In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Symbolic Mathematics and the Intellect Militant: On Modern Philosophy’s Revolutionary SpiritCarl PageWhat makes modern philosophy different? My question presupposes the legitimacy of calling part of philosophy “modern.” That presupposition is in turn open to question as regards its meaning, its warrant, and the conditions of its applicability. 1 Importance notwithstanding, such further inquiries all start out from the phenomenon upon which everyone agrees: philosophy running through Plato and Aristotle (...) looks significantly different from philosophy running from Descartes to Kant.My concern in this essay is with the phenomenon of the difference itself, rather than with the second-order questions associated with how properly to assign it historical meaning. I take the difference between ancient and modern philosophy to be as significant as differences in philosophy’s history can be: modern philosophy rests on a new interpretation of the nature and fulfillment of human reason, and disputes about the nature of human reason are the ultimate battles of philosophy. But the general thesis is not my main point. 2 The focus of this essay falls on what may be called the integrity of the phenomenon, on the specific interpretation of human reason that lends modern philosophy its peculiar face. [End Page 233]Modern philosophy’s strikingly revolutionary spirit is my point of departure. When Descartes writes in the first of his Meditations that “it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last,” 3 he reveals the same enthusiasm for total reform later found in Kant: “This attempt to alter the procedure which has hitherto prevailed in metaphysics, by completely revolutionizing it in accordance with the example set by the geometers and physicists, forms indeed the main purpose of this critique of pure speculative reason.” 4 How exactly did philosophy become so convinced that its central tradition—a sprawling, disorganized, ugly city, as Descartes has it in the Discourse (I:116)—needed razing to the ground in the interest of some rational town-planning? Moreover, the calls for revolution have not abated, despite contemporary disillusionment with both Cartesian rationalism and Enlightenment philosophy in general; they have grown more shrill. The confidence with which rationalism, foundationalism, universalism, logocentrism, Platonism, and so on are currently set at naught for the sake of contingency, particularity, and difference reveals the same revolutionary and totalizing spirit that marks the earlier phase of philosophy’s modernity. Such enthusiasm is reason’s freedom taken to an extreme. 5 What inspires this march of the intellect militant? What, if anything, justifies its hubristic self-assertions in the domain of philosophy? These are the questions I address.Descartes is commonly identified as the father of modern philosophy. While the full story of modern philosophy’s parentage is more complicated than this, it is fair to say that in Descartes self-consciousness of a new mode of doing philosophy emerges with a focus and revolutionary sense of purpose that caught philosophical imagination in his own time and continues to do so in ours. 6 Motifs of modern philosophy may be found in many places—Machiavelli, Hobbes, Francis Bacon, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Jakob Boehme—nonetheless, Descartes’s intensely single-minded, even jealous advocacy commends itself to all but the most stubborn antiquarian mentality as modernity’s almost perfect philosophical representative. [End Page 234]That Descartes stands on a remarkable philosophical cusp is apparent in the contrast between the title and the subject matter of his most influential philosophical work: Meditationes de Prima Philosophiae (1641). To that point prima philosophia or First Philosophy had been construed as the metaphysics. It was not concerned with the critical question of how metaphysical sciences are possible and was not directly related to any doctrine of the human soul—except perhaps on the one point of the divinity of nous, the human soul’s highest part. In Descartes’s Meditations, on the other hand, the landscape has altered. Doubt, certainty, knowledge, the ego cogitans and its stream of representations are the new subject matter. What is first in philosophy is no longer what... (shrink)

In this paper I deal with Armstrong's last theory of states of affairs and its relation to truthmakers for sentences and the problem of uní versáis. More specifically, I discuss his truthmaker principie, rejecting some of the objections that has been raised against it. However, I also try to show that Armstrong's answer to the problem of the negative existencial sentences in terms of totality states of affairs is mistaken. Finally, I rebut Oliver's slinghot argument against truthmakers and also discuss (...) Armstrong theory of states of affairs as truthmakers. /// Este artículo trata de la última teoría de los estados de cosas de Armstrong, así como de su relación con los hacedores de verdad de los enunciados y con el problema de los universales. En particular, se discute su principio del hacedor de verdad, y se rechazan algunas de las objeciones que se han presentado al mismo. Por otra parte, se intenta mostrar también que la respuesta de Armstrong al problema de los enunciados existenciales negativos en términos de estados de cosas de totalidad es errónea. Finalmente, también se objeta la versión de Oliver del argumento de la honda y se discute la teoría de los hacedores de verdad como los estados de cosas. (shrink)

La production désirante se trouve informée par le fait que le sujet affectif est inscrit dans une époque, une culture, un milieu social et tributaire de différentes formes de socialisation qui le disposent ou l’inclinent à désirer telle ou telle chose. Les trois théories que nous proposons de confronter font valoir l’origine principalement sociale des défenses suscitées par la vie pulsionnelle. Cette transformation affective est nommée par Freud refusement culturel ( Kulturversagung ), par Adorno et Horkheimer intégration totale ou répression (...) ( Repression ) et par Elias également répression et refoulement des pulsions ( Dämfung der Triebe ) mais au sens d’une capacité accrue d’autocontrôle ( Selbstkontrolle ) ou d’autocontrainte ( Selbstzwänge ). Qu’est-ce qui spécifie et distingue chacune de ces trois formes d’intégration de la norme sociale à la personne, pour reprendre une expression d’Elias dans La Société de cour? (shrink)

Individuative Realism is the thesis that reality is individuated intrinsically-that is, that reality is divided up into objects that are circumscribed by boundaries that are totally independent of our gerrymandering. One strategy for substantiating the thesis would involve discovering some of reality’s inherent joints by direct observation. This paper critically considers the observational strategy by examining a number of proposals for how reality might be individuated intrinsically, and demonstrating case-by-case that the individuation in question is likely imposed by us, rather (...) than inherent in nature. It is additionally suggested that even if objects with crisply unambiguous boundaries were discovered, it would still not be enough to vindicate Individuative Realism. (shrink)

Individuative Realism is the thesis that reality is individuated intrinsically-that is, that reality is divided up into objects that are circumscribed by boundaries that are totally independent of our gerrymandering. One strategy for substantiating the thesis would involve discovering some of reality’s inherent joints by direct observation. This paper critically considers the observational strategy by examining a number of proposals for how reality might be individuated intrinsically, and demonstrating case-by-case that the individuation in question is likely imposed by us, rather (...) than inherent in nature. It is additionally suggested that even if objects with crisply unambiguous boundaries were discovered, it would still not be enough to vindicate Individuative Realism. (shrink)

BackgroundMulti-centre studies generally cost more than single-centre studies because of larger sample sizes and the need for multiple ethical approvals. Multi-centre studies include clinical trials, clinical quality registries, observational studies and implementation studies. We examined the costs of two large Australian multi-centre studies in obtaining ethical and site-specific approvals.MethodsWe collected data on staff time spent on approvals and expressed the overall cost as a percent of the total budget.ResultsThe total costs of gaining approval were 38 % of the (...) budget for a study of 50 centres (mean cost AUD $6960 per site) and 2 % for a study of 11 centres (mean cost AUD $2300 per site). Seventy-five and 90 % of time was spent on repeated tasks, respectively, and many time-consuming tasks, such as reformatting documents, did nothing to improve the study design or participant safety.ConclusionsImprovements have been made to the ethical approval application system, but more gains could be made without increasing risks of harm to research participants. We propose that ethical review bodies and individual sites publish statistics on how long they take to process approvals which could then be nationally benchmarked. (shrink)

Background: Compassion fatigue is recognized as impacting the health and effectiveness of healthcare providers, and consequently, patient care. Compassion fatigue is distinct from “burnout.” Reliable measurement tools, such as the Professional Quality of Life scale, have been developed to measure the prevalence, and predict risk of compassion fatigue. This study reviews the prevalence of compassion fatigue among healthcare practitioners, and relationships to demographic variables. Methods: A systematic review was conducted using key words in MEDLINE, PubMed, and Ovid databases. Data were (...) extracted from a total of 71 articles meeting inclusion criteria, from studies measuring compassion fatigue in healthcare providers using a validated instrument. Quantitative and qualitative data were extracted and compiled by three independent reviewers into an evidence table that included basic study characteristics, study strength and quality determination, measurements of compassion fatigue, and general findings. Meta-analysis, where data allowed, was stratified by Professional Quality of Life version, heterogeneity was quantified, and pooled means were reported with 95% confidence interval. A table of major study characteristics and results was created. Ethical consideration: This paper contains no primary data obtained directly from research participants. Data obtained from previously published resources have been acknowledged within references. Psychological distress, particularly compassion fatigue, can be insidious, no health profession is immune, and may significantly impact the ability to provide care. Results: A total of 71 studies were included. Compassion fatigue was reported across all practitioner groups studied. Relationships to most demographic variables such as years of experience and specialty were either not statistically significant or unclear. Variability in reporting of Professional Quality of Life results was found. Interpretation: Compassion fatigue exists across diverse practitioner groups. Prevalence is highly variable, and its relationship with demographic, personal, and/or professional variables is inconsistent. Questions are raised about how to mitigate compassion fatigue. (shrink)

When in 2001 Earth Liberation Front activists drove metal spikes into hundreds of trees in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, they were protesting the sale of a section of the old-growth forest to a timber company. But ELF's communiqu on the action went beyond the radical group's customary brief. Drawing connections between the harms facing the myriad animals who make their home in the trees and the struggles for social justice among ordinary human beings resisting exclusion and marginalization, the dispatch declared, (...) "all oppression is linked, just as we are all linked," and decried the "patriarchal nightmare" in the form of "techno-industrial global capitalism." In Total Liberation, David Naguib Pellow takes up this claim and makes sense of the often tense and violent relationships among humans, ecosystems, and nonhuman animal species, expanding our understanding of inequality and activists' uncompromising efforts to oppose it. Grounded in interviews with more than one hundred activists, on-the-spot fieldwork, and analyses of thousands of pages of documents, websites, journals, and zines, Total Liberation reveals the ways in which radical environmental and animal rights movements challenge inequity through a vision they call "total liberation." In its encounters with such infamous activists as scott crow, Tre Arrow, Lauren Regan, Rod Coronado, and Gina Lynn, the book offers a close-up, insider's view of one of the most important--and feared--social movements of our day. At the same time, it shows how and why the U.S. justice system plays to that fear, applying to these movements measures generally reserved for "jihadists"--with disturbing implications for civil liberties and constitutional freedom. How do the adherents of "total liberation" fight oppression and seek justice for humans, nonhumans, and ecosystems alike? And how is this pursuit shaped by the politics of anarchism and anticapitalism? In his answers, Pellow provides crucial in-depth insight into the origins and social significance of the earth and animal liberation movements and their increasingly common and compelling critique of inequality as a threat to life and a dream of a future characterized by social and ecological justice for all. (shrink)

The title of the original article has been corrected. The correct title is Gandhi: Philosopher or Pragmatic Politician? Gandhi Against Caste, by Nishikant Kolge; Oxford University Press 2017; Total Pages 316; Price 695 INR; ISBN 13:978-0-19-947429-5.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Flipping the DeckOn Totality and Infinity’s Transcendental/Empirical PuzzleJack Marsh (bio)How does one perceive a transcendental condition?— Martin Kavka... if it is legitimate to hold Levinas to the standards that he himself imposes on certain other philosophers.— Robert BernasconiI do not believe that there is a transparency possible in method. Nor that philosophy might be possible as transparency.— Emmanuel LevinasThe question of the precise methodological status of the face has (...) yet to be satisfactorily resolved. The best evidence for this claim perhaps lies in texts intended to introduce Levinas to a general philosophical audience. If even first-rate philosophers wrestle still with the puzzle Totality and Infinity bequeaths us, we seem to still await a full and precise diagnosis. For example, Michael Morgan holds the “face-to-face and the responsible self — they are one thing characterized from [End Page 79] two perspectives — are” “the transcendental condition for meaningful human life,” yet elsewhere concedes, “it is unavoidable that in some sense or other the face-to-face does occur as an actually lived experience.” If Morgan’s own nuanced treatment of this question still lands him in equivocation, the problem is certainly not Morgan’s own.1 As Atterton notes, Morgan must finally hold that Levinas’s method is a “transcendental enterprise of a certain sort.”2 But of what sort? Indeed, this question has been asked or analyzed in one way or another from the beginning of Totality and Infinity’s English-language reception.3 Of course, Derrida was the first to broach the question of Totality and Infinity’s general intelligibility, alleging that Levinas ultimately succumbs to a form of empiricism. Of course, de Boer was the first to mount a rigorous Cartesian reading of the text as an (apparently) “ethical transcendental philosophy.” Of course, Bernasconi’s response to de Boer, and his creative repetition of Derrida’s critical point, was the first to give the problem a precise formulation.4 Derrida, de Boer, and Bernasconi hand us the now canonical problem of what I will call the text’s “transcendental/empirico-metaphysical puzzle.”5 The issue boils down to Levinas’s dual insistence that the face “cannot... be stated in terms of experience,” yet is nevertheless “reflected within experience” (TI 25, 23, 67, 260). How should we understand Levinas’s references to various “formal structure[s]” — “of language,” “of interpellation,” “of the idea of infinity” — next to talk of “pure” or “concrete moral experience” (195, 79, 64, 53)? Does the Other occur in “pure experience,” or is she “deduced” as a condition of possibility for experience in general? In this essay, I will propose an internal explanation for Totality and Infinity’s longstanding methodological puzzle. By proposing to “explain” this puzzle, I am making at least three distinct claims: to show (1) that the text suffers from genuine incoherence, thus confirming the general criticism of Derrida, Bernasconi, and others, (2) precisely how this incoherence follows from the details of Levinas’s own explicit method, and (3) precisely why, philosophically, he may have constructed and performed his method as he did.6 By proposing to explain the book’s incoherence, I can [End Page 80] also make specific hermeneutic predictions. If Totality and Infinity’s transcendental/empirico-metaphysical puzzle is genuinely aporetic, it follows that no resolution to it is possible on the text’s own terms.7 As such, any attempt to resolve the puzzle must either (1) augment the text’s own descriptions, (2) utilize other philosophical resources to render its claims coherent, or (3) precisely attempt resolution in either a transcendental or empirico-metaphysical direction. As it turns out, extant scholarship reflects just these hermeneutic strategies.Over the years many philosophers have contributed to this longstanding debate, variously arguing for or against the general intelligibility of Levinas’s account of the face. On the one hand, scholarship that questions the text’s intelligibility does so from a variety of methodological perspectives.8 On the other hand, scholarship that mounts a defense of the text seems to proceed in one of three ways: by (1) apparently repeating Totality and Infinity’s methodological problems, (2) anticipating Levinas’s later work, read... (shrink)

On pages 490-491, in describing the results of Experiment 2, the authors state that out of a total of 3840 responses, only 355 (or 9%) fell outside the response deadlines. In fact, the total number of responses in Experiment 2 was 3200 and so the 355 responses represented 11%, not 9%, of the total. This error has no other implications. The authors are grateful to Peter Graf (personal communication, March 12, 2000) for pointing out the error.

The evil God challenge is an argumentative strategy that has been pursued by a number of philosophers in recent years. It is apt to be understood as a parody argument: a wholly evil, omnipotent and omniscient God is absurd, as both theists and atheists will agree. But according to the challenge, belief in evil God is about as reasonable as belief in a wholly good, omnipotent and omniscient God; the two hypotheses are roughly epistemically symmetrical. Given this symmetry, thesis belief (...) in an evil God and belief in a good God are taken to be similarly preposterous. In this paper, we argue that the challenge can be met, suggesting why the three symmetries that need to hold between evil God and good God – intrinsic, natural theology and theodicy symmetries – can all be broken. As such, we take it that the evil God challenge can be met. (shrink)

In recent years Mullins and Craig have argued that there is a problem for a timeless God creating, with Mullins formulating the argument as follows: (1) If God begins to be related to creation, then God changes. (2) God begins to be related to creation. (3) Therefore, God changes. (4) If God changes, then God is neither immutable nor timeless. (5) Therefore, God is neither immutable nor timeless. In this paper I argue that all the premises, (1), (2), and (4) (...) are false, and then provide a revised formulation of the argument which more clearly represents what Mullins and Craig wish to argue, given the explication and commentary they give when discussing this objection to timelessness. I then call into question this argument, and conclude by stating what I think Mullins and Craig should really be arguing given the specific views they have about creation ex nihilo and in virtue of what timelessness requires. (shrink)

Whilst God is said to be omnipresent, some religions also claim that God is specially present, or more present at/in certain locations. For example, a claim of special presence shared by Christians and Jews is that God was specially present at/in the first Temple. The chapter canvases various ways in which one can make sense of this claim whilst still affirming the omnipresence of God. This includes offering different accounts of special presence relying on derivative notions of presence, and offering (...) other views of special presence that rely upon fundamental accounts of presence. The chapter itself does not argue for one view in particular, but instead offers a map of possible options and future areas for research. (shrink)

Brian Leftow has argued in significant detail for a timeless conception of God. However, his work has been interacted with less than one might expect, especially given that some have contended that divine timelessness should be put to death and buried. Further, the work that has critically interacted with Leftow does a very poor job at discrediting it, or so I will contend. As we shall see, the main reason for this is either because what is central to Leftow’s view (...) is not affected by the objection, or because Leftow provides another way of getting his theory off the ground. Why, then, do so many objections miss the mark? I suspect it’s because many struggle to understand Leftow’s view and what is central to it. As such, one of the main goals of this paper will be to make Leftow’s account more accessible and to elucidate the main elements of the theory, whilst also providing responses to the main objections raised against his view. The overall result of this, I hope, will be a more fruitful examination of Leftow’s view in the future. (shrink)

The rapid development of the Internet has granted college students easy access to vast amount of online resources, and to some degree has increased the chances of plagiarism problems. A number of studies have suggested that both faculty’s and students’ perceptions toward plagiarism are found to be influential on students’ plagiarizing behaviors, and limited research has been done to explore the perceptional differences between these two roles. This study aims to respond to the growing educational concerns about plagiarism by comparing (...) the perceptions held by faculty and college students. A total of 229 faculty and 634 college students in Taiwan completed the Perceptions of Student Plagiarism Questionnaire designed for the study. The results reveal that faculty held stricter standards than those of students. Results also indicate various causes of plagiarism, such as no interest in the learning subjects, lack of citation knowledge, or lack of research ability. Furthermore, significant disciplinary differences were shown to contribute to students’ plagiarism perception; the results reveal that most students with an Arts or Communication major held a relatively adverse thinking toward plagiarism. Last, this study provides research-based strategies for school and faculty to reduce the likelihood of plagiarism. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 41-42, December 2011.

Global climate change raises profound questions for social and political theorists. The human impacts of climate change are sufficiently broad, and generally adverse, to threaten the rights and freedoms of existing and future members of all countries. These impacts will also exacerbate inequalities between rich and poor countries despite the limited role of the latter in their origins. Responding to these impacts will require the implementation of environmental and social policies that are both environmentally effective and consistent with the equality (...) and liberty of populations to which they are applied. This article considers whether global emissions trading, namely, the creation of a global market for tradable allowances conferring the right to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas over a specified time period, is normatively defensible from a liberal egalitarian perspective. After a brief review of the theory and practice of emissions trading, a number of normative objections to the international trade in emissions allowances are analysed. These objections appeal to one, or a combination, of two claims. First, emissions trading schemes are likely to produce undesirable outcomes, such as environmental neglect, in the further future. I call these ‘instrumental objections’. Second, emissions trading schemes violate non‐consequential norms of justice and fairness. I call these ‘intrinsic objections’. It is argued that, when combined, instrumental and intrinsic objections indicate that instituting a global network of emissions trading schemes, as envisioned by a number of parties to the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord, would be illegitimate in absence of significant procedural and consequential safeguards. (shrink)

A person can appropriately manifest respect toward a world heritage ruin by developing a sensitive understanding of the ruin’s cultural and historical context and significance. In this paper, we link such respectful understanding to the question of the aesthetic appreciation of world heritage ruins. Our claim is that an aesthetic appreciation of a world heritage ruin qua world heritage ruin typically involves two things: first, the responsibility not to neglect the individuality of the object, and, second, a commitment to the (...) idea that it is the object—respectfully conceived—which must be the focus of our appreciation. (shrink)

That something may be ‘present’ or ‘located’ at or in every place is a view that many thinkers, past and present, have held. Typically omnipresence is thought to be a divine attribute, but the question as to how some thing can be omnipresent has not been historically confined to the status of a divine being. This book offers an insight into historical accounts of omnipresence and its developments in Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary thought. It further widens the study of (...) omnipresence by including less widely studied strand of thought on this topic from mystical, process theological, feminist theological, and phenomenological perspectives. Additionally, whilst the study of omnipresence has typically focused on Christian thinkers, the volume broadens the range of voices on this attribute further, through including Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Sanskrit, and Donghak accounts. The volume also includes chapters outlying different views of location, of interest for but also beyond our understanding of omnipresence. Overall, the Handbook provides an introduction to the main facets of omnipresence, both historical and contemporary, and opens up new avenues for research that are yet to be fully explored. (shrink)

For the past thirty years or so we have witnessed the greatest period—at least for France—in the history of thinking about literature; I want first of all to stress this point, adding, however, that despite this fact problems of fundamental significance still seem to me to have been poorly raised.Among these is the problem of how to read a work. And yet, it is not as though reading has not been the object of continual attention, from the American fascination after (...) the war with “close reading” to the work of the deconstructionists: a revolution has taken place that has made reading the very center of its concern. Indeed, today, we think we can recognize in the structure of a text, in the relation between its words, a reality that is much more reliable and tangible than the meaning that runs along the surface, or than the author’s intention, or even than the author’s very being, the idea of which has been rendered problematical to the point of dissolution by the ambiguities inherent in his simplest utterances. It is not the writer who is real, it is his language—which is neither true nor false, signifying only itself. What is more, it is infinite; its forms and effects are disseminated everywhere in a book without ever being able to be totalized: and because of this, reading has a more clearly creative function than ever before—that is, of course, if readers make themselves attentive to all the levels in the depths of the text and bring them as much as they can into the various networks of their analyses. Reading has become a responsibility, a contribution, equal in its way to writing, and moreover it has now become an end in itself, since those who read need not judge themselves more real, more present in their relation to themselves, than the writer. And so, from this point of view, it would seem difficult to say that the problem of reading has been neglected by contemporary criticism. Yves Bonnefoy is professor of comparative poetics at the Collège de France in Paris. He is the author of five books of poetry, including the recent Ce qui fut sans lumière . Bonnefoy is also a distinguished translator of English poets, such as Donne and Shakespeare, Keats and Yeats. His books of criticism include Rimbaud par lui-même ; Rome 1630: l’horizon du premier baroque ; Le Nuage rouge ; L’Improbable et autres essays ; La Verité de parole . He is the editor of the Dictionnaire des Mythologies et des Religions des sociétés traditionelles et du monde antique and of the forthcoming Dictionnaire des poétiques. He received the French Prix Goncourt for poetry in 1987 and the Bennett Award in 1988. John Naughton is associate professor of romance literatures at Colgate University. He is the author of a critical study of Yves Bonnefoy called The Poetics of Yves Bonnefoy and the editor of a volume of Bonnefoy’s essays in translation entitled The Act and the Place of Poetry . His translation of Bonnefoy’s Ce qui fut sons lumière and his book on Louis-René des Forêts will appear in 1991. (shrink)

Global climate change raises profound questions for social and political theorists. The human impacts of climate change are sufficiently broad, and generally adverse, to threaten the rights and freedoms of existing and future members of all countries. These impacts will also exacerbate inequalities between rich and poor countries despite the limited role of the latter in their origins. Responding to these impacts will require the implementation of environmental and social policies that are both environmentally effective and consistent with the equality (...) and liberty of populations to which they are applied. This article considers whether global emissions trading, namely, the creation of a global market for tradable allowances conferring the right to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas over a specified time period, is normatively defensible from a liberal egalitarian perspective. After a brief review of the theory and practice of emissions trading, a number of normative objections to the international trade in emissions allowances are analysed. These objections appeal to one, or a combination, of two claims. First, emissions trading schemes are likely to produce undesirable outcomes, such as environmental neglect, in the further future. I call these ‘instrumental objections’. Second, emissions trading schemes violate non‐consequential norms of justice and fairness. I call these ‘intrinsic objections’. It is argued that, when combined, instrumental and intrinsic objections indicate that instituting a global network of emissions trading schemes, as envisioned by a number of parties to the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord, would be illegitimate in absence of significant procedural and consequential safeguards. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

There are many commonalities between the goals of transitional justice and domestic redress movements. We look at the movement for reparations for enslavement and Jim Crow in the United States as an example of a domestic reparations movement, and argue for the usefulness of the concept of transitional justice. We are particularly interested in showing that a future democratic transition – the end of mass incarceration – could animate a renewed push for reparations and a formal investigation into America’s legacy (...) of racial injustice. (shrink)

I provide an argument from consciousness for God’s existence. I first consider a version of the argument which is ultimately difficult to evaluate. I then consider a stronger argument, on which consciousness, given our worldly laws of nature, is rather substantial evidence for God’s existence. It is this latter argument the paper largely focuses on, both in setting it out and defending it from various objections.

This article examines the role of historical science in clarifying the causal structure of complex natural processes. I reject the pervasive view that historical science does not uncover natural regularities. To show why, I consider an important methodological distinction in geology between uniformitarianism and actualism; methodological actualism, the preferred method of geologists, often relies on historical reconstructions to test the stability of currently observed processes. I provide several case studies that illustrate this, including one that highlights how historical narratives can (...) improve predictive models. (shrink)

Over the last decade, fully distributed models have become dominant in connectionist psychological modelling, whereas the virtues of localist models have been underestimated. This target article illustrates some of the benefits of localist modelling. Localist models are characterized by the presence of localist representations rather than the absence of distributed representations. A generalized localist model is proposed that exhibits many of the properties of fully distributed models. It can be applied to a number of problems that are difficult for fully (...) distributed models, and its applicability can be extended through comparisons with a number of classic mathematical models of behaviour. There are reasons why localist models have been underused, though these often misconstrue the localist position. In particular, many conclusions about connectionist representation, based on neuroscientific observation, can be called into question. There are still some problems inherent in the application of fully distributed systems and some inadequacies in proposed solutions to these problems. In the domain of psychological modelling, localist modelling is to be preferred. Key Words: choice; competition; connectionist modelling; consolidation; distributed; localist; neural networks; reaction-time. (shrink)

First published in 1991, this book -- through the examination of ancient Greek literary, philosophical and legal texts -- analyses how the Athenian torture of slaves emerged from and reinforced the concept of truth as something hidden in the human body. It discusses the tradition of understanding truth as something that is generally concealed and the ideas of 'secret space' in both the female body and the Greek temple. This philosophy and practice is related to Greek views of the 'Other' (...) (women and outsiders) and considers the role of torture in distinguishing slave and free in ancient Athens. A wide range of perspectives -- from Plato to Sartre -- are employed to examine the subject. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the philosophical foundations of parental rights. Some commonly held accounts are rejected. The question of whether parental rights are property rights is examined. It is argued that there are useful analogies with property rights which help us to see that the ultimate justification of parental rights lies in the special value of parenthood in human life. It is further argued that the idea of generation is essential to our understanding of parenthood as having special (...) value and that parental rights properly belong, in the first instance, to natural parents. (shrink)

A key concern of global ethics is the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens amongst persons belonging to different populations. Until recently, the philosophical literature on global distribution was dominated by the question of how benefits and burdens should be divided amongst contemporaries. Recent years, however, have seen an increase in research on the scope and content of our duties to future generations. This has led to a number of innovative attempts to extend principles of distribution across time while retaining (...) a focus on the entitlements of the existing poor. In this article, I examine a key aspect of intergenerational justice, namely, the appropriate 'pattern' of well-being that should be obtained across generations. With the aid of research into the impacts of global climate change, I evaluate a number of rival accounts of the pattern of justice and go on to explore the merits of a 'global sufficientarian' ethic, which holds that as many persons as possible should enjoy a satisfactory level of well-being regardless of when or where they live. (shrink)

Something is good insofar as it achieves its end, so says a neo-Aristotelian view of goodness. Powers/dispositions are paradigm cases of entities that have an end, so say many metaphysicians. A question therefore arises, namely, can one account for neo-Aristotelian goodness in terms of an ontology of powers? This is what I shallbeginto explore in this paper. I will first provide a brief explication of both neo-Aristotelian goodness and the metaphysics of powers, before turning to investigate whether one can give (...) an account of neo-Aristotelian goodness in terms of powers. I will suggest that the answer to this question is yes. (shrink)

There is an objection to divine timelessness which claims that timelessness shouldn’t be adopted since on this view evil is never “destroyed,” “vanquished,” “eradicated” or defeated. By contrast, some divine temporalists think that presentism is the key that allows evil to be destroyed/vanquished/eradicated/defeated. However, since presentism is often considered to be inconsistent with timelessness, it is thought that the presentist solution is not available for defenders of timelessness. In this paper I first show how divine timelessness is consistent with a (...) presentist view of time and then how defenders of Presentist-Timelessness can adopt the presentist solution to the removal of evil. After this, I conclude the paper by showing that it’s far from clear that the presentist solution is successful and that unless one weakens what is meant by the destruction/vanquishing/eradication/defeat of evil, one can only make the presentist solution work by adopting a number of additional assumptions that many will find unattractive. (shrink)

Twitter is a linguistic marketplace in which the processes of self-branding and micro-celebrity depend on visibility as a means of increasing social and economic gain. Hashtags are a potent resource within this system for promoting the visibility of a Twitter update. This study analyses the frequency, types and grammatical context of hashtags which occurred in a dataset of approximately 92,000 tweets, taken from 100 publically available Twitter accounts, comparing the discourse styles of corporations, celebrity practitioners and ‘ordinary’ Twitter members. The (...) results suggest that practices of self-branding and micro-celebrity operate on a continuum which reflects and reinforces the social and economic hierarchies which exist in offline contexts. Despite claims that hashtags are ‘conversational’, this study suggests that participatory culture in Twitter is not evenly distributed, and that the discourse of celebrity practitioners and corporations exhibits the synthetic personalization typical of mainstream media forms of broadcast talk. (shrink)