Philosophers are often credited with particularly well-developed conceptual skills. The ‘expertise objection’ to experimental philosophy builds on this assumption to challenge inferences from findings about laypeople to conclusions about philosophers. We draw on psycholinguistics to develop and assess this objection. We examine whether philosophers are less or differently susceptible than laypersons to cognitive biases that affect how people understand verbal case descriptions and judge the cases described. We examine two possible sources of difference: Philosophers could be better at deploying concepts, (...) and this could make them less susceptible to comprehension biases (‘linguistic expertise objection’). Alternatively, exposure to different patterns of linguistic usage could render philosophers vulnerable to a fundamental comprehension bias, the linguistic salience bias, at different points (‘linguistic usage objection’). Together, these objections mount a novel ‘master argument’ against experimental philosophy. To develop and empirically assess this argument, we employ corpus analysis and distributional semantic analysis and elicit plausibility ratings from academic philosophers and psychology undergraduates. Our findings suggest philosophers are better at deploying concepts than laypeople but are susceptible to the linguistic salience bias to a similar extent and at similar points. We identify methodological consequences for experimental philosophy and for philosophical thought experiments. (shrink)

Background: Despite an increase in health research conducted in Africa, there are still inadequate human resources with research ethics training and lack of local long-term training opportunities in research ethics. A research ethics training program named United States-Mali Research Ethics Training Program (US-Mali RETP) was established through a partnership between the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (GWSPH), USA and University of Sciences, Techniques & Technologies of Bamako (USTTB), to address the critical need for improved bioethics training, (...) leadership, and policy in Mali. Methods: The aims of the capacity building programme are achieved by leveraging US and Africa-based expertise to strengthen research ethics education and capacity through: (1) intensive faculty development to design ethics training curricula; (2) development of a research ethics specialization within the existing Masters of Public Health program (MPH); and (3) establishing professional development courses through short-term training workshops and webinars to address research and professional needs in ethics. Results: The program will strengthen USTTB’s capacity of research ethics by training at least 15 MPH students over 5 years to prepare the next generation of ethics researchers. During the first two years of the program, a new ethics training curricula was developed, two cohorts of Master’s students were enrolled, and a series of webinars and workshops were conducted with participation of Malian and international researchers. Conclusions: US-Mali RETP will promote a sustainable bioethics enterprise at USTTB, and enable dissemination of research ethics training to increase health research capacity in Mali. (shrink)

Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism brings together a collection of new essays that examine the multifaceted ferment between Darwinian biology and classical liberalism.

Doctor Stephen Strange was a renowned neurosurgeon in his “previous life”, but after his time in Kamar‐Taj he is mostly associated with his mastery of the mystic arts. In Doctor Strange people learn that mastery of physical skills is critical for mastery as a mystic. In addition to the physical skills of martial arts, the portrayal of Doctor Strange is reminiscent of many aspects of Eastern philosophical traditions. Ironically, the reason that Strange originally gave for seeking the elixir is that (...) he swore the Hippocratic Oath, which requires him to prescribe medical treatments for the good of his patients. One problem with applying the Hippocratic Oath to Strange's choice is that it's meant to apply to the doctor‐patient relationship. Perhaps Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the creators of Doctor Strange, meant to show that, by losing his skill as a surgeon, Strange finally learned what it means to be a good physician. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ovid, Art, and Eros PAUL BAROLSKY OVIDIO, AMORI, miti e altre storie or Ovid: Loves, Myths, and Other Stories is the copiously illustrated catalogue to the monumental exhibition mounted in 2008–2009 at the Scuderie del Quirinale, in Rome, in celebration of the great Roman poet and his world. This handsome tome is many books in one: a beautiful album of color plates illustrating a wide range of fascinating (...) objects, an overview of Ovid’s life, works and influences—a book for amateurs and specialists alike, a book to delight and instruct. The book includes paintings and sculpture but also pottery, coins, and jewelry. There is something for everybody here. Ovidio is divided into relatively brief sections written by numerous scholars who treat such topics as Ovid and myth, Ovid the love poet, Ovid in exile, Ovid and Augustan Rome, Ovid and the figurative arts, and Ovid in the seventeenth century. The book’s attention to illustrated editions of Metamorphoses, and especially the Ovide moralisé, is notable and refreshing. I think it fair to say that the exhibition and its catalogue are, not surprisingly, dominated by Metamorphoses and the ways in which artists illustrated its stories over the centuries. The myths of Venus and Adonis, Narcissus and Echo, Icarus and Daedalus, and Jupiter and Europa are among the numerous Ovidian stories that get extensive treatment here. We need to recall that no ancient author in the Hellenic tradition is so copiously illustrated as is Ovid—a fact that is Ovidio, amori, miti e altre storie, ed Francesca Ghedini et al. Rome 2018, 310 pages; isbn 9788856906486; €33.15. arion 27.2 fall 2019 easily taken for granted. A consummate story teller, Ovid inspired the pictorial tales of Poussin, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velázquez, among other masters. Often in this book, works of mythological art are seen in the context of Ovid, even when there is no specific association between image and text. Such is the case when, for example, we encounter the well-known Praxitelean Aphrodite pudica in the Uffizi which inspired Botticelli’s similar Aphrodite now in the Musei Reali of Turin. There is nothing that links the statue and the painting to Ovid other than the fact that their makers, like the poet, write about the goddess of love. Ever so many mythological works suggest the arousal of desire. The Praxitelean Aphrodite modestly covers her body with both of her hands. Understandably, since according to an ancient tale, a young man was so aroused by the statue that he left a stain upon her. In short, we are in the realm of erotic art. The Hellenistic statue of Leda and the Swan in the archeology museum of Venice is an excellent example of erotic art featured in this book, even though Leda is mentioned only in passing in Metamorphoses. She seems to swoon in rapture as the bird (Jupiter in avian guise) slithers between her legs, beak seeking lips. Scarcely resisting, Leda reaches ambiguously downward as if in search of something, and we can well imagine what that might be. That her lower hand is invisible contributes to its suggestiveness. Leda’s upper hand is pressed against the swan’s sinuous neck, by no means a gesture of resist170 ovid, art, and eros Figure 1: Leda and the Swan. Venice, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 2018. Eric Vandeville / akg-images. ance, I believe, even though in the myth she is taken by force. What we see is what the Ovid catalogue calls a “voluptuous amplexus.” The story of Leda and the Swan is forever told by painters in various erotic ways. When, later in the Renaissance, Correggio pictures the momentous event he shows the swan mounting Leda who, in this case, receives the bird in a seated position. As the bird engages the nymph, feathers pressed against her inner thigh, the swan, as in the ancient statue, seeks out her mouth with his beak—a juxtaposition as phallic as it is oral. The Leonardesque smile of Leda betokens not fear or violence but pleasure—a decidedly carnal pleasure. In a different context, Vasari wrote that Correggio painted not colors but flesh. When Leonardo himself pictured Leda, he delicately rendered the... (shrink)

In this commemorative article the significance of Paul Feyerabend's work for philosophy of science in general is reviewed. Its unifying perspective is identified as the fight against any possible constraint on imagination (i.e. on the capacity of generating alternatives). This alternative-maximizing search was already central in Feyerabend's 'pre-anarchistic' studies. In fact, I claim that the really significant theses and arguments, as far as the intrinsic debate within the philosophy of science is concerned, were present in these earlier studies (criticism (...) of the conditions of consistency and meaning invariance, pragmatic theory of observation, incommensurability thesis ...). The context of the 'historical turn' is sketched in which these arguments were developed as aresponse to current views on science. But these arguments do possess an independent normative significance. As Feyerabend construes them however, this independence is uncertain, because it is the value of proliferating imaginative alternatives as such which partly conditionalizes the significance of these arguments (as it conditionalizes the very value of science itself). In this way the philosophy of the critical imagination could eventually turn the critical values against the philosophy of rational criticism itself. And indeed, (1)a certain combination of the tenets concerning consistency and meaning variance undermines the idea of crucial test, and (2) in Against Method xht panegyric of the imagination (couched in a new narrative of the history of science) is used as the main weapon to override any methodological account. Philosophy of science is now convicted of what is the only deadly sin — the murder of imagination. But science itself is also accused of the same crime: it has become not merely an ideology — which is nothing to worry about — but a totalitarian ideology, monopolizing epistemic and educational claims. I argue that, although the reintroduction within philosophy of science of such questions belonging to a philosophy of culture is called for as a complement for intrinsic approaches, the Feyerabendean way of treating those questions makes it impossible to state anything about the specificity of science within culture. On the other hand two 'master ideas' still seem apt to stimulate further discussion: (1) the critique of the consistency condition, backed by the attack on the thesis of the 'relative autonomy of facts', and (2) the defence of meaning variance, backed by the pragmatic theory of observation, and leading in turn to the idea of incommensurability. At the same time this idea of incommensurability could also play a role in a philosophy of the relation between science and culture (which remains to be developed). (shrink)

Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is, Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates (...) and enriches our understanding of modernism. Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison. In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic. (shrink)

After Confucius is a collection of eight studies of Chinese philosophy from the time of Confucius to the formation of the empire in the second and third centuries B.C.E. As detailed in a masterful introduction, each essay serves as a concrete example of thick description - an approach invented by philosopher Gilbert Ryle - which aims to reveal the logic that informs an observable exchange among members of a community or society. To grasp the significance of such exchanges, it is (...) necessary to investigate the networks of meaning on which they rely. Paul R. Goldin argues that the character of ancient Chinese philosophy can be appreciated only if we recognize the cultural codes underlying the circulation of ideas in that world. Thick description is the best preliminary method to determine how Chinese thinkers conceived of their own enterprise. Who were the ancient Chinese philosophers? What was their intended audience? What were they arguing about? How did they respond to earlier thinkers, and to each other? Why did those in power wish to hear from them, and what did they claim to offer in return for patronage? Goldin addresses these questions as he looks at several topics, including. (shrink)

According to Max Weber, the “fate of our times” is characterized by a “disenchantment of the world.” The scientific ambition of rationalization and intellectualization, as well as the attempt to master nature through technology, will greatly limit experiences of and openness for the transcendent, i.e. that which is beyond our control. Insofar as transcendence is a central aspect of virtually every religion and all religious experiences, the development of science and technology will, according to the Weberian assertion, also limit the (...) scope of religion. In this paper, we will reflect on the relations between technology and transcendence from the perspective of technological mediation theory. We will show that the fact that we are able to technologically intervene in the world and ourselves does not imply that we can completely control the rules of life. Technological interference in nature is only possible if the structures and laws that enable us to do that are recognized and to a certain extent obeyed, which indicates that technological power cannot exist without accepting a transcendent order in which one operates. Rather than excluding transcendence, technology mediates our relation to it. (shrink)

Teaching at a private, conservative religious institution poses unique challenges for equality, diversity, and inclusivity education (EDI). Given the realities of the student population in the Honors College of a private, religious institution, it is necessary to first introduce students to the contemporary realities of inequality and oppression and thus the need for EDI. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework and pedagogical suggestions for teaching basic concepts of social justice in a team-taught, interdisciplinary social science course. The course integrates four (...) different approaches to justice: theoretical, social scientific, narratological, and experiential. The discussion of the experiential dimension of the course references practical pedagogical strategies for making social justice and inequality real for our students. Understanding the realities of social inequality and its roots can foster a better understanding of the social forces and structures that perpetuate inequality. Furthermore, this approach can plant the intellectual and empathic seeds to challenge in-group bias and hopefully germinate into fruitful interaction with diverse others. Finally, this rich, interdisciplinary encounter with social inequality and justice can prepare students to work for just social structures that will lead to a more inclusive world. (shrink)

In this accompanying study guide to The Many Worlds of Logic, 2/e, author Paul Herrick opens each chapter with a summary of its content and the skills that students will learn or master at its end. To avoid repetition, the Selected Answers section from the back of the main text--consisting of approximately one-third of the book's problems--is not presented in this study guide. Instead, students have access to the answers to most of the remaining problems. The author has purposely (...) left some questions unanswered in both the textbook and this study guide so that they can be assigned as homework assignments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Conceivability of Artificially Created EnlightenmentPaul Andrew PowellPointsman can only possess the zero and the one. He cannot, like [Roger] Mexico, survive anyplace in between.... [H]e imagines the cortex of the brain as a mosaic of tiny on/off elements.... [E]ach point is allowed only the two states:... [o]ne or zero.... [B]rain mechanics assumes the presence of these bi-stable points....If ever the Anti-pointsman existed, Roger Mexico is the man.... (...) How can Mexico play, so at his ease, with these symbols of randomness and fright? Innocent as a child, perhaps unaware—perhaps—that in his play he wrecks the elegant rooms of history.—Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's RainbowWhen I first read about the Dalai Lama's remark that "if all the external conditions and the karmic action were there, a stream of consciousness might actually enter into a computer,"1 I couldn't help but wonder if a computer could then attain enlightenment. The answer, at first, seemed simple and obvious (though perhaps distasteful for some): if the machine was self-aware, sentient, and conscious, then it would be only reasonable to assume that it could also attain enlightenment. Yes, simple and obvious, of course, but this takes for granted some very large and complex issues. After all, what makes for self-awareness, sentience, and consciousness to begin with, and how would we manufacture them in a machine?If we take a moment to think about the creation of artificial enlightenment the paradox becomes clear. In order to manufacture enlightenment, we must first manufacture samsara, because for a Buddhist, enlightenment is the "event" of deconstructing the problematic natures of "self," sentience (suchness), and consciousness, all of which are samsaric illusions. "Self," sentience, and consciousness represent the prerequisites of samsara/Nirvana, realized or unrealized, artificial or organic. They represent the prerequisites of desire. They represent the prerequisites for the illusion of death and birth. And thus they represent the truly salient issues that must be addressed before we can assemble our complicated hard (and soft) ware. Interestingly, because computational information consists of a conceptualized, dualistic [End Page 123] binary system of ones and zeroes, and because the nature of Nirvana/samsara also consists of a conceptualized, dualistic system of "self"/"other," technology, in theory anyway, may probably be capable of manufacturing a facsimile of samsara, if only because computational information is, by its very nature, samsaric to begin with. Of course, all this demands that consciousness, self-awareness, and sentience be a function of information processing. Personally, I believe they are, and that, in fact, the words information and samsara are synonymous with one another. Thus it follows that information technology will most certainly be capable of manufacturing the prerequisites, at least, of enlightenment. If that blunt statement strikes you as utterly preposterous, technically impossible, or even offensive, you might want to first read any number of excellent texts describing the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Two of the best popular books on the subject are Robot by Hans Moravec and The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. These will assuage your doubts concerning the soft problem, or, as it is sometimes called, the nuts-and-bolts problem.With these considerations in mind, let's see what we can come up with.In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not.—T.S. Eliot, "East Coker" (The Four Quartets)For most Buddhists, enlightenment can be defined as seeing through the illusion of the self and experiencing unadulterated suchness. In the words of Master Wolfgang Kopp, "The seer, the seen, and the process of seeing are one. The thinker, the thought, and the process of thinking fall together into one and multiplicity melts away. There is neither inside, nor outside in this state. There is only 'suchness,' tathata."2 So, enlightenment is suchness, or, things as they are, revealed as all that there is. As engineers of enlightenment, it would appear then that are at least two components we need to build into our machine: an illusionary "self" and suchness, or things as they are. As we shall see, the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Zhuangzi:Personal Freedom and/or Incongruity of Names?Paul J. D'Ambrosio (bio)Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom (hereafter Origins) has sparked much scholarly debate. Already numerous presentations, various types of discussions, and reviews have appeared based on Origins. The present review focuses specifically on the Zhuangzi chapter. The entire project actually began, Jiang writes, fifteen years ago as a book (...) on the Zhuangzi. Through his research Jiang realized he needed to learn more about the objects of philosophical ridicule and critique in the Zhuangzi. Origins is the result of this decade-and-a-half study.Origins provides a somewhat novel framework for reading Warring States period philosophy. Summarizing the basic structure of his project Jiang writes: "I make the case that the philosophical dialectics between the partialist humaneness and imperialist justice formed the fundamental dynamics underlying the mainstream moral-political project during the classic period, with the musing on personal freedom as the outlier" (p. 35). As Karyn Lai puts it, Origins revolves around a "predictable set of inherited pre-Qin texts associated with key figures, traditionally called the "Masters" (zi 子) text" (Lai 2022, p. 181). Some models inherited by the "masters," such as yinyang 陰陽 thinking or ming 名 (names) and shi 實 (actualities), are nearly absent in Origins and would cast new light on the project as well [End Page 458] as the tradition. In this review I will first outline Jiang's reading of the Zhuangzi before considering how a richer appreciation of the Chinese tradition, especially its own methodological tools, frameworks, and concepts, could bolster the exciting contributions Origins stands to make. We will start with Jiang's big picture view of the Zhuangzi.In Origins the Zhuangzi is taken to be a completely unique text. It does not engage in the moral and political discourse the other "masters" texts are subsumed by, and instead of supporting either partialist humaneness or impartialist justice it "muses" on personal freedom. Jiang defines: "Personal freedom is understood as the appreciation and cultivation of personal space wherein one can be left alone and enjoy the company of like-minded friends without being entangled in the sociopolitical world" (p. 36). There are two significant points to note about Jiang's understanding of freedom. First, it is almost a word-for-character definition of how the "Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove" have been described by many. Research on these philosophical works could significantly enrich Jiang's reading, albeit from a different angle. Second, Guo Xiang's 郭象 (d. 312) emphasis on, and philosophical explorations of, du 獨 (an interconnected type of "lone") would further fill out how freedom and relationality—which are both attributed to the Zhuangzi by Jiang—are connected.In addition to a "fierce advocacy for personal freedom" Jiang classifies the Zhuangzi as a "singular outlier" for ridiculing the "misguided character of [the contestations between humaneness and justice] and warn[ing] against their potential for inhumanity and injustice" (p. 49). Indeed, the Zhuangzi does demonstrate that these discussions can elicit "the very opposite of what was intended by the participants of the mainstream discourse" (p. 49). Its criticisms are even more penetrating when we appreciate its deeper point about "names being the guests of actualities" (Zhuangzi 1:4). From this perspective the Zhuangzi is not against systems of humaneness or justice as such. It rather points out that humaneness does not have a single referent, nor could that referent be reliably distinguished. The name "humane" does not guarantee humane action, or really anything in particular. The same is true for "justice." We will return to these points below.Jiang's chapter on the Zhuangzi begins by defending moral and political readings of the text. It is an outlier from the perspective of the "humanity-justice" framework, but this only means that the moral-political discourse Zhuangists were engaged in was different. The result was that already by the early Han and by the time of Sima Qian 司馬遷 (d. 86 b.c.e.) "Zhuangzi's teachings were … of little use to contemporary political discourse" (p. 288). Jiang should be delighted to know that the Wei-Jin period, which had inestimable... (shrink)

In this accompanying study guide to The Many Worlds of Logic, 2/e, author Paul Herrick opens each chapter with a summary of its content and the skills that students will learn or master at its end. To avoid repetition, the Selected Answers section from the back of the main text--consisting of approximately one-third of the book's problems--is not presented in this study guide. Instead, students have access to the answers to most of the remaining problems. The author has purposely (...) left some questions unanswered in both the textbook and this study guide so that they can be assigned as homework assignments. (shrink)

Religion, reason, and the enchanted public sphere -- Minor protest(ant)s: Cohen and German-Jewish liberalism -- The dialectic of enchantment: science, religion, and secular reasoning -- Rights, religion, and race: Cohen's ethical socialism and the specter of anti-Semitism -- Enchanted reasoning: self-reflexive religion and minority -- Some minor reflections of enchantment.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 121-122 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy Jill Kraye and M. W. F. Stone, editors. Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2000. Pp. xii + 270. Cloth, $75.00 Early-modern philosophy begins in the seventeenth century. This book, based on a colloquium at the Warburg Institute, London in 1997, strives at extending the limits of (...) this period into the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus "the long-standing exclusion of the Renaissance from the standard philosophical curriculum" (xii) should come to an end by acknowledging its being an integral part of early modern philosophy and its relevance for an understanding of modern thought. The distinctive element of the Renaissance was, according to the editors, humanism, understood as the revival of ancient sources from the fourteenth century on, and its impact on the shaping of modern thought by these sources.One can identify the following types of argument offered in the twelve contributions to this book: (1) Renaissance humanists mediated classical sources into the seventeenth and following centuries either by translating Greek texts into Latin (Lohr on Aristotle commentaries) or by offering new interpretations that were to become standard (Hankins on Ficino and Galileo, and Mercer on the German Platonists). (2) Ancient modes of thought, mediated through the Renaissance, shaped modern philosophy (Stone on Aristotelian and Reformed ethics, Levi on Stoicism in Justus Lipsius, Kraye on Marcus Aurelius editions, and Osler on Gassendi and Aristotle). (3) Humanist literary forms and mentalities survived in modern thought (Bianchi on dialogue, Vickers on rhetoric in Bacon, and James on 'grandeur' and scientific argument).Two papers do not fit into this scheme: in "The Theology of Lorenzo Valla," the only paper dealing directly with a Renaissance humanist, Monfasani wants to prove that "Valla was no theologian." Monfasani does this on the basis of a very narrow concept of dogmatic correctness, blaming Valla continuously for being banal, to the effect that the paper does not contribute to the topic of the book. One could well connect Valla's theological issues (free will, summum bonum, trinity, etc.) with his provocative stirring up of philosophy in general and show his influence on Protestant theology and on modern ethics.The other paper is by J. R. Milton, which is enlightening because it summarizes the prejudices against humanism in modern philosophy ("'Delicate learning,' erudition and the enterprise of philosophy"). He endorses "one of the most familiar narratives in European philosophy" (161), namely that Descartes's breakthrough was due to his total rupture [End Page 121] with the philosophical tradition, especially with contemporary humanist and scholastic thought. Thus Descartes's triumph was that of the myth of the irrelevance of history to philosophy as evident in Galileo, Locke, and even Hume. If antecedents are acknowledged, e.g., in Berkeley, then accepting that they "provide us either with an irreplaceable source of wisdom or with equally irreplaceable models for imitation, or indeed both" (167), still fails to recognize that the history of a philosophical problem is a part of that problem rather than just some general "wisdom" or a model for imitation. Of course, Milton repeats the myth of Bacon's anti-humanism, masterly refuted in this very book by Brian Vickers, and Milton believes that Valla "enthroned" "custom and example" and therefore for him "it would be difficult if not impossible to state Hempel's Raven Paradox" (169). One might wonder whether the conclusion: "All ravens are black --all non-black things are non-ravens," is the paramount of modern philosophy. But a thorough reader of Valla's logic might discover similarities to pragmatism, which are fostered by his deep criticism of language with the tools of Renaissance humanism. However, Descartes's indebtedness to Renaissance method and rhetoric is handbook knowledge today.The audience for this collection of samples are specialists either in seventeenth- or eighteenth-century philosophy, or in Renaissance thought, or even philosophers in the narrow sense of the disciplines. The latter are difficult to convince of the usefulness of historic studies or "erudite activity" (Milton... (shrink)

At the end of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Edinger completed the first comparative survey of the microscopic anatomy of vertebrate brains. He is regarded as the founder of the field of comparative neuroanatomy. Modern commentators have misunderstood him to have espoused an anti-Darwinian linear view of brain evolution, harkening to the metaphysics of the scala naturae. This understanding arises, in part, from an increasingly contested view of nineteenth-century morphology in Germany. Edinger did espouse a progressionist, though not strictly linear, view (...) of forebrain evolution, but his work also provided carefully documented evidence that brain stem structures vary in complexity independently from one another and across species in a manner that is not compatible with linear progress. This led Edinger to reject progressionism for all brain structures other than the forebrain roof, based on reasoning not too dissimilar from those his successors used to dismiss it for the forebrain roof. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971 by Winthrop Publishers, Inc., this volume provides a discussion and analysis of the theory of natural law as it appears in contemporary political and social thought. This theory of natural law was used from the fifth century B.C. until the end of the eighteenth century to provide a universal, rational standard to determine the nature and limits of political obligation, the evaluation of competing forms of government, and the relation of law and politics to morals.

The development of evolutionary approaches to psychology from Classical Ethology through Sociobiology to Evolutionary Psychology is outlined and the main tenets of today's Evolutionary Psychology briefly examined: the heuristic value of evolutionary thinking for psychology, the massive modularity thesis and the monomorphic mind thesis.

The sociotechnical domain is the realm of scientists, the communities and institutions they form, and the tools and instruments they use to create, disseminate, and preserve knowledge. This paper reviews current scientonomic theory concerning this domain. A core scientonomic concept is that of an epistemic agent. Generally, an agent is an entity capable of intentional action—action that has content or meaning due to its purposeful direction towards a goal. An epistemic agent is one whose actions are the taking of epistemic (...) stances, such as acceptance or rejection, towards epistemic elements, like theories or questions. An epistemic agent must semantically understand the propositions in question, and their alternatives, and choose among them with reason, with the motive of acquiring knowledge. The most obvious example of an epistemic agent is an individual human being. Rejecting the network of practitioners view, current scientonomic theory argues that appropriately organized communities of scientists can also function as epistemic agents. Communal epistemic agents are of particular scientonomic importance. Whereas the methods of theory assessment of individual scientists can be idiosyncratic, scientonomic theory contends that the taking of epistemic stances by scientific communities is a lawful, rule governed process. A second concept of central importance is that of an epistemic tool. A physical object or system is an epistemic tool for some epistemic agent if there is a procedure by which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge under the method employed by that agent. (shrink)

Paul E. Griffiths argues that most research on the emotions has been as misguided as Aristotelian efforts to study "superlunary objects" - objects...

The relationship between individuals’ creativity and their ethical ideologies appears to be complex. Applying Forsyth’s (1980, 1992) personal moral philosophy model which consists of two independent ethical ideology dimensions, idealism and relativism, we hypothesized and found support for a positive relationship between creativity and relativism. It appears that creative people are less likely than non-creative people to follow universal rules in their moral decision making. However, contrary to our hypothesis and the general stereotype that creative people are less caring about (...) others, we found a positive relationship between creativity and idealism. These findings indicate that highly creative people are likely to be what Forsyth called “situationists,” individuals with both an ethic of caring and a pragmatic moral decision-making style. The finding that creative individuals tend to be situationists, and particularly that they tend to be high in idealism, appears to refute the line of reasoning that argues for a “creative personality” characterized in part by social insensitivity. Understanding the relationship between creativity and ethical ideologies has important implications for researchers, managers and teachers. (shrink)

The etiological approach to ‘proper functions’ in biology can be strengthened by relating it to Robert Cummins' general treatment of function ascription. The proper functions of a biological trait are the functions it is assigned in a Cummins-style functional explanation of the fitness of ancestors. These functions figure in selective explanations of the trait. It is also argued that some recent etiological theories include inaccurate accounts of selective explanation in biology. Finally, a generalization of the notion of selective explanation allows (...) an analysis of the proper functions of human artifacts. (shrink)

Many of the most important properties of human groups – including properties that may give one group an evolutionary advantage over another – are properly defined only at the level of group organization. Yet at present, most work on the evolution of culture has focused solely on the transmission of individual-level traits. I propose a conceptual extension of the theory of cultural evolution, particularly related to the evolutionary competition between cultural groups. The key concept in this extension is the emergent (...) group-level trait. This type of trait is characterized by the structured organization of differentiated individuals and constitutes a unit of selection that is qualitatively different from selection on groups as defined by traditional multilevel selection theory. As a corollary, I argue that the traditional focus on cooperation as the defining feature of human societies has missed an essential feature of cooperative groups. Traditional models of cooperation assume that interacting with one cooperator is equivalent to interacting with any other. However, human groups involve differential roles, meaning that receiving aid from one individual is often preferred to receiving aid from another. In this target article, I discuss the emergence and evolution of group-level traits and the implications for the theory of cultural evolution, including ramifications for the evolution of human cooperation, technology, and cultural institutions, and for the equivalency of multilevel selection and inclusive fitness approaches. (shrink)

Some ‘naturalist’ accounts of disease employ a biostatistical account of dysfunction, whilst others use a ‘selected effect’ account. Several recent authors have argued that the biostatistical account offers the best hope for a naturalist account of disease. We show that the selected effect account survives the criticisms levelled by these authors relatively unscathed, and has significant advantages over the BST. Moreover, unlike the BST, it has a strong theoretical rationale and can provide substantive reasons to decide difficult cases. This is (...) illustrated by showing how life-history theory clarifies the status of so-called diseases of old age. The selected effect account of function deserves a more prominent place in the philosophy of medicine than it currently occupies. _1_ Introduction _2_ Biostatistical and Selected Effect Accounts of Function _3_ Objections to the Selected Effect Account _3.1_ Boorse _3.2_ Kingma _3.3_ Hausman _3.4_ Murphy and Woolfolk _4_ Problems for the Biostatistical Account _4.1_ Schwartz _5_ Analysis versus Explication _6_ Explicating Dysfunction: Life History Theory and Senescence _7_ Conclusion. (shrink)

In behavioral ecology some authors regard the innateness concept as irretrievably confused whilst others take it to refer to adaptations. In cognitive psychology, however, whether traits are 'innate' is regarded as a significant question and is often the subject of heated debate. Several philosophers have tried to define innateness with the intention of making sense of its use in cognitive psychology. In contrast, I argue that the concept is irretrievably confused. The vernacular innateness concept represents a key aspect of 'folkbiology', (...) namely, the explanatory strategy that psychologists and cognitive anthropologists have labeled 'folk essentialism'. Folk essentialism is inimical to Darwinism, and both Darwin and the founders of the modern synthesis struggled to overcome this way of thinking about living systems. Because the vernacular concept of innateness is part of folkbiology, attempts to define it more adequately are unlikely to succeed, making it preferable to introduce new, neutral terms for the various, related notions that are needed to understand cognitive development. (shrink)

Because physical theories typically predict numerical values, an improvement in experimental precision reduces the tolerance range and hence increases corroborability. In most psychological research, improved power of a statistical design leads to a prior probability approaching 1/2 of finding a significant difference in the theoretically predicted direction. Hence the corroboration yielded by "success" is very weak, and becomes weaker with increased precision. "Statistical significance" plays a logical role in psychology precisely the reverse of its role in physics. This problem is (...) worsened by certain unhealthy tendencies prevalent among psychologists, such as a premium placed on experimental "cuteness" and a free reliance upon ad hoc explanations to avoid refutation. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that causes differ in the degree to which they are ‘specific’ to their effects. Woodward has used this idea to enrich his influential interventionist theory of causal explanation. Here we propose a way to measure causal specificity using tools from information theory. We show that the specificity of a causal variable is not well-defined without a probability distribution over the states of that variable. We demonstrate the tractability and interest of our proposed measure by measuring the (...) specificity of coding DNA and other factors in a simple model of the production of mRNA. (shrink)

Human experts are the source of knowledge required to develop computer systems that perform at an expert level. Human beings are not, however, able to reliably express what they know. As a result, experts often develop non-authentic accounts of their own expertise. These accounts, here termed reconstructed methods of reasoning, lead to computer systems that perform at a high level of proficiency but have the disadvantage that they often do not reflect the heuristics and processing constraints of a system user. (...) Reconstructed methods of reasoning are compared with authentic methods derived from the study of expert human behavior. Tests are proposed to establish the authenticity of reasoning methods and examples from medical diagnosis are used to illustrate how authentic methods of reasoning can be incorporated into an expert computer system. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

We outline three very different concepts of the gene—instrumental, nominal, and postgenomic. The instrumental gene has a critical role in the construction and interpretation of experiments in which the relationship between genotype and phenotype is explored via hybridization between organisms or directly between nucleic acid molecules. It also plays an important theoretical role in the foundations of disciplines such as quantitative genetics and population genetics. The nominal gene is a critical practical tool, allowing stable communication between bioscientists in a wide (...) range of fields grounded in well-defined sequences of nucleotides, but this concept does not embody major theoretical insights into genome structure or function. The post-genomic gene embodies the continuing project of understanding how genome structure supports genome function, but with a deflationary picture of the gene as a structural unit. This final concept of the gene poses a significant challenge to conventional assumptions about the relationship between genome structure and function, and between genotype and phenotype. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Tragic Vision of African American ReligionPaul E. CapetzThe Tragic Vision of African American Religion Matthew V. Johnson New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 189 pp. $75.00Matthew Johnson’s profound book The Tragic Vision of African American Religion sheds new light upon the distinctive nature of African American religion. Adequate interpretation of this topic requires understanding the traumas inflicted upon Africans sold into slavery, their existential predicaments before and (...) after emancipation, and the ongoing plight of their descendants whose psyches have been indelibly scarred by this traumatic history. Johnson avails himself of the resources of philosophical theology, psychoanalytic theory, and literary criticism to argue his thesis that African American religion expresses a tragic vision of reality. Besides providing an illuminating analysis of the traumatic experience underlying this religious vision, Johnson presents a compelling constructive proposal as to the broader implications of his thesis for Christian theology at large.As a student of David Tracy and Langdon Gilkey, Johnson sees the necessity for rigorous philosophical reflection in theology. Because the spirituality of the black church stands in some real tension with the traditional theological categories inherited from Europe, Johnson proceeds with “a phenomenological orientation grounded in a philosophical hermeneutical approach” that allows him to excavate the traumatic experiences informing this spirituality (4). He skillfully uses the concepts of mourning, loss, longing, and desire developed in psychoanalytical theory to probe the significance of trauma for grasping the dynamics of African American spirituality. He engages literary criticism and argues convincingly for a distinction between “tragedy” as a literary genre and the tragic vision it articulates. Indeed, the tragic vision is prior to tragedy. The tragic is not the encounter with meaninglessness per se but “the always already aesthetic representation of the encounter, which preserves its terrible truth in a transfigured vision of reality” (6). This vision affirms life while facilitating “the recognition and embrace of the darker, more fundamental truths of life” (7).Cognizant that other theologians have declared the incompatibility of Christian faith with a tragic vision of reality, Johnson believes otherwise. He insists that the tragic is fundamental to human experience as such, although it is frequently evaded by strategies of foreclosure—including those of Christian theology—that falsify the experience. Yet the distinctive thing about the black religious experience is the way African Americans made the Christian faith [End Page 215] their own by transforming it at a deep spiritual level through their tragic vision. Mildly critical of previous formulations of black theology, Johnson contends that this involved much more than the affirmation that God cares about the sociopolitical liberation of oppressed people. The Christian tragic vision of the black experience offers the possibility of a new basis for “theology in an African American key” (6). Since he understands himself primarily as a Christian theologian, however, Johnson addresses an audience consisting of more than fellow black theologians. He rightly highlights a profound truth that white theologians have largely failed to grasp: the contribution of the black church “transcends the confines of African American culture to speak meaningfully to a Christian faith struggling to remain viable in a meaningful way” (10).James Cone once issued this challenge: “Why don’t white theologians make racism their issue?” White theologians who ponder Johnson’s book will begin to understand the full import of this challenge: by opening ourselves unreservedly to the pain of our black sisters and brothers, we may discover anew the meaning of that genuine humanity to which the gospel summons all people. A theological reformulation of Christian faith as tragic in the light of the traumas of the black experience could occasion a much needed reformation of the white churches in America.Paul E. CapetzUnited Theological Seminary of the Twin CitiesCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In earlier work I have claimed that emotion and some emotions are not `natural kinds'. Here I clarify what I mean by `natural kind', suggest a new and more accurate term, and discuss the objection that emotion and emotions are not descriptive categories at all, but fundamentally normative categories.

It is unreasonable to assume that our pre-scientific emotion vocabulary embodies all and only those distinctions required for a scientific psychology of emotion. The psychoevolutionary approach to emotion yields an alternative classification of certain emotion phenomena. The new categories are based on a set of evolved adaptive responses, or affect-programs, which are found in all cultures. The triggering of these responses involves a modular system of stimulus appraisal, whose evoluations may conflict with those of higher-level cognitive processes. Whilst the structure (...) of the adaptive responses is innate, the contents of the system which triggers them are largely learnt. The circuits subserving the adaptive responses are probably located in the limbic system. This theory of emotion is directly applicable only to a small sub-domain of the traditional realm of emotion. It can be used, however, to explain the grouping of various other phenomena under the heading of emotion, and to explain various characteristic failings of the pre-scientific conception of emotion. (shrink)

A number of philosophers and ‘evolutionary psychologists’ have argued that attacks on adaptationism in contemporary biology are misguided. These thinkers identify anti-adaptationism with advocacy of non-adaptive modes of explanation. They overlook the influence of anti-adaptationism in the development of more rigorous forms of adaptive explanation. Many biologists who reject adaptationism do not reject Darwinism. Instead, they have pioneered the contemporary historical turn in the study of adaptation. One real issue which remains unresolved amongst these methodological advances is the nature of (...) ‘phylogenetic inertia’. To what extent is an adaptive explanation needed for the persistence of a trait as well as its origin? (shrink)

I defend the view that many biological categories are defined by homology against a series of arguments designed to show that all biological categories are defined, at least in part, by selected function. I show that categories of homology are `abnormality inclusive'—something often alleged to be unique to selected function categories. I show that classifications by selected function are logically dependent on classifications by homology, but not vice-versa. Finally, I reject the view that biologists must use considerations of selected function (...) to abstract away from variation and pathology to form a canonical description of a class of biological systems. (shrink)