But if there aren’t, then ‘they’ are not caused by anything and do not cause anything. That certainly appears to be false, however. John’s absence from our party might have been caused by his having fallen ill, and might cause a commotion. Dick’s not eating his soup might have been caused by his having fallen ill, and might cause a commotion.

_The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere_ represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does—or should—religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the concept of (...) "the political" in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated the processing of the implicature associated with some using a “gumball paradigm.” On each trial, participants saw an image of a gumball machine with an upper chamber with 13 gumballs and an empty lower chamber. Gumballs then dropped to the lower chamber and participants evaluated statements, such as “You got some of the gumballs.” Experiment 1 established that some is less natural for reference to small sets and unpartitioned sets compared to intermediate sets. Partitive some of was (...) less natural than simple some when used with the unpartitioned set. In Experiment 2, including exact number descriptions lowered naturalness ratings for some with small sets but not for intermediate size sets and the unpartitioned set. In Experiment 3, the naturalness ratings from Experiment 2 predicted response times. The results are interpreted as evidence for a Constraint-Based account of scalar implicature processing and against both two-stage, Literal-First models and pragmatic Default models. (shrink)

Heidegger's Eschatology is a ground-breaking account of Heidegger's early engagement with theology, from his beginnings as an anti-Modernist Catholic to his turn towards an undogmatic Protestantism and finally to a resolutely a-theistic philosophical method.

Martin Heidegger is the 20th century theology philosopher with the greatest importance to theology. A cradle Catholic originally intended for the priesthood, Heidegger's studies in philosophy led him to turn first to Protestantism and then to an atheistic philosophical method. Nevertheless, his writings remained deeply indebted to theological themes and sources, and the question of the nature of his relationship with theology has been a subject of discussion ever since. -/- This book offers theologians and philosophers alike a clear account (...) of the directions and the potential of this debate. It explains Heidegger's key ideas, describes their development and analyses the role of theology in his major writings, including his lectures during the National Socialist era. It reviews the reception of Heidegger's thought both by theologians in his own day (particularly in Barth and his school as well as neo-Scholasticism) and more recently (particularly in French phenomenology), and concludes by offering directions for theology's possible future engagement with Heidegger's work. - See more at:. (shrink)

In her article “Turning the Trolley,” the author of this comment argued that the bystander may not turn the trolley onto one to save five. Lecture I argued that this view is mistaken. This comment contends that Lecture I’s arguments do not succeed. In this response to the second Tanner Lecture, the text then argues that the Lecture II’s reasoning depends on an unacceptable view of moral theorizing. In an addendum, this comment defends the claim that if you think the (...) bystander may turn the trolley onto one to save five when the two tracks are not connected, then good sense requires you to think that he may do so when the two tracks are connected. (shrink)

Although children and parents often feature in philosophical literature on education, the nature of the parent–child relationship remains occluded by the language of rights, duties and entitlements. Likewise, talk of ‘parenting’ in popular literature and culture implies that being a parent is primarily about performing tasks. Drawing on popular literature, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, I make some suggestions towards articulating a richer philosophical conception of this relationship, and outline some of the implications, questions and problems this raises for (...) philosophers of education. (shrink)

Two visual world experiments investigated the processing of the implicature associated with some using a “gumball paradigm.” On each trial, participants saw an image of a gumball machine with an upper chamber with orange and blue gumballs and an empty lower chamber. Gumballs dropped to the lower chamber, creating a contrast between a partitioned set of gumballs of one color and an unpartitioned set of the other. Participants then evaluated spoken statements, such as “You got some of the blue gumballs.” (...) Experiment 1 investigated the time course of the pragmatic enrichment from some to not all when the only utterance alternatives available to refer to the different sets were some and all. In Experiment 2, the number terms two, three, four, and five were also included in the set of alternatives. Scalar implicatures were delayed relative to the interpretation of literal statements with all only when number terms were available. The results are interpreted as evidence for a constraint-based account of scalar implicature processing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Uses of EqualityThe following exchange between Judith Butler (who at the time was in Irvine, California) and Ernesto Laclau (in Essex, England) took place during the months of May and June of 1995. Ernesto Laclau, born in Argentina, is well known for his Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, published in 1985 in collaboration with Chantal Mouffe. The work starts off by critically examining the concept of “hegemony” within (...) a Marxist tradition, and it ends by proposing a socialist strategy that not only takes into account the criticism posited against the Marxist tradition of the last three decades, but also the emergence of new social and political fronts. Hegemony manifests a motive that is felt in the background of the following discussion: a politics of “radical democracy” (a term introduced in the book) should aspire to preserve the conflictive character of all social processes if it intends to avoid becoming a totalitarian system. In other words, a politics of a “radical democracy” should remain faithful to the dictum stated by the German poet Paul Celan: “build on inconsistencies.” It is evident that Laclau and Judith Butler, the North American author of Gender Trouble (1990) and its sequel, Bodies That Matter (1993), share this position. In these works, Butler advocates the reactivation of the concept of “interpellation” in order to expose the ways in which any given subject is “engendered.” The performative constitution of a subject, according to Butler, is defined through a reiterative convocation or “interpellation,” which continuously exhorts the subject to adhere to a gender norm. Not all sequences and efforts at interpellation, however, are completely successful; hence the need for notions of “deviations” in contrast to the norm. This theoretical standpoint facilitated a deconstruction of social gender norms and addressed issues raised by the gay and lesbian communities. In Bodies That Matter, however, a growing emphasis was placed on the articulation of the task at hand within a broader field of the democratic claims of minorities. Here, references to Mouffe and Laclau and to the concepts of “articulation” and “hegemony” were increasingly necessary.The link between Butler and Laclau was extended by the dialogue that follows. An example of this is the notion that all identities constitute themselves by differentiation. However, differentiation immediately implies antagonism. Identities exist because there are differences in strength, antagonism, and finally, in hegemony. According to both Butler and Laclau, the social constitutes itself as the space in which hegemonic relations unfold. Nevertheless, it is characteristic of any hegemonic position to never gain stability: any hegemonic position is always exposed to the risk of being subverted. Thus the recurrence of two issues that play a role in the following discussion: the existence of hegemonic relations and, hence, exclusion, found in the social domain. But since no particular exclusion is based on “the nature of things,” or can be ultimately justified, no exclusion can be definite, and no politics can achieve a final form. It is within the gap between the recognition that exclusion always exists in the social domain, and the rupture it provokes—that is to say, between the affirmation that no situation is purely structured and that no structure formation is ever complete—that perhaps the program of radical democracy unfolds.Equality, as a signifier and as a thing—if it exists—was the topic proposed to Butler and Laclau: their dialogue exceeds our original expectations.Reinaldo Laddaga [End Page 3]What’s the political value, today, of the use of the signifier “equality”? Considering the poststructuralist elaboration of “difference,” how does “equality” work today in gender and/or race politics? “Difference” has been, for more than a decade, the key word for a certain number of programs related to radical democracy. Certainly, “difference” has given space to the constitution of new types of social solidarity. Recently, however, some reservations on the extension of the term have been published. Chantal Mouffe—in her introduction to Dimensions of Radical Democracy—has stated that “all differences cannot be accepted” in order “for pluralism to be made compatible with the struggle against inequality.” Mouffe doesn’t clarify, in this particular text, the criteria with which to discriminate between “acceptable” and “nonacceptable” (or, maybe, “pertinent” and... (shrink)

This paper presents a discussion of some central ideas in anarchist thought, alongside an account of experiments in anarchist education. In the course of the discussion, I try to challenge certain preconceptions about anarchism, especially concerning the anarchist view of human nature. I address the questions of whether or not anarchism is utopian, what this means, and what implications these ideas may have for dominant paradigms in philosophy of education.

Domestic politics is naturally important in ethnic policies. However, in spite of their potency, domestic political factors are not always the most decisive. International organizations have influenced the Latvian and Estonian governments, and at times the Slovak and Romanian governments. However, the ability of different organizational strategies to overcome domestic opposition and thus bring about their desired policy varies widely. In most cases, actors need to use conditionality and aim it at the appropriate decision makers. In spite of their widespread (...) use, efforts that rely solely on persuasion and diplomacy tend only to work when the domestic opposition is initially quite low or when ethnic minorities themselves have some bargaining power in the government.The key policy implication is that domestic factors do not make failure, or success for that matter, a foregone conclusion. For example, ethnic minority representation within the government coalition is not in itself a guarantee of passage of the policy preferences of the minorities. Conversely, the presence of authoritarian-style leadership does not automatically mean a rejection ethnic minority accommodation either, if organizations present their suggestions so that such leaders view it as being in their greater interests to maintain power. Conditionality that targets incentives to fit goals of the leadership can work. External actors are thus not justified in backing off from action based purely on a domestic analysis. (shrink)

The book, comprising more than fifty color and twenty black-and-white works that range from 1974 to 2005, constitutes the first book-length treatment of Callis's work since 1989.

Two decades of research on euthanasia in the Netherlands have resulted into clear insights in the frequency and characteristics of euthanasia and other medical end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands. These empirical studies have contributed to the quality of the public debate, and to the regulating and public control of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. No slippery slope seems to have occurred. Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown (...) that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts. In 2005, eighty percent of the euthanasia cases were reported to the review committees. Thus, the transparency envisaged by the Act still does not extend to all cases. Unreported cases almost all involve the use of opioids, and are not considered to be euthanasia by physicians. More education and debate is needed to disentangle in these situations which acts should be regarded as euthanasia and which should not. Medical end-of-life decision-making is a crucial part of end-of-life care. It should therefore be given continuous attention in health care policy and medical training. Systematic periodic research is crucial for enhancing our understanding of end-of-life care in modern medicine, in which the pursuit of a good quality of dying is nowadays widely recognized as an important goal, in addition to the traditional goals such as curing diseases and prolonging life. (shrink)