Book reviewed in this article: Encounters Between Patients and Doctors: An Anthology. By John D. Stoeckle.

While there is no universal logic of induction, the probability calculus succeeds as a logic of induction in many contexts through its use of several notions concerning inductive inference. They include Addition, through which low probabilities represent disbelief as opposed to ignorance; and Bayes property, which commits the calculus to a ‘refute and rescale’ dynamics for incorporating new evidence. These notions are independent and it is urged that they be employed selectively according to needs of the problem at hand. It (...) is shown that neither is adapted to inductive inference concerning some indeterministic systems. (shrink)

What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is, I argue, commonly misrepresented in teaching within much of the philosophical academy. Yet those immersed in the field of natural law and ethics rarely give definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical. I suggest theoretical reasons for the lack. I argue that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, not simply collections of positions detachable from each other: an overlooked and significant point (...) when defending natural law ethical accounts. My arguments throughout rely on the metaethical/normative ethical distinction, which is relatively little used in the natural law literature. I argue that the distinction helps clarify what is distinctive of natural law ethical accounts in general, especially to the secular contemporary philosophical academy, where appreciation of natural law ethical accounts is commonly appreciably lower than in philosophical contexts with a religious ethos. (shrink)

To account for a perceived distinction it is necessary to postulate a real distinction. Our process of experiencing the world is one of, mostly unconscious, interpretation of observed distinctions to provide us with a partial world-picture that is sufficient to guide action. The distinctions, themselves, are acorrigible (they do not have a truth value), directly perceived, structured, and capable of being interpreted. Interpreted experience is corrigible, representational and capable of guiding action. Since interpretation is carried out mostly unconsciously and in (...) real time, the two aspects are present in experience together so that it is difficult to separate them out. (shrink)

The inaugural volume of the series, devoted to the work of philosopher Adolf Grünbaum, encompasses the philosophical problems of space, time, and cosmology, the ...

This essay argues that the affective component inherent in the enthymeme is the essence of aristotle's concept of the enthymeme as practical reasoning. 'affective component' refers to emotions and feelings. The three proofs of the thesis are the etymology of 'enthymeme', Aristotle's works on human action and practical wisdom, And aristotle's rhetoric. These sources show the inherent relation between enthymemes and phronesis, Or practical reasoning, Not nous, Or abstract intellect.

in Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness edited by Zelazo P., Moscovitch M. and Thompson E. (2007).

The overall goal of this essay is to explore the initial findings of neuroscientific research on meditation; in doing so, the essay also suggests potential avenues of further inquiry. The essay consists of three sections that, while integral to the essay as a whole, may also be read independently. The first section, “Defining Meditation,” notes the need for a more precise understanding of meditation as a scientific explanandum. Arguing for the importance of distinguishing the particularities of various traditions, the section (...) presents the theory of meditation from the paradigmatic perspective of Buddhism, and it discusses the difficulties encountered when working with such theories. The section includes an overview of three practices that have been the subject of research, and it.. (shrink)

This book explores the intimate connections, conflicts and discontinuities between religion and philosophy in the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions from Antiquity to the early Medieval period. It presents a broader comparative view of Platonism by examining the strong Platonist resonances among different philosophical/religious traditions, primarily Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu, and suggests many new ways of thinking about the relation between these two fields or disciplines that have in modern times become such distinct and, at times, entirely separate domains.

Physicians have special professional obligations to respond to medical emergencies. A bioterrorism attack would be a medical emergency. Thus, it seems that physicians would have an obligation to respond to a bioterrorist attack. However, the scope of those obligations, and their limits, are vexed topics. General rules may be comforting but the details and nuances of particular situations will always be relevant.

Written in the form it discusses, _Reorienting Rhetoric _is both a narrative weaving out of a theme and a systematic treatment of a set of these ideas. The theme is the role of narration in the history of Western rhetoric. The ideas include the gradual tendency to privilege only systematic language, to discard all traditional modes of thinking, and to view narrative as an object but not as a means of thinking. _Reorienting Rhetoric_ argues that narration is a mode of (...) thinking as important as logic and that as narration goes, so goes rhetoric. O'Banion's perspective is heavily indebted to Quintilian, whose rhetorical question captures the essence of rhetorical thinking: "What difference is there between a proof and a statement of facts [narratio] save that the latter is a proof put forward in continuous form, while a proof is a verification of the facts as put forward in the statement?" Because narration has largely been ignored as a mode of thinking, O'Banion considers the gradually truncated role of narration in Western rhetorical, philosophical, and literary history; the resurgence of the importance of narrative in the twentieth century, especially in the work of Kenneth Burke; and the contributions of scholars in a variety of disciplines to understanding the importance of narrative and the limitations of logic for their fields of study and, inadvertently, for rhetoric. (shrink)

The essays in this book, by a variety of leading Augustine scholars, examine not only Augustine's multifaceted philosophy and its relation to his epoch-making theology, but also his practice as a philosopher, as well as his relation to other philosophers both before and after him. Thus the collection shows that Augustine's philosophy remains an influence and a provocation in a wide variety of settings today.

Aggressive therapies and the manipulation of life are now commonly applied to children, often including neonates and children who cannot express their consent. This text discusses a range of bioethical dilemmas concerning children and medicine.

An infinite lottery machine is used as a foil for testing the reach of inductive inference, since inferences concerning it require novel extensions of probability. Its use is defensible if there is some sense in which the lottery is physically possible, even if exotic physics is needed. I argue that exotic physics is needed and describe several proposals that fail and at least one that succeeds well enough.

Ever since Copernicus, scientists have continually adjusted their view of human nature, moving it further and further from its ancient position at the center of Creation. But in recent years, a startling new concept has evolved that places it more firmly than ever in a special position. Known as the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, this collection of ideas holds that the existence of intelligent observers determines the fundamental structure of the Universe. In its most radical version, the Anthropic Principle asserts that (...) "intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and once it comes into existence, it will never die out." This wide-ranging and detailed book explores the many ramifications of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, covering the whole spectrum of human inquiry from Aristotle to Z bosons. Bringing a unique combination of skills and knowledge to the subject, John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler--two of the world's leading cosmologists--cover the definition and nature of life, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the interpretation of the quantum theory in relation to the existence of observers. The book will be of vital interest to philosophers, theologians, mathematicians, scientists, and historians, as well as to anyone concerned with the connection between the vastness of the universe of stars and galaxies and the existence of life within it on a small planet out in the suburbs of the Milky Way. (shrink)

The inaugural title in the new, Open Access series BSPS Open, The Material Theory of Induction will initiate a new tradition in the analysis of inductive inference. The fundamental burden of a theory of inductive inference is to determine which are the good inductive inferences or relations of inductive support and why it is that they are so. The traditional approach is modeled on that taken in accounts of deductive inference. It seeks universally applicable schemas or rules or a single (...) formal device, such as the probability calculus. After millennia of halting efforts, none of these approaches has been unequivocally successful and debates between approaches persist. The Material Theory of Induction identifies the source of these enduring problems in the assumption taken at the outset: that inductive inference can be accommodated by a single formal account with universal applicability. Instead, it argues that that there is no single, universally applicable formal account. Rather, each domain has an inductive logic native to it. Which that is, and its extent, is determined by the facts prevailing in that domain. Paying close attention to how inductive inference is conducted in science and copiously illustrated with real-world examples, The Material Theory of Induction will initiate a new tradition in the analysis of inductive inference. (shrink)

In books such as The World Within the World and The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, astronomer John Barrow has emerged as a leading writer on our efforts to understand the universe. Timothy Ferris, writing in The Times Literary Supplement of London, described him as "a temperate and accomplished humanist, scientist, and philosopher of science--a man out to make a contribution, not a show." Now Barrow offers the general reader another fascinating look at modern physics, as he explores the quest for (...) a single, unifying theory that will unlock nature's secrets. Theories of Everything is more than a history of science, more than a popular report on recent research and discoveries. Barrow provides a reflective, intelligent commentary on what a true Theory of Everything would be--its ingredients, its limitations, and what it could tell us about the universe. Never before, he writes, have physicists been so confident and so eager in the hunt for this "cosmic Rosetta Stone," as he calls it: "a single all-embracing picture of all the laws of nature from which the inevitability of all things seen must follow with unimpeachable logic." He lays out eight essential ingredients for a Theory of Everything and then explores each in turn, tracing how our knowledge has developed and how scientific discovery relates to our changing philosophy and religious thought in each area. Some of these ingredients are obvious--the laws of nature must be explained, for example, as well as its organizing principles--but others may be surprising, such as broken symmetries and selection biases. A Theory of Everything must account for the fact that the universe is "messy and complicated," he tells us, and for the limitations imposed by the questions we ask and the information we can obtain. The key lies in the remarkable capacity of mathematics to express the fundamental workings of the physical world--a language that the human mind is uniquely equipped to understand and manipulate. Barrow examines what mathematics actually is and describes how it makes the universe intelligible and provides a path to the underlying coherence in nature--which has led, in fact, to arguments that the universe itself is a vast computer. Yet even the most complete theory, even the most comprehensive mathematical explanation, cannot account for the uncomputable varieties of human experience and thought. "No non-poetic account of reality," he writes, "can be complete." In a field where the authorities converse in equations and mathematical notations, John Barrow speaks with the voice of thoughtful and knowledgeable humanist. Written with eloquence and expertise, Theories of Everything establishes a new perspective on humanity's efforts to explain the universe. (shrink)

Part I. Gnosticism and other religious movements of antiquity -- part II. Crossing boundaries : Gnosticism and Platonism.

Our likes and dislikes--our senses and sensibilities--did not fall ready-made from the sky, argues internationally acclaimed author John D. Barrow. We know we enjoy a beautiful painting or a passionate symphony, but what we don't necessarily understand is that these experiences conjure up latent instincts laid down and perpetuated over millions of years. Now, in The Artful Universe, Barrow explores the close ties between our aesthetic appreciation and the basic nature of the Universe, challenging the commonly held view that (...) our sense of beauty is entirely free and unfettered. Barrow argues that the laws of the Universe, its environments and its astronomical appearance, have imprinted themselves upon our thoughts and actions in subtle and unexpected ways. Why do we like certain types of art or music? What games and puzzles do we find challenging? Why do so many myths and legends have common elements? Who created the cornucopia of constellations in the night sky? And why? In this eclectic and entertaining survey, Barrow answers these questions and more as he explains how the landscape of the Universe has influenced the development of philosophy and mythology, and how millions of years of evolutionary history have fashioned our attraction to certain patterns of sound and color. Barrow casts the story of human creativity and thought in a fascinating light, considering such diverse topics as our instinct for language, the origins and uses of color in Nature, why we divide time into intervals as we do, the sources of our appreciation of landscape painting, and whether computer-generated fractal art is really art. Barrow reconsiders the question of whether intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, showing that the benefits (and even the likelihood) that might follow from the discovery of life on other worlds could be very different from what we might have been led to expect. Remarkably, we find that some of the properties of the Universe that are essential for the existence of any form of life play a key role in determining psychological and religious responses to the Cosmos. Drawing on a wide variety of examples, from the theological questions raised by St. Augustine and C.S. Lewis to the relationship between the pure math of Pythagoras and the music of the Beatles, The Artful Universe covers new ground and enters a wide-ranging debate about the meaning and significance of the links between art and science. It will change our view of the creation of art and the way we see the world in which we live. (shrink)

Will we ever discover a single scientific theory that explains everything that has ever happened and everything that will happen - a key that unlocks the ...

Class inclusion theory asserts that one cannot reverse the topic and vehicle of a metaphor and produce a new, meaningful metaphor that is based on the same interpretive ground. In 2 experiments we test that claim. In Study 1 we replicate the procedures employed by Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi (1997) that provided support for the assertion. However we now add experimental conditions in which the target metaphors, either with the topic and vehicle in its canonical order or reversed, are placed (...) in discourse contexts that provide support for a meaningful interpretation based on the same ground. In contrast to the prediction of class inclusion theory, fully 72% of the cases the reversed metaphors were rated as interpretable and interpretation was based on the same ground used in interpreting the metaphors in their canonical order. In Study 2, the online processing of the metaphors in context are examined in a word-by-word reading task. We find that canonical and reversed order metaphors were read at the same rate throughout and both sets exhibited the same reading patterns: increased reading time of the noun-phrase (NP) that contains the metaphoric vehicle and of the first word in the text that follows the metaphor. We take these data to indicate that nonreversibility cannot be taken as a necessary condition of metaphor. (shrink)

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that draws (...) both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

The advent of the general theory of relativity was so entirely the work of just one person - Albert Einstein - that we cannot but wonder how long it would have taken without him for the connection between gravitation and spacetime curvature to be discovered. What would have happened if there were no Einstein? Few doubt that a theory much like special relativity would have emerged one way or another from the researchers of Lorentz, Poincaré and others. But where would (...) the problem of relativizing gravitation have led? The saga told here shows how even the most conservative approach to relativizing gravitation theory still did lead out of Minkowski spacetime to connect gravitation to a curved spacetime. Unfortunately we still cannot know if this conclusion would have been drawn rapidly without Einstein's contribution. For what led Nordström to the gravitational field dependence of lengths and times was a very Einsteinian insistence on just the right version of the equality of inertial and gravitational mass. Unceasingly in Nordström's ear was the persistent and uncompromising voice of Einstein himself demanding that Nordström see the most distant consequences of his own theory. © 1992 Springer-Verlag. (shrink)

In Leo Szilard’s 1929 thought experiment, a Maxwell demon manipulates a one-molecule gas to reverse the second law of thermodynamics. The demon must fail, Szilard argued, since there is hidden entropy creation in the demon’s collecting of information. This thought experiment is an inconsistent muddle of improper idealizations. It diverted an already successful literature of exorcism into degenerating speculations about about a connection between thermodynamic entropy and information. These confusions persist today in a voluminous literature. Narrative conventions in a thought (...) experiment allow thought experimenters great latitude in deciding which processes are typical and bear generalization and which can be idealized away as incidental. For its abuse of this latitude and the extent of the harm it caused, this thought experiment merits the distinction of the worst thought experiment in science. (shrink)

John D. Caputo explores the very roots of religious thinking in this thought-provoking book. Compelling questions come up along the way: 'What do I love when I love my God?' and 'What can Star Wars tell us about the contemporary use of religion?' Why is religion for many a source of moral guidance in a postmodern, nihilistic age? Is it possible to have 'religion without religion'? Drawing on contemporary images of religion, such as Robert Duvall's film _The Apostle_, Caputo (...) also provides some fascinating and imaginative insights into religious fundamentalism. (shrink)

iinstein oered the prin™iple of gener—l ™ov—ri—n™e —s the fund—ment—l physi™—l prin™iple of his gener—l theory of rel—tivityD —nd —s responsi˜le for extending the prin™iple of rel—tivity to —™™eler—ted motionF „his view w—s disputed —lmost immedi—tely with the ™ounterE™l—im th—t the prin™iple w—s no rel—tivity prin™iple —nd w—s physi™—lly v—™uousF „he dis—greeE ment persists tod—yF „his —rti™le reviews the development of iinstein9s thought on gener—l ™ov—ri—n™eD its rel—tion to the found—tions of gener—l rel—tivity —nd the evolution of the ™ontinuing de˜—te (...) over his viewpointF.. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are concerned with our everyday and developed scientific systems of explanation of human behavior in terms of beliefs, attitudes,...

How can we reconcile two claims that are now both widely accepted: Kretschmann's claim that a requirement of general covariance is physically vacuous and the standard view that the general covariance of general relativity expresses the physically important diffeomorphism gauge freedom of general relativity? I urge that both claims can be held without contradiction if we attend to the context in which each is made.

Contrary to formal theories of induction, I argue that there are no universal inductive inference schemas. The inductive inferences of science are grounded in matters of fact that hold only in particular domains, so that all inductive inference is local. Some are so localized as to defy familiar characterization. Since inductive inference schemas are underwritten by facts, we can assess and control the inductive risk taken in an induction by investigating the warrant for its underwriting facts. In learning more facts, (...) we extend our inductive reach by supplying more localized inductive inference schemes. Since a material theory no longer separates the factual and schematic parts of an induction, it proves not to be vulnerable to Hume's problem of the justification of induction. (shrink)

What is possible, according to the empiricist conception, is what our evidence positively allows; and what is necessary is what it compels. These notions, along with logical possibility, are the only defensible notions of possibility and necessity. In so far as nomic and metaphysical possibilities are defensible, they fall within empirical possibility. These empirical conceptions are incompatible with traditional possible world semantics. Empirically necessary propositions cannot be defined as those true in all possible worlds. There can be empirical possibilities without (...) empirical necessities. The duality of possibility and necessity can be degenerate and can even be falsified. (shrink)

In these spirited essays, John D. Caputo continues the project he launched with Radical Hermeneutics of making hermeneutics and deconstruction work together.

The Insistence of God presents the provocative idea that God does not exist, God insists, while God’s existence is a human responsibility, which may or may not happen. For John D. Caputo, God’s existence is haunted by "perhaps," which does not signify indecisiveness but an openness to risk, to the unforeseeable. Perhaps constitutes a theology of what is to come and what we cannot see coming. Responding to current critics of continental philosophy, Caputo explores the materiality of perhaps and (...) the promise of the world. He shows how perhaps can become a new theology of the gaps God opens. (shrink)

"This is a remarkable book: wide-ranging, resonant, and well-written; it is also reflective and personable, warm and engaging." —Philosophy and Literature "With this book Caputo takes his place firmly as the foremost American, continental post-modernist... " —International Philosophical Quarterly "One cannot but be impressed by the scope of Radical Hermeneutics." —Man and World "Caputo’s study is stunning in its scope and scholarship." —Robert E. Lauder, St. John’s University, The Thomist For John D. Caputo, hermeneutics means radical thinking without (...) transcendental justification: attending to the ruptures and irregularities in existence before the metaphysics of presence has a chance to smooth them over. Radical Hermeneutics forges a closer collaboration between hermeneutics and deconstruction than has previously been attempted. (shrink)