Government has played a pervasive and largely overlooked role in journalists' ethical decision making. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules governing program content, and a libel law system run amok, are only two wats government influences journalists' behavior. This substitution of government ethics for private ethics creates minimum standards of conduct rather than challenging journalists to an ethical ideal. More subtly, government erects structural barriers to the development of the very technologies (like cable TV) that can offer journalists a more ethically (...) hospitable environment. In the information age, ethicists will need to be aware of, and wary of, government attempts to control development of the very media that hold the greatest ethical promise. (shrink)

Abstract: There is no such thing as ‘the’ hylemorphic account of personal identity. There are several views that count as hylemorphic, and these views can be grouped into two main families—the corruptionist view, and the survivalist view. The differentiating factor is that the corruptionist view holds that the persistence of the soul is not sufficient for the persistence of the person, while the survivalist view holds that the persistence of the soul is sufficient for the persistence of the person. In (...) this paper, I argue that hylemorphists should prefer the corruptionist view. This project ought to be of interest to anyone working on issues of personal identity, not only because hylemorphic views are historically important, but also because they are currently receiving significant attention in the personal identity literature. (shrink)

In its widest sense, public relations is about productively communicating with a broader audience, either directly or indirectly, such as through journalist interviews. Academic writing can be abstruse and lengthy, while media coverage can translate those difficult ideas into ordinary language in a more digestible form. Media articles are much easier to share; even as more paywalls are erected on media sites, they're still typically far cheaper than accessing academic journal articles, if not costless. Some initial groundwork is needed for (...) any media‐relations activities. This is about understanding the “rules of engagement” with the media, including who the right journalists are to approach and how. The chapter focuses on two main activities in media relations that might be relevant for philosophers: working with journalists on stories they're writing, and writing articles or op‐eds to be published in popular media. (shrink)

Why do humans make music? Theories of the evolution of musicality have focused mainly on the value of music for specific adaptive contexts such as mate selection, parental care, coalition signaling, and group cohesion. Synthesizing and extending previous proposals, we argue that social bonding is an overarching function that unifies all of these theories, and that musicality enabled social bonding at larger scales than grooming and other bonding mechanisms available in ancestral primate societies. We combine cross-disciplinary evidence from archeology, anthropology, (...) biology, musicology, psychology, and neuroscience into a unified framework that accounts for the biological and cultural evolution of music. We argue that the evolution of musicality involves gene–culture coevolution, through which proto-musical behaviors that initially arose and spread as cultural inventions had feedback effects on biological evolution because of their impact on social bonding. We emphasize the deep links between production, perception, prediction, and social reward arising from repetition, synchronization, and harmonization of rhythms and pitches, and summarize empirical evidence for these links at the levels of brain networks, physiological mechanisms, and behaviors across cultures and across species. Finally, we address potential criticisms and make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music. (shrink)

In examining the question "what, in the final analysis, is the ultimate meaning and value of being in general and of human existence in particular?" the author considers 3 main approaches--humanism, scientism, and theism--arguing that he personally finds theism most convincing.

Nelson Pike’s article, “Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action,” is one of the most influential pieces in contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Published over forty years ago, it has elicited many different kinds of replies. We shall set forth some of the main lines of reply to Pike’s article, starting with some of the “early” replies. We then explore some issues that arise from relatively recent work in the philosophy of time; it is fascinating to note that views suggested by recent work (...) in this area and related areas of metaphysics have implications for Pike’s argument - implications perhaps not previously noticed. (shrink)

This article outlines the emergence of ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) in the mid-20th century, and the current popularity of ABA in the anglophone world. I draw on the work of earlier historians to highlight the role of Ole Ivar Lovaas, the most influential practitioner of ABA. I argue that reception of his initial work was mainly positive, despite concerns regarding its efficacy and use of physical aversives. Lovaas’ work, however, was only cautiously accepted by medical practitioners until he published results (...) in 1987. Many accepted the results as validation of Lovaas’ research, though both his methods and broader understanding of autism had shifted considerably since his early work in the 1960s. The article analyses the controversies surrounding ABA since the early 1990s, considering in particular criticisms made by autistic people in the ‘neurodiversity movement’. As with earlier critics, some condemn the use of painful aversives, exemplified in the campaign against the use of shock therapy at the Judge Rotenberg Center. Unlike earlier, non-autistic critics, however, many in this movement reject the ideological goals of ABA, considering autism a harmless neurological difference rather than a pathology. They argue that eliminating benign autistic behaviour through ABA is impermissible, owing to the individual psychological harm and the wider societal impact. Finally, I compare the claims made by the neurodiversity movement with those made by similar 20th- and 21st-century social movements. (shrink)

This book is a major new introduction to the field of ecological ethics. Taking issue with the common assumption that existing human ethics can be 'extended' to meet the demands of the ongoing ecological crisis, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics. Focussing first on the major concepts (...) of ethics - religious and secular - and value, Curry then examines the gradations of ecological ethics. He discusses light green, shallow or anthropomorphic ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; mid-green or intermediate ethics represented by animal liberation/rights and biocentrism; and dark green, deep, or ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the various kinds of ecocentric ethics, such as the Land Ethic, The Gaia Hypothesis, and Deep Ecology and its offshoots: Deep Green Theory, Left Biocentrism and the Earth Manifesto. Ecofeminism is also considered in this context. The concluding chapters discuss green ethics as post-secular, moral pluralism and pragmatism, green citizenship, and human population in the light of ecological ethics. This comprehensive and wide-ranging textbook offers a radical but critical introduction to the subject. It will be of great interest to students, activists, and to a wider public concerned with the ecocrisis, its main theories, debates, and possible solutions. (shrink)

Humean instrumentalism is the view that all of one’s reasons for action are ultimately grounded in one’s antecedent desires, whatever those happen to be. According to this view, what determines which actions are rational is ultimately what the agent wants or desires, while the role of rational deliberation is to inform the agent about how to best gratify these desires. In this paper I aim to weaken commitment to Humean instrumentalism by showing that (a) the main supporting argument for HI (...) fails and that (b) Humean instrumentalism conflicts with a very plausible principle of practical rationality. (shrink)

Humean instrumentalism is the view that all of one’s reasons for action are ultimately grounded in one’s antecedent desires, whatever those happen to be. According to this view, what determines which actions are rational is ultimately what the agent wants or desires, while the role of rational deliberation is to inform the agent about how to best gratify these desires. In this paper I aim to weaken commitment to Humean instrumentalism by showing that (a) the main supporting argument for HI (...) fails and that (b) Humean instrumentalism conflicts with a very plausible principle of practical rationality. (shrink)

"I think this is an outstanding book. The coverage is comprehensive, the lines of thought and exposition are clear, and the level of discussion is very high yet remarkably lively and accessible. It has an underlying intellectual seriousness and engagement which shines out through the individual chapters, and the author's unwillingness to make do with secondary analyses and received ideas gives it a strength and freshness of approach which is extremely welcome." -- Professor William Outhwaite, University of Sussex Social Theory (...) in the Twentieth Century offers an easy-to-read but provocative account of the development of social theory. Patrick Baert covers a wide range of key figures and schools of thought, including Giddens, Foucault and Habermas. Written in a lively style and avoiding jargon, this book is aimed at students who wish to understand the main debates and dilemmas driving social theory. Rather than providing a neutral summary of the different thinkers and theories, Baert challenges the conventional readings of social theory with new and original interpretations. In effect, he bridges the gap between philosophy and social theory by placing the theoretical views within wider historical traditions. Social Theory in the Twentieth Century will undoubtedly become the standard introduction to social theory for students in sociology, politics, and anthropology. (shrink)

The main goal in this paper is to outline and defend a form of Relativism, under which truth is absolute but assertibility is not. I dub such a view Norm-Relativism in contrast to the more familiar forms of Truth-Relativism. The key feature of this view is that just what norm of assertion, belief, and action is in play in some context is itself relative to a perspective. In slogan form: there is no fixed, single norm for assertion, belief, and action. (...) Upshot: 'knows' is neither context-sensitive nor perspectival. (shrink)

Vote mobilization qua local and national organizations has played an important role in postwar Japanese elections for both Houses of Parliament. However, while there is an abundant literature on personal support organizations (kôenkai) of individual politicians in the Lower House, the role of national organizations for vote mobilization in Upper House elections has so far received only scant attention. The phenomenon of the in postwar Upper House elections in Japan raises a number of questions. How important has it been in (...) terms of voting behavior? What are the factors underlying organized voting? And how has the electoral clout of national organizations changed over time? This article tries to make a modest contribution to the debate on . In particular, it addresses the proposition that the ability of national interest groups to mobilize votes has declined significantly. The main empirical point of reference in this article are the 2001 Upper House elections. (shrink)

This book publishes 31 of the author's selected papers which have appeared, with one exception, since 1970. The papers cover a wide range of topics in the philosophy of science. Part I is concerned with general methodology, including formal and axiomatic methods in science. Part II is concerned with causality and explanation. The papers extend the author's earlier work on a probabilistic theory of causality. The papers in Part III are concerned with probability and measurement, especially foundational questions about probability. (...) Part IV consists of several papers, including two historical ones, on the foundations of physics, with the main emphasis being on quantum mechanics. Part V, the longest part, is on the foundations of psychology and includes papers mainly on learning and perception. The book is aimed at philosophers of science, scientists concerned with the methodology of the social sciences, and mathematical psychologists interested in theories of learning, perception and measurement. (shrink)

Children are expensive to raise. Ensuring that they are raised in such a way that they are able to lead a minimally decent life costs time and money, and lots of both. Who is responsible for bearing the costs of the things that children are undoubtedly owed? This is a question that has received comparatively little scrutiny from political philosophers,despite children being such a drain on public and private finances alike. To the extent that there is a debate, two main (...) views can be identified. The Parents Pay view says that parents, responsible for the existence of the costs, must foot the bill. The Society Pays view says that a next generation is a benefit to all, and so to allow parents to foot the bill alone is the worst kind of free-riding. In this article, I introduce a third potentially liable party currently missing from the debate: children themselves. On my backward-looking view, we are entitled to ask people to contribute to the raising of children on the basis that they have benefited from being raised themselves. (shrink)

Rawls’s difference principle and the position dubbed ‘luck egalitarianism’ are often viewed as competing theories of distributive justice. However, recent work has emphasised that Rawlsians and luck egalitarians are working with different understandings of the concept of justice, and thus not only propose different theories, but different theories of different things. Once they are no longer seen in direct competition, there are some questions to be asked about whether these two theories can be consistently endorsed alongside one another. In this (...) essay, I (begin to) investigate whether Rawls’s theory (or elements of it) and (some form of) luck egalitarianism can be consistently endorsed. -/- I begin by outlining the main aspects of Rawls’s theory and luck egalitarianism, showing them to be different kinds of theory and therefore not in direct competition. I then propose an understanding of how these ideas came to be seen to be in direct competition. Finally, I outline five different ways in which one might consistently be (some kind of) a luck egalitarian and (some kind of) a Rawlsian, and try to say something about what is to be said for and against each of these ways of combining the theories. (shrink)

Modal logics have in the past been used as a unifying framework for the minimality semantics used in defeasible inference, conditional logic, and belief revision. The main aim of the present paper is to add adaptive logics, a general framework for a wide range of defeasible reasoning forms developed by Diderik Batens and his co-workers, to the growing list of formalisms that can be studied with the tools and methods of contemporary modal logic. By characterising the class of abnormality models, (...) this aim is achieved at the level of the model-theory. By proposing formulae that express the consequence relation of adaptive logic in the object-language, the same aim is also partially achieved at the syntactical level. (shrink)

A concise alphabetical guide to the philosophical investigation of religion and the meaning of religious beliefs.Philosophy of Religion A-Z provides an overview of the main themes, key figures and issues in the subject. Both topical and historical, it examines key concepts from the Absolute and the Afterlife to World Religions and Yoga as well as thinkers from Abraham to Wittgenstein. The relationship between philosophy and theology is examined as is that between religion, faith and belief. Extensive cross-references demonstrate clear connections (...) between entries.This reference guide will be useful for anyone interested in the philosophy of religion, in philosophy and theology as well as in anthropology, cultural and religious studies, mythology and the psychology and sociology of religion.Features* The alphabetical presentation of the issues and thinkers involved makes for ease of reading.* Philosophers' views on religion are objectively and sympathetically presented as are the various religious creeds discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, missing attribute values in incomplete data sets have three possible interpretations: lost values, attribute-concept values and ‘do not care’ conditions. For rule induction, we use characteristic sets and generalized maximal consistent blocks. Therefore, we apply six different approaches for data mining. As follows from our previous experiments, where we used an error rate evaluated by ten-fold cross validation as the main criterion of quality, no approach is universally the best. Thus, we decided to compare our six approaches (...) using complexity of rule sets induced from incomplete data sets. We show that the smallest rule sets are induced from incomplete data sets with attribute-concept values, while the most complicated rule sets are induced from data sets with lost values. The choice between interpretations of missing attribute values is more important than the choice between characteristic sets and generalized maximal consistent blocks. (shrink)

Cognitive states as well as cognitive commodities play central though distinct roles in our epistemological theories. By being attentive to how a difference in their roles affects our way of referring to them, we can undoubtedly accrue our understanding of the structure and functioning of our main epistemological theories. In this paper we propose an analysis of the dichotomy between states and commodities in terms of the method of abstraction, and more specifically by means of infomorphisms between different ways to (...) classify states of information, information-bases, and evidential situations. (shrink)

BackgroundReconciling results obtained using different types of sensory measures is a challenge for autism sensory research. The present study used questionnaire, psychophysical, and neurophysiological measures to characterize autistic sensory processing in different measurement modalities.MethodsParticipants were 46 autistic and 21 typically developing 11- to 14-year-olds. Participants and their caregivers completed questionnaires regarding sensory experiences and behaviors. Auditory and somatosensory event-related potentials were recorded as part of a multisensory ERP task. Auditory detection, tactile static detection, and tactile spatial resolution psychophysical thresholds were (...) measured.ResultsSensory questionnaires strongly differentiated between autistic and typically developing individuals, while little evidence of group differences was observed in psychophysical thresholds. Crucially, the different types of measures appeared to be largely independent of one another. However, we unexpectedly found autistic participants with larger auditory Tb ERP amplitudes had reduced hearing acuity, even though all participants had hearing acuity in the non-clinical range.LimitationsThe autistic and typically developing groups were not matched on cognitive ability, although this limitation does not affect our main analyses regarding convergence of measures within autism.ConclusionOverall, based on these results, measures in different sensory modalities appear to capture distinct aspects of sensory processing in autism, with relatively limited convergence between questionnaires and laboratory-based tasks. Generally, this might reflect the reality that laboratory tasks are often carried out in controlled environments without background stimuli to compete for attention, a context which may not closely resemble the busier and more complex environments in which autistic people’s atypical sensory experiences commonly occur. Sensory questionnaires and more naturalistic laboratory tasks may be better suited to explore autistic people’s real-world sensory challenges. Further research is needed to replicate and investigate the drivers of the unexpected association we observed between auditory Tb ERP amplitudes and hearing acuity, which could represent an important confound for ERP researchers to consider in their studies. (shrink)

Many of the formalisms used in Attribute Value grammar are notational variants of languages of propositional modal logic, and testing whether two Attribute Value Structures unify amounts to testing for modal satisfiability. In this paper we put this observation to work. We study the complexity of the satisfiability problem for nine modal languages which mirror different aspects of AVS description formalisms, including the ability to express re-entrancy, the ability to express generalisations, and the ability to express recursive constraints. Two main (...) techniques are used: either Kripke models with desirable properties are constructed, or modalities are used to simulate fragments of Propositional Dynamic Logic. Further possibilities for the application of modal logic in computational linguistics are noted. (shrink)

Combining logics has become a rapidly expanding enterprise that is inspired mainly by concerns about modularity and the wish to join together tailor made logical tools into more powerful but still manageable ones. A natural question is whether it offers anything new over and above existing standard languages. By analysing a number of applications where combined logics arise, we argue that combined logics are a potentially valuable tool in applied logic, and that endorsements of standard languages often miss the point. (...) Using the history of quantified modal logic as our main example, we also show that the use of combined structures and logics is a recurring theme in the analysis of existing logical systems. (shrink)

This article is concerned to formulate some open problems in the philosophy of space and time that require methods characteristic of mathematical traditions in the foundations of geometry for their solution. In formulating the problems an effort has been made to fuse the separate traditions of the foundations of physics on the one hand and the foundations of geometry on the other. The first part of the paper deals with two classical problems in the geometry of space, that of giving (...) operationalism an exact foundation in the case of the measurement of spatial relations, and that of providing an adequate theory of approximation and error in a geometrical setting. The second part is concerned with physical space and space-time and deals mainly with topics concerning the axiomatic theory of bodies, the operational foundations of special relativity and the conceptual foundations of elementary physics. (shrink)

Three main lines of arguments are presented as a defense of randomization in experimental design. The first concerns the computational advantages of randomizing when a well-defined underlying theoretical model is not available, as is often the case in much experimentation in the medical and social sciences. The high desirability, even for the most dedicated Bayesians, of physical randomization in some special cases is stressed. The second line of argument concerns communication of methodology and results, especially in terms of concerns about (...) bias. The third line of argument concerns the use of randomization to guarantee causal inferences, whether the inference consists of the identification of a prima facie or a genuine cause. In addition, the relation of randomization to measures of complexity and the possibility of accepting only random procedures that produce complex results are discussed. (shrink)

This article analyzes business and union strategies in the reform of job security regulations. It argues that unions are the main political actors pushing for their expansion of regulations, but given employers’ opposition, unions are able to enforce better protection only in exceptional periods. Once the first restrictions are in place, employers use their power advantages at the workplace level to circumvent regulations, which unions combat by reducing the level of discretion awarded to employers in interpreting regulations. In recent decades, (...) job security regulations have come under increasing pressure. Unions have reacted to this new situation by consenting to the continuous deregulation of temporary employment, while they fight any attempt at deregulating job security in open-ended contracts in order to protect their members’ interests and their institutional involvement in the administration of dismissals. The theoretical argument is supported by empirical evidence from four Western European countries since the postwar period. (shrink)

In this paper I reassess Floridi's solution to the Bar-Hillel-Carnap paradox (the information-yield of inconsistent propositions is maximal) by questioning the orthodox view that contradictions cannot be true. The main part of the paper is devoted to showing that the veridicality thesis (semantic information has to be true) is compatible with dialetheism (there are true contradictions), and that unless we accept the additional non-falsity thesis (information cannot be false) there is no reason to presuppose that there is no such thing (...) like contradictory information. (shrink)

Informational conceptions of logic are barely novel. We find them in the work of John Corcoran, in several papers on substructural and constructive logics by Heinrich Wansing, and in the interpretation of the Routley-Meyer semantics for relevant logics in terms of Barwises and Perrys theory of situations. Allo & Mares [2] present an informational account of logical consequence that is based on the content-nonexpantion platitude, but that also relies on a double inversion of the standard direction of explanation (in- formation (...) doesnt depend on a prior notion of meaning, but is used to naturalize meaning, and informational content is not defined relative to a pre-existing logical space, but that space is constructed relative to the level of abstraction at which information is assessed). In this paper I focus directly on one of the main ideas introduced in that paper, namely the contrast between logical discrimination and deductive strength, and use this contrast to (1) illustrate a number of open problems for an informational conception of logical consequence, (2) review its connection with the dynamic turn in logic, and (3) situate it relative to the research agenda of the philosophy of information. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Social‐scientific data, such as those found in Philip E. Converse's 1964 essay, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” have led some to question whether basic assumptions about democratic legitimacy are unfounded. However, by another set of criteria, we have the “democracy” that was intended by the Framers—namely, a liberal representative system that avoids strong civic engagement by the citizenry. At its deepest level, the American system has been designed to ensure elite influence over the main ambitions of (...) American policy: the expansion of public and private power. When social scientists accumulate findings of civic disengagement and ignorance, it is wrongly supposed to be an indictment of the citizenry; rather, those findings should be understood as the expected result of a certain set of commitments throughout American political history, of which civic apathy and ignorance are the desired outcomes. (shrink)

Metaethical relativism is the view that whether a moral claim is true depends on the standards endorsed by an individual or society. This view is attractive because it allows one to hold that moral claims can be true or false in an ordinary correspondence sense, without being committed to the view that moral claims state objective facts. But what could it mean to say that a whether a moral claim is true depends on an individual or society’s standards? How could (...) a single claim be true or false in an ordinary sense, and yet be true for some people while false for others? This thesis defends a certain answer to this question: metaethical truth relativism. Metaethical relativists have historically endorsed a different view: content relativism, which is the view that the semantic contents of moral claims vary across contexts of use. However, semanticists working outside metaethics have recently shown that an alternative exists, namely truth relativism: the view that the truth values of moral contents vary across contexts. Metaethicists have been slow to investigate the significance of this discovery. This is surprising, because truth relativism appears to avoid some of the most influential objections to content relativist views. Thus, this development in semantics appears to offer an exciting new direction for research on relativism in metaethics. The scope of this thesis is not narrowly semantic, however. Questions in moral semantics often interconnect with questions in substantive metaethics, and the question of whether ethical thought and talk is semantically relativistic is no exception. Therefore, while the core of the this thesis focuses on moral semantics, it also contains a fair amount of substantive metaethical material, located primarily in the first and final chapters. The plan of the thesis is as follows. Chapters 1 & 2 begin with a discussion of the most historically influential argument for metaethical relativism: the argument from disagreement. Chapter 1 discusses an epistemic version of this argument, but concludes that this version provides only limited evidence for relativism. However, chapter 2 introduces a different version of the argument, with a more semantic focus, and begins to make the case that this argument provides evidence not only for metaethical relativism broadly construed, but for truth relativism in particular. The broad strokes of this argument are that there can be moral disagreements which are faultless and furthermore that only truth relativism can vindicate the sense that these are genuine disagreements, rather than mere differences of opinion. Chapter 2 presents empirical evidence for the claim that putative moral disagreements can be faultless. Chapters 3 and 4 then take a deep dive into the topic of disagreement. Chapter 3 develops a positive account of disagreement which is available only to truth relativists. And chapter 4 advances detailed arguments against contextualist accounts of disagreement. Chapters 3 and 4 together thus defend in detail the claim that truth relativism can, while content relativism cannot, account for the sense that there is genuine disagreement in the relevant cases. Chapters 2 through 4, therefore, form a single long argument for truth relativism. They show that there is a compelling argument for relativism broadly construed, and that deep analysis of the issues surrounding this argument favour truth relativism over content relativism. Chapter 5 zooms back out to the broader metaethical landscape, discussing two remaining objections to relativism. The first objection is that relativism has objectionably subjectivistic implications, and the second is that moral standards cannot helpfully be understood as determined by societies. In the course of responding to these objections, natural opportunities to flesh out the substantive metaethical commitments of the theory will arise. And this will set us up to conclude with a brief comparison of truth relativism with some of the other main options in the space of substantive metaethical theory. (shrink)

The Naked Self is a great book. It is good Kierkegaard scholarship and an excellent model of bringing history of philosophy to bear on contemporary metaphysics. After a stage-setting introduction, the book has eight main chapters and a conclusion including questions and answers from an imagined interlocutor. Stokes takes the reader from how “Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of self-experience may… be a useful resource for neo-Lockean metaphysics” to a sustained defense that “Kierkegaard himself is playing a different, and altogether more interesting, game”.Stokes’s (...) boldness is evident in his title, which remains mysterious until late in the book. Stokes draws on two key passages... (shrink)

Although Machiavelli is usually considered a pioneer among modern political philosophers, he read deeply in and was greatly influenced by the works of classical Roman thinkers such as Livy. There is thus a fundamental tension between the modern and the ancient within Machiavelli's philosophy; he is both a precursor to the Enlightenment and a throwback to republican Rome. This is the main thesis behind Patrick Coby's innovative study of the neglected Machiavellian classic Discourses on Livy. Coby argues that scholars (...) have been too quick to dismiss the ancient antecedents of Machiavelli's thought, particularly with regard to the modes and orders of the Roman republic. The book seeks to resolve the central paradox of the Discourses, that Machiavelli recommends adoption of Roman modes and orders even though those modes and orders destroyed the virt?, the strength, which Machiavelli would have moderns resuscitate by imitating Rome. A sophisticated, highly engaging book, Machiavelli's Romans will be of special interest to political theorists, Renaissance scholars, and classicists. (shrink)

Martin’s conjecture is an attempt to classify the behavior of all definable functions on the Turing degrees under strong set theoretic hypotheses. Very roughly it says that every such function is either eventually constant, eventually equal to the identity function or eventually equal to a transfinite iterate of the Turing jump. It is typically divided into two parts: the first part states that every function is either eventually constant or eventually above the identity function and the second part states that (...) every function which is above the identity is eventually equal to a transfinite iterate of the jump. If true, it would provide an explanation for the unique role of the Turing jump in computability theory and rule out many types of constructions on the Turing degrees.In this thesis, we will introduce a few tools which we use to prove several cases of Martin’s conjecture. It turns out that both these tools and these results on Martin’s conjecture have some interesting consequences both for Martin’s conjecture and for a few related topics.The main tool that we introduce is a basis theorem for perfect sets, improving a theorem due to Groszek and Slaman. We also introduce a general framework for proving certain special cases of Martin’s conjecture which unifies a few pre-existing proofs. We will use these tools to prove three main results about Martin’s conjecture: that it holds for regressive functions on the hyperarithmetic degrees, that part 1 holds for order preserving functions on the Turing degrees, and that part 1 holds for a class of functions that we introduce, called measure preserving functions.This last result has several interesting consequences for the study of Martin’s conjecture. In particular, it shows that part 1 of Martin’s conjecture is equivalent to a statement about the Rudin-Keisler order on ultrafilters on the Turing degrees. This suggests several possible strategies for working on part 1 of Martin’s conjecture, which we will discuss.The basis theorem that we use to prove these results also has some applications outside of Martin’s conjecture. We will use it to prove a few theorems related to Sacks’ question about whether it is provable in $\mathsf {ZFC}$ that every locally countable partial order of size continuum embeds into the Turing degrees. We will show that in a certain extension of $\mathsf {ZF}$, this holds for all partial orders of height two, but not for all partial orders of height three. Our proof also yields an analogous result for Borel partial orders and Borel embeddings in $\mathsf {ZF}$, which shows that the Borel version of Sacks’ question has a negative answer.We will end the thesis with a list of open questions related to Martin’s conjecture, which we hope will stimulate further research.prepared by Patrick Lutz.E-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy, arguments for “fatalism” are arguments for the conclusion that no human actions are free. Such arguments typically come in two varieties: logical and theological. Arguments for logical fatalism proceed, roughly, from truths about future actions to the conclusion that those actions are unavoidable, and hence unfree. Arguments for theological fatalism, on the other hand, proceed, roughly, from divine beliefs about future actions to the conclusion that those actions are unavoidable, and hence unfree. What is characteristic of any (...) argument for fatalism is that, first, it purports to show by appeal to quite general logical or metaphysical assumptions that no human action is free, and, second, it does so without explicitly invoking the thesis that those actions are causally determined. There is, of course, a venerable argument for the conclusion that causal determinism is incompatible with free will (understood as the ability to do otherwise), but philosophers advancing such arguments are not now generally understood to be advancing the cause of “fatalism.” To endorse fatalism is thus not simply to endorse the view that no human action is free, but also to endorse the further claim that this can be shown by appeal to the general logical or metaphysical assumptions at issue. Fatalistic arguments of both sorts are and have been intimately bound up with philosophical questions about the logical status of future contingent propositions—propositions saying of causally undetermined events that they will happen. This entry will thus cover the main positions in the debates concerning logical fatalism, the logic of future contingents, and theological fatalism. (shrink)

'Photo-credit: David Hume': a dialogue showing how application of Hume's three vivacity principles of resemblance, contiguity and causation--even his illustrations of them--not only immediately clarify the main sources of interest in photography, but locate photography in the broad and fascinating history of various functions that images serve us, thereby dispelling ongoing mystification about it. (In the dialogue, Veronica represents our contiguity and causal interests, Miranda [named for a Japanese camera company] our depictive ('resemblance') interests, while Clara serves as philosophical moderator.).

The main guiding assumption of this paper is that there is need for a taxonomy of ethical sentences that does not overgenerate, yet can make useful contributions to debates about certain controversial sentences . After surveying the recent literature and concluding that no extant taxonomy that satisfies both of these conditions is available to us, I propose and explain a novel taxonomy which does satisfy them. I then defend my proposal from five potential objections.

The main goal of the second issue of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, devoted entirely to religion and politics, is precisely to question the sense of a reconstruction of the mutual and simultaneous relations between these two spheres of social life. What does this process mean and where is it taking us?

The publication of two new books by Professor D.Z. Phillips provides a suitable opportunity to consider some recent attempts to apply Wittgenstein's philosophy to religious issues. I shall concentrate mainly on Phillips' work, with particular reference to his treatment of the question of religious truth, but I shall also discuss some other writers and topics.

Epistemically circular arguments have been receiving quite a bit of attention in the literature for the past decade or so. Often the goal is to determine whether reliabilists (or other foundationalists) are committed to the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. It is often assumed that epistemic circularity is objectionable, though sometimes reliabilists accept that their position entails the legitimacy of some epistemically circular arguments, and then go on to affirm that such arguments really are good ones. My goal in this (...) paper is to argue against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. My strategy is to give a direct argument against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments, which rests on a principle of basis-relative safety, and then to argue that reliabilists do not have the resources to resist the argument. I argue that even if the premises of an epistemically circular argument enjoy reliabilist justification, the argument does not transmit that justification to its conclusion. The main goal of my argument is to show that epistemic circularity is always a bad thing, but it also has the positive consequence that reliabilists are freed from an awkward commitment to the legitimacy of some intuitively bad arguments. (shrink)

A popular and enduring approach to the liar paradox takes the concept of truth to be inconsistent. Very roughly, truth is an inconsistent concept if the central principles of this concept (taken together) entail a contradiction, where one of these central principles is Tarski's T-schema for truth: a sentence S is true if and only if p, (where S says that p). This article targets a version of Inconsistentism which: retains classical logic and bivalence; takes the truth-predicate “is true” to (...) pick out a property (and determine a non-empty extension relative to a given world); and holds that liar sentences exhibit a certain kind of indeterminacy in truth-value. Call such a view Modest Inconsistentism since it is somewhat more conservative in its outlook than various other forms of Inconsistentism. Such a modest view has its attractions: we retain the thesis that the liar sentence is meaningful; we get to respect the claims that there are truths and that there is a property of truth; we get to keep classical logic and bivalence; and, prima facie, no strengthened liar paradox is in the offing. The main aim in this paper is to show that Modest Inconsistentism, despite its initial attractions, is in deep trouble—because it does, after all, give rise to a strengthened liar paradox. We shall also see that there are related kinds of theory which are also subject to the same worry. (shrink)

This paper argues against a common misunderstanding of Foucault's work. Even after the release of his lectures at the Collège de France, which ran throughout the 1970s until his death in 1984, he is still often taken to have made an "ethical" turn toward the end of his life. As opposed to his genealogies of power published in the 1970s, which are relentlessly suspicious of claims of individual agency, his final monographs focus on the ethical self-formation of free individuals. I (...) suggest that this basic misinterpretation makes possible interpretations of Foucault's work as being sympathetic to neoliberal government, by linking the ethical turn to a "liberal" or "neoliberal" turn in his thought. I present a case against the ethical turn by arguing that Foucault's main focus, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, is a concern for the ways in which we become obligated by truth. (shrink)

The main claim of this essay is that knowledge is no more
valuable than lasting true belief.
This claim is surprising. Doesn't knowledge have a unique
and special value? If the main claim is correct and if, as it seems,
knowledge is not lasting true belief, then knowledge does not have a unique value:
in whatever way knowledge is valuable, lasting true belief is just as valuable.
However, this result does not show that knowledge is worthless, nor does it undermine
our knowledge gathering practices. There (...) is, rather, a positive philosophical payoff:
skepticism about knowledge is defused. Assuming one can have lasting true belief,
then even if one cannot have knowledge, one can have something just as valuable.
. (shrink)

One of the main characteristics of today’s democratic societies is their pluralism. As a result, liberal political philosophers often claim that the state should remain neutral with respect to different conceptions of the good. Legal and social policies should be acceptable to everyone regard- less of their culture, their religion or their comprehensive moral views. One might think that this commitment to neutrality should be especially pronounced in urban centres, with their culturally diverse populations. However, there are a large number (...) of laws and policies adopted at the municipal level that contradict the liberal principle of neutrality. In this paper, I want to suggest that these perfectionist laws and policies are legitimate at the urban level. Specifically, I will argue that the principle of neutrality applies only indirectly to social institutions within the broader framework of the nation-state. This is clear in the case of voluntary associations, but to a certain extent this rationale applies also to cities. In a liberal regime, private associations are allowed to hold and defend perfectionist views, focused on a particular conception of the good life. One problem is to determine the limits of this perfectionism at the urban level, since cities, unlike private associations, are public institutions. My aim here is therefore to give a liberal justification to a limited form of perfectionism of municipal laws and policies. (shrink)

Commentators almost universally agree that Locke denies the possibility of thinking matter in Book IV Chapter 10 of the Essay. Further, they argue that Locke must do this in order for his proof of God’s existence in the chapter to be successful. This paper disputes these claims and develops an interpretation according to which Locke allows for the possibility that a system of matter could think (even prior to any act of superaddition on God’s part). In addition, the paper argues (...) that this does not destroy Locke’s argument in the chapter, instead it helps to illuminate the nature of it. The paper proceeds in two main stages. First, Locke denies that matter can produce thought. A distinction between two senses of “production” shows that this claim is compatible with the existence of thinking matter. Second, Locke denies that God could be a system of randomly moving particles. Most commentators take this to mean that such a system could not think. But Locke is better interpreted as denying that such a system could have the wisdom and knowledge of God. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between two outcomes of relationship marketing - affective commitment and behavioral loyalty - and consumers' unethical behavior. The main objective of the study is to assess whether affective commitment and behavioral loyalty to a store translate into more ethical behavior towards that store, controlling for the variables of age, gender, and ethical beliefs. The study does not rely on a single measurement tool, but is based on ten months' panel data and three different mail surveys (...) targeted at 359 Belgian households. The results provide support for our hypothesis that affective commitment is indeed negatively correlated with consumers' unethical behavior. The same conclusion could not be drawn for the relationship between behavioral loyalty and consumers' unethical behavior. No significant relationship was detected, not even in situations where affective commitment was high. The results hold major implications for retailing practice. (shrink)

This volume inaugurates the publication of the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls from the main collection discovered in Cave 4 at Qumran. It contains ten biblical manuscripts from Genesis to Deuteronomy and Job. Six are written in the ancient Palaeo-Hebrew script and four are in Greek. There are also five hitherto unknown compositions. The Hebrew texts antedate by a millennium what had previously been the earliest surviving biblical codices in the original language, and they document the pluriform nature of the ancient (...) biblical textual tradition before the text became standardized. The most extensive and significant manuscript, 4QpaleoExodm, exhibits the expanded textual tradition that formed the basis for the Samaritan Pentateuch and illumines the historical and theological relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans. Fragments of an unidentified Greek text mention Moses, Pharaoh, and Egypt, suggesting some development of the Exodus theme, and further witnessing to the rich religious literature to which Rabbinic Judaism and nascent Christianity were heirs. An index of all the biblical manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4 and their distribution in other Discoveries in the Judaean Desert volumes is provided, and there are also forty pages of plates from the manuscripts. (shrink)

“Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws are subject to controversy within both the philosophical literature and the legal literature; and of course they are hotly debated outside of academia as well. In this paper I show that a great part of these discussions is predicated on often very serious errors about what SYG is or isn’t, and I explain them in the context of self-defense law. Though my main purpose is clarification and the correction of some errors in the literature, I (...) close with some brief thoughts about the moral status of SYG and a proposal regarding SYG laws. (shrink)

This is a critical study of Fabrizio Amerini’s recent book, ‘Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life.’ It briefly summarizes the book’s main line of argument, and then raises some objections, principally to Amerini’s contention that St Thomas’s metaphysical views should lead the Thomistically-inclined philosopher to accept delayed hominization even given modern embryological knowledge. The topics discussed include abortion and euthanasia, although the first of these is dealt with at greater length. Issues related to personhood and personal identity (...) are also addressed in the context of the beginning and end of human life. (shrink)

Three leading scholars examine one of the oldest professorships, the Lady Margaret's Chair of Divinity at Cambridge, plotting its development in the context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history. The current Lady Margaret's Professor Graham Stanton sets the scene with an introduction briefly considering theology at Cambridge before 1502 and after 1649. In the two main chapters Richard Rex - an authority on John Fisher, first holder of the Chair - deploys new evidence to propose changes in the list of early (...) professors and shows how their appointment and dismissal reflected the vagaries of the Reformation; and Patrick Collinson investigates how the Elizabethan and early Stuart professors continued to be caught up in the religious and political turmoil of the times. There is a complete list of holders from 1502 to the present. (shrink)

An unpublished manuscript on eucharistic metaphysics by Thomas White (1593–1676) supplies new information about his contributions to philosophy and theology—especially his irenic efforts to find middle ground between traditional Aristotelian views and challenges from the new mechanical philosophy. The work by White studied here, “A Discourse Concerning the Eucharist,” sheds light on his other writings and is illuminated by them. Substance, quantity, place, and accident were the main philosophical issues at stake in White's attempt to give a reasoned account of (...) controversial religious and theological issues, especially transubstantiation and the real presence. (shrink)