The articles in this collection are dedicated to the proposition that human beings make history, not just in the sense of being agents of change in the here and ...

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

This paper argues that a set of questioning attitudes are among the foundations of human and animal minds. While both verbal questioning and states of curiosity are generally explained in terms of metacognitive desires for knowledge or true belief, I argue that each is better explained by a prelinguistic sui generis type of mental attitude of questioning. I review a range of considerations in support of such a proposal and improve on previous characterizations of the nature of these attitudes. I (...) then broaden their explanatory scope to include a number of forms of exploratory search. The paper has three main goals: to characterize the nature of the questioning attitudes, outlining their causal role and type of content; to argue that they are fundamental components of the mind, being widespread among animals and not constructed during ontogeny out of other attitudes; and to suggest that they explain a great deal more behavior than one might think. (shrink)

We propose a solution to the problem of logical omniscience in what we take to be its fundamental version: as concerning arbitrary agents and the knowledge attitude per se. Our logic of knowledge is a spin-off from a general theory of thick content, whereby the content of a sentence has two components: an intension, taking care of truth conditions; and a topic, taking care of subject matter. We present a list of plausible logical validities and invalidities for the logic of (...) knowledge per se for arbitrary agents, and isolate three explanatory factors for them: the topic-sensitivity of content; the fragmentation of knowledge states; the defeasibility of knowledge acquisition. We then present a novel dynamic epistemic logic that yields precisely the desired validities and invalidities, for which we provide expressivity and completeness results. We contrast this with related systems and address possible objections. (shrink)

Many global and national systems of regulation of blood donors and donor compensation rely for intellectual support on Richard Titmuss’s views, represented in The Gift Relationship. Based on selective interpretation of data from the 1960s, Titmuss engineered an ethical view pertaining to donors and, in so doing, created not only ongoing stereotypes, but created a cause for followers to perpetuate misunderstandings about the nature of such donations. In many cases, donors are, in fact compensated, but regulatory systems persevere in using (...) definitional fig leaves in order to perpetuate an ongoing political goal of diminishing private sector participation in health care. However, in more recent works, including new views of critical sociology and evolutionary psychology, the Titmuss worldview has been turned upside-down. Evidence readily available today proves the safety of compensated donation and the lives saved by encouraging policies for both compensated and non-compensated donation. (shrink)

Narrative thinking -- Narrative thinking about one's past -- Grief : a case study -- Narrative thinking about one's future -- Self-forgiveness : a case study -- The narrative sense of self -- Narrative, truth, life, and fiction.

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but (...) has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light or recent research on the evolution of morality.--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Single-premise epistemic closure is the principle that: if one is in an evidential position to know that P where P entails Q, then one is in an evidential position to know that Q. In this paper, I defend the viability of opposition to closure. A key task for such an opponent is to precisely formulate a restricted closure principle that remains true to the motivations for abandoning unrestricted closure but does not endorse particularly egregious instances of closure violation. I focus (...) on two brands of epistemic theory that naturally incorporate closure restrictions. The first type holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant question. The second holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant topic. For each approach, I offer a formalization of a leading theory from the literature and use this formalization to evaluate the theory’s adequacy in terms of a precise set of desiderata. I conclude that neither theory succeeds in meeting these desiderata, casting doubt on the viability of the underlying approaches. Finally, I offer a novel variant of the topic-sensitive approach that fares better. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Introduction These essays have been written over a period of about ten years and have already been published separately in various places. ...

It was a little over ten years ago, 1967–8, that H. D. Lewis delivered the first series of Gifford lectures, The Elusive Mind, in the University of Edinburgh. It was my privilege that year to be an auditor in the Seminar at King's College that Professor Lewis was conducting with his students in the area of this topic. I had already read the works in which, in the midst of neo-orthodox and existentialist religious movements, he had devoted himself to critical (...) valuation of those doctrines - witness his Morals and the New Theology, and Morals and Revelation. This earlier work prepared for a comprehensive interpretation of religious experience in his book in 1960: Our Experience of God. (shrink)

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today’s "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. (...) An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Plasma protein therapies are a group of essential medicines extracted from human plasma through processes of industrial scale fractionation. They are used primarily to treat a number of rare, chronic disorders ensuing from inherited or acquired deficiencies of a number of physiologically essential proteins. These disorders include hemophilia A and B, different immunodeficiencies and alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency. In addition, acute blood loss, burns and sepsis are treated by PPTs. Hence, a population of vulnerable and very sick individuals is dependent on (...) these products. In addition, the continued well-being of large sections of the community, including pregnant women and their children, travelers and workers exposed to infectious risk is also subject to the availability of these therapies. Their manufacture to adequate amounts requires large volumes of human plasma as the starting material of a complex purification process. Mainstream blood transfusion services run primarily by the not-for-profit sector have attempted to provide this plasma through the separation of blood donations, but have failed to provide sufficient amounts to meet the clinical demand. The collection of plasma from donors willing to commit to the process of plasmapheresis, which is not only time consuming but requires a long term, continuing commitment, generates much higher amounts of plasma and has been an activity historically separate from the blood transfusion sector and run by commercial companies. These companies now supply two-thirds of the growing global need for these therapies, while the mainstream government-run blood sector continues to supply a shrinking proportion. The private sector plasmapheresis activity which provides the bulk of treatment products has been compensating the donors in order to recognize the time and effort required. Recent activities have reignited the debate regarding the ethical and medical aspects of such compensation. In this work, we review the landscape; assess the contributions made by the compensated and non-compensated sectors and synthesize the outcomes on the relevant patient communities of perturbing the current paradigm of compensated plasma donation. We conclude that the current era of “Patient Centeredness” in health care demands the continuation and extension of paid plasma donation. (shrink)

I lay out the framework for my theory of sensory imagination in “Imagining as a guide to possibility.” Sensory imagining involves mental imagery , and crucially, in describing the content of imagining, I distinguish between qualitative content and assigned content. Qualitative content derives from the mental image itself; for visual imaginings, it is what is “pictured.” For example, visually imagine the Philadelphia Eagles defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers to win their first Super Bowl. You picture the greenness of the field and (...) the football’s brown oblong shape. Some of what you imagine isn’t explicitly pictured, however. That it is Sunday, that it is the Super Bowl: these facts are assigned. (shrink)

Political decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives. Think of decisions in relation to abortion or climate change, for example. This makes political legitimacy an important normative concern. But what makes political decisions legitimate? Are they legitimate in virtue of having support from the citizens? Democratic conceptions of political legitimacy answer in the affirmative. Such conceptions righly highlight that legitimate political decision-making must be sensitive to disagreements among the citizens. But what if democratic decisions fail to track what (...) there is most reason to do? What if a democratically elected government fails to take measures necessary to protect its population from threats related to climate change? Peter argues that the legitimacy of political decisions doesn't just depend on respect for the citizens' will; and defends a novel hybrid conception of political legitimacy, called the Epistemic Accountability conception. According to this conception, political legitimacy also depends on how political decision-making responds to evidence for what there is most reason to do. Grounds for Political Legitmacy starts with an overview of the main ways in which philosophers have thought about political legitimacy, and identifies the epistemic accountability conception as an overlooked alternative. It then develops the epistemic accountability conception of political legitimacy and discusses its implications for legitimate political decision-making. Considering the norms that should govern political debate, it examines the role of experts in politics, and probes the responsibilities of democratically elected political leaders and as well as of citizens. (shrink)

While the 'image of God' continues to be a key concept in Christian anthropology, its toilsome reception bears witness to its linguistic and theological complexity. In their biblical commentaries Augustine and Luther tried to fathom the authentic meaning of Gn 1:26-27. In dialogue with the scientific world of their day, they carried out this task all through their eventful lives as they promoted the recta fides of their ecclesial communities. Interpreting the text in the light of the rule of faith, (...) their efforts were more of an exercise in systematics. The present study attempts to sketch the vitality and commitment of their undertaking, as it outlines its development. Shunning to the best of his abilities any facile solution, the Bishop of Hippo kept on looking for some more articulate understanding; the Reformer continued to treasure tradition just as he critically proposed a christocentric understanding meant to inspire his audience. (shrink)

The Homilies on the Beatitudes are believed to be Gregory of Nyssa’s earliest existing homilies, dating most probably from the Lenten season of 378. In them we can clearly see, although still at an early stage, his thoughts on the problem of evil in the world and its effects on human nature. Reading the homilies from this angle, one can show his original ideas on the introduction of sin in human nature, on the state of the man enslaved by sin (...) and on sin’s effects on him. Gregory also gives some useful and practical suggestions as to how sin can be overcome. Even though in later homilies he goes more deeply into these themes, and sometimes his thought develops and points to different conclusions, it is here in this first set of homilies that we start to see his ideas on sin and redemption taking shape. (shrink)

L'analyse minutieuse de documents, mémoires et travaux s'accompagne d'entretiens avec des "grands-témoins" : Ansart, Balandier, Duvignaud, Lévi-Strauss, Mendras, Namer, Touraine. Tous se souviennent de Gurvitch, personnage-focal de cette recherche, mais aussi d'Aron, Friedmann, Stoetzel, etc. Les temps forts et les conflits de la discipline, les réseaux, les jeux et enjeux, les oppositions d'écoles font ici l'objet d'une interprétation qui fournit une mine d'informations sur les faits, théories et auteurs d'une époque ressaisie de l'intérieur.

Michel Henry radicalises phenomenology by putting forward the idea of a double manifestation: the “Truth of Life” and “truth of the world.” For Henry, the world turns out to be empty of Life. To find its essence, the self must dive completely inward, away from the exterior movements of intentionality. Hence, Life, or God, for Henry, lies in non-intentional, immanent self-experience, which is felt and yet remains invisible, in an absolutist sense, as an a priori condition of all conscious experience. (...) In Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity illuminates the distinction between the immanent Trinity (God’s self-relation) and the economic workings of the Trinity (God-world relation). However, the mystery of God’s inmost being and the economy of salvation are here understood as inseparable. In light of this, the paper aims to: 1) elucidate the significance of Henry’s engagement with the phenomenological tradition and his proposal of a phenomenology of Life which advocates an immanent auto-affection, radically separate from the ek-static nature of intentionality, and 2) confront the division between Life and world in Henry’s Christian phenomenology and its discordancy with the doctrine of the Trinity, as the latter attests to the harmonious unity that subsists between inner life and the world. (shrink)

Though Orientalium Ecclesiarum received less publicity than Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, all promulgated on 21.11.1964, disputes brought issues to the fore which make one wonder whether Orientalium Ecclesiarum's interpretative key does not lie in these disputes. We may not speak of two conflicting souls in Orientalium Ecclesiarum, but of two perspectives, a Catholic Eastern and an ecumenical. Together they spell out what is at stake in Eastern ecumenism; separated they distort the identity of Catholic Eastern Churches. Offering the hitherto (...) most specific image of the East in a conciliar document, Orientalium Ecclesiarum treats some Vatican II themes better than other documents. The overriding issue is how to keep both identity and communion; for Orientalium Ecclesiarum, it can only mean identity through communion. (shrink)

Kim-chong Chong’s 2016 book on the Zhuangzi balances the textual and historical approaches with conceptual and contemporary philosophical concerns. The focus on the early Confucian context and the philosophy of value pluralism, as well as the analysis of key concepts and creative interpretation of well-known passages, mark out Chong’s Zhuangzi from other accounts. Nevertheless, Chong faces the interpretative and philosophical challenge of reconciling value pluralism with the normative concerns and privileged ideals also present in the Zhuangzi.

This volume explores the use of higher-order logics in metaphysics. Seventeen original essays trace the development of higher-order metaphysics, discuss different ways in which higher-order languages and logics may be used, and consider their application to various central topics of metaphysics.

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

Our topic is the theory of topics. My goal is to clarify and evaluate three competing traditions: what I call the way-based approach, the atom-based approach, and the subject-predicate approach. I develop criteria for adequacy using robust linguistic intuitions that feature prominently in the literature. Then I evaluate the extent to which various existing theories satisfy these constraints. I conclude that recent theories due to Parry, Perry, Lewis, and Yablo do not meet the constraints in total. I then introduce the (...) issue-based theory—a novel and natural entry in the atom-based tradition that meets our constraints. In a coda, I categorize a recent theory from Fine as atom-based, and contrast it to the issue-based theory, concluding that they are evenly matched, relative to our main criteria of adequacy. I offer tentative reasons to nevertheless favour the issue-based theory. (shrink)

This book offers a reassessment of the political philosophy of the British Idealists, a group of once influential and now neglected nineteenth-century Hegelian philosophers, whose work has been much misunderstood. Peter Nicholson focuses on F. H. Bradley's idea of morality and moral philosophy; T. H. Green's theory of the Common Good, of the social nature of rights, of freedom, and of state interference; and Bernard Bosanquet's notorious theory of the General Will. By examining the arguments offered by the Idealists (...) and by their critics the author is able to penetrate the deep layers of hostile comment laid down by several generations of later writers and to show that these ideas, once properly understood, are not only defensible but interesting and important. (shrink)

In at least some cases of justified perceptual belief, our perceptual experience itself, as opposed to beliefs about it, evidences and thereby justifies our belief. While the phenomenon is common, it is also mysterious. There are good reasons to think that perceptions cannot justify beliefs directly, and there is a significant challenge in explaining how they do. After explaining just how direct perceptual justification is mysterious, I considerMichael Huemers (Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, 2001) and Bill Brewers (Perception and (...) Reason, 1999) recent, but radically different, attempts to eliminate it. I argue that both are unsuccessful, though a consideration of their mistakes deepens our appreciation of the mystery. (shrink)

This book presents and evaluates the late philosophy (Spätphilosophie) of F. W. J. Schelling (1775-1854) across a wide range of issues, ranging from relation between pure thinking and being, to the philosophy of mythology and religion, to the philosophy of history, to questions concerning the philosophy of nature and freedom. Simultaneously, it discusses Hegel's treatment of similar issues, and systematically compares the two thinkers. This is the first time, in an English-language publication, that these two major German Idealists have been (...) compared in such detail along such a broad front. The book begins with three chapters exploring the development of Schelling's thinking concerning transcendental philosophy, nature and teleology, human freedom, and the theory of history, from his earliest publications up to his middle years. Against this background, the book then presents Schelling's distinction between "positive" and "negative" philosophy, the defining mark of his late philosophy. It explores his theory of pure a priori thinking (negative philosophy), and his account of the transition from negative to positive philosophy. The major components of Schelling's positive philosophy, including his conception of "un-pre-thinkable being", and his theories of mythology and revelation, are then discussed. Throughout, a comparative assessment of Hegel's approach similar issues is sustained. Schelling emerges as a philosopher who traced his own highly distinctive path through the thicket of problems bequeathed by Kant, and whose systematic responses to these problems still merit serious consideration as alternatives to those of Hegel. (shrink)

This is the first volume of a projected three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The extent to which the mind is innate is one of the central questions in the human sciences, with important implications for many surrounding debates. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Structure and Content, concerns the fundamental architecture (...) of the mind, addressing such question as: What capacities, processes, representations, biases, and connections are innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities, and which of them are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? The editors have provided an introduction giving some of the background to debates about innateness and introducing each of the subsequent essays, as well as a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the fundamental nature and powers of the human mind. Together, the three volumes in the series will provide the most intensive and richly cross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point the way toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a new understanding of our minds and their place in the natural order. (shrink)

Epistemic defeat is standardly understood in either evidentialist or responsibilist terms. The seminal treatment of defeat is an evidentialist one, due to John Pollock, who famously distinguishes between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. More recently, an orthogonal distinction due to Jennifer Lackey has become widely endorsed, between so-called doxastic (or psychological) and normative defeaters. We think that neither doxastic nor normative defeaters, as Lackey understands them, exist. Both of Lackey’s categories of defeat derive from implausible assumptions about epistemic responsibility. Although Pollock’s (...) evidentialist view is superior, the evidentialism per se can be purged from it, leaving a general structure of defeat that can be incorporated in a reliabilist theory that is neither evidentialist nor responsibilist in any way. (shrink)

Facts often acquire a life of their own; the stories in this book explain why.

Explores how to identify future-proof science. Peter Vickers takes a transdisciplinary approach in his analysis of 'scientific fact' in order to defend science against potentially dangerous scepticism.

One can rightly say of Peter Sloterdijk that each of his essays and lectures is also an unwritten book. That is why the texts presented here, which sketch a philosophical physiognomy of Martin Heidegger, should also be characterized as a collected renunciation of exhaustiveness. In order to situate Heidegger's thought in the history of ideas and problems, Peter Sloterdijk approaches Heidegger's work with questions such as: If Western philosophy emerged from the spirit of the polis, what are we (...) to make of the philosophical suitability of a man who never made a secret of his stubborn attachment to rural life? Is there a provincial truth of which the cosmopolitan city knows nothing? Is there a truth in country roads and cabins that would be able to undermine the universities with their standardized languages and globally influential discourses? From where does this odd professor speak, when from his professorial chair in Freiburg he claims to inquire into what lies beyond the history of Western metaphysics? Sloterdijk also considers several other crucial twentieth-century thinkers who provide some needed contrast for the philosophical physiognomy of Martin Heidegger. A consideration of Niklas Luhmann as a kind of contemporary version of the Devil's Advocate, a provocative critical interpretation of Theodor Adorno's philosophy that focuses on its theological underpinnings and which also includes reflections on the philosophical significance of hyperbole, and a short sketch of the pessimistic thought of Emil Cioran all round out and deepen Sloterdijk's attempts to think with, against, and beyond Heidegger. Finally, in essays such as "Domestication of Being" and the "Rules for the Human Park," which incited an international controversy around the time of its publication and has been translated afresh for this volume, Sloterdijk develops some of his most intriguing and important ideas on anthropogenesis, humanism, technology, and genetic engineering. (shrink)