First, this collection seeks to examine exactly what Levinass writings mean for both Jews and Christians. Second, it takes a snapshot of the current state of Jewish-Christian dialogue, using Levinas as the rationale for the discussion. Three generations of Levinas scholars are represented. Contributors: Leora Batnitzky, Jeffrey Bloechl, Richard A. Cohen, Paul Franks, Robert Gibbs, Kevin Hart, Dana Hollander, Robyn Horner, Jeffrey L. Kosky, Jean-Luc Marion, Michael Purcell, Michael A. Signer, Merold Westphal, Elliott R. Wolfson, Edith (...) Wyschogrod. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

While recognizing that H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law has exerted a powerful and continuing influence on general jurisprudence, Brian Simpson finds it wanting. Simpson argues that Hart’s determination to make broad generalizations about the nature of a legal system deflected him from the important task of attending to the particularities of actually-existing law. Moreover, he identifies Hart as a ‘hedgehog’ in Isaiah Berlin’s sense: a thinker whose work gives expression to a ‘single central vision’ (in (...) class='Hi'>Hart’s case, law as a system of rules). This critique of Hart leads Simpson to argue for an approach to legal philosophy that is more attentive to the details of existing legal systems. But Simpson fails to present his readers with the theoretical approach for which he argues. This essay seeks to make good this deficiency in his response to The Concept of Law. To this end, it uses the writings of two philosophers on whom Simpson draws (Berlin and Michael Oakeshott) with the aim of enriching Hart’s contribution to general jurisprudence. Moreover, it finds in this Hart-Oakeshott-Berlin-based interdisciplinary theory (HOBBIT) a basis on which to throw much light on Britain as a distinctive form of politico-legal life. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME ON BLAME AND EXCUSE17. Hume's account of blame and excuse differs in fundamental respects from many contemporary ones. Many contemporary views, ultimately derived from the Kantian dictum that 'ought' implies 'can', base excuses on the nonvoluntary character of an action. For example, H. L. A. Hart argues that the basic requirements for responsibility are that a person have the capacity and a fair opportunity to do what (...) is required. A person is to be excused for an action if he lacked either the capacity or opportunity to do what was required. As these are conditions for an action being voluntary in a suitably narrow sense, Hart primarily bases excuses on the nonvoluntary character of actions. Likewise, Richard Brandt's view, which in many respects is similar to Hume's, requires that the manifestation of a character trait be subject to a high degree of voluntary control before blame.2 is appropriate. Hume, however, explicitly denies that either a character trait or its manifestation in conduct need be subject to voluntary control for blame to be appropriate. The nonvoluntary character of an action does not necessarily excuse one from blame. Hume makes four key claims about blame and excuse. (1) The ultimate objects of praise and blame are mental qualities, not actions. (2) Actions are considered only as signs of mental qualities. (3) The possession and expression of these mental qualities may be appropriate objects of praise or blame even if they are nonvoluntary. (4) Persons have excuses if their actions do not indicate enduring mental qualities. These points need to be substantiated and explained. The first two claims may be considered together. That Hume holds mental qualities are the ultimate objects of praise and blame and that actions are considered only as signs of mental qualities is indisputable. 18. 'Tis evident, that when we praise any actions, we regard only the motives that produced them, and consider the actions as signs or indications of certain principles in the mind and temper. The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality. This we cannot do directly; and therefore fix our attention on actions, as on external signs. But these actions are still considered as signs; and the ultimate object of our praise and approbation is the motive, that produced them. For present purposes, only two points need be noted about this passage. First, it clearly states that the ultimate objects of praise and, as he indicates in his following 4 paragraph, blame are always mental qualities. The expression mental qualities is vague, perhaps deliberately so. Sometimes Hume uses the term motive instead. By 'motive' he does not intend any passing desire or further intention which one may have in acting, e.g., embarrassing others. For Hume, some motives are not even dispositions to act. Second, actions or external performances have no merit. They are only signs of mental qualities. Even if the concept of an action includes more than the external behavior, such as the intention, it does not include motives or desires. A difference in intention may entail a difference in action, but a difference in motive does not. The same action may be performed from different motives. Hence, actions are not logically connected with the objects of praise and blame. Hume's claim that actions themselves have no merit, it might be objected, is incorrect. People do constantly evaluate actions. If they did not, then actions would not be considered untoward and a basis for attributing blame. However, Hume does not deny that actions may be evaluated in some way or other, only that they alone have merit or are appropriate objects of praise and blame. Actions may be evaluated without reference to mental qualities, for example, as right or wrong, useful or unuseful. Hume is 19. chiefly concerned with evaluating actions as virtuous or vicious. The terms virtuous and vicious as applied to actions involve an element of praise and blame, whereas the terms right and wrong, at least in most of their uses, do not. Thus, Hume is not denying that actions alone may have merit in the sense of value or utility. Rather, he is denying that actions... (shrink)

Contributors in the order of contributions: David Ebrey, Richard Kraut, T. H. Irwin, Leonard Brandwood, Eric Brown, Agnes Callard, Gail Fine, Suzanne Obdrzalek, Gábor Betegh, Elizabeth Asmis, Henry Mendell, Constance C. Meinwald, Michael Frede, Emily Fletcher, Verity Harte, Rachana Kamtekar, and Rachel Singpurwalla. -/- The first edition of the Cambridge Companion to Plato (1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research and guided new students for thirty years. This new edition introduces students to fresh approaches to Platonic (...) dialogues while advancing the next generation of research. Of its seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by a new generation of scholars. Six others have been thoroughly revised and updated by their original authors. The volume covers the full range of Plato's interests, including ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato's dialogues are approached as unified works and considered within their intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences between them while also tracing their interrelations. The result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be valuable for all students and scholars of Plato. (shrink)

In 15 insightful essays, Jacques Derrida and an international group of scholars of religion explore postmodern thinking about God and consider the nature of forgiveness in relation to the paradoxes of the gift. Among the themes addressed by contributors are the possibilities of imagining God as unthinkable, imagining God as non-patriarchal, imagining a return to Augustine, and imagining an age in which praise is far more important than narrative. Questioning God moves readers beyond the parameters of metaphysical reason and modernist (...) rationality as it attempts to think the questions of God and forgiveness in a postmodernist context. Contributors include John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida, Mark Dooley, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Robert Gibbs, Jean Greisch, Kevin Hart, Richard Kearney, Cleo McNelly Kearns, John Milbank, Regina M. Schwartz, Michael J. Scanlon, and Graham Ward. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion—Merold Westphal, general editor. (shrink)

No doubt most philosophers who spend time on the history of philosophy are familiar with that question asked to embarrass (and liable to be asked by scientists in particular) why the history of the subject should be thought a significant part of the subject itself. Either there is progress in philosophy, it is said, or there is not. If there is progress, why the laborious backward glances? How can the past be so important? Why aren’t philosophers like psychologists, given perhaps (...) a short historical orientation before being brought up to the nitty-gritty of the present? If, on the other hand, there is no progress, if we might as well be discussing Locke as Quine, doesn’t that imply that philosophy consists in a set of questions for which there is no way of establishing even that some answers are better than others? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to pursue questions to which at least provisional answers can be established, approximating to the truth? Wouldn’t it be better to be a scientist? (shrink)

Evolutionary ethics - the application of evolutionary ideas to moral thinking and justification - began in the nineteenth century with the work of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, but was subsequently criticized as an example of the naturalistic fallacy. In recent decades, however, evolutionary ethics has found new support among both the Darwinian and the Spencerian traditions. This accessible volume looks at the history of thought about evolutionary ethics as well as current debates in the subject, examining first the claims (...) of supporters and then the responses of their critics. Topics covered include social Darwinism, moral realism, and debunking arguments. Clearly written and structured, the book guides readers through the arguments on both sides, and emphasises the continuing relevance of evolutionary theory to our understanding of ethics today. (shrink)

Roger White argued for a principle of indifference. Hart and Titelbaum showed that White’s argument relied on an intuition about conditioning on biconditionals that, while widely shared, is incorrect. Hawthorne, Landes, Wallmann, and Williamson argue for a principle of indifference. Remarkably, their argument relies on the same faulty intuition. We explain their intuition, explain why it’s faulty, and show how it generates their principle of indifference. 1Introduction 2El Caminos and Indifference 2.1Overview 2.2Fins and antennas 2.3HLWW in the example 2.4The (...) restrictiveness of Condition 2 2.5Summary 3The Specifics of HLWW s Argument 3.1Mapping their conditions to our equations 3.2HLWW’s responses to objections. (shrink)

This seriously playful book provides comic relief in an age of neoliberalism and argues that parody can be used to creatively benefit our practices of self-narration and quests for knowledge. It demonstrates how parody utilizes humor, play, and self-reflection to allow for a helpful, alternative relationship to mistakes and our multifaceted-self. The book works to delineate specific ways of viewing, studying, creating, and performing a particular form of humorous parody, and through pedagogical application, it balances practical hands on examples via (...) digital video creation with examples and exercises such as interrogating our creative histories and parodying them--either as a classroom exercise or in individual self-reflection. The core readership for this book is rhetoric and composition scholars researching continental philosophy, humor, and narrative theory, and it lends itself to classroom implementation for professors, as it brings together (often for the first time) major academic conversations on humor throughout philosophy, literary and cultural studies, communication studies, and media studies. Therefore, this book will be essential reading for undergraduate/graduate courses that feature humor, alternative forms of communication in the public sphere, alternative rhetorical strategies, and courses that focus on the importance of creativity and play in our daily lives and scholarship. (shrink)

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin is universally recognized as one of the most important science books ever written. Published in 1859, it was here that Darwin argued for both the fact of evolution and the mechanism of natural section. The Origin of Species is also a work of great cultural and religious significance, in that Darwin maintained that all organisms, including humans, are part of a natural process of growth from simple forms. This Companion commemorates the 150th anniversary (...) of the publication of the Origin of Species and examines its main arguments. Drawing on the expertise of leading authorities in the field, it also provides the contexts - religious, social, political, literary, and philosophical - in which the Origin was composed. Written in a clear and friendly yet authoritative manner, this volume will be essential reading for both scholars and students More broadly, it will appeal to general readers who want to learn more about one of the most important and controversial books of modern times. (shrink)

The ethical issues raised by cybersecurity practices and technologies are of critical importance. However, there is disagreement about what is the best ethical framework for understanding those issues. In this paper we seek to address this shortcoming through the introduction of a principlist ethical framework for cybersecurity that builds on existing work in adjacent fields of applied ethics, bioethics, and AI ethics. By redeploying the AI4People framework, we develop a domain-relevant specification of five ethical principles in cybersecurity: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, (...) justice, and explicability. We then illustrate the advantages of this principlist framework by examining the ethical issues raised by four common cybersecurity contexts: penetration testing, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), ransomware, and system administration. These case analyses demonstrate the utility of this principlist framework as a basis for understanding cybersecurity ethics and for cultivating the ethical expertise and ethical sensitivity of cybersecurity professionals and other stakeholders. (shrink)

Focused sequent calculi are a refinement of sequent calculi, where additional side-conditions on the applicability of inference rules force the implementation of a proof search strategy. Focused cut-free proofs exhibit a special normal form that is used for defining identity of sequent calculi proofs. We introduce a novel focused display calculus fD.LG and a fully polarized algebraic semantics FP.LG\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbb {FP.LG}$$\end{document} for Lambek–Grishin logic by generalizing the theory of multi-type calculi and their (...) algebraic semantics with heterogenous consequence relations. The calculus fD.LG has strong focalization and it is sound and complete w.r.t. FP.LG\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbb {FP.LG}$$\end{document}. This completeness result is in a sense stronger than completeness with respect to standard polarized algebraic semantics, insofar as we do not need to quotient over proofs with consecutive applications of shifts over the same formula. We also show a number of additional results. fD.LG is sound and complete w.r.t. LG-algebras: this amounts to a semantic proof of the so-called completeness of focusing, given that the standard (display) sequent calculus for Lambek–Grishin logic is complete w.r.t. LG-algebras. fD.LG and the focused calculus fLG of Moortgat and Moot are equivalent with respect to proofs, indeed there is an effective translation from fLG-derivations to fD.LG-derivations and vice versa: this provides the link with operational semantics, given that every fLG-derivation is in a Curry–Howard correspondence with a directional λ¯μμ~\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\overline{\lambda }\mu \widetilde{\mu }$$\end{document}-term. (shrink)

Acoustic signals serving intraspecific communication by predators are perceived by potential prey as warning signals. We analysed the acoustic characteristics of howling of wolves and found a striking similarity to the warning sounds of technical sirens. We hypothesize that the effectivity of sirens as warning signals has been enhanced by natural sensory predisposition of humans to get alerted by howling of wolves, with which they have a long history of coexistence. Psychoacoustic similarity of both stimuli seems to be supported by (...) the fact that wolves and dogs perceive the sound of technical sirens as a relevant releasing supernormal stimulus and reply to it with howling. Inspiration by naturally occurring acoustic aposematic signals might become an interesting example of biomimetics in designing new warning sound systems. (shrink)

Sainsbury and Tye present a new theory, 'originalism', which provides natural, simple solutions to puzzles about thought that have troubled philosophers for centuries. They argue that concepts are to be individuated by their origin, rather than epistemically or semantically. Although thought is special, no special mystery attaches to its nature.

Energy innovation offers us our best chance to solve the three urgent and interrelated problems of climate change, worldwide insecurity over energy supplies, and rapidly growing energy demand. But if we are to achieve a timely transition to reliable, low-cost, low-carbon energy, the U.S. energy innovation system must be radically overhauled. Unlocking Energy Innovation outlines an up-to-the-minute plan for remaking America's energy innovation system by tapping the country's entrepreneurial strengths and regional diversity in both the public and private spheres. The (...) authors map three waves of energy innovation to show how we can speed up the introduction of new technologies and business models and accelerate their deployment on a massive scale. "Business as usual" will not fill the energy innovation gap. Nor will wishful thinking--common enough today, with politicians and others talking up some technologies, talking down others, and claiming that if we price it, or if we mandate it, or if we simply say it often and inspiringly enough, the innovations will flow. Only the kind of systemic, transformative changes to our energy innovation system described in this provocative book will help us avert the most dire scenarios and achieve a sustainable and secure energy future. (shrink)

Ethics and the Environment includes contributions from distinguished philosophers, humanists, politicians, geologists, chemists and physicists. This volume opens with an historical and philosophical background to provide a basis for discussion of significant contemporary changes in ethical theory.

Parasite is best seen in existential rather than moral terms. It does not issue in moral, social or economic judgements. The film describes, or perhaps portrays, the dreamlike mode of fantasy “existence” the “underground” people in a society so rigidly stratified that communication with people on the other side of the societal “lines” is literally impossible, inevitably resulting in the destruction, real or metaphorical, of everyone on both sides of those lines.

One of Marx‘s and Engels‘ main claims (hereafter ―original Marxism) in their account of the historical ―inevitability of the collapse of capitalism is that one‘s material (economic) conditions, not one‘s ideas, arguments or philosophy, determines one‘s ―consciousness and actions. However, the self-reference in this characterization of philosophical views generates a paradox analogous to the 7th century B.C. Epimenides ―Liar paradox. The Epimenides-paradox arises when Epimenides, a Cretan, states that all Cretans are liars. Epimenides-statement is paradoxical in the sense that if (...) it is true then it is false. Similarly, the Marxist claim that all philosophers who purport to state the cause of all social changes must be wrong, where Marx and Engels are themselves philosophers stating just such a claim, generates a paradox analogous to the ― Epimenides Liar paradox. This leads to what Engels himself calls a―false consciousness, i.e., a failure to understand the true causes of social change. This paradox can only be escaped by abandoning at least one of original Marxism‘s core doctrines. (shrink)

§ I describes Heidegger’s account of authenticity in BT. § II describes Spengler’s account of Dasein as the being of plants.4 § III argues that Heidegger holds that authentic Dasein is rooted in a Volk as a plant is rooted in its soil. § IV shows that Heidegger’s post-Being and Time authenticity consists in embracing the plant-like dream, expressed in “primordial poetry,” of one’s Volk. § V replies to a textual objection.

This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant changes to academic publishing, and specifically the global journal knowledge system wrought by a range of new digital technologies that herald the third age of the journal as an electronic, interactive and mixed-media form of scientific communication. The paper emerges from an Editors' Collective, a small New Zealand-based organisation comprised of editors and reviewers of academic journals mostly in the fields of education and philosophy. The paper (...) is the result of a collective writing process. (shrink)

Infants can see someone pointing to one of two buckets and infer that the toy they are seeking is hidden inside. Great apes do not succeed in this task, but, surprisingly, domestic dogs do. However, whether children and dogs understand these communicative acts in the same way is not yet known. To test this possibility, an experimenter did not point, look, or extend any part of her body towards either bucket, but instead lifted and shook one via a centrally pulled (...) rope. She did this either intentionally or accidentally, and did or did not address her act to the subject using ostensive cues. Young 2-year-old children but not dogs understood the experimenter’s act in intentional conditions. While ostensive pulling of the rope made no difference to children’s success, it actually hindered dogs’ performance. We conclude that while human children may be capable of inferring communicative intent from a wide variety actions, so long as these actions are performed intentionally, dogs are likely to be less flexible in this respect. Their understanding of communicative intention may be more dependent upon bodily markers of communicative intent, including gaze, orientation, extended limbs, and vocalisations. This may be because humans have come under selective pressure to develop skills for communicating with absent interlocutors – where bodily co-presence is not possible. (shrink)