Does action always arise out of desire? G. F. Schueler examines this hotly debated topic in philosophy of action and moral philosophy, arguing that once two senses of "desire" are distinguished - roughly, genuine desires and pro attitudes - apparently plausible explanations of action in terms of the agent's desires can be seen to be mistaken. Desire probes a fundamental issue in philosophy of mind, the nature of desires and how, if at all, they motivate and justify our actions. At (...) least since Hume argued that reason "is and of right ought to be the slave of the passions," many philosophers have held that desires play an essential role both in practical reason and in the explanation of intentional action. G. F. Schueler looks at contemporary accounts of both roles in various belief-desire models of reasons and explanation and argues that the usual belief-desire accounts need to be replaced. Schueler contends that the plausibility of the standard belief-desire accounts rests largely on a failure to distinguish "desires proper," like a craving for sushi, from so-called "pro attitudes," which may take the form of beliefs and other cognitive states as well as desires proper. Schueler's "deliberative model" of practical reasoning suggests a different view of the place of desire in practical reason and the explanation of action. He holds that we can arrive at an intention to act by weighing the relevant considerations and that these may not include desires proper at all. (shrink)

Given the sordid history of injustices linking genetics to race and ethnicity, considerations of justice are central to ensuring the responsible development of precision medicine programmes around the world. While considerations of justice may be in tension with other areas of concern, such as scientific value or privacy, there are also tensions between different aspects of justice. This paper focuses on three particular aspects of justice relevant to this precision medicine: social justice, distributive justice and human rights. We describe the (...) implications of each for the use of race and ethnicity in precision medicine, and also how they intersect and potentially conflict with each another. By attending to these intersections, we aim to enrich and add nuance to debates over how best to proceed with precision medicine initiatives. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Jonathan Schaffer presents a novel framework for understanding grounding. Metaphysical laws play a central role. In addition, Schaffer argues that, contrary to what many have thought, there is no special 'explanatory gap' between consciousness and the physical world. Instead, explanatory gaps are everywhere. I draw out and criticize the methodology for metaphysics implicit in Schaffer's presentation. In addition, I argue that even if we accept Schaffer's picture, there remains a residual explanatory gap between consciousness (...) and the physical. The residual gap does most of the same philosophical work as the original. Schaffer has introduced a troublesome metaphysical methodology that fails to follow through on its biggest promise: to deflate the explanatory gap. (shrink)

John Buridan was a fourteenth-century philosopher who enjoyed an enormous reputation for about two hundred years, was then totally neglected, and is now being 'rediscovered' through his relevance to contemporary work in philosophical logic. The final chapter of Buridan's Sophismata deals with problems about self-reference, and in particular with the semantic paradoxes. He offers his own distinctive solution to the well-known 'Liar Paradox' and introduces a number of other paradoxes that will be unfamiliar to most logicians. Buridan also moves on (...) from these problems to more general questions about the nature of propositions, the criteria of their truth and falsity and the concepts of validity and knowledge. This edition of that chapter is intended to make Buridan's ideas and arguments accessible to a wider range of readers. The volume should interest many philosophers, linguists and logicians, who are increasingly finding in medieval work striking anticipations of their own concerns. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Graduate-level historical study is ideal for students intending to specialize in the topic, as well as those who only need a general treatment. Part I discusses traditional and symbolic logic. Part II explores the foundations of mathematics, emphasizing Hilbert’s metamathematics. Part III focuses on the philosophy of mathematics. Each chapter has extensive supplementary notes; a detailed appendix charts modern developments.

In their recent article, Koplin, Gyngell and Savulescu (2019) assess the viability of the precautionary principle as a decision-making tool to determine whether and under what circumstances germline gene editing should proceed. While their survey of different forms of the precautionary principle is illuminating, the most novel contribution is a new account of the precautionary principle, what they dub the Sufficientarian Precautionary Principle (SPP). SPP is meant to avoid several problems with existing accounts, while comporting with at least some of (...) the intuitive force behind the general idea of the precautionary principle. However, as it is only one subsection of a larger paper, SPP is not fully worked out. In this brief response, I will flesh out some problems with SPP as a decision-making tool – particularly that there is a lack of adequate normative justification for adopting it. While this does not constitute a decisive refutation of the approach, SPP needs considerable refinement and clarification before it can be considered viable for use in decision-making. (shrink)

This book, published in 1986, addresses questions concerned with a central normative principle in contemporary assessments of economic policies and systems. What does 'consumer sovereignty' mean? Is consumer sovereignty an appropriate principle for the optimization and evaluation of the design and performance of economic policies, institutions and systems? If not, what is a more appropriate principle? The author argues that the conception of consumer sovereignty has to be broadened so that it is not limited to the market mechanism but includes (...) environmental, work and social preferences. However, even this version runs into serious difficulties as the principle of consumer sovereignty still relies on too subjectivist a conception of the interests of individuals to be suitable for the evaluation of economic institutions. An alternative basis for such evaluation is 'human interests' that are not contingent on particular economic systems, After considering various possibilities, a basic-needs approach is proposed and its use in economic evaluation illustrated. (shrink)

In her groundbreaking Kant’s Conception of Pedagogy, G. Felicitas Munzel finds extant in Kant’s writings the so-called missing critical treatise on education; it appears in the Doctrines of Method with which he concludes each of his ...

Philosophers and logicians have long debated how best to understand conditional or hypothetical sentences. William G. Lycan has a distinctive approach to this debate, attending not just to the semantics of such sentences, but equally to their syntax. He shows how insights from linguistic theory help to illuminate problems about the meaning and function of conditionals. For instance, philosophers and logicians have had problems analysing the locutions 'only if', 'unless', and 'even if'. Lycan sets out a general semantic theory of (...) conditionals which works for all such sentences; he assigns meanings to them in a way that explains how and why those meanings depend upon features of utterance context. According to Lycan's theory the 'if'-clauses refer to items called 'events', 'circumstances', or 'conditions'.Real Conditionals gives at last the definitive presentation of this original approach to a topic at the intersection of philosophy, logic, and linguistics. Lycan's characteristically lively and witty expository style ensures that it can be enjoyed by readers from all three disciplines. (shrink)

The classical Athenian philosopher Socrates was tried in 399 BCE on the basis of two notoriously ambiguous charges: corrupting the youth and impiety (in Greek, asebeia). A majority of the 501 dikasts (Athenian citizen-jurors) voted to convict him. Socrates was ultimately sentenced to death by drinking a hemlock-based liquid. This well-known account of the trial is by Plato, one of Socrates' students and a famous philosopher in his own right. Whether Socrates was punished unjustly is a contested issue which to (...) this day inspires discussions about the nature and meaning of justice. (shrink)

This book explores the universe and its subsystems from the three lenses of evolutionary (diversifying), developmental (converging), and complex (adaptive) processes at all scales. It draws from prolific experts within the academic disciplines of complexity science, physical science, information and computer science, theoretical and evo-devo biology, cosmology, astrobiology, evolutionary theory, developmental theory, and philosophy. The chapters come from a Satellite Meeting, "Evolution, Development and Complexity" (EDC) hosted at the Conference on Complex Systems, in Cancun, 2017. The contributions will be peer-reviewed (...) and contributors from outside the conference will be invited to submit chapters to ensure full coverage of the topics. This book explores many issues within the field of EDC such as the interaction of evolutionary stochasticity and developmental determinism in biological systems and what they might teach us about these twin processes in other complex systems. This text will appeal to students and researchers within the complex systems and EDC fields.. (shrink)

The Routledge History of Philosophy, Volume 4 covers a period of three hundred and fifty years, from the middle of the fourteenth century to the early years of the eighteenth century and the birth of modern philosophy. The focus of this volume is on Renaissance philosophy and seventeenth-century rationalism, particularly that of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Science was ascendant during the Renaissance and beyond, and the Copernican revolution represented the philosophical climax of the middle ages. This volume is unique in (...) its emphasis on the relationship between science and philosophy. Placing the philosophy of the age into its scientific, social and cultural context, it examines the scholastic thought which Renaissance philosophy both interacted with and reacted against. A grasp of the intellectual context of the rationalists is also critical to an understanding of this philosophical movement, and the writings of Bacon, Gassendi, Hobbes, and others are analyzed here. The Routledge History of Philosophy, Volume 4 provides a broad, scholarly introduction to this period for students of philosophy and related disciplines, as well as some original interpretations of these authors. It will be important reading both for the specialist and the general reader. It includes a glossary of over one hundred technical terms and a chronological table of philosophical, scientific, and other cultural events. (shrink)

Dr Lloyd writes for those who want to discover and explore Aristotle's work for themselves. He acts as mediator between Aristotle and the modern reader. The book is divided into two parts. The first tells the story of Aristotle's intellectual development as far as it can be reconstructed; the second presents the fundamentals of his thought in the main fields of inquiry which interested him: logic and metaphysics, physics, psychology, ethics, politics, and literary criticism. The final chapter considers the unity (...) and coherence of Aristotle's philosophy, and records briefly his later influence on European thought. This is a concise and lucid account of the work of a difficult and profound thinker. Dr Lloyd's business is only with the essentials; but he does not shirk the difficulties which arise in their interpretation, nor does he invest Aristotle with a spurious modernity. (shrink)

Modern science faces a series of problems that undermine confidence in its reliability. To solve these problems, we must reflect on what makes science work and what leads it astray. This book is about Science, its strengths and weaknesses. The papers that scientists write form a vast resource of evidence and theory that is doubling about every ten years, along with the number of scientists. The size of this resource makes it hard for it to be used effectively by scientists, (...) and along with this are growing concerns about its integrity and reliability. This book looks at the scientific method, as currently applied and as understood philosophically by scientists, the social structure of science, and the structure of scientific communication through journals. It includes case studies of controversies, and looks at how fields develop over time. (shrink)

Anscombe on thought, experience, sensation, and the ethics of virtue Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe is one of analytical philosophy's most prominent figures, the founder of consequentialism, and a leading mind in the field of virtue ethics. Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind: The collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, Volume 2, is part of a multivolume compilation of her life's work, providing insight into the mind of a groundbreaking 20th century philosopher. This volume's work explores memory, intentionality, causality and time, (...) delving into the language, actions, and logic of perception, sensation, and more. (shrink)

The influence of Nazism on German culture was a key concern for many Anglo-American writers, who struggled to reconcile the many contributions of Germany to European civilization, with the barbarity of the new regime. In _German Literature Through Nazi Eyes_, H.G. Atkins gives an account of how the Nazis undertook a re-evaluation of German literature, making it sub-ordinate to their own interests. All reference to Jewish writers and influence was virtually eliminated, and key writers such as Goethe and Lessing were (...) re-interpreted. What was left was a military history that was avowedly militant and propagandist. (shrink)