The most recent commentators on Edmund Burke have renewed the charge that his political thought lacks the consistency and coherency necessary to even claim the status of a political philosophy and that he is indeed a "utilitarian." They mark him off as an "ideologist," a "rhetorician," and a "deliberate propagandist." Even Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, his most profound statement of a political philosophy, is regarded by some as a work of mere "persuasion," not "philosophy." (...) All this occurs in spite of the seminal work of Stanlis, Canavan, and Wilkins, who in the 1950s and ‘60s, demonstrated the natural law foundations of Burke’s politics. Burke revisionists, forced to acknowledge his use of the "natural law," label such use as a rhetorical means for utilitarian ends. Directly opposed to this renewed "utilitarian" interpretation of Burke is Joseph Pappin’s work The Metaphysics of Edmund Burke. Not only does this work challenge the "utilitarian" view of Burke, it sets out, as not other work on Burke has attempted to do, "to make explicit the implicit metaphysical core of Burke’s political thought." Pappin does this by examining both Burke’s critics and Burke’s own attack on a rationalist, ideologically inspired metaphysics. Drawing from Burke’s vast writings, Pappin establishes as his goal "to demonstrate that Burke’s political philosophy is grounded in a realist metaphysic, one that is basically consonant with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition." Does the author succeed? According to Francis Canavan, in his Foreword to this work, the "explanatory key" of a realist metaphysics grounding Burke’s politics "is a key that fits the lock better than any other that scholars have offered." Canavan further holds that the author offers "us a more thorough analysis of Burke’s understanding of God, the creation, nature, man, and society than has previously appeared.". (shrink)

This commentary contributes to philosophical reflection on the growing challenge of digital distraction and the value of attention in the digital age. It clarifies the nature of the problem in conceptual and historical terms; analyzes “freedom of attention” as an organizing ideal for moral and political theorizing; considers some constraints of political morality on coercive state action to bolster users’ attentional resources; comments on corporate moral responsibility; and touches on some reform ideas. In particular, the commentary develops a response to (...) an anti-paternalistic line of argument rooted in Mill’s Harm Principle that would oppose state regulation on the grounds that securing attentional capacities is a matter of personal responsibility alone. The commentary engages throughout with James Williams’s recent work on the attention economy by identifying areas of agreement and difference. (shrink)

Cultural influences are pervasive throughout human behaviour, and as human–robot interactions become more common, roboticists are increasingly focusing attention on how to build robots that are culturally competent and culturally sustainable. The current treatment of culture in robotics, however, is largely limited to the definition of culture as national culture. This is problematic for three reasons: it ignores subcultures, it loses specificity and hides the nuances in cultures, and it excludes refugees and stateless persons. We propose to shift the focus (...) of cultural robotics to redefine culture as an emergent phenomenon. We make use of three research programmes in the social and cognitive sciences to justify this definition. Consequently, cultural behaviour cannot be explicitly programmed into a robot, rather, a robot must be designed with the capability to participate in the interactions that lead to the arising of cultural behaviour. In the final part of the paper, we explore which capacities and abilities are the most salient for a robot to do this. (shrink)

The major competing statistical paradigms share a common remarkable but unremarked thread: in many of their inferential applications, different probability interpretations are combined. How this plays out in different theories of inference depends on the type of question asked. We distinguish four question types: confirmation, evidence, decision, and prediction. We show that Bayesian confirmation theory mixes what are intuitively “subjective” and “objective” interpretations of probability, whereas the likelihood-based account of evidence melds three conceptions of what constitutes an “objective” probability.

J. L. Schellenberg has constructed major arguments for atheism based on divine hiddenness in two separate works. This paper reviews these arguments and highlights how they are grounded in reflections on perfect divine love. However, Schellenberg also defends what he calls the ‘subject mode’ of religious scepticism. I argue that if one accepts Schellenberg's scepticism, then the foundation of his divine-hiddenness arguments is undermined by calling into question some of his conclusions regarding perfect divine love. In other words, if his (...) scepticism is correct, then Schellenberg's case for atheism cannot stand. Finally, I demonstrate how my argument avoids the many defences that Schellenberg has employed thus far in defending these particular atheistic arguments. (shrink)

This book contends that the crises of well-being, distress, and dysfunction currently afflicting the legal profession, other professions, and our politics can best be addressed by encouraging people to pursue a flourishing life of meaning and purpose in communities of excellence and virtue. It draws centrally upon the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, arguably the most famous living moral philosopher and notorious for his critique of liberal democracy, its capitalist, large-scale market economy, and hyper-individualism in late Modernity. Constructing a fishing village (...) called Piscopolis as a central image and theoretical ideal, the book integrates relevant aspects of MacIntyre's Thomistic-Aristotelianism into a clear, comprehensible, and original synthesis that also significantly expands and supplements MacIntyre's theoretical approach, including insights drawn from Heideggerian phenomenology. It examines the legal polis, the "fishing village of the law" called Juropolis, to illustrate how the Piscopolis ideal challenges members of the professions and suggests how the ideal might be deployed more broadly to organically transform the liberal democratic state into a "republic of virtue." With the Covid-19 pandemic starkly revealing the need for such transformation, the book will interest both the MacIntyrean expert and novice alike and appeal broadly to moral and political philosophers, ethicists, theologians, legal professionals, and scholarly lay readers. (shrink)

This work elucidates elements of Leibniz's theodicy which are non-teleological. Rather than ignoring the personal dimensions of suffering, as some have charged, Leibniz actually recognizes the threat that the problem of innocent suffering presents for a perfectly good God. His theodicy goes beyond the global greater-good defense of the best possible world argument in several ways. He appeals to personal greater-goods to justify some instances of suffering, but he also invokes deontological principles in his retributive justice arguments, his response to (...) the author of sin problem, and his constraint against damnation of infants. However, an evidential version of the problem of horrible suffering of innocents would still threaten his theodicy. This problem persists due to Leibniz's rejection of theological voluntarism in favor of a unified system of ethics for God and rational creatures. Finally, Leibniz's rejection of quietism provides an important resource for a response to suffering. His theodicy thus implies a moral activism whereby the good for each rational creature is bound up with the general good of others in the amelioration of the world. (shrink)

The two-phase study reported here examined the content and communication function served by electronic bumper stickers. EBSs consist of the sayings that are included in an e-mail signature file following personal identifiers such as one's name, phone number, and postal address. In the first phase, 334 EBSs were gathered and content analyzed into one of five message categories. In order of frequency they were: wisdom, humor, advice, religious, and socio-political commentary. In the second phase, open-ended responses from 134 EBS users (...) were coded into one of six motives for interpersonal communication. The relationship between one's motive for using an EBS and the content of one's EBS was not statistically significant. The implications of EBSs and e-mail use for mediated communication competence are considered. (shrink)

Are your students prepared? Are they ready to view the world through biblical lenses? Are they equipped to engage the world with scriptural discernment? Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption is a tool that helps teachers equip 11th or 12th grade students with a Christian understanding of all major academic disciplines and cultural arenas. Course goals: Define worldview and demonstrate how worldviews influence the way people think about all of life; Analyze a Biblical worldview in terms of Creation, Fall and Redemption; (...) Apply Creation, Fall and Redemption to real-life issues as well as to making positive contributions to life and culture. Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption Student Text was created to appeal to student interest and develop understanding. Application examples taken from history and recent events resonate with students, motivating them to apply Scripture to issues that are crucial to their spiritual growth. Apologetics is interwoven throughout the textbook, equipping students to defend the foundational teachings of the Bible against competing worldviews. At the same time, the framework of Creation, Fall, Redemption enables students to make distinctively Christian contributions to their culture. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Popular, Socratic, and Platonic Piety Plato's Polis Religion Plato's Philosophical Religion: Gods and Forms Plato's Philosophical Religion: Immortality and Postmortem Judgment.

This study argues that to understand Socrates we must uncover and analyze his religious views, since his philosophical and religious views are part of one seamless whole. Mark McPherran provides a close analysis of the relevant Socratic texts, an analysis that yields a comprehensive and original account of Socrates' commitments to religion. McPherran finds that Socrates was not only a rational philosopher of the first rank, but a figure with a profoundly religious nature as well, believing in the existence (...) of gods vastly superior to ourselves in power and wisdom and sharing other traditional religious commitments with his contemporaries. However, Socrates was just as much a sensitive critic and rational reformer of both the religious tradition he inherited and the new cultic incursions he encountered. McPherran contends that Socrates saw his religious commitments as integral to his philosophical mission of moral examination and, in turn, used the rationally derived convictions underlying that mission to reshape the religious conventions of his time. As a result, Socrates made important contributions to the rational reformation of Greek religion, contributions that incited and informed the theology of his brilliant pupil, Plato. (shrink)

This title provides readers with an on-the-job look at what it's like to be an animal rescue worker.

The attempt to generate adequate courses in Ethics at the secondary school level preceded Philosophy for Children as it is generall thought of today. But despite this early momentum, problems inherent to secondary school applications have shifted interest toward the early school years. Curricula furnished by, for example, the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children has, in recent years, been increasingly geared to the elementary school. Programs rarely go beyond the intermediate school years. However desirable or necessary that (...) state of affairs, it does not respond to the apparent need of educators to address themselves to the crucial period of adolescence through some organized program of values education. (shrink)

Plato's Republic has proven to be of astounding influence and importance. Justly celebrated as Plato's central text, it brings together all of his prior works, unifying them into a comprehensive vision that is at once theological, philosophical, political and moral. The essays in this volume provide a picture of the most interesting aspects of the Republic, and address questions that continue to puzzle and provoke, such as: Does Plato succeed in his argument that the life of justice is the most (...) attractive one? Is his tripartite analysis of the soul coherent and plausible? Why does Plato seem to have to force his philosopher-guardians to rule when they know this is something that they ought to do? What is the point of the strange and complicated closing Myth of Er? This volume will be essential to those looking for thoughtful and detailed excursions into the problems posed by Plato's text and ideas. (shrink)

Models carry the meaning of science. This puts a tremendous burden on the process of model selection. In general practice, models are selected on the basis of their relative goodness of fit to data penalized by model complexity. However, this may not be the most effective approach for selecting models to answer a specific scientific question because model fit is sensitive to all aspects of a model, not just those relevant to the question. Model Structural Adequacy analysis is proposed as (...) a means to select models based on their ability to answer specific scientific questions given the current understanding of the relevant aspects of the real world. (shrink)

This book is without doubt the most meticulously researched, carefully argued, and comprehensive study of Socratic religion to date. When McPherran refers to the religion of Socrates, he means the religion of the historical Socrates. Like many contemporary scholars, McPherran thinks that Plato’s early dialogues are generally reliable sources for the views of the historical Socrates. With uncommon clarity, the author develops the philosophical and religious commitments of this Socrates and shows how they are really complementary parts of a single (...) outlook. Not surprisingly, the very nature of the project generates a multitude of puzzles. McPherran does a masterful job of developing these paradoxes and showing how Socrates was prepared to disarm them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Piety, Justice, and the Unity of VirtueMark L. McPherranNo doubt the Socrates of the Euthyphro would be delighted to encounter many of its readers, offering as they do an audience of piety-seeking interlocutors, eager to mend the dialogical breach created by Euthyphro’s sudden departure. Socrates’ enthusiasm for this pursuit is at least as intense and comprehensible as theirs. We are told, after all, that he will never abandon his (...) quest for knowledge of “what the pious is” (15c–16a), since not only is this enterprise both pious and “inconceivably happy” (cf. Ap. 41c3–4) in itself,1 but coming to understand piety would allow one to “live better the rest of one’s life,” (15e7–16a4), especially should its continuation be threatened by a charge of impiety (3b–d, 5a–c, 12e, 15e–16a).2 My own search here is no less happy and ambitious, since I wish to uncover Socrates’ own, implicit understanding of piety and its relation to his claim elsewhere that “the virtues are one.”3 The account of this I shall provide will also touch on Platonic piety, although this notion obviously rests on a tendentious distinction. Nevertheless, there do seem to be some interesting differences between the way piety is treated in elenctic dialogues such as the Euthyphro and Protagoras, and the more explicitly theory-laden, constructive works such as the Republic and Laws. I shall later characterize [End Page 299] these differences, primarily in terms of the more carefully articulated, internalist moral psychology of the Republic.42. SOCRATIC PIETYThe distinct phenomena the term “religion” popularly designates for us were for the Greeks seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Thus, it is natural that the term “piety”—εὐσέβεια—carried a wider sense than our English equivalent commonly does: it concerned not only one’s immediate relation to the gods—emphasizing proper religious conduct and carrying a sense of respect and fear towards divinity (concomitant with a grasp of one’s own mortal limits)—but also often designated appropriate behavior towards parents, native land, and the dead.5 It is to this rough, inclusive conception of piety that Euthyphro appeals when confronted by Socrates on the Porch of the King (2a–6a). Moreover, and despite his own shockingly irreverent attempt at father-bashing and the subsequent elenctic drubbing he then receives from Socrates, toward the close of the dialogue Euthyphro still manages to envision piety in the quasi-traditionalist fashion with which he began—as “a knowledge of how to ensure the preservation of families and states by gratifying the gods through proper prayer and sacrifice” (14b; cf. 14c–15c).6 It is, however, precisely [End Page 300] at this dramatic juncture (14a–c) that we find—arguably—the final elements of a Socratically-acceptable conception of piety; one that builds upon Euthyphro’s initial concession to Socrates that piety and “human justice” are to be distinguished from one another (11e–12e). This, in turn, is a move that in principle forces Euthyphro to disengage from those aspects of the traditional conception of piety which would—from Socrates’ perspective—conflate the two.7 Recent challenges to this reading, however, have seen in Euthyphro’s initial holism not the heterogeneous presumptions of popular thought, but a semi-sophisticated grasp of the Socratic unity of the virtues.8 And since it does appear that the character Euthyphro is designed to serve not only as a hubristically-inflated, Homeric “fundamentalist,” but as an odd and Sophistically-influenced doppelgänger of Socrates as well—a lesson, that is, in what Socrates both is and is not—it now seems worthwhile to reexamine the view that Socratic piety is but a part and not the whole of justice.9Turning to our text, then, we discover that following the failure of Euthyphro’s initial definitional attempts to specify the nature of pious action and the resulting aporetic interlude, Socrates is willing to offer Euthyphro renewed assistance (11e1–4). This he does by asking whether all the just is pious, or whether justice is broader than piety such that piety is then merely a “part” (μóϱιον) of justice (11e4–12e5). Subsequent to his explanation of these alternatives, Socrates... (shrink)

Aristotle holds that it was Socrates who first made frequent, systematic use of epagôgç in his elenctic investigations of various definitions of the virtues . Plato and Xenophon also target epagôgç as an innovative, distinguishing mark of Socratic methodology when they have Socrates' interlocutors complain that Socrates prattles on far too much about "his favorite topic" —blacksmiths, cobblers, cooks, physicians, and other such tiresome craftspeople—in order to generate and test general principles concerning the alleged craft of virtue. It is (...) remarkable, then, how little secondary literature exists on this subject—moreover, several of the few accounts we do have naively assume that epagôgç is the same as modern inductive generalization. Others are in conflict as to whether, for example, we can find any legitimate instances of probabilistic inductive epagôgç in the Socratic dialogues. This paper addresses these and other issues by offering a new, critical account of Socratic epagôgç—one tied to its occurrences in several key Socratic elenchoi. (shrink)

Does infantile amnesia exist? Can children accurately recall traumatic events? Do memory's organizing, storage, and retrieval mechanisms change during childhood development? Through a thorough examination of recent scientific evidence, The Fate of Early Memories divorces fact from fiction regarding the nature, durability, and fallibility of memory.

Kim-chong Chong’s 2016 book on the Zhuangzi balances the textual and historical approaches with conceptual and contemporary philosophical concerns. The focus on the early Confucian context and the philosophy of value pluralism, as well as the analysis of key concepts and creative interpretation of well-known passages, mark out Chong’s Zhuangzi from other accounts. Nevertheless, Chong faces the interpretative and philosophical challenge of reconciling value pluralism with the normative concerns and privileged ideals also present in the Zhuangzi.

Scientific concepts are defined by metaphors. These metaphors determine what attention is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomenon. The authors analyze these metaphors within 3 types of attention theories: (a) “cause” theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information processing (e.g., attention as a spotlight; attention as a limited resource); (b) “effect” theories, in which attention is considered to be a by-product of information processing (e.g., the competition metaphor); and (c) hybrid theories that combine cause and (...) effect aspects (e.g., biasedcompetition models). The present analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of cause versus effect interpretations. (shrink)