In this eye-opening look at the doctor-patient decision-making process, physician and law professor Jay Katz examines the time-honored belief in the virtue of silent care and patient compliance. Historically, the doctor-patient relationship has been based on a one-way trust -- despite recent judicial attempts to give patients a greater voice through the doctrine of informed consent. Katz criticizes doctors for encouraging patients to relinquish their autonomy, and demonstrates the detrimental effect their silence has on good patient care. Seeing a growing (...) need in this age of medical science and sophisticated technology for more honest and complete communication between physician and patients, he advocates a new, informed dialogue that respects the rights and needs of both sides. In a new foreword to this edition of The Silent World of Doctor and Patient , Alexander Morgan Capron outlines the changes in medical ethics practice that have occurred since the book was first published in 1984, paying particular attention to the hotly debated issues of physician-assisted suicide and informed consent in managed care. (shrink)

Sanford Goldberg investigates the role that others play in our attempts to acquire knowledge of the world.

Sanford C. Goldberg argues that a proper account of the communication of knowledge through speech has anti-individualistic implications for both epistemology and the philosophy of mind and language. In Part I he offers a novel argument for anti-individualism about mind and language, the view that the contents of one's thoughts and the meanings of one's words depend for their individuation on one's social and natural environment. In Part II he discusses the epistemic dimension of knowledge communication, arguing that the (...) epistemic characteristics of communication-based beliefs depend on features of the cognitive and linguistic acts of the subject's social peers. In acknowledging an ineliminable social dimension to mind, language, and the epistemic categories of knowledge, justification, and rationality, his book develops fundamental links between externalism in the philosophy of mind and language, on the one hand, and externalism is epistemology, on the other. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 676-692, June 2022.

Examines the philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience behind visual experience. Chapters on attention, illusions, aftereffects, binocular rivalry, hemispheric differences, attentional blink, agnosias and other disorders. Particular attention paid to consciouseness. The systematic review of key topics and the multitude of perspectives make this book an ideal primary or ancillary text for graduate courses in perception, vision, consciousness, or philosophy of mind.

Marina Sbisà has long advocated that we think of the illocutionary force of a speech act in terms of the act’s (predictable) systematic effects on the normative relationship between a speaker and her audience. Building on this idea, I argue that the hypothesis of distinctive speech act norms can be used to explain how participants in a conversation coordinate the normative expectations they have of one another in conversation. Such an explanation earns its keep by explaining how speakers render themselves (...) illocutionarily intelligible to their audiences—thereby enabling us to articulate the sense of mutuality that characterizes speech exchanges. One important upshot of my reflections is that we should reject both Austin’s thesis that the successful performance of an illocutionary act depends on audience uptake and Sbisà’s claim that Austin’s thesis is required if we are to make sense of the illocutionary dimension of speech in terms of an act’s systematic effects on participants’ normative expectations of one another. (shrink)

Written by an international team of leading scholars, this collection of thirteen new essays explores the implications of semantic externalism for self-knowledge and skepticism, bringing recent developments in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and epistemology to bear on the issue. Structured in three parts, the collection looks at self-knowledge, content transparency, and then meta-semantics and the nature of mental content. The chapters examine a wide range of topics in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, (...) including 2D semantics, transparency views of self-knowledge, and theories of linguistic understanding, as well as epistemological debates on contextualism, contrastivism, pragmatic encroachment, anti-luminosity arguments and testimony. The scope of the volume will appeal to graduate students and researchers in epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, cognitive science, psychology and linguistics. (shrink)

The scenario of the brain in a vat, first aired thirty-five years ago in Hilary Putnam's classic paper, has been deeply influential in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. This collection of new essays examines the scenario and its philosophical ramifications and applications, as well as the challenges which it has faced. The essays review historical applications of the brain-in-a-vat scenario and consider its impact on contemporary debates. They explore a diverse range of philosophical issues, from intentionality, external-world (...) scepticism, and the nature of truth, to the extended mind hypothesis, reference magnetism, and new versions of realism. The volume will be a rich and valuable resource for advanced students in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind and language, as well as anyone interested in the relations between language, thought and the world. (shrink)

Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology presents eleven specially written essays exploring these debates in metaphysics and epistemology and ...

The standard definition of atomicity—the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of entities that lack proper parts—is satisfied by a model that is not atomistic. The standard definition is therefore an incorrect characterization of atomicity. I show that the model satisfies the axioms of all but the strongest mereology and therefore that the standard definition of atomicity is only adequate given some controversial metaphysical assumptions. I end by proposing a new definition of atomicity that does not require extensionality or unrestricted (...) summation. (shrink)

Paul (Noûs 36:578–596, 2002; Noûs 40:623–659, 2006, The Handbook of Mereology, forthcoming) has argued for a bundle theory of objects that analyzes the bundling relation between properties and objects in terms of parthood relations. In this paper I argue that any mereological bundle theory with the explanatory power of Paul’s theory will entail the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII). This is problematic, since similar bundle theories seem to fall to Max Black’s two sphere counterexample to (PII). I argue, (...) however, that a fully developed mereological bundle theory provides a new way of interpreting Black’s two sphere universe that dispels the counterexample. I argue that this solution to Black’s puzzle is superior to other solutions on offer, and consequently that mereological bundle theory is an attractive ontological strategy for friends of (PII). (shrink)

Responding to Russell is a constant throughout Wittgenstein's philosophizing. This Element focuses on Wittgenstein's criticisms of Russell's theories of judgment in the summer of 1913. Wittgenstein's response to these criticisms is of first-rate importance for his early philosophical development, setting the path to the conceptions of proposition and of logic in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. This Element also touches on further aspects of Wittgenstein's responses to Russell: the rejection of Russell's and Frege's logicisms in the Tractatus, the critique of Russell's causal-behavioristic philosophy (...) of mind in Wittgenstein's 'middle' period, the Russellian origins of notions of privacy dialectically treated in Philosophical Investigations, and the discussion of 'surveyability' of mathematical proof in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, which is, again, a response to Russellian logicism. (shrink)

Based on the author's nearly 30 years' of teaching introductory philosophy — and his observations of where beginning readers run into difficulty — this compact “primer” gives readers the basic tools they need to explore philosophical reading and writing for the first time. Provides insights and strategies for helping readers get started with reading, thinking about, and discussing philosophical concepts and writing short philosophical essays about what they've been reading and thinking; includes a new chapter that illustrates techniques for probing (...) beneath the expository surface of a given question to uncover the inevitable structure of presuppositions and problems underlying it. (shrink)

Kant and Milton: fundamentals and foundations -- Kant's journey in the constellation of German Miltonism: toward the procedure of succession -- Kant's Miltonic transfer to exemplarity: the succession to Milton's "On his blindness" in the groundwork of the Metaphysics of morals -- Kantian tragic form and Kantian "storytelling" -- The Critique of practical reason and Samson agonistes -- Kant's Miltonic procedure of succession in a key moment of the Critique of judgment.

Force Fields collects the recent essays of Martin Jay, an intellectual historian and cultural critic internationally known for his extensive work on the history of Western Marxism and the intellectual migration from Germany to America.

Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice is a wide-ranging and important book on a much-neglected topic: the injustice involved in cases in which distrust arises out of prejudice. Fricker has some important things to say about this sort of injustice: its nature, how it arises, what sustains it, and the unhappy outcomes associated with it for the victim and the society in which it takes place. In the course of developing this account, Fricker also develops an account of the epistemology of testimony. (...) Focusing my attention on that account, my central claims are two. First, at least some of Fricker's arguments against existing (inferentialist and non-inferentialist) views in the epistemology of testimony are less than fully persuasive, and the (non-inferentialist) view she ends up endorsing is not all that different from the views she criticizes. Second, her reasons for harboring doubts regarding the role of a principle of default entitlement within a non-inferentialist account are not persuasive. Neither of these claims affects the overall argument Fricker is trying to run. Rather, they suggest that Fricker may have picked more fights than she needed to in the epistemology of testimony. If so, we have reason to detach Fricker's important work on epistemic injustice from some of the details of the story she tells regarding the epistemology of testimony. (shrink)

I revise J L Mackie's first account of casual direction by replacing his notion of "fixity" by a newly defined notion of "sufficing" that is designed to accommodate indeterminism. Keeping Mackie's distinction between casual order and casual direction, I then consider another revision that replaces "fixity" with "one-way conditionship". In response to the charge that all such accounts of casual priority beg the question by making an unjustified appeal to temporal priority, i maintain that one-way conditionship explains rather that assumes (...) objective temporal dependence as well as objective casual dependence. (shrink)

Could space consist entirely of extended regions, without any regions shaped like points, lines, or surfaces? Peter Forrest and Frank Arntzenius have independently raised a paradox of size for space like this, drawing on a construction of Cantor’s. I present a new version of this argument and explore possible lines of response.

Most people have a sense of obligation to family members that is more powerful than the law in compelling compliance with its demands. When families dissolve, however, the power of such nonlegal norms often dissolves as well. The question then becomes what the law should require in their stead. This Article is part of a larger series of studies that have examined this question by asking what citizens believe the law should demand, using surveys of persons called to jury service (...) in Tucson, Arizona. Respondents are asked to imagine they are the judge charged with deciding a series of cases in which the facts are systematically varied so as to reveal the implicit principles that survey respondents employ in deciding them. Previously reported results in this project have examined studies of the amount of child support that people believe appropriate, and how they believe child custody disputes should be resolved. This study examines lay views about alimony. It finds considerable divergence between American law in practice and the views of American citizens as to what the law should be. Survey respondents were willing to award alimony considerably more often than the law now does. More clearly, in deciding whether to allow an alimony award, they care most of all about the claimant’s responsibility as primary caretaker of the couple’s minor children, to some extent about the partners’ marital status and their relational duration, and very little at all about the claimant’s history of having cared for the couple’s now-grown children. Moreover, the way these factors affect our respondents’ judgments about alimony are not very dependent on who they are. Our respondents did vary among themselves, of course, in the frequency with which they allowed alimony, but they varied relatively little in how factors such as marriage, relational duration, the presence of minor children or the history of care for now-grown children affected their judgments. The citizen consensus reflected by these patterns differs, however, from the prevailing legal rules, the views of many scholars, and the recommendations of the American Law Institute. This striking discrepancy is interesting although not always surprising. Our respondents’ willingness to award alimony to non-marital partners, for example, is consistent with the law of some other Western countries, even if not with American law, suggesting perhaps that it is American law, not our respondents, that is peculiar. Perhaps it is also understandable that our respondents seem more concerned with the welfare of the couple’s current minor children than with addressing perceived inequities in the current economic circumstances of the adult partners. In any event, the views of our respondents pose a challenge to policymakers. Given the dearth of theoretical justification for current American practice, its rejection by American citizens seems all the more telling. (shrink)

World problems are intercultural, requiring sensitivity to cultural integrity in order to resolve them. Wu Kuang-ming has been grappling with cultural clashes at their boundary for half a century, insisting that we must first let Chinese thinking be Chinese, not Western, leading thereby to a truly fruitful China-West and West-China interculture. Wu has been proposing how to do so in a dozen published volumes and beyond. China-West Interculture reports Wu's personal and academic journey on this matter, followed by fourteen international (...) scholars' critical appreciations and Wu's grateful responses. (shrink)

Hume, in "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", holds (1) that all causal reasoning is based on experience and (2) that causal reasoning is based on nothing but experience. (1) does not imply (2), and Hume's good reasons for (1) are not good reasons for (2). This essay accepts (1) and argues against (2). A priori reasoning plays a role in causal inference. Familiar examples from Hume and from classroom examples of sudden disappearances and radical changes do not show otherwise. A (...) priori causal reasoning is closely related to understanding causal mechanisms. One uncovers the intelligibility of a causal process by understanding its mechanism. (shrink)

In "Causes and "If P, Even If X, still Q," Philosophy 57 (July 1982), Ted Honderich cites my "The Direction of Causation and the Direction of Conditionship," journal of Philosophy 73 (April 22, 1976) as an example of an account of causal priority that lacks the proper character. After emending Honderich's description of the proper character, I argue that my attempt to account for one-way causation in terms of one-way causal conditionship does not totally lack it. Rather than emphasize the (...) singularity of an effect, as Honderich does, I emphasize the multiplicity of independent factors in a causal circumstance. (shrink)

McTaggart argues that the A series, which orders events with reference to past, present, and future, involves an inescapable contradiction. The significant difference between the earlier version of his argument (Mind, 1908) and the version in The Nature of Existence, Volume II, Chapter 33 (1927), has often gone unnoticed. His arguments are all invalid; the conclusion can be rejected without rejecting any premiss. It is therefore unnecessary to adopt any philosophical thesis about time (e.g., that some token-reflexive analysis of tensed (...) statements is adequate) to avoid McTaggart's final conclusion that time is unreal. (shrink)

Scholars and practitioners addressing the global food crisis have rarely incorporated perspectives from the world's religious traditions. This lacuna appears in multiple dimensions: until recently, environmentalists have tended to ignore food and agriculture; food justice advocates have focused on food quantities, rather than its method of production; and few scholars of religion have considered agriculture. Faith-based perspectives typically emphasize the dignity and sanctity of creation and offer holistic frameworks that integrate equity, economic, and environmental concerns, often called the three legs (...) of sustainability. Faith-based perspectives can provide new paradigms through which to assess food, consumption, and production and the attendant social relations; assess our scientific, economic, and social approaches; and acknowledge the moral and religious dimensions of the world food crisis. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, first, that the most influential (and perhaps only acceptable) account of the epistemology of self-knowledge, developed and defended at great length in Wright (1989b) and (1989c) (among other places), leaves unanswered a question about the psychology of self-knowledge; second, that without an answer to this question about the psychology of self-knowledge, the epistemic account cannot be considered acceptable; and third, that neither Wright's own answer, nor an interpretation-based answer (based on a proposal from Jacobsen (1997)), (...) will suffice as an acceptable answer to the psychological question. My general ambition is thus to establish that more work is needed if we are to have a full account of self-knowledge in both its epistemological and psychological aspects. I conclude by suggesting how my thesis bears on those who aim to provide an empirical account of the cognition involved in self-knowledge. (shrink)

A study of contemporary philosophical and neuroscientific perspectives on the relation of action, perception, and cognition as it is lived in embodied and socially embedded experience.