Statistics circulate with ambivalence in governance settings and mass publics—both extolled as authoritative knowledge and the object of distrustful scrutiny. In the field of human rights activism, where the means to create authoritative knowledge operates asymmetrically between activists, organizations, and state actors, this makes statistical production and circulation subject to an intense politics of knowledge. LGBTI human rights actors in Brazil, for instance, constantly produce numbers that endeavor to make homophobia and transphobia epistemically and affectively real to various audiences. From (...) community surveys of personal experiences of violence or discrimination, to civil society reports of homicides, to federal government reports from human rights hotline complaints, LGBTI activists are awash in figures where they find themselves the producers, consumers, and subject material of such data. This article documents how activists and civil servants count violence, constructing homophobia and transphobia as knowable objects. These counting practices emerge from activists’ counterpublic circulations of knowledge about objects as well as epistemic infrastructures (police, journalistic coverage, hotlines) through which LGBTI peoples’ experience becomes refracted. Aware of these complications, activists deploy epistemic doubt and affective certainty to the field of statistics—utilizing the knowledge they offer while questioning whether violence can be measured at all. (shrink)

Management of organizational tensions can facilitate the simultaneous advancement of economic, social, and environmental priorities. The approach is based on managers identifying and managing tensions between the three priorities, by employing one of the three strategic responses. Although recent work has provided a theoretical basis for such tension acknowledgment and management, there is a dearth of empirical studies. We interviewed 32 corporate sustainability managers across 25 forestry and wood-products organizations in Australia. Study participants were divided into two groups: those considered (...) effective at corporate sustainability and a status-quo group. Contrary to current theory, our findings showed that acknowledgment of organizational tensions was widespread in the Australian forestry and wood-products industry and not limited to those managers who are effective at managing corporate sustainability. What differed was the degree to which managers did something about the perceived tensions—with the effective group more consistently acting to manage and resolve paradoxical scenarios. Our findings suggest that existing theoretical constructs of tension management may not adequately capture the individual-level complexity involved with managing tensions in practice. (shrink)

The field of “business for peace” recognizes the role that businesses can play in peacebuilding. However, like much of the discussion concerning business in conflict zones, it has prioritized the view of multinationals, often overlooking the role of indigenous local firms. The economic, social, and intergroup dynamics experienced by local businesses in conflict zones are understudied, with the current paper beginning by positioning micro- and small enterprises in the peacebuilding debate, then engaging with multidisciplinary works to understand how they foster (...) peace. Through a case study set in north Lebanon, we conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty-three MSE owners in one industry who operate across sectarian divisions and with recently displaced Syrian refugees. Our findings indicate that local business activity can simultaneously promote peace and foster conflict, with peacebuilding improved when intergroup differences are reduced within the operating environment. Furthermore, the importance of economic development was elevated for local businesses, suggesting that peace through mechanisms such as social development, the rule of law, and training, is only achieved if economic needs are alleviated through these measures. We conclude by citing how contextual factors in conflict zones can enhance intergroup differences, and how resolving such factors can promote peacebuilding, with further empirical work needed in this area. (shrink)

Conflict zone entrepreneurs—local entrepreneurs running small businesses in conflict settings—have paradoxical impacts on stability: holding the ability both to foster peace but also to enhance conflict. Prior scholarly work has been unable to explain this divergence, as existing entrepreneurial indicators do not account for fundamental peacebuilding elements. In response, the article consolidates divergent fields of study, applies paradox theory to analyze underlying tensions in the field, and reframes entrepreneurship through a peacebuilding lens based on intergroup inclusivity and value-creating business practices. (...) Using several cases, this article shows how entrepreneurial activity in conflict zones can foster sustainable peace, limited peace, or conflict, arguing that entrepreneurship based on value-creating and inclusive practices can result in pro-peace outcomes. The article offers policy recommendations for local governments and the humanitarian sector seeking to use entrepreneurship in conflict zones to promote peace. (shrink)

A great deal of research has demonstrated that learning is influenced by the learner’s prior background knowledge (e.g. Murphy, 2002; Keil, 1990), but little is known about the processes by which prior knowledge is deployed. We explore the role of explanation in deploying prior knowledge by examining the joint effects of eliciting explanations and providing prior knowledge in a task where each should aid learning. Three hypotheses are considered: that explanation and prior knowledge have independent and additive effects on learning, (...) that their joint effects on learning are subadditive, and that their effects are superadditive. A category learning experiment finds evidence for a superadditive effect: explaining drives the discovery of regularities, while prior knowledge constrains which regularities learners discover. This is consistent with an account of explanation’s effects on learning proposed in Williams & Lombrozo (in press). (shrink)

This paper performs a critical review of twin and adoption studies looking at possible genetic factors in criminal and antisocial behavior. While most modern researchers acknowledge that family studies are unable to separate possible genetic and environmental influences, it is argued here that twin studies are similarly unable to disentangle these influences. The twin method of monozygotic–dizygotic comparison is predicated on the assumption that both types of twins share equal environments, and it is argued here that this assumption is false. (...) Adoption studies have been promoted as a better way of separating genetic and environmental influences. However, there is good reason to believe that adoption studies of criminal and antisocial behavior were confounded by selective placement factors. In addition, these studies suffered from bias and serious methodological errors. In spite of these problems, no adoption researcher claimed to have found evidence of a genetic predisposition for violent crime. It is concluded that the weight of the evidence from family, twin, and adoption studies does not support a genetic basis for any type of criminal or antisocial behavior. The historical background of genetic theories of criminality is also discussed. (shrink)

This paper analyzes a key theoretical assumption of the "classical twin method": the so-called "equal environment assumption" . The purpose of the discussion is to determine whether this assumption, which states that identical and fraternal twins experience similar environments, is valid. Following a brief discussion of the origins of the twin method and the views of its main critics, the arguments of its principal contemporary defenders are examined in detail. This discussion is followed by a critique of several studies which (...) have been cited as evidence in support of the equal environment assumption. It is concluded that the equal environment assumption does not stand up to critical examination, thereby calling into question the claim that the twin method measures genetic effects on human behavior and personality differences. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the ongoing Finnish Adoptive Family Study of Schizophrenia. The Tienari, Lahti et al. study is the most recent attempt to use adoptees as a way of testing the hypothesis that schizophrenia carries a genetic component, and the purpose here is to present what is probably the first in-depth critical analysis of its findings. The published reports of Tienari and associates are the primary focus of analysis, while problems with other schizophrenia adoption studies using similar research designs are (...) also discussed. Because of factors including the selective placement of adoptees, the low variance explained by the two major hypothesized predictor variables for schizophrenia, the invalidity of the schizophrenia spectrum concept, and the failure to find an index schizophrenia rate greater than general population expectations, it is concluded that the Finnish study cannot be regarded as having produced evidence in favor of the genetic theory of schizophrenia. (shrink)

Human genetics research appears to be approaching a period of re-examination due to the decades-long failure of molecular genetic research to uncover the genes presumed to underlie psychiatric disorders, psychological traits, and some common medical conditions. As currently dominant theories of genetic causation come more into question, we will see a renewed interest in reassessing the potential roles of genes and environment in these areas. To illustrate the potentially harmful and diversionary impact of emphasizing genetics over the environment, the author (...) tells a story in the form of a parable. In this parable, the citizens of a medium-size city are confronted with the task of dealing with a group of arsonists who are systematically burning down several houses each week. The Mayor argues that the best way to prevent arson is to analyze the types of wood used to build the city’s houses, with an accompanying lack of interest in arresting the arsonists. Her opponents argue that regardless of the type of wood used, the city and its citizens should prevent arson attacks by focusing attention on identifying and arresting the arsonists. The Mayor’s position prevails, and the arson attacks continue for years to come at the same time as researchers continue to study and analyze the wood used to construct the houses. Informed readers will recognize the analogous ideas, research strategies, interest groups, publications, and historical controversies related to “nature–nurture” issues, which encompass every aspect of the parable. (shrink)

Ernst Rüdin was the founder of psychiatric genetics and was also a founder of the German racial hygiene movement. Throughout his long career he played a major role in promoting eugenic ideas and policies in Germany, including helping formulate the 1933 Nazi eugenic sterilization law and other governmental policies directed against the alleged carriers of genetic defects. In the 1940s Rüdin supported the killing of children and mental patients under a Nazi program euphemistically called “Euthanasia.” The authors document these crimes (...) and discuss their implications, and also present translations of two publications Rüdin co-authored in 1938 showing his strong support for Hitler and his policies. The authors also document what they see as revisionist historical accounts by leading psychiatric genetic authors. They outline three categories of contemporary psychiatric genetic accounts of Rüdin and his work: those who write about German psychiatric genetics in the Nazi period, but either fail to mention Rüdin at all, or cast him in a favorable light; those who acknowledge that Rüdin helped promote eugenic sterilization and/or may have worked with the Nazis, but generally paint a positive picture of Rüdin’s research and fail to mention his participation in the “euthanasia” killing program; and those who have written that Rüdin committed and supported unspeakable atrocities. The authors conclude by calling on the leaders of psychiatric genetics to produce a detailed and complete account of their field’s history, including all of the documented crimes committed by Rüdin and his associates. (shrink)

This paper performs a critical analysis of Irving Gottesman’s 1991 “Figure 10,” which lists the lifetime risks of developing schizophrenia among the relatives of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Figure 10, which has been cited in numerous psychiatry and abnormal psychology textbooks, is almost always discussed in support of important genetic influences on schizophrenia. However, the pooled results in Figure 10 can also be explained by environmental factors. Moreover, the risk percentages Gottesman reported are derived from biased research designs, some of (...) which are based on implausible theoretical assumptions, while some results are not included. It is concluded that a closer look at the studies used to compile Figure 10 might lead psychiatrists, psychologists, and genetic researchers to decide that, in addition to problems in schizophrenia adoption research and the ongoing failure to find postulated “schizophrenia genes,” the evidence supporting a genetic basis for schizophrenia is far weaker than is currently believed. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is the dominant form of enterprise in conflict-affected settings, yet little is known about the role of entrepreneurship in peacebuilding. In response, this article undertakes a review of entrepreneurship in conflict-affected regions to integrate research from business and management with research from political science, international relations, and parallel domains. Three views of entrepreneurship emerge—the destructive view, economic view, and social cohesion view—showing how entrepreneurship can concurrently create conflict but also potentially generate peace. The article identifies new avenues for pro-peace (...) entrepreneurship: namely, through personal transformation, social contributions, inclusive interactions, conflict trigger removal, intergroup policy persuasion, and acting as legal champions. This article also discusses several pathways forward for business-for-peace research alongside additional implications for the deployment of business-based support programs in conflict settings. (shrink)

Focusing on episodes of student-generated and -sustained talk during document-based disciplinary history discussions, this study explored what teacher candidates prioritize and value about social studies discussions, and how these priorities align with their actions and goals as facilitators. Using a complex systems-based model, we investigated candidates’ goals as they planned for, facilitated, and reflected upon student sensemaking relative to three common orientations for social studies discussions: disciplinary history, participatory civics, and critical literacy. Findings revealed that candidates employed elements from all (...) three orientations, yet without clear alignment to any particular approach. This misalignment reflected tensions between candidates’ stated goals, beliefs about student engagement, and instructional decisions. We draw implications for teacher education to support candidates in developing coherent practices for discussion facilitation that align with their instructional visions and sociocultural contexts. (shrink)

This volume contains essays dealing with complex relationships between Judaism and Christianity, taking a bold step, assuming that no historical period can be excluded from the interactive process between Judaism and Christianity, conscious or unconscious, as either rejection or appropriation.

Joseph Margolis’ philosophical work is both sanguine and fair. It is sanguine because much of it captures the inherent worth and dignity of the human condition. This includes aesthetics, anthropological diversity and history, the diversity of cognitive orientations and objectivity without foundations. Margolis embraces science and naturalism without reductionism. His pragmatism, though, is rooted more in James’ perspectivism, his local nice adaptation, and his relativism than that of Peirce and Dewey and their sense of science and the community of (...) inquirers. Margolis’ strength is his attempt to reconcile positions and his fairness towards others as he tries to wedge his pragmatist position amid others. But he celebrates the subjective stance of James, and downplayed the communal sense of Peirce and Dewey so vital to epistemic advances. (shrink)

Reason and Value collects fifteen brand-new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the moral philosophy of Joseph Raz. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics - including especially his explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value - make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. The volume honours Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and will contribute to an enhanced appreciation of the significance (...) of his work for the subject. (shrink)

Reason and Value collects 15 new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the work of Joseph Raz. Raz has made major contributions in a wide range of areas, including jurisprudence, political philosophy, and the theory of practical reason; but all of his work displays a deep engagement with central themes in moral philosophy. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. Especially significant are (...) his explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value, which constitute a sustained and penetrating treatment of a set of issues at the very center of moral philosophy as it is practiced today. The contributors to the volume acknowledge the importance of Raz's contributions by engaging critically with his positions and offering independent perspectives on the topics that he has addressed. The volume aims both to honour Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and to contribute to an enhanced appreciation of the significance of his work for the subject. (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which are presented annually at each of nine universities in the United States and England, are among the most prestigious and notable events of the academic year. This volume inaugurates a new interdisciplinary series of books based on the Tanner Lectures given at the University of California, Berkeley. The series aims to make these distinguished lectures, and the lively debates stimulated by their presentation in Berkeley, available to a broad readership.The Practice of Value explores (...) the nature of value and its relation to the social and historical conditions under which human agents live. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by Joseph Raz, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970s. Raz argues that values depend importantly on social practices, but that we can make sense of this dependence without falling back on cultural relativism. In response, three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer their own distinctive reflections on the connections between value and practice. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from Raz to his commentators. The result is a fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations between human values and human life. (shrink)

Out of the ferment of recent debates about the intellectual virtues, Roberts and Wood have developed an approach they call 'regulative epistemology'. This is partly a return to classical and medieval traditions, partly in the spirit of Locke's and Descartes's concern for intellectual formation, partly an exploration of connections between epistemology and ethics, and partly an approach that has never been tried before. Standing on the shoulders of recent epistemologists - including William Alston, Alvin Plantinga, Ernest Sosa, and Linda (...) Zagzebski - Roberts and Wood pursue epistemological questions by looking closely and deeply at particular traits of intellectual character such as love of knowledge, intellectual autonomy, intellectual generosity, and intellectual humility. Central to their vision is an account of intellectual goods that includes not just knowledge as properly grounded belief, but understanding and personal acquaintance, acquired and shared through the many social practices of actual intellectual life. This approach to intellectual virtue infuses the discipline of epistemology with new life, and makes it interesting to people outside the circle of professional epistemologists. It is epistemology for the whole intellectual community, as Roberts and Wood carefully sketch the ways in which virtues that would have been categorized earlier as moral make for agents who can better acquire, refine, and communicate important kinds of knowledge. (shrink)

Recently, Paul Horwich has developed the minimalist theory of truth, according to which the truth predicate does not express a substantive property, though it may be used as a grammatical expedient. Minimalism shares these claims with Quine’s disquotationalism; it differs from disquotationalism primarily in holding that truth-bearers are propositions, rather than sentences. Despite potential ontological worries, allowing that propositions bear truth gives Horwich a prima facie response to several important objections to disquotationalism. In section I of this paper, disquotationalism is (...) given a careful exegesis, in which seven known objections are traced to the disquotational schema, and two new objections are raised. A version of disquotationalism which avoids two of the seven known objections is recommended. In section II, an examination of minimalism shows that it faces eight of the nine objections facing disquotationalism, plus a new objection. In section III, a finite formulation of minimalism proposed by Ernest Sosa is shown to meet five of the nine objections facing disquotationalism as well as the objection new to minimalism, though it faces another new objection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Lessons of TheoryJay PariniOne does not have to look far these days to find someone bashing literary theory, and in some respects it deserves it. Joseph Epstein, for one, has almost never tired of picking away at the motives of those who engage in literary theory: “The major impulse of theory was suspicion,” he has said. “In this regard theory gave that portion of the professoriat who (...) came through the sixties unfulfilled, and those younger professors—women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals—who chose to squeeze all they could out of their self-created status of victimhood, a large and lovely outlet for their resentment.” The irony is that one hears in this semi-hysterical cri de coeur the very suspicion that the author is supposedly complaining about. Mr. Epstein, neither female nor gay, apparently feels passed over. Inadvertently, he has become the Victim himself.Literary theory—or just “theory”—has frightened a whole generation of intellectuals into early mental retirement, mostly because they have not the stamina or will to enter into appropriate conversation with their younger colleagues. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the debate over theory has been this extension into the academy of what, in the sixties, used to be called the generation gap; indeed, many of the same dynamics seem to apply, with theorists pitting themselves against all forms of authority. “Never trust anyone under thirty” has been transmogrified into “Never trust anyone who doesn’t appreciate Foucault.”In the seventies, theory moved toward the center of the curriculum at most American graduate schools of literature, and it has remained in place for nearly a quarter of a century. The charge is often heard, perhaps with some justice, that students now spend more time reading [End Page 91] Foucault or Derrida than Shakespeare or Dante, and that this has created an imbalance. But even here, the situation is exaggerated; graduate students do indeed get a heavy dose of theory, yet one sees few undergraduate classrooms in the United States where anything resembling literary theory has displaced the teaching of canonical texts. For the most part what has happened is that the canon has been widened to include texts by previously overlooked writers—usually texts by women or minorities. Such a development hardly threatens to erase or even partially to occlude Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton.The charge that theory is unreadable is, for me, a more important criticism. (There’s a joke I like in this regard: Question: What do you get when you cross a deconstructionist with a mafioso? Answer: An offer you can’t understand.) Jargon has overwhelmed literary criticism to the point where the so-called Common Reader is now fiercely excluded from the conversations that take place in most professional journals and academic conferences, and the consequences of this exclusionary practice are profound. The most obvious effect is that serious literature itself, and thinking about literature and its place in the world, is removed from mainstream consumption. As a result, the general quality of our national discourse—in the arts as well as collateral areas, such as politics—is diminished.This said, I would still argue that an intellectual revolution of sorts has indeed occurred in the last thirty years, and that theory has permanently changed the ways that we—as readers and writers—go about our reading and, yes, our thinking. The peak of the battle over theory passed several years ago; in fact, we seem to have entered a “post-theoretical” moment, and so the time may have arrived for reassessing some of the lessons of theory. This “revolution” is pretty much a literal one: a turning of the wheel. But the wheel has been turning for a long time. Our ways of reading have been challenged almost continuously from the beginning of this century, when the belles-lettres style of criticism popular just after the Great War was dislodged by the philologists, and the philologists were attacked by the literary historians, and the historians were pushed temporarily to one side in the late forties and early fifties by the New Critics. And so forth. The history of criticism is simply a history of overturnings, or absorptions (I rather... (shrink)

Ernest Sosa has suggested that we distinguish between animal knowledge, on the one hand, and reflective knowledge, on the other. Animal knowledge is direct, immediate, and foundationally structured, while reflective knowledge involves a knower's higher‐order awareness of her own mental states, and is structured by relations of coherence. -/- Although Sosa's distinction is extremely appealing, it also faces serious problems. In particular, the sorts of processes that would be required for reflective knowledge, as Sosa understands it, are (...) not processes that are instantiated in human cognition. -/- I argue that the problems facing Sosa's notion of reflective knowledge stem from treating human cognitive processes individualistically. They stem from what I will term Sosa's perspective of methodologically individualistic noetic explanation—or MINE. -/- I suggest that these problems disappear if we expand the scope of what counts as cognitive processes to include socially distributed cognitive processes, if we adopt a framework of other‐derived united reflective self‐evaluation—or OURS. -/- In other words, I'll suggest that a solution to the problems facing the distinction between animal and reflective knowledge may be found in a shift of perspective from MINE to OURS. (shrink)

The Practice of Value explores the nature of value and its relation to the social and historical conditions under which human agents live. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by Joseph Raz, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970's. Raz argues that values depend importantly on social practices, but that we can make sense of this dependence without falling back on cultural (...) relativism. In response, three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer their own distinctive reflections on the connections between value and practice. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from Raz to his commentators. The result is a fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations between human values and human life. (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which honor the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, are presented annually at each of nine universities in the United States and Great Britain. They were established at the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in the 2000/1 academic year. The Berkeley Tanner Lectures Series has been established in the belief that these distinguished lectures, together with the lively debates stimulated by their presentation in Berkeley, deserve to be made available to a wider (...) audience. The Practice of Value is an exploration of a pervasive but puzzling aspect of our world: value. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by Joseph Raz, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970s. His aim is to make sense of the dependence of value on social practice, without falling back on cultural relativism. In response, three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer interestingly different approaches to the subject. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from Raz to his commentators. The result is a fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations between human values and human life. (shrink)

In “Reliabilism Leveled” Jonathan Vogel (2000) provides a strong case against epistemic theories that stress the importance of tracking/sensitivity conditions. A tracking/sensitivity condition is to be understood as some version of the following counterfactual: (T) ~p oÆ ~Bp (T) says that s would not believe p, if p were false. Among other things, tracking is supposed to express the external relation that explains why some justified true beliefs are not knowledge. Champions of the condition include Robert Nozick (1981) and, more (...) recently, Keith DeRose (1995). To my knowledge, the earliest formulation of the counterfactual condition is found in Fred Dretske’s conclusive reasons condition (1971), which says, s would not have had the reason that she does for believing p, if p were false. Vogel contends that any such counterfactual condition on knowledge will render the theory of knowledge too strong. He believes that there is at least some possible reflective knowledge that cannot satisfy the counterfactual--viz., the possible knowledge that one does not believe falsely that p. The alleged impossibility of such reflective knowledge is taken by Vogel to be a decisive objection to the tracking theories advocated by Dretske, Nozick, DeRose1 and others. The criticism finds its roots in Vogel’s earlier work (1987), and recurs in papers by Ernest Sosa (2002, 1996). Sosa suggests that the externalist idea behind tracking is on target, but that Nozick’s counterfactual is a misbegotten regimentation of the idea. In its place Sosa offers his own counterfactual “safety” condition, which he feels properly captures the externalist idea. Sosa’s counterfactual is not the topic of this paper. I mention it only to point out that the criticism that constitutes the subject of my investigation is meant to do a lot of work. In Sosa’s 1 case the criticism is meant to motivate his own counterfactual analysis, and in Vogel’s case the criticism promises to be a silver bullet against a theory that has recently found renewed life in the work of Keith DeRose.. (shrink)

The word "brain-washing", translated from Chinese communist jargon, is a very strong metaphor, first popularized by Robert Jay Lifto n. It vividly describes one person interfering with the personality make-up of another, removing the other's ideology and replacing it, and similarly tampering with the other's tastes, pool of information to rely upon and whatever else goes into the make-up of the other's personality. Clearly, in some sense or another everyone interferes with the personality of people with whom they interact; yet (...) what is meant here is something much more drastic than friends influencing one another's tastes or opinions; it is something more dramatic and more large scale. (shrink)

The Practice of Value is an exploration of a pervasive but puzzling aspect of our world: value. The starting-point is the Berkeley Tanner Lectures delivered in 2001 by the leading moral theorist Joseph Raz. His aim is to make sense of the dependence of value on social practice, without falling back on cultural relativism. The lectures are followed by discussions from three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, and a response from Raz. The result is a (...) fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations between human values and human life. (shrink)

Essays that put noted political thinkers of the past—including Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Confucius—in dialogue with current environmental political theory. Contemporary environmental political theory considers the implications of the environmental crisis for such political concepts as rights, citizenship, justice, democracy, the state, race, class, and gender. As the field has matured, scholars have begun to explore connections between Green Theory and such canonical political thinkers as Plato, Machiavelli, Locke, and Marx. The essays in this volume put important figures (...) from the political theory canon in dialogue with current environmental political theory. It is the first comprehensive volume to bring the insights of Green Theory to bear in reinterpreting these canonical theorists. Individual essays cover such classical figures in Western thought as Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Mill, and Burke, but they also depart from the traditional canon to consider Mary Wollstonecraft, W. E. B. Du Bois, Hannah Arendt, and Confucius. Engaging and accessible, the essays also offer original and innovative interpretations that often challenge standard readings of these thinkers. In examining and explicating how these great thinkers of the past viewed the natural world and our relationship with nature, the essays also illuminate our current environmental predicament. Essays on Plato • Aristotle • Niccolò Machiavelli • Thomas Hobbes • John Locke • David Hume • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Edmund Burke • Mary Wollstonecraft • John Stuart Mill • Karl Marx • W. E. B. Du Bois • Martin Heidegger • Hannah Arendt • Confucius Contributors Sheryl D. Breen, W. Scott Cameron, Peter F. Cannavò, Joel Jay Kassiola, Joseph H. Lane Jr. Timothy W. Luke, John M. Meyer, Özgüç Orhan, Barbara K. Seeber, Francisco Seijo, Kimberly K. Smith, Piers H. G. Stephens, Zev Trachtenberg, Andrew Valls, Harlan Wilson. (shrink)

Foundationalists and coherentists disagree over the structure of the part of the mental state corpus that is relevant for epistemic achievement (Bonjour, 1999; Dancy, 1989; Haack, 1993; Sosa, 1980; Pollock and Cruz, 1999). Given the goals of a theory of epistemic justification and the trajectory of the debate over the last three decades, it is not difficult to see how structural questions possess a kind of immediacy. In order to undertake an epistemic evaluation of a belief, one intuitive and (...) appealing strategy is to investigate the reasons for that belief to determine whether it is epistemically positive, where the reasons are typically other beliefs. This demands that we must in turn determine whether the reasons for the belief are themselves justified. A regress looms (and thus a regress argument is in the making), and foundationalism and coherentism propose proprietary views on the structural relations between beliefs with an eye toward resolving it. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology has come a long way since Ernest Sosa first mooted its possibility in ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’, a paper about the pitfalls of coherentism and foundationalism. What makes Virtue Epistemology distinctive, as opposed to other forms of reliabilist externalism, is that the epistemic agent becomes the locus for justification rather than the belief. In the midst of a small but growing literature in this focus on the agent, two clear trends are emerging that reflect a difference (...) in interest by the authors rather than any real underlying antagonism between camps. Where faculty reliabilists like Sosa and Greco are concerned about sceptical challenges, virtue responsibilists like Zazebski or Roberts and Wood prefer to write about intellectual flourishing. (shrink)

With the publication of Jay Schulkin’s Naturalism and Pragmatism, pragmatist philosophers and theologians have been done a great service. A neuroscientist by training, Schulkin brings robust scientific data to bear on pragmatism’s naturalistic theory of inquiry, often charged as superficially concerned with practical expediency—that is, with “what works” apart from considerations of meaning and value that befit what Ernest Sosa influentially called “serious philosophy.”1 To serious-minded pragmatists, it is frustrating that facile readings of pragmatism—namely, that it is simply a (...) disguised form of antirealism and/or relativism—remain a century after Dewey dutifully clarified what practicality means for .. (shrink)