The mystical part of Reitzenstein′s interpretation of the song in Theocritus′s first idyll has not been generally accepted;it is somewhat surprising to find a new interpretation of the legend of Daphnis, and a new explanation of the genesis of pastoral poetry, introduced by the statement, referring to Reitzenstein: ‘ Nicht zu kiihn war er, sondern noch nicht kiihn genug.’ Starting from Reitzenstein′s contention that the pastoral was developed from a cult-song, Fries elaborates the theory that Daphnis is a Greek Krishna; (...) that the maiden of Theocritus′s first idyll is the counterpart of the heroine of the Song of Songs; that astral mythology, Oriental in origin, supplies the clue to Theocritus′s handling of the legend. On the basis of this and other material Fries constructs further theories affecting the development of other literary types than the pastoral, and leads us ultimately to a novel interpretation of the Phaeacian episode in the Odyssey. (shrink)

We are told that we live in a scientific world. All about us are the fruits of scientific research, and the products of scientific industry. But, in spite of this transformation of our material surroundings, scientific thought, or the scientific method as such, has had no effect upon the everyday thought and behaviour of our people. To be sure, along with the scientific gadgets a few scientific truths have been disseminated. They know the earth is round and moves about the (...) sun; they could know that bacteria cause disease and that they are themselves descended from less articulate forms of animal life. Even when such conclusions are accepted, it is on the basis of authority with no understanding as to how they arose and on what basis they stand. For the large majority, science has merely acquired a cloak of respectability; it is a stronger magic than that of our forebears, and our modern alchemy is known as a powerful though mysterious source of pecuniary profit. (shrink)

Dr. Garrett Johnson received a call from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice asking if he would be interested in filling prescriptions for pentobarbital. Suddenly he faced a controversial issue - providing a drug used for the lethal injection of convicted criminals. Apparently big pharma was discontinuing the manufacture and sale of drugs used for human executions - primarily due to mounting pressure from death penalty activists and shareholders, legal appeals by inmates, media reports of botched lethal injections, etc. Texas (...) saw the solution by using small local compounding pharmacies that were less visible to the public. Should Garrett fill this lucrative order knowing how the State would use the drugs? The case presents the ethical and strategic issues that Garrett faces - having just graduated and started his own compounding pharmacy - in making this decision. (shrink)

Are there any business decisions that do not have an ethical dimension? Who decides that a decision is unethical? What impact does ethics have in today’s business environment? The case focuses on the development of Hawaii’s first public-private venture capital fund by three very different entities: the State of Hawaii economic development corporation; a US mainland-based private equity investment firm; and a partnership of two serial entrepreneurs. The case uses a progressive disclosure format so students only read and analyze the (...) actions and ethical issues that occur at a specific point in time: creation of the venture capital fund; selection of startups to be included in the fund’s investment portfolio; and public reaction to decisions and actions by the fund. The case frames the issues confronted at each point as ethical dilemmas. Analysis includes answering questions and formulating recommendations or solutions to each dilemma. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Huw Price’s widely read “Truth as Convenient Friction” overstates the onerousness, and underrates the utility, of the ontological commitments involved in Charles S. Peirce’s version of the pragmatist account of truth. This argument comes in three parts. First, I briefly explain Peirce’s view of truth, and relate it to his account of assertion. Next, I articulate what I take Price’s grievance against Peirce’s view to be, and suggest that this criticism misses the target. Finally, (...) I argue that Peirce’s version of the pragmatist account of truth has greater explanatory power than the narrowly linguistic version put forward by Price, such that even the ontology-averse should accept it. (shrink)

In our current social landscape, moral questions—about economic disparity, disadvantaging biases, and scarcity—are rightly receiving attention with a sense of urgency. This book argues that classical pragmatism offers a compelling and useful account of our engagement with moral life. The key arguments are first, that a broader reading of the pragmatist tradition than is usually attempted within the context of ethical theory is necessary; and second, that this broad reading offers resources that enable us to move forward in contemporary debates (...) about truth and principles in moral life. The first argument is made by demonstrating that there is an arc of theoretical unity that stretches from two key founders of pragmatism—Charles Sanders Peirce and William James—through the work of John Dewey and Clarence Irving Lewis. The second argument is made by engaging with contemporary debates concerning the truth-status of the judgments and assertions made in ordinary moral discourse, as well as the role and nature of moral principles. _Toward a Pragmatist Metaethics_ will be of interest to scholars of American philosophy, American intellectual history, and moral and political theorists, as well as anyone interested in the contours and demands of shared moral discourse. (shrink)

Bluhm et al. (2023) identify invasiveness as a genus with multiple species: a treatment protocol or intervention can be invasive along physical, emotional, or lifestyle dimensions. They also identi...

While the topic of assertion has recently received a fresh wave of interest from Peirce scholars, to this point no systematic account of Peirce’s view of assertion has been attempted. We think that this is a lacuna that ought to be filled. Doing so will help make better sense of Peirce’s pragmatism; further, what is hidden amongst various fragments is a robust pragmatist theory of assertion with unique characteristics that may have significant contemporary value. Here we aim to uncover this (...) theory, and to show that assertion for Peirce is not a mere corollary of pragmatic conceptions of truth, judgement, and belief, but is rather a central aspect of his philosophy. (shrink)

This paper presents core features of the virtue ethics of American philosopher Ella Lyman Cabot. It offers an articulation of her position in Everyday Ethics (1906), and argues that Cabot's account has the resources to respond to a critique leveled against her mentor, Josiah Royce—namely, that a virtue ethics organized around loyalty is too easily corrupted by loyalty to bad causes. In addition to its importance to a full picture of the pragmatist tradition in moral philosophy, engagement with Cabot's work (...) is critical to an accurate grasp of the virtue ethics revival of the 20th century. (shrink)

This paper1 aims to develop a model of practitioner narrative competence specifically for mental health care. I begin by considering the status of narratives as a form of evidence. Following Rita Charon and Cheryl Misak, I claim that there is no distinction to be made between evidence-based medicine and narrative medicine. I then explore Charon’s model of practitioner narrative competence, and suggest that it can be fruitfully adapted for mental health care contexts, a project for which I employ Jennifer Radden (...) and John Z. Sadler’s psychiatric ethics. This project brings together two independently promising accounts to develop what I refer to as the adapted model of... (shrink)

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and its impact (...) on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g., educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system. (shrink)

... dedicated to the timely publication of new work in metaphysics, broadly construed.

P. KOnig: Einleitung - P. ZIche: Idiographik und allgemeine Wissenschaftlichkeit - Windelband und die Wissenschaftsreflexion um 1900 - G. HArtung: Ein Philosoph korrigiert sich selbst - Wilhelm Windelbands Abkehr vom Relativismus - O. SChlaudt: Philosophie am Leitfaden der Empirie. WIndelbands relativistisches Programm - S. KUft: Windelbands Konzeption von Transzendentalphilosophie und ihr Bezug zur Kulturphilosophie - R. BOnito Oliva: Windelband. KUlturphilosophie und Kulturkrise - P. KOnig: Teleologie und Geschichte bei Wilhelm Windelband - J. BOhr: Im Fortschreiben der Probleme: Windelbands 19. JAhrhundert (...) - T.-H. CHang: Der Wertbegriff beiWilhelm Windelband und sein Konzept der Problemgeschichte - T. KUbalica: Die Geschichte der Philosophie als Problemgeschichte - J. MEhlich: Windelbands Praludien und das Silberne Zeitalter in Russland - G. SChluter: Windelbands italienische Kontakte und Bezugnahmen - D. STefanelli: Notizen uber Karl Vossler und die "Sudwestdeutsche Schule" - C. ZAnfi: Geschichte, Natur und Leben: Windelband und Bergson in der Historismus-Debatte - J.-I. LIndén: Der beseelte Geist: Dilthey als Kritiker der badischen Schule - H. GUndlach: Windelbands Ringen mit der Psychologie - Anhang: Wilhelm Windelband: Blaue Hefte zur Psychologie. (shrink)

The readiness potential (RP) is one of the most controversial topics in neuroscience and philosophy due to its perceived relevance to the role of conscious willing in action. Libet and colleagues reported that RP onset precedes both volitional movement and conscious awareness of willing that movement, suggesting that the experience of conscious will may not cause volitional movement (Libet, Gleason, Wright, & Pearl, 1983). Rather, they suggested that the RP indexes unconscious processes that may actually cause both volitional movement and (...) the accompanying conscious feeling of will (Libet et al., 1983; pg. 640). Here, we demonstrate that volitional movement can occur without an accompanying feeling of will. We additionally show that the neural processes indexed by RPs are insufficient to cause the experience of conscious willing. Specifically, RPs still occur when subjects make self-timed, endogenously-initiated movements due to a post-hypnotic suggestion, without a conscious feeling of having willed those movements. (shrink)

In addition to being a founder of American pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce was a scientist and an empiricist. A core aspect of his thoroughgoing empiricism was a mindset that treats all attitudes as revisable. His fallibilism seems to require us to constantly seek out new information, and to not be content holding any beliefs uncritically. At the same time, Peirce often states that common sense has an important role to play in both scientific and vital inquiry, and that there cannot (...) be any “direct profit in going behind common sense.” Our question is the following: alongside a scientific mindset and a commitment to the method of inquiry, where does common sense fit in? Peirce does at times directly address common sense; however, those explicit engagements are relatively infrequent. In this paper, we argue that getting a firm grip on the role of common sense in Peirce’s philosophy requires a three-pronged investigation, targeting his treatment of common sense alongside his more numerous remarks on intuition and instinct. By excavating and developing Peirce’s concepts of instinct and intuition, we show that his respect for common sense coheres with his insistence on the methodological superiority of inquiry. We conclude that Peirce shows us the way to a distinctive epistemic position balancing fallibilism and anti-scepticism, a pragmatist common sense position of considerable interest for contemporary epistemology given current interest in the relation of intuition and reason. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social (...) ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

Examining Scepticism and Animal Faith (SAF) together with the work of Descartes—first, in terms of structure, style, and substance; and second, in terms of method and purpose—supports a rethinking of Santayana’s philosophical project, supporting the notion that his primary aim was not epistemological but fundamentally moral. Considering the contrasting characters of Cartesian and Santayanan scepticism suggests that Descartes is not so much a foil but an inspiration for Santayana in attempting to order the mind as a sort of personal improvement.

Logical models of argument formalize commonsense reasoning while taking process and computation seriously. This survey discusses the main ideas which characterize di erent logical models of argument. It presents the formal features of a few main approaches to the modeling of argumentation. We trace the evolution of argumentationfrom the mid-80's, when argumentsystems emerged as an alternative to nonmonotonic formalisms based on classical logic, to the present, as argument is embedded in di erent complex systems for real-world applications, and allows more (...) formal work to be done in different areas, such as AI & Law, case-based reasoning and negotiation among intelligent agents. (shrink)

The existence of evil is often held to pose philosophical problems only for theists. I argue that the existence of evil gives rise to a philosophical problem which confronts theist and atheist alike. The problem is constituted by the following claims: (1) Successful human beings (i.e., those meeting their basic prudential interests) are committed to a good-enough world; (2) the actual world is not a good-enough world (i.e., sufficient evil exists). It follows that human beings must either (3a) maintain a (...) state of epistemic ignorance regarding the nature of the actual world or (3b) abandon their basic prudential interests. Theists resolve this problem by rejecting (2), only to confront the problem of evil as it is traditionally understood. Successful atheists also reject (2), but without adequate grounds for doing so. (shrink)

Abstract:This piece offers a reflection on James Liszka's book, Charles Peirece on Ethics, Esthetics, and the Normative Sciences. I consider Liszka's approach to Peirce's writings, especially the Minute Logic and "Evolutionary Love", and explore his extension of Peirce's ethical thought. I conclude that Liszka's work in this volume shows us what reasonableness as self-correction might require of us, and suggests ways in which we can take up the work of the normative sciences.

In recent years, religious studies has undergone an ethnographic turn. More and more, scholars attend to the social location and significance of religious practice. This approach foregrounds the self-understandings of religious communities and practitioners and raises the question of the relation between ethnography and philosophical analysis. For instance, Saba Mahmood, in The Politics of Piety, draws from ethnographic study so as to critique philosophy’s universalizing claims regarding subjectivity, enabling a recognition of the diverse forms feminist subjectivity and political agency may (...) take within religious traditions and practice.2 Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed are the Organized likewise shifts the terrain of .. (shrink)

If within the borders of human life the truth is, as Vico has said, what is made, then the task of a student of human life can be and should be to find out from what human beings have made what manner of makers they are and what sorts of production their circumstance allows.

The classical view of the relationship between necessity and apriority, defended by Leibniz and Kant, is that all necessary truths are known a priori. The classical view is now almost universally rejected, ever since Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam discovered that there are necessary truths that are known only a posteriori. However, in recent years a new debate has emerged over the epistemology of these necessary a posteriori truths. According to one view – call it the neo-classical view – knowledge (...) of a necessary truth always depends on at least one item of a priori knowledge. According to the rival view – call it the neoempiricist view – our knowledge of necessity is sometimes broadly empirical. In this paper I present and defend an argument against the neo-empiricist view. I argue that knowledge of the necessity of a necessary truth could not be broadly empirical. (shrink)

On the standard view, pessimism is a philosophically intractable topic. Against the standard view, I hold that pessimism is a stance, or compound of attitudes, commitments and intentions. This stance is marked by certain beliefs—first and foremost, that the bad prevails over the good—which are subject to an important qualifying condition: they are always about outcomes and states of affairs in which one is personally invested. This serves to distinguish pessimism from other views with which it is routinely conflated— including (...) skepticism and nihilism—and to allow for the extent to which pessimism necessarily involves more than the intellectual endorsement of a doctrine. (shrink)

Einleitung, von A. Ruge.--Die prinzipien der logik, von W. Windelband.--Prinzipien der logik, von J. Royce.--Die prinzipien der logik, von L. Couturat.--Die aufgabe der logik, von B. Croce.--Die probleme der logik, von F. Enriques.--Die umgestaltung der bewusstseinsbegriffes in der modernen erkenntnistheorie und ihre bedeutung für die logik, von N. Losskij.

I argue that manipulationist theories of causation fail as accounts of causal structure, and thereby as theories of “actual causation” and causal explanation. I focus on two kinds of problem cases, which I call “Perceived Abnormality Cases” and “Ontological Dependence Cases.” The cases illustrate that basic facts about social systems—that individuals are sensitive to perceived abnormal conditions and that certain actions metaphysically depend on institutional rules—pose a challenge for manipulationist theories and for counterfactual theories more generally. I then show how (...) law-based accounts of causal structure can answer such challenges. The moral of the story is that the basic manipulationist idea that our interest in causal structure is driven by our interest in manipulating our environment faces decisive problems in a central domain of application, the social sciences. (shrink)

1. bd. Was ist philosophie? Über Sokrates. Zum gedächtnis Spinozas. Immanuel Kant. Nach hundert jahren. Aus Goethes philosophie. Goethes Faust und die philosophie der renaissance. Schillers transszendentaler idealismus. Über Friedrich Hölderlin und sein geschick. Die erneuerung des Hegelianismus.--2. bd. Über die gegenwärtige lage und aufgabe der philosophie. Über denken und nachdenken. Normen und naturgesetze. Kritische oder genetische methode? Geschichte und naturwissenschaft. Vom prinzip der moral. Pessimismus und wissenschaft. Über wesen und wert der tradition im kulturleben. Bildungsschichten und kultureinheit. Kulturphilosophie und (...) transszendentaler idealismus. Das heilige. Sub specie aeternitatis. (shrink)

L'Afrique se propose de lutter de façon efficace pour la réduction de la pauvreté. La pauvreté en Afrique est certainement matérielle, mais elle est aussi spirituelle. Autant elle est dépourvue des moyens de vivre à la mesure de sa population, autant elle semble manquer de ressort spirituel capable de lui permettre d'assumer de façon responsable son destin. La réduction de la pauvreté matérielle passe par la réduction de la pauvreté spirituelle. Et cette dernière passe par la redécouverte des richesses de (...) l'esprit et de la manière dont ces richesses ont aidé dans le passé et peuvent encore aider dans le présent à prendre en charge le devenir de l'Afrique. Les auteurs voudraient instaurer et explorer un de fondements essentiels de la Renaissance africaine : l'histoire des idées dans l'Afrique traditionnelle. Aussi le présent ouvrage se fixe-t-il pour tâche de présenter les principes, les démarches et une application de cette discipline à la fois ancienne et, dans le contexte de l'Afrique traditionnelle, inédite. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche sets out to answer the question of the value of morality by looking at the conditions under which it developed. However, there is a puzzle about why historical investigation should be required for assessing our moral practices, especially if the defining features of those practices have changed over time. The puzzle is that if morality is “historical,” then the features that will be revealed by historical investigation are ones that—ex hypothesi—are unlikely to (...) characterize it now. And if these features do not characterize morality now, then why should a critique of morality need to take them into account? I argue that the solution to the puzzle is that history reveals that morality is a particular kind of entity, which I call a “historical individual.” I then provide an account of why it should matter for our evaluation of morality that it is an entity of this kind. (shrink)