Though Trey Parker and Matt Stone haven't been killed for it (they did receive death threats after their 200th episode) the creators of South Park have faced accusations much like those that led to Socrates' execution: the corruption of youth and the teaching of vulgar, irreligious behavior. A closer examination, however, reveals that South Park is very much within the Platonic tradition, as Kyle and Stan engage in questioning and dialogue in order to "learn something today." Moreover, the mob (...) mentality of the parents, along with the malicious yet mimetic evil of Cartman, demonstrates how evil emerges from thoughtlessness: a failure to ask if one can live with oneself, and a failure to out oneself in the place of others. Through its different characters, and even its apparently mindless vulgarity, South Park shows the need for engaging in dialogue, and thinking from others' perspectives, in order to pursue wisdom, examine life, and make it worth living. (shrink)

What can _South Park_ tell us about Socrates and the nature of evil? How does _The Office_ help us to understand Sartre and existentialist ethics? Can _Battlestar Galactica_ shed light on the existence of God? _Introducing Philosophy Through Pop Culture_ uses popular culture to illustrate important philosophical concepts and the work of the major philosophers With examples from film, television, and music including _South Park_, _The Matrix_, _X-Men_, _Batman_, _Harry Potter, Metallica_ and _Lost,_ even the most abstract and complex philosophical (...) ideas become easier to grasp Features key essays from across the Blackwell _Philosophy and Pop Culture_ series, as well as helpful editorial material and a glossary of philosophical terms From metaphysics to epistemology; from ethics to the meaning of life, this unique introduction makes philosophy as engaging as popular culture itself Supplementary website available with teaching guides, sample materials and links to further resources at _www.pop-philosophy.org_. (shrink)

How is it that humans can react emotionally to fiction when they know it is not real? Following the lead of Denis Dutton in The Art Instinct, we propose a solution to this so-called paradox of fiction. The paradox assumes that our conscious awareness that something is not real should prevent an emotional reaction. But such reactions are often the result of aptly named “mirror neurons” that mimic the brain activity of those around us and cause us to mimic the (...) emotions of others. So because mirror neurons do not distinguish between fiction and reality, we react emotionally to both fiction and reality. (shrink)

Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of akrasia, drawn from the work of William James, that sees akrasia as neither a rational failing (as with most philosophical accounts) nor a moral failing (as with early Christian accounts), but rather a necessary by-product of our status as biological beings. By examining James’s related accounts of motivation and action, I argue that akratic actions occur when an agent attempts to act against her settled habits, but fails to do so. This makes akrasia (...) a product of the agent’s practical failure to adequately structured her environment to bring about her desired action. Akratic action performs the vital function of revealing to the agent the exact point at which her cognitive effort was insufficient for bringing about her intended action. It also reveals that future improvement is within her control. As such, akratic action is the very foundation of James’s meliorism. (shrink)

According to G E Moore,1 we commit the naturalistic fallacy when we infer ‘x is good’ from non-evaluative premises involving x such as ‘ x is pleasant’ or ‘ x is desired’. On Moore’s view, the mistake is to think that we can reduce moral goodness to anything else or explain it in any other terms. We cannot analyse ‘good’, Moore thought, because goodness is simple, non-natural and sui generis. If Moore were alive today, and if he were to ask (...) contemporary bioethicists the right questions, he would probably find that many of them commit the naturalistic fallacy when they move from empirical premises to normative conclusions or when they articulate complex notions of the good. Pugh et al 2 might commit the naturalistic fallacy themselves when they conclude that people with natural immunity to COVID-19 should be exempt from vaccine mandates because such exemptions would achieve desired public health benefits. Moore would probably find me guilty of committing the naturalistic fallacy if I were to present my arguments against such exemptions. A reanimated Moore would find that the naturalistic fallacy pervades bioethics and public health. In contrast, as I shall argue, the un naturalistic fallacy is probably nowhere to be found. In this commentary, I explain what the so-called unnaturalistic fallacy really is and raise doubts about whether anyone really commits it. Decades after Moore published Principia Ethica, Bernard Williams observed that the naturalistic fallacy is unfortunately named since it is neither a fallacy nor an argumentative tendency unique to ethical naturalists.3 Ethical non-naturalists make the same mistake—if it is a mistake—when they move from, say, ‘x is commanded by the gods’ to ‘x is good’. Just as Moore’s ‘naturalistic fallacy’ misnames, Pugh et al ’s ‘unnaturalistic fallacy’ misleads. To be …. (shrink)

This entry addresses the question of whether justice is thick, thin, or neither. It discusses three main ways of understanding the difference between thick and thin – Williams’ 1985 distinction, the Continuum Approach, and Hare’s distinction. The question of how to classify justice turns out to be a problem for Williams’ 1985 distinction. If the Continuum Approach is correct, it’s far from clear why it would matter whether a given concept is classified as thick, thin, or neither. Hare’s distinction, on (...) the other hand, allows for a strong case to be made for the claim that “justice” is thick. And if “justice” is thick, in Hare’s sense, then there are at least two potential implications. The first is that justice might be a genuine value property, assuming it’s impossible for “just” to have a value-neutral counterpart. The second is that there might be intractable intercultural disagreements about what things are just. (shrink)

Clausal edges seem to have an effect on the scopes that arguments residing at those edges can have. In particular, they influence whether an argument may be interpreted at a lowered, or reconstructed, position within the clause. This is probably what is responsible for the difference between (1a) and (1b), which formed the focus for the debate in Stowell 1991 and Williams..

In this paper, I challenge the traditional narrative that William James’s arguments against determinism were primarily motivated by his personal struggles with depression. I argue that James presents an alternative argument against determinism that is motivated by his commitment to sound scientific practice. James argues that determinism illegitimately extrapolates from observations of past events to predictions about future events without acknowledging the distinct metaphysical difference between them. This occupation with futurity suggests that James’s true target is better understood as (...) logical determinism rather than causal determinism. This has consequences for James’s proposed alternative, which I call his probabilistic underdeterminism, a conception of the universe that is built on chance, choice, and a local teleology. All of this forms part of a broader criticism of the scientific practices of his day based on their widespread failure to acknowledge the distorting effects of observation on that which is observed. (shrink)

Concern regarding overly demanding duties has been a prominent feature of moral debate ever since the possibility was famously sounded out by Bernard Williams nearly fifty years ago. More recently, some theorists have attempted to resolve the issue by reconsidering its underlying structure, drawing attention to the possibility that the duties to respond to large-scale moral issues like global poverty, systemic racism, and climate change may be fundamentally collective duties rather than indi- vidual ones. On this view, the relationship between (...) potentially overly demanding individual duties and large-scale moral issues is mediated by the fact that the duties are, first and foremost, ours together rather than each of ours on our own. We believe this theoretical shift constitutes an important development for moral theory regarding large-scale moral problems, but in this paper we focus on two dis- tinct reasons to think that the interplay between collective duties and demanding- ness is more complicated than has typically been appreciated. First, we argue that in cases in which risks or burdens are indivisible, the move to collectivize duties fails to fulfill its promise to alleviate demandingness concerns, and moreover that those kinds of cases are far more widespread than they may initially appear to be. Sec- ond, we argue that if concerns over individual demandingness could block a putative obligation from becoming an actual moral duty, then, in some cases at least, con- cerns over collective demandingness could do so as well. These complications help elucidate the fact that while the move to collectivize duties can address demanding- ness concerns in a particular subset of cases, in others doing so may merely relo- cate—or even exacerbate—the problem. (shrink)

The Good Place is about moral philosophy. But one reason everyone hates moral philosophers is that they think everything is about ethics. When it comes to the Good Place versus Bad Place hypothesis, the big giveaway is simplicity. The Good Place hypothesis doesn't require a grand deception and all the planning that would be necessary to keep it afloat. The Bad Place hypothesis does. The biggest worry about an eternal life in something like The Good Place was made famous by (...) the philosopher Bernard Williams: boredom. Although it might take a while, The Good Place would eventually, and inevitably, turn into The Bad Place. Immortality would become torture. As Williams points out, even though a desire for immorality is irrational, the state of being dead is itself nothing to dread—it's still perfectly rational to want to live a longer life rather than a shorter life. (shrink)

In _A Philosophy of the Unsayable_, William Franke argues that the encounter with what exceeds speech has become the crucial philosophical issue of our time. He proposes an original philosophy pivoting on analysis of the limits of language. The book also offers readings of literary texts as poetically performing the philosophical principles it expounds. Franke engages with philosophical theologies and philosophies of religion in the debate over negative theology and shows how apophaticism infiltrates the thinking even of those who (...) attempt to deny or delimit it._ In six cohesive essays, Franke explores fundamental aspects of unsayability. In the first and third essays, his philosophical argument is carried through with acute attention to modes of unsayability that are revealed best by literary works, particularly by negativities of poetic language in the oeuvres of Paul Celan and Edmond Jabès. Franke engages in critical discussion of apophatic currents of philosophy both ancient and modern, focusing on Hegel and French post-Hegelianism in his second essay and on Neoplatonism in his fourth essay. He treats Neoplatonic apophatics especially as found in Damascius and as illuminated by postmodern thought, particularly Jean-Luc Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity. In the last two essays, Franke treats the tension between two contemporary approaches to philosophy of religion—Radical Orthodoxy and radically secular or Death-of-God theologies. _A Philosophy of the Unsayable _will interest scholars and students of philosophy, literature, religion, and the humanities. This book develops Franke's explicit theory of unsayability, which is informed by his long-standing engagement with major representatives of apophatic thought in the Western tradition. "William Franke is an articulate spokesman for what cannot be said not only with regards to modern European poetry but also with respect to contemporary theology. _A Philosophy of the Unsayable _is essential reading for everyone working in religion and literature and in modern theology." — Kevin Hart, Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies, University of Virginia __ "By now, it would seem that there could be no more to say about not-saying. Apophatic language and negative theology have been accused of meaninglessness, nihilism, and even ill-concealed ontologies. In this lovely and surprising book, William Franke not only deftly undoes these criticisms but shows that apophasis underlies and strangely grounds all language and thought, even of those very discourses that most vigorously reject it. _A Philosophy of the Unsayable_ demonstrates with elegance that there is indeed more to say, and more that is both meaningful and important." — Karmen MacKendrick, Le Moyne College__ "William Franke is an eminent scholar in comparative literature, who is schooled in philosophy and religion. He is recognized as one of the most creative contemporary thinkers working at the double intersection of philosophy and literature and philosophy and theology. _A Philosophy of the Unsayable_ shows an intellectual grasp of a dizzying array of discourses and sheds real light on all thinkers who are discussed." — Cyril O'Regan, Huisking Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame_. (shrink)

The paper offers a three-premise argument that a person with first-hand experience of possession and exorcism, such as an exorcist, can have a justified belief in the existence of demons. “Exorcism involves a process by which the exorcist comes to believe that testimony is offered by a demon.” Cited for are the Gospels, the Roman Ritual, some modern cases of exorcism, and exorcism practices in non-Christian contexts. “If defeaters are absent, the exorcist may treat as reliable the process by which (...) he comes to believe that testimony is offered by a demon.” For a case is offered that we have a reliable ability to identify when testimony is being offered and when it is being offered by particular types of agents, what is termed testifier-identification. “In many cases of exorcism, defeaters are absent.” An inductive case is given for by responding to possible defeaters, including several suggested recently by David Kyle Johnson. Therefore, in many cases of exorcism the exorcist may treat as reliable the processes by which he comes to believe that testimony is offered by a demon, and so can have a justified belief in the existence of demons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Inference That Makes Science. By ERNAN McMULLIN. The Aquinas Lecture, 1992. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1992. Pp. iv +112. In this ambitious lecture Father Ernan McMullin recapitulates and refines a thesis that has guided his thought for the past forty years. In essence the thesis is this: precisely how science is made has eluded the best minds for centuries, and only in the work of Charles (...) Sanders Peirce, suitably emended by McMullin, has the puzzle finally been solved. " Retroduction " is the inference that makes science. Once this is understood, errors on what constitutes scientific method-those of Aristotle, Aquinas, Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Hume, et al.-can be rectified and one can see science for what it truly is: a complex process of theory appraisal that yields, not definitive truth, but well-established results to which assent can be given with at best "practical certainty," whatever that might be (pp. 91-96). Why McMullin should have chosen such a theme for an Aquinas Lecture is a question that defies reasonable answer. Surely one does not have to he so negative about the thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo to advance one's ideas about science in the present day. What McMullin could easily have done, and he hints at this in the last two paragraphs of his lecture (pp. 97-98), is show how retroduction is itself simply a relaxed version of the demonstrative regress, the method actually endorsed by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo. Such a retroductive version, fair enough, yields knowledge of a probable cause, the type of knowledge most typical of modern science. McMullin did not have to embark on the dangerous course of trying to prove that proof and certainty are forever beyond the grasp of science, or that never in the history of science has anyone established a definitive truth. That, in effect, is what McMullin has tried to do, and in the attempt to make the point he fumbles at almost every juncture throughout a very long lecture. To set the record straight more than a review is being re--·quested; perhaps a book, and even that might not suffice for those whose minds are made up. To understand the import of the lecture one must appreciate that it is hut a brief episode in a debate over demonstration in science that has been going on since McMullin first came to the University of Notre Dame in 1954. I myself have published many hooks and articles that engage the very point of his lecture and provide the contra evidence to 131 132 BOOK REVIEWS show elements of continuity in scientific method from Aristotle to the present. My last two volumes, in press at the same time as McMullin's Aquinas Lecture, answer in detail the aporiai he there raises.1 I need 1 Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Backgrnund, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 137. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xxiii + 323 pp.; Galileo's Logical Treatises. A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 138. DordrechtBoston -London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xix + 239 pp. only refer the interested reader to them for an extended and documented reply to his arguments. Some idea of the flavor of our debate, however, can be gained from the following. To support his thesis, McMullin has to maintain that Aristotle's proof that the moon is a sphere (from its having phases) and that Galileo's proofs that there are mountains on the moon, that Jupiter has satellites, and that Venus circles the sun (all based on telescopic observations) are not strictly demonstrative, that is, they do not yield true and certain conclusions. He declines to answer a query I have often tendered whether he personally is certain on the basis of pre-spacecraft evidence that the moon is a sphere, that there are mountains on it, that Jupiter has satellites, and so on. Instead he offers the categorical response "that planetary science is not an apodictic science, indeed that no natural science is... (shrink)

In diesem Werk reflektiert der bedeutende Psychologe William Stern über seine persönliche Weltanschauung. Er beschreibt seine Gedanken zu Themen wie Moral, Religion und Wissenschaft aus einer philosophischen und psychologischen Perspektive. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and (...) distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The volume contains papers and commentaries presented to the _Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy_ during the academic year 2015-16. Works: Phaedrus, Republic, Apology, Laws, Seventh Letter, Stoic texts. Topics: Stoic blending, reciprocal eros, perception in tripartite soul, Stoic identity, Plato’s politics and events.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Two books bound together, from the religious period of one of the most renowned and representative thinkers. Written for laymen, thus easy to understand, it is penetrating and brilliant as well. Illuminations of age-old religious questions from a pragmatic perspective, written in a luminous style.

With a vast majority of the land in the Driftless Region of the Midwestern United States dedicated to agricultural production, the future of farming has significant economic, social, recreational, agricultural, and ecological implications. An important literature stream has developed on ways agriculture can change to impact both human and ecological communities positively. In this study, we examine the processes and extent to which community narratives assert and inform regional identities that shape the meaning of being a good farmer. Using a (...) mixed methods approach, we examine what farmers consider good farming and how they utilize community narratives to assert their perspective of good farming. Employing a correlational analysis, we examined the relative importance of the four dimensions of good farming (productivist, conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist). In addition, we used narrative analysis to explore the development of community narratives that assert a multi-dimensional view of good farming. Data for this study was collected through 21 semi-structured interviews with farmers, two focus groups of farmers, and a survey of farmers with 82 survey participants. The mean scores for conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist dimensions were significantly higher than those for productivists. There was no significant correlation between the productivists dimension and the three other dimensions of good farming. Through analysis of transcripts, we identified a community narrative that actively problematized a dominant cultural narrative centered on production agriculture. Collectively, a community narrative is emerging in the Driftless Region that sought to normalize agricultural practices that promote profitable farms, vibrant communities, and a wide array of ecosystem services. (shrink)

A survey of Descartes' scientific career from his student days at the Jesuit College of La Flèche to his departure for Sweden in 1649.

Research ethics education has taken many forms since federal funding agencies issued regulatory guidance directing those supported by these agencies to complete required training. In the absence of a standard training approach among institutions such as universities, the design and content of courses, workshops, and seminars varies widely. Here we describe a southwestern United States research university program that employed six teaching strategies to assist students in deep learning of ethical principles and behavior. Our purpose was to determine how these (...) strategies impact understanding and empowerment among an interdisciplinary group of graduate students. Results suggested that deep learning design can result in learning that requires students not only to remember and understand key ethics concepts but also to analyze and apply them in a broader ethical domain. Key findings inform design and delivery of future research ethics courses for instructional designers and instructors in higher education. (shrink)