Ghanaian fertility decline may not be associated with women's having greater control over reproduction. Focus groups of young Ghanaian men and women indicate that attitudes supporting men's dominance in fertility decisions characterize even the highly educated. Young women with high fertility desires anticipate being able to stop childbearing when they want to, but they do not expect to be able to continue if their husband wants to stop. Those with low fertility desires do not anticipate being able to stop without (...) husband consent, but they envision support for continuing childbearing. Women's expected influence appears limited to situations where their fertility desires conform to normative expectations. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the processing of informal arguments, that is, arguments involving “probable truth.” A model of informal argument processing is presented that is based upon Hample's (1977) expansion of Toulmin's (1958) model of argument structure. The model postulates that a claim activates an attitude, the two components forming a complex that in turn activates reasons. Furthermore, the model holds occurrence of the reason, or possibly the claim and the reason, activates values. Three experiments are described that provide (...) support for the model. (shrink)

Practical deliberation often involves conditional judgements about what will (likely) happen if certain alternatives are pursued. It is widely assumed that the conditionals useful in deliberation are counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Against this, I argue that the conditionals of deliberation are indicatives. Key to the argument is an account of the relation between 'straightforward' future-directed conditionals like ' If the house is not painted, it will soon look quite shabby' and * "w e r e ' ' e d F (...) D C s like ' If the house were not to be painted, it would soon look quite shabby': an account on which both of these types of FDCs are grouped with the indicatives for semantic treatment and on which, while conditionals of both types are properly used in means/ends deliberations, those of the ' were'ed-up variety are especially well suited for that purpose. (shrink)

Recent studies have provided evidence of associations between neurochemistry and reading (dis)ability (Pugh et al., 2014). Based on a long history of studies indicating that fluent reading entails the automatic convergence of the written and spoken forms of language and our recently proposed Neural Noise Hypothesis (Hancock et al., 2017), we hypothesized that individual differences in cross-modal integration would mediate, at least partially, the relationship between neurochemical concentrations and reading. Cross-modal integration was measured in 231 children using a two-alternative forced (...) choice cross-modal matching task with three language conditions (letters, words, and pseudowords) and two levels of difficulty within each language condition. Neurometabolite concentrations of Choline (Cho), Glutamate (Glu), gamma-Aminobutyric (GABA), and N- acetyl-aspartate (NAA) were then measured in a subset of this sample (n = 70) with Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). A structural equation mediation model revealed that the effect of cross-modal word matching mediated the relationship between increased Glu (which has been proposed to be an index of neural noise) and poorer reading ability. In addition, the effect of cross-modal word matching fully mediated a relationship between increased Cho and poorer reading ability. Multilevel mixed effects models confirmed that lower Cho predicted faster cross-modal matching reaction time, specifically in the hard word condition. These Cho... (shrink)

F.A. Trendelenburg's work "Logical Investigations" influenced greatly the decline of G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy in the early 1840s. In this work Trendelenburg challenged the very foundation of Hegel's system, his speculative logic. Somewhat twenty years later two leading late Hegelians, C.L. Michelet from Berlin and K. Rosenkranz from Königsberg, replied to Trendelenburg. Their common strategy was to show that Trendelenburg owes more to Hegel than he admits. At the same time, Trendelenburg has misunderstood Hegel's dialectics and in fact fallen into the (...) standpoint of empiricism. Michelet and Rosenkranz agreed on many problems of Trendelenburg's account, but their readings of Hegel differed in several respects. For example, they were apart on I. Kant's significance for Hegel. Partly because of this, I will argue, Rosenkranz has more affinity to Trendelenburg than Michelet. The debate between the three continued until Trendelenburg's passing in 1872. (shrink)

A substantial portion of the developed world's population is increasingly dependent on machines to make their way in the everyday world. For certain privileged groups, computers, cell phones, PDAs, Blackberries, and IPODs, all permitting the faster processing of information, are commonplace. In these populations, even exercise can be automated as persons try to achieve good physical fitness by riding stationary bikes, running on treadmills, and working out on cross-trainers that send information about performance and heart rate.

: Catholic teaching has no moral difficulties with research on stem cells derived from adult stem cells or fetal cord blood. The ethical problem comes with embryonic stem cells since their genesis involves the destruction of a human embryo. However, there seems to be significant promise of health benefits from such research. Although Catholic teaching does not permit any destruction of human embryos, the question remains whether researchers in a Catholic institution, or any researchers opposed to destruction of human embryos, (...) could participate in research on cultured embryonic stem cells, or whether a Catholic institution could use any therapy that ultimately results from such research. This position paper examines how such research could be conducted legitimately in a Catholic institution by using an ethical analysis involving a narrative context, the nature of the moral act, and the principle of material cooperation, along with references to significant ethical assessments. It also offers tentative guidelines that could be used by a Catholic institution in implementing such research. (shrink)

The paper discusses three talks, which were given at the meetings of the Philosophical Society of Berlin (Philosophische Gesellschaft zu Berlin) in the mid-1870s. In these talks, the principles of some main movements in contemporary philosophy (realism, absolute idealism, critical idealism) were elaborated and contrasted to each other. The paper focuses on the concepts of real-idealism and ideal-realism. All the discussants, Friedrich Frederichs, C. L. Michelet and J. H. von Kirchmann, introduce these concepts. Frederichs, an adherent of critical idealism, argues (...) only for the standpoint of real-idealism. Michelet, G. W. F. Hegel’s personal student and an adherent of absolute idealism, takes real-idealism and ideal-realism to be the two sides of the one coin. Kirchmann, an advocate of realism, regards real-idealism as an objective, and he is skeptical about the possibility to achieve it. (shrink)

Mechanical devices implanted in the body present implications for broad themes in religious thought and experience, including the nature and destiny of the human person, the significance of a person's embodied experience, including the experiences of pain and suffering, the person's relationship to ultimate reality, the divine or the sacred, and the vocation of medicine. Community-constituting convictions and narratives inform the method and content of reasoning about such conceptual questions as whether a moral line should be drawn between therapeutic or (...) enhancement interventions and/or between somatic and neural/cognitive interventions. By attending to these broader community-forming concepts, it is possible to identify three general orienting themes in religious perspectives on incorporated mechanical devices, which we shall designate as perspectives of “appropriation,” “ambivalence,” and “resistance.”. (shrink)

Artikkeli käsittelee J. V. Snellmanin (1806–81) varhaisvaiheen filosofiaa ja sen suhdetta hänen 1840-luvun alun filosofiseen pääteokseensa "Persoonallisuuden idean spekulatiivisen kehittelyn yritys" (Versuch einer speculativen Entwicklung der Idee der Persönlichkeit). Varhaisvaiheen filosofia viittaa Snellmanin julkaistuihin kirjoituksiin vuosina 1835–40 sekä luentokäsikirjoituksiin ja muihin muistiinpanoihin. -/- Artikkelin keskiössä on Snellmanin varhainen luenta G. W. F. Hegelin (1770–1831) filosofiasta. Snellmanin filosofian on yleensä katsottu seuraavan Hegelin esikuvaa uskollisesti. Tämä pitää pääasiassa paikkansa, mutta toisaalta Snellman ei missään vaiheessa uraansa epäröinyt poiketa Hegelin viitoittamalta tieltä. Hän (...) ei tosin juuri korostanut eroja itsensä ja saksalaisen esikuvansa välillä. Snellman esitti varhaisfilosofiassaan muun muassa omaperäisen tulkinnan Hegelin subjektiivisen hengen filosofiasta. Hän pyrki myös yhdistämään Hegelin kaksi logiikan pääesitystä yhdeksi kokonaisuudeksi. Snellman myös täydensi joiltain osin Hegelin systeemiä. Hegel ei esimerkiksi koskaan vastannut yksiselitteisesti kysymykseen siitä, tarvitseeko hänen systeeminsä itsenäisen johdannon. Snellman katsoi johdannon tarpeelliseksi ja esitti varhaisfilosofiassaan oman versionsa johdannosta. Snellmanin johdanto keskittyi itsetietoisuuden käsitteeseen, joka oli keskeisessä roolissa myös hänen vuonna 1841 julkaisemassaan teoksessa "Persoonallisuuden idean spekulatiivisen kehittelyn yritys". (shrink)

Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806–1881) tunnetaan valtiomiehenä, sanomalehtimiehenä ja kansallisena herättäjänä, mutta hänen filosofiansa on usein jäänyt hänen yhteiskunnallisen vaikutuksensa varjoon. "Maailmanhenki Pohjolassa" piirtää yleiskuvan Snellmanin ja hänen esikuvansa G. W. F. Hegelin (1770–1831) filosofiasta. Se toimii johdantoteoksena heidän ajatteluunsa ja kertoo samalla 1800-luvun Suomen henkisen elämän kansainvälisyydestä. "Maailmanhenki Pohjolassa" selittää, miten Snellman Hegelin ajattelua käytti ja tulkitsi, ja korostaa, millaisissa asioissa Snellman teki pesäeron sekä Hegeliin että maineikkaisiin hegeliläisiin kuten Ludwig Feuerbachiin ja David Friedrich Straussiin. "Maailmanhenki Pohjolassa" on perusteos suomalaisesta (...) filosofiasta ja Suomen kulttuurihistoriasta kiinnostuneille. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to examine two important treatises of the Islamic classical age in the light of utopian discourse. The works considered are the “philosophical novels” Risālat Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān f ī asrār al-ḥikmat al-mašriqiyya (Treatise of the Alive, son of the Awake, on the secrets of oriental wisdom) by Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185) and Risālat Kāmiliyya f ī al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (Treatise of Kāmil on the Life of the Prophet) by Ibn al-Naf īs (d. 1288). Together with (...) the political writings of al-Fārābī, these works are among the first to be named when considering the possibility of an autonomous utopian tradition in Islam.1 Their relevance to the utopian category has already been shown by other scholars; .. (shrink)

The paper discusses J.V. Snellman's (1806–81) reading of F.W.J. Schelling's (1775–1854) philosophy. The reading was presented in his book "Essay on the speculative Development of the Idea of Personality" (1841). Snellman, the most remarkable Finnish Hegelian, focused on Schelling's text "Philosophical investigations into the essence of human freedom" (1809). In Snellman's view Schelling is a forerunner to Hegel. He was not familiar with the details of Schelling's later critic towards Hegel. -/- Snellman became interested in Schelling, because the latter highlights (...) the importance of personality. The essence of evil is further linked with the essence of personality. One asks, for example, that if human personality is seen as dependent on the personality of God, is it reasonable to say that human person is responsible for evil acts? Snellman's main concern is to argue against the positivity of evil. He agrees with Schelling that evil exists only as evil action. (shrink)

Embora ser pessoal desempenhe um papel importante na filosofia de G.W.F. Hegel, ele nunca forneceu uma definição compreensiva de personalidade. Dentro do arcabouço de seus trabalhos, é, então, possível formular diferentes definições de pessoa e personalidade e algumas definições conflitantes foram apresentadas entre hegelianos durante as décadas de 1830 e 1840. Nesse artigo, examino o papel da personalidade no sistema de Hegel e discuto a relação entre personalidade e metafísica. A questão deve ser analisada no contexto dos vários trabalhos de (...) Hegel e contrastada com dois precursores importantes de Hegel, I. Kant e J.G. Fichte. Tentarei também por a filosofia do hegeliano finlandês J.V. Snellman sob escrutínio. O artigo também indica a importância da lógica à metafísica hegeliana e a sua concepção de personalidade. (shrink)

The paper addresses three late Hegelian philosophers from northern Europe: Norwegian M.J. Monrad (1816–97), Swede J.J. Borelius (1823–1909) and Finn Th. Rein (1838–1919). The focus is on their views on the crisis of Hegelian speculative philosophy. The popularity of G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy in Germany declined rapidly since the 1840s. The decline was influenced by e.g. new scientific discoveries. Hegelianism maintained a strong position in northern Europe (especially in Norway and in Finland) several decades longer than in Germany. Rein, Monrad and (...) Borelius, all professors of philosophy, endorsed Hegel’s philosophy and agreed that it has to be reformed in order to meet the new challenges. They disagreed with each other, however, about the extent of this reform. They had conflicting interpretations of Hegel’s method too. (shrink)

This lavishly illustrated book establishes the towering influence of the scientist Victor Regnault in the earliest decades of photography, a period of experimentation ripe with artistic, commercial, and scientific possibility. Regnault has a double significance to the early history of photography, as the first leader of the Société Française de Photographie and as the maker of more than two hundred calotype portraits and landscapes. His photographic and scientific careers intersected a third field with his appointment in 1852 as director of (...) the Sèvres porcelain works. Readers are treated to Regnault's own beguiling pastoral, garden, and forest scenes; striking portraits of the scientists and artists in his circle of friends; quirky images of acoustic experiments; and an insider's view of the Sèvres porcelain works. Regnault's richly varied photographs also encompass perhaps the most extensive group of family portraits in early photography, and his romanticized landscapes reflect a moment when the rural outskirts of Paris were being aggressively suburbanized and industrialized. Occupying a unique and powerful position in the overlapping spheres of photography, science, industry, and art, Regnault was elected president of the newly formed S.F.P. in 1855. By examining his intertwined activities against the backdrop of French photography's nascent pursuit of institutional legitimacy, this book illuminates an important and overlooked body of images and the irregular cultural terrain of early photography. (shrink)

The study discusses the philosophy of Finnish philosopher J.V. Snellman (1806–81). The focus is on Snellman's so-called philosophy of personality, which he presented in his work "Essay on the speculative Development of the Idea of Personality" (Tübingen, 1841). Besides this work he addressed his philosophy of personality in his other works and in his public lectures. -/- In his philosophy of personality Snellman develops the concept of personality within the framework of G.W.F. Hegel's (1770–1831) philosophy. The concept of personality serves (...) as a basis for Hegel's philosophy of right, and it plays an important role also in other parts of Hegel's system. However, he never provided a comprehensive definition of this concept. The essence of personality was debated among Hegelians after Hegel's death in 1831. In the course of the debate the Hegelian school split into two groups. At the time of publication of "The Idea of Personality" there was a serious rift between the Right- and the Left-Hegelians. -/- The study analyzes Snellman's philosophy of personality in respect of Hegel's philosophy and in respect of the views of other Hegelians – mainly D.F. Strauss (1808–74), L. Feuerbach (1804–72) and C.F. Göschel (1781–1861). I also attend to some contemporaries outside the Hegelian School like F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1854) and I.H. Fichte (1796–1879). -/- The study is divided into six sections (A–F). The first comprises an introduction and an outline of the structure of the study. The second section (B) discusses the historical context of Snellman's philosophy. The first subsection focuses on the Central European debate on Hegel's legacy. The second subsection deals with Snellman's life and his work on philosophy. The systematic part of the study comprises three sections (C–E), which consider the dialectic of Snellman's work of 1841. This dialectic follows the outline of Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit and culminates in the definition of personality. Snellman, however, exceeds the realm of the philosophy of subjective spirit, as he discusses e.g. the philosophy of religion. He also comments on the debate among Hegelians. According to Snellman, neither Right- nor Left-Hegelians are true to Hegel's philosophy. In effect, his own standpoint in the debate, as I will argue, comes close to that of the Left-Hegelians. The study concludes with a summary (F). (shrink)

Although personal being plays an important role in G.W.F. Hegel's (1770–1831) philosophy he never provided a comprehensive definition of personality. Within the framework of his works it is thus possible to formulate different definitions of person and personality, and several conflicting definitions were presented among Hegelians during the 1830s and 1840s. In this paper I examine the role of personality in Hegel's system and discuss the relationship between personality and metaphysics. The question shall be analyzed in the context of various (...) works by Hegel and contrasted with two important precursors of Hegel, I. Kant (1724–1804) and J.G. Fichte (1762–1814). I shall also put the philosophy of Finnish Hegelian J.V. Snellman (1806–81) under scrutiny. The paper will indicate the importance of logic for Hegelian metaphysics and for Hegelian conception of personality. (shrink)

Erkenne dich selbst sei die schwierigste Zumutung, die einem Menschen gemacht worden ist – so proklamierte Finnischer Philosoph und Hegelianer J.V. Snellman (1806–81) in der Ein-leitung zum seinen ersten philosophischen Hauptwerk. In diesem Werk ("Versuch einer spekulativen Entwicklung der Idee der Persönlichkeit", Tübingen 1841) kommentierte Snellman sowohl G.W.F. Hegels (1770–1831) Philosophie des subjektiven Geistes als auch die Diskussion unter deutschen Hegelianern. Laut Snellman setzt die Durchführung der Idee der Philosophie des subjektiven Geistes eine engere Verbindung zwischen spekulativer Logik und Geistesphilosophie (...) vor. Im Vortrag stelle ich die Frage, was für eine Verbindung Snellman tatsächlich im Auge hatte. (shrink)

Robert F. Schopp, Justification Defenses and Just Convictions Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. x + 212 pp.

The main question that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) pose is whether “what and how we see is functionally independent from what and how we think, know, desire, act, and so forth” (sect. 2, para. 1). We synthesize a collection of concerns from an interdisciplinary set of coauthors regarding F&S's assumptions and appeals to intuition, resulting in their treatment of visual perception as context-free.

Themenschwerpunkt/Special Topic: Bolzano & Kant Gastherausgeber/Guest Editor: Sandra Lapointe Sandra Lapointe: Introduction Sandra Lapointe: Is Logic Formal? Bolzano, Kant and the Kantian Logicians Nicholas F. Stang: A Kantian Reply to Bolzano’s Critique of Kant’s Analytic-Synthetic Distinction Clinton Tolley: Bolzano and Kant on the Place of Subjectivity in a Wissenschaftslehre Timothy Rosenkoetter: Kant and Bolzano on the Singularity of Intuitions Waldemar Rohloff: From Ordinary Language to Definition in Kant and Bolzano Weitere Artikel/Further Articles Christian Damböck: Wilhelm Diltheys empirische Philosophie und der (...) rezente Methodenstreit in der analytischen Philosophie Bernd Prien: Socially Constituted Actions and Objects Daniel Enrique Kalpokas: Two Dogmas of Coherentism Jon Cogburn & Jeff W. Roland: Strong, therefore Sensitive. Misgivings about DeRose’s Contextualism Andre Abath: Brewer’s Switching Argument Essay-Wettbewerb/Essay Competition Amadeus Magrabi: The Value of Feelings for Decision-Making Stefan Reining: Do Pain-Accompanying Emotions Mislead Us?—Considerations in the Light of Reactive Dissociation Phenomena Peter Königs: Patriotism. A Case Study in the Philosophy of Emotions Besprechungsaufsatz/Review Essay Christopher Gauker: What Do Your Senses Say? On Burge’s Theory of Perception Diskussion/Discussion Georg Brun: Adequate Formalization and De Morgan’s Argument Buchnotizen/Critical Notes. (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents Themenschwerpunkt/Special Topic: Bolzano & Kant Gastherausgeber/Guest Editor: Sandra Lapointe Sandra Lapointe: Introduction Sandra Lapointe: Is Logic Formal? Bolzano, Kant and the Kantian Logicians Nicholas F. Stang: A Kantian Reply to Bolzano¿s Critique of Kant¿s Analytic-Synthetic Distinction Clinton Tolley: Bolzano and Kant on the Place of Subjectivity in a Wissenschaftslehre Timothy Rosenkoetter: Kant and Bolzano on the Singularity of Intuitions Waldemar Rohloff: From Ordinary Language to Definition in Kant and Bolzano Weitere Artikel/Further Articles Christian Damböck: Wilhelm Diltheys empirische (...) Philosophie und der rezente Methodenstreit in der analytischen Philosophie Bernd Prien: Socially Constituted Actions and Objects Daniel Enrique Kalpokas: Two Dogmas of Coherentism Jon Cogburn & Jeff W. Roland: Strong, therefore Sensitive. Misgivings about DeRose¿s Contextualism Andre Abath: Brewer¿s Switching Argument Essay-Wettbewerb/Essay Competition Amadeus Magrabi: The Value of Feelings for Decision-Making Stefan Reining: Do Pain-Accompanying Emotions Mislead Us?¿Considerations in the Light of Reactive Dissociation Phenomena Peter Königs: Patriotism. A Case Study in the Philosophy of Emotions Besprechungsaufsatz/Review Essay Christopher Gauker: What Do Your Senses Say? On Burge¿s Theory of Perception Diskussion/Discussion Georg Brun: Adequate Formalization and De Morgan¿s Argument Buchnotizen/Critical Notes. (shrink)

xxiii + 293. Price £50.00 h/b). Thinking About Knowing. By JAY F. ROSENBERG. (Oxford UP, 2002. Pp. viii + 257. Price £30.00 h/b). Epistemology is currently enjoying a renaissance. To a large extent, this has been sparked by some exciting new proposals, such as the contextualist theories advanced by Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose, David Lewis and Michael Williams, the modal conceptions of knowledge offered by Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick, and the virtue epistemologies put forward by John Greco, Ernest (...) Sosa and Linda Zagzebski, to name but three currently popular views. Increasingly, however, this rebirth in epistemological theorising has been driven less by the production of new theories and more by the application of the latest batch of novel proposals to other areas of philosophy. A good illustration of this from the selection of books under review here is the contemporary debate regarding the vexed relationship between content externalism and self-knowledge that is the 2 focus of the volume of essays edited by Susana Nuccetelli. Here we have a controversy that has blended some of the most innovative aspects of recent epistemological theorising with issues in the philosophy of mind and language, with the emphasis being on the so-called ‘McKinsey paradox’ concerning the putative incompatibility of content externalism and privileged self-knowledge. Whilst early responses to this supposed paradox concentrated on the formulation of the content externalist thesis whilst treating the epistemic concepts at issue as, essentially, primitives, more recent work in this area has drawn-out some of the epistemological implications of this debate and looked at how these implications fit in with recent movements in epistemology. Many of the articles collected in this volume are instances of this ‘second phase’ of the debate. In particular, it is tremendously useful to have the new articles by Martin Davies and Crispin Wright which revisit a previous exchange between the pair where some of the epistemological morals of the McKinsey debate were first extracted.. (shrink)

'Comparative Philosophy without Borders' consists of nine essays and puts forth an extensive methodology for a redefined comparative philosophy, as presented in the Introduction and Afterword/Afterwards written by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber. The nine essays by Tom J. F. Tillemans, Barry Hallen, Chien-hsing Ho, Laurie L. Patton, Arindam Chakrabarti, Masato Ishida, Ralph Weber, Sari Nusseibeh and Sor-hoon Tan draw on various philosophical traditions, academic fields and topics, in order to effectuate what ‘Comparative Philosophy Without Borders’ could be. The (...) clear aim of these essays is to demonstrate and put into practice the methodology presented by the two editors and authors, according to whom performing comparative philosophy transcends establishing it through norms. This definitely constitutes a successfully treated challenge, not only by the authors, but even more by the editors. (shrink)

Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists examine the will and its pathologies from theoretical and empirical perspectives, offering a conceptual overview and discussing schizophrenia, depression, prefrontal lobe damage, and substance abuse as disorders of volition. Science tries to understand human action from two perspectives, the cognitive and the volitional. The volitional approach, in contrast to the more dominant "outside-in" studies of cognition, looks at actions from the inside out, examining how actions are formed and informed by internal conditions. In Disorders of (...) Volition, scholars from a range of disciplines seek to advance our understanding of the processes supporting voluntary action by addressing conditions in which the will is impaired. Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists examine the will and its pathologies from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, offering a conceptual overview and discussing specific neurological and psychiatric conditions as disorders of volition. After presenting different conceptual frameworks that identify agency, decision making, and goal pursuit as central components of volition, the book examines how impairments in these and other aspects of volition manifest themselves in schizophrenia, depression, prefrontal lobe damage, and substance abuse. Contributors George Ainslie, Tim Bayne, Antoine Bechara, Paul W. Burgess, Anna-Lisa Cohen, Daniel Dennett, Stéphanie Dubal, Philippe Fossati, Chris Frith, Sam J. Gilbert, Peter Gollwitzer, Jordan Grafman, Patrick Haggard, Jay G. Hull, Marc Jeannerod, Roland Jouvent, Frank Krueger, Neil Levy, Peter F. Liddle, Kristen L. Mackiewitz, Thomas Metzinger, Jack B. Nitschke, Jiro Okuda, Adrian M. Owen, Chris Parry, Wolfgang Prinz, Joëlle Proust, Michael A. Sayette, Werner X. Schneider, Natalie Sebanz, Jon S. Simons, Laurie B. Slone, Sean A. Spence. (shrink)

The honour of being the first to teach philosophy in Australia belongs to the Congregationalist minister Barzillai Quaife (1798–1873), in the 1850s, but teaching philosophy did not formally begin until the 1880s, with the establishment of universities (Grave 1984). -/- Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: Idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. It was particularly associated with the work of the first professional philosophers in Australia, such as Henry (...) class='Hi'>Laurie (1837–1922), Francis Anderson (1858–1941), William Mitchell (1861–1962) (who rejected the label) and a second generation including W. R. Boyce Gibson (1869–1935). Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, together with the British, particularly Scottish, revival of interest in Hegel through the work of the ‘Absolute Idealists’ T. H. Green (1836–1882), F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) and Henry Jones (1852–1922), the latter of whom conducted a popular lecture tour of Australia (Boucher 1990). -/- A number of the early New Zealand philosophers, including Duncan MacGregor (1843–1906), William Salmond (1835–1917), and Francis W. Dunlop (1874–1932) were educated in the Idealist tradition and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. William Anderson (1889–1955), at Auckland, brother of John at Sydney, was the only New Zealand philosopher that seemed to retain Idealist views. -/- In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who can be said to have influenced both strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth Shall Make You FreireRobert CanterTeaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates, edited by Dianne F. Sadoff and William E. Cain; 271 pp. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994; $19.75, paper.IThe newest title in the MLA’s Options for Teaching series, this publication is well-timed. Concerns about “classroom advocacy” and “politicized teaching” have recycled into near-critical mass, even in the mass media. The book is well-arranged, too, with a (...) solid sample of deconstructionist, New Historicist, Marxist, feminist, and cultural studies, and more mix-and-match theorists describing their classroom aims and means in twenty-one essays grouped into four sections. Sadoff and Cain offer elegantly evasive introductions—not only to these essays per se, but to the issues these essays purport to address. In “Surveying Theory,” David B. Downing, John Kucich, Susan S. Lanser, Lynette Felber, Donald G. Marshall, and Gary Waller lay broadly “anti-foundational” groundwork. In “Focusing,” Diana Fuss, Sandra A. Grayson, Beverly Lyon Clark, Evan Carton, Laurie A. Finke, Jonathan Arac, and Cary Nelson deconstruct things in more detail. In “Theory and Culture,” Huston Diehl, Cannon Schmitt and Donald Ulin, Lindon Barrett, Simon Gikandi, D. N. Rodowick, and Jan Gorak again widen the scope of “theorized teaching,” aiming regulation anticanonical shrapnel at every bastion of coded convention. And while readers may pause over [End Page 336] its backcover promise of “lively and accessible prose,” on the whole, the book is unusually readable for an MLA publication about theory.Since Teaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates is a how-to directed at true-believers, it might seem like critical blindsiding to address its fundamental assumptions rather than its tactical suggestions, to focus on its “theory” rather than on its pedagogy. Yet such a focus is not only fair but necessary. The pedagogy is in this book a pawn of the theory. And the theory is, at best, a lesson in how not to teach students how to learn. For despite all its noisy celebrations of methodological, cultural, ontological, and occasionally even human “difference,” the anthology is really a chorus of self-defeating dogma. 1 Like the virtue of variety, even the relative absence of jargon here works as much against as for the book, revealing self-contradictions so perfectly unwitting that they are twice as funny. It is a good thing, then, that the authors eventually contradict these claims, too—even if they know not that they do.The canon? In accordance with postmodern tradition, “the canon” can be calibrated to be whatever best attacks whatever other tradition a particular theorist is aiming at. It is a very modular “monolith.” And theorists never try to “overdetermine” definitions, anyway. The classroom? As an “overdetermined” site of class-struggle, “the classroom (and the academy at large) is... a social institution designed to reproduce the interests, values, and politics of the dominant social classes” (p. 104). Convention? Anything “mainstream” is so polluted with “the notion of mastery, of total and complete knowledge” that even assigning “mainstream” theorists in a theory class “reproduces that hegemony, no matter how critically we read them” (pp. 105, 61). The runoff of mainstream theorists quoted here—conventional MLA Style—makes the same point. Culture? As always already—and only—“a struggle between power and its disenfranchised shadow,” culture “systematically excludes and marginalizes disenfranchised social members” (pp. 263–64, 20–21).Education? As Paulo Freire has revealed, 2 on the one, bad, goatish, wrong Right-wing hand of God, there is the repressive “banking” model of education; on the other, good-shepherdish, right Left-wing side, there is the liberating “problem-posing” model. You are either a droning clerk bent on subduing students into serfdom, or you are a resistance fighter lighting fuses of freedom. “Instrumental activity” does “pedagogical violence,” making the teacher a tyrant and the student a victim, a “submissive imitator” in a “system” that’s “abidingly committed [End Page 337] to the vision of a white-supremacist oligarchy.” Even asking students what level of “guidance” they feel they need is imposing “rhetorical control” (pp. 32, 23, 222, 135).Facts? The fact is, they are “the discursive gestures of the dominant groups” (p. 222). Unless they are... (shrink)

This book brings together a unique combination of experts in the area of conflict resolution and focuses on the role forgiveness can play in the process. It deals with the theology, public policy, psychological and social theory, and social policy implementation of forgiveness. The first section of the book explores how ideas like "forgiveness" and "reconciliation" are moving out from the seminary and academy into the world of public policy, and how these terms have been used and defined in the (...) past. One of the contributors, Miroslav Volf, speaks to the Christian contribution of a more peaceful environment. The second section looks at forgiveness and public policy. One of the chapters, by Donald W. Shriver Jr., addresses forgiveness in a secular political forum. The third section of the book draws us to a more particular analysis of the relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation from voices in the academic and theological community. John Paul Lederach presents five qualities of practice in support of the reconciliation process. John Dawson gives hope for peace-making in a new century. The final section highlights the work of practitioners currently working with religion, public policy, and conflict transformation, particularly in areas such as Ireland and Africa. This book will be an essential for libraries, scholars, conflict negotiators, and all people who hope to understand the role of forgiveness in the peace process. Contributors include: Desmond M. Tutu, Rodney L. Petersen, Miroslav Volf, Stanley S. Harakas, Raymond G. Helmick, SJ, Joseph V. Montville, Douglas M. Johnston, Donna Hicks, Donald W. Shriver, Jr., Everett L. Worthington, Jr., John Paul Lederach, Ervin Staub, Laurie Anne Pearlman, John Dawson, Audrey R. Chapman, Olga Botcharova, Anthony da Silva, SJ, Geraldine Smythe, OP, Andrea Bartoli, Ofelia Ortega, and George F. R. Ellis. (shrink)

In his influential After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (2008), Quentin Meillassoux argues that *Correlationism* (an umbrella-term encompassing most varieties of Idealism) gives rise to an irresolvable paradox, called "the Paradox of the Arche-fossil", which is essentially a clash between philosophical principles and scientific findings. This irresolvable paradox of Correlationism then paves the way for the "Speculative Turn" and the ensuing rise of burgeoning "speculative realism" in Continental Philosophy: noumenal reality, as-it-is-in-and-of-itself, "the Great Outdoors", is back on (...) the Continental stage, open for speculative thought and even metaphysical knowledge. We attempt to provide a thorough and charitable analysis of the Paradox of the Arche-fossil. Our analyses lead us to conclude that Meillassoux's argument fails, due to an ambiguity with regard to the concept of being that cannot be repaired. We end by directing attention to another ominous threat to Correlationism, ignored by Meillassoux and all "speculative realists" alike, which is still breathing. (shrink)