In an increasingly data-driven age of medicine, do companies that offer genetic testing directly to patients represent an important part of personalising care, or a dangerous threat to privacy? Should we celebrate this new mechanism of patient involvement, or fear its implications?The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge addressed these issues in the 10th annual Medical Ethics Varsity Debate, through the motion: “This House Regrets the Rise of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing”. This article summarises and extends key arguments made in the debate, (...) exploring the impacts of such genetic testing on both the individual patient and broader society, with special consideration as to whether companies can ever truly guarantee anonymity of genetic data. (shrink)

In an increasingly data-driven age of medicine, do companies that offer genetic testing directly to patients represent an important part of personalising care, or a dangerous threat to privacy? Should we celebrate this new mechanism of patient involvement, or fear its implications?The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge addressed these issues in the 10th annual Medical Ethics Varsity Debate, through the motion: “This House Regrets the Rise of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing”. This article summarises and extends key arguments made in the debate, (...) exploring the impacts of such genetic testing on both the individual patient and broader society, with special consideration as to whether companies can ever truly guarantee anonymity of genetic data. (shrink)

This English translation of On Anger provides a newly read and supplemented Greek text of one of the most important "Herculaneum papyri," the only collection of literary texts to survive the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. On Anger is our sole evidence for the Epicurean view of what constitutes natural and praiseworthy anger, as distinguished from unnatural pleasure in vengeance and cruelty for their own sake, a view that can be shown to have influenced Latin authors like Cicero, Horace (...) and Virgil. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

A new model for environmental and urban sustainability living architecture that connects artifice with the natural world through the use of materials that possess some of the properties of living systems, and can therefore actively exchange energy with the ecosphere, is proposed.

In this paper, our goal is to survey some of the legal contexts within which violence risk assessment already plays a prominent role, explore whether developments in neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict violence, and discuss whether neuropredictive models of violence create any unique legal or moral problems above and beyond the well worn problems already associated with prediction more generally. In Violence Risk Assessment and the Law, we briefly examine the role currently played by (...) predictions of violence in three high stakes legal contexts: capital sentencing, civil commitment hearings, and sexual predator statutes. In Clinical vs. Actuarial Violence Risk Assessment, we briefly examine the distinction between traditional clinical methods of predicting violence and more recently developed actuarial methods, exemplified by the Classification of Violence Risk software created by John Monahan and colleagues as part of the MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence [1]. In The Neural Correlates of Psychopathy, we explore what neuroscience currently tells us about the neural correlates of violence, using the recent neuroscientific research on psychopathy as our focus. We also discuss some recent advances in both data collection and data analysis that we believe will play an important role when it comes to future neuroscientific research on violence. In The Potential Promise of Neuroprediction, we discuss whether neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict future violence. Finally, in The Potential Perils of Neuroprediction, we explore some potential evidentiary, constitutional, and moral issues that may arise in the context of the neuroprediction of violence. (shrink)

pThis article thinks through the work of Kanaka (Native Hawaiian) philosopher Davida Malo (1795–1853) and puts it in dialogue with the work of Richard Armstrong (1805–1860). It argues that Malo offers an account of being human that entails the proper management of impulses (makemake) and intentions (manaʻo) in ways that lead to flourishing (hoʻokūʻonoʻono) in complex communities (kauhale) overseen by leaders (aliʻi) that are informed by the examples of leaders from the past. Standards for proper living, in this setting, (...) are constructed by the community, the members of which are informed by their own experiences and the experiences of their ancestors (kūpuna) as the latter sought to ease the burdens (kaumaha) they confronted in daily life. Armstrong offers a similar picture of human beings as creatures that must learn to observe their intentions and to cultivate intentions that foster proper communal living—a community that Armstrong conceptualizes as a single family (hoʻokahiʻohana). Unlike Malo’s description, however, the standards of this family construct are based on universal laws of right and wrong that only pertain to humans and their standing before a divine figure understood as the Biblical God. The significance of this piece is not only to show how Malo and Armstrong may have conversed over the question of how to live well, but also to begin a conversation in the field of world philosophies about the viability of Kanaka ways of life./p. (shrink)

In my reply to michael devitt, It is argued, First, That quine fails to appreciate the force of plato's "one over many" argument for universals. It is argued, Second, That quine's failure springs in part at least from his doctrine of ontological commitment: from the view that predicates need not be treated with ontological seriousness. Finally, An attempt is made to blunt the force of devitt's contention that realists cannot give a coherent explanation of the way that universals stand (...) to particulars. (shrink)

Kate Armstrong examines the philosophies of the Marquis de Sade, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and the artwork of Andy Warhol, Michael Heizer, Kasimir Malevich, Ad Reinhardt, and Barnett Newman, arguing that, in reaction to the crisis of modernity, these writers and artists are involved in the process of refiguring the divine. Armstrong views these artists and their strategies in relation to "death of God" theology to demonstrate how, through inverting or shifting the transcendent and the immanent, they (...) are attempting to refigure the divine. _ Crisis and Repetition: Essays on Art and Culture_ explores the cultural crisis that ensues from the transformation or displacement of a transcendent God. It examines the ramifications of positing a transcendent God in the world by discussing theological accounts in conjunction with contemporary cultural explorations of the crisis of modernity. This crisis is central to modernity, modern thought and modern art, as we struggle to find meaning in existence. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists (...) in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The neuroscience of morality is in its infancy, with the first brain imaging studies of moral development undertaken only in 2001. The contributors to volume 3 sample the best work in this very new field, discussing a variety of approaches, including functional imaging, lesion studies, abnormal psychology, and developmental neuroscience. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include the neural basis of moral emotions and moral judgments as well as comparisons of normal adult moral judgments with those made by children, adolescents, and people with psychopathy, brain damage, and autism. Contributors to Volume 3 Abigail Baird, William Casebeer, Cordelia Fine, Nathan Fox, Uta Frith, Jordan Grafman, Joshua Greene, Catherine Hynes, Fatima Azavedo Ignacio, Richard Joyce, Jerome Kagan, Leonard Katz, Kent Kiehl, Jeanette Kennett, Melanie Killen, Daniel Lapsley, Heidi Maibom, Victoria McGeer, John Mikhail, Jorge Moll, Shaun Nichols, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Adina Roskies, Jana Schaich Borg, Katrina Sifferd, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Michael Smith, Mark Timmons, Frederick de Vignemont, Paul Whalen, Roland Zahn. (shrink)

Throughout the history of philosophy, skepticism has posed one of the central challenges of epistemology. Opponents of skepticism--including externalists, contextualists, foundationalists, and coherentists--have focussed largely on one particular variety of skepticism, often called Cartesian or Academic skepticism, which makes the radical claim that nobody can know anything. However, this version of skepticism is something of a straw man, since virtually no philosopher endorses this radical skeptical claim. The only skeptical view that has been truly held--by Sextus, Montaigne, Hume, Wittgenstein, and, (...) most recently, Robert Fogelin--has been Pyrrohnian skepticism. Pyrrhonian skeptics do not assert Cartesian skepticism, but neither do they deny it. The Pyrrhonian skeptics' doubts run so deep that they suspend belief even about Cartesian skepticism and its denial. Nonetheless, some Pyrrhonians argue that they can still hold "common beliefs of everyday life" and can even claim to know some truths in an everyday way. This edited volume presents previously unpublished articles on this subject by a strikingly impressive group of philosophers, who engage with both historical and contemporary versions of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Among them are Gisela Striker, Janet Broughton, Don Garrett, Ken Winkler, Hans Sluga, Ernest Sosa, Michael Williams, Barry Stroud, Robert Fogelin, and Roy Sorensen. This volume is thematically unified and will interest a broad spectrum of scholars in epistemology and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists discuss new collaborative work in moral philosophy that draws on evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in (...) moral philosophy, and these volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The contributors to volume 1 discuss recent work on the evolution of moral beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include a version of naturalism that avoids supposed fallacies, distinct neurocomputational systems for deontic reasoning, the evolutionary psychology of moral sentiments regarding incest, the sexual selection of moral virtues, the evolution of symbolic thought, and arguments both for and against innate morality. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate the value for both philosophy and psychology of collaborative efforts to understand the many complex aspects of morality. Contributors William Casebeer, Leda Cosmides, Oliver Curry, Michael Dietrich, Catherine Driscoll, Susan Dwyer, Owen Flanagan, Jerry Fodor, Gilbert Harman, Richard Joyce, Debra Lieberman, Ron Mallon, John Mikhail, Geoffrey Miller, Jesse Prinz, Peter Railton, Michael Ruse, Hagop Sarkissian, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chandra Sekhar Sripada, Valerie Tiberius, John Tooby, Peter Tse, Kathleen Wallace, Arthur Wolf, David Wong. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists (...) in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The contributors to volume 2 discuss recent empirical research that uses the diverse methods of cognitive science to investigate moral judgments, emotions, and actions. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include moral intuitions as a kind of fast and frugal heuristics, framing effects in moral judgments, an analogy between Chomsky's universal grammar and moral principles, the role of emotions in moral beliefs, moral disagreements, the semantics of moral language, and moral responsibility. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Professor of Philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies at Dartmouth College. Contributors to volume 2: Fredrik Bjorklund, James Blair, Paul Bloomfield, Fiery Cushman, Justin D'Arms, John Deigh, John Doris, Julia Driver, Ben Fraser, Gerd Gigerenzer, Michael Gill, Jonathan Haidt, Marc Hauser, Daniel Jacobson, Joshua Knobe, Brian Leiter, Don Loeb, Ron Mallon, Darcia Narvaez, Shaun Nichols, Alexandra Plakias, Jesse Prinz, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Russ Shafer-Landau, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Cass Sunstein, William Tolhurst, Liane Young. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists in (...) this emerging interdisciplinary field. The contributors to volume 1 discuss recent work on the evolution of moral beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include a version of naturalism that avoids supposed fallacies, distinct neurocomputational systems for deontic reasoning, the evolutionary psychology of moral sentiments regarding incest, the sexual selection of moral virtues, the evolution of symbolic thought, and arguments both for and against innate morality. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate the value for both philosophy and psychology of collaborative efforts to understand the many complex aspects of morality. Contributors: William Casebeer, Leda Cosmides, Oliver Curry, Michael Dietrich, Catherine Driscoll, Susan Dwyer, Owen Flanagan, Jerry Fodor, Gilbert Harman, Richard Joyce, Debra Lieberman, Ron Mallon, John Mikhail, Geoffrey Miller, Jesse Prinz, Peter Railton, Michael Ruse, Hagop Sarkissian, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chandra Sekhar Sripada, Valerie Tiberius, John Tooby, Peter Tse, Kathleen Wallace, Arthur Wolf, David Wong Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Professor of Philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies at Dartmouth College. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists (...) in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The neuroscience of morality is in its infancy, with the first brain imaging studies of moral development undertaken only in 2001. The contributors to volume 3 sample the best work in this very new field, discussing a variety of approaches, including functional imaging, lesion studies, abnormal psychology, and developmental neuroscience. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include the neural basis of moral emotions and moral judgments as well as comparisons of normal adult moral judgments with those made by children, adolescents, and people with psychopathy, brain damage, and autism. Contributors to volume 3:_ _Abigail Baird, William Casebeer, Cordelia Fine, Nathan Fox, Uta Frith, Jordan Grafman, Joshua Greene, Catherine Hynes, Fatima Azavedo Ignacio, Richard Joyce, Jerome Kagan, Leonard Katz, Kent Kiehl, Jeanette Kennett, Melanie Killen, Daniel Lapsley, Heidi Maibom, Victoria McGeer, John Mikhail, Jorge Moll, Shaun Nichols, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Adina Roskies, Jana Schaich Borg, Katrina Sifferd, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Michael Smith, Mark Timmons, Frederick de Vignemont, Paul Whalen, Roland Zahn. (shrink)

In response to Ari Armstrong's essay, "A Direct Realist's Challenge to Skepticism," Huemer defends his views on two issues concerning the nature of perception, against the Objectivist position: First, he argues that perceptual experiences have propositional but nonconceptual content; second, he argues that in perceptual illusions, the senses misrepresent their objects. He finds that the Objectivist view that perception cannot misrepresent because it lacks propositional content not only is absurd but opens the door to philosophical skepticism.

Equality has become a highly controversial concept within feminism, not least because standard egalitarian accounts have been accused of neglecting both difference and also issues of real concern to feminists, such as the structure of the `domestic' sphere, contexts of power, and responsibility for domestic work. Michael Walzer's theory of `complex equality' promises a commitment to equality that deploys a much broader analytical focus, and yet is sensitive to difference. As such, it merits attention from feminists. In this article, (...) I will begin to investigate the possibilities offered by this theory, by examining the positions it can generate on issues of domestic work and decision-making power. It will be my contention that Walzer's own position on these issues is a little abbreviated, but that a distinctive and worthwhile account can be developed merely by applying arguments he has advanced elsewhere. (shrink)

This article had its genesis in the joint paper we gave at the Scholarly Networks and the Emerging Platforms for Humanities Research and Publication Colloquium in April 2015. At that point, we were at the beginning of the Academic Book of the Future Project, which had been funded to run for two years from October 2014 by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Library. As we write this contribution, the Project has just launched its two final (...) reports, a Project Report by Marilyn Deegan and a Policy Report by Michael Jubb. The Project was conceived of in response to widespread concerns about books, publishing, libraries and the academy. Declining monograph sales, rising serials prices, funding problems, rapidly-changing new technologies, shifting policy landscapes, increasing pressure on academics to do more with less, all contributed to a sense of unease about the health of the academic book in the arts and humanities, and indeed about the health of the disciplines themselves. The Project was run jointly by University College London and King’s College London, with consultancy support from the Research Information Network. It also drew on expertise from across a widespread community coalition of academics, publishers, intermediaries and policy makers. Some hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals have been involved, and many useful deliverables produced. The Project had, and continues to have, considerable impact, and some of its activities, for instance Academic Book Week, will continue for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

A central question in the philosophy of science is: What is a law of nature? Different answers to this question define an important schism: Humeans, in the wake of David Hume, hold that the laws of nature are nothing over and above what actually happens and reject irreducible facts about natural modality (Lewis, 1983, 1994; cf. Miller, 2015). According to Non-Humeans, by contrast, the laws are metaphysically fundamental (Maudlin, 2007) or grounded in primitive modal structures, such as dispositional essences of (...) powerful properties (Bird, 2007), necessitation relations (Armstrong, 1983), or primitive subjunctive facts (Lange, 2009). This volume focuses on recent developments in the discussion of Humeanism, specifically on pragmatic versions of the view that put the needs of limited agents like us front and center. (shrink)

Michael Winterbottom, 39) criticizes Costa's edition of Seneca's Medea for failing to annotate sic fugere soleo. ‘Did Medea’, he asks, ‘habitually escape by chariot - or is this a coy allusion to Seneca's predecessors?’ Of course it is neither; sic fugere soleo means Medea was accustomed to flee by leaving dead bodies behind to encumber her enemies. According to. Seneca's usage, and that of Silver Latin rhetoric in general, once would be enough to establish such a ‘habit’, for in (...) that fairy-world wonders and horrors become, as Atreus says petulantly, immane…sed occupatum on repetition. At Troades 249 and 360 soleo is used of the virgin-sacrificing ‘habit’ of the Achaeans, i.e. the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which makes the sacrifice of Polyxena seem a good idea. (shrink)

Walzer's work has been criticised by liberal writers on the grounds of its interpretive underpinnings, which have been equated with communitarianism. Theorists working in branches of radical political theory have generally accepted this criticism and considered Walzer's work excessively conservative. Its influence on radical political theory has therefore been abbreviated. But the contention of this article is that, properly understood, the grounds on which Walzer takes issue with objectivist liberalism closely resemble those advanced within radical political theory, and therefore his (...) work can be rescued from its conservative associations. (shrink)

Introduction / Alessandra Tanesini and Michael P. Lynch -- Reassessing different conceptions of argumentation / Catarina Dutilh Novaes -- Martial metaphors and argumentative virtues and vices / Ian James Kidd -- Arrogance and deep disagreement / Andrew Aberdein -- Closed-mindedness and arrogance / Heather Battaly -- Intellectual trust and the marketplace of ideas / Allan Hazlett -- Is searching the Internet making us intellectually arrogant? / J. Adam Carter and Emma C. Gordon -- Intellectual humility and the curse of (...) knowledge / Michael Hannon -- Bullshit and dogmatism : a discourse analytical perspective / Chris Heffer -- Polarization and the problem of spreading arrogance / Michael P. Lynch -- Arrogance, polarization and arguing to win / Alessandra Tanesini -- Partisanship, humility, and epistemic polarization / Thomas Nadelhoffer, Rose Graves, Gus Skorburg, Mark Leary, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong -- Science denial, polarization, and arrogance / Lee McIntyre -- The polarization toolkit / Quassim Cassam -- Epistemic rights in a polarized world : the right to know and the abortion / Debate Lani Watson. (shrink)

Causation Accounts of the concept of causation can be divided up into four general types: direct non-reductionist, Humean reductionist, non-Humean reductionist, and indirect, or theoretical-term, non-reductionist accounts. This fourfold division, in turn, rests upon the following three distinctions: first, that between reductionism and non-reductionism; secondly, that between Humean and non-Humean states of affairs; and, thirdly, that between states that are directly observable and those that are not. Let us, then, consider each of these distinctions in turn. Non-Reductionism versus Reductionism The (...) non-reductionism-versus-reductionism distinction in this area arises in connection with both causal laws, and causal relations between states of affairs, and it gives rise to a number of related theses. In the case of causal relations between states of affairs, a thesis that is essential to reductionism is this: Basic Reductionism with respect to Causal Relations Any two worlds that agree both with respect to all of the non-causal properties of, and relations between, particulars, and with respect to all causal laws, must also agree with respect to all of the causal relations between states of affairs. Causal relations are, then, logically supervenient upon the totality of instances of non-causal properties and relations, together with causal laws. But while this thesis is an essential part of a reductionist view of causation, it is not sufficient, since this thesis can be combined with a view of causal laws according to which they obtain in virtue of atomic, and therefore irreducible, facts. What is needed, then, is a reductionist thesis concerning causal laws, and here there are two important possibilities: Strong Reductionism with respect to Causal Laws Any two worlds that agree with respect to all of the non-causal properties of, and relations between, particulars, must also agree with respect to causal laws. Causal laws are, then, logically supervenient upon the totality of instances of non-causal properties and relations. Moderate Reductionism with respect to Causal Laws Any two worlds that agree both with respect to all of the non-causal properties of, and relations between, particulars, and with respect to all laws of nature, must also agree with respect to all causal laws. Causal laws are, then, logically supervenient upon the totality of instances of non-causal properties and relations, together with laws of nature. What lies behind this strong-reductionism-versus-moderate-reductionism distinction? The answer is that while most philosophers who are reductionists with regard to causation tend to identify laws of nature with certain cosmic regularities, it is possible to be a reductionist with regard to causation while holding that laws are more than certain cosmic regularities: one might hold, for example, that laws of nature are second-order relations between universals (Dretske, 1977; Tooley, 1977; Armstrong, 1983). Such a person would reject Strong Reductionism with regard to causal laws, while accepting Moderate Reductionism. Each of these two reductionist theses concerning causal laws then entails, in conjunction with the Basic Reductionist thesis concerning causal relations, a corresponding thesis concerning causal relations between states of affairs: Strong Reductionism with respect to Causal Relations Any two worlds that agree with respect to all of the non-causal properties of, and relations between, particulars, must also agree with respect to all of the causal relations between states of affairs. Causal relations are, in short, logically supervenient upon the totality of instances of non-causal properties and relations. Moderate Reductionism with respect to Causal Relations Any two worlds that agree both with respect to all of the non-causal properties of, and relations between, particulars, and with respect to all laws of nature, must also agree with respect to all of the causal relations between states of affairs. Causal relations are, then, logically supervenient upon the totality of instances of non-causal properties and relations, together with laws of nature. To be a reductionist with regard to causation, then, is to accept the Basic Reductionist thesis with respect to causal relations, and either the Strong or the Moderate Reductionist thesis with respect to causal laws. This then commits one either to the Strong Reductionist thesis or the Moderate Reductionist thesis with respect to causal relations. A non-reductionist with regard to causation, accordingly, is one who rejects either the Basic Reductionist thesis concerning causal relations, or else both the Strong and the Moderate Reductionist theses with regard to causal laws, or all of these. (shrink)

I have two basic goals in this paper. The one is to suggest that in thinking about objections to presentism, it is useful to structure those objections in a certain way. The second is then to set out, and evaluate, objections to presentism, and to show that presentism is untenable. -/- My discussion is organized as follows. In section 1, I briefly distinguish between two very different varieties of presentism, on only one of which I shall focus here. In section (...) 2, I discuss how presentism is best defined. That discussion is inconclusive, but I am inclined to recommend a different characterization of presentism than is normally offered. -/- Sections 3 through 9 are then concerned with objections to presentism. In section 3, I refer briefly to tenseless objections to all tensed views, including presentism, and to one central objection in particular that I think is very important. But I do not attempt either to answer that objection, or to support it, in this paper. In section 4, I discuss four objections to presentism that seem to me either problematic or unconvincing as they are ordinarily stated. I shall also consider, however, whether some of these objections can be reinstated. In discussing, in section 4, a version of the truthmaker objection set out by David Armstrong, I suggest that, in thinking about objections to presentism, it is best to divide up sentences about the past in a certain way, and my brief statement, in section 5, of what I take to be the crucial objections to presentism, is organized along those lines. In sections 6 and 7, I set out two objections to tensed-facts presentism that are concerned with general propositions about the past that do not involve cross-temporal relations, and that are not expressed by sentences that contain proper names. The first of these objections is concerned with the meaning of statements about the past or about the future; the second is the truthmaker objection. -/- Section 8 is then concerned with objections to tensed-facts presentism that focus upon cross-temporal relations. Here I argue that it is the relation of causation that is crucial. -/- In section 9, I then turn to the question of whether sentences containing names of individuals that no longer exist pose an additional, independent problem for tensed-facts presentism. (shrink)

A review of *The Social Origins of Language* by Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L. Cheney; edited and introduced by Michael L. Platt.