Are we witnessing progress or regress in the recent increasing popularity and electoral success of populist politicians and parties in consolidated democratic nations? ... Is the innovative use of popular referendum in Great Britain to settle fundamental constitutional questions a progressive or regressive innovation? ... Similarly, is the increasing use of constituent assemblies to change constitutions across the world evidence of progress in democratic constitutionalism, or, a worryingly regressive change back toward unmediated popular majoritarianism? ... This paper reflects on some (...) of the perils and promise of framing such questions with the conceptual couplet of progress and regress. It considers four compelling critiques of the use of ‘progress’ and its cognates in sociopolitical theory, as well as arguing that such concepts are nevertheless ineliminable for our normative theories. The paper concludes by suggesting that we can avoid the most serious problems by employing only conceptions of political progress and regress that are piecemeal, pragmatic, and processual. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a heated debate about how to interpret findings that seem to show that humans rapidly and automatically calculate the visual perspectives of others. In the current study, we investigated the question of whether automatic interference effects found in the dot-perspective task (Samson, Apperly, Braithwaite, Andrews, & Bodley Scott, 2010) are the product of domain-specific perspective-taking processes or of domain-general “submentalizing” processes (Heyes, 2014). Previous attempts to address this question have done so by implementing inanimate (...) controls, such as arrows, as stimuli. The rationale for this is that submentalizing processes that respond to directionality should be engaged by such stimuli, whereas domain-specific perspective-taking mechanisms, if they exist, should not. These previous attempts have been limited, however, by the implied intentionality of the stimuli they have used (e.g. arrows), which may have invited participants to imbue them with perspectival agency. Drawing inspiration from “novel entity” paradigms from infant gaze-following research, we designed a version of the dot-perspective task that allowed us to precisely control whether a central stimulus was viewed as animate or inanimate. Across four experiments, we found no evidence that automatic “perspective-taking” effects in the dot-perspective task are modulated by beliefs about the animacy of the central stimulus. Our results also suggest that these effects may be due to the task-switching elements of the dot-perspective paradigm, rather than automatic directional orienting. Together, these results indicate that neither the perspective-taking nor the standard submentalizing interpretations of the dot-perspective task are fully correct. (shrink)

For the historian who aspires to the study of Scipio Aemilianus one of the happier features of his material is the considerable number of Scipio's dicta which have been preserved: sayings which are distinct from the extracts from formal speeches yet which in most cases were uttered in public. This paper is concerned with a small group of such dicta which belong to the last period of Scipio's life, between his return from Numantia in 132 and his death in 129. (...) The intention is not to provide an historical interpretation but simply to establish die content, context, and relationship of the sayings concerned. At the request of the editors I do not quote in full the passages which provide the evidence, most of which are reproduced, at least in part, on pages 131 f. of the second edition of Malcovati's Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta. (shrink)

Autobiography and Teacher Development in China investigates the roles of autobiography in teacher education, as several scholars in China recontextualize Western conceptions of teacher development, combining them with uniquely Chinese cultural conceptions to articulate a reconceptualization of teacher development that holds worldwide significance. Framed by the work of Zhang Hua and William F. Pinar, these theoretical and practical essays point to an internationally inflected reconceptualization of teachers' professional development, pre-service and in-service. This volume addresses multiple movements of teacher education reform (...) worldwide, focused on crafting a nationally distinctive course not only internationally, but also culturally, historically, and locally. (shrink)

Theorists of public reason such as John Rawls often idealize constitutional courts as exemplars of public reason. This paper raises questions about the seduction and limits of analogies between theorists’ account of public reason and actual constitutional jurisprudence. Examining the work product of the United States Supreme Court, the paper argues that while it does engage in reason-giving to support its decisions—as the public reason strategy suggests— those reasons are (largely) legalistic and specifically juristic reasons—not the theorists’ idealized moral-political reasons (...) on matters of fundamental principle. But if constitutional courts do not engage on matters of fundamental principle, then a public reason strategy for assuaging democratic worries about judicial review would no longer be open: prominent liberal and deliberative democratic theorists could no longer point to the alleged superiority of constitutional courts to speak in the name of, and for, the people’s shared political principles. The paper extends beyond the U.S. case study by pointing to three institutional factors explaining the disanalogy between what some constitutional courts do and what public reason theories require them to do. It concludes with considerations about whether the public reason strategy might be more successfully applied to international courts. (shrink)

We investigate whether ordinary quantification over objects is an extensional phenomenon, or rather creates non-extensional contexts; each claim having been propounded by prominent philosophers. It turns out that the question only makes sense relative to a background theory of syntax and semantics (here called a grammar) that goes well beyond the inductive definition of formulas and the recursive definition of satisfaction. Two schemas for building quantificational grammars are developed, one that invariably constructs extensional grammars (in which quantification, in particular, thus (...) behaves extensionally) and another that only generates non-extensional grammars (and in which quantification is responsible for the failure of extensionality). We then ask whether there are reasons to favor one of these grammar schemas over the other, and examine an argument according to which the proper formalization of deictic utterances requires adoption of non-extensional grammars. (shrink)

From climate change to fossil fuel dependency, from the uneven effects of natural disasters to the loss of biodiversity: complex socio-environmental problems indicate the urgency for cross-disciplinary research into the ways in which the social, the natural and the technological are ever more entangled. This ground breaking text moves between environmental sociology and environmental geography, political and social ecology and critical design studies to provide a definitive mapping of the state of environmental social theory in the age of the anthropocene. (...) Environments, Natures and Social Theory provokes dialogue and confrontation between critical political economists, actor network theorists, neo-Malthusians and environmental justice advocates. It maps out the new environmental politics of hybridity moving from hybrid neo-liberals to end times ecologists, from post environmentalists to cyborg eco-socialists. White, Rudy and Gareau insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within our grasp. This will only be brought into being, however, by reclaiming, celebrating and channeling the reconstructive potential of entangled hybrid humans as inventive hominids, creative gardeners, critical publics and political agents. Written in an accessible style, Environments, Natures and Social Theory is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences. (shrink)

There are two popular views regarding the origin of critical thinking: (1) The concept of critical thinking began with Socrates and his Socratic method of questioning. (2) The term ‘critical thinking’ was first introduced by John Dewey in 1910 in his book How We Think. This paper argues that both claims are incorrect. Firstly, critical reflection was a distinguishing characteristic of the Presocratic philosophers, setting them apart from earlier traditions. Therefore, they should be recognized as even earlier pioneers of critical (...) thinking. Secondly, John Dewey not only used the term ‘critical thinking’ before 1910, but there were also other authors who used it before him. The meaning of ‘critical thinking’ at the turn of the twentieth century was shaped by various traditions of linguistic usage, including literary criticism, science and medicine, and Kantian philosophy. (shrink)

Hayek's substantial contribution to theoretical psychology has been addressed in the work of Thomas Szasz, Gerald Edelman, and Joaquin Fuster.

The Implementation Problem for conceptual engineering is, roughly, the problem conceptual engineers face when attempting to bring about the conceptual change they support. An important aspect of this problem concerns the extent to which attempting to implement concepts can lead to unintended negative consequences. Not only can conceptual engineers fail to implement their proposals, but their interventions can produce outcomes directly counter to their goals. It is therefore important to think carefully about the prospect of attempted implementation leading to unintended (...) negative consequences: what sort of negative consequences can conceptual engineers expect? Are some forms of conceptual engineering more likely than others to lead to such consequences? And is conceptual engineering still viable even given the risk of such consequences? This paper addresses such questions. I begin by outlining different forms of conceptual engineering (Section 1), before examining how they can produce unintended negative consequences (Section 2). I then discuss some implications of the fact that attempted implementation can produce unintended negative consequences, suggesting that, among other things, some forms of conceptual engineering are less viable than others (Section 3). I conclude, though, by considering some of the ways in which conceptual engineering is nonetheless a worthwhile pursuit (Section 4). (shrink)

In this essay I offer a partial rehabilitation of Cohen’s Kant interpretation. In particular, I will focus on the center of Cohen’s interpretation in KTE, reflected in the title itself: his interpretation of Kant’s concept of experience. “Kant hat einen neuen Begriff der Erfahrung entdeckt,”7 Cohen writes at the opening of the first edition of KTE (henceforth, KTE1), and while the exact nature of that new concept of experience is hard to pin down in the 1871 edition, he states it (...) succinctly in the second edition (henceforth KTE2): experience is Newtonian mathematical natural science.8 While this equation of experience with mathematical natural science has few contemporary defenders, I believe it is substantially correct, with one important qualification. Kant uses the term Erfahrung in a number of different senses in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (henceforth, KrV). I will argue that a central, and neglected, sense of that key technical term aligns with Cohen’s reading; what Kant sometimes refers to as ‘universal experience’ (sometimes, simply ‘experience’) is, in broad outlines, correctly interpreted by Cohen as mathematical natural science. (shrink)

With a new foreword by Paul Kelly 'I regard Hayek's work as a new opening of the most fundamental debate in the field of political philosophy' - Sir Karl Popper 'This promises to be the crowning work of a scholar who has devoted a lifetime to thinking about society and its values. The entire work must surely amount to an immense contribution to social and legal philosophy' - Philosophical Studies Law, Legislation and Liberty is Hayek's major statement of political philosophy (...) and one of the most ambitious yet subtle defences of a free market society ever written. A robust defence of individual liberty, it is also crucial for understanding Hayek's influential views concerning the role of the state: far from being an innocent bystander, he argues that the state has an important role to play in defending the norms and practices of an ordered and free society. His arguments had a profound influence on the policies of Thatcher in the 1980s and resonate today in visions of the 'Big Society'. First published in three separate volumes, this Routledge Classics edition makes one of his most important books available in a single volume. Essential reading for understanding the background to the recent world economic turmoil and financial crisis, it also foreshadows the subsequent heated debate about regulation and political governance if such disasters are to be avoided in the future. (shrink)

This work describes the concept of bond order. It shows that covalent bond energy is correlated to bond order. Simple expressions which included bond order are introduced to calculate bond energies of homo-nuclear and hetero-nuclear bonds. Calculated values of bond energies are compared with literature values and show there is very good agreement between and calculated and experimental values in the vast majority of cases. Bond order reveals the strength of a bond and shows the number of bonds in both (...) homo-nuclear and hetero-nuclear covalent bonds. (shrink)

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Disjunctivism about perceptual appearances, as I conceive of it, is a theory which seeks to preserve a na.

Physical and biological measurements might display range values extending towards infinite. The occurrence of infinity in equations, such as the black hole singularities, is a troublesome issue that causes many theories to break down when assessing extreme events. Different methods, such as re-normalization, have been proposed to avoid detrimental infinity. Here a novel technique is proposed, based on geometrical considerations and the Alexander Horned sphere, that permits to undermine infinity in physical and biophysical equations. In this unconventional approach, a continuous (...) monodimensional line becomes an assembly of countless bidimensional lines that superimpose in quantifiable knots and bifurcations. In other words, we may state that Achilles leaves the straight line and overtakes the turtle. (shrink)

In his middle and later periods one of Wittgenstein’s concerns was perception. This is, of course, precisely what one would expect given his obvious interest then in the notion of experience and in the language we employ to describe and express our experiences. However, the passage which has attracted most attention is the discussion in sec. XI of part II of Philosophical Investigations which is concerned with “seeing as”, or “aspect seeing”. In this paper the examples that Wittgenstein uses are (...) examined, and some puzzles about them raised. It is suggested that Wittgenstein’s aim is to discredit some supposedly mistaken accounts of what ‘seeing as’ is. These mistaken accounts are supposed to made by Gestalt psychologists such as Kohler, and traditional sense-datum theorists. It is further argued that Wittgenstein’s criticisms are not uniformly cogent. It is, though, conceded that this rich and original passage contains far more than the elements investigated here, so much more needs to be scrutinised. (shrink)

Robinson argues that by certain threshold criteria, pregnant women qualify for a higher moral status by reason of their pregnancies. While her intention is to make this a status upgrade for women, we worry that it may result in a status downgrade for women as a class, by presupposing and reinforcing women’s value in relation to their reproductive labour. Historically, central to feminist analysis is resistance to reductive accounts of women in relation to their reproductivity. For example, de Beauvoir addressed (...) men’s transcendence and contrasted it with women’s immanence, a status distinction possible because women are mired in expectations that they will marry, produce children and remain in the domestic realm; and for her part, Firestone argued that biological reproduction underlies women’s inferiority to men and that ‘The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both (should) be replaced by…artificial reproduction’1 2 Her concern was to liberate women from expectations of biological reproduction so their productive value in society is not reduced to their reproductive contributions. A formidable body of analysis in this same vein cautions against collapsing the value of women into their pregnancies, so much so that some commentators even distinguish ‘mothering’ from gestation.3 Robinson’s argument that pregnant women qualify at a higher threshold of personhood emphasises …. (shrink)

This article focusses on the generality of the entities involved in a geometric proof of the kind found in ancient Greek treatises: it shows that the standard modern translation of Greek mathematical propositions falsifies crucial syntactical elements, and employs an incorrect conception of the denotative letters in a Greek geometric proof; epigraphic evidence is adduced to show that these denotative letters are ‘letter-labels’. On this basis, the article explores the consequences of seeing that a Greek mathematical proposition is fully general, (...) and the ontological commitments underlying the stylistic practice. (shrink)

R F Dearden; Competition in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 6, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 119–133, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.19.

Bredo C. Johnsen: Observation: What Quine calls observation sentences lie at the heart of his reflections on observation and its roles in prompting our theorizing, providing evidence for our theories, and serving as the test of those theories' truth. The first four sections of this chapter – “Observation sentences,” “The two types of observation sentence,” “Introspection,” and “Roles of experience” – are devoted to expounding and clarifying his fundamental conception of these sentences, showing that he recognized both objective and subjective (...) observation sentences, that correlatively he gives introspection an important place in our cognitive lives, and, in particular, that he assigns our introspective knowledge of our sensory experiences three important roles in his epistemology. Since about 1970, Quine's conception of what constitutes our evidence about the nature of empirical reality has been radically misunderstood by almost all his readers, with disastrous consequences for the understanding of his entire epistemology; a final section – “Stimulations as evidence” – is therefore devoted to remedying this situation. (shrink)