[opening paragraph] -- Clark: The `astonishing hypothesis' which you put forward in your book, and which you obviously feel is very controversial, is that `You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: `You're nothing but a pack of neurons'.' But it seems to me that this is not (...) so astonishing a statement for a scientist to make. Isn't this what reductionist science has always believed? (shrink)

Postmodern view of Australian multiculturalism. Discusses the ways in which identity and imagery merge and interact in a multicultural society, within a postmodern theoretical framework, and examines topics such as liberalism and multiculturalism, and cultural postmodernity. Includes chapter notes, a bibliography and an index. Clark is director of the Institute of Ethics and Public Policy at Monash University, Forbes is professor of geography at Flinders University of South Australia, and Francis is a postgraduate student at Monash University. The (...) contributors include sociologists, literary theorists, geographers and a philosopher. (shrink)

We study the problem of minimizing $\int _\Omega F)\, dx \;$ over the functions $u\in W^{1,1}$ that assume given boundary values $\phi $ on $\Gamma := \partial \Omega $. The lagrangian $F$ and the domain $\Omega $ are assumed convex. A new type of hypothesis on the boundary function $\phi $ is introduced: the lower bounded slope condition. This condition, which is less restrictive than the familiar bounded slope condition of Hartman, Nirenberg and Stampacchia, allows us to extend the classical (...) Hilbert-Haar regularity theory to the case of semiconvex boundary data. We prove in particular that the solution is locally Lipschitz in $\Omega $. In certain cases, as when $\Gamma $ is a polyhedron or else of class $C^{1,1}$, we obtain in addition a global Hölder condition on $\,\overline{\!\,\Omega }$. (shrink)

... LIMITS OF MEANING Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, The Johns Hopkins University Nearly thirty years ago Professor Singer ...

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

[opening paragraph] -- Clark: The `astonishing hypothesis' which you put forward in your book, and which you obviously feel is very controversial, is that `You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: `You're nothing but a pack of neurons'.' But it seems to me that this is not (...) so astonishing a statement for a scientist to make. Isn't this what reductionist science has always believed? (shrink)

"First Published in 1990, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.".

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This article explores the teaching of Fratelli tutti as an integrating document of the papacy of Francis. Exploring the title as greeting and imperative, the authors make a case for exploring FT as both a development of the themes of earlier social encyclicals and as an attempt to explore an integral humanism for a new age facing economic, environmental, migratory, and social-conflictual challenges. The article lays out a summary of these main themes of Francis’s social teaching. Nonetheless, the (...) authors conclude, the integral planetary humanism that Francis calls for, and is so needed, is itself a radically incomplete project. A common home is not possible without a recognition of a common kinship, yet without deep reflection on women’s experience, the inclusion of women as full subjects and agents of CST, and greater attention to race, the document cannot fully embody the spirit and logic of its own message of gift, inclusion, and co-belonging. (shrink)

Among the most animating debates in eighteenth-century British ethics was the debate over psychological egoism, the view that our most basic desires are self-interested. An important episode in that debate, less well known than it should be, was the exchange between Francis Hutcheson and John Clarke of Hull. In the early editions of his Inquiry into Virtue, Hutcheson argued ingeniously against psychological egoism; in his Foundation of Morality, Clarke argued ingeniously against Hutcheson’s arguments. Later, Hutcheson attempted new arguments against (...) psychological egoism, designed to overcome Clarke’s objections. This article examines the exchange between these philosophers. Its conclusion, influenced partly by Clarke, is that psychological egoism withstands Hutcheson’s arguments. This is not to belittle those arguments—indeed, they are among the most resourceful and plausible of their kind. The fact that egoism withstands them is thus not a mere negative result, but a stimulus to consider carefully the ways in which progress in this area may be possible. (shrink)

In this article I address a puzzle about one of Francis Hutcheson’s objections to psychological egoism. The puzzle concerns his premise that God receives no benefit from rewarding the virtuous. Why, in the early editions of his Inquiry Concerning Virtue (1725, 1726), does Hutcheson leave this premise undefended? And why, in the later editions (1729, 1738), does he continue to do so, knowing that in 1726 John Clarke of Hull had subjected the premise to plausible criticism, geared to the (...) very audience (mainly Christian) for whom Hutcheson’s objection to egoism was written? This puzzle is not negligible. Some might claim that Hutcheson ruins his objection by ignoring Clarke’s criticism. To answer the puzzle we must consider not only Hutcheson’s philosophy but also some theological assumptions of Hutcheson’s time. (shrink)

This article explores the influence of Stoicism and religion on Adam Smith. While other commentators have argued either that the main influence on Smith was Stoicism or that it was religion, the two influences have not been explicitly linked. In this article I attempt to make such a link, arguing that Smith can be seen as belonging to the strand of Christian Stoicism chiefly associated with his teacher, Francis Hutcheson. Finally, some comments are made about the implications of this (...) interpretation for current understanding of the work of Adam Smith. (shrink)

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.