The purpose of this paper is to refute an argument against the doctrine of creation presented by sartre in "being and nothingness". The central contention of this paper is that sartre is wrong in asserting that the otherness of the creature from God implies a distinctness of existence of the creature from God which renders creation impossible. The main body of the paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, An attempt is made to show that the biblical (...) treatment of creation does not carry with it the broken-Backed notion which sartre attributes to creation. In the second part, The biblical singers and chroniclers are shown to hold the view that god's otherness is not that of a distinct existence from the creature because they see god's being as that of "presence". Finally, By reflection on a creation passage in "amos", We are enabled to see that the presence/being concept of God helps make intelligible at least one example of the usage of creation language in the old testament. (edited). (shrink)

This book contains important technical innovations, including comparative measures for the testable content, depth, and unity of scientific theories. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich (...) scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The return of interest in panpsychism reflects a shift towards process metaphysics. To propose that qualia are present throughout nature is a radical break with the mechanistic worldview inherited from the nineteenth century. That break is much needed as it is becoming clear that the values implicit in that worldview have helped create a serious ecological crisis. Here, following Bohm and Peirce, an elaboration of process metaphysics is proposed based on a semiotic view of causation. This in turn, taken together (...) with insights from biosemiotics, is used to propose a worldview of unbroken wholeness in which consciousness is ubiquitous and exists at scales well beyond the range of human experience. It is suggested that this will help to recover some of the ecological sensitivies found in prescientific traditions, which are lost in a purely mechanistic worldview. (shrink)

I introduce two new tools in experimental neurobiology, optogenetics and DREADDs. These tools permit unprecedented control over activity in specific neurons in behaving animals. In addition to their inherent scientific interest, these tools make an important contribution to philosophy of science. They illustrate the very premises of Ian Hacking’s “microscope” argument for the relative independence of experiment from theory. This new example is important for generalizing Hacking’s argument because the background sciences and the fields of engineering producing these tools differ (...) significantly. (shrink)

This article compares the quarantine model of criminal justice advocated by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso with the corrections model of criminal justice advocated by Michael Corrado. Both of these theories are grounded on the presumption that persons lack desert-grounding free will. It is argued that on this presumption there is no reason to believe that Michael Corrado’s corrections model is any better than the quarantine model.

Traces of many past events are often layered or superposed, in brain, body, and world alike. This often poses challenges for individuals and groups, both in accessing specific past events and in regulating or managing coexisting emotions or attitudes. We sometimes struggle, for example, to find appropriate modes of engagement with places with complex and difficult pasts. More generally, there can appear to be a tension between what we know about the highly constructive nature of remembering, whether it is drawing (...) on neural or worldly resources or both, and the ways that we need and use memory to make claims on the past, and to maintain some appropriate causal connections to past events. I assess the current state of work on situated affect and distributed memory, and the recent criticisms of the ‘dogma of harmony’ in these fields. I then deploy these frameworks to examine some affective dimensions of place memory, sketching a strongly distributed conception of places as sometimes partly constituting the processes and activities of feeling and remembering. These approaches also offer useful perspectives on the problems of how to engage – politically and aesthetically – with difficult pasts and historically burdened heritage. In assessing artistic interventions in troubled places, we can seek responsibly to do justice to the past while fully embracing the dynamic and contested constructedness of our present emotions, memories, and activities. (shrink)

This essay considers the implications for the powers metaphysic of the no-successor problem: As there are no successors in the set of real numbers, one state cannot occur just after another in continuous time without there being a gap between the two. I show how the no-successor problem sets challenges for various accounts of the manifestation of powers. For powers that give rise to a manifestation that is a new state, the challenge of no-successors is similar to that faced on (...) Bertrand Russell's analysis by causal relations. Powers whose manifestation is a processes and powers that manifest through time are challenged differently. To avoid powers appearing enigmatic, these challenges should be addressed, and I point to some possible ways this might be achieved. A prerequisite for addressing these challenges is a careful focus on the nature and timing of the manifesting and manifestation of powers. (shrink)

This original and ambitious book aims to change how we think about good lives. The perennial debates about good lives—the disagreements caused by conflicts between scientific, religious, moral, historical, aesthetic, and subjective modes of reflection—typically end in an impasse. This leaves the underlying problems of the meaning of life, the possibility of free action, the place of morality in good lives, the art of life, and human self-understanding as intractable as they have ever been. The way out of this impasse, (...) argues Kekes, is to abandon the assumption shared by the contending parties that the solutions of these problems can be rational only if they apply universally to all lives in all contexts. He believes that solutions may vary with lives and contexts and still be rational. Kekes defends a pluralistic alternative to absolutism and relativism that will, he holds, take philosophy in a new and more productive direction. (shrink)

This paper synthesizes convergent lines of evidence to evaluate the hypothesis that objective falsity is essential to lying. Objective accounts of lying affirm this hypothesis; subjective accounts deny it. Evidence from history, logic, social observation, popular culture, lexicography, developmental psychology, inference, spontaneous description, and behavioral experimentation strongly supports the hypothesis. Studies show that the only apparent evidence against the hypothesis is due to task substitution, i.e. ethical concerns or perspective-taking interfering with performance on categorization tasks. I conclude that, overall, existing (...) evidence decisively favors objective accounts. (shrink)

Die "Theorie der Gerechtigkeit" ist der wichtigste Beitrag des englischen Sprachraums, vielleicht sogar der wichtigste Beitrag zur Politischen Ethik des 20. Jahrhunderts uberhaupt. John Rawls entwirft hier nicht nur eine weithin uberzeugende Theorie zur Schnittmenge von Ethik und Politischer Philosophie. Ihm gelingt es daruber hinaus, in der philosophischen Debatte eine Reihe von grundlegenden Paradigmenwechseln vorzunehmen. Nach einer Generation intensiver Diskussion ist der Zeitpunkt gekommen, Bilanz zu ziehen. Das geschieht nicht als rein deskriptiver Uberblick uber die bisherige Debatte, sondern in (...) Form eines kooperativen Kommentars. Autoren unterschiedlicher philosophischer Herkunft stellen sich die Frage, wie Rawls Gedanken zu verstehen sind und welche Tragweite, welche Uberzeugungskraft sie fur den kunftigen Diskurs haben.". (shrink)

Patanjali famously states that “yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind-stuff.” That succinct aphorism is embedded in a complex and highly sophisticated body of historically deep ideas/p...

The term 'indexical' comes into the philosophy of language from Charles Sanders Peirce's use of the term 'index'. Paradigm indexicals include pronouns such as 'I' and 'you', as well as words like 'here', 'now', 'today', 'tomorrow', and 'yesterday' that occur as both nouns and adverbs. This chapter looks at how such paradigms work, then look at less paradigmatic examples, and eventually try to arrive at plausible definitions of indexical and indexicality. Eliminative theories treat indexicals as short‐cuts for descriptions that the (...) speaker has in mind. Indexicals play no essential role in language and communication and can be eliminated for serious purposes. The chapter reviews McTaggart's use of indexicals in his famous argument about time. In fact indexicals, for all their conversational utility and humble origins, seem indispensable in talking about philosophical topics. Simple and untechnical ‘I’ and ‘now’ may be, compared to words that embody great insights of science or philosophy, they still are words, that express ideas, and connect with complex thoughts words can express. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Analytic Philosophy The Rejection of These Two Distinctions and the Rejection of Foundationalism Some Recent Developments Overall Assessment.

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

There is an unspoken distinction in ethical criteria in bioethics. On the one hand, there are criteria that can be used with discretion and judgment by an individual or small group of people like a...

In this engaging and provocative study, John Peter Kenney examines the emergence of monotheism within Greco-Roman philosophical theology by tracing the changing character of ancient realism from Plato through Plotinus. Besides acknowledging the philosophical and theological significance of such ancient thinkers as Plutarch, Numenius, Alcinous, and Atticus, he demonstrates the central importance of Plotinus in clarifying the relation of the intelligible world to divinity. Kenney focuses especially on Plotinus's novel concept of deity, arguing that it constitutes a type of (...) mystical monotheism based upon an ultimate and inclusive divine One beyond description or discursive knowledge. Presenting difficult material with grace and clarity, Kenney takes a wide-ranging view of the development of ancient Platonic theology from a philosophical perspective and synthesizes familiar elements in a new way. His is a revisionist thesis with significant implications for the study of Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian thought in this period and for the history of Western religious thought in general. (shrink)

The Dutch animal production sector faces significant pressure for change. We discuss a project for the design of a sustainable husbandry system for pigs. Named after the Greek hero Hercules, the project aimed for structural changes in both animal and crop production. However, instead of changing the course of the river, the project ended up merely adapting its flow. The Hercules project ran into difficulties typical for projects aiming at reflexive modernization. It relapsed from an effort for reflexive modernization to (...) ecological modernization, by ultimately leaving the structural features of the sociotechnical regime intact. We show how this resulted from the biases and limitations implied by existing institutions, in which the project was unavoidably embedded. We introduce the idea of reflexive design, as “doing” reflexive modernization, which implies working on action and structure at the same time. A number of recommendations are given for reflexive design projects like this. (shrink)

Dickens’s relationship with the Arts has confounded or silenced some of the most eminent critics from his day to ours. His own reticence on the topic likewise makes the idea of a book on Dickens and the Arts a little odd or dissonant. Though as this volume makes clear, he was well versed in a range of high and low arts, he was seemingly determined to embrace, if not the wrong side of the cultural track, metaphorically speaking, a different track. (...) The Introduction is structured around four broad areas which are key to an understanding of both the ideological underpinnings of shifting definitions of the Arts, and to an understanding of the reasons for Dickens’s complex relationship to the idea of the Arts: money/materialism; hierarchies of privilege; yardsticks of criticism or artistic judgement; the public good. There is an uneasy relationship between ‘the Arts’ and all four areas, between Dickens and all four, and between Dickens and the Arts understood via these frames, which are commonly invoked in discussions of the Arts. The contention of this volume is that, far from being a philistine who had no interest in the Arts, Dickens’s apparent reticence in an industrial age where the value and function of the Arts was uniquely important in public debate, masks a complex and sophisticated vision (if not theory) of the Arts in the modern era, which is, and was, ahead of its time. Dickens’s philosophy of art in fact works to complicate in subtle ways the idea of an opposition between idealist and integrationist views of the aesthetic, though its most characteristic thrust is integrationist. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the inter-relationship between moral theory and the unpredictable and complex world of primary health care, where the values of patient and doctor, or groups of patients and doctors, may often clash. We introduce complexity science and its relevance to primary care; going on to explore how it can assist in understanding ethical decision making, as well as considering implications for clinical practice. Throughout the article, we showcase aspects and key concepts using examples and a case (...) study developed from our day-to-day experience working as clinical practitioners in primary care. (shrink)

This article suggests that it may be timely to action the relationship between design and evolution. While this view is not particularly new, the form of its expression here may be. It is noted that the exponential (possibly double exponential) rate of technological change, and the merging of the technological evolutionary lineage with those of biology, cognition, and socioculture is causing greatly accelerated evolution in these latter lineages. So rapid are these change processes that the attendant evolutionary time frames are (...) becoming consonant with those of human design activities. Implications of these developments are outlined. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt and J. David Velleman both offer accounts of paradigmatic action. To greatly oversimplify, Frankfurt roots our agency in our capacity to care, while Velleman places it in our cognitive capacity to make sense of ourselves. This paper argues that both views have an important piece of the truth. The paper advances a pluralistic account of paradigmatic agency. (updated 7/30/07).