Igor Primoratz & Aleksander Pavkovic, Patriotism : Philosophical and Political Perspectives Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10677-011-9297-4 Authors Michael Crean, Department of Philosophy, NUI, Galway, Ireland Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820.

The objective of this thesis – Reflective Equilibrium as a Form of Life – is to contribute to the deepening of understanding of the method of reflective equilibrium – a method of internal epistemic justification. In the first part of the study, four paradigmatic conceptions of the method will be analyzed in order to carve out a conceptual core: The ones by John Rawls – who coined the name of the method – Norman Daniels, Michael DePaul and Catherine Elgin. (...) I will argue that the conceptual core of the method contains four elementary rules: 1) A minimalistic fallibilism, 2) a moderate holism, 3) a minimalistic rationality, and 4) a weak foundationalism. Compliance with these rules is necessary and jointly sufficient for any epistemic procedure of justification to be in accordance with the method of reflective equilibrium. The second part of the study is intended to answer some of the open questions concerning this definition of the conceptual core of the method. It will be argued that the a minimalistic fallibilism, as a very central element of the method, is justified since there is no belief whose truth is transparent to an epistemic agent. Even if it were the case that such beliefs exist, there would be attractive options of retreat which provide a quasi-universal justification of minimalistic fallibilism. It will also be argued that all alternative methods of justification are either compatible with the method of reflective equilibrium or are not justified. While a metajustification of the method – understood as a justification of the method employing the method itself – is on the one hand not completely satisfactory, as it presupposes the acceptance of the method before it is justified, it is epistemically acceptable on the other hand, since it allows for a critical inquiry and is open-ended. It will be pointed out that a moderate foundationalism can be justified by the method for some specific area of inquiry insofar as basic beliefs can be identified. Yet, the default-position of the method is only a weak foundationalism (often also termed “coherentism”). With regard to the possibility of a formal interpretation of the method with which one could specify key terms used in the definition of the conceptual core, I will sketch general ways such a formalization might take. However, I will argue that the informal interpretation of the method has priority over any formal interpretation. In the third and concluding part of the study, I will present the claim that one should interpret the method of reflective equilibrium as a form of life. This means that the method is at least implicitly accepted by some epistemic agents: they have developed a disposition and ability to act according to the method. This interpretation of the method can be related to the notion of critical thinking, which, as a civic virtue and educational ideal, is subject of empirical research and practical application. A possible misunderstanding with respect to the method of reflective equilibrium as a form of life should be avoided: To interpret the method as a form of life does not indicate that it must be a comprehensive form of life. Acknowledging it in private life is optional. According to the proposed understanding of the method it is primarily a public and political form of life. (shrink)

This volume presents the philosophical and heuristic framework Cantor developed and explores its lasting effect on modern mathematics. "Establishes a new plateau for historical comprehension of Cantor's monumental contribution to mathematics." --The American Mathematical Monthly.

Leibniz’s work on language left a lasting impression on 18th-century philosophical thinking about language. His two major works that discussed natural language were both published in the 18th century and in these works Leibniz focused on the sound symbolism, phonology, and etymology of language, topics that played a major role for 18th-century philosophers of language. These topics belonged to what Leibniz considered the material aspects of language and were tied to the expressive powers of language. Herder acknowledged Leibniz’s influence and (...) developed these ideas in his account of language as a forceful expression of human feeling. However, Herder ignored the formal components of language. The philosopher who developed the synthesis of the material and the formal features of language was Wilhelm von Humboldt, who drew from 18th-century thinkers that saw natural language as a unity of force and form, for example Sulzer and Harris. Humboldt was especially influenced by his tutor, Johann Jakob Engel, whose lectures drew on Leibniz as well as works in the Leibniz-Wolff tradition. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, it explains what a constitutivist theory of reasons is and why the theory promises to deliver the holy grail of moral philosophy, which is an argument to the conclusion that each of us would choose to act morally if we had and exercised the capacity to respond rationally to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Second, it describes the various parts of a constitutivist theory of reasons, and it explains how these (...) parts give support to the premises required for the promised argument. (shrink)

Children have a spontaneous interest in the world around them - the workings of the earth, sun, and stars, the nature of number, time and space, or the functioning of the body. Yet what is there in children's minds that is the key to their knowledge? This book examines what children can and do know, based on extensive studies from a range of cultures.

Kuyumcuoglu argues that defenders of sweatshop regulations should reject consequentialism and accept an ex ante interpretation of contractualism instead. In this Commentary I show that Kuyumcuoglu’s argument doesn’t succeed. Defenders of sweatshops shouldn’t become ex ante contractualists because its advantages on this issue are more apparent than real.

Dans une page de L'individuation consacrée au problème du fondement de la connaissance, Simondon affirme que 'l'être individué est le sujet transcendantal'. Cette phrase énigmatique croise deux conceptions du sujet connaissant apparemment incompatibles : ontogénétique et transcendantale. Elle ouvre une lecture possible de l'œuvre qui révèle un dialogue constant avec Kant, à travers lequel la réforme philosophique qui anime Simondon se comprend comme un effort réflexif duquel le concept de sujet en ressort quasiment méconnaissable, transformé par les révolutions scientifiques et (...) techniques qui ont fait notre temps. En héritier, Simondon continue l'histoire de la philosophie et annonce une nouvelle époque, un avenir pour le transcendantal."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Constitutivism is the view that we can derive a substantive account of normative reasons for action—perhaps a Kantian account, perhaps a hedonistic account, perhaps a desire-fulfillment account, this is up for grabs—from abstract premises about the nature of action and agency. Constitutivists are thus bound together by their conviction that such a derivation is possible, not by their agreement about which substantive reasons can be derived, and not by agreement about the features of action and agency that permit the derivation. (...) In the final section of the penultimate chapter of Reasons, a chapter devoted to discussing the merits of constitutivism, Eric Wiland has this to say: Constitutivism is ambitious. It attempts to extract an account of reasons for action from reflection on the bare ideas of action and agency. So we shouldn’t be surprised if doubts remain. Those who claim to extract reasons out of agency might remind us of those who claim to pull rabbits out of hats. you suspect that there must be a trick. (shrink)

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

This wide-ranging book reconstructs this debate and places within their contemporary contexts the rival claims concerning the nature of the cosmos and the ...

The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These "technological futurisms" have arisen from significant advances in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology and are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophical and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the growing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological growth by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long (...) historical tradition of technological dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our contemporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and science fiction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett's argument arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jüngel and Jürgen Moltmann. Throughout, the author highlights points of correspondence and divergence between technological futurisms and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the future. (shrink)

What is knowledge? What, if anything, can we know? Michael Ayers initiates a fresh approach to these questions by recovering the insight in the distinction between 'knowledge' and 'belief' that was common philosophical currency for two millennia after Plato. He argues that knowledge comes only with direct cognitive contact with reality or truth.

Originally published in 1982. Aside from Jacques Derrida's own references to the "possible articulation" between deconstruction and Marxism, the relationship between the two has remained largely unexplored. In Marxism and Deconstruction, Michael Ryan examines that multifaceted relationship but not through a mere comparison of two distinct and inviolable entities. Instead, he looks at both with an eye to identifying their common elements and reweaving them into a new theory of political practice. To accomplish his task, Ryan undertakes a detailed (...) comparison of deconstruction and Marxism, relating deconstruction to the dialectical tradition in philosophy and demonstrating how deconstruction can be used in the critique of ideology. He is a forceful critic of both the politics of deconstruction and the metaphysical aspect of Marxism (as seen from a deconstructionist perspective). Besides offering the first book-length study of Derrida in this context, Ryan makes the first methodic attempt by an American scholar to apply deconstruction to domains beyond literature. He proposes a deconstructive Marxism, one lacking the metaphysical underpinnings of conservative "scientific" Marxist theory and employing deconstructive analysis both for Marxist political criticism and to further current anti-metaphysical developments within Marxism. Marxism and Deconstruction is an innovative and controversial contribution to the fields of literary criticism, philosophy, and political science. (shrink)

In this important book, Michael J. Perry examines three of the most disputed constitutional issues of our time: capital punishment, state laws banning abortion, and state policies denying the benefit of law to same-sex unions. The author, a leading constitutional scholar, explains that if a majority of the justices of the Supreme Court believes that a law violates the Constitution, it does not necessarily follow that the Court should rule that the law is unconstitutional. In cases in which it (...) is argued that a law violates the Constitution, the Supreme Court must decide which of two importantly different questions it should address: is the challenged law unconstitutional? Is the lawmakers' judgment that the challenged law is constitutional a reasonable judgment? Perry not only illuminates moral controversies that implicate one or more constitutionally entrenched human rights, but also the fundamental question of the Supreme Court's proper role in adjudicating such controversies. (shrink)

The introduction of Western healthcare, via colonialism, into Africa facilitated a confrontation of indigenous and exogenous “medical” knowledge as well as the attendant praxis. Although colonialism has been expunged from the shores of Africa, the epistemic and ideological frictions it introduced into the sphere of healthcare linger and raise different dilemmas. Against this background, this paper explores pragmatic and ethical approaches that may help engage these tensions in the context of drug development based on validated traditional phytomedicines.

The advantages of adopting a realist semantics within linguistics are seen as: first, such semantics can allow for meaningful disagreements between speakers; and second, such semantics minimizes indeterminacy. These two advantages are translated into comparable advantages for such semantics if used in law. Three different versions of realist semantics are distinguished within recent legal theory. Only one of these is deemed capable of delivering the advantages of a truly realist semantics. Although a broad applicability of realist semantics is defended—to cover (...) terms referring to functional and moral as well as natural kinds—a limited role for realist semantics within legal interpretation is defended. Such semantics may provide the first word in legal interpretation; it never provides the last word. The application of realist semantics to law itself is finally assayed. The desirability of legal theory about law being objective is defended. (shrink)

In this essay I explore efforts at regulating race-related speech on publicly funded colleges and universities. In the first section, I present the scope of the current debate about the topic: what speech is, contexts in which it is found, etc. In the second section, I present the case for unrestricted speech on campuses for the advancement of knowledge and social progress. The third section addresses standard problem cases for free speech like the non-scientific nature of racist epithets, existential threats (...) to the university, and involuntary exposure to racist speech. The fourth section explores arguments for regulating speech coming from critical race theorists and those who question the cultural narrative surrounding speech these days. In the fifth section, I lay bare the irreconcilable incompatibilities of free speech proponents and advocates of speech restrictions in several areas. The conclusion points the way forward toward by calling attention to the lingering questions about the values of knowledge and social progress. (shrink)

The problem of justification for our modal beliefs is an old modal epistemological problem that has hitherto been addressed rationalistically, i.e., without listening to the sciences that study our experiences of modality. Here, I argue that taking a closer look at the architectures of perception and imagination, affords one way of addressing the problem for practical and metaphysical modal beliefs, respectively. The end result is a naturalistic accounts of imaginative and perceptual modal justification.

Many drugs used in paediatric medicine are off-label. There is a rising call for the use of adaptive clinical trial designs in responding to the need for safe and effective drugs given their potential to offer efficiency and cost-effective benefits compared with traditional clinical trials. ADs have a strong appeal in paediatric clinical trials given the small number of available participants, limited understanding of age-related variability and the desire to limit exposure to futile or unsafe interventions. Although the ethical value (...) of adaptive trials has increasingly come under scrutiny, there is a paucity of literature on the ethical dilemmas that may be associated with paediatric adaptive designs. This paper highlights some of these ethical concerns around safety, scientific/social value and caregiver/guardian comprehension of the trial design. Against this background, the paper develops a non-static conceptual lens for understanding PADs. It shows that ADs are epistemically open and reduce some of the knowledge-associated uncertainties inherent in clinical trials as well as fast-track the time to draw conclusions about the value of evaluated drugs/treatments. On this note, the authors argue that PADs are ethically justifiable given they have multiple layers of safety, exposing enrolled children to lesser potential risks, create social/scientific value generally and for paediatric populations in particular, specifically foster the flourishing of paediatric populations and can significantly improve paediatric trial efficiency when properly designed and implemented. However, because PADs are relatively new and their regulatory, ethical and logistical characteristics are yet to be clarified in some jurisdictions, the cooperation of various public and private stakeholders is required to ensure that the interests of children, their caregivers and parents/guardians are best served while exposing paediatric research subjects to the most minimal of risks when they are enrolled in paediatric trials that use ADs. Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. Not applicable. (shrink)

One of the central characteristics of public health disasters is the rapid overlapping of different needs and priorities that require making critical choices that inevitably elicit conflicti...

We develop a framework for assessing security market quality, relating five elements of market design to three metrics of market integrity and two metrics of market efficiency. We empirically implement this integrity–efficiency MQ framework by testing a hypothesis that trade-based ramping manipulation at the close raises execution costs on 24 security markets worldwide. Estimating a simultaneous equations model of ramping incidence, spreads, and the probability of deploying real-time surveillance, we show that quoted bid-ask spreads are positively related to the incidence (...) of MTC across seven liquidity deciles. The magnitude is economically significant; improving market integrity by cutting MTC in half reduces spreads 6–11 %. Allowing direct market access in conjunction with RTS, conducting auctions at the close, and developing regulations that require surveillance, all reduce MTC and thereby lower spreads, assuring better market integrity and enhancing market efficiency. Introducing circuit breakers or prohibiting shorts poses integrity–efficiency tradeoffs. (shrink)

Chapter 5 addresses the provisional morality of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (TIE). The young Spinoza proposes that even as one works at emending the intellect, one should live by certain rules, which one must assume to be good. One should accommodate ordinary ways of speaking and living to the extent that one can without compromising one’s project. One should enjoy pleasures in moderation. Finally, one should seek instrumental goods only insofar as they are necessary for health (...) and social acceptability. In order to explain shifts in Spinoza’s views about the way that individuals should live while pursuing the good, the chapter traces developments in his accounts of ideas and of the relationship between the philosopher and society. (shrink)

Der Autor legt hier die erste Gesamtdarstellung der antiken Ansätze zu einer vergleichenden Zeichentheorie der Künste (Poesie, Plastik, Malerei, Musik, aber auch darstellendes Verhalten in der Lebenspraxis) vor, die für die Herausbildung und Entwicklung der griechischen Ästhetik, Literatur- und Kunsttheorie konstitutiv waren. Von Simonides über Empedokles, Gorgias, Platon und Aristoteles bis zur Stoa (von Chrysipp bis Poseidonios) und zu den Epikureern (von Epikur bis zu Philodem) werden alle wichtigen Positionen und Debattenlinien zwischen Spätarchaik und Späthellenismus behandelt, eingebettet in eine breit (...) angelegte Analyse des semiotischen Feldes (Zeichen in Medizin, Rhetorik, Geschichtsschreibung, Logik, Epistemologie, Physik und anderen Wissenschaften). Die poetologisch, kunsttheoretisch und musikologisch relevanten Probleme einer vergleichenden Zeichentheorie werden in konkreten Literatur- und Kunstanalysen am Material entwickelt (Euripides, hellenistische Plastik, Philodems Epigramme, Lukrez' De Rerum Natura). (shrink)

This book offers an assessment of Sartre as an exemplary figure in the evolving political and cultural landscape of post-1945 France. Sartre's originality is located in the tense relationship that he maintained between deeply held revolutionary beliefs and a residual yet critical attachment to traditional forms of cultural expression. A series of case-studies centered on Gaullism, communism, Maoism, the theatre, art criticism, and the media, illustrates the continuing relevance and appeal of Sartre to the contemporary world.