Towards the end of his life, the French theorist and philosopher René Girard (1923–2015) published a series of conversations titled Battling to the End in which.

Narratives of Jihadi-Salafi operations are often filled with praise for what are considered exemplary acts of self-renunciation in the vein of early Islamic tradition. While many studies sift through the biographies of these so-called martyrs for evidence of social, psychological, political, or economic strain in an effort to rationalize what are often labeled "suicide bombings," Nathan French argues that, through their legal arguments, Jihadi-Salafis craft a theodicy that is meant to address the suffering and oppression of the global Muslim (...) community. (shrink)

Research shows that people often do not intervene to stop immoral action from happening. However, limited information is available on why people fail to intervene. Two preregistered studies (Ns = 248, 131) explored this gap in the literature by staging a theft in front of participants and immediately interviewing them to inquire about their reasons for intervening or not intervening. Across both studies, most participants did not try to stop the theft or even report it to the experimenter afterward. Furthermore, (...) many participants reported confusion and inattention as precursors to nonintervention, yielding insight into what inhibits moral courage. (shrink)

Introduction -- Overview of religious realism -- A realist interpretation of religious diversity -- Religious exclusivism : the problem of being arbitrary -- Overview of religious irrealism -- Religious non-realism : neither realist nor anti-realist -- Religious non-realism pushed beyond its limits -- Conclusion.

PurposeAdolescents develop their decision-making ability as they transition from childhood to adulthood. Participation in their medical care should be encouraged through obtaining assent, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In this research, we aim to define the current knowledge of AAP recommendations and surgeon practices regarding assent for elective reconstructive procedures.MethodsAn anonymous electronic survey was distributed to North American paediatric surgeons and fellows through the American Pediatric Surgical Association (n=1353).ResultsIn total, 220 surgeons and trainees responded (16.3%). Fifty (...) per cent of the surgeons who are familiar with the concept of assent had received formal training; 12% of the respondents had not heard of assent before the survey. Forty-seven per cent were aware of the 2016 AAP policy statement regarding assent in paediatric patients. Eighty-nine per cent always include adolescents as part of the consent discussion. Seventy-seven per cent solicit an expression of willingness to accept the proposed care from the patient. The majority (74%) of the surgeons perceived patient cooperation/understanding as the biggest barrier to obtaining assent. Over half of the respondents would consider proceeding with elective surgery despite the adolescent patient’s refusal. Reasons cited for proceeding with elective surgery include surgeons’ perception of medical necessity, perceptions of disease urgency, and lack of patient maturity.ConclusionPaediatric surgeons largely acknowledge the importance of assent, but variably practice the principles of obtaining assent from adolescent patients undergoing elective reconstructive procedures. Fewer surgeons are explicitly aware of formal policy statements or received formal training. Additional surgeon education and institutional policies are warranted to maximise inclusion of adolescents in their medical care. (shrink)

This textbook brings the humanities to students in order to evoke the humanity of students. It helps to form individuals who take charge of their own minds, who are free from narrow and unreflective forms of thought, and who act compassionately in their public and professional worlds. Using concepts and methods of the humanities, the book addresses undergraduate and premed students, medical students, and students in other health professions, as well as physicians and other healthcare practitioners. It encourages them to (...) consider the ethical and existential issues related to the experience of disease, care of the dying, health policy, religion and health, and medical technology. Case studies, images, questions for discussion, and role-playing exercises help readers to engage in the practical, interpretive, and analytical aspects of the material, developing skills for critical thinking as well as compassionate care. (shrink)

Training and inspiration in primitive religion.--Religion as method. Yoga.--Religion as psychology. Jinism and Hinayana.--Religion as devotion. Bhakti.--Religion with a salvation fact. Mahayana. Bhakti in Buddhism.--Religion as fight against evil. Zarathustra.--Socrates. The religion of good conscience.--Religion as revelation in history.--The religion of incarnation.--Continued revelation.

Although compassion in healthcare differs in important ways from compassion in everyday life, it provides a key, applied microcosm in which the science of compassion can be applied. Compassion is among the most important virtues in medicine, expected from medical professionals and anticipated by patients. Yet, despite evidence of its centrality to effective clinical care, research has focused on compassion fatigue or barriers to compassion and neglected to study the fact that most healthcare professionals maintain compassion for their patients. In (...) contributing to this understudied area, the present report provides an exploratory investigation into how healthcare professionals report trying to maintain compassion. In the study, 151 professionals were asked questions about how they maintained compassion for their patients. Text responses were coded, with a complex mixture of internal vs. external, self vs. patient, and immediate vs. general strategies being reported. Exploratory analyses revealed reliable individual differences in the tendency to report strategies of particular types but no consistent age-related differences between older and younger practitioners emerged. Overall, these data suggest that while a range of compassion-maintaining strategies were reported, strategies were typically concentrated in particular areas and most professionals seek to maintain care using internal strategies. A preliminary typology of compassion maintaining strategies is proposed, study limitations and future directions are discussed, and implications for the study of how compassion is maintained are considered. (shrink)

In a 1936 manuscript submitted to the Physical Review, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen famously claimed that gravitational waves do not exist. It has generally been assumed that there was a conceptual error underlying this fallacious claim. It will be shown, through a detailed study of the extant referee report, that this claim was probably only the result of a calculational error, the accidental use of a pathological coordinate transformation.

The nature of the information content of declarative sentences is a central topic in the philosophy of language. The natural view that a sentence like "John loves Mary" contains information in which two individuals occur as constituents is termed the naive theory, and is one that has been abandoned by most contemporary scholars. This theory was refuted originally by philosopher Gottlob Frege. His argument that the naive theory did not work is termed Frege's puzzle, and his rival account of information (...) content is termed the orthodox theory. In this detailed study, Nathan Salmon defends a version of the naive theory and presents a proposal for its extension that provides a better picture of information content than the orthodox theory gives. He argues that a great deal of what has generally been taken for granted in the philosophy of language over the past few decades is either mistaken or unsupported, and consequently, much current research is focused on the wrong set of questions. Salmon dissolves Frege's puzzle as it is usually formulated and demonstrates how it can be reconstructed and strengthened to yield a more powerful objection to the naive theory. He then defends the naive theory against the new Frege puzzle by presenting an idea that yields both a surprisingly rich and powerful extension of the naive theory and a better picture of information content than that of the original orthodox theory. Nathan Salmon is Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Santa Barbara. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Clark and Fischer's dismissal of extant human–robot interaction research approaches limits opportunities to understand major variables shaping people's engagement with social robots. Instead, this endeavour categorically requires multidisciplinary approaches. We refute the assumption that people cannot (correctly or incorrectly) represent robots as autonomous social agents. This contradicts available empirical evidence, and will become increasingly tenuous as robot automation improves.

We address the claim that nonhuman animals do not represent unobservable states, based on studies of physical cognition by rooks and social cognition by scrub-jays. In both cases, the most parsimonious explanation for the results is counter to the reinterpretation hypothesis. We suggest that imagination and prospection can be investigated in animals and included in models of cognitive architecture.

Locke's Education for Liberty presents an analysis of the crucial but often underestimated place of education and the family within Lockean liberalism. Nathan Tarcov shows that Locke's neglected work Some Thoughts Concerning Education compares with Plato's Republic and Rousseau's Emile as a treatise on education embodying a comprehensive vision of moral and social life. Locke believed that the family can be the agency, not the enemy, of individual liberty and equality. Tarcov's superb reevaluation reveals to the modern reader a (...) breadth and unity heretofore unrecognized in Locke's thought. (shrink)

The PEIRCE EDITION contains large sections of previously unpublished material in addition to selected published works. Each volume includes a brief historical and biographical introduction, extensive editorial and textual notes, and a full chronological list of all of Peirce’s writings, published and unpublished, during the period covered.

Shadow Philosophy: Plato’s Cave and Cinema is an accessible and exciting new contribution to film-philosophy, which shows that to take film seriously is also to engage with the fundamental questions of philosophy. Nathan Andersen brings Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange into philosophical conversation with Plato’s Republic , comparing their contributions to themes such as the nature of experience and meaning, the character of justice, the contrast between appearance and reality, the importance of art, and the impact of images. (...) At the heart of the book is a novel account of the analogy between Plato’s allegory of the cave and cinema, developed in conjunction with a provocative interpretation of the most powerful image from A Clockwork Orange , in which the lead character is strapped to a chair and forced to watch violent films. Key features of the book include: a comprehensive bibliography of suggested readings on Plato, on film, on philosophy, and on the philosophy of film a list of suggested films that can be explored following the approach in this book, including brief descriptions of each film, and suggestions regarding its philosophical implications a summary of Plato’s Republic , book by book, highlighting both dramatic context and subject matter. Offering a close reading of the controversial classic film A Clockwork Orange , and an introductory account of the central themes of the philosophical classic The Republic , this book will be of interest to both scholars and students of philosophy and film, as well as to readers of Plato and fans of Stanley Kubrick. (shrink)

In the transcendental deduction, the central argument of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant seeks to secure the objective validity of our basic categories of thought. He distinguishes objective and subjective sides of this argument. The latter side, the subjective deduction, is normally understood as an investigation of our cognitive faculties. It is identified with Kant’s account of a threefold synthesis involved in our cognition of objects of experience, and it is said to precede and ground Kant’s proof of the (...) validity of the categories in the objective deduction. I challenge this standard reading of the subjective deduction, arguing, first, that there is little textual evidence for it, and, second, that it encourages a problematic conception of how the deduction works. In its place, I present a new reading of the subjective deduction. Rather than being a broad investigation of our cognitive faculties, it should be seen as addressing a specific worry that arises in the course of the objective deduction. The latter establishes the need for a necessary connection between our capacities for thinking and being given objects, but Kant acknowledges that his readers might struggle to comprehend how these seemingly independent capacities are coordinated. Even worse, they might well believe that in asserting this necessary connection, Kant’s position amounts to an implausible subjective idealism. The subjective deduction ismeant to allay these concerns by showing that they rest on a misunderstanding of the relation between these faculties. This new reading of the subjective deduction offers a better fit with Kant’s text. It also has broader implications, for it reveals the more philosophically plausible account of our relation to the world as thinkers that Kant is defending – an account that is largely obscured by the standard reading of the subjective deduction. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 60 - 94 One of the more astounding books produced by Bratslav Hasidism is _Liqquṭei tefilot_, composed by R. Nathan Sternhartz of Nemirov, which established a whole new genre in Bratslav literature. This article discusses the book’s genesis, publication, and primary goals, as well as the controversy it generated. The new Bratslav theology that emerged after the death of Rabbi Naḥman led to disputes, both internal and external, over the role and character (...) of R. Nathan. Examining this particularly obscure chapter in the early history of Bratslav Hasidism sheds light on the movement as it exists today in all its diversity, both ideological and social. (shrink)

Abstract Both parties in the active philosophical debate concerning the conceptual character of perception trace their roots back to Kant's account of sensible intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason. This striking fact can be attributed to Kant's tendency both to assert and to deny the involvement of our conceptual capacities in sensible intuition. He appears to waver between these two positions in different passages, and can thus seem thoroughly confused on this issue. But this is not, in fact, the (...) case, for, as I will argue, the appearance of contradiction in his account stems from the failure of some commentators to pay sufficient attention to Kant's developmental approach to philosophy. Although he begins by asserting the independence of intuition, Kant proceeds from this nonconceptualist starting point to reveal a deeper connection between intuitions and concepts. On this reading, Kant's seemingly conflicting claims are actually the result of a careful and deliberate strategy for gradually convincing his readers of the conceptual nature of perception. (shrink)

Frege believes that the content of declarative sentences divides into a thought and its ‘colouring’, perhaps combined with assertoric force. He further thinks it is important to separate the thought from its colouring. To do this, a criterion which determines sameness of sense between sentences must be deployed. But Frege provides three criteria for this task, each of which adjudicate on different grounds. In this article, rather than expand on criticisms levelled at two of the criteria offered, the author focuses (...) on the most promising candidate. As it stands, this criterion has problems, but not insuperable ones. He suggests an adjusted criterion that relies on the epistemic notion of triviality. He recommends this criterion as both harmonious with Frege’s broader thought and preferable to alternatives offered. The moral is that Frege individuates thoughts by deploying an epistemic concept, and this is the only suitable way for him to do so. (shrink)

This essay critically examines one of the dominant tendencies in recent theoretical discussions of anarchism, postanarchism, and argues that this tradition fails to engage sufficiently with anarchism’s history. Through an examination of late 19th-century anarchist political thought—as represented by one of its foremost exponents, Peter Kropotkin—we demonstrate the extent to which postanarchism has tended to oversimplify and misrepresent the historical tradition of anarchism. The article concludes by arguing that all political-theoretical discussions of anarchism going forward should begin with a fresh (...) appraisal of the actual content of anarchist political thought, based on a rigorous analysis of its political, social, and cultural history. (shrink)

Jonathan Schaffer (2010) has summoned a new sort of demon – which he calls the debasing demon – that apparently threatens all of our purported knowledge. We show that any debasing skeptical argument must attack the justification condition and can do so only if a plausible thesis about justification is false.

This paper raises an uncommon question: What can studying Thomas Aquinas and Critical Race Theory teach us about failures to promote mercy across the color-line? I answer this question in five stages. After locating Thomas’s teachings on mercy and its impediments within his masterwork, the Summa theologiae, I excavate Thomas’s account of mercy’s impediments. Next, I address the question “What is CRT?” Then I examine a foundational CRT text’s analysis of mercy’s impediments. Lastly, I offer a proposal for further Thomas-CRT (...) collaborations. (shrink)

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”—so says Hanlon’s Razor. This principle is designed to curb the human tendency toward explaining other people’s behavior by moralizing it. We ask whether Hanlon’s Razor is good or bad advice. After offering a nuanced interpretation of the principle, we critically evaluate two strategies purporting to show it is good advice. Our discussion highlights important, unsettled questions about an idea that has the potential to infuse greater humility and civility into (...) discourse and debate. (shrink)

One of the simplest methods used by Cicero for depicting a personality or characteristic of an individual within his correspondence was to use a nickname. When describing groups, the natural progression was to use collective nouns that helped to define some essential quality of this collective. The enormity of Caesar's assassination provided an opportunity to use a plethora of terms for the conspirators, most conspicuously seen in Cicero's treatment of Cassius and Brutus following the death of Caesar. The act itself (...) had a polarizing effect. On one side were the invective terms for assassins, murderers and parricides. On the other side were the favourable terms, such as liberators, heroes and tyrannicides. Cicero also included in his correspondence Greek words, as well as their transliterations into Latin. Each word would seem to have its own subtle characteristics, focussing on different aspects and interpretations of the conspirators and their act of tyrannicide or political murder. The collective nouns themselves and the context in which they are used not only will provide the first indication of how Cicero felt about the conspirators but may also give an insight into Cicero's perception of the general feeling about the political situation in Rome at this time. (shrink)

This paper discusses Avicenna’s concept of ambiguity/analogy and argues that while Avicenna doesn’t mention it explicitly there is an analogy of the predication of being between creatures and God, the Necessary of Existence. A consequence of this analogical predication is that for Avicenna, like Aquinas, God does not fall under the subject of metaphysics common being or being qua being. If the predication were univocal as some scholars contend such as Timothy Noone and Olga Lizzini, then God would fall under (...) the subject of metaphysics, common being as he does according to Ramon Guerrero and John Wippel. This paper has three parts. First, it discusses the comparison between Avicenna and Aristotle on pros hen equivocation/analogy. Second, it discusses the texts within Avicenna which suggest an analogical predication and which can reasonably be seen as establishing a transcendental predication between God and creatures. Finally, it develops the consequences of Avicenna’s view for the relationship between God and the subject of metaphysics common being or being qua being and argues that God does not fall under common being. (shrink)

: This article examines Slavoj Žižek’s reading of F.W.J. Schelling’s Ages of the World from the standpoint of the ontological status of nothingness in Schelling’s idealism as contrasted with Žižek’s methodology of dialectical materialism. Although Schelling’s theosophical theism differs from Žižek’s materialist hermeneutic, Schelling’s thought nevertheless enacts an important breakthrough in Western philosophy that anticipates the dynamics of the Marxist interpretation of the dialectic. In particular, his positing of opposed unconscious drives within the ante-cosmic Godhead prefigures Sigmund Freud’s theory of (...) the death drive. (shrink)

The critique of mechanism in the political philosophy of Herder and German romanticism -- The political function of machine metaphors in Hegel's early writings -- Mechanism in religious practice -- The mechanization of labor and the birth of modern ethicality in Hegel's Jena political writings -- Mechanism and the problem of self-determination in Hegel's logic -- The modern state as absolute mechanism : Hegel's logical insight into the relation of civil society and the state.

I propose and defend a novel view called “de se consequentialism,” which is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it demonstrates—contra Doug Portmore, Mark Schroeder, Campbell Brown, and Michael Smith, among others—that agent-neutral consequentialism is consistent with agent-centered constraints. Second, it clarifies the nature of agent-centered constraints, thereby meriting attention from even dedicated nonconsequentialists. Scrutiny reveals that moral theories in general, whether consequentialist or not, incorporate constraints by assessing states in a first-personal guise. Consequently, de se consequentialism enacts constraints through the (...) very same feature that nonconsequentialist theories do. (shrink)

There is a striking resemblance between the physical theory of Plato'sTimaeus and that of the Stoics; striking enough, indeed, to warrant the supposition that the latter was substantially influenced by the former. In attempting to trace the main lines of this influence, scholars have tended to focus attention almost exclusively on the Stoics' choice and characterization of the world's ultimate constituents: a rational principle that pervades and controls a material principle. In this paper, I offer some suggestions about how the (...) early Stoics may have reacted as readers to Plato's literary presentation of the dialogue's cosmogonic myth. On this basis I consider the proposal that the crucial philosophical appeal of the Timaeus for the Stoics – and perhaps the reason it attracted their interest in the first place – lay not in its claims about the Receptacle and World Soul, but rather in its portrayal of the Demiurge who designed the cosmos. (shrink)

The portrait of John Locke as a secular advocate of Enlightenment rationality has been deconstructed by the recent 'religious turn' in Locke scholarship. This book takes an important next step: moving beyond the 'religious turn' and establishing a 'theological turn', Nathan Guy argues that John Locke ought to be viewed as a Christian political philosopher whose political theory was firmly rooted in the moderating Latitudinarian theology of the seventeenth-century. Nestled between the secular political philosopher and the Christian public theologian (...) stands Locke, the Christian political philosopher, whose arguments not only self-consciously depend upon Christian assumptions, but also offer a decidedly Christian theory of government. Finding Locke's God identifies three theological pillars crucial to Locke's political theory: (1) a biblical depiction of God, (2) the law of nature rooted in a doctrine of creation and (3) acceptance of divine revelation in scripture. As a result, Locke's political philosophy brings forth theologically-rich aims, while seeking to counter or disarm threats such as atheism, hyper-Calvinism, and religious enthusiasm. Bringing these items together, Nathan Guy demonstrates how each pillar supports Locke's Latitudinarian political philosophy and provides a better understanding of how he grounds his notions of freedom, equality and religious toleration. Convincingly argued and meticulously researched, this book offers an exciting new direction for Locke studies. (shrink)

The overarching theme of Locke’s Image of the World, by Michael Jacovides, is that Locke’s belief in the best science of his day shapes his philosophy in important ways. Jacovides contends that “by understanding the scientific background to Locke’s thoughts, we can better understand his work” (1), including both his positions and his arguments for those positions. To a lesser extent, Jacovides’s book also treats Locke as a case study in thinking about how much scientific theory should influence philosophy. While (...) much of the science Locke relies on is incomplete or problematic, and so leads him into errors, Jacovides is sympathetic to Locke’s approach of using the best scientific theories to help develop and justify his philosophical positions. Throughout the book Jacovides shows how science – Locke’s study of medicine, and later Boyle’s corpuscularianism, and then later Newton’s physics – influence Locke’s thinking on a variety of topics. The result is an impressive account of the history of science at a critical point in its development through the lens of one of the great philosophers of that time. (shrink)

As the family is one of the few structures that survives from ancient times to the present and looks set to continue for quite some time to come, it attracts the attention of every new generation of sociologists, historians and economists alike. From Engels to Herlihy, Goody and Moxnes, the family has been held responsible for the development of private property, for forms of social organisation and the oppression of women. Those interested in the period of late antiquity ask a (...) key question: what happened to the family when polytheist views of the immortal gods were gradually replaced by a belief in Christianity? Was the family changed, and in what ways, by what is often perceived as a fundamental shift in religious understanding? Or did the development of Christian institutions merely confirm tendencies, which may be observed in the late Roman period? In his book Geoffrey S. Nathan brings theories of the family to bear on this complex problem. The introduction surveys the traditional understanding of what makes a family, as well as more recent models, setting the scene for two traditions, of which the more enduring one is not Christian. With a structure of well-planned chapters, on marriage and alternatives to marriage, children, slaves and extended family, each marked by sensible headings and conclusions, this should be a most informative presentation. But it fails to convince. (shrink)

Frege claims that sentences of the form ‘A’ are equivalent to sentences of the form ‘it is true that A’ (The Equivalence Thesis). Frege also says that there are fictional names that fail to refer, and that sentences featuring fictional names fail to refer as a result. The thoughts such sentences express, Frege says, are also fictional, and neither true nor false. Michael Dummett argues that these claims are inconsistent. But his argument requires clarification, since there are two ways The (...) Equivalence Thesis has been formulated, according as the thesis equates the senses or the referents of the relevant sentences. -/- I have two aims in this paper. The first is to demonstrate that a sameness of sense thesis is inconsistent with Frege’s other theses. The second is to argue that a sameness of reference thesis is consistent with them. Thus, all else being equal, Frege ought to endorse a sameness of reference, rather than a sameness of sense thesis. (shrink)