Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

Topics covered in Discrete Mathematics have become essential tools in many areas of studies in recent years. This is primarily due to the revolution in technology, communications, and cyber security. The book treats major themes in a typical introductory modern Discrete Mathematics course: Propositional and predicate logic, proof techniques, set theory (including Boolean algebra, functions and relations), introduction to number theory, combinatorics and graph theory. An accessible, precise, and comprehensive approach is adopted in the treatment of each topic. The ability (...) of abstract thinking and the art of writing valid arguments are emphasized through detailed proof of (almost) every result. Developing the ability to think abstractly and roguishly is key in any areas of science, information technology and engineering. Every result presented in the book is followed by examples and applications to consolidate its comprehension. The hope is that the reader ends up developing both the abstract reasoning as well as acquiring practical skills. All efforts are made to write the book at a level accessible to first-year students and to present each topic in a way that facilitates self-directed learning. Each chapter starts with basic concepts of the subject at hand and progresses gradually to cover more ground on the subject. Chapters are divided into sections and subsections to facilitate readings. Each section ends with its own carefully chosen set of practice exercises to reenforce comprehension and to challenge and stimulate readers. As an introduction to Discrete Mathematics, the book is written with the smallest set of prerequisites possible. Familiarity with basic mathematical concepts (usually acquired in high school) is sufficient for most chapters. However, some mathematical maturity comes in handy to grasp some harder concepts presented in the book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gadamer On Art, Morality, and AuthorityKenneth L. BuckmanMary Devereaux claims that the problem of morality in the twentieth century and the anxiety caused by the fear of moral chaos fall into two main responses: (1) one looks to the past because the past seems to afford what the present lacks, i.e., a commonly shared and stable moral reality; and (2) one looks to the present and comes to terms (...) with the way things are, a strategy of accommodation that revises our over inflated notions of knowledge and justification, particularly moral justification. 1 She sees Gadamer’s work as an additional option that responds to this problem. Devereaux says Gadamer’s response to the collapse of traditional morality is a turn to the experience of art wherein one derives morals from an extra-moral sense. Thus, Gadamer’s aesthetic example serves as a source of moral value. Devereaux says Gadamer’s project fails, in that his account contains an optimistic and unquestioned assumption that art always operates to our benefit (p. 71). However, Gadamer is appreciative of the deficiencies and dangers inherent in the kind of view he holds and does not hold an excessively optimistic, romanticized, naive, or prescriptive view of tradition. Gadamer’s account is a descriptive explication of the manner in which societies acquire the authority to form values.Devereaux’s account is to a large extent fair and accurate. However, despite her empathy with Gadamer’s account, she has reservations about the accuracy of Gadamer’s description of art and questions the depth to which he understands the current ethical crisis. She maintains that Gadamer’s analysis indicates a preference for a certain kind of art [End Page 144] (i.e., classical), and much of twentieth-century art (Tinguely, Cage, Burden, etc.) is outside the purview of Gadamer’s analysis. Though each individual artwork, in Gadamer’s view, can serve as a metaphor for ordering in general, Burden et al. aim, “not simply to introduce new materials or new subject matter within an existing artistic framework, but to alter the frame” (p. 69). These artists reconceive the very nature of artistic activity and change the rules by substituting the accidental, the incomplete, and the self-contradictory in place of selection and craft (pp. 69–70). Recent artistic principles have deconstructed the notion of order, showing the failure of order itself. Should we even grant that certain types of traditional art function as Gadamer has indicated? Though we might hope for the desired result of moral cohesion, Devereaux says, we are still faced with the problem of availability and the extent to which a person’s contact with art generates the necessary moral education. Her most serious charge is Gadamer’s “unquestioned assumption” that art always operates to our benefit (p. 71). The reliance on shared tradition, Devereaux argues, positions Gadamer to argue that the interaction with texts serves the positive moral function of social cohesion. However, Gadamer’s willingness to assign normative authority to tradition opens him to serious charges of conservatism, most prominently from the criticism and viewpoint of feminists and black scholars, and he “does not acknowledge those for whom the authority of that tradition is deeply and unquestionably problematic. Might not a coherent tradition, if achieved, function oppressively?” (p. 71). Devereaux claims that Gadamer rejects this possibility.Devereaux’s criticisms thus fall into these five areas: (1) Gadamer privileges a certain kind of art (i.e., classical); (2) for Gadamer art serves as an ordering, but it does not fulfill that capacity; (3) Gadamer is unclear about the availability and the degree of contact members of a society must have with art in order for the artwork to function in its moral capacity; (4) Gadamer wrongly assumes that art always operates to our benefit; and (5) Gadamer’s acceptance of the normative authority of tradition is oppressive. Devereaux errs in all of these criticisms.Devereaux’s criticism of Gadamer’s aesthetic theory in general, disconnected for the moment from its supposed moral implications, is that his analysis is concerned with traditional or classical forms of art, ignoring the less integrative forms of art of the late twentieth century. Though it may... (shrink)

Kant’s theory of taste supports his political theory by providing the judgment of beauty as a symbol of the good and example of teleological experience, allowing us to imagine the otherwise obscure movement of nature and history toward the ideal human community. If interpreters are correct in believing that Kant should make room for pure judgments of ugliness in his theory of taste, we will have to consider the implications of such judgments for Kant’s political theory. It is here proposed (...) that pure, formal ugliness symbolizes regressive, counter-teleological trends in nature and history. Kant’s paradoxical stance on the right to rebellion, both condemning and supporting the French Revolution, is interpreted as failing to take into account negative social forces signified by ugliness, and therefore neglecting the role of moral agency in social change. (shrink)

Ranging over central issues of morals and politics and the nature of freedom and authority, this study examines the role of value-neutrality, rights, equality, ...

Kant’s theory of taste, as expounded in the Critique of Judgment, deals exhaustively with judgments of beauty. Rarely does Kant mention ugliness. This omission has led to a debate among commentators about how judgments of ugliness should be explained in a Kantian framework. I argue that the judgment of ugliness originates in the disharmonious play between the faculties of imagination and understanding. Such disharmony occurs when the understanding finds that it cannot in principle form any concept suitable to a representation (...) as it is presented by the imagination. (shrink)

Introductory courses in political philosophy would benefit from the incorporation of material on the Iroquois Great Law of Peace, including the story of the foundation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Classroom study of this tradition will serve several purposes: introducing a valuable account of political phenomena such as negotiation, consensus, veto, and rational communication; contributing to the diversity of syllabi; tracing the influence of Iroquois law on Western political institutions; and comparing the Haudenosaunee story to early modern social contract theory, especially (...) Hobbes’ Leviathan. This paper draws connections to relevant topics in a standard, historically-oriented course and suggests learning resources and objectives. (shrink)

The traditional philosophical metaphors of epistemology, which speak of grounds or foundations, produce a conception of knowledge as fixed and absolute. This paper is not an effort to revive traditional epistemological view of foundations and origins. After a preliminary and cursory discussion of how the metaphors of foundation and ground are employed, principally by Descartes and Heidegger, and what is suggested by such an employment, I sketch the postmodern rejection of these metaphors. However, I further indicate how, as valuable as (...) it is, postmodern criticism leaves us with an inadequate account of how we understand ourselves and how it is that weunderstand in general. I criticize postmodern thinking for ignoring the human elements of feeling and imagination and endorse the more satisfying model suggested by Paul Ricoeur. By understanding the role of feeling and imagination, we can escape the strict sterility of the grapheme. I end with my own suggestion that we gain a better sense of our attachment to and understanding of the world if we change the metaphors of foundations, grounds, and origins and instead employ metaphors of gathering, coalescence, or coagulation. (shrink)

Jennifer Hornsby has defended the Reasons-Knowledge Thesis : the claim that \-ing because p requires knowing that p, where the ‘because’ at issue is a rationalising ‘because’. She defends by appeal to the thought that it provides the best explanation of why the subject in a certain sort of Gettier case fails to be in a position to \ because p. Dustin Locke and, separately, Nick Hughes, present some modified barn-façade cases which seem to constitute counterexamples to and undermine Hornsby’s (...) way of motivating it by rendering their alternative Reasons-Explanation Thesis a better explanation of Hornsby’s datum. This paper defends and Hornsby’s argument for it against those objections. First, I point out that their supposedly intuitive verdict about the relevant barn-façade cases is not as intuitive as they think. Second, I point out that even if we share the intuition: we have strong reason to doubt the verdict anyway. And finally, I point out that since is independently implausible, the two problems can be tackled anyway. (shrink)

According to standard comparativist views, death is bad insofar as it deprives someone of goods she would otherwise have had. In The Ethics of Killing, Jeff McMahan argues against such views and in favor of a gradualist account according to which how bad it is to die is a function of both the future goods of which the decedent is deprived and her cognitive development when she dies. Comparativists and gradualists therefore disagree about how bad it is to die at (...) different ages. In this paper I examine two prominent criticisms of gradualism and show that both misconstrue McMahan. I develop a related criticism that seems to show that a gradualist cannot coherently relate morbidity and mortality. This criticism also fails, but has an instructive implication for how policy-makers setting priorities for health care investments should regard choices between life-saving interventions and interventions against non-fatal diseases in the very young. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, multiple studies have examined the understanding of participants in clinical research. They show variable and often poor understanding of key elements of disclosure, such as expected risks and the experimental nature of treatments. Did the participants in these studies give valid consent? According to the standard view of informed consent they did not. The standard view holds that the recipient of consent has a duty to disclose certain information to the profferer of consent because valid (...) consent requires that information to be understood. The contents of the understanding and disclosure requirements are therefore conceptually linked. In this paper, we argue that the standard view is mistaken. The disclosure and understanding requirements have distinct grounds tied to two different ways in which a token of consent can be rendered invalid. Analysis of these grounds allows us to derive the contents of the two requirements. It also implies that it is sometimes permissible to enroll willing participants who have not understood everything that they ought to be told about their clinical trials. (shrink)

To attribute confusion to someone is to take up a paternalistic stance in evaluating his reasoning.

This research investigates the perceptions of five constituent groups of an accredited business school — their perceptions of others'' ethics, of their own ethics and ideal values, and of how business ethics can be improved. Self-described behavior from the constituent groups is quite similar, yet is decidedly different from that which respondents felt others would do. Undergraduate business students tended to have the lowest estimation of others'' ethics in addition to the least ethical self-described behavior compared with other constituent groups. (...) All constituents were solidly in favor of improving ethics by developing principles of business ethics, requiring ethics courses in business schools and introducing industry codes of ethics. People are much more ethical than they are perceived to be. Knowing that others are more ethical may in turn cause other people to act more ethically. Similarly, believing that others are less ethical may encourage less ethical behavior. (shrink)

An examination of Emmanuel Levinas’ writings on money reveals his distance from—and indebtedness to—a philosophical predecessor, Georg Simmel. Levinas and Simmel share a phenomenological approach to analyses of the proximity of the stranger, the importance of the face, and the interruption of the dyadic relationship by the third. Money is closely linked to the conception of totality because money is the medium that compares heterogeneous values. Levinas goes beyond Simmel in positing an ethical relation to money permitting transcendence.

Lack of high-speed internet access remains a problem in the United States, particularly in rural areas, Tribal lands, and the U.S. territories. High-speed internet should be considered a basic right because it connects people to social media, the new public sphere. Critics worry about the politically polarizing effects of online social media, but its ability to unify, connect, and shape policy decisions should also be taken into account. Engaging with Jürgen Habermas’s early work on the public sphere, I argue that (...) the technical and cultural extension of access to social media can realize Kant’s vision of the public sphere as a bridge between morality and politics. (shrink)

My main objective in this paper is to formulate a view of pictorial realism I call ‘hypothetical verity’. It owes much to John Kulvicki but diverges from his view in an important respect: rather than thinking that realistic pictures are true to our conceptions of things, I hold that they are true to what things would be like if they existed. In addition, I agree with Dominic Lopes that different realisms reflect different aspects of reality, but restate the case without (...) recourse to symbol systems. Together, the twin principles of hypothetical verity and aspectival absolutism constitute a theory of realism able to account for realistic fictional entities, the problem of revelatory realism and images that teach new information. (shrink)

In this provocative study of the connection between belief and behavior, Buckman reviews the history of religious belief, and explains data from neuroscience experiments that show a physical cause for religious thoughts.

This study was conducted to corroborate findings that females invoke a decision rule that is significantly different from that of their male counterparts when making ethical value judgements. In addition, the study examines whether the same decision rule is used by men and women for all types of ethical situations. The results show that males and females use different decision rules when making ethical evaluations, although there are types of situations where there are no significant differences in decision rules used (...) by men and women. The results do not suggest that any one particular decision rule is used by the majority of either males or females in different types of ethical judgements. There is a greater diversity in decision rules used by females than by males. (shrink)

Interoceptive processes emanating from baroreceptor signals support emotional functioning. Previous research suggests a unique link to fear: fearful faces, presented in synchrony with systolic baro...

We argue that there is a conflict among classical theism's commitments to divine simplicity, divine creative freedom, and omniscience. We start by defining key terms for the debate related to classical theism. Then we articulate a new argument, the Aloneness Argument, aiming to establish a conflict among these attributes. In broad outline, the argument proceeds as follows. Under classical theism, it's possible that God exists without anything apart from Him. Any knowledge God has in such a world would be wholly (...) intrinsic. But there are contingent truths in every world, including the world in which God exists alone. So, it's possible that God contingently has wholly intrinsic knowledge. But whatever is contingent and wholly intrinsic is an accident. So, God possibly has an accident. This is incompatible with classical theism. Finally, we consider and rebut several objections. (shrink)

This is a new edition of Joseph Fletcher's 1966 work that ignited a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication.

Back to the Rough Ground is a philosophical investigation of practical knowledge, with major import for professional practice and the ethical life in modern society. Its purpose is to clarify the kind of knowledge that informs good practice in a range of disciplines such as education, psychotherapy, medicine, management, and law. Through reflection on key modern thinkers who have revived cardinal insights of Aristotle, and a sustained engagement with the Philosopher himself, it presents a radical challenge to the scientistic assumptions (...) that have dominated how these professional domains have been conceived, practiced, and institutionalized. (shrink)

The point of Hegel's dissatisfaction with Kant -- Rethinking Peirce's fallibilism -- Pragmatism's future : a touch of prophecy.

The central issue here concerns whether Being as explored by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time is constituted spatiotemporally. As such this project has two interlinked objectives. One objective is to supply conceptually plausible answers to Heidegger’s unanswered questions regarding the temporality of Being, which he raised at the very end of Being and Time. In response I argue that each individual human being is constituted as a Space-Time-Event-Motion (STEM) containment-field embodied entity. Heidegger situates Dasein (human existence) in a temporal (...) stream moving towards the nothingness of death but all the while separating being and time as two distinct phenomena rather than coexistent. I demonstrate why this was a crucial error in Heidegger’s thinking. The second objective deals with the sense of authentic being developed by Heidegger. The spatiotemporal nature of one’s life for Heidegger is understood from the standpoint of Being-in-the-world, as an engaged participant, coexistent with the world, so that contextually it is through this engagement in recognition of this facticity or thrownness that one comes to recognise one’s own authentic self. Somewhat problematic is the coexistent phenomenological recognition that one does not live in isolation and as such one may question what of the contingent, constraining and influencing factors that shape one’s sense of self particularly against the backdrop of self-other relations. This project is situated methodologically within Process Philosophy, and it is from this perspective that draws attention to the role of human agency in which individuals are spatiotemporally construed in terms of Space-Time-Event-Motion (STEM) entities. (shrink)

Particularism's model of explanation is challenged on the ground that a sensible intelligibility principle requires that there must be an explanation for the difference between a good and a bad action. Raz is concerned with what it is to be guided by reason, as well as with the results of the fact that reason can often undermine particular outcomes. What determines the moral status of an action must extend beyond what the agent's reason for acting is. It is argued that (...) there is a clear distinction between the evaluative and guiding functions of reasons. (shrink)

There is a growing body of empirical evidence which shows that infants and non-human primates have the ability to represent the mental states of other agents, i.e. that they possess a Theory of Mind. We will argue that this evidence also suggests that infants and non-human primates possess the concept of truth, which, as we will explain, is good news for primitivists about truth. First, we will offer a brief overview of alethic primitivism, focusing on Jamin Asay’s conceptual version of (...) the view. Next, we will survey relevant work on Theory of Mind which indicates that children younger than two and non-human primates are able to attribute false beliefs. Then, we will bring these false-belief data to bear on Asay’s form of primitivism, arguing that the data support two of the four distinctive theses of this view and offering some remarks about the empirical evaluability of the two remaining theses. We hope that our discussion will help to bridge the gap between psychological and philosophical inquiry and that it will encourage further empirical research on the cognitive significance of the concept of truth for humans and other thinking creatures. (shrink)

Joseph J. Fins calls for a reconsideration of severe brain injury treatment, including discussion of public policy and physician advocacy.

This chapter explores the foundation and content of the duty to respect persons. The authors argue that it is best understood as a duty to recognize people’s rights. Respect for persons therefore has specific implications for how competent and non-competent persons ought to be treated in research. For competent persons it underlies the obligation to obtain consent to many research procedures. The chapter gives an analysis of the requirements for obtaining valid consent. It then considers respect for persons as it (...) relates to four common topics: the therapeutic misconception, research with children and adolescents, the use of deception in research, and research on competent adults without their consent. (shrink)

This paper provides a sketch of a fresh conception of the “metaphysics” of culture and a sense of its conceptual power and advantages, based on a post-Darwinian account of the artifactual, hybrid nature of a person, chiefly in terms of (what I treat as terms of art) Bildung (“external” and “internal”), Sittlichkeit (both descriptive and normative), and interpretation (diversely manifested in different sectors of inquiry). I consider the (“metaphysical”) relationship between membership in the species Homo sapiens sapiens and functioning as (...) a person the generic distinction of human cultures (enlanguaged cultures), which I call Intentionality (that is, whatever is culturally significant or significative); and the bearing of the thesis on familiar philosophical quarrels and theory of the sciences. (shrink)

The target articles by Dixon (2012), Scarantino (2012), and Mulligan and Scherer (2012) explore the nature of emotion from philosophical and psychological perspectives. I discuss how neuroscience can also contribute to debates about the nature of emotion. I focus on the aspects of emotion that usually fall within the topic of basic emotions, but conclude that we may need to revise how we conceive and study these kinds of emotional states in relation to the brain.

Belief storage is often modeled as having the structure of a single, unified web. This model of belief storage is attractive and widely assumed because it appears to provide an explanation of the flexibility of cognition and the complicated dynamics of belief revision. However, when one scrutinizes human cognition, one finds strong evidence against a unified web of belief and for a fragmented model of belief storage. Using the best available evidence from cognitive science, we develop this fragmented model into (...) a nascent theory of the cognitive architecture of belief storage. (shrink)

The early modern period in Western philosophy is the source of many of our most powerful and seductive intellectual commitments. While we may disagree with philosophers of this period, the terms of philosophical inquiry and our standards of rational argumentation are in part derived from the work of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. For this reason, we will pursue a rigorous and sustained introduction to this episode of human intellectual history. We will cover topics in Metaphysics, Epistemology and (...) Philosophy of Mind. (shrink)

This book addresses the mid-rank of the soul theme as it emerges in Plotinus and Augustine in the context of their respective interpretations of universal order. They both use the journey metaphor to describe the soul's progress through the turbulent "sea" of earthly existence.

Frankfurt‐style action cases have been immensely influential in the free will and moral responsibility literatures because they arguably show that an agent can be morally responsible for a behavior despite lacking the ability to do otherwise. However, even among the philosophers who accept Frankfurt‐style action cases, there remains significant disagreement about whether also to accept Frankfurt‐style omission cases – cases in which an agent omits to do something, is unable to do otherwise, and is allegedly morally responsible for that omission. (...) Settling this debate about Frankfurt‐style omission cases is significant because the resolution entails an important fact about moral responsibility: whether there is there a moral asymmetry between actions and omissions with respect to the ability to do otherwise. My proposal is that both Frankfurt‐style action cases and omission cases involve the same type of causal structure: causal preemption. However, the preemptor and the preemptee differ. In action cases, the Frankfurted agent preempts the neuroscientist and is causally and morally responsibility for the effect. In omission cases, Frankfurted agent is neither causally nor morally responsible for the effect. Instead, the neuroscientist preempts the Frankfurted agent. Thus, there are no Frankfurt‐style omission cases. (shrink)