Differing findings exist on how Defining Issues Test (DIT) scores relate to intelligence. Further study is needed in order to address aspects of intellect not previously considered and to address how these relationships rival studies that have compared indices of intellect with constructs similar to DIT scores. In the present study, a sample of 117 participants completed the DIT and the Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test (KAIT), which assesses crystallised and fluid intelligence. Structural equation modelling offered supporting evidence that (...) these measurements represent separate sources of information. Statistically significant paths from KAIT crystallised indices to DIT scores were seen, though there was much overlap. Negligible paths were seen from KAIT fluid indices to DIT scores in the sample overall though this relationship strengthens when advanced moral judgement development is considered. Thus, the present study affirms the DIT's construct validity and illustrates how crystallised and fluid intellectual abilities pertain to DIT scores. (shrink)

The Sovereignty of Reason is a survey of the rule of faith controversy in seventeenth-century England. It examines the arguments by which reason eventually became the sovereign standard of truth in religion and politics, and how it triumphed over its rivals: Scripture, inspiration, and apostolic tradition. Frederick Beiser argues that the main threat to the authority of reason in seventeenth-century England came not only from dissident groups but chiefly from the Protestant theology of the Church of England. The triumph (...) of reason was the result of a new theology rather than the development of natural philosophy, which upheld the orthodox Protestant dualism between the heavenly and earthly. Rationalism arose from a break with the traditional Protestant answers to problems of salvation, ecclesiastical polity, and the true faith. Although the early English rationalists were not able to defend all their claims on behalf of reason, they developed a moral and pragmatic defense of reason that is still of interest today. Beiser's book is a detailed examination of some neglected figures of early modern philosophy, who were crucial in the development of modern rationalism. There are chapters devoted to Richard Hooker, the Great Tew Circle, the Cambridge Platonists, the early ethical rationalists, and the free-thinkers John Toland and Anthony Collins. (shrink)

Diotima's Children is a re-examination of the rationalist tradition of aesthetics which prevailed in Germany in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Fred Beiser, renowned as one of the world's leading historians of German philosophy, presents a brilliant new study of Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), rehabilitating him as a philosopher worthy of serious attention. Beiser shows, in particular, that Schiller's engagement with Kant is far more subtle and rewarding than is often portrayed. Promising to be a landmark in the study of German thought, Schiller as Philosopher will be compulsory reading for any philosopher, historian, or literary scholar engaged with the key developments (...) of this fertile period. (shrink)

Following Wiggins’ seminal article, On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time, this article presents the first comprehensive account of the relation of material constitution, an asymmetrical, transitive relation which totally orders distinct ‘entities’ (individuals, pluralities or masses of stuff) which ‘spatially coincide.’ Their coincidence in space is explained by a recursive definition of ‘complete-composition’, weaker than strict mereological indiscernibility, which also explains the variety of logically independent similarities in such cases. This account is ‘analytical’, dealing with ‘putative’ (...) cases in general. The main strategy is to rationally reconstruct Aristotle’s notion of material cause. It is developed more fully with a theory of how to justify admitting generable and perishable things into the natural world, in The Kinds of Things: A Theory of Personal Identity Based on Transcendental Argument (Open Court, 1996). (shrink)

FRÉDÉRICK ARMSTRONG | : It is common to see vulnerability as either “ontological” or broadly “circumstantial.” Both views capture something morally important about vulnerability. However, there is a puzzle: how can the same concept refer to a necessary ontological fact and to a contingent circumstance? I address two solutions to this puzzle. First, I argue that Mackenzie et al.’s taxonomy of vulnerability is not a real solution. Second, I address Martin et al.’s dispositional account of vulnerability. For them, vulnerability is (...) both an intrinsic property and a disposition. This supposedly solves the puzzle: vulnerability can be intrinsic and yet be manifest in only some circumstances—such is the nature of dispositions. However, I argue that if vulnerability is indeed a disposition, it is better conceived as an extrinsic disposition. Thus, vulnerability cannot be both intrinsic and dispositional; Martin et al. fail to resolve the puzzle. This, however, is no reason to fret. Indeed, an amended dispositional account of vulnerability, in which it is conceived as an extrinsic disposition, is metaphysically consistent and it satisfies our moral intuitions about human vulnerability, and more. Given these advantages, I argue the solution to this dilemma is to abandon the ontological conception of vulnerability. | : La vulnérabilité est souvent présentée comme une propriété « ontologique » ou comme une propriété « circonstancielle ». Ces deux conceptions saisissent des aspects moralement significatifs de la vulnérabilité. Il y a cependant un puzzle : comment peut-elle être, en même temps, un fait ontologique nécessaire et une donnée circonstancielle contingente? J’explore deux solutions. Premièrement, je montre que la taxonomie de Mackenzie et al. n’est pas une solution. Ensuite, je présente l’approche dispositionnelle de Martin et al.. Selon elles, la vulnérabilité est une propriété intrinsèque et dispositionnelle. Cela résoudrait le puzzle : la vulnérabilité peut être intrinsèque et n’être manifeste qu’en des circonstances particulières – telle est la nature des dispositions. Or, la vulnérabilité, si on la conçoit comme une disposition, est mieux conçue comme extrinsèque. La vulnérabilité ne peut pas être dispositionnelle et intrinsèque, donc Martin et al. échouent. Il n’y a toutefois pas là lieu de s’inquiéter. Une version amendée de l’approche dispositionnelle, où la vulnérabilité est conçue comme une disposition extrinsèque, est métaphysiquement cohérente, compatible avec l’ensemble de nos intuitions morales sur la vulnérabilité humaine et plus encore. Étant données ces avantages, la solution au puzzle est d’abandonner la conception ontologique de la vulnérabilité. (shrink)

The concept of truth lies at the heart of philosophy; whether one approaches it from epistemology or metaphysics, from the philosophy of language or the philosophy of science or religion, one must come to terms with the nature of truth.In this brisk introduction, Frederick Schmitt covers all the most important historical and contemporary theories of truth. Along the way he also sheds considerable light on such closely related issues as realism and idealism, absolutism and relativism, and the nature of (...) contemporary pragmatism.At a time when it is fashionable for scholars outside of philosophy to deny the possibility of truth, Schmitt’s lucid, technically accurate survey offers the easiest way to understand what is really at stake in such denials. Truth: A Primer is a quick but accurate and philosophically sophisticated overview that will prove invaluable to philosophers and their students in a wide range of courses, in particular epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

Frederick Rosen presents an original study of John Stuart Mill's moral and political philosophy. He explores a range of key themes across the breadth of Mill's works, and considers Mill's complex relationships with his contemporary thinkers; the traditional sources on which he drew; and his influence on major thinkers of recent centuries.

The literature on causal discovery has focused on interventions that involve randomly assigning values to a single variable. But such a randomized intervention is not the only possibility, nor is it always optimal. In some cases it is impossible or it would be unethical to perform such an intervention. We provide an account of ‘hard' and ‘soft' interventions and discuss what they can contribute to causal discovery. We also describe how the choice of the optimal intervention(s) depends heavily on the (...) particular experimental setup and the assumptions that can be made. ‡The first author is funded by the Causal Learning Collaborative Initiative supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation. Many aspects of this paper were inspired by discussions with members of the collaborative. †To contact the authors, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213; e-mail: [email protected] and [email protected]. (shrink)

Few thinkers are more controversial in the history of philosophy than Hegel. He has been dismissed as a charlatan and obscurantist, but also praised as one of the greatest thinkers in modern philosophy. No one interested in philosophy can afford to ignore him. This volume considers all the major aspects of Hegel's work: epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion. Special attention is devoted to problems in the interpretation of Hegel: the unity of the Phenomenology (...) of Spirit; the value of the dialectical method; the status of his logic; the nature of his politics. A final group of chapters treats Hegel's complex historical legacy: the development of Hegelianism and its growth into a left and right-wing school; the relation of Hegel and Marx; and the subtle connections between Hegel and contemporary analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Assume that epistemic justification has a cognitive function and that a belief's being justified is not just its being caused by the appropriate information (for this property of the belief may be cognitively impenetrable). What is the function of epistemic justification? it cannot be to actualize knowledge-The belief's being caused by appropriate information alone does that! so what is its function? I suggest it is to cause us to believe and/or take action.

This chapter contains sections titled: Cognition as Information Processing, as Computation, and as Abiding in the Meaningful Operationalism Is This Merely a Terminological Issue? Conclusion.

This book presents a new interpretation of the principle of utility in moral and political theory based on the writings of the classical utilitarians from Hume to J.S. Mill. Discussion of utility in writers such as Adam Smith, William Paley and Jeremy Bentham is included.

The core of J.G. Herder's philosophy of nationalism lies in the conviction that human creativity must be embedded in the particular culture of a communal language. While he acknowledged that this cultural particular must be integrated into a more universal humanity, he insisted that each culture should preserve its incommensurable distinctiveness. He also called for a new method of enquiry regarding history, one that demands empathetic sensitivity toward the uniquely individual while realizing that there are few gains without losses. F.M. (...) Barnard demonstrates that Herder, despite his innovative work on the idea of nationality, was fully aware of the dangers of ethnic fanaticism, but also of the hazards of what is now known as globalization, recognizing that these must be tempered by a sense of universal humanity. Barnard shows that Herder anticipated modern theories of the dynamics of cultures and traditions through the problematic interplay of persistence and change and that his speculations on cultural and political pluralism, on language as a democratic bond, and on the possible fusion of communitarian and liberal dimensions of public life remain relevant to contemporary debates. (shrink)

' ...this volume extracts the moral and ethical conflicts presented by everyday police activity and makes explicit the assumption that shape the police response... '.

I defend the claim that Kant is a moral antirealist, or (as he would state it) moral idealist. I first define moral realism and moral idealism, concluding that moral idealism requires that every moral property depend upon the minds of moral agents. Kant's metaethical theory is idealist regarding the nature of value, since it depends upon the voluntary choices of moral agents in pursuing particular ends, the nature of right, since the categorical imperative stems from moral agents' own reason, and (...) the nature of moral agency, since freedom is construed in terms of the use of reason. (shrink)

Frederick Brenk is a specialist, but, as this third volume of his collected essays makes clear, a multiple specialist, as skilled in dealing with visual materials as with texts, with epigraphy as with prosopography, with Christian writers as with pagan, with Egypt as with Greece, with style and language as with philosophy and religion. Few scholars have such wide learning, and fewer still can use it to weave together insights from so many different ways of thinking, feeling, seeing, and (...) writing. (shrink)

Frederick Broadie; VI—Trying and Doing, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 1966, Pages 27–40, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotel.

Using a variety of different results from the literature, I show how causal discovery with experiments is limited unless substantive assumptions about the underlying causal structure are made. These results undermine the view that experiments, such as randomized controlled trials, can independently provide a gold standard for causal discovery. Moreover, I present a concrete example in which causal underdetermination persists despite exhaustive experimentation and argue that such cases undermine the appeal of an interventionist account of causation as its dependence on (...) other assumptions is not spelled out. (shrink)

The complex structure of the tragic aspects of globalization has been accounted for in extant literature. What remains unclear is how deglobalization, isolationism and all the radically disruptive movements and politics in-between will shape transnational corporations’ organizational practices. The purpose of this study is to interrogate and problematize the implications of anarchic ‘globalisolationism’ vis-à-vis the atlas of insurrection and the TNCs’ global responsibility towards human-centric management practices. We situate our analysis in the heavily politicized and contested discursive space of emergent (...) global geopolitical and environmental tensions and the global quest to reclaim dignity, freedoms, right to resources and decisions—stakeownership. ‘Globalisolationism’ is conceptualized as a radically non-compromising coexistence of globalization and isolationism by design, aided by new information technologies, reactivated mass consciousness and slack political resources. It is characterized by the radical pursuit of new deals within the global geopolitical and economic order; renegotiation of existing deals for resource appropriation and democratic space for the marginalized; the collapse of the old political order via auto-implosion as a beneficial constraint; and the defence of the status quo in global resource and environmental governance due to ‘translocal’ insurrection. Therefore, the paper suggests how TNCs’ current modus operandi could be transformed into responsible human/environment-centric organisational practices to accommodate emerging sociopolitical and environmental challenges. It further highlights the implications for novel game-changing policies and political action by ‘subaltern’ societies and their metamorphosis from victims of planetary vandalism to stakeowners with sovereignty over their resources. (shrink)

Es ist mir eine grosse Genugtuung, die vorliegende Sammlung von Ar­ beiten eines Autors einzufuhren, der es verdient hatte, dass seine philo­ sophischen Schriften schon Hingst ihren Weg zum Verleger gefunden hatten. Da Dr. Frederick Neumann aber, nach seiner Auswanderung nach Amerika, seine ganze Zeit seinen Theologiearbeiten in englischer Sprache gewidmet hatte, war es seiner Witwe, Edith Neumann, be­ schieden, dieselben erst nach seinem Tode an wiirdiger Stelle zu ver­ offentlichen. Ich selbst bin die Witwe seines Freundes Philip Merlan, (...) der, wie ich, diese Arbeiten unseres Studienkameraden aus der Wiener Universitats­ zeit ungemein hochgeschatzt und Frederick Neumann immer zur Aus­ gabe seiner J ugendschriften zugeredet hat. Frederick Neumann ist am IO. Januar I899, in Wien, geboren und hat, wahrend und nach Beendigung seiner Studienzeit, bei Gomperz, Husserl und Heidegger gearbeitet. Er ist spater seiner eigenen Ge­ dankenrichtung gefolgt und hat gehofft einmal, in Musse, seine philo­ sophischen Arbeiten, moglicherweise in kompletterer Fassung, dem Druck zu ubergeben. Sein Interesse fur Religionsphilosophie und Theologie leitete ihn fruh zur praktischen Seelsorge und, im Jahre I938, zur Ordination als Minister der "Congregational Union of England and Wales." Nach vielseitiger Tatigkeit als Pfarrer und Lehrer, wurde er, nach seiner Auswanderung nach Amerika, Pastor der Bushwick A venue Congrega­ tional Church in Brooklyn, New York und in den letzten sechs J ahren seines Lebens ubte er, als "Visiting Professor" der Hartford Seminary Foundation, einen besonderen Einfluss auf einen grossen Kreis von Student en und Kollegen aus. (shrink)

He demonstrates that a broad parallelism exists between developments in ethical theory among Continental philosophers of the phenomenological persuasion and the more analytically inclined philosophers of the English-speaking world.

This project explores the extent to which trees can be seen as a solution to global environmental crisis. The physical component of this project involved growing over 300 fruit trees from seed and planting them throughout Mora county, Costa Rica. This report represents the theoretical component of the project, in which the author reflects on the lessons that can be drawn from the act of planting a tree, in order to add complexity to what is often used as cultural shorthand (...) for an uncontroversial environmental virtue. Originally conceived as an opportunity to offset the author’s carbon emissions from a lifetime of airline travel, an examination of the literature reveals the practical ambiguity of this short-term goal. The author concludes that while trees do provide many physical benefits for their surrounding microclimate, including their ability to promote the flow of water, air and carbon, they cannot address our planetary crisis without larger cultural change. The metaphors that trees convey may therefore be just as vital as the physical services they provide. Among these are the necessity of addressing the root causes of environmental crisis, how small microclimatic changes create resilient plant communities, and the way planting a seed offers an alternative to the insatiable search for an action that is “good enough” to save the planet. (shrink)

Norms are widely regarded as kinds of templates of performance, resident in agents. As such they are thought to determine unilaterally what kinds of thought or action accords with them. Under philosophical elaboration this view has led to multiple perplexities: among them the question of how there can be evaluation, justification, and rectification of such unilaterally determining entities. Sometimes one can appeal to other, supervening norms; but the need to terminate the regressive procedure typically leads to appeals to dubious "foundations," (...) to conventions, or to sheer prejudice. In a feat of surpassing acuity Wittgenstein exposed this view of norms to be inadequate in the apparently paradigm contexts to which traditionally it seemed best suited, these being those of mathematical rules and principles. An alternative general view of norms is one with important congruences with the view taken by the Critical-Pragmatic philosophy concerning the constitutive role played by norms in creating the texture of human life and thought. This view is that norms are intrinsically socio-psychological entities that interlock with each other and are rooted deeply in the practices of individuals and their communities. Embedded in these practices, norms are in principle open-textured: open to further definition and revision when serious anomalies in their extant forms are encountered. This article explores certain features of the alternative view, concentrating upon the illumination it sheds and the guidance it provides in the conduct of the fundamental philosophical activities of assessment, criticism, and revision of broad and deep personal and communal norms. Normen werden üblicherweise verstanden als eine Art Handlungsschablonen im Innern des jeweils Agierenden. Als solche wird von ihnen angenommen, daß sie einseitig festlegen, welche Arten von Gedanken oder Handlungen mit ihnen übereinstimmen. Bei philosophischer Überprüfung führt diese Sichtweise zu vielfältigen Schwierigkeiten: unter ihnen die Frage, wie solche einseitig bestimmenden Wesenheiten bewertet, gerechtfertigt und berichtigt werden können. Manchmal kann man sich auf andere, übergeordnete Normen berufen; aber angesichts der Notwendigkeit, überhaupt zu einem Ende zu kommen, führt das regressive Verfahren typischerweise zu einer Berufung auf zweifelhafte "Grundsätze", auf Konventionen oder auf ein bloßes Vorurteil. In einer Meisterleistung von außerordentlicher gedanklicher Schärfe hat Wittgenstein diese Sichtweise von Normen als inadäquat gerade für den scheinbar paradigmatischen Zusammenhang entlarvt, auf den sie nach traditioneller Anschauung am besten passen soll: den von mathematischen Regeln und Prinzipien. Eine demgegenüber alternative, allgemeine Sichtweise von Normen stimmt in wesentlichen Punkten mit der Perspektive überein, die von der kritisch-pragmatischen Philosophie im Hinblick auf die konstitutive Rolle eingenommen wird, die Normen bei der Schaffung der Strukturen menschlichen Lebens und Denkens spielen. Diese Sichtweise besteht darin, daß Normen eigentlich sozialpsychologische Entitäten sind, die ineinandergreifen und tief in der Praxis von Individuen und ihren Gemeinschaften wurzeln. Eingebettet in diese Praxis sind Normen prinzipiell offen strukturiert: offen für weitere Definition und für Revision, falls man auf ernstzunehmende Anomalien ihrer bestehenden Fassung stößt. Dieser Beitrag untersucht bestimmte Aspekte jener alternativen Sichtweise. Er konzentriert sich dabei auf die von ihr bewirkte Klärung und die Leitung, die sie bietet, wenn es um die Handhabung so fundamentaler philosophischer Aufgaben wie Bewertung, Kritik und Revision von weit und tief reichenden persönlichen und gesellschaftlichen Normen geht. (shrink)