libertarian Compatibilism is admittedly fantastic, I show that it not only follows from several live scientific and philosophical hypotheses, I also show that it (A) is a far more explanatorily powerful model of quantum mechanics than more traditional interpretations (e.g. the Copenhagen, Everett, and Bohmian interpretations), (B) makes determinate, testable empirical predictions in quantum theory, and finally, (C) predicts and explains the very existence of a number of philosophical debates and positions in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will. First, I show that whereas traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics are all philosophically problematic and roughly as ontologically “extravagant” as Libertarian Compatibilism – in that they all posit “unseen” processes – Libertarian Compatibilism is nearly identical in structure to the only working simulation that human beings have ever constructed capable of reproducing (and so explaining) every general feature of quantum mechanics we perceive: namely, massive-multiplayer-online-roleplaying videogames (or MMORPGs). Although I am not the first to suggest that our world is akin to a computer simulation, I show that existing MMORPGs (online simulations we have already created) actually reproduce every general feature of quantum mechanics within their simulated-world reference-frames. Second, I show that existing MMORPGs also replicate (and so explain) many philosophical problems we face in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will – all while conforming to the Libertarian Compatibilist model of reality. -/- I conclude, as such, that as fantastic and metaphysically extravagant as Libertarian Compatibilism may initially seem, it may well be true. It explains a number of features of our reality that no other physical or metaphysical theory does. (shrink)

Meditations offers timeless guidance for troubled times. Renowned for his principled leadership, Aurelius kept private notes detailing his philosophy on life and leadership. Meditations is a collection of those private notes, filled with insights on responding well to hardship both in thought and in action. His writings are a cornerstone of the Stoic philosophy, embraced by leaders throughout history and across the world for its emphasis on collaboration, rationality, and striving for the good of all people. George Long's elegant 1862 (...) translation balances accessibility with preserving the classic tone of the text. With archival printing, this pocket-sized new hardcover edition is designed for both portability and longevity. "Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages." -Marcus Aurelius. (shrink)

Many of Margaret Cavendish’s criticisms of Thomas Hobbes in the Philosophical Letters (1664) relate to the disorder and damage that she holds would result if Hobbesian pressure were the cause of visual perception. In this paper, I argue that her “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV is aimed at a different goal: to show the explanatory potency of her account. First, I connect Cavendish’s view of visual perception as “patterning” to the “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV. Second, (...) I provide a potential reply on Hobbes’s behalf that appeals to physiological differences between perceivers’ sense organs, drawing upon Hobbes’s optics in De homine. Third, I argue that such a reply would misunderstand Cavendish’s objective of showing the limited explanatory resources available in understanding visual perception as pressing when compared to her view of visual perception as patterning. (shrink)

Theorists have long debated whether John Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness can be extended to nonideal (i.e. unjust) social and political conditions, and if so, what the proper way of extending it is. This paper argues that in order to properly extend justice as fairness to nonideal conditions, Rawls’ most famous innovation – the original position – must be reconceived in the form of a “nonideal original position.” I begin by providing a new analysis of the ideal/nonideal theory distinction (...) within Rawls’ theoretical framework. I then systematically construct a nonideal original position, showing that although its parties must have Rawls’ principles of ideal justice and priority relations as background aims, the parties should be entirely free to weigh those aims against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions. Next, I show that the parties ought to aim to secure for themselves a special class of nonideal primary goods: all-purpose goods similar to Rawls’ original primary goods, but which in this case are all-purpose goods individuals might use to (A) promote Rawlsian ideals under nonideal conditions, (B) weigh Rawls’ principles of ideal justice and priority relations against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions, and (C) effectively pursue their most favored weighting thereof. I then defend a provisional list of nonideal primary goods which include opportunities to participate effectively in equitable and inclusive grassroots reform movements guided by a series of substantive aims. Finally, I briefly speculate on how the parties to the nonideal original position might deliberate to principles of nonideal justice for distributing nonideal primary goods, suggesting that those goods should be distributed in proportion to unjust disadvantage. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a unifying approach to the analysis of understanding coherencies and understanding subject matters by highlighting the contextualist nature of understanding. Inspired by the relevant alternatives contextualism about knowledge, I will argue that understanding inherently has context-sensitive features and that a theory of understanding that highlights those features can incorporate our intuitions towards understanding as well as consolidate the different accounts of how to analyse understanding. In developing a contextualist account of understanding, I will argue that (...) an account of the features commonly taken to be central to understanding greatly benefits from a contextualist framework. Central to my analysis will be the claim that a person has to fulfill the function of a competent problem solver in order to qualify for the ascription of understanding. In addition to the theoretical elucidation of my contextualist approach to understanding, a demanding hypothetical scenario will be developed to function as a test case. (shrink)

In this article I have two primary goals. First, I present two recent views on the distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how (Stanley and Williamson, The Journal of Philosophy 98(8):411–444, 2001; Hetherington, Epistemology futures, 2006). I contend that neither of these provides conclusive arguments against the distinction. Second, I discuss studies from neuroscience and experimental psychology that relate to this distinction. Having examined these studies, I then defend a third view that explains certain relevant data from these studies by positing the (...) double dissociation of knowledge-that and knowledge-how and that is also able to do explanatory work elsewhere. (shrink)

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is a private notebook of philosophical reflections with universal significance. Drawing on Stoic philosophy, Marcus confronts challenges that affect us all in our struggle to live meaningful lives. This edition includes a selection of Marcus' correspondence with his tutor Fronto which complements the Meditations.

A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual propositions (...) that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support. (shrink)

Based on her earlier ground-breaking axiomatization of quantified modal logic, the papers collected here by the distinguished philosopher Ruth Barcan Marcus cover much ground in the development of her thought, spanning from 1961 to 1990. The first essay here introduces themes initially viewed as iconoclastic, such as the necessity of identity, the directly referential role of proper names as "tags", the Barcan Formula about the interplay of possibility and existence, and alternative interpretations of quantification. Marcus also addresses the (...) putative puzzles about substitutivity and about essentialism. The collection also includes influential essays on moral conflict, on belief and rationality, and on some historical figures. Many of her views have been incorporated into current theories, while others remain part of a continuing debate. (shrink)

This article argues that diverse theorists have reasons to theorize about fairness in nonideal conditions, including theorists who reject fairness in ideal theory. It then develops a new all-purpose model of ‘nonideal fairness.’ §1 argues that fairness is central to nonideal theory across diverse ideological and methodological frameworks. §2 then argues that ‘nonideal fairness’ is best modeled by a nonideal original position adaptable to different nonideal conditions and background normative frameworks (including anti-Rawlsian ones). §3 then argues that the parties to (...) the model have grounds to seek a variety of remedial social, legal, cultural, and economic ‘nonideal primary goods’ for combating injustice, as well as grounds to distribute these goods in an equitable and inclusive manner. Finally, I illustrate how the model indexes the nonideal primary goods it justifies to different nonideal contexts and background normative frameworks, illustrating why diverse theorists should find the model and its output principles attractive. (shrink)