Awareness of the risks posed by excess nitrogen is low beyond the scientific community. As public understanding of scientific issues is partly influenced by news reporting, this article is the first to study how the British press has discussed nitrogen pollution. A corpus-assisted frame analysis of newspaper articles highlighted five frames: Activism, where environmental charities and organizations are portrayed as having an active role in fighting pollution; Government Responsibility, where privatization is presented as central and positioned as one of the (...) main causes of pollution; Industry Responsibility, in which industries’ actions are depicted as causing pollution to increase; Pollutions as Politics, in which pollution is not discussed as a problem to be solved but rather as a means to increase votes; and Risk, where readers are warned about the possible effects of pollution on human health, flora and fauna. The analysis also points to the absence of named scientists and sources with the coverage being dominated by politicians. (shrink)

The argument of Katrina Forrester’s In the Shadow of Justice explains the present neglect of Rawlsian thinking in the social and political world beyond academia. She there convincingly shows how its deep assumptions, conceptual framing and narrow view of what constitutes politics disabled it from grappling with the subsequent massive transformations of capitalism. Her second argument, advanced in her article and questioned here, offers an ideology critique of Rawlsian thinking that claims, in its strongest version, that such thinking fails to (...) acknowledge that capitalism is not reformable and that this failure derives from its liberal assumptions. What is needed, she claims, is a critique that implies the feasibility of attaining a post-capitalist world that is based on a theory that goes beyond the boundaries of liberalism. (shrink)

Preface 9 PART I: RELIGIOUS, SCIENTIFIC, AND PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND Introduction to Part I 19 1. The Bible 27 2. Natural Theology 33 William Paley 3. On the Origin of Species 38 Charles Darwin 4. Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species 65 Adam Sedgwick 5. The Origin of Species 73 Thomas H. Huxley 6. What Is Darwinism? 82 Charles Hodge 7. Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Program 105 Karl Popper 8. Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Biology 116 Michael (...) Ruse 9. Human Nature: One Evolutionist’s View 136 Francisco Ayala 10. Universal Darwinism 158 Richard Dawkins PART II: CREATION SCIENCE AND THE McLEAN CASE Introduction to Part II 187 11. The Creationists 192 Ronald L. Numbers 12. Creation, Evolution, and the Historical Evidence 231 Duane T. Gish 13. Witness Testimony Sheet: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 253 Michael Ruse 14. United States District Court Opinion: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 279 Judge William R. Overton 15. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem 312 Larry Laudan 16. Science at the BarùCauses for Concern 331 Larry Laudan 17. Pro Judice 337 Michael Ruse 18. More on Creationism 345 Larry Laudan 19. Commentary: Philosophers at the BarùSome Reasons for Restraint 350 Barry R. Gross PART III: INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM AND THE KITZMILLER CASE Introduction to Part III 369 20. But Isn’t It Creationism? The Beginnings of "Intelligent Design" in the Midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana Litigation 377 Nick Matzke 21. What Is Darwinism? 414 Phillip E. Johnson 22. Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design, Creationism, and the Constitution 426 Matthew Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey 23. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Witness Testimony 434 Michael Behe 24. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Report 456 Robert T. Pennock 25. A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies 485 Steve Fuller 26. What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design? 495 Elliott Sober 27. United States District Court Memorandum Opinion: Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 506 Judge John E. Jones II 28. Can’t Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion? Demarcation Revisited 536 Robert T. Pennock. (shrink)

Physicalism has, over the past twenty years, become almost an orthodoxy, especially in the philosophy of mind. Many philosophers, however, feel uneasy about this development, and this volume is intended as a collective response to it. Together these papers, written by philosophers from Britain, the United States, and Australasia, show that physicalism faces enormous problems in every area in which it is discussed. The contributors not only investigate the well-known difficulties that physicalism has in accommodating sensory consciousness, but also bring (...) out its inadequacies in dealing with thought, intentionality, abstract objects, , and principles of both theoretical and practical reason; even its ability to cope with the physical world itself is called into question. Both strong "reductionist" versions and weaker "supervenience" theories are discussed and found to face different but equally formidable obstacles. Contributors include George Bealer, Peter Forrest, John Foster, Grant Gillett, Bob Hale, Michael Lockwood, George Myro, Nicholas Nathan, David Smith, Steven Wagner, Ralph Walker, and Richard Warner. (shrink)

In "How Do We Know It Is Now Now?" David Braddon-Mitchell (Analysis 2004) develops an objection to the thesis that the past is real but the future is not. He notes my response to this, namely that the past, although real, is lifeless and (a fortiori?) lacking in sentience. He argues, however, that this response, which I call 'the past is dead hypothesis', is not tenable if combined with 'special relativity'. My purpose in this reply is to argue that, on (...) the contrary, 'special relativity' supports the thesis that the future is unreal. (shrink)

The book comprises an enquiry into what quantum theory shows us about the world. Its aim is to sort out which metaphysical speculations are tenable and which are not. After an initial discussion of realism, the author provides a non-technical exposition of quantum theory and a criticism of the proposal that quantum theory should make us revise our beliefs about logic. He then discusses the various problems and puzzles which make quantum theory both interesting and perplexing. The text defends three (...) markedly different speculations. The first of them, the "determinate particle speculation", is shown to involve both a view which proposes determinate locations and velocities for particles and the opposite. With the "wave speculation" particles are seen as different again: here the professor proposes a radically original view of particles as polywaves. In the final chapter, he compares the competing particle theories and shows that two ostensibly opposing views are in fact compatible. He goes on to discuss the implications of quantum theory for our understanding of persons. The work assumes no prior knowledge of quantum theory and confines the necessary mathematical details to end-notes. (shrink)

Steven French articulates and defends the bold claim that there are no objects in the world. He draws on metaphysics and philosophy of science to argue for structural realism--the position that we live in a world of structures--and defends a form of eliminativism about objects that sets laws and symmetry principles at the heart of ontology.

Chris Heathwood requires the sentence 'Caesar was conscious when he crossed the Rubicon' to be made true in much the same way as 'Caesar was wet when he crossed the Rubicon'. Yet because the Growing Block theorist is committed to the zombiedom of the past,the former is not made true by past objects, although the latter is. Heathwood demands a uniform account of the grounding of truths and he will be given a uniform account. But we should exercise care in (...) deciding just what sort of uniformity is appropriate. As Russell so famously pointed out a century ago the subject/predicate form of a sentence can be misleading. Likewise although the two sentences 'Caesar is conscious' and 'Caesar is wet' have similar subject/predicate forms they have, I say, different kinds of truth-conditions and hence their past tense transformations also have different kinds of truth-conditions. The uniformity I endorse is that in both cases the grounds for the past tense transformation are the same as the grounds the present tense versions used to have when they were true. (shrink)

Steven French and Decio Krause examine the metaphysical foundations of quantum physics. They draw together historical, logical, and philosophical perspectives on the fundamental nature of quantum particles and offer new insights on a range of important issues. Focusing on the concepts of identity and individuality, the authors explore two alternative metaphysical views; according to one, quantum particles are no different from books, tables, and people in this respect; according to the other, they most certainly are. Each view comes with (...) certain costs attached and after describing their origins in the history of quantum theory, the authors carefully consider whether these costs are worth bearing. Recent contributions to these discussions are analyzed in detail and the authors present their own original perspective on the issues. The final chapter suggests how this perspective can be taken forward in the context of quantum field theory. (shrink)

Obviously, science matters to philosophy. But is philosophy also constrained by science? Naturalism is roughly the view that answers positively. However, even among proponents of naturalism, how science constrains philosophy has always been (and still is) a subject of debate. There are two basic dimensions in which the debate takes place, which give rise to two different kinds of naturalism: ontological and methodological. The former concerns what there is, while the latter deals with the methods whereby we acquire knowledge and (...) beliefs. Ontological Naturalism is loosely the view that all of what there is belongs to the natural world, where the natural world is the world described by the natural sciences. By maintaining, in turn, that the ultimate structure of the world is what the natural sciences say it to be, it is to some extent close to Physicalism, according to which what most fundamentally exist are the entities and properties posited by basic physics. On the other hand, methodological naturalism is often thought of as making an epistemological claim akin to scientism—the claim that the best (perhaps the unique) approach to acquiring knowledge is that of natural sciences. Accordingly, it holds that the very same methods used to arrive at scientific theories are the only legitimate ones to be employed by philosophy.Each of these horns of naturalism implies important consequences for our understanding of the relationship between science and many areas of philosophy, including metaphysics. From the methodological point of view, naturalism might be said to entail the denial that our conception of reality needs to include whatever is exclusively accessible to metaphysical theorizing (or to “first philosophy”), understood as a distinct mode of inquiry that lacks ties to the results and practices of the sciences. Indeed, methodological naturalism is usually assumed to reject the project of a priori theorizing, and it is perhaps hard to see how the traditional metaphysics, as well as current analytical metaphysics, might be in the business of developing and assessing synthetic theories of the world supported by a posteriori evidence. From the ontological point of view, naturalism sees science as already giving us a full account of everything, including our place within that picture. Despite this, the debate around the nature of metaphysics remains very much alive (and complex), spreading its influence all across philosophy and our view of the world. The upshot is that much of metaphysical work is nowadays motivated by the naturalist desire to accommodate what the natural sciences have taught us about the world. This special issue stems exactly from the ongoing debate between naturalist and non-naturalist metaphysicians and aims to assess the prospects of naturalized projects in metaphysics and their relationships to traditional metaphysics.Are science and metaphysics separable enterprises? Should allowable metaphysical theories be constrained by and continuous with natural sciences? Does successful scientific research presuppose metaphysics? These are some of the questions addressed in the contributions comprising this special issue. In response, most of them undertake theoretical commitments of a general naturalist stamp, others challenge their philosophical cogency, while still others discuss and contrast the various versions of naturalism that are currently at the center of many metaphysical debates—which often involve some mixture of the two above-mentioned ones, in different proportions. As a result, this special issue hopes to represent the state of the art drawn from different perspectives, helping somehow to clarify extent and ongoing work in metaphysics with respect to the challenges posed by naturalist thinking and eventually to pave the way for future developments and discussions.The issue opens with Don Ross's paper “A flexible, sloppy blob? Ontology, AI, and the role of metaphysics.” In it, Ross defends a naturalized metaphysics that, in contrast with traditional metaphysical projects, is driven directly by fundamental physics. Therefore, since fundamental physics is taken to be the authoritative source of knowledge on the general structure of the universe, metaphysics should neither be separated from nor transcend it. In particular, he rejects more recent works on building metaphysical foundations for applied ontology—e.g., metaphysics for the foundations of AI—as somehow apt to vindicate the value of analytic metaphysics for the edifice of human knowledge. At the same time, however, he points out how his naturalist (methodological) naturalist approach neither incorporates nor implies a physicalistic reduction.Ferdinando Ceravolo and Steven French, in their contribution “What is a Naturalized Principle of Composition?” also support the project of a methodologically naturalized metaphysics. They focus on Van Inwagen's General Composition Question (GCQ). Specifically, they address the issue concerning whether GCQ could be underpinned by principles that are found to be naturalistically acceptable—that is, constrained and informed by advanced physical knowledge. Arguing positively, they outline two candidates for naturalistically accredited principles of composition and explore the various costs of choosing between them.Along the same lines, in his essay “Naturalism and the Question of Ontology,” Javier Cumpa argues for a naturalistic approach in metaontology based on the project of Wilfrid Sellars. He proposes a naturalistic criterion of relational substantivity for ontological questions, which is held to be naturalistic insofar as it relies on the epistemic value and the degree of understanding of the world in line with science that those questions provide us. Cumpa's view is certainly methodologically naturalist, however, although ontologically he does not seem to be committed to metaphysical notions such as ontological categories, he endorses what he calls an “Impure Eliminativism about Categories.”A more straightforward version of eliminativism is advocated by Otávio Bueno in his chapter “Dispensing with Facts, Substances, and Structures.” He contends that, even though ontological categories (i.e., structures, substances, and facts) play a central role in metaphysical theorizing, we do not need to be committed to their existence. Unlike metaphysical realists – who see true thought or assertion as adequately shaped in terms of the correct representation of completely thought and/or language independent bits of reality – he accounts for metaphysical discourse by offering a naturalist account of the linguistic practice that govern it, but without the ontological commitments that realism recommends. Nevertheless, by dropping realism he does not aim to drop metaphysics as an important form of understanding the world. In order to qualify metaphysical judgements as meaningful, he explores and invokes a distinctive deflationary strategy. The result is a view that takes metaphysical discourse literally but without ontologically inflationary maneuvers.The same deflationary strategy is pursued by Anjan Chakravartty in his piece “Last Chance Saloons for Natural Kind Realism.” But rather than on ontological categories in general, he focuses on natural kinds, arguing against realist views that contend for their mind-independent existence. Nevertheless, he shows how a deflationary approach to kinds, while rejecting kind realism, can be integrated with broader realist doctrines such as scientific realism. That is, we need not be committed to either the existence of these posits or with the metaphysically inflationary interpretations that support them in order to invoke these items in scientific theorizing and to vindicate as objective or mind-independent the truth or falsity of scientific as well as everyday claims about natural kinds.In contrast to the previous standpoints, in her article “Metaphysics as Essentially Imaginative and Aiming at Understanding,” Michaela M. McSweeney defends a non-naturalist view of metaphysics. She explores the idea that metaphysics is essentially imaginative and (at least in part) “up to us.” But treating metaphysics as essentially imaginative makes metaphysics methodologically different from scientific inquiry and more akin to art. Nevertheless, she maintains, it can still be deemed epistemologically valuable to the extent that imagination can lead to understanding. On her view, the central goal of the metaphysical project thus turns out to be understanding rather than truth.The closing paper of the issue investigates precisely the relationship between methodological naturalism and ontological naturalism. In “Methodological naturalism undercuts ontological naturalism,” Peter Forrest argues that the combination of ontological with methodological naturalism is untenable. According to his view, one way to defend ontological naturalism is to retain a version of nominalism: specifically, what he calls Redundancy Nominalism (a kind of deflationary nominalism). On the other hand, methodological naturalism requires adopting Categorial Realism. This means being a realist about universals in at least a minimal way. As a result, the fundamental description that methodological naturalism requires proves be contrary to ontological naturalism, whose precondition, in turn, is not available to methodological naturalists. This leads him to criticize ontological naturalism as a belief but, at the same time, to vindicate it as a speculation. (shrink)

This paper concerns the structure of appearances. I argue that to be appeared to in a certain way is to be aware of one or more universals. Universals therefore function like the sense‐data, once highly favoured but now out of fashion. For instance, to be appeared to treely, in a visual way, is to be aware of the complex relation, being tree‐shaped and tree‐coloured and being in front of, a relation of a kind which could be instantiated by a material (...) object and a perceiver, which is thus instantiated in the veridical case but not in the non‐veridical. (shrink)

Armstrong holds the Supervenience Theory of instantiation, namely that the instantiation of universals by particulars supervenes upon what particulars and what universals there are, where supervenience is stipulated to be explanatory or dependent supervenience. I begin by rejecting the Supervenience Theory of instantiation. Having done so it is then tempting to take instantiation as primitive. This has, however, an awkward consequence, undermining one of the main advantages universals have over tropes. So I examine another account hinted at by Armstrong. This (...) is the Operator Theory of instantiation, by which I mean the theory that universals are operators, and that a particular instantiates a monadic universal because the universal operates on the particular, resulting in the state of affairs. On this theory the state of affairs supervenes on the instantiation rather than vice versa. In the second part of the paper I develop this theory of universals as operators, including an account of structural universals, which are useful for accounts of modality and of mathematics. (shrink)

Peter Brian Herrenden Birks 1941-2004Hugh Redwald Dacre 1914-2003William Hugh Clifford Frend 1916-2005John Andrew Gallagher 1919-1980Philip Grierson 1910-2006Stuart Newton Hampshire 1914-2004William McKane 1921-2004John Malcolm Sabine Pasley 1926-2004Benjamin John Pimlott 1945-2004Robert Duguid Forrest Pring-Mill 1925-2005John Edgar Stevens 1921-2002Peter Strawson 1919-2006Henry William Rawson Wade 1918-2004Alan Harold Williams 1927-2005Bernard Arthur Owen Williams 1929-2003John James Wymer 1928-2006.

THE ARTICLE IS AN ATTACK ON THE MYSTERY OR REDUCTION DILEMMA FOR SUPERVENIENCE. THIS IS THE DILEMMA THAT EITHER SUPERVENIENCE IS MYSTERIOUS OR THE SUPERVENIENT IS REDUCIBLE TO THE SUBVENIENT. A NONMYSTERIOUS, NONREDUCTIVE ACCOUNT OF SUPERVENIENCE IS PROPOSED, BASED ON THE METAPHYSICAL SPECULATION THAT SUPERVENIENT TERMS AND PHRASES APPLY TO OBJECTS WHOSE INTRINSIC NATURES THEMSELVES HAVE AN APPROPRIATE PROPERTY. SINCE THIS IS A PROPERTY OF A NATURE IT IS A PROPERTY OF A PROPERTY, THAT IS, A GRAND-PROPERTY. SUPERVENIENCE FOLLOWS FROM (...) THIS HYPOTHESIS QUITE NONMYSTERIOUSLY, BY APPEAL TO THE INDISCERNIBILITY OF IDENTICALS. THE METAPHYSICAL SPECULATIONS REQUIRED MIGHT SEEM EXTRAVAGANT. A LARGE PART OF THE PAPER IS DESIGNED TO SHOW THAT THEY ARE NOT EXTRAVAGANT. (shrink)

As part of his Constructive Empiricism, Van Fraassen commends agnosticism about the existence of the unobservable entities posited by the physical sciences. This position of Scientific Agnosticism is compatible with the acceptance, in his sense, of Science. For to accept Science is, he says, to accept it as empirically adequate, but to refrain from deciding between the realistically interpreted theory and the as-if variant, according to which the observations are as if the theory is correct but the theory is not (...) correct. My purpose in this paper is to argue, against van Fraassen, that we—or at least most of us—should embrace Scientific Realism not Scientific Agnosticism. (shrink)

The concept ‘silence’ has diametrically opposed meanings; it connotes peace and contemplation as well as death and oblivion. Silence can also be considered a practice. There is keeping the rule of silence to still the mind and find inner truth, as well as forcibly silencing in the sense of subjugating another to one's own purposes. The concept of teaching runs the gamut between these extremes, from respectfully leading students to search and discover, to relentlessly bending them to one's own will. (...) This article examines contradictory connotations and practices of silence and teachers’ ambivalent perceptions of it in order to conceptualize a positive practice of silence for teacher education. (shrink)

Conceivability is, I say, prima facie evidence for possibility. Hence, we may count the cost of theories about possibility by listing the ways in which, according to the theory in question, something conceivable is said nonetheless to be impossible. More succinctly we may state a principle, Hume's razor to put alongside Ockham's. Hume's razor says that necessities are not to be multiplied more than necessary. In this paper I count the cost of David Lewis's modal realism, showing that many of (...) the objections are replied to by Lewis only at the cost of multiplying necessities. (shrink)

Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of "intelligent design" creationism. They examine the movement's "Wedge Strategy," which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of "intelligent design theory," they highlight its threat to public education and to the separation of church and state.

Spinoza's Ethics is one of the most remarkable, important, and difficult books in the history of philosophy: a treatise simultaneously on metaphysics, knowledge, philosophical psychology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. It presents, in Spinoza's famous 'geometric method', his radical views on God, Nature, the human being, and happiness. In this wide-ranging 2006 introduction to the work, Steven Nadler explains the doctrines and arguments of the Ethics, and shows why Spinoza's endlessly fascinating ideas may have been so troubling to his (...) contemporaries, as well as why they are still highly relevant today. He also examines the philosophical background to Spinoza's thought and the dialogues in which Spinoza was engaged - with his contemporaries, with ancient thinkers, and with his Jewish rationalist forebears. His book is written for the student reader but will also be of interest to specialists in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator's interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties. Despite these difficulties and despite ID's defeat in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), ID creationists' continuing efforts to promote the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms threaten both science education and the separation of church and state guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. I examine (...) the ID movement's failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims. My examination focuses primarily on ID supporter Francis Beckwith, whose published defenses of teaching ID, as well as his other relevant publications concerning education, law, and public policy, have been largely exempt from critical scrutiny. Beckwith's work exhibits the epistemological deficiencies of the supernaturally grounded views of his ID associates and of supernaturalists in general. I preface my examination of Beckwith's arguments with (1) philosopher of science Susan Haack's clarification of the established naturalistic methodology and epistemology of science and (2) discussions of the views of Beckwith's ID associates Phillip Johnson and William Dembski. Finally, I critique the religious exclusionism that Beckwith shares with his ID associates and the implications of his exclusionism for public policy. (shrink)

I claim that Adriana Cavarero’s concept of sonorous voice is significant in feminist teaching because, as she argues, dominant concepts of voice refer to voice in semantic terms thereby discounting voice in sonorous terms. This process of ‘devocalization’, spanning the history of Western philosophy, devalues the uniqueness embodied in each sonorous voice effecting a bias against female-sounding voices. In light of women’s history and experience of being silenced, this devaluing of sonorous voice has distinct implications for feminist teaching. A person’s (...) actual sounding voice, which constitutes her or his uniqueness, is missing from prior considerations of ‘voice’ in professional ethics. Because establishing a voice of authority is a central challenge starting off as a teacher, devocalization makes this challenge greater for those with female-sounding voices who take on and try out the dispositions and attitudes of an authoritative professional. Using the example of a voice workshop I designed for pre-service teachers, I re-consider it in light of ‘devocalization’ and the frankness needed to practice feminism, asking if it is possible to be frank and sonorous using irony. I conclude that it is, that Cavarero’s philosophical practice is a model for feminist teaching, and I re-write the workshop with ‘bad intentions’; for and in more than one voice. (shrink)

In Hegel's Critique of Liberalism , Steven B. Smith examines Hegel's critique of rights-based liberalism and its relevance to contemporary political concerns. Smith argues that Hegel reformulated classic liberalism, preserving what was of value while rendering it more attentive to the dynamics of human history and the developmental structure of the moral personality. Hegel's goal, Smith suggests, was to find a way of incorporating both the ancient emphasis on the dignity and even architectonic character of political life with the (...) modern concern for freedom, rights, and mutual recognition. Smith's insightful analysis reveals Hegel's relevance not only to contemporary political philosophers concerned with normative issues of liberal theory but also to political scientists who have urged a revival of the state as a central concept of political inquiry. (shrink)

In this book Steven Levine explores the relation between objectivity and experience from a pragmatic point of view. Like many new pragmatists he aims to rehabilitate objectivity in the wake of Richard Rorty's rejection of the concept. But he challenges the idea, put forward by pragmatists like Robert Brandom, that objectivity is best rehabilitated in communicative-theoretic terms - namely, in terms that can be cashed out by capacities that agents gain through linguistic communication. Levine proposes instead that objectivity is (...) best understood in experiential-theoretic terms. He explains how, in order to meet the aims of the new pragmatists, we need to do more than see objectivity as a norm of rationality embedded in our social-linguistic practices; we also need to see it as emergent from our experiential interaction with the world. Innovative and carefully argued, this book redeems and re-actualizes for contemporary philosophy a key insight developed by the classical pragmatists. (shrink)

Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of "intelligent design" creationism. They examine the movement's "Wedge Strategy," which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of "intelligent design theory," they highlight its threat to public education and to the separation of church and state.

The central concern of this article is whether the semantic approach has the resources to appropriately capture the core tenets of structural realism. Chakravartty (2001) has argued that a realist notion of correspondence cannot be accommodated without introducing a linguistic component, which undermines the approach itself. We suggest that this worry can be addressed by an appropriate understanding of the role of language in this context. The real challenge, however, is how to incorporate the core notion of `explanatory approximate truth' (...) in such a way that the emphasis on structure is retained. (shrink)

Themistokles was ostracized in the late 470's, probably in spring 471 or 470; if we are to believe Thucydides, he did not write to Artaxerxes in Persia until 465 at the earliest. In some way or other his stay in Argos and visits to the rest of the Peloponnese, his wanderings in northern Greece, and his delay in Asia Minor must be extended to fill this gap of at least five years. There is evidence of a sort, there are arguments (...) good and bad for the lengthening or shortening of any of these episodes, but none of this evidence or argument is conclusive. Between 470 and 465 no event in Themistokles' life can be securely dated; there is no fixed chronological pattern into which a reconstruction of the political history of Athens and the Peloponnese during these years must fit. Since the reconstruction which I attempt here is itself based on evidence which is far from adequate, plausibility is the most that can be claimed for it or for the chronological scheme which I infer from it. (shrink)

This chapter is a case for the pantheist conception considered as a species of theism, rather than a rival to it. The starting point, the premise of the argument, is properly anthropomorphic metaphysics, which I propose as a rival to scientific naturalism; I begin, then, by stating my version of pantheism, by expounding PAM, and by sketching my argument.

From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler, an engaging guide to what Spinoza can teach us about life’s big questions In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community for “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deeds,” the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family’s import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza’s views has (...) long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity’s most urgent questions: How can we lead a good life and enjoy happiness in a world without a providential God? In Think Least of Death, Pulitzer Prize–finalist Steven Nadler connects Spinoza’s ideas with his life and times to offer a compelling account of how the philosopher can provide a guide to living one’s best life. In the Ethics, Spinoza presents his vision of the ideal human being, the “free person” who, motivated by reason, lives a life of joy devoted to what is most important—improving oneself and others. Untroubled by passions such as hate, greed, and envy, free people treat others with benevolence, justice, and charity. Focusing on the rewards of goodness, they enjoy the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. “The free person thinks least of all of death,” Spinoza writes, “and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life." An unmatched introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy, Think Least of Death shows how his ideas still provide valuable insights about how to live today. (shrink)

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties. Despite these difficulties and despite ID’s defeat in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), ID creationists’ continuing efforts to promote the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms threaten both science education and the separation of church and state guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. I examine the (...) ID movement’s failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims. My examination focuses primarily on ID supporter Francis Beckwith, whose published defenses of teaching ID, as well as his other relevant publications concerning education, law, and public policy, have been largely exempt from critical scrutiny. Beckwith’s work exhibits the epistemological deficiencies of the supernaturally grounded views of his ID associates and of supernaturalists in general. I preface my examination of Beckwith’s arguments with (1) philosopher of science Susan Haack’s clarification of the established naturalistic methodology and epistemology of science and (2) discussions of the views of Beckwith’s ID associates Phillip Johnson and William Dembski. Finally, I critique the religious exclusionism that Beckwith shares with his ID associates and the implications of his exclusionism for public policy. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 31-44, January 2022.

In this paper I provide an ontology for the co‐variant vectors, contra‐variant vectors and tensors that are familiar from General Relativity. This ontology is developed in response to a problem that Timothy Maudlin uses to argue against universals in the interpretation of physics. The problem is that if vector quantities are universals then there should be a way of identifying the same vector quantity at two different places, but there is no absolute identification of vector quantities, merely a path‐relative one.My (...) solution to the problem is to use the mathematical characterization of vectors as differential operators on scalar fields. On the proposed hypothesis a scalar field is a conjunctive state of affairs, and vector and tensor fields are relations instantiated by scalar fields. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmotional distractors can impair perception of subsequently presented targets, a phenomenon called emotion-induced blindness. Do emotional distractors lose their power to disrupt perception when appearing with increased frequency, perhaps due to desensitisation or enhanced recruitment of proactive control? Non-emotional tasks, such as the Stroop, have revealed that high frequency distractors or conflict lead to reduced interference, and distractor frequency appears to modulate attentional capture by emotional distractors in spatial attention tasks. But emotion-induced blindness is thought to reflect perceptual competition between (...) targets and emotional distractors, and it is unclear whether high frequency emotional stimuli cause less disruption at this relatively early stage of processing. In four experiments, participants searched streams of images for a rotated target image. A negative or neutral distractor appeared before the target, and their relative frequency was manipulated. Across all exper... (shrink)

The story of one of the most important—and incendiary—books in Western history When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published—"godless," "full of abominations," "a book forged in hell... by the devil himself." Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout Europe. (...) Yet Spinoza's book has contributed as much as the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense to modern liberal, secular, and democratic thinking. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired. It is not hard to see why Spinoza's Treatise was so important or so controversial, or why the uproar it caused is one of the most significant events in European intellectual history. In the book, Spinoza became the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature; that true religion has nothing to do with theology, liturgical ceremonies, or sectarian dogma; and that religious authorities should have no role in governing a modern state. He also denied the reality of miracles and divine providence, reinterpreted the nature of prophecy, and made an eloquent plea for toleration and democracy. A vivid story of incendiary ideas and vicious backlash, A Book Forged in Hell will interest anyone who is curious about the origin of some of our most cherished modern beliefs. (shrink)

Either from concrete examples such as tomatoes on a plate, an egg carton full of eggs and so on, or simply because of the braces notation, we come to have some intuitions about the sorts of things sets might be. (See Maddy 1990.) First we tend to think of a set of particulars as itself a particular thing.. Second, even after the distinction between settheory and mereology has been carefully explained we tend to think of the members of a set (...) as in some sense parts. And third we tend to think that there is something represented by the braces. Now if there were experts who got their intuitions from elsewhere then we could discard these rather crude ideas about egg cartons and so on. But I suspect the intuitions of experts are, just like those of the rest of us, based on notation and simple examples. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a novel hybrid account of well-being. We will call our view a Robust Hybrid. We call it robust because it grants a broad and not subservient role to both objective and subjective values. In this paper we assume, we think plausibly but without argument, that there is a significant objective component to well-being. Here we clarify what it takes for an account of well-being to have a subjective component. Roughly, we argue, it must allow that (...) favoring attitudes that are not warranted by the lights of objective values can ground benefits. Given this understanding, we show that there is an important and unrecognized expansion in the resources available to fully objectivist views: namely that such views can help themselves to the value of warranted love of objective goods. Such a move by the objectivist can help them respond to concerns that, on their view, a person’s well-being can be too alien to them. We next argue that, nonetheless, such objectivist views are still unconvincing due to their lack of a subjective component. This motivates a move from fully objective accounts to hybrid accounts. We show that many prominent hybrid theories in the literature are inadequate because they implausibly minimize the subjective component. This motivates a move to a robust hybrid view that has an expanded subjectivist component. We conclude with some remarks about the interrelation between the subjective and objective components in the hybrid account that we favor and a role for resonance in a theory of well-being other than serving as a hard constraint on any benefit. (shrink)

Standard philosophical explanations of the concept of knowledge invoke a personal goal of having true beliefs, and explain the other requirements for knowledge as indicating the best way to achieve that goal. In this highly original book, Steven L. Reynolds argues instead that the concept of knowledge functions to express a naturally developing kind of social control, a complex social norm, and that the main purpose of our practice of saying and thinking that people 'know' is to improve our (...) system for exchanging information, which is testimony. He makes illuminating comparisons of the knowledge norm of testimony with other complex social norms - such as those requiring proper clothing, respectful conversation, and the complementary virtues of tact and frankness - and shows how this account fits with our concept of knowledge as studied in recent analytic epistemology. His book will interest a range of readers in epistemology, psychology, and sociology. (shrink)

The verbs cause, enable, and prevent express beliefs about the way the world works. We offer a theory of their meaning in terms of the structure of those beliefs expressed using qualitative properties of causal models, a graphical framework for representing causal structure. We propose that these verbs refer to a causal model relevant to a discourse and that “A causes B” expresses the belief that the causal model includes a link from A to B. “A enables/allows B” entails that (...) the model includes a link from A to B, that A represents a category of events necessary for B, and that an alternative cause of B exists. “A prevents B” entails that the model includes a link from A to B and that A reduces the likelihood of B. This theory is able to account for the results of four experiments as well as a variety of existing data on human reasoning. (shrink)

We propose a causal model theory to explain asymmetries in judgments of the intentionality of a foreseen side-effect that is either negative or positive (Knobe, 2003). The theory is implemented as a Bayesian network relating types of mental states, actions, and consequences that integrates previous hypotheses. It appeals to two inferential routes to judgment about the intentionality of someone else's action: bottom-up from action to desire and top-down from character and disposition. Support for the theory comes from three experiments that (...) test the prediction that bottom-up inference should occur only when the actor's primary objective is known. The model fits intentionality judgments reasonably well with no free parameters. (shrink)

In Chapter II of Appearance and Reality, Bradley writes.