Psychological externalism is the thesis that the contents of many of a person's propositional mental states are determined in part by relations he bears to his natural and social environment. This thesis has recently been thrust into prominence in the philosophy of mind by a series of thought experiments due to Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge. Externalism is a metaphysical thesis, but in this work I investigate its implications for the epistemology of the mental. I am primarily concerned with the (...) question whether externalism undermines the idea that a person typically knows the contents of her own thoughts, beliefs, and other propositional attitudes directly and authoritatively. I criticize arguments that have been advanced on behalf of a positive answer to this question, and argue that they rest on a faulty conception of the nature of first person authority, one which likens our access to our own minds to perception. An account of the basis of first person authority is sketched that locates our epistemic right to our self-ascriptions of propositional attitude not in our ability to discriminate among the various thought contents we might be thinking, but rather in our ability to express our thoughts, and to think with them in accordance with the norms of rationality. I consider also the question whether first person authority and externalism jointly make possible a refutation of certain forms of global skepticism, as has been famously argued by Putnam. I argue that Putnam's attempted refutation fails, because the crucial externalist claims that drive it are not knowable a priori. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the extent to which health promoting wearable technologies can provide people with greater autonomy over their health. These devices are frequently presented as a means of expanding the possibilities people have for making healthier decisions and living healthier lives. We accept that by collecting, monitoring, analysing and displaying biomedical data, and by helping to underpin motivation, wearable technologies can support autonomy over health. However, we argue that their contribution in this regard is limited and that—even with (...) respect to their ‘autonomy enhancing’ potential—these devices may deliver costs as well as benefits. We proceed by rehearsing the distinction that can be drawn between procedural autonomy and substantive-relational autonomy. While the information provided by wearable technologies may support deliberation and decision-making, in isolation these technologies do little to provide substantive opportunities to act and achieve better health. As a consequence, wearable technologies risk generating burdens of anxiety and stigma for their users and reproducing existing health inequalities. We then reexamine the extent to which wearable technologies actually support autonomous deliberation. We argue that wearable technologies that subject their users to biomedical and consumerist epistemologies, norms and values also risk undermining processes of genuinely autonomous deliberation. (shrink)

The problem of being is central to Western metaphysics. Etched sharply in the verses of Parmenides, it took on distinctive colouring in Aristotle as the subject matter of a science expressly labelled 'theological.' For Aristotle, being could not be shared in generic fashion by other natures. As a nature it had to be found not in various species but in a primary instance only. The science specified by the primary nature was accordingly the one science that under the aspect of (...) being treated universally of whatever is: it dealt with being qua being. (shrink)

There are various reasons why efforts to promote “support for self-management” have rarely delivered the kinds of sustainable improvements in healthcare experiences, health and wellbeing that policy leaders internationally have hoped for. This paper explains how the basis of failure is in some respects built into the ideas that underpin many of these efforts. When support for self-management is narrowly oriented towards educating and motivating patients to adopt the behaviours recommended for disease control, it implicitly reflects and perpetuates limited and (...) somewhat instrumental views of patients. It tends to: restrict the pursuit of respectful and enabling ‘partnership working’; run the risk of undermining patients’ self-evaluative attitudes ; limit recognition of the supportive value of clinician-patient relationships; and obscure the practical and ethical tensions that clinicians face in the delivery of support for self-management. We suggest that a focus on enabling people to live well with their long-term conditions is a promising starting point for a more adequate conception of support for self-management. We then outline the theoretical advantages that a capabilities approach to thinking about living well can bring to the development of an account of support for self-management, explaining, for example, how it can accommodate the range of what matters to people for living well, help keep the importance of disease control in perspective, recognize social influences on people’s values, behaviours and wellbeing, and illuminate more of the rich potential and practical and ethical challenges of supporting self-management in practice. (shrink)

Chapter One THE PROBLEM OF BEING IN THE METAPHYSICS TO determine whether the notion of Being in Alexander of Hales is Aristotelian or Platonic, a recent historian seeks his criterion in "the gradual separation of the Aristotelian ...

Prior research indicates that managers’ dark personality traits increase their tendency to engage in disruptive and unethical organizational behaviors including accounting earnings management. Other research suggests that the prevalence of dark personalities in management may represent an accidental byproduct of selecting managers with accompanying desirable attributes that fit the stereotype of a “strong leader.” Our paper posits that organizations may hire some managers who have dark personality traits because their willingness to push ethical boundaries aligns with organizational objectives, particularly in (...) the accounting context where ethical considerations are especially important. Using several validation studies and experiments, we find that experienced executives and recruiting professionals favor hiring a candidate with dark personality traits into an accounting management position over an otherwise better-qualified candidate when the hiring organization faces pressure to manage earnings. Our results help to illuminate why individuals with dark personality traits may effectively compete for high-level accounting positions. (shrink)

Attention to individual choice is a valuable dimension of public health policy; however, the creation of effective public health programmes requires policy makers to address the material and social structures that determine a person’s chance of actually achieving a good state of health. This statement summarizes a well understood and widely held view within public health practice. In this article, we (i) argue that advocates for public health can and should defend this emphasis on ‘structures’ by reference to citizen autonomy (...) and not simply by emphasizing concern for counter-balancing values such as ‘population health’ or ‘fairness’, (ii) map and critically explore the contrasting conceptions of autonomy that feature in such debates, with particular attention to conceptions of autonomy that might feature in the defence of an emphasis on structures. We draw on (i) a relational conception of autonomy and (ii) the distinction that can be made between autonomous deliberation and autonomous action to suggest that offering people the opportunity to make choices about their health without also supporting their capability to achieve the object of these choices falls short of what is often considered to be morally and politically important about promoting autonomy in relation to health. (shrink)

Joseph Owens presents an introduction to metaphysics designed to develop in the reader a habitus of thinking. Using original Thomistic texts and Etienne Gilson's interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas, Owens examines the application of metaphysical principles to the issues that arise in a specifically Christian environment. An Elementary Christian Metaphysics focuses on questions of existence and the nature of revealed truths. Following his historical introduction to metaphysics, Owens provides a general investigation of the first principles and causes of being and (...) also a study of knowledge and of the divine nature and attributes in light of natural reason. "Irrespective of one's intellectual genotype, an exposure to the sustained, developmental elucidation of Aquinas' insights executed by an author such as Owens can only enhance any metaphysical approach to reality." --The New Scholastic "An Elementary Christian Metaphysics is intended primarily for undergraduate students as an introduction to metaphysics. . . . The scope of the metaphysical study pursued by Owens includes not only a general investigation of beings but also an analysis of knowledge (epistemology) and of the divine nature, all in light of natural reason." --Studies in Religion Joseph Owens (1908-2005) taught philosophy at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and the University of Toronto for forty years. He is the author of a number of books, including An Interpretation of Existence, also published by the University of Notre Dame Press. (shrink)

I. An approach to the question of teleology in nature for Aristotle requires first of all a sufficiently clear understanding of the terms involved. In regard to the notion of teleology itself, there can hardly be any pertinent difficulty. The term is a modern one, and is quite definitely fixed in meaning by contemporary use. It seems to have been coined in eighteenth-century philosophical Latin to denote the study of final causes in nature. It became readily accepted in modern philosophical (...) vocabulary. Against this historical background it is commonly understood today to focus on “purposive or goal-directed activity.” In application to nature it assumes that purposive activity is present and asks how the activity is to be identified and described. The initial problem, accordingly, will lie not with the notion of teleology but rather with the other term, ‘nature’. (shrink)

(Book Epsilon): Macroscopic overview -- E 1 (English translation) -- The role of book epsilon in the Metaphysics -- Pure actuality and primacy in being -- Aristotelian sciences and their starting points (E 1.1025b3-1026a23) -- The universality of being qua being -- (Book Zeta): Microscopic investigation -- Z I (English translation) -- The meanings of ousia -- Essential being (to ti en einai) -- "Essential being" and singular thing -- "Essential being" and form -- Form and universal -- Form and (...) cause of being. (shrink)

Kripke's Pierre puzzle undermines some of the central epistemic intuitions that underlie traditional defences of the Fregean assumption that sentences'S believes that Fa ‘and'S believes that Fb’ can differ in truth value, even though a = b. Millian theorists have seized on this and employed the puzzle to reject the Fregean assumption itself. I argue that Millians are correct in rejecting traditional defences of the Fregean assumption, but they are wrong in rejecting the Fregean assumption itself. To this end, I (...) offer a different argument kr the assumption, one that is not open to Kripkean/millian objections. (shrink)

My primary goal in this paper is to focus attention on a certain conception of internal access, on the Cartesian conception that a rational subject's capacity to determine sameness and difference in explicit propositional attitudes is independent of knowledge of the external world. This conception of introspection plays a crucial, if unacknowledged, role in numerous arguments and theoretical positions. In particular, it plays a large role in motivating psychological internalism. I argue in favor of rejecting this epistemology and the internalism (...) it supports. (shrink)

There is a growing acceptance of the idea that the explanatory states of folk psychology do not supervene on the physical. Even Fodor (1987) seems to grant as much. He argues, however, that this cannot be true of theoretical psychology. Since theoretical psychology offers causal explanations, its explanatory states must be taxonomized in such a way as to supervene on the physical. I use this concession to invert his argument and cast doubt on the received model of folk psychological explanation (...) as causal explanation by intentionally individuated states. This in turn undermines the central model of cognitive theory--causal explanation by representational states. (shrink)

A much discussed morpheme in Semitic historical linguistics is the suffix *-n. Its reflexes include the energic in Classical Arabic, the ventive in Akkadian, and many languages with a [V – n – object pronoun] reflex. Explanations of its origins fall broadly into two camps. One sees it originally as a proto-Semitic verbal suffix, while the other derives it from a grammaticalization of an originally independent [deictic/presentative + object pronoun] element. This paper argues for the correctness of the second explanation, (...) to which end a general reconstruction of the historical development of the morpheme in West Semitic is developed, with particular attention given to Arabic. Although a modest and unobtrusive morpheme, it is argued that the linguistics of *-n is of considerable significance for conceptualizations of Arabic and Semitic historical linguistics. (shrink)

The relation between imagery and philosophy in the poem of Parmenides has occasioned much discussion in recent years. One item of particular import has been the direction taken by the journey that was so inspiringly pictured in the opening section. Is the travel upwards? Or is it downwards? Or is it rather cross-country, either aloft, or on the earth’s surface, or in the depths of the nether world? Further, if there is cross travel on any of these three levels, is (...) the direction from east to west, or from west to east? (shrink)

Cognition is a basic introductory text for college courses in the philosophy of knowledge. Joseph Owens, C.Ss.R., here expands the narrowly metaphysical treatment of knowledge given in his earlier book, An Elementary Christian Metaphysics, into a full-fledged epistemology. This text utilizes the traditions of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to reacquaint students of philosophy with a number of insights basic for a philosophic understanding of knowledge. These insights into the nature of abstraction, truth, the ground of certitude, and other major concerns (...) of epistemology will help students clarify the approaches of contemporary philosophies. (shrink)

At a conference on ‘Leisure in Canada,’ held more than a decade ago at Montmorency in Quebec, a participant observed that ‘practically all writers on the subject take Aristotle as the point of departure in discussing leisure but seldom seem to move from that point.’ At first sight this statement may seem surprising. How is it to be understood? Certainly recent writers on leisure do in fact list Aristotle's conception as one of the significant positions on it.

Bioethics is a diverse field that accommodates a broad range of perspectives and disciplines. The recent explosion of literature on methods in interdisciplinary and empirical ethics might appear, however, to overshadow the fact that ‘bioethics’ has long been an interdisciplinary field. The Interdisciplinary and Empirical Ethics Network (IEEN) was established, with funding from the Wellcome Trust, to facilitate critical and constructive discussion around the nature of this disciplinary diversity and shift focus away from the ‘empirical turn’, towards the ongoing development (...) of bioethics as an evolving field of interdisciplinary study. In April 2012 the IEEN organized a workshop at the Centre for Public Policy Research, King's College London, dedicated to discussing the relationship between aims and methods in interdisciplinary and empirical bioethics. This paper reports on that first meeting. (shrink)

Does the act of creation show itself anywhere within the creation? A common contemporary ontology tends to see two possibilities for those who want to defend a notion of creation. The first is to argue that an original set of materials was brought into existence out of nothing by divine action a long time ago. The second, in the tradition of Paley, posits a specific divine action that oversees the development of some of the materials into entities with an end-directedness. (...) Much contemporary energy focuses on the second possibility. The argument of the paper is that the ontology behind both of these possibilities, which limits itself to the notions of a creation of materials and the building of some of the materials into end-directed entities, conceals rather than reveals the idea of creation. The paper tries to show how an Aristotelian sense of nature, with its recognition of internal teleology and original spontaneity, offers a better starting point for coming up against the mystery of divine creative activity. (shrink)

FIVE 'WAYS' TO PROVE THAT GOD EXISTS ARE OFFERED IN AQUINAS' "SUMMA OF THEOLOGY," ALL TAKEN FROM HISTORICALLY TRACEABLE SOURCES IN WHICH THEY DID NOT REACH THE CONCLUSION ENVISAGED BY HIM. 'WAYS' UP TO ELEVEN IN NUMBER ARE IN FACT USED IN HIS WORKS. ALL FUNCTION IN A STRICTLY METAPHYSICAL--NOT COSMOLOGICAL OR TELEOLOGICAL--FRAMEWORK THAT WAS DEVELOPED EARLY IN HIS CAREER. THE ANSELMIAN AND OTHER ARGUMENTS THAT CANNOT FIT INTO THAT FRAMEWORK ARE REJECTED OR LEFT UNNOTICED, WHILE THOSE THAT DO FIT (...) IN ARE ACCEPTED IN LINE WITH THE CONVENIENCE OF THE MOMENT. ACCORDINGLY THE NUMBER AND ORDER OF THE 'FIVE WAYS' MEAN NO MORE THAN A MOMENTARY CONVENIENCE OF THIS TYPE. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that austerity creates working conditions that can undermine professionalism in healthcare. We characterise austerity in terms of overlapping economic, social and ethical dimensions and explain how these can pose significant challenges for healthcare professionals. Amongst other things, austerity is detrimental to healthcare practice because it creates shortages of material and staff resources, negatively affects relationships and institutional cultures, and creates increased burdens and pressures for staff, not least as a result of deteriorating public health conditions. (...) After discussing the multiple dimensions of austerity, we consider the challenges it creates for professional ethics in healthcare. We highlight three mechanisms—intensification of work, practitioner isolation, and organisational alienation—which pose acute problems for healthcare professionals working under conditions of austerity. These mechanisms can turn ‘routine moral stress’ into moral distress and, at the same time, make poor care much more likely. While professionalism clearly depends on individual capabilities and behaviours, it also depends upon a complex sets of social conditions being established and maintained. The problems caused by austerity reveal a need to broaden the scope of professional ethics so that it includes the responsibilities of ‘role constructors’ and not just ‘role occupiers’. Austerity therefore presents opportunities for health professionals and associated ‘role constructors’ to contribute to a reimagining of future models of healthcare professionalism. (shrink)

Explanation of cognition as a special way of being appears in Aristotle without traceable ancestry. Earlier, in Parmenides and in Empedocles, the notion that cognition is somehow equated with the physical constitution of the knower at any given moment had been put forward. But the now rather enigmatic fragments of those thinkers fail to show how this notion foreshadowed any new kind of being over and above the physical. In fact, would it not seem incongruous to use the term “being” (...) for something proposed by them in terms of change? ·. (shrink)

The opening chapter of the Categories fails to reveal whether it is introducing a grammatical, a logical, or a metaphysical treatise. It deals with equivocals and univocals and ends with a definition of paronyms. The definition of paronyms is given in purely grammatical terms. Paronyms derive their name from an identical source with a difference only in case ending, as bravery and the brave, grammar and the grammarian. The second chapter, however, proceeds to state that an expression can be either (...) complex or simple--complex like "a man runs," or simple like "man" or "runs." Then it immediately passes over to beings. Of the things that are, it states, some are asserted of a subject, but are not in any subject. The example given is that "man" is asserted of a particular man. To supply for Aristotle a current instance of what is here meant, one might use the sentence "Bertrand Russell is a man." This type of statement, to take the Aristotelian text literally, is dealing with beings and is asserting something of a subject. What is asserted, "man," is not in any subject even though it is asserted of a subject. In other words, the logically proper name "Bertrand Russell" denotes a substance and not an accident. (shrink)

DIFFICULTIES about existence have plagued Western thought since the time of Parmenides. The Eleatic sage had concentrated on what was most obvious and most incontrovertible to him, namely, that something exists. He made that tenet the way and the test of truth. From it he drew consequences that succeeding Greek thinkers from Empedocles to Plotinus accepted in part and rejected in part, intrigued by much of what he had stated but repelled by seeming enormities in some of his conclusions. Later, (...) the patristic acceptation of being as the most appropriate name for God gave additional complication to the issue. In modern times the Kantian and linguistic approaches have raised the questions how existence is a predicate and whether there is a concept of it, and if so, what kind of a concept. On the other hand, the impact of Heidegger has inspired renewed and often enthusiastic absorption in the important role played by existence in philosophical thought, and current contacts with Hindu philosophies are furthering this interest. (shrink)

These substances have been considered in recent times, as in traditional interpretation, to be identical with the immobile Movers of the Physics. Both Physics and Metaphysics refer to the same separate substances. On the other hand, the immobile Movers of the Physics have been identified with the immanent souls of the Heavens, and so sharply distinguished from the separate substances of the Metaphysics. Then in the opposite extreme, the Movers of the Metaphysics have been completely identified with the celestial souls. (...) Or again, the first only of the Movers has been declared separate, and the others identified with the different sphere-souls, among which is the first Mover of the Physics. In still another interpretation the first Mover alone is separate, but the other immobile Movers are held to be the divine thoughts, identical with the first Mover. Even the first Mover has been interpreted as a thought in the mind of some other Being, as merely an ideal or standard of goodness which does not imply--though it need not exclude--any corresponding existent reality in the Aristotelian universe. (shrink)

In this volume, John R. Catan has gathered together 18 major essays by the well-known aristotelian scholar Joseph Owens that have influenced current opinion on the philosopher.