Early in his Essays on Intellectual Powers, Reid draws a distinction between mental power, mental operation, and mental capacity (EIP 21). To the untrained eye, these terms could probably be used interchangeably, and Reid believes this is correct, up to a point. He argues that, if we are interested in understanding exactly how the human mind works, we must use these terms with more precise meanings. This is part of his more general strategy of trying to always use the words (...) with their common meanings, as much as possible, but also pointing out that certain philosophical distinctions are needed to carry out the project of laying out the foundations of the science of the mind. This paper explains what the distinction between power, operation, and capacity is, according to Reid, with the goal of understanding why it is important to draw such a distinction, not only for the Reidian project, but for action theory, more generally. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Each of the following papers gives an account of a different UK clinical ethics committee. The committees vary in the length of time they have been established, and also in the main focus of their work. The accounts discuss the development of the committees and some of the ethical problems that have been brought to them. The issues raised will be relevant for other National Health Service (NHS) trusts in the UK that wish to set up such a committee.

Discuto neste artigo o fragmento de Protágoras sobre a existência dos deuses e a sua coerência teórica com outras teses do sofista. Primeiramente, utilizo dados históricos e biográficos para iluminar o subjetivismo da primeira linha do fragmento. Em seguida, discuto os obstáculos epistemológicos mencionados por Protágoras e sugiro uma nova tradução para o termo brachýs, um dos conceitos centrais que ele propõe. Na seção 2, analiso o ataque à transcendência que distingue suas ideias sobre a matemática e a percepção sensível. (...) Finalmente, na seção 3, mostro como a sua postura teológica está de acordo com a tese do homo-mensura e com a sua abordagem antilógica. A conclusão ressalta a unidade do pensamento de Protágoras e a sua posição no Iluminismo grego. (shrink)

In metaethics, evolutionary debunking arguments combine empirical and epistemological premises to purportedly show that our moral judgments are unjustified. One objection to these arguments has been to distinguish between those judgments that evolutionary influence might undermine versus those that it does not. This response is powerful but not well understood. In this paper I flesh out the response by drawing upon a familiar distinction in the natural sciences, where it is common to distinguish folk judgments from theoretical judgments. I argue (...) that this in turn illuminates the proper scope of the evolutionary debunking argument, but not in an obvious way: it is a very specific type of undermining argument that targets those theories where theoretical judgments are inferred merely from folk judgments. One upshot of this conclusion is that it reveals a verboten methodology in metaethics. The evolutionary debunking argument is therefore much less powerful than its proponents have supposed, but it nevertheless rules out what is perhaps a common way of attempting to justify moral judgments. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that both defence and criticism of the claim that humans act ‘under the guise of the good’ neglects the metaphysical roots of the theory. I begin with an overview of the theory and its modern commentators, with critics noting the apparent possibility of acting against the good, and supporters claiming that such actions are instances of error. These debates reduce the ‘guise of the good’ to a claim about intention and moral action, and in so (...) doing have become divorced from the theory's roots in classical and medieval philosophy. Aristotle and Aquinas’ ‘guise of the good’ is primarily a metaphysical claim resting on the equivalence between actuality and goodness, from which conclusions about moral action are derived. I show the reasoning behind their theory and how it forms the basis for the claims about intention and action at the centre of the modern debate. Finally, I argue that the absence of its original foundation is apparent in recent attacks on the ‘guise of the good’. It is unsurprising that modern action theory and ethics have not always been able to comfortably accommodate the ‘guise of the good’; they are only telling half of the story. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

1. Escritos fundmentales -- 2. Escritos sobre educación y sobre el humanismo hispánico -- 3. Escritos sobre historia de la filosofía: vol. 1. Libros ; vol. 2. Artículos y ensayos.

As business and society is an inherently multi-disciplinary scholarly area, the book will draw from work in areas outside of business and management, such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, economics and other related fields, as well as the natural sciences, education, and other professional areas of study.

Is it possible to establish a line of research that brings Gabriel Marcel and Jean-Paul Sartre closer together? With this article, we will positively support this idea, by distancing ourselves from the overly rigid interpretations that exclusively focus on antinomic elements sliding into a reductionist and nowadays “canonical” presentation of the relationship between these philosophers. Beyond the undeniable and, fortunately, unmediated differences between the two philosophers, this article aims to investigate their positions regarding the concept of “relationship”. In doing so, (...) we will highlight how Gabriel Marcel’s “coesse” and Jean-Paul Sartre’s “being-for-others” have numerous points of contact that place both philosophers, beyond their personal positions in the religious sphere, within the common ground of “existentialism”. (shrink)

This study adopts the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) framework to investigate the apology strategies used by L1 speakers of Tashelhit, a variety of Amazigh spoken in central Morocco. To this end, 82 university students either filled an assessment questionnaire or participated in an oral closed role-play. The findings indicated that L1 speakers of Tashelhit employed seven strategies to apologize, namely taking on responsibility, Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs), explanation or account, offer of repair, promise of forbearance, determinism, and (...) self-criticism. While taking on responsibility, IFIDs, and explanation or account were used most frequently in all the role-play situations to realize apologies, the other apology strategies appeared to be situation-dependent. There was also a tendency for L1 speakers of Tashelhit to use certain religious expressions to modify their apologies. These findings yielded a number of recommendations for further research and suggestions for improving the teaching of apologies in Tashelhit. (shrink)

One might well wonder—is there a category under which every thing falls? Offering an informative account of such a category is no easy task. For nothing would distinguish things that fall under it from those that don’t—there being, after all, none of the latter. It seems hard, then, to say much about any fully general category; and it would appear to do no carving or categorizing or dividing at all. Nonetheless there are candidates for such a fully general office, including (...) thing, being, entity, item, existent, and—especially—object.[ It is not obvious that there is any fully general category (whether object or otherwise). Accordingly, not all accounts of object assign it to a fully general category, instead allowing that there are non-objects. On those views, object does indeed divide. Accounts of object, then, differ with respect to whether there are non-objects. And this is not the only fault line. Other dimensions of difference include what objects there are and what objects are. Accordingly, this entry will survey three broad questions about the category object: What, if any, is its contrast or complement? What is its extension? What is its nature? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Opining the articuli fidei:Thomas Aquinas on the Heretic’s Assent to the Articles of FaithM. V. DoughertyTHOMAS AQUINAS’S ACCOUNT of the infused virtue (habitus) of faith presupposes that some intrinsically intelligible truths are beyond the range of the natural cognitive abilities of human beings. The possession of the virtue of faith allows the believer to transcend certain natural epistemic limitations so that he can assent to truths that are necessary (...) for salvation. Consonant with the Catholic theological tradition, Aquinas refers to such truths as the articles of faith (articuli fidei), and stock examples include propositions concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation.1In light of the many and well-known texts from the Corpus Thomisticum that highlight the disproportion or incommensurability between the articles of faith and the natural cognitive abilities of human beings, it would not be unreasonable for one to assume that faith is required to assent to such articles of faith [End Page 1] in this life. Such an interpretive assumption could be expressed as:A1: A human being can assent to the articles of faith in this life if and only if the human being is fortified with the infused virtue of faith.One might be led to ascribe A1 to Aquinas when one considers that he criticizes the Pelagians precisely for maintaining that the assent to matters of faith is caused by nothing other than free will.2 Still further, one might think that strong evidence for A1 is Aquinas’s claim that “free will does not suffice for believing, since those things that are of faith are above reason.”3I argue, however, that A1’s identification of the virtue of faith as a necessary condition for the assent to the articles of faith does not adequately reflect Aquinas’s position, despite the many texts that may suggest such a view.4 That Aquinas does not endorse A1 can be made evident by examining his largely overlooked account of the epistemic state of the heretic (haereticus). To be sure, most commentators who explore the Thomistic treatment of heresy focus on the psychology of error underlying the heretic’s denial of one or more of the articles of faith.5 In the present paper I take an alternate path, however, focusing on those epistemic acts whereby the heretic gets its [End Page 2] right, so to speak, by correctly assenting to some of the articles of faith. Aquinas maintains that the heretic does not possess the infused virtue of faith yet still assents to all the articles of faith except for the one or more articles that he denies. Bereft of faith, the heretic “holds those things that are of faith by another mode than through faith.”6 This seemingly anomalous epistemic condition deserves consideration.7I. Intellects without FaithThe heretic appears to be cognitively privileged, since without faith he assents to the things that are of faith, seemingly overcoming without divine assistance the aforementioned disproportion between the limited range of reason and the articles of faith. Aquinas is aware of the apparent difficulty; in the Summa theologiae he defuses the rather unusual objection that heretics appear to have greater cognitive capacities than the faithful, since heretics routinely and unassistedly assent to those higher truths without possessing the virtue of faith.8 Aquinas concludes that the heretic holds the articles of faith by opinion (opinio), not faith.What makes one a heretic? Frequently Aquinas identifies obstinacy (pertinacia, instantia) as a necessary condition for heresy.9 The cause of heresy is at times identified with pride [End Page 3] (superbia).10 On Aquinas’s account, heresy is a species of unbelief (infidelitas) and every heretic is a schismatic.11 But the heretic does get many things right. If one were to deny all of the articles of faith, one would not qualify as a heretic, but would simply be a nonbeliever or an apostate. So, apart from the denial of an article (or a few articles) that specifies heretics as the distinct kind of heretic they happen to be, heretics for the most part succeed in assenting to most—but not all—of the articles of faith.Although the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 331 The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy. By ROBERT PATTISON. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii +231. $29.95. This extremely provocative and elegantly written study of John Henry Newman's struggle with "liberalism" argues that Newman was a genuine rebel whose solitary voice needs to be heard, as much today as then, but whose project was, in the end, eminently unsuccessful. The (...) preface announces that the purpose of the book is to " establish Newman 's impeccable credentials as a failure," and the suggestion that " the totality of his failure is the measure of his grandeur as a critic of our culture" leads to the appraisal that Newman's true "intellectual counterparts " were Marx and Nietzsche and Lenin, rather than Arnold or Carlyle (vi-viii, 53). As "the single unwavering but articulate voice raised against liberalism in all its incarnations," Newman indirectly offers an " invaluable " description of the thought against which he battled, but his importance, the author suggests, lies in his utter failure to make a dent in the century of thought following him: " the victory of everything Newman despised makes his defeated and unfashionable view of Western civilization interesting not merely as a consistent critique of what has come to pass, hut as one of the few intelligible alternatives to the ideological monopoly of liberalism " (53). That alternative, a " consistent view of the world opposed to liberalism root and branch, sharing none of its premises and despising all of its works is an inestimable benefit, for no one more than the liberal himself," for without an "honest and unforgiving voice" like Newman's, the liberal " would smugly assume that the paradoxical tenets of his creed are... self-evident truths" (215). On the one hand, Newman's value lies in challenging liberalism's complacency, and treating "the ugliest manifestations of liberalism with the contempt they deserve but rarely provoke" (215). Moreover, Pattison allows that Newman offers an " acute refutation of its [liberalism's] major premises " (53) (if " refutation " is the ' achievement ' word I think it is, this seems inconsistent on Pattison's part). On the other hand, Newman's value lies precisely in failing to undermine liberalism-while he reminds liberalism that it is a heresy, thus provoking its vitality, it is only insofar as liberalism remains vital that " the possibilities of relative decency and tolerant forbearance remain alive" (216). The author argues, in other words, that Newman's attack on liberalism hits the mark with respect to liberalism's "ugliest manifestations," hut it is, unfortunately, tied to a theory of belief which entails an intolerant dogmatism. Newman is, in the end, a peculiar figure, described as 332 BOOK REVIEWS important and valuable (and even possibly correct-189), yet, none· theless, insignificant, "trivial" (8), and even "absurd" (143); like the Oxford Movement with which he is associated, he said to have made an "impression" without making an "impact" (25), and that, according to Pattison, is a blessing for those care about the liberal cause oftoleration (65, 178). Pattison begins in earnest his exploration of Newman's response to his age by examining his particular response to one critical, yet typical, opponent: "The combat with Renn Dickson Hampden epitomizes the process by which Newman determined the narrow compass of truth and formed his reply to the heresies of liberalism " (60). The " almost pathological detestation " of Hampden which the author attributes to Newman (77, n.40) is the response to principles put forth by Hampden which Newman saw as "the social expression of Socinianism," which was itself only a reincarnation of the Ari.an heresy (76). Hampden's heresy, on this view, grew out of Arianism-to understand that "is to see how Newman formed the standards of truth by which he condemned the modern world" (76). For Newman, "the modern world is a realization of Socinian beliefs," " the complex of contemporary civilization originated in the distorted beliefs of Arius" (198-99), and Arianism (Hampden's heresy, liberalism) raised the pressing question "what kind of truth could words express" (107). Pattison presents Newman's understanding of liberalism from two somewhat different perspectives-HberaHsm is not only anti-dogmatic, it also claims that one... (shrink)

A new class of program-oriented logical formalisms is investigated – renominative logics with extended renominations, equality predicates, and predicate complement composition. Composition algebras and languages of such logics are described; their semantic properties are investigated. For these logics, a number of logical consequence relations are proposed and investigated, in particular, the logical consequence relations with undefinedness conditions. Properties of these relations form the semantic basis for further construction of sequent-type calculi for the proposed logics.

On Indian saints, Indic philosophy, yoga, and the Indian way of life.

This book presents a thorough study and an up to date anthology of Plato’s Protagoras. International authors' papers contribute to the task of understanding how Plato introduced and negotiated a new type of intellectual practice – called philosophy – and the strategies that this involved. They explore Plato’s dialogue, looking at questions of how philosophy and sophistry relate, both on a methodological and on a thematic level.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially fatal infectious disease that, in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), inequitably affects Asian, Pacific, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African (MELAA), and Māori people. Medical research involving genome sequencing of TB samples enables more nuanced understanding of disease strains and their transmission. This could inform highly specific health interventions. However, the collection and management of TB isolate samples for research are currently informed by monocultural biomedical models often lacking key ethical considerations. Drawing on a qualitative kaupapa (...) Māori–consistent study, this paper reports on preliminary discussions with groups of Māori, Pacific, and Afghan people in NZ, whose communities have been harmed by TB and TB stigma. Participants’ discussions highlight key concerns and meanings that ought to inform the development of guidelines and a more robust consultative process for the governance of how TB isolate samples are collected and used both retrospectively and in future research. We argue for ethical processes to be culturally nuanced and community-generated, flexible and meaningful, and situated in relation to the physical and symbolic effects of TB. We discuss the significance of Indigenous data sovereignty, rights, and kāwanatanga (governorship) in shaping a multicultural data sovereignty model. (shrink)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) holds that, for everything that exists or occurs or holds true, there is a reason why that is the case. I consider three possible ways of relating physics to the PSR: past states as reasons for present states, reasons why the laws of physics take the form that they do, and reasons why there is anything at all. In each case I suggest that the PSR is not the best way of thinking about how (...) and why physics works. -/- Invited reflection for The Principle of Sufficient Reason (Oxford Philosophical Concepts), Eds. F. Amijee and M. Della Rocca (forthcoming 2024). (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are reasons to believe that an implicit bias for normalcy influences what are considered medically necessary treatments in psychiatry. First, we outline two prima facie reasons to suspect that this is the case. A bias for ‘the normal’ is already documented in disability studies; it is reasonable to suspect that it affects psychiatry too, since psychiatric patients, like disabled people, are often perceived as ‘weird’ by others. Secondly, psychiatry's explicitly endorsed values of well-being (...) and function are hard to measure directly, which is why we see simpler box-ticking conceptions of recovery used in large research studies. This need not be problematic, but might lead to researchers and clinicians focusing too much on treatments that promote easy-to-measure proxies for recovery, instead of what actually matters to psychiatric patients themselves. Next, we provide examples of treatments and treatment decisions within two areas – self-injury and psychosis – which are hard to explain unless we assume that an implicit and harmful normalcy bias is at work. We conclude with some suggestions for clinicians and future research. (shrink)

I’m to push back on Hill’s (2022) criticism in four ways. First: we need some context for the debate that occurred in the pages of the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective that so concerns Hill. Second: getting precise with our terminology (and not working with stereotypes) is the only theoretically fruitful way to approach the problem of conspiracy theories. Third: I address Hill’s claim there is no evidence George W. Bush or Tony Blair accused their critics, during the build-up (...) the invasion of Iraq in 2003ACE, as being “conspiracy theorists.” Fourth (and finally): I will gently suggest that Hill has succumbed to a stereotypical view of work in Philosophy on conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Many recent decisions in tort law attempt to combine two conceptually incommensurable features: a traditional 'but for' test of factual causation, and the scientific or medical evidence that is required to explain how some injury occurred. Even when applied to macroscopic objects, the 'but for' test fails to identify causes, because it merely rephrases in the language of possible worlds what may be inferred from what is inductively known about the actual world. Since scientific theories explain the occurrence of events (...) without reference to causes, this test of causation is not only ineffectual but also inapplicable to scientific or medical evidence. Tort law, therefore, should abandon the 'but for' test; when scientific or medical evidence is required in a tort case, the courts should rely on the explanatory strategies that function within the theories from which they borrow such evidence. (shrink)

The faith in progress that propelled the West for over four centuries is in decline due to its own success. The emergence of capitalism with its novel market imperatives has created both the poverty that causes political crises and the material growth that has destabilized the Earth’s climate. There is a growing sense that we are dominated by the technologies and social organizations that we hoped would liberate us. Individualism and secularity have left people feeling isolated and without a sense (...) of higher purpose, leading some to reject Enlightenment values in favor of traditionalisms and even neofascism. In universities, faculty struggle to prove their utility and relevance, because they cannot guarantee their graduates a decent living in a world of automation and globalized production. As a result of these trends, the West’s ability to produce responsible citizens is in question. Our students are largely inured to appeals to transcendent values because they are urged to be “practical.” Faculty are no longer encouraged to care about the character-building nature of a liberal education. United States universities are in danger of not having an independent voice, as those departments that can consistently get major external funding seek commercial applications for the products of their research. In the United States, ideologically based harassment and censorship of unpopular ideas takes place regularly and is a major deterrent to pursuing a career in higher education. Given these challenges, can intellectuals still make a difference in universities? Many have taken to social media and other ways of getting their ideas around the increasingly steep paywalls of academic publications and the de facto censorship in their institutions. Some of the most vibrant exchanges of ideas are now happening in other places, largely online. These venues draw in people who are trying their best to learn something they are unlikely to learn at universities. But are such alternatives truly sustainable or good enough? Higher education is at a crossroads in which even this “retreat and regroup” strategy is highly problematic. (shrink)

This research explores the contextual approach within Christian-Jewish religious education, addressing a notable gap in existing literature and offering fresh insights into the application of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model within Christian contexts. Through a qualitative literature study employing a three-step methodology, including an in-depth analysis of Deuteronomy 11:19–20, this study reveals that this biblical text provides both educational guidance and theological significance, serving as a foundational support for the CTL model in Christian-Jewish religious education. The integration of (...) digital media into biblical sources holds promise for future research, while the central challenge lies in harmonising life experiences and empirical phenomena with biblical reflections to seamlessly integrate inquiry processes and pedagogical phases, with potential avenues for further exploration in scripture models endorsing CTL. This research provides valuable insights for educators, parents and policymakers in Indonesia and beyond, advancing educational research in contextualised teaching models within religious education.Contribution: This article demonstrates that the CTL model in the digital era has the potential to revolutionise religious education and profoundly impact learners, making it a significant scientific contribution in the context of Christian-Jewish religious education. (shrink)