This book explores the nature and implications of positive, creative, and loving mimesis and brings together the interdisciplinary fields of Girardian studies and creativity studies in new and original ways. Scientists, philosophers, psychologists, theologians and ancient thinkers are brought into thought provoking and insightful dialogue with Girardian conceptions of mimetic desire, scapegoating, and hominization.

In den semantischen Paradoxien, insbesondere in der berühmten Paradoxie des Lügners, wurden oftmals Symptome für grundlegende Irrtümer in unseren Theorien über Wahrheit und Bedeutung vermutet. Das Buch gibt einen Überblick über aktuelle Diagnosen und den Stand der Diskussion. Im einzelnen diskutiert der Autor den Ansatz der parakonsistenten Logik, semantische Wahrheitstheorien im Anschluß an Saul Kripke, deren axiomatische Entsprechungen und die ontologische Diagnose aus Patrick Grims »The Incomplete Universe«. Als Alternative zu den logischen, semantischen und ontologischen Ansätzen wird eine erkenntnistheoretische (...) Diagnose der semantischen Paradoxien vorgeschlagen, deren Erörterung im Zentrum des Buches steht. (shrink)

This essay examines the cometary theory of Johannes Kepler and his claim that an “ethereal spirit” could lead a comet to appear at a providential place and time. In his account of the comet of 1607, Kepler suggested that a spirit served as a navigational principle that steered the comet on a particular course. I argue that this principle was an extension of Kepler’s celestial physics and part of his larger conception of causes at work in the heavens. I also (...) explore the critical response Kepler received from the theological faculty at the University of Leipzig, where he planned to publish his account. I explain why Kepler turned to natural philosophy to resolve the opposition of his religious authorities and how this was received as a foreign incursion on Sacred Scripture. In my final analysis, I discuss whether Kepler ultimately abandoned spiritual principles in his cometary theory and arrived at a system of celestial physics that was fully free of animistic ideas. (shrink)

Tens of thousands of students have learned to be more discerning at constructing and evaluating arguments with the help of Patrick J. Hurley. Hurley’s lucid, friendly, yet thorough presentation has made A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC the most widely used logic text in North America. In addition, the book’s accompanying technological resources, such as CengageNOW and Learning Logic, include interactive exercises as well as video and audio clips to reinforce what you read in the book and hear in class. (...) In short, you’ll have all the assistance you need to become a more logical thinker and communicator. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Coherent, well organized text familiarizes readers with complete theory of logical inference and its applications to math and the empirical sciences. Part I deals with formal principles of inference and definition; Part II explores elementary intuitive set theory, with separate chapters on sets, relations, and functions. Last section introduces numerous examples of axiomatically formulated theories in both discussion and exercises. Ideal for undergraduates; no background in math or philosophy required.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 5, Page 32-42, September–October 2022.

Despite the rapid adoption of technology in human resource departments, there is little empirical work that examines the potential challenges of algorithmic decision-making in the recruitment process. In this paper, we take the perspective of job applicants and examine how they perceive the use of algorithms in selection and recruitment. Across four studies on Amazon Mechanical Turk, we show that people in the role of a job applicant perceive algorithm-driven recruitment processes as less fair compared to human only or algorithm-assisted (...) human processes. This effect persists regardless of whether the outcome is favorable to the applicant or not. A potential mechanism underlying algorithm resistance is the belief that algorithms will not be able to recognize their uniqueness as a candidate. Although the use of algorithms has several benefits for organizations such as improved efficiency and bias reduction, our results highlight a potential cost of using them to screen potential employees during recruitment. (shrink)

Patrick Shade makes a strong argument for the necessity of hope in a cynical world that too often rejects it as foolish. While most accounts of hope situate it in a theological context, Shade presents a theory rooted in the pragmatic thought of such American philosophers as C. S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey.

This paper develops and refines the suggestion that logical systems are conceptual artefacts that are the outcome of a design-process by exploring how a constructionist epistemology and meta-philosophy can be integrated within the philosophy of logic.

Presentists believe that only present things exist. Their theories, at first glance, seem to offer many admirable features: a simple ontology, and a meaningful, objective status for key temporal phenomena, such as the present moment and the passage of time. So intuitive is this theory that, as John Bigelow puts it, presentism was “believed by everyone...until at least the nineteenth century”. Yet, in the last 200 years presentism has been beset by criticisms from both physicists and metaphysicians. One of the (...) most significant criticisms is that presentists cannot provide an acceptable system of truthmaking. If there is no past, how can there still be truths about the past? In this paper, I introduce a new theory of presentism, which addresses this problem in a novel way: by simply denying that there are any truths about the past. While prima facie an unintuitive position, I will argue that a sensible presentist philosophy of this kind can be described, so long as it is accompanied by an appropriate system of physics. I will also indicate at certain points that adopting presentism could allow us to understand fundamental physics in new, more intuitive ways. By the end of the paper, I hope to not only show that hard presentism is a defensible theory of time, but also that it could offer a number of advantages to the physicist and the philosopher alike. (shrink)

The distinction between distributive and non-distributive profiles figures prominently in current evaluations of the ethical and epistemological risks that are associated with automated profiling practices. The diagnosis that non-distributive profiles may coincidentally situate an individual in the wrong category is often perceived as the central shortcoming of such profiles. According to this diagnosis, most risks can be retraced to the use of non-universal generalisations and various other statistical associations. This article develops a top-down analysis of non-distributive profiles in which this (...) fallibility of non-distributive profiles is no longer central. Instead, it focuses on how profiling creates various asymmetries between an individual data-subject and a profiler. The emergence of informational, interest, and perspectival asymmetries between data-subject and profiler explains how non-distributive profiles weaken the epistemic position of a profiled individual. This alternative analysis provides a more balanced assessment of the epistemic risks associated with non-distributive profiles. (shrink)

Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era provided the first introduction and analysis of contemporary concepts of curriculum development in relation to postmodernism. It challenged educators to transcend purely traditional approaches to curriculum development and instead incorporate various postmodern discourses into their reflection and action in schools. Since publication in 1995, the curriculum studies field has exploded, the very notion of the postmodern has shifted, and the landscape of American schooling has changed dramatically-federal policies like No Child Left Behind have dramatically (...) increased the focus on accountability and consequently what and how teachers teach. The need to understand curriculum in relation to global religions, ethnic relations, multicultural communities, and socio-political interest groups has been magnified. Controversial issues such as biology, gender roles, academic freedom, religion and prayer in schools, gay straight alliances, GLBT literature in the curriculumstudies is theorized. In this much-anticipated and thoroughly updated edition, noted curriculum studies scholar Patrick Slattery tackles these and other issues to reflect on the current state of curriculum development and on where the field may go from here. (shrink)

Do evolutionary processes such as selection and random drift cause evolutionary change, or are they merely convenient ways of describing or summarizing it? Philosophers have lined up on both sides of this question. One recent defense (Reisman and Forber 2005) of the causal status of selection and drift appeals to a manipulability theory of causation. Yet, even if one accepts manipulability, there are still reasons to doubt that genetic drift, in particular, is genuinely causal. We will address two challenges to (...) treating drift as causal within a manipulation framework. We will argue that both challenges ultimately fail, but that they raise interesting and subtle issues about the nature of causation and the differences between selection and drift. ‡Thanks to audiences at the ‘PBDB1' Conference and the 2006 PSA Meeting for valuable feedback. †To contact the authors, please write to: Patrick Forber, Tufts University, Philosophy Department, Miner Hall, Medford, MA 02155; e-mail: patrick[email protected]. (shrink)

Embodying Transnational Yoga is a refreshingly original, multi-sited ethnography of transnational yoga that obliges us to look beyond postural practice (aasana) in modern yoga research. The book introduces readers to three alternative, understudied categories of transnational yoga practice which include food, music, and breathing. Studying these categories of embodied practice using interdisciplinary methods reveals transformative "engaged alchemies" that have been extensively deployed by contemporary disseminators of yoga. Readers will encounter how South Asian dietary regimens, musical practices, and breathing techniques have (...) been adapted into contemporaneous worlds of yoga practice both within, but also beyond, the Indian Ocean rim. The book brings the field of Modern Yoga Studies into productive dialogue with the fields of Indian Ocean Studies, Embodiment Studies, Food Studies, Ethnomusicology, and Pollution Studies. It will also be a valuable resource for both scholarly work and for teaching in the fields of Religious Studies, Anthropology, and South Asian Religions. (shrink)

This paper considers Norton’s Material Theory of Induction. The material theory aims inter alia to neutralize Hume’s Problem of Induction. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the material theory's capacity to achieve this end. After pulling apart two versions of the theory, I argue that neither version satisfactorily neutralizes the problem.

Gardiner approaches the idea of a philosophy of history by first giving an outline of the "regularity" interpretation of explanation. "How far it is possible to regard all historical explanations, or even some, as approximating this pattern, how far the objections philosophers have marshalled against such an assimilation are justified, how far the alternative interpretations suggested correspond to the historian's actual procedure in certain cases; these represent the kind of questions that will have to be considered." By keeping the actual (...) practice of historians constantly in view, he believes that the reader will be able to see some of the disputes that have raged concerning the "philosophy of history"in better perspective. (shrink)

Is truth objective or relative? What exists independently of our minds? The essays in this book debate these two questions, which are among the oldest of philosophical issues and have vexed almost every major philosopher, from Plato, to Kant, to Wittgenstein. Fifteen eminent contributors bring fresh perspectives, renewed energy, and original answers to debates of great interest both within philosophy and in the culture at large.

Investors with standard monetary preferences will give a fund manager incentives to increase firm profits, which can be achieved through a share in profits via carried interest. When investors have social preferences, it is not clear which incentives the manager should receive. We explore this puzzle by applying an agency theory perspective to impact investing, a practice where investors seek both financial returns and a measurable social or environmental impact. Using an inductive, qualitative approach, we identify and describe the ethical (...) tensions and challenges faced by fund managers to structure and implement impact-based variable compensation schemes. Our results indicate that economic incentives tied to non-financial objectives are useful to alleviate goal incongruity between principals and agents during fund creation but have the potential to lead to perverse effects during the fund lifecycle, where managers may exploit subjective non-financial metrics to maximize personal wealth. We introduce the concept of impact fidelity, a conceptual equivalent of fiduciary duty, to ensure that investment decisions reflect the asset owner’s impact preferences. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is a version of intra-theoretical pluralism that was recently proposed by Hjortland [2013]. In a first move, I use synonymy-relations to formulate an intuitively compelling objection against Hjortland's claim that, if one uses a single calculus to characterise the consequence relations of the paraconsistent logic LP and the paracomplete logic K3, one immediately obtains multiple consequence relations for a single language and hence a reply to the Quinean charge of meaning variance. In a second (...) move, I explain how a natural generalisation of the notion of synonymy can be used to counter this objection, but I also show how the solution can be turned into an equally devastating ‘one logic after all’ type of objection. Finally, I propose the general diagnosis that these problems could only arise in the presence of conceptual distinctions that are too coarse to accommodate coherent pluralist theses. T.. (shrink)

ELEMENTARY LOGIC GR. C. MOISIL Institute of Mathematics, Rumanian Academy, Bucharest, Rumania 1. We shall consider a typified logic of propositions. ...

Bald-faced lies are on the uptick by political leaders in democracies worldwide. In the United States, for example, we are becoming numb not only to outrageous falsehoods, but to the bizarre self-assurance with which they are pronounced. We were told crowds were bigger than they were, that the sun shined when it didn’t, that Trump won in a landslide—and that was just in the first few days after his election. What has shocked so many is the fearlessness in the face (...) of the facts, the willingness to simply deny reality outright, and the apparent toleration—even joy—with which Trump’s followers greet the practice. Bald-faced lying by political leaders is an important phenomenon, but it is easy to misunderstand in ways that undermine our ability to combat its strange effectiveness. In this paper, I aim to first analyze political bald-faced lies and then examine the threat they pose to the norms of democratic discourse. My goal is not to answer the empirical question of how frequently denials of obvious facts occur in politics; it is the normative question of understanding what harms they cause — particularly when they are made by those — in political power. Nonetheless, I think it is important to resist the temptation to think that what we are talking about here are a few isolated and extreme examples. As Hannah Arendt noted, there are times in political life when truth, “if it happens to oppose a given group’s profit or pleasure, is greeted with greater hostility.” Arguably we are living in one of those times. (shrink)

The traditional connection between logic and reasoning has been under pressure ever since Gilbert Harman attacked the received view that logic yields norms for what we should believe. In this article I first place Harman's challenge in the broader context of the dialectic between logical revisionists like Bob Meyer and sceptics about the role of logic in reasoning like Harman. I then develop a formal model based on contemporary epistemic and doxastic logic in which the relation between logic and norms (...) for belief can be captured. (shrink)

How can computers distinguish the coherent from the unintelligible, recognize new information in a sentence, or draw inferences from a natural language passage? Computational semantics is an exciting new field that seeks answers to these questions, and this volume is the first textbook wholly devoted to this growing subdiscipline. The book explains the underlying theoretical issues and fundamental techniques for computing semantic representations for fragments of natural language. This volume will be an essential text for computer scientists, linguists, and anyone (...) interested in the development of computational semantics. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology, indeed any science that attempts to reconstruct prehistory, faces practical limitations on available data. These limitations create the problem of contrast failure: specific observations may fail to discriminate between rival evolutionary hypotheses. Assessing the risk of contrast failure provides a way to evaluate testing protocols in evolutionary science. Here I will argue that part of the methodological critique in the Spandrels paper involves diagnosing contrast failure problems. I then distinguish the problem of contrast failure from the more familiar (...) philosophical problem of underdetermination, and demonstrate how contrast failure arises in scientific practice with an investigation into Lewontin and White’s estimation of an adaptive landscape. (shrink)

Between people who unabashedly support eating meat and those who adopt moral vegetarianism, lie a number of people who are uncomfortably carnivorous and vaguely wish they could be vegetarians. Opposing animal suffering in principle, they can ignore it in practice, relying on the visual disconnect between supermarket meat and slaughterhouse practices not to trigger their moral emotions. But what if we could have the best of both worlds in reality—eat meat and not harm animals? The nascent biotechnology of tissue culture, (...) originally researched for medical applications, holds out just such a promise. Meat could be grown in vitro without killing animals. In fact, this technology may not just be an intriguing option, but might be our moral obligation to develop. (shrink)

Kant famously insisted that “the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislative will” is the supreme principle of morality. Recent interpreters have taken this emphasis on the self-legislation of the moral law as evidence that Kant endorsed a distinctively constructivist conception of morality according to which the moral law is a positive law, created by us. But a closer historical examination suggests otherwise. Kant developed his conception of legislation in the context of his opposition to (...) theological voluntarist accounts of morality and his engagement with conceptions of obligation found in his Wolffian predecessors. In order to defend important claims about the necessity and immediacy of moral obligation, Kant drew and refined a distinction between the legislation and authorship of the moral law in a way that precludes standard theological voluntarist theories and presents an obstacle to recent constructivist interpretations. A correct understanding of Kant's development and use of this distinction reveals that his conception of legislation leaves little room for constructivist moral anti-realism. (shrink)

This paper reviews the largely psychological literature surrounding apparent failures of human rationality (sometimes referred to as 'the Rationality Wars') and locates it with respect to concepts and issues within more traditional epistemological inquiry. The goal is to bridge the gap between these two large and typically disconnected literatures – concerning rationality and the psychology of human reasoning, on the one hand, and epistemological theories of justified or rational belief, on the other – and to do so in such as (...) way as to expose interesting points of contact and convergence between them. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that our moral concern for future well-being should reduce over time due to important practical considerations about how humans interact with spacetime. After surveying several of these considerations (around equality, special duties, existential contingency, and overlapping moral concern) we develop a set of core principles that can both explain their moral significance and highlight why this is inherently bound up with our relationship with spacetime. These relate to the equitable distribution of (1) moral concern in (...) a universe that we can only causally affect in one temporal direction; (2) access to the benefits from using spacetime as a resource; and (3) the burdens of care given (1) and (2). We conclude by considering the practical implications of our argument and find that, while it is often assumed that a preference for present over future well-being weakens the case for existential risk mitigation, this likely is not the case. (shrink)

Patrick Frierson - Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 313-338 Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes Patrick R. Frierson The whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics, (...) and morals. Descartes is well known for his metaphysics and physics, the roots and trunk of his philosophical project. But Descartes's morals are generally neglected, partly because they are so difficult to find. He does not dedicate a major published work to morality. His most direct comments on it are in letters to Princess Elizabeth and Pierre Chanut. The published work that most touches on moral issues is The Passions of the Soul, which is primarily a treatise on the relationship between mind and body. As a result of this lack of primary sources , there have been only a few significant studies of Descartes's moral philosophy in French, and only two major works devoted to it in English. This neglect of Descartes's ethics is unfortunate, not least since ethical concerns sometimes influence his work in other areas. This.. (shrink)

The neuroscience of language studies the relationship between linguistic phenomena and the structure and functioning of the human brain. In this chapter, the authors focus on the neural basis supporting the remarkable human capacity to effortlessly assemble single words into more complex hierarchical structures, thus enabling the production and comprehension of unbounded arrays of different linguistic expressions. They begin with a brief discussion of language as a biological system that includes a historical sketch of the understanding of language in the (...) brain. The authors provide an overview of the early days of brain‐syntax research in neuropsychology, primarily on the basis of lesion studies. They end with a reflection on the impact that Noam Chomsky's ideas have had on the neuroscience of language. (shrink)

In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant explains that ethics, like physics, ‘will have its empirical part, but it will also have a rational part, … though here [in ethics] the empirical part might be given the special name practical anthropology’ . In the Groundwork, Kant suggests that anthropology, or the ‘power of judgment sharpened by experience’, has two roles, ‘to distinguish in what cases [moral laws] are applicable’ and ‘to gain for [moral laws] access to the (...) human will’ . Twelve years later, the first function, of applying the categorical imperative to specifically human situations, is incorporated into Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. (shrink)

John Abbruzzese has recently attempted a defense of omniscience against a series of my attacks. This affords me a welcome occasion to clarify some of the arguments, to pursue some neglected subtleties, and to re-think some important complications. In the end, however, I must insist that at least three of four crucial arguments really do show an omniscient being to be impossible. Abbruzzese sometimes misunderstands the forms of the argument themselves, and quite generally misunderstands their force.

This commentary is a reflection on a collaboration with the artist Rossella Biscotti and comments on how artistic research and logico-mathematical methods can be used to contribute to the development of critical perspectives on contemporary data practices.

Scholars of eighteenth-century Scottish philosophy today tend to agree that Adam Smith, while deeply indebted to Hume, was also engaged in a comprehensive and creative transformation and extension of certain of Hume’s fundamental concepts. But what exactly did Smith take from Hume, and precisely how did he transform these concepts? This chapter traces Smith’s appropriation and transformation along five fronts: sympathy and humanity, justice and utility, judgment and impartiality, virtue and commercial society, and epistemology and religion. In so doing, it (...) aims to provide a synthetic account of previous scholarship on the Hume–Smith relationship and to supplement these accounts with an examination of several further points of contact that have yet to receive significant attention. (shrink)

Hermeneutics, or interpretation, is concerned with the generation, transmission, and acceptance of meaning within the lifeworld, and was the original method of the human sciences stemming, from F. Schleiermacher and W. Dilthey. The `hermeneutic philosophy' refers mostly to Heidegger. This paper addresses natural science from the perspective of Heidegger's analysis of meaning and interpretation. Its purpose is to incorporate into the philosophy of science those aspects of historicality, culture, and tradition that are absent from the traditional analysis of theory and (...) explanation, to re-orient the current discussion about scientific realism around the hermeneutics of meaning and truth in science, and to establish some relationship between the current philosophy of natural science and hermeneutical philosophy. The paper has particular relevance to the history and social studies of science and technology. (shrink)

Background Ethical decision-making confidence develops from clinical expertise and is a core competency for nurse leaders. No tool exists to measure confidence levels in nurse leaders based upon an ethical decision-making framework. Aims The objective of this research was to compare ethical decision-making among nurse leaders in the U.S. and three German-speaking countries in Europe by developing and testing a newly constructed Ethical Decision-Making Confidence (EDMC) scale. Methods The cross-sectional survey included 18 theory-derived questions on ethical decision-making confidence which were (...) used to develop the scale. Participants A convenience sample of nurse leaders from the U.S. and three German-speaking countries in Europe who self-identified as holding a leadership position. Ethical Considerations Ethical approval was given by the IRB Board of a U.S. university. Participation in the survey implied voluntary consent. Results The scale’s item structure dimensionality and subscale’s reliability were analyzed and compared between nurse leaders from all four countries. A principal component analysis (PCA) produced a 15-item bi-dimensional EDMC scale yielding a skill-related (9-item) and a behavior-related (6-item) confidence dimension. EDMC subscales showed good-to-excellent internal consistency. In both subscales, U.S. nurse leaders rated their mean EDMC score higher than their German-speaking counterparts in Europe. Discussion This exploratory study is the first of its kind to focus on nurse leaders’ confidence regarding ethical decision-making in an international context. An overarching factor structure was identified, which is shared by the two samples of nurse leaders and to examine (sub)scales’ psychometric properties. Conclusion This newly developed scale is an effective tool for measuring ethical decision-making confidence in nurse leaders. The promising results of this study should be replicated to ensure validity and reliability of the EDMC scale measuring skill-related and behavior-related concepts and include nurse leaders from various cultural, social, and demographic groups. (shrink)

Consider the following sentences: The neighbouring sentence is not true. The neighbouring sentence is not true. Call these the no-no sentences. Symmetry considerations dictate that the no-no sentences must both possess the same truth-value. Suppose they are both true. Given Tarski’s truth-schema—if a sentence S says that p then S is true iff p—and given what they say, they are both not true. Contradiction! Conclude: they are not both true. Suppose they are both false. Given Tarski’s falsity-schema—if a sentence S (...) says that p then S is false iff not-p—and given what they say, they are both true, and so not false. Contradiction! Conclude: they are not both false. Thus, despite their symmetry, the no-no sentences must differ in truth-value. Such is the no-no paradox.[1] Sorensen (2001, 2005a, 2005b) has argued that: (1) The no-no paradox is not a version of the liar but rather a cousin of the truth-teller paradox. (2) Even so, the no-no paradox is more paradoxical than the truth-teller. (3) The no-no and truth-teller sentences have groundless truthvalues—they are bivalent but give rise to “truthmaker gaps”. (4) It is metaphysically impossible to know these truth-values. (5) A truthmaker gap response to the no-no paradox provides reason to accept a version of epistemicism. In this paper it is shown that a truthmaker gap solution to the no-no and truth-teller paradoxes runs afoul of the dunno-dunno paradox, the strengthened no-no paradox, and the strengthened truth-teller paradox. In consequence, the no-no paradox is best seen as a form of the liar paradox. As such, it cannot provide a case for epistemicism. (shrink)

This paper explores the challenge that the experience of third-person perspective recall presents to a phenomenological theory of memory. Specifically this paper outlines what Husserl describes as the necessary features of recollection, among which he includes the givenness of objects in the first person perspective. The paper notes that, on first sight, these necessary features cannot account for the experience of observer memories as described by Neisser & Nigro. This paper proposes that observer memories do not so much entail a (...) shift of perspective as they do a process of self-objectification and as such do not break with the phenomenological emphasis on the first person perspective. (shrink)