Realism is often characterized by the claim that sentences are true or false in virtue of their ‘fit’ with reality. However, philosophers motivated by the deflationary view of truth argue that the formulation and defense of realism does not require a substantial conception of truth. The role of truth in stating and defendingrealism can be accounted for in terms of its being a device for expressing generalizations. I sketch the outline of an argument against this position. I begin with the (...) deflationary view of truth and its relevance for realism. I argue that the deflationary view of truth does not show that truth is only being used as a device for expressing generalizations. I then argue that a robust conception of truth is needed to make sense of the objectivity dimension of realism and for the realist explanation of how language contributes to our success in achieving our goals. (shrink)

A notable feature of paradox is recognition that seemingly contradictory terms are inextricably intertwined and interrelated—holding out the hope that something new can be learned from the cognitive tension contained within. Aram has characterized the central concern of the business and society field as the paradox of interdependent relations. Our study argues that this and related paradoxes can be addressed by engaging with others and trying to gain shared insight via an interactive, developmental, exploratory sensemaking process that can inform the (...) governance of stakeholder networks. We advocate multistakeholder learning dialogues (MSLDs) as a means for both scholars and practitioners to construct meanings that can guide joint efforts to cope with messy problems that help shape complex, paradoxical relationships within stakeholder networks. (shrink)

Intuitively, the concept of truth occupies a substantive role in explaining the contribution of our linguistic utterances to the success of our ordinary actions. However, this claim has been denied recently by advocates of deflationary theories of truth. Although the technical details of the various deflationary theories differ, these theories agree in claiming that the concept of truth does not have a significant role in explaining success and that the utility of the truth predicate consists mainly in its being a (...) device for expressing infinite conjunctions and disjunctions. This paper argues that deflationary accounts of the utility of truth are mistaken. Section 1 outlines a direction for developing the claim that truth plays a substantive role in explaining success. Section 2 argues that deflationary accounts of success are inadequate since they fail to distinguish between the triggering and structuring causes of an event. (shrink)

Although the recent push toward sustainability is certainly generally a positive development in business and society, we can see many problems in the execution of the theory of sustainability. Where the triple bottom line calls on companies to weigh effects on stakeholders and the environment alongside profit, in practice in many cases, sustainability has been perverted to represent sustainable profits. In these cases, environmental impact and effects on people are only important insofar as they positively contribute to a firm‘s future (...) profits. It is not only practitioners who have often espoused this misappropriated view of sustainability but also academics have lent credibility to this view. In this work, we start by criticizing the often espoused current view of sustainability and remind academics of their responsibility to adapt a more critical view of this narrow focus. We provide examples that show how the current system of capitalism has resulted in outcomes for people and the environment that are patently unacceptable. Reasons are given as to why there is much hesitation to change the status quo. We then call on academics to reexamine what the role of businesses should be within society, what obligations business and corporations should have in society, and how we can encourage meaningful change that results in a better world for future generations. (shrink)

This study examines whether sanctions imposed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission against individual auditors result in greater auditor conservatism. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we find that clients of sanctioned individual auditors have lower discretionary accruals in the post-sanction period than in the pre-sanction period when compared to a matched control group of clients audited by individual auditors who were not sanctioned. Our findings suggest that sanctions imposed by the CSRC on individual auditors can lead to improvements in audit (...) quality by increasing the conservatism of the sanctioned auditors. That is, individual auditors are more likely to resist their clients’ income-increasing accounting manipulations after being sanctioned by the CSRC. (shrink)

PREFACE PART I METAPHYSICS Review of John McDowell’s Mind and World Special Sciences: Still Autonomous after All These Years Conclusion Acknowledgment Notes PART II CONCEPTS Review of Christopher Peacocke’s A Study of Concepts Notes There Are No Recognitional Concepts--Not Even RED Introduction Compositionality Why Premise P is Plausible Objections Conclusion Afterword Acknowledgment Notes There Are No Recognitional Concepts--Not Even RED, Part 2: The Plot Thickens Introduction: The Story ’til Now Compositonality and Learnability Notes Do We Think in Mentalese? Remarks on (...) Some Arguments of Peter Carruthers Appendix: Higher-Order Thoughts Notes Review of A. W. Moore’s Points of View PART III COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE Review of Paul Churchland’s The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul Connectionism and the Problem of Systematicity: Why Smolensky’s Solution Doesn’t Work Introduction I The Systematicity Problem and Its Classical Solution II Weak Compositionality III Strong Compositional Structure Conclusion Notes Connectionism and the Problem of Systematicity : Why Smolensky’s Solution Still Doesn’t Work Stage 1: Classical Theories The Connection with The Connection with Stage 2: Smolenksy Architectures Stage 3: Why Smolensky’s Solution Still Doesn’t Work Digression on singing and sailing Acknowledgment Notes There and Back Again: A Review of Annette Karmiloff-Smith’s Beyond Modularity 1. Encapsulation 2. Inaccessibility 3. Domain specificity 4. Innateness Conclusion Notes Review of Jeff Elman et al., Rethinking Innateness Brainlikeness Interactions Representational Nativism Empiricism Review of Steven Mithen’s The Prehistory of the Mind PART IV PHILOSOPHICAL DARWINISM Review of Richard Dawkins’s Climbing Mount Improbable Deconstructing Dennett’s Darwin Introduction Adaptation Adaptation and Teleology Deconstruction Notes Is Science Biologically Possible? Comments on Some Arguments of Patricia Churchland and of Alvin Plantinga Acknowledgment Notes Review of Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works and Henry Plotkin’s Evolution in Mind Computation Massive modularity Innateness Psychological Darwinism. (shrink)

In my book How the Mind Works, I defended the theory that the human mind is a naturally selected system of organs of computation. Jerry Fodor claims that ‘the mind doesn’t work that way’(in a book with that title) because (1) Turing Machines cannot duplicate humans’ ability to perform abduction (inference to the best explanation); (2) though a massively modular system could succeed at abduction, such a system is implausible on other grounds; and (3) evolution adds nothing to our (...) understanding of the mind. In this review I show that these arguments are flawed. First, my claim that the mind is a computational system is different from the claim Fodor attacks (that the mind has the architecture of a Turing Machine); therefore the practical limitations of Turing Machines are irrelevant. Second, Fodor identifies abduction with the cumulative accomplishments of the scientific community over millennia. This is very different from the accomplishments of human common sense, so the supposed gap between human cognition and computational models may be illusory. Third, my claim about biological specialization, as seen in organ systems, is distinct from Fodor's own notion of encapsulated modules, so the limitations of the latter are irrelevant. Fourth, Fodor's arguments dismissing of the relevance of evolution to psychology are unsound. (shrink)

This topically organized, interdisciplinary anthology provides competing perspective on the claim that western culture faces a moral crisis. Using clearly written, accessible essays by well-known authors in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities, the book introduces students to a variety of perspectives on the current cultural debate about values that percolates beneath the surface of most of our social and political controversies.

The epistemic foundation of Hellenic-Christian thought is based on a correspondence between thought and a single reality, but the epistemic foundation of Jewish thought stresses the creative act of perspectival interpretation of an absolute text. This stress on wisdom from extracting a multiplicity of contextualized understandings of an absolute can be seen in the writings of the great rabbis, but also in the work of Jerry Seinfeld. Where Talmudic thought takes as its basis, passages of the Torah as its (...) source of truth to interpret, Seinfeld’s stand-up is neo-Talmudic in using a different source – phenomenological commonalty (our shared experience) – as its basis. The move from the stage to the small screen changed the comedy of Seinfeld as his eponymous television program now lampoons the sort of neo-Talmudic thought of his stand-up material just as the classic rabbis of Chelm jokes mock Talmudic thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In MemoriamSteven Nadler, PresidentIt is with deep sadness that the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc., mourn the passing of Gerald Press, who died suddenly on December 26, 2022, at the age of seventy-seven.Jerry was a longtime member of the JHP Board. He was book review editor for the Journal from 1990 to 1997, and editor from 1998 to 2003. He also (...) served terms as treasurer and vice president.Jerry received his PhD in 1974 from the University of California-San Diego, where he worked with Richard Popkin (who established the Journal in 1957). He was a professor of philosophy at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center for forty years and proud chair of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program from 2012 to 2020. A specialist in ancient Greek philosophy, Jerry was the author of Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed (2007), as well as numerous articles and reviews. He was also editor of the volumes Plato's Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations (1993); Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity (2000); and The Continuum Guide to Plato (2012).A passionate teacher, dedicated mentor, and learned scholar, Jerry was warm, generous, and totally unpretentious. He will be greatly missed by his many students, colleagues, and friends. Our condolences go out to his family. [End Page 1]Copyright © 2023 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, it is been common to hear the mind likened to a digital computer. This essay is concerned with a particular philosophical view that holds that the mind literally is a digital computer (in a specific sense of “computer” to be developed), and that thought literally is a kind of computation. This view—which will be called the “Computational Theory of Mind” (CTM)—is thus to be distinguished from other and broader attempts to connect the mind with computation, (...) including (a) various enterprises at modeling features of the mind using computational modeling techniques, and (b) employing some feature or features of production-model computers (such as the stored program concept, or the distinction between hardware and software) merely as a guiding metaphor for understanding some feature of the mind. This entry is therefore concerned solely with the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) proposed by Hilary Putnam [1961] and developed most notably for philosophers by Jerry Fodor [1975, 1980, 1987, 1993]. The senses of ‘computer’ and ‘computation’ employed here are technical; the main tasks of this entry will therefore be to elucidate: (a) the technical sense of ‘computation’ that is at issue, (b) the ways in which it is claimed to be applicable to the mind, (c) the philosophical problems this understanding of the mind is claimed to solve, and (d) the major criticisms that have accrued to this view. (shrink)

In Independent Judgment and Introspection: Fundamental Requirements of the Free Society, Jerry Kirkpatrick maintains that a free society can exist only when a sufficient number of people have healthy psycho-epistemologies. He identifies fundamental aspects in our culture that work against this end. Building on the work of Objectivist psychologist Edith Packer, he presents a process for improving one's psycho-epistemology. Kirkpatrick also traces the history of child-rearing practices and relates the process of change to the work of many other psychologists (...) including Horney, Freud, Ellis, and Rogers. (shrink)

In my book How the Mind Works, I defended the theory that the human mind is a naturally selected system of organs of computation. Jerry Fodor claims that 'the mind doesn't work that way'(in a book with that title) because (1) Turing Machines cannot duplicate humans' ability to perform abduction (inference to the best explanation); (2) though a massively modular system could succeed at abduction, such a system is implausible on other grounds; and (3) evolution adds nothing to our (...) understanding of the mind. In this review I show that these arguments are flawed. First, my claim that the mind is a computational system is different from the claim Fodor attacks (that the mind has the architecture of a Turing Machine); therefore the practical limitations of Turing Machines are irrelevant. Second, Fodor identifies abduction with the cumulative accomplishments of the scientific community over millennia. This is very different from the accomplishments of human common sense, so the supposed gap between human cognition and computational models may be illusory. Third, my claim about biological specialization, as seen in organ systems, is distinct from Fodor's own notion of encapsulated modules, so the limitations of the latter are irrelevant. Fourth, Fodor's arguments dismissing of the relevance of evolution to psychology are unsound. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Efficacious Grace and Free Will:Six Inadequate ArgumentsSteven J. JensenDuring the de auxiliis controversies, the idea of efficacious grace was used extensively as an attempt to explain the manner in which God infallibly achieves his will at the level of supernatural grace. One meaning of efficacious grace has often been considered inconsistent with the idea of free will. The inconsistency—if there is any—depends upon a particular meaning, according to which (...) efficacious grace has three important characteristics: it is an infallible physical pre-motion. (1) Efficacious grace is "physical" because it moves after the manner of an efficient cause rather than after the manner of a final cause (which would be called a "moral" motion).1 (2) The motion is prior (or a pre-motion) because it causally precedes the act of the will to which it gives rise. Finally, (3) the motion is infallible because that toward which it moves the will in every case must be achieved.Suppose, for instance, that God gives Jerry an efficacious grace to help Jane, who is in need. The grace is not merely the enticement of some good (a moral movement), but is the movement of an efficient cause, after the manner by which fire heats water. Furthermore, the grace is efficacious prior to Jerry's actual choice and does not depend upon his will for its efficacy. Finally, once Jerry is moved by this grace, he will of necessity (or infallibly) choose to help Jane.In what follows, references to efficacious grace will refer to this particular [End Page 115] understanding, with these three characteristics. Other conceptions of efficacious grace, such as that given by Jacques Maritain, are not relevant to this paper.2The combination of these three characteristics is sometimes thought to be inconsistent with a particular understanding of free will, according to which the will is the only created cause that determines itself to its final action. Since efficacious grace is a created cause (and not the divine will), since it is an efficient cause, since it is causally antecedent to the final act of the will, and since it determines the will to act, it is inconsistent with free will. Or so the argument goes, at any rate. Whatever the details of this argument, most people will concede that there is, at the very least, an intuitive inconsistency between free will and efficacious grace. To be moved infallibly by an efficient cause seems incompatible with the movement of the will, the agency of which is free, and which therefore is not moved determinately to some effect.3Those who wish to defend efficacious grace have advanced a contrary claim—that efficacious grace is consistent with human free will—which might be called the Consistency Thesis. Apparent inconsistencies are nothing more than apparent. In defense of the Consistency Thesis, a multiplicity of Thomistic arguments are offered by authors such as Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Steven Long, and Taylor O'Neill.This paper is concerned to show neither the truth nor the falsity of the Consistency Thesis. Rather, it considers six of the arguments defending the thesis and finds all of them wanting. Whatever their merits for other purposes (and often their merits are great), these arguments are inadequate to the task of defending the Consistency Thesis. They are often not bad arguments; they are simply insufficient. They are not enough to show a consistency between efficacious grace and free will. This goal, although modest, is significant, for when confronted with the six arguments readers can be left with the impression that the question is settled. [End Page 116]The Problem ClarifiedThe enemies of efficacious grace suggest the following implication: if the will is moved to act by an infallible physical pre-motion, then the will is determined. The Consistency Thesis may be defended by denying the implication. Even when moved by an infallible physical pre-motion such as efficacious grace (so the defense will argue), the will can remain undetermined. All the arguments discussed below (if they are indeed arguments in defense of the Consistency Thesis) take this approach, although the fourth argument does so only in a very indirect manner.The first argument claims... (shrink)

Over the past several decades, the philosophical community has witnessed the emergence of an important new paradigm for understanding the mind.1 The paradigm is that of machine computation, and its influence has been felt not only in philosophy, but also in all of the empirical disciplines devoted to the study of cognition. Of the several strategies for applying the resources provided by computer and cognitive science to the philosophy of mind, the one that has gained the most attention from philosophers (...) has been the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). CTM was first articulated by Hilary Putnam (1960, 1961), but finds perhaps its most consistent and enduring advocate in Jerry Fodor (1975, 1980, 1981, 1987, 1990, 1994). It is this theory, and not any broader interpretations of what it would be for the mind to be a computer, that I wish to address in this paper. What I shall argue here is that the notion of symbolic representation employed by CTM is fundamentally unsuited to providing an explanation of the intentionality of mental states (a major goal of CTM), and that this result undercuts a second major goal of CTM, sometimes refered to as the vindication of intentional psychology. This line of argument is related to the discussions of derived intentionality by Searle (1980, 1983, 1984) and Sayre (1986, 1987). But whereas those discussions seem to be concerned with the causal dependence of familiar sorts of symbolic representation upon meaning-bestowing acts, my claim is rather that there is not one but several notions of meaning to be had, and that the notions that are applicable to symbols are conceptually dependent upon the notion that is applicable to mental states in the fashion that Aristotle refered to as paronymy. That is, an analysis of the notions of meaning applicable to symbols reveals that they contain presuppositions about meaningful mental states, much as Aristotle's analysis of the sense of healthy that is applied to foods reveals that it means conducive to having a healthy body, and hence any attempt to explain mental semantics in terms of the semantics of symbols is doomed to circularity and regress. I shall argue, however, that this does not have the consequence that computationalism is bankrupt as a paradigm for cognitive science, as it is possible to reconstruct CTM in a fashion that avoids these difficulties and makes it a viable research framework for psychology, albeit at the cost of losing its claims to explain intentionality and to vindicate intentional psychology. I have argued elsewhere (Horst, 1996) that local special sciences such as psychology do not require vindication in the form of demonstrating their reducibility to more fundamental theories, and hence failure to make good on these philosophical promises need not compromise the broad range of work in empirical cognitive science motivated by the computer paradigm in ways that do not depend on these problematic treatments of symbols. (shrink)

The present essay elaborates upon some of the important constituent elements of the classical universalist tradition, documented in detail by Ilaria Ramelli’s recent research, in dialog with Oliver Crisp and Jerry Walls, two contemporary objectors to the doctrine of different backgrounds. Its central claim is that the classical universalist tradition can respond to and accommodate the concerns of its objectors while maintaining the firm conviction of the eventual universal salvation.

Fiona Cowie’s What’s Within consists of three parts. In the first, she examines the early modern rationalist-empiricist debate over nativism, isolating what she considers the two substantive “strands” that truly separated them: whether there exist domain-specific learning mechanisms, and whether concept acquisition is amenable to naturalistic explanation. She then turns, in the book’s succeeding parts, to where things stand today with these issues. The second part argues that Jerry Fodor’s view of concepts is continuous with traditional nativism in that (...) it precludes a naturalistic story of concept acquisition. Cowie objects, however, to Fodor’s path to this conclusion and thus sees no reason to endorse it. The third part assesses Chomskyan nativism as a contemporary instance of positing domain-specific learning mechanisms. Though she is highly critical of how “poverty of the stimulus” arguments and the like have been used to lend credence to stronger conclusions, she holds that such arguments do indeed support the nativist’s domain-specificity claim. Cowie’s reconsideration of nativism thus limits itself to concepts and language. The terrain she does cover, however, is vast; and Cowie’s illuminating discussions will stimulate anyone interested in the area. As I focus on a few large-scale qualms in what follows, let me mention in particular that much of what is of interest in Cowie’s book is to be found in her detailed consideration of specific arguments. (shrink)

Jerry Walls has attempted to make the case that no orthodox Christian should embrace compatibilism. We responded to his arguments, challenging four key premises. In his most recent response, Walls argues that none of our rebuttals to these premises succeed. Here we clarify aspects of our previous arguments and show that Walls has not in fact undermined our defense of Christian compatibilism.

Under what conditions do you have a reason to perform some action? Do you only have reason to do what you want to do? Reasons-motives internalism is the appealingly simple view that unless an agent is, or could be, motivated to act in a certain way, he has no normative reason to act in that way. Thus, according to reasons-motives internalism, facts about an individual’s motivational psychology constrain what is rational for that agent to do. This article canvasses several ways (...) of formulating the view and considers some advantages and disadvantages of each. (shrink)

Although Paul Churchland and Jerry Fodor both subscribe to the so-called theory-theory– the theory that folk psychology (FP) is an empirical theory of behavior – they disagree strongly about FP’s fate. Churchland contends that FP is a fundamentally flawed view analogous to folk biology, and he argues that recent advances in computational neuroscience and connectionist AI point toward development of a scientifically respectable replacement theory that will give rise to a new common-sense psychology. Fodor, however, wagers that FP will (...) be largely preserved and vindicated by scientific investigations of behavior. Recent findings by developmental psychologists, I argue, will push both Churchlandians and Fodorians toward the pessimistic view that FP is a misguided theory that will never be displaced, because it is, so to speak, built into our cognitive systems. I explore the possibility of preserving optimism by rejecting the theory-theory and adopting the simulation theory, a competing view developed by Robert Gordon, Alvin Goldman, and Jane Heal. According to simulationists, common-sense interpretation of behavior is accomplished by means of pretense-like operations that deploy the cognitive system’s own reasoning capabilities in a disengaged manner. Since on this view no theory-like set of principles would be needed, the simulation theory seems to enjoy a simplicity advantage over the theory-theory. Steven Stich and Shawn Nichols, however, contend that as the cognitive system would require special mechanisms for disengaged operation, the simplicity question cannot be resolved until suitable computational models are developed. I describe a set of models I have constructed to meet this need, and I discuss the contribution such models can make to determining FP’s fate. (shrink)

The burden of the present essay is to argue in favor of a proposition which is obviously true: that hypothesis choice in science is largely a rational procedure. This proposition needs arguing for because there is no philosophical theory, generally accepted as adequate, which explains why science is, or explains how science can be, rational. The main obstacles to an acceptable philosophical theory on this matter are the problems of induction . These problems seem to tell us that no amount (...) of evidence can in any way raise the probability or increase the rational believability of any hypothesis not implied by the evidence. The approach taken here is to give up on solving the problems of induction and to attempt to explain scientific rationality on some other basis. There are three main elements of this theory: rational hypothesis choice is explicated as rational acceptance of hypotheses, rather than belief; pragmatic criteria are employed to limit--always tentatively--the hypotheses under consideration; choice among hypotheses is to be made in accordance with rules that have the following property: if the true hypothesis is under consideration, then the probability of choosing the true hypothesis is greater than 0.5. Such rules correspond to what are called hypothesis testing situations in statistics. The theory is illustrated and developed through a number of examples. (shrink)

The "great debate" in cognitive science today is about the nature of mental images. One side says images are basically pictures in the head. The other side says they are like the symbol structures in computers. If the picture-in-the-head theorists are right, then computers will never be able to think like people.This book contains the most intelligible and incisive articles in the debate, articles by cognitive psychologists, computer scientists and philosophers. The most exciting imagery phenomena are described, phenomena that indicate (...) that mental images can be rotated and scanned, that smaller images are harder to see than larger ones, that when mental images are made larger they eventually overflow, that the "screen" they overflow from has a determinable shape (elliptical), and that this "screen" subtends a determinate visual angle, the angle of vision of the mind's eye.Such experiments cry out for explanation. If images are pictures in the head, who (or what) looks at them? Why haven't brain scientists found them? Such questions are the subject of the great debate.IMAGERY is an excellent choice for courses in cognitive psychology, perception: artificial intelligence, computer science; philosophy of mind, of psychology and of science; minds and machines, science and society.Contributors include: Roger Brown and Richard Herrnstein (on the work of Roger N. Shepard), Daniel Dennett, Jerry Fodor, Robert Schwartz, Stephen Kosslyn, Steven Pinker, George Smith, Steven Shwartz, and Zenon Pylyshyn,. (shrink)

Special relativity is said to prohibit faster-than-light (superluminal) signaling, yet controversy regularly arises as to whether this or that physical phenomenon violates the prohibition. I argue that the controversy is a result of a lack of clarity as to what it means to ‘signal’, and I propose a criterion. I show that according to this criterion, superluminal signaling is not prohibited by special relativity.

Bovine tuberculosis is an important animal health policy issue in Britain, which impacts farmers, the public, domestic farmed cattle and the wild badger population. The Westminster government’s badger culling policy in England, which began in 2013, has caused considerable controversy. This is in part because the Independent Scientific Group advised against culling, based on the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Those opposed to badger culling support more stringent cattle-based measures and the vaccination of badgers. This paper argues for ethical analysis of (...) public policy options which impact sentient species. It provides a summary Animal Welfare Impact Assessment of a do-nothing approach, badger culling, and badger vaccination. A utilitarian analysis is then applied to these policy options considering human wellbeing and animal welfare. The analysis compares a badger culling policy that achieves a 19% reduction in bovine TB incidence, a badger vaccination model achieving a 12.5% reduction, and a do-nothing approach. Policy options are assessed over 9 years and a longer timeframe, and uncertainty is considered. The analysis finds that non-culling approaches, particularly badger vaccination, result in greater total utility, compared to badger culling. Badger culling causes 30% reduction in the badger population in England as well as substantial harms due to the culling process. Culling is opposed by public opinion and is associated with considerable risks and uncertainty. In contrast, non-culling approaches, such as cattle-based measures and badger vaccination, are supported by public opinion and are not associated with such risks. (shrink)

Joanna Crosby and Dianna Taylor: The theme of this special section of Foucault Studies, “Foucauldian Spaces,” emerged out of the 2016 meeting of the Foucault Circle, where the four of you were participants. Each of the three individual papers contained in the special section critically deploys and/or reconceptualizes an aspect of Foucault’s work that engages and offers particular insight into the construction, experience, and utilization of space. We’d like to ask the four of you to reflect on what makes a (...) space Foucauldian, and whether or not you’d consider the space created by the convergence of and intellectual exchanges among an international group of Foucault scholars at the University of New South Wales in the summer of 2016 to be Foucauldian. (shrink)

v. 1. A doctrine of divine illumination -- v. 2. God at the core of cognition.

Heine provides new insight into Dogen's philosophy as seen in the "Uji" chapter of Dogen's Shorogenzo. The book features a new annotated translation of the "Uji" and a glossary of Japanese terms.

Leibniz in Paris -- Philosophy on the Left Bank -- Le Grand Arnauld -- Theodicy -- The kingdoms of nature and grace -- Touch the mountains and they smoke -- The eternal truths -- The specter of Spinoza.

This paper investigates the philosophy of the eighteenth-century German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), situating his views in the context of early-modern views of the self, and providing an interpretation and assessment of his remarks on self-consciousness and personal identity in his Waste Books. In these remarks, which include his famous observation that we are warranted only in saying “it thinks” rather than “I think,” Lichtenberg criticizes the rationalist metaphysics of the soul for confusing conceivability with cognizability and argues that (...) we cannot know ourselves to be a persisting substantial self on the basis of the observations of inner sense. We are justified only in claiming that the self is a series of interrelated conscious representations and sensations. Lichtenberg’s rejection of the substantial self in favor of this view of the self also leads him to conclude in other remarks that personal identity consists in the continuity of consciousness produced by memory regardless of the material basis upon which consciousness supervenes. (shrink)