ABSTRACTMemory bias is a risk factor for depression. In two independent studies, the efficacy of one CBM-Memory session on negative memory bias and depressive symptoms was tested in vulnerable samples. We compared positive to neutral CBM-Memory trainings in highly-ruminating individuals and individuals with elevated depressive symptoms. In both studies, participants studied positive, neutral, and negative Swahili words paired with their translations. In five study–test blocks, they were then prompted to retrieve either only the positive or neutral translations. Immediately following the (...) training and one week later, we tested cued recall of all translations and autobiographical memory bias; and also measured mood, depressive symptoms, and rumination. Retrieval practice resulted in training-congruent recall both immediately after and one week after the training. Overall, there was no differential decrease in symptoms or difference in autobiographical memory bias between the tra... (shrink)

Inquiry into the meaning of logical terms in natural language (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’) has generally proceeded along two dimensions. On the one hand, semantic theories aim to predict native speaker intuitions about the natural language sentences involving those logical terms. On the other hand, logical theories explore the formal properties of the translations of those terms into formal languages. Sometimes, these two lines of inquiry appear to be in tension: for instance, our best logical investigation into conditional connectives (...) may show that there is no conditional operator that has all the properties native speaker intuitions suggest if has. Indicative conditionals have famously been the source of one such tension, ever since the triviality proofs of both Lewis (1976) and Gibbard (1981) established conclusions which are in prima facie tension with ordinary judgments about natural language indicative conditionals. In a recent series of papers, Branden Fitelson has strengthened both triviality results (Fitelson 2013, 2015, 2016), revealing a common culprit: a logical schema known as IMPORT-EXPORT. Fitelson’s results focus the tension between the logical results and ordinary judgments, since IMPORT-EXPORT seems to be supported by intuitions about natural language. In this paper, we argue that the intuitions which have been taken to support IMPORT-EXPORT are really evidence for a closely related, but subtly different, principle. We show that the two principles are independent by showing how, given a standard assumption about the conditional operator in the formal language in which IMPORT-EXPORT is stated, many existing theories of indicative conditionals validate one, but not the other. Moreover, we argue that once we clearly distinguish these principles, we can use propositional anaphora to show that IMPORT-EXPORT is in fact not valid for natural language indicative conditionals (given this assumption about the formal conditional operator). This gives us a principled and independently motivated way of rejecting a crucial premise in many triviality results, while still making sense of the speaker intuitions which appeared to motivate that premise. We suggest that this strategy has broad application and an important lesson: in theorizing about the logic of natural language, we must pay careful attention to the translation between the formal languages in which logical results are typically proved, and natural languages which are the subject matter of semantic theory. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that the paucity of evidence for theism — along with basic assumptions about God's nature — is ipso facto evidence for atheism. The resulting argument has come to be known as the argument from divine hiddenness. Theists have challenged both the major and minor premises of the argument by offering defences. However, all of the major, contemporary defences are failures. What unites these failures is instructive: each is implausible given other commitments shared by everyone in the (...) debate or by theists in particular. Only challenges which are plausible given both common sense and other theistic commitments will undermine the argument from divine hiddenness. Given that such defences universally fail, the best hope for a successful challenge to the argument comes from more general sceptical responses. This sort of response is briefly sketched and defended against four independent objections. (shrink)

Promoting the ethical formation of engineering students through the cultivation of their discipline-specific knowledge, sensitivity, imagination, and reasoning skills has become a goal for many engineering education programs throughout the United States. However, there is neither a consensus throughout the engineering education community regarding which strategies are most effective towards which ends, nor which ends are most important. This study provides an overview of engineering ethics interventions within the U.S. through the systematic analysis of articles that featured ethical interventions in (...) engineering, published in select peer-reviewed journals, and published between 2000 and 2015. As a core criterion, each journal article reviewed must have provided an overview of the course as well as how the authors evaluated course-learning goals. In sum, 26 articles were analyzed with a coding scheme that included 56 binary items. The results indicate that the most common methods for integrating ethics into engineering involved exposing students to codes/standards, utilizing case studies, and discussion activities. Nearly half of the articles had students engage with ethical heuristics or philosophical ethics. Following the presentation of the results, this study describes in detail four articles to highlight less common but intriguing pedagogical methods and evaluation techniques. The findings indicate that there is limited empirical work on ethics education within engineering across the United States. Furthermore, due to the large variation in goals, approaches, and evaluation methods described across interventions, this study does not detail “best” practices for integrating ethics into engineering. The science and engineering education community should continue exploring the relative merits of different approaches to ethics education in engineering. (shrink)

Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primarily paid for with public funds, and flawed science threatens the public’s welfare. Members of the public are able to make meaningful judgments about the morality of different behaviors using moral (...) intuitions. Legal scholars emphasize that to maintain legitimacy, social control policies must be developed with some consideration given to the public’s moral intuitions. Although there is a large literature on popular attitudes toward science, there is no existing evidence about public opinion on data fraud or selective reporting. We conducted two studies—a survey experiment with a nationwide convenience sample, and a follow-up survey with a representative sample of US adults —to explore community members’ judgments about the morality of data fraud and selective reporting in science. The findings show that community members make a moral distinction between data fraud and selective reporting, but overwhelmingly judge both behaviors to be immoral and deserving of punishment. Community members believe that scientists who commit data fraud or selective reporting should be fired and banned from receiving funding. For data fraud, most Americans support criminal penalties. Results from an ordered logistic regression analysis reveal few demographic and no significant partisan differences in punitiveness toward data fraud. (shrink)

Spinoza's account of belief entails that if A has two ideas, p and q, with incompatible content, A believes that p if the idea of p is stronger than the idea of q. This seems to leave little space for dominant non-beliefs, or cases in which there is discord between one's beliefs and one's affective-behavioral responses. And yet Spinoza does allow for two classes of dominant non-beliefs: efficacious fictions [fictiones] and ideas that conduce to akrasia. I show how Spinoza can (...) account for dominant non-beliefs within his model of cognition by distinguishing between the doxastic and the affective powers of ideas and by suggesting that doxastic power is best understood diachronically. While other scholars have stressed the elegance of Spinoza's account of ideas, this paper highlights the sophistication and flexibility of his account. (shrink)

This paper explicates the influential Confucian view that “people” and not “institutional rules” are the proper sources of good governance and social order, as well as some notable Confucian objections to this position. It takes Xunzi 荀子, Hu Hong 胡宏, and Zhu Xi 朱熹 as the primary representatives of the “virtue-centered” position, which holds that people’s good character and not institutional rules bear primary credit for successful governance. And it takes Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 as a major advocate for the “institutionalist” (...) position, which holds that institutional rules have some power to effect success independently of improvements in character. Historians have often called attention to this debate but left the major arguments and positions relatively unspecified. As I show, the Confucian virtue-centered view is best captured in two theses: first, that reforming people is far more demanding than reforming institutional rules; second, that once the rules have reached a certain threshold of viability, further improvements in those rules are unlikely to be effective on their own. Once we specify the theses in this way, we can catalogue the different respects and degrees to which the more virtue-centered political thinkers endorse virtue-centrism in governance. Zhu Xi, for example, turns out to endorse a stronger version of virtue-centrism than Hu Hong. I also use this account of the major theses to show that Huang Zongxi, who is sometimes regarded as historical Confucianism’s foremost institutionalist, has more complicated and mixed views about the power of institutional reform than scholars usually assume. (shrink)

This article argues that the controversy over genetically modified crops is best understood not in terms of the supposed bias, dishonesty, irrationality, or ignorance on the part of proponents or critics, but rather in terms of differences in values. To do this, the article draws on and extends recent work of the role of values and interests in science, focusing particularly on inductive risk and epistemic risk, and it shows how the GMO debate can help to further our understanding (...) of the various epistemic risks that are present in science and how these risks might be managed. (shrink)

Within public health, and increasingly other areas of social policy, there are widespread calls to increase or improve the use of evidence for policy-making. Often these calls rest on an assumption that increased evidence utilisation will be a more efficient or effective means of achieving social goals. Yet a clear elucidation of what can be considered “good evidence” for policy is rarely articulated. Many of the current discussions of best practise in the health policy sector derive from the evidence-based (...) medicine movement, embracing the “hierarchy of evidence” that places experimental trials as pre-eminent in terms of methodological quality. However, a number of problems arise if these hierarchies are used to rank or prioritise policy relevance. Challenges in applying evidence hierarchies to policy questions arise from the fact that the EBM hierarchies rank evidence of intervention effect on a specified and limited number of outcomes. Previous authors have noted that evidence forms at the top of... (shrink)

William L. Rowe’s argument against divine freedom has drawn considerable attention from theist philosophers. One reply to Rowe’s argument that has emerged in the recent literature appeals to modified accounts of libertarian freedom which have the result that God may be free even if he necessarily actualizes the best possible world. Though in many ways attractive, this approach appears to lead to the damning consequence of modal collapse i.e., that the actual world is the only possible world. But appearances (...) can be deceiving, and in this paper I argue that the threat of modal collapse dissolves when we consider Alvin Plantinga’s critique of the purportedly Leibnizian notion that God can actualize any possible world, and incorporate the implications of this critique into the divine freedom debate. Developing a suggestion by Edward R. Wierenga, I argue first that the modal collapse objection fails within a Molinist context, and then I extend the discussion beyond that context to show that the objection also fails on the assumption that Molinism is false. (shrink)

Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of G. W. Leibniz. In Divine Machines, Justin Smith offers the first in-depth examination of Leibniz's deep and complex engagement with the empirical life sciences of his day, in areas as diverse as medicine, physiology, taxonomy, generation theory, and paleontology. He shows how (...) these wide-ranging pursuits were not only central to Leibniz's philosophical interests, but often provided the insights that led to some of his best-known philosophical doctrines.Presenting the clearest picture yet of the scope of Leibniz's theoretical interest in the life sciences, Divine Machines takes seriously the philosopher's own repeated claims that the world must be understood in fundamentally biological terms. Here Smith reveals a thinker who was immersed in the sciences of life, and looked to the living world for answers to vexing metaphysical problems. He casts Leibniz's philosophy in an entirely new light, demonstrating how it radically departed from the prevailing models of mechanical philosophy and had an enduring influence on the history and development of the life sciences. Along the way, Smith provides a fascinating glimpse into early modern debates about the nature and origins of organic life, and into how philosophers such as Leibniz engaged with the scientific dilemmas of their era. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have drawn on tools from game theory to explore behavior in Hobbes’ state of nature. I take a similar approach and argue the Lockean state of nature is best conceived of as a conflictual coordination game. I also discuss Nozick’s famous claim regarding the emergence of the state and argue the path to the minimal state is blocked by a hitherto unnoticed free-rider problem. Finally, I argue that on my representation of the Lockean state of nature both (...) widespread conflict and lasting peace are possible. This, I contend, is in line with one popular interpretation of Locke. (shrink)

In a fascinating article in The Journal of Ethics, Eleonore Stump contends that while the flicker of freedom defense is the best available strategy for defending the principle of alternative possibilities against the threat posed to that principle by the Frankfurt cases, the defense is ultimately unsuccessful. In this article I identify a number of difficulties with Stump’s criticism of the flicker strategy. Along the way, I also clarify various nuances of the strategy that often get overlooked, and I (...) highlight the advantages of one version of it in particular. (shrink)

Nearly every common theory of truth has been attributed to Nietzsche, while some commentators have argued that he simply has no theory of truth. This essay argues that Nietzsche's remarks on truth are best situated within either the coherence or pragmatist theories of truth rather than the correspondence theory. Nietzsche's thoughts on truth conflict with the correspondence framework because he believes that the truth conditions of propositions are constitutively dependent on our actions.

Science is our best way of finding out about the natural world, and philosophers who write about that world ought to be sensitive to the claims of our best science. There are obstacles, however, to outsiders using science well. We think philosophers are prone to misuse science: to give undue weight to results that are untested; to highlight favorable and ignore unfavorable data; to give illegitimate weight to the authority of science; to leap from scientific premises to philosophical (...) conclusions without spelling out their relevance; to treat mere resonance between a scientific theory and a philosophical view as empirical evidence for the philosophical view. This article identifies and illustrates some of the ways in which philosophers misuse science, explains why these pitfalls are easy to fall into, and concludes with suggestions for avoiding them. (shrink)

A number of analytic philosophers of religion have asserted what we will call proposition : If God creates the best possible world from an internal necessity alone, then God cannot be thankworthy with respect to creating the best possible world. According to, there is inconsistency between divine thankworthiness and the idea that God creates the best possible world from an internal necessity alone. In this article, however, I develop an argument for the consistency of divine thankworthiness and (...) the idea that God creates the best possible world from an internal necessity alone, thus claiming that proposition is false. An exploration into the Judeo-Christian doctrine of divine grace will expedite the argument. This doctrine will provide sufficient grounds for thinking that God is thankworthy with respect to creating the best possible world. I also argue that the idea that God creates the best possible world from an internal necessity alone can also be a gracious act. Along the way, I will consider possible objections to my argument. (shrink)

A plausible constraint on normative reasons to act is that it must make sense to use them as premises in deliberation. I argue that a central sort of deliberation – what Bratman calls partial planning – is question-directed: it is over, and aims to resolve, deliberative questions. Whether it makes sense to use some consideration as a premise in deliberation in a case of partial planning can vary with the deliberative question at issue. I argue that the best explanation (...) for this is that reasons are contrastive or relativized to deliberative questions. (shrink)

The social principle of subsidiarity, both regarding the federalism debate in North America and the principle’s role in the formation of the European Union, has garnished increased attention in recent years. In this paper I will argue that if one looks for the historical seed of the principle of subsidiarity in Aristotle—as many authors do—then attention should fall more properly on his analysis of practical reasoning in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics than on Book I of the Politics. The (...) treatment of practical reasoning more aptly explains the need for the principle of subsidiarity and, indeed, averring that it is based on an Aristotelian sense of autonomy is misplaced at best and dangerous at worst. (shrink)

Does the fact that other people believe something give me a reason to believe it, too? Yes, and this epistemic fact is explained by the principle of common consent. PCC says that if S knows that others believe that P, then this fact gives S a reason to believe that P. Despite the fact that most logic texts file the appeal to the majority under the category of a fallacy, the principle of common consent is true. The principle can be (...) defended by an appeal to the interpretive dilemma, a lesson from the epistemology of disagreement, an analogy to epistemic self-trust, and an inference to the best explanation for a wide range of epistemic data. Typical objections to the principle are unpersuasive and rest on either an infallibilist epistemology or an interpretive mistake. (shrink)

Sociologists, economists, historians, anthropologists, political theorists, and literary critics have all turned their attention to the study of capitalism. But philosophers remain much less engaged. Why is this? And what could philosophy bring to the study of capitalism? Could it help in the development of a general theory? My main argument here is that philosophy does have an important role to play in the study of capitalism, particularly if we want to develop a general theory. Philosophers must describe something that (...) is peculiar to capitalism, in philosophical terms, which has not been explained by sociological, economic, or psychological means. This subject matter does exist: it is the nature of rationality within capitalism. I suggest that this can best be explained by using the theory of the space of reasons, which helps to show how rational human practices shape social and economic institutions, and how our form of rationality is in turn shaped by those practices and institutions. (shrink)

Well-known epistemologies of science have implications for how best to understand knowledge transfer (KT). Yet, to date, no serious attempt has been made explicate these particular implications. This paper infers views about KT from two popular epistemologies; what we characterize as incommensurabilitist views (after Devitt 2001; Bird 2002, 2008; Sankey and Hoyningen-Huene 2013) and voluntarist views (after van Fraassen 1984; Dupré 2001; Chakravartty 2015). We argue views of the former sort define the methodological, ontological, and social conditions under which (...) research operates within ‘different worlds’ (to use Kuhn’s expression), and entail that genuine KTs under those conditions should be difficult or even impossible. By contrast, more liberal voluntarist views recognize epistemological processes that allow for transfers across different sciences even under such conditions. After outlining these antithetical positions, we identify two kinds of KTs of two kinds present in well-known episodes in the history of ecology—specifically, successful model transfers from chemical kinetics and thermodynamics into areas of ecological research—which reveal significant limitations of incommensurabilitist views. We conclude by discussing how the selected examples support a pluralistic voluntarism regarding KT. (shrink)

Sociologists, economists, historians, anthropologists, political theorists, and literary critics have all turned their attention to the study of capitalism. But philosophers remain much less engaged. Why is this? And what could philosophy bring to the study of capitalism? Could it help in the development of a general theory? My main argument here is that philosophy does have an important role to play in the study of capitalism, particularly if we want to develop a general theory. Philosophers must describe something that (...) is peculiar to capitalism, in philosophical terms, which has not been explained by sociological, economic, or psychological means. This subject matter does exist: it is the nature of rationality within capitalism. I suggest that this can best be explained by using the theory of the space of reasons, which helps to show how rational human practices shape social and economic institutions, and how our form of rationality is in turn shaped by those practices and institutions. (shrink)

Sociologists, economists, historians, anthropologists, political theorists, and literary critics have all turned their attention to the study of capitalism. But philosophers remain much less engaged. Why is this? And what could philosophy bring to the study of capitalism? Could it help in the development of a general theory? My main argument here is that philosophy does have an important role to play in the study of capitalism, particularly if we want to develop a general theory. Philosophers must describe something that (...) is peculiar to capitalism, in philosophical terms, which has not been explained by sociological, economic, or psychological means. This subject matter does exist: it is the nature of rationality within capitalism. I suggest that this can best be explained by using the theory of the space of reasons, which helps to show how rational human practices shape social and economic institutions, and how our form of rationality is in turn shaped by those practices and institutions. (shrink)

This paper is a critique of pornography from within the framework of Heideggerian phenomenology. I contend that pornography is a pernicious form of technological discourse in which women are reduced to spectral and anonymous figures fulfilling a universal role, namely that of sexual subordination. Further, the danger of pornography is covered over in the public sphere as a result of the pervasive appeal to its status as mere fantasy. I argue that relegating the problem to the domain of fantasy is (...) superficial and specious at best, inasmuch as fantasy itself is ultimately grounded in everyday reality. When not concealed as innocuous “fantasy,” pornography has been defended under the rubric of “free speech.” One of my aims is to repudiate this approach by revealing it as grounded in a highly suspect and self-contradictory phallocentric view of language. Rae Langton’s (2009) recently published collection of essays on pornography attacks the problem largely in terms of “objectification” and the Austinian notion of “illocutionary disablement” from a position of authority. In this paper, I too confront the issues of language, objectification, and authority, but as articulated by means of Heidegger’s critique of technology. (shrink)

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In "A Theory of Justice", John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the, "basic institutions of society", to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes (...) to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity, (the first part of the Difference Principle, Rawls' second principle of justice), he abandons the priority of justice. I also argue that he is right to do so. -/- The central argument is simple. As Rawls admits, what family one is raised by profoundly affects one's life chances: a child raised by a family has far greater life chances on every dimension than one raised in a poorer family that may lack books, education, and time to give the child attention. But the prevailing family arrangements in the industrialized West, assigning children to be raised by their biological parents, is guaranteed to perpetuate this injustice. While Rawls says an unjust institution in the basic structure of society, in which he includes the family, must be, "reformed or abolished," he refrains from calling for the reform or abolition of the family. We must simply work around it to compensate for the injustices he admits it involves. And this despite the fact that alternative arrangements involving communal child-rearing (Plato) or assigning children to those best qualified to raise them (Rousseau) are common in the philosophical literature. Moreover, the practice of having children raised by their biological parents is a relatively recent one, at least in the West, where, before the late 18th century, fostering-out or apprenticeship arrangements were normal and expected for both rich and poor for centuries. -/- Much of the paper is devoted to fine-grained textual analysis of Rawls' attempts to avoid the devastating implications of this argument for his theory of justice -- much of which are stated only in the original edition of "A Theory of Justice" and simply deleted, without substitution by anything better, in the second edition. In the end, Rawls has no way out. He cannot keep the priority of justice, fair equality of opportunity, and the monogamous family in which children are raised by their biological parents. As he admits, these are mutually inconsistent. -/- In the final part of the paper, I argue that Rawls should give up on the priority of justice. While child-rearing by the biological parents is a historical anomaly, in the real modern world it would be politically unfeasible to institute Platonic, Rousseauean, or similar legislation that purportedly assigned children to those best able to raise them, regardless of biological relationship. Since Rawls is committed to principles of political stability and feasibility, as he should be, and since ought implies can, such proposals are off the table. I concur with Rawls that we must work around this injustice, even those there are more just arrangements available in principle. But the cost of this -- less high than Rawls suggests -- is abandoning the principle of the priority of justice. Justice is one of a number of considerations that we must or may balance in deciding on the best attainable social relations. It is not a trump. However, this comes a great cost for Rawls: he must also abandon the lexical ordering of principles of justice or, in general, right or good principles of social order, in favor of the messy intuitionist balancing that his theory is designed to avoid. -/- One feature of the paper that is worth independent attention is a discussion of Marx's rejection of justice in the Critique of the Gotha Program, which I explicate, and urge, without adopting it, that it has a great deal more force than is widely understood. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper restates the thesis of 'The Requirements of Justice and Liberal Socialism" where it was argued that liberal socialism best meets Rawlsian requirements of justice. The recent responses to this paper by Jan Narveson, Jeppe von Platz, and Alan Thomas merit examination and comment. This paper shows that if Rawlsian justice is to be met, then non-personal property must be subject to public control. If just outcomes merit the public control of non-personal property and this control is (...) not utilized, then justice has been subordinated to the objectively less important institution of private property. (shrink)

This paper defends Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis , a proposed empirical methodology for explicating philosophical concepts. This methodology attributes to our shared concepts whatever application conditions they would need to have in order best to continue delivering benefits in the ways they have regularly delivered benefits in the past. In the first stage of my argument I argue that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis has what I call normative authority : we have practical and epistemic reason to adopt the explications that it (...) delivers even if we think doing so requires stipulative revisions in the meanings of our concepts. I then use this normative authority to argue that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis also has what I call descriptive authority : when we understand concept-meaning in the way we ought to understand it (in the way licensed by the normative authority of Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis) we see that, rather than being revisionary, Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis is a semantically conservative tool that uncovers (what we should think of as being) the meanings our concepts already have. (shrink)

The idea that God, understood as the most perfect being, must create the best possible world is often underacknowledged by contemporary theologians and philosophers of religion. This book clearly demonstrates the rationale for what Justin Daeley calls Theistic Optimism and interacts with the existing literature in order to highlight its limitations. While locating Theistic Optimism in the thought of Gottfried Leibniz, Daeley argues that Theistic Optimism is consistent with divine freedom, aseity, gratitude, and our typical modal intuitions. By (...) offering plausible solutions to each of the criticisms levelled against Theistic Optimism, he also provides a vigorous and original defence against the charge that it deviates from the Christian tradition. Engaging with both the Christian tradition and contemporary theologians and philosophers, Why God Must Do What is Best positions the idea of Theistic Optimism firmly within the language of contemporary philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Well-known epistemologies of science have implications for how best to understand knowledge transfer (KT). Yet, to date, no serious attempt has been made to explicate these particular implications. This paper infers views about KT from two popular epistemologies; what we characterize as incommensurabilitist views (after Devitt, 2001; Bird, 2002, 2008; Sankey and Hoyningen-Huene 2013) and voluntarist views (after Van Fraassen, 1984; Dupré, 2001; Chakravartty, 2015). We argue views of the former sort define the methodological, ontological, and social conditions under (...) which research operates within ‘different worlds’ (to use Kuhn's expression), and entail that genuine KTs under those conditions should be difficult or even impossible. By contrast, more liberal voluntarist views recognize epistemological processes that allow for transfers across different sciences even under such conditions. After outlining these antithetical positions, we identify two kinds of KTs present in well-known episodes in the history of ecology—specifically, successful model transfers from chemical kinetics and thermodynamics into areas of ecological research—which reveal significant limitations of incommensurabilitist views. We conclude by discussing how the selected examples support a pluralistic voluntarism regarding KT. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche embraces a conception of science that falls between the two dominant interpretations in the literature. Many thinkers in the continental tradition claim that Nietzsche believes science should be either reconceived or overcome altogether by another discourse, such as art, because it is nihilistic. They maintain that Nietzsche regards science as nihilistic because it either presumes that the world is some way it is not or functions on the erroneous assumption that truth rather than art is (...) class='Hi'>best for humanity. By contrast, most analytic commentators contend that Nietzsche has a positive rather than nihilistic conception of science, so he does not hold that the discipline should be either reinterpreted or superseded. They claim that for Nietzsche science represents the way the world is and uncovers truths that are important for humankind. I argue for the middle position that Nietzsche has a positive conception of science, scientific constructivism, which he develops in response to nihilistic conceptions of science, particularly scientific realism. Scientific constructivism helps overcome nihilism because it correctly captures the nature of scientific investigation. Affirming constructivism thus allows inquirers to commit to the scientific project without deceiving themselves about the nature of the objects of inquiry. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of commentators have expressed dissatisfaction with Spinoza’s account of practical reason. In this paper, I defend his account against the most prominent objections, showing that the dictates of reason play an important role in guiding thought and action. However, against the standard interpretation, I propose that we view these rules not as exceptionless, instrumental prescriptions—hypothetical imperatives with necessary antecedents, as Curley memorable put it—but rather as adaptable guideposts that aid us in the complex, dynamic process (...) of acquiring a habit of virtue. The dictates of reason are best understood as defeasible policies that help to orient one in the ars vivendi. (shrink)

This article (1) offers a relatively comprehensive survey of criticisms of Buddhism made by the influential Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) with translations of key passages, and (2) proposes that these criticisms are best understood as targeting the implicit presuppositions and practical implications of Buddhist teachings, not so much the explicit doctrines of the Buddhists. The article examines three sets of criticisms. The first has to do with Buddhist soteriology, the fundamental priority of Buddhist salvation, which Zhu takes (...) to be egoistic and a corruption of the more relationship-oriented nature of ethics itself. The second set of criticisms concerns Buddhist over-reliance on meditation as a form of mental discipline, which in Zhu’s view leaves Buddhists ill-equipped to take independent standards of right and wrong into account. He proposes instead that Confucian “reverential attention” (jing 敬) is the better means by which to reshape one’s intentions and emotions in light of objective standards. The final criticisms are of the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. Here Zhu seems to be an uncharitable critic, suggesting that Buddhists treat all things as illusory and without a certain ethically significant relationship to the larger world. But a closer examination of the evidence shows that he was both aware of more defensible notions of Buddhist emptiness and, at the end of the day, unconvinced that Buddhist practices were conducive to realizing them. (shrink)

Is there evidence of constitutionalism in classical Confucian political thought? In Sungmoon Kim's book on Confucian virtue politics, he argues that that Mencius (Mengzi, fourth century BCE) and Xunzi (third century BCE) are constitutionalists in the following sense: they expressed a commitment to creating durable institutions, one of whose primary aims is to constrain the exercise of legitimate political authority and facilitate good and proper uses of political authority. But for many political thinkers, the sort of constitutionalism that really matters (...) is the sort that entails a commitment to "constitutional remedies." Roughly, a constitutional remedy is some sanctioned means of enforcing the constraints or correcting political authorities who fail to abide by them. Moreover, it is often thought that the remedies should be entrenched – that is, widely recognized and regarded as beyond the legitimate power of the political authorities to change easily. Most decent political thinkers are constitutionalists in the the weak sense that they think there should be durable institutions that constrain abuses of power and facilitate good uses of power. Fewer go so far as to say that there should be entrenched checks and balances on that power, so that people's well-founded objections have something more than just rhetorical force against abuses of power. -/- In this paper, I examine whether Mencius and Xunzi would qualify as constitutionalists in the robust sense that presupposes entrenched remedies. I find that Mencius has some political commitments that might make him friendlier to aristocratic remedies than to democratic ones, but that his reluctance to divide political authority among non-ideal agents makes it difficult to know whether he would accept constitutional remedies of any sort. And my findings with respect to Xunzi are similar, but a modicum more hopeful: at best, Xunzi could be stretched to underwrite some aristocratic constitutional remedies, and he seems somewhat more open to dividing power among non-ideal agents. Neither Mencius nor Xunzi were robust constitutionalists, but it is historically and philosophically informative to ask how near they came to robust constitutionalism, and in which respects they fell short of it. -/- In the course of developing and justifying my interpretation, I call attention to two considerations in assessing an historical thinker's commitment to robust constitutionalism: first, whether the thinker invokes the threat of rebellion as a way of countenancing it or merely as a descriptive claim about likely consequences of bad governance; second, whether non-ideal political agents are empowered to check abuses of power. Only when the thinker actually countenances rebellion and allows that non-ideal political agents can check abuses can the thinker be plausibly described as a robust constitutionalist. (shrink)

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS. -/- The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is (...) overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into an unpalatable moral relativism on which there is no non-arbitrary basis between a justice that underwrites forms of domination such as slavery and a justice that condemns such forms of domination is equally powerful and compelling. I show that there is a way to harmonize both views that is subject to empirical test. -/- First I show that the most widely accepted and influential formulation of liberal justice, John Rawls' Justice as Fairness, in. e.g, A Theory of Justice, cannot avoid the relativistic challenge because it would not be accepted, as a matter of sociological fact, by real people in a divided society once the "veil of Ignorance" is removed and real people step out from the Original Position. To put it differently, different reflective equilibria are inevitable in a divided society. Given the weight that Rawls properly puts on the realizability of a conception of justice and its stability in practice, this is a fatal objection. There can be no divided society that is "well ordered" in Rawls' sense, governed by a shared conception of justice and known to be so governed. -/- I then turn to the most powerful statement of the CLS view, Milton's Fisk's relativistic account in The State and Justice. For Fisk, justice is a compromise between what the dominant groups can compel and what the the subordinate groups will acquiesce to., There is no one such compromise in any given situation, so the account is in that sense relativistic, but more deeply, it is relativistic in that it offers no non-arbitrary, non-question begging way to choose between the official justice of, e.g., a slaveholding society and and the radical justice of the slaves, which has no place for slaveholders as a group or slavery as an institution.All that Fisk can offer is an arbitrary existential choice: I'm with the slaves. (Or the slaveowners.) Most of us would find this disconcerting or even unacceptable. -/- I show that Fisk's general sort of account can be modified to allow for an non-arbitrary choice. Given general facts about human nature, societies based on domination will produce resistance that over the long run will diminish or eliminate various forms of domination. Through a sort of ratchet effect, rights won will be hard if not impossible to reverse. Societies embodying forms of domination can therefore be compared on dimensions of stability: the more domination, the more resistance, and the less stability. Such societies are inferior on the dimension of justice to more emancipatory society on the terms of both kinds of justice, official and radical. -/- This is not question begging because regimes of domination incorporate stability no less than more emancipatory social orders. The choice between official justice embodying domination and radical justice that does not is not arbitrary because it is based on a shared commitment to long term stability. This offers an empirical test of which social orders are more justice, and a prediction that over time, domination will tend to decrease. (shrink)

This chapter explores the debate between contemporary projectivists or expressivists, and the advocates of sensibility theory. Both positions are best viewed as forms of sentimentalism — the theory that evaluative concepts must be explicated by appeal to the sentiments. It argues that the sophisticated interpretation of such notions as “true” and “objective” that are offered by defenders of these competing views ultimately undermines the significance of their meta-ethical disputes over “cognitivism” and “realism” about value. Their fundamental disagreement lies in (...) moral psychology; it concerns how best to understand the emotions to which sentimentalist theories must appeal. (shrink)

I want to start this paper by drawing a distinction between two uses of the word ‘conscience’ in order to get clear just what it is I shall talk about. The distinction I want to make can perhaps best be brought out by reference to a type of situation which could equally well be described in one or other of two ways, each way illustrating one use of the word ‘conscience’. Suppose then that we have a man who has (...) been brought up to think that it is a good thing to help the poor. This lesson he has been taught, at least in part, by being told stories about beggars asking for money. The good person gives money to the beggars and the wicked person callously refuses it. One year he decides to book himself a holiday in Spain. Before he goes, however, he has a conversation with a social scientist friend. This friend points out to him that the one thing he should not do when in Spain is give money to beggars. Beggary, he argues, is a social evil and one which will only be removed if people take a stand and refuse to go on giving money when asked. The appropriate action to take is to inform the beggar of the whereabouts of the local employment exchange, or take him along to an employer, or do one or other of various rather embarrassing things. If the worst comes to the worst, it is better simply to walk away than to give money. Our man goes to Spain convinced by this argument and realising the unsophisticated and over-simple nature of his earlier moral approach. Before long, a beggar comes up to him and asks for money. Let's suppose that he refuses to give it, because of his newly acquired conviction. Now it seems to me that when he returns he could describe this situation in one or other of two ways without there being any difference as regards the facts that he is asserting. (shrink)

I want to start this paper by drawing a distinction between two uses of the word ‘conscience’ in order to get clear just what it is I shall talk about. The distinction I want to make can perhaps best be brought out by reference to a type of situation which could equally well be described in one or other of two ways, each way illustrating one use of the word ‘conscience’. Suppose then that we have a man who has (...) been brought up to think that it is a good thing to help the poor. This lesson he has been taught, at least in part, by being told stories about beggars asking for money. The good person gives money to the beggars and the wicked person callously refuses it. One year he decides to book himself a holiday in Spain. Before he goes, however, he has a conversation with a social scientist friend. This friend points out to him that the one thing he should not do when in Spain is give money to beggars. Beggary, he argues, is a social evil and one which will only be removed if people take a stand and refuse to go on giving money when asked. The appropriate action to take is to inform the beggar of the whereabouts of the local employment exchange, or take him along to an employer, or do one or other of various rather embarrassing things. If the worst comes to the worst, it is better simply to walk away than to give money. Our man goes to Spain convinced by this argument and realising the unsophisticated and over-simple nature of his earlier moral approach. Before long, a beggar comes up to him and asks for money. Let's suppose that he refuses to give it, because of his newly acquired conviction. Now it seems to me that when he returns he could describe this situation in one or other of two ways without there being any difference as regards the facts that he is asserting. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo compare techniques for computing clustering and switching scores in terms of agreement, correlation, and empirical value as predictors of incident cognitive impairment.MethodsWe transcribed animal and letter F fluency recordings on 640 cases of ICI and matched controls from a national epidemiological study, amending each transcription with word timings. We then calculated clustering and switching scores, as well as scores indexing speed of responses, using techniques described in the literature. We evaluated agreement among the techniques with Cohen’s κ and calculated (...) correlations among the scores. After fitting a base model with raw scores, repetitions, and intrusions, we fit a series of Bayesian logistic regression models adding either clustering and switching scores or speed scores, comparing the models in terms of several metrics. We partitioned the ICI cases into acute and progressive cases and repeated the regression analysis for each group.ResultsFor animal fluency, we found that models with speed scores derived using the slope difference algorithm achieved the best values of the Watanabe–Akaike Information Criterion, but with good net reclassification improvement only for the progressive group. For letter fluency, different models excelled for prediction of acute and progressive cases. For acute cases, NRI was best for speed scores derived from a network model, while for progressive cases, the best model used clustering and switching scores derived from the same network model. Combining variables from the best animal and letter F models led to marginal improvements in model fit and NRI only for the all-cases and acute-cases analyses.ConclusionSpeed scores improve a base model for predicting progressive cognitive impairment from animal fluency. Letter fluency scores may provide complementary information. (shrink)

As the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have increased over recent years, so have the challenges of how to govern its usage. Consequently, prominent stakeholders across academia, government, industry, and civil society have called for states to devise and deploy principles, innovative policies, and best practices to regulate and oversee these increasingly powerful AI tools. Developing a robust AI governance system requires extensive collective efforts throughout the world. It also raises old questions of politics, democracy, and administration, but with (...) the new challenges posed by AI's growing influence on markets, governing structures, international relations, healthcare, science, and political activism. The Oxford Handbook of AI Governance delineates the scope of these issues and addresses the key questions of AI governance. Across forty-nine chapters, organized in nine major sections, the Handbook covers the theoretical and ethical foundations of AI governance, different frameworks for developing a governance structure for AI, practical perspectives on AI governance in different policy domains, economic analyses of AI governance, and concrete lessons about the impact of AI governance domestically and internationally. Chapter authors come from a wide set of disciplines, areas of study, and cultural backgrounds, providing a global perspective on AI governance. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses two questions at the center of critical debate about ecology’s ability to provide scientific guidance in efforts to address mounting environmental problems. The first concerns whether and, if so, how theoretical ecological models (TEMs) can usefully inform environmental policy and resource management decision-making. The second concerns whether and, if so, in what manner the entities such models characterize (i.e., ecological populations, communities, and systems) exist. Throughout this work, I clarify how these questions are, and are not, related (...) and infer answers to each by analyzing the arguments of critics of theoretical, TEM-based, ecological research and analyzing ecologist’s practices of using TEMs in landmark research studies. My analyses illuminate numerous ways in which theoretical ecological research can aid in environmental policy and resource management decision-making, and show that modern ecologists embrace a largely ontology-neutral metaphysics and instrumentalist epistemology (contrary to the received view among critics of ecology). I defuse a number of popular criticisms of theoretical ecological research by showing that they rely on confusions about ecology’s conceptual foundations and the reasoning processes employed in theoretical ecological research. At the same time, I take pains to isolate the substantive point about the limitations of such research that critics can reasonably make. Accordingly, the overarching structure of this dissertation sees it as an effort to, first, isolate the substantive point critics make about the limitations of theoretical ecological research and then identify ways in which such research can aid in practical decision-making despite those limitations. This dissertation pushes forward the philosophical and broader crossdisciplinary dialogue concerning ecology’s conceptual foundations and practical value, while at once directly addressing the ever more urgent practical need to make plain how theoretical ecological research can usefully inform crucially important political, ethical, and management decisions about how best to cope with mounting environmental problems. It contributes to multiple disciplines as such, and students and professionals of all stripes interested in ecology and its practical applications should find resources to extend their own investigations in it. (shrink)

Gene-Culture Coevolution (GCC) theory is an intriguing new entry in the quest to understand human culture. Nonetheless, it has received relatively little philosophical attention. One notable exception is Kim Sterelny’s (2006) critique which raises three primary objections against the GCC account. Most importantly, he argues that GCC theory, as it stands, is unable to resolve “the paradox of cultural accumulation” (151); that while social learning should generally be prohibitively expensive for the pupils, it nonetheless occurs as the principle means of (...) disseminating novel information through a culture. Sterelny holds that this is best explained by supplementing the GCC models with strong cultural group selection pressures. I argue that this is not needed. To show this I elaborate upon Joseph Henrich and Francisco Gil-White’s (2001) information goods theory, developing it in terms of the market pressures that one would expect to find in an information economy. I indicate how such pressures contribute to an individual-level explanation of cultural accumulation that answers Sterelny’s concerns. (shrink)

The completion of the human genome project in 2000 dramatically emphasized the imminent success of the genetic revolution. The ethical and social consequences of this scientific development are immense. From human reproduction to life-extending therapies, from the impact on gender and race to public health and public safety, there is scarcely a part of our lives left unaffected by the impact of the new genetics. A Companion to Genethics is the first substantial study of the multifaceted dimensions of the genetic (...) revolution and its philosophical, ethical, social, and political significance. It brings together the best and most influential contemporary writing about genethics. Newly commissioned essays from prominent figures in the current debate provide a wide-ranging and fascinating scholarly analysis of all the issues that arise from this explosive science. (shrink)

The editors of this new collection are clear with their intention: "The Philosophies of America Reader aims to widen the scope of American philosophy beyond its traditionally traced borders". This actually undersells what they are doing, which is an effort to carve out a new space that could perhaps best be labelled "Philosophies of the Americas" and includes Latin American philosophy, Native American philosophy, African American philosophy, American Transcendentalism, Pragmatism and some Asian American philosophy. There are thus multiple potential (...) audiences for this text: traditional "American philosophy" programs, pluralist programs looking for a text that speaks to the diverse peoples and traditions... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments THE FUTURE PRESENT TENSE by Justin Leiber Perhaps the simplest, most general, and oldest claim about fiction is that it should instruct and entertain. A logical positivist might draw a sharp line between the factual content of a discourse and the pleasurable emotional release available to the auditor. Aristotle straddles this distinction in seeing (dramatic) fiction as imitation of, principally, human action, an imitation which (...) is, Aristotle assures us in Poetics, both naturally pleasurable to perform or to observe performed. The distinction is straddled because for something to be an imitation of something else it must convey some body of rough fact about that thing; and granted various conventions of form and good form, the more accurate, compact, and revealing the imitation, the more the entertainment. Indeed, Aristotle also insists that drama is more universal than history, for the poet depicts what is necessary and probable in human action, while history depicts what is actual, though perhaps improbable, and the historian may not illume what is necessary, representative, exemplary, or prophetic in the mass of supposed actualities. There is a puzzle here in Aristotle's attitude. All humans by nature desire to know is the resolute thesis of the Metaphysics and he suggests there and elsewhere that this desire is a noble one and one whose fulfillment is an important form and ingredient of happiness. In Poetics it is quite clear that both the poet and the audience must have some of the sort of stuff that Aristotle considers fully genuine knowledge, explanatory knowledge, knowledge of universals, for otherwise they could not produce or understand the work as successful (or unsuccessful) imitation of the probable, 203 204Philosophy and Literature necessary, exemplary, etc., in human action. So in entertaining the work inevitably instructs. Aristotle does say that Homer gives in hexameters an imitation of human action, while Empedocles gives in hexameters physical philosophy. But what if Empedocles were providing us psychology? The example could be made more telling if we consider a twentieth-century psychoanalytic Empedocles who tracks or elucidates some generalizations of psychology through giving imagined, or partly imaged, case histories — how would such a work be psychology as opposed to fiction? Imitation (mimesis) wouldn't do thejob, for Aristotle mentions Socratic Dialogue as a form of it. To move to contemporary instances, what may we suppose is the difference between Plato's Republic and Robert Heinlein's Space Cadet? l In Space Cadet, we find some hundred years hence a modernized version of the Platonic Republic, with an elite outgrowth of the United Nations, the "Space Patrol," playing the role of the philosopher kings to the whole earth. Heinlein presents Plato's three-component theory of human psychology and of the meritocratic, tripartite, hierarchic structure of the most real, or healthy, state, and he argues and illustrates the basic Platonic thesis. Ethics is as much an objective science as mathematics, immorality is a form of ignorance (no one knowingly does wrong), and the general solution to the problem of statescraft is the creation of an educational system that will winnow, at level after level, and further educate an intellectual/ethical elite who will monopolize ultimate weaponry and political power, who will use the "divine lie" tojustify their authority, and who will act out of ethical knowledge, not for individual gain. Heinlein gives his account of these matters from the point of view of a Mathew Dobson, a Patrol candidate, who resembles a Candide who finds himself within a reasonable facsimile of the Just State, if not the Best of All Possible Worlds. One concedes that Plato provides us a substantially original, more detailed and coherently worked out set of speculations and theories, while Heinlein provides us a perhaps banal version of these ideas in a sentimental (perhaps fascistic) vision. Similarly, one eagerly concedes that Plato's Republic has played a potent role in European Civilization and the sweep of human thought, while Space Cadet has not. But, plainly, the distinction between a work of philosophy, or of physics, and a (dramatic) fiction or science fiction, cannot be this. One can have unoriginal, false, or impotent works of physics, psychology, or philosophy. So one cannot argue on... (shrink)

For many, Rorty was a postmodern relativist and Popper was a positivist and Cold War liberal ideologue. The argument developed here rejects such views and explores how Rorty?s work is best understood from a Popperian problem-solving perspective. It is argued that Rorty erred in seeking justification for beliefs, unlike Popper who replaced the search for justification with criticism. Nonetheless, Rorty?s arguments about post-Nietzschean theory and reformism function as important updates to Popper?s arguments about methodological essentialism and piecemeal social engineering, (...) respectively. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scientism, Certitude, and the Recovery of PoliticsChristopher Justin Brophy O.P.In Natural Law and Human Rights, Pierre Manent begins his analysis of the contemporary political situation by discussing the intractable tension between the relativism surrounding moral action and the absolutism surrounding "human rights." Later, drawing heavily from Aristotle's Politics, Manent discusses the necessity of a command-obey structure to resolve the tension such that human beings can fruitfully engage in (...) political life. These two claims, one about the tension between relativism and absolutism and the other about the command-obey structure, are closely linked. If it is true that human beings have an innate need for authority, then it is also the case that the extreme abuses of that need, as they manifest themselves in the political realm, will be either wholesale embrace of such authority (absolutism) or wholesale rejection (relativism). We should be clear that the authority Manent discusses is not arbitrary or autocratic exercise of power, but a legitimate authority towards which citizens can offer rational assent. But any human need or desire can be abused and knowledge of the abuses is necessary to understand the proper object.It is the contention of this piece that Manent, in his explication of command-obey, wrote better than he knew. Manent authored his text before the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, his analysis provides some of the best explanatory power for understanding the politics surrounding COVID. This politics has significance that transcends the particular crisis of the pandemic and merits serious attention. Specifically, Manent's analysis of the human need for a command-obey structure both offers an explanation for the concurrent tension between relativism and absolutism, at least as it pertains to the relationship between science and politics, and gives explanatory [End Page 239] power for the rise of scientism in contemporary society. The widespread conception that the natural sciences have the potential to answer questions that reside out of their proper purviews leads to abuses of authority in both directions, by both sides—the political left and political right. I will flesh out my argument first by showing the usefulness of Manent's analysis for explaining how easily so many in the United States fall prey to a false conception of "science" that undermines a healthy politics and reveals, at root, a dangerous aversion to ambiguity. I will then explain the implications of the elevation of scientism for the relationship between politics and Christianity. I will conclude with some reflections on the common good and the future of politics in the United States given Manent's important observations. I anticipate that a common criticism of Manent's book will be that it lacks clear prescriptions for the political problems that ail us. I will argue that clear prescriptions cannot follow from the logic of Manent's argument, and ultimately that the lack of prescription is one of the strengths of the book.Before I begin, I wish to make two qualifications. First, Manent's argument ultimately is about the (un)tenability of liberalism without some common conception of the good. He treats several moral and political problems in his book that fall outside of the scope of this short paper. I am not attempting in the analysis that follows to reduce the moral scope of Manent's claims or even to take up the mantle of his argument. I simply wish to show how his analysis is helpful in explaining a contemporary political problem and how the implications of this analysis should affect the way Christians think about political practice in the United States. Second, I want to make clear at the outset that I positively wish to avoid a discussion about the various policies enacted as responses to COVID-19. I also want to avoid any cavalier political discussion of COVID that does not sufficiently respect the over one million persons (given the latest CDC tally) who have lost their lives in this country and the hardships that many more have endured due to the pandemic. It is essential for our purposes here though to treat the political significance of the pandemic. I will attempt to do that now.The Appeal of ScientismNumerous thinkers... (shrink)

Digital media and technology are nearly ubiquitious in contemporary higher education, As such, researchers and educators are keen to identify best practices and understand impacts. Digital media and technology present opportunities to cultivate interactive, creative teaching-learning communities. However, inclusion of digital media and technology in a course does not necessarily cultivate creative engagement or deep reflection among students. This manuscript studies how a contemplative approach to teaching with digital media, specifically TV series, can lead to more effective and engaging (...) in the process of teaching professional ethics. This research explores how the Contemplative Technopedagogy Framework can enrich the use of TV series for teaching professional ethics and positively influence the effective integration of ethical behavior into university students’ future professional lives. (shrink)

This book is a significant accomplishment, and for now the most comprehensive intervention in a debate that has been more than three hundred years in the making. At least since Pierre Bayle, commentators have imagined a sort of paradox in the pairing of Spinoza’s irreproachable way of life with his scandalous philosophy, in contrast with the perfect fit between Leibniz’s optimism for the status quo with his supposedly opportunistic relation to his courtly benefactors. Together with these biographical coordinates, to which (...) Lærke’s work is attentive and sensitive, there is a philosophical opposition that is supposed to be absolute: each philosopher is the other’s perfect opposite. Matthew Stewart’s bestseller The Courtier and the Heretic is the latest iteration of this myth, and Lærke’s study might best be summed up as the perfect antidote to Stewart’s: it is a rigorous, dense, and, most importantly, a just treatment of the authors themselves, whose own words often belie the roles in which they would posthumously be cast. While Lærke acknowledges that there is indeed an easy opposition one can construct between the major metaphysical commitments of the two thinkers, he nonetheless wants to know how their systematic differences might have grown out of an intense engagement on Leibniz’s part with a philosophy he indeed ended up opposing, yet against which he felt compelled to articulate his own views, and back to which he often seemed in danger of returning. (shrink)