Many neuroimaging studies of semantic memory have argued that knowledge of an object's perceptual properties are represented in a modality-specific manner. These studies often base their argument on finding activation in the left-hemisphere fusiform gyrus-a region assumed to be involved in perceptual processing-when the participant is verifying verbal statements about objects and properties. In this paper, we report an extension of one of these influential papers-Kan, Barsalou, Solomon, Minor, and Thompson-Schill (2003 )-and present evidence for an amodal component in the (...) representation and processing of perceptual knowledge. Participants were required to verify object-property statements (e.g., "cat-whiskers?"; "bear-wings?") while they were being scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We replicated Kan et al.'s activation in the left fusiform gyrus, but also found activation in regions of left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and middle-temporal gyrus, areas known to reflect amodal processes or representations. Further, only activations in the left IFG, an amodal area, were correlated with measures of behavioural performance. (shrink)

"The Traffic in Culture takes us along exciting new avenues in the investigation of art and society, global encounter, and the marketing of culture. These essays will become required reading to scholars in fields as diverse as art history, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies."--Suzanne Preston Blier, Harvard University "These essays break new ground in charting out a critical ethnography of art. They address the complexities of cultural difference while ceasing to respect the boundary between 'Western' and 'non-Western' art which has (...) defined the scope of the anthropology of art for too long. This is contemporary critical anthropology at its best."--Nicholas Thomas, Australian National University. (shrink)

Stoddart writes that the God of Christian faith ‘knew [surveillance’s] gaze [and] suffered its harsh consequences’. That was especially so during the last week of Jesus’ life, when the religious/political leaders engaged him in tension-filled exchanges. Employing Stoddart’s concept of ‘visibility’, I propose a new way of reading the controversy about Roman tax which, taking up insights in Myers’s ‘political’ commentary, shows connections between this text and those immediately preceding it. Jesus makes central in the engagement about tax the (...) same issue as is already at stake: identity and recognition. His ‘amazing’ response makes clear what the leaders are not seeing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 71-84 [Access article in PDF] Christian Views on Ritual Practice Society and Sacrament: The Anglican Left and Sacramental Socialism, Ritual as Ethics Nicholas GrovesLoyola University Introduction August in New York City is frequently a time of intense heat, where the congestion of city living kindles tempers to the breaking point. This is true in a special way in the tenements of the city, where (...) people without air-conditioning take raw anger and frustration into the streets. It was in this environment, in the tenements of the Lower East Side, that gang violence erupted in August of 1959. At least two young people were shot in gang-related "rumbles" and retaliation. Blacks and Puerto Ricans, already scrambling for the few available jobs society provided for them, squared off against each other. Police and the city of New York vowed more punishment, more arrests. (At this same time, Leonard Bernstein portrayed these struggles in terms of the love of Tony and Maria, but in "real life" it was "East Side Story" as much as "West Side Story.")In response to renewed war among his youth, the Episcopal priest, Fr. Kilmer Myers of St. Augustine's Chapel (now St. Augustine's Parish) also took to the streets. Canceling the church's usual patronal festival and carnival, he led his people in a procession through the streets of his neighborhood, with clergy clad in the solemn vestments of the Eucharist, with banners, incense, and hymns. His purpose: to pray and to plead that the killing stop, and that the authorities see the agony of the young who had abandoned an almost three-year "truce" he had helped work out with youth leaders between rival gangs.Myers wrote later in his book, Light the Dark Streets (Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury Press, 1957) about his ministry at St. Augustine's. In contrast to a city government and police department intent on further punishment as a solution to gang problems, Fr. Myers posed the presence of people who lived and worked with the young people and a community in desperate need: A parish such as this... so filled with darkness, defeat... and a longing for victory.... We think of next year and the year after that. We are not sure that we have the strength or that we can ask for it. The shouts in the street become an unending shout. The angry cry mingles with music from the tenement.... [End Page 71] There is the scream of the police siren. Will it stop in the block? There is the uncertainty at each youth affair. Will someone be shot or stabbed? (p. 96) In 1981, Bishop Desmond Tutu challenged the government of South Africa to abandon its policy of apartheid, a challenge he and others later won. But at that point, with any kind of victory far from certain, he confronted his opponents with words about his own spiritual commitment: I want to say that there is nothing the government can do to me that will stop me from being involved in what I believe is what God wants me to do. I do not do it because I like doing it. I do it because I am under what I believe to be the influence of God's hand. I cannot help it when I see injustice. I cannot keep quiet. I will not keep quiet, for as Jeremiah says, when I try to keep quiet, God's word burns like a fire in my breast. But what is it that they can ultimately do? The most awful thing that they can do is to kill me, and death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian. (Quoted in S. DuBoulay, Tutu: Voice of the Voiceless [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], pp. 174-175.) How does ritual involve ethics? I would like to present for your consideration one example of such an intersection: the witness of what some have called the "Anglican Left" in both Britain and the United States, or what the historian Peter Jones has named "sacramental socialism... (shrink)

Traditionally, philosophers have been skeptical that the imagination can justify beliefs about the actual world. After all, how could merely imagining something give you any reason to believe that it is true? However, within the past decade or so, a lively debate has emerged over whether the imagination can justify empirical belief and, if so, how. This paper provides a critical overview of the recent literature on the epistemology of imagination and points to avenues for future research.

Davidson's theory of radical interpretation, and his principle of charity, are well known in their application to beliefs and meanings, but rarely discussed in their application to desires and values. This is a pity, for they provide the makings of an argument for normative realism that is definitely worth exploring. After introducing Davidson's interpretation argument, I work through some familiar grounds for doubting that it applies to desires and values. Foremost among these are doubts about the extent to which holism (...) is true of desires and about the sense in which values or reasons could be thought to be objective. I conclude that while Davidson does not always address these doubts as thoroughly or as carefully as one might wish, he clearly sees how the argument here has to go, and he has at his disposal plausible responses to a good number of the challenges that are likely to arise. (shrink)

A collection of original comics engaging fundamental issues in medical ethics, including patient autonomy, informed consent, unconscious bias, mandated reporting of suspected abuse, confidentiality, medical mistakes, surrogate decision-making, and futility.

This paper is an essay in counterfactual epistemology. What if experience have high-level contents, to the effect that something is a lemon or that someone is sad? I survey the consequences for epistemology of such a scenario, and conclude that many of the striking consequences could be reached even if our experiences don't have high-level contents.

This work "collects the author's work at the intersection between political philosophy and religion. Alongside his influential earlier essays, it includes nine new essays in which Wolterstorff develops original lines of argument and stakes out novel positions regarding the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. Taken together, these positions are an attractive alternative to the so-called public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls"--jacket.

This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent ways in which (...) a system can be more or less analog. We explain how our theory improves upon prior accounts of analog representation, provides plausible diagnoses for novel challenge cases, extends to hybrid systems that are partially analog and partially symbolic, and accounts for some of the advantages and disadvantages of representing analogically versus symbolically. (shrink)

Modern science began as natural philosophy, an admixture of philosophy and science. It was then killed off by Newton, as a result of his claim to have derived his law of gravitation from the phenomena by induction. But this post-Newtonian conception of science, which holds that theories are accepted on the basis of evidence, is untenable, as the long-standing insolubility of the problem of induction indicates. Persistent acceptance of unified theories only in physics, when endless equally empirically successful disunified rivals (...) are available, means that physics makes a persistent, problematic metaphysical assumption about the universe: that all disunified theories are false. This assumption, precisely because it is problematic, needs to be explicitly articulated within physics, so that it can be critically assessed and, we may hope, improved. The outcome is a new conception of science—aim-oriented empiricism—that puts science and philosophy together again, and amounts to a modern version of natural philosophy. Furthermore, aim-oriented empiricism leads to the solution to the problem of induction. Natural philosophy pursued within the methodological framework of aim-oriented empiricism is shown to meet standards of intellectual rigour that science without metaphysics cannot meet. (shrink)

How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? And why do we value it so highly? In Soul Dust, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, a leading figure in consciousness research, proposes a startling new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows (...) us, as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the "soul niche." Tightly argued, intellectually gripping, and a joy to read, Soul Dust provides answers to the deepest questions. It shows how the problem of consciousness merges with questions that obsess us all--how life should be lived and the fear of death. Resting firmly on neuroscience and evolutionary theory, and drawing a wealth of insights from philosophy and literature..."--Jacket. (shrink)

Background Despite the growth of biomedical research in South Africa, there are few insights into the operation of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in this setting. We investigated the composition, operations and training needs of health RECs in South Africa against the backdrop of national and international guidelines. Methods The 12 major health RECs in South Africa were surveyed using semi-structured questionnaires that investigated the composition and functions of each REC as well as the operational issues facing committees. Results Health RECs (...) in SA have an average of 16 members and REC members are predominantly male and white. Overall, there was a large discrepancy in findings between under-resourced RECs and well resourced RECs. The majority of members (56%) are scientists or clinicians who are typically affiliated to the same institution as the health REC. Community representatives account for only 8% of membership. Training needs for health REC members varied widely. Conclusion Most major health RECs in South Africa are well organized given the resource constraints that exist in relation to research ethics in developing countries. However, the gender, racial and occupational diversity of most of these RECs is suboptimal, and most RECs are not constituted in accordance with South African guidelines. Variability in the operations and training needs of RECs is a reflection of apartheid-entrenched influences in tertiary education in SA. While legislation now exists to enforce standardization of research ethics review systems, no provision has been made for resources or capacity development, especially to support historically-disadvantaged institutions. Perpetuation of this legacy of apartheid represents a violation of the principles of justice and equity. (shrink)

Unlike many of his contemporaries John Henry Newman was comfortable with evolution. Newman had also, of course, thought deeply about religion. When, in the late 1850s and early 1860s, he began speculating about the nature of reality he saw the need to combine a scientific understanding of the physical universe with a Christian understanding of the human person. The Notes he left about this difficult topic are hard to make sense of. This book presents a readable version of the Notebook (...) and locates them in the cultural and intellectual context of the age. (shrink)

Twelve essays in literary theory, philosophy, and religion--about atheism, freedom, and "the Jesus thought experiment"--connect, but don't conclude. A recurring theme is the "nothing" at the heart of the deep atheism of George Eliot, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Hardy, who approach "nothing" with a directness lacking in their English-speaking philosophical contemporaries. How does being in the world--Thomas Nagel's "what-it's-likeness"--and how do values--Alasdair MacIntyre's justice and misericordia--fare in the face of the mindless "It" that Hardy finds at (...) the heart of things? A pivotal essay compares the theism of Paul Ricoeur and the atheism of Daniel Dennett--the subtitle is a response to the latter's latest book. Writing and Freedom defends (a strong version of) free will as necessarily interpersonal: my freedom is nothing but my acceptance of yours. This is how Milton, Rossetti, and Dickinson treat their readers, and how scientists and philosophers ideally treat each other. The book's open-ended essays model freedom so understood. Moreover, both "nothing" and "freedom" are fundamental to biblical and religious narratives (Mark and Newman). God, being "out of all relation" with the finite, cannot be known from the text of the world. Yet as "nothing," God may be said to grant unconditional autonomy to his creatures, and therefore to be present in his absence. It is round "nothing," therefore, that atheists and theists endlessly circulate. But that is what the deep atheism of European thinkers--Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and Zizek--say we all do anyway, however excitedly we pretend to ourselves that we don't. (shrink)

There is an extensive literature on time travel in both philosophy and physics. Part of the great interest of the topic stems from the fact that reasons have been given both for thinking that time travel is physically possible—and for thinking that it is logically impossible! This entry deals primarily with philosophical issues; issues related to the physics of time travel are covered in the separate entries on time travel and modern physics and time machines. We begin with the definitional (...) question: what is time travel? We then turn to the major objection to the possibility of backwards time travel: the Grandfather paradox. Next, issues concerning causation are discussed—and then, issues in the metaphysics of time and change. We end with a discussion of the question why, if backwards time travel will ever occur, we have not been visited by time travellers from the future. (shrink)

Centring on human perception, attunement to others, and a transcendent conception of the good, Iris Murdoch's intervention in moral philosophy remains an insightful and evocative source for ethical theory. Discerning some pervasive dualisms that hamper its coherence and development, I suggest that her work finds a generative conversation partner in the contemporary metaphysician, William Desmond. Desmond's thought offers promising avenues to overcome these dualisms by repositioning the source and nature of value and by theorising an anti-reductive, relational ontology. Staging a (...) constructive encounter between these two thinkers that preserves Murdoch's distinct prioritisation of attention and individuality within a Desmond-inspired metaphysics, I present a synthetic ethical approach that promotes the ideal of attending to an other—in the givenness of its particularity, manifold surplus, and constitutive relationality—as good in itself. (shrink)

Here I show that the one-variable fragment of several first-order relevant logics corresponds to certain S5ish extensions of the underlying propositional relevant logic. In particular, given a fairly standard translation between modal and one-variable languages and a permuting propositional relevant logic L, a formula $$\mathcal {A}$$ A of the one-variable fragment is a theorem of LQ (QL) iff its translation is a theorem of L5 (L.5). The proof is model-theoretic. In one direction, semantics based on the Mares-Goldblatt [15] semantics for (...) quantified L are transformed into ternary (plus two binary) relational semantics for S5-like extensions of L (for a general presentation, see Seki [26, 27]). In the other direction, a valuation is given for the full first-order relevant logic based on L into a model for a suitable S5 extension of L. I also discuss this work’s relation to finding a complete axiomatization of the constant domain, non-general frame ternary relational semantics for which RQ is incomplete [11]. (shrink)

I propose a revision of Cantor’s account of set size that understands comparisons of set size fundamentally in terms of surjections rather than injections. This revised account is equivalent to Cantor's account if the Axiom of Choice is true, but its consequences differ from those of Cantor’s if the Axiom of Choice is false. I argue that the revised account is an intuitive generalization of Cantor’s account, blocks paradoxes—most notably, that a set can be partitioned into a set that is (...) bigger than it—that can arise from Cantor’s account if the Axiom of Choice is false, illuminates the debate over whether the Axiom of Choice is true, is a mathematically fruitful alternative to Cantor’s account, and sheds philosophical light on one of the oldest unsolved problems in set theory. (shrink)

A doctrine of intelligent design through evolution is not going to find many friends. It is destined to encounter opposition on all sides. Among scientists the backlog of evolution will have little patience for intelligent design. Among religiousists, many who form intelligent design have their doubts about evolution. In the general public s mind there is a diametrical opposition between evolution and intelligent design: one excludes the other. This book will argue that this view of the matter is not correct, (...) and that in actuality one can regard evolution itself as a pathway to intelligent design. We would do well to go beyond The Origin of Species and taking as our guide such works as W. Wentworth Thomson s On Growth and Form acknowledging that evolutionary adaptation can result in solutions of a sort that intelligence could readily ratify. Accordingly, what the present book seeks is a naturalization of Intelligent Design that sees such design as itself the result of natural and evolutionary processes.". (shrink)

Proposes a new model of contractualism based on an interpersonal, deliberative conception of practical reason which answers the twin demands of moral accuracy and explanatory adequacy.

This chapter discusses ontological commitment to properties, understood as ontological correlates of predicates. We examine the issue in four metaontological settings, beginning with an influential Quinean paradigm on which ontology concerns what there is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably avoids ontological commitment to properties. Our remaining three settings correspond to the most prominent departures from the Quinean paradigm. Firstly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with a primitive, non-quantificational notion of existence. Ontology then concerns what exists. We argue (...) that this strengthens the Quinean case against ontological commitment to properties while also newly distinguishing between stronger and weaker forms of nominalism. Secondly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with the ideology of fundamentality. Ontology then centrally concerns what’s fundamental. We argue that this leaves ontological commitment to properties wide open although Bradleyan regress threatens. Thirdly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with primitive higher-order quantifiers. Ontology then expands to concern what there higher-order is and what there first-order is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably incurs ontological commitment to properties. (shrink)

I argue that the aim of moral activity is to cooperate with others in the promotion of value, where the concept of cooperation denotes not a formal ideal to be given content through reasoning but a substantive way of engaging with others. I show how this approach to ethical theory can provide better accounts of many of our moral convictions than consequentialist or contractualists approaches can, and defend it against the objection that, by downplaying moral reasoning, it robs itself of (...) any explanatory force. (shrink)

Leist worries that by tying the ideal of cooperation to the aim of promoting the good I exhibit a bias towards consequentialism, and that this in turn leads me to downsize the role to be played by the ideal of cooperation within moral theory. I maintain that no bias is exhibited towards consequentialism but acknowledge that realism is being favoured over constructivism. I further argue that the role assigned to the ideal of cooperation is as large as realism permits.

Pragmatic processes crucially rely on background or contextual information supplied by the hearer, which may significantly affect the outcome of the comprehension process. Construed as a branch of cognitive psychology, pragmatics is the study of the cognitive systems apart from the I‐language and the parser which enable speaker and hearer (or communicator and audience) to co‐ordinate on the intended interpretation, and this is how we propose to treat it here. This chapter considers some of Noam Chomsky's suggestions about how the (...) cognitive systems underlying human abilities might be investigated. It discusses his reasons and consider how far this skepticism may be due to his particular conception of pragmatics. The chapter outlines an approach to pragmatics that seems to be compatible with his general methodology and is based on an alternative conception of pragmatics that we sketch out. (shrink)

Commentators have shown a steady interest in the role of feeling in Kant’s moral and practical philosophy over the last few decades. Much attention has been given to the notion of ‘moral feeling’ in general, as well as to what Kant calls the ‘feeling of respect’ for the moral law. My focus in this essay is on the role of feeling in practical judgment. My claim in what follows is that the act of judging in the practical domain—i.e., determining what (...) one ought to do, or what action one ought to perform, in a specific case—crucially involves feeling. Put more simply: I argue that practical judgment has an essentially affective dimension. The upshot of the account I will give is that it provides us with a richer and more complex account of moral feeling than has previously been appreciated in the literature. While it is recognized that feeling plays a certain role in moral motivation, what I hope to demonstrate here is that feeling is involved much earlier in the exercise of moral agency. Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do. (shrink)

The aim of the Schematism chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason is to solve the problem posed by the “inhomogeneity” of intuitions and categories: the sensible properties of objects represented in intuition are of a different kind than the properties represented by categories. Kant's solution is to introduce what he calls “transcendental schemata,” which mediate the subsumption of objects under categories. I reconstruct Kant's solution in terms of two substantive premises, which I call Subsumption Sufficiency (i.e., that subsuming an (...) object under a transcendental schema is sufficient to subsume it under the corresponding category) and Real Possibility (i.e., that it is really possible to subsume objects under each of the transcendental schemata). These two principles, together with a trivial modal one (the Subsumption-Possibility Link), entail that it is possible to subsume objects under categories; in other words, the argument of the Schematism is valid. The main work of the paper consists in reconstructing Kant's arguments for, and explanations of, these premises. I argue that they hinge on Kant's claim that transcendental schemata are “time-determinations,” which I interpret to mean: rules for reflexively representing the temporal relations among our own representational states. On the basis of this reading, I reconstruct Kant's argument for Subsumption Sufficiency, category by category. I also explain why Real Possibility follows almost immediately. Granting Kant the argument up to this point in the Critique, the argument of the Schematism is sound. (shrink)

The ‘interpretive turn’ in twentieth-century hermeneutics rests on the general ontological claim that human reality is the reality of self-interpreting animals. But under the circumstances of advanced modernity, there are aspects of human life, or spheres of human thought and action, that appear to contradict this general thesis, in that they do not present themselves as the doings of self-interpreting animals at all. Of these, the predominant one is the sphere of work or 'productive' action. In face of historical circumstances (...) in which work presents itself as bereft of the meanings that concern self-interpreting animals, hermeneutic philosophy faces a choice: Does it exempt work from the realm of self-interpretive activity, making it an exception to the general ontological thesis; or does it seek to retrieve the hermeneutic provenance of productive action? With a focus on the writings of Gadamer and Ricoeur, the chapter shows that philosophical hermeneutics has vacillated on this issue and it suggests that retrieval of the self-interpretive dimension of productive action is a central task for hermeneutics today. (shrink)

Draws on a broad range of scientific evidence to theorize an evolutionary basis for religion, considering how religion may have served as an essential component of early society survival and that the brain may be inherently inclined toward religious behavior.

This volume brings together Nicholas Wolterstorff's essays on epistemology written between 1983 and 2008.