This book addresses the challenges of living together after empire in many post-colonial cities. It is organized in two sections. The first section focuses on efforts by people of multiple faiths to live together within their contexts, including such efforts within a neighborhood in urban Manchester; the array of attempts at creating multi-faith spaces for worship across the globe; and initiatives to commemorate divisive conflict together in Northern Ireland. The second section utilizes particular postcolonial methods to illuminate pressing issues within (...) specific contexts—including women’s leadership in an indigenous denomination in the variegated African landscape, and baptism and discipleship among Dalit communities in India. In the context of growing multiculturalism in the West, this volume offers a postcolonial theological resource, challenging the epistemologies in the Western academy. (shrink)

Discussion of the Aristotelian syllogistic over the last sixty years has arguably centered on the question whether syllogisms are inferences or implications. But the significance of this debate at times has been taken to concern whether the syllogistic is a logic or a theory, and how it ought to be represented by modern systems. Largely missing from this discussion has been a study of the few passages in the Prior Analytics where Aristotle provides explicit guidance on how to individuate syllogisms. (...) I argue that syllogisms are individuated by unordered premise pairs and so may be fruitfully thought of as multi-succedent sequents. I conclude by drawing a few consequences for the representation of the syllogistic. (shrink)

Causal pluralists hold that that there is not just one determinate kind of causation. Some causal pluralists hold that ‘cause’ is ambiguous among these different kinds. For example, Hall (2004) argues that ‘cause’ is ambiguous between two causal relations, which he labels dependence and production. The view that ‘cause’ is ambiguous, however, wrongly predicts zeugmatic conjunction reduction, and wrongly predicts the behaviour of ellipsis in causal discourse. So ‘cause’ is not ambiguous. If we are to disentangle causal pluralism from the (...) ambiguity claim, we need to consider what other linguistic approaches are available to the causal pluralist. I consider and reject proposals that ‘cause’ is a general term, that the term is an indexical, and that the term conveys different kinds of causation through implicature or presupposition. Finally, I argue that causal pluralism is better handled by treating ‘cause’ as a univocal term within a dynamic interpretation framework. (shrink)

This chapter argues that dual-use emerging technologies are distributing unprecedented offensive capabilities to nonstate actors. To counteract this trend, some scholars have proposed that states become a little “less liberal” by implementing large-scale surveillance policies to monitor the actions of citizens. This is problematic, though, because the distribution of offensive capabilities is also undermining states’ capacity to enforce the rule of law. I will suggest that the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present vantage point, is (...) the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.” In making this argument, the present chapter offers a novel reason for prioritizing the “control problem,” i.e., the problem of ensuring that a greaterthan-human-level AI will positively enhance human well-being. (shrink)

When Aristotle introduces the perfect moods, he refers back to the dictum de omni et nullo, a semantic condition for universal affirmations and negations. There recently has been renewed interest in the question whether the dictum validates the assertoric syllogistic. I rehearse evidence that Aristotle provides a mereological semantics for universal affirmations and negations, and note that this semantics entails a nonstandard reading of the dictum, under which the dictum, in the presence of a minimal logical apparatus, indeed validates the (...) assertoric syllogistic. I argue that this mereological validation offers advantages over recent discussions in Morison, Malink, Ebert and Vlasits. (shrink)

We explain and explore class-theoretic potentialism—the view that one can always individuate more classes over a set-theoretic universe. We examine some motivations for class-theoretic potentialism, before proving some results concerning the relevant potentialist systems (in particular exhibiting failures of the $\mathsf {.2}$ and $\mathsf {.3}$ axioms). We then discuss the significance of these results for the different kinds of class-theoretic potentialists.

How does our language relate to reality? This is a question that is especially pertinent in set theory, where we seem to talk of large infinite entities. Based on an analogy with the use of models in the natural sciences, we argue for a threefold correspondence between our language, models, and reality. We argue that so conceived, the existence of models can be underwritten by a weak notion of existence, where weak existence is to be understood as existing in virtue (...) of language. (shrink)

Kaposy (2010) argues that contemporary neuroscience cannot provide rational reasons for abandoning folk psychological concepts like self, personhood, or free will because these concepts are necessa...

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called ' proof by verbosity (PVB)'. PVB is a favorite device among conspiracy theorists who utilize it to obfuscate the weakness of their case. By supporting their theories with so much random information (and misinformation), it gives the impression that their position is superficially well researched and supported by an avalanche of evidence. Sometimes PVB takes the form of a proof by intimidation, especially when an argument is made (...) using sophisticated insider jargon, or when a complex and long‐winded argument is made by an eminent scholar in the field. In the spirit of overwhelming the opposition, a PVB can be committed by employing a litany of numbers and statistics. Articulating your arguments in a clear and concise fashion and substantiating the position with well‐founded and mutually intelligible premises is the key to avoiding a proof by verbosity. (shrink)

In this article we argue that nanotechnology represents an extraordinary opportunity to build in a robust role for the social sciences in a technology that remains at an early, and hence undetermined, stage of development. We examine policy dynamics in both the United States and United Kingdom aimed at both opening up, and closing down, the role of the social sciences in nanotechnologies. We then set out a prospective agenda for the social sciences and its potential in the future shaping (...) of nanotechnology research and innovation processes. The emergent, undetermined nature of nanotechnologies calls for an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary model of social science research. (shrink)

This book analyzes how the cost of 'small' wars drives the state to choose remote war and preemption in order to hide the conflict from its domestic populations. This is explained through understanding security mechanisms and how Clausewitzian war machine powers extend Liberalism into the periphery.

Why morality cannot be based on faith in God -- Isms -- Absence of evidence is evidence of absence -- The insidiousness of interpretation -- You will obey -- Sally, Butch, and Plato's dilemma -- The fundamentals of secular morality -- What it means to be moral -- Where do you get your morals? -- The secular seven -- Challenges to secular morality -- Accounting for immorality -- Genocidal century -- Secular solutions -- Moral relativism.

One of the most lasting contributions of Marr's posthumous book is his articulation of the different “levels of analysis” that are needed to understand vision. Although a variety of work has examined how these different levels are related, there is comparatively little examination of the assumptions on which his proposed levels rest, or the plausibility of the approach Marr articulated given those assumptions. Marr placed particular significance on computational level theory, which specifies the “goal” of a computation, its appropriateness for (...) solving a particular problem, and the logic by which it can be carried out. The structure of computational level theory is inherently teleological: What the brain does is described in terms of its purpose. I argue that computational level theory, and the reverse-engineering approach it inspires, requires understanding the historical trajectory that gave rise to functional capacities that can be meaningfully attributed with some sense of purpose or goal, that is, a reconstruction of the fitness function on which natural selection acted in shaping our visual abilities. I argue that this reconstruction is required to distinguish abilities shaped by natural selection—“natural tasks” —from evolutionary “by-products”, rather than merely demonstrating that computational goals can be embedded in a Bayesian model that renders a particular behavior or process rational. (shrink)

This book, published in 2000, is a clear account of causation based firmly in contemporary science. Dowe discusses in a systematic way, a positive account of causation: the conserved quantities account of causal processes which he has been developing over the last ten years. The book describes causal processes and interactions in terms of conserved quantities: a causal process is the worldline of an object which possesses a conserved quantity, and a causal interaction involves the exchange of conserved quantities. Further, (...) things that are properly called cause and effect are appropriately connected by a set of causal processes and interactions. The distinction between cause and effect is explained in terms of a version of the fork theory: the direction of a certain kind of ordered pattern of events in the world. This particular version has the virtue that it allows for the possibility of backwards causation, and therefore time travel. (shrink)

This book documents Szilard's energetic attempts to influence public policy on arms control and disarmament issues, both through open political processes and statements and through behindthe-scenes contacts with Washington power sources and a remarkable exercise in personal diplomacy with Nikita Khrushchev. Leo Szilard conceived of the possibility of nuclear fission sustained by a chain reaction years before it was achieved in the laboratory. He was also one of the initiators of the atomic bomb project in the United States. Yet he (...) dedicated his final years to the causes of understanding and sustaining life. The eminent physicist became a biologist and a vital force calling, for the control of nuclear and other weapons. This book documents Szilard's energetic attempts to influence public policy on arms control and disarmament issues, both through open political processes and statements and through behindthe-scenes contacts with Washington power sources and a remarkable exercise in personal diplomacy with Nikita Khrushchev. Many of the issues Szilard deals with in this valuable record of the years 1947-1963 are still crucial today. His opposition to antiballistic missile systems, his proposal for a Washington-Moscow "hot line," his work on the Pugwash conferences that brought together scientists from the East and the West, his pivotal role in the creation of the Council for a Livable World, his advocacy of a nuclear policy of no-first-use and restricted retaliation, and his support of "minimum deterrence" in place of an overwhelming counterforce capability - all these matters are as important in the 1980s as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. (shrink)

Teacher-administrator Philip Dow explores the implications of setting intellectual character (rather than intellectual content) at the heart of our educational programs. With ample stories and practical suggestions, Dow shows how intellectual virtues like tenacity, carefulness and curiosity are teachable traits that can produce good lives.

This essay focuses attention on Polanyi’s 1946 book Science, Faith and Society as an early constructive philosophical effort to rehabilitate belief and show that it is integral to science. Particularly important is the opening chapter “Science and Reality,” which is Polanyi’s inaugural gambit directly to address the question about the nature of science in metaphysical terms. Polanyi’s metaphysical account of science affirms that fundamental beliefs of scientists, although largely not articulable, guide their effort to discern Gestalten to which they are (...) committed as elements of reality. However, real entities remain partially hidden and later inquiry may reveal indeterminate future manifestations. My discussion in this essay reviews thematically akin publications preceding Science, Faith and Society and some of Polanyi’s later writing that re-works ideas in his early book. I also suggest that Polanyi’s ideas in Science, Faith and Society were likely influenced by his work with Dorothy Emmet. (shrink)

A bracing and ambitious work of practical philosophy, tightly argued and beautifully written.

Although written consent forms are standard in clinical research, there is little regulatory or empirical guidance regarding how to most effectively review consent forms with potential participants. We developed an algorithm for embedding five questions with corrective feedback while reading consent forms with potential participants, and then applied it in the context of seven clinical research studies. A substantial proportion of participants within each protocol displayed initially inadequate responses to at least one question, but after the protocol elements were explained (...) again, most people demonstrated adequate understanding of them. These data illustrate the need for more attention not just to the content of consent forms, but also to the manner in which the forms are incorporated into the consent process. Embedding explicit inquiries about key protocol elements during consent form review and giving corrective feedback appears to be a simple yet effective way to foster better understanding of disclosed information. (shrink)

In 1991 Redland Aggregates Ltd. put forward a proposal to embark upon the largest mining project in Europe, the chosen location being the remote island of Harris and Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland. The proposal sparked off an impassioned debate between planners, conservationists and developers, while the local residents have attempted to come to terms with an operation on a scale previously inconceivable on the island. This paper attempts to examine the proposed development from a sociological angle – (...) it is less concerned with justifying or condemning the project on economic or political grounds and more with analysing the roots of the various viewpoints held by those involved, willingly or unwillingly, in the debate. From this analysis arise implications regarding different perspectives on the environment and different interpretations of the term sustainable. It is argued that these diverse perceptions are grounded in different interpretations of the environment, shaped by the cultural and historical context within which the groups or individuals that hold these views exist and interact. Ultimately, the paper makes a plea for a wider recognition of the diversity of meanings and interpretations implied by the term 'environment', a broader definition of the term 'development', and an expansion of the concept of sustainability to incorporate the variety of situations and perceived needs of different cultures. (shrink)

Aristotle holds that individual substances are ontologically independent from nonsubstances and universal substances but that non-substances and universal substances are ontologically dependent on substances. There is then an asymmetry between individual substances and other kinds of beings with respect to ontological dependence. Under what could plausibly be called the standard interpretation, the ontological independence ascribed to individual substances and denied of non-substances and universal substances is a capacity for independent existence. There is, however, a tension between this interpretation and the (...) asymmetry between individual substances and the other kinds of entities with respect to ontological independence. I will propose an alternative interpretation: to weaken the relevant notion of ontological independence from a capacity for independent existence to the independent possession of a certain ontological status. (shrink)

Although arguments for and against competing theories of vagueness often appeal to claims about the use of vague predicates by ordinary speakers, such claims are rarely tested. An exception is Bonini et al. (1999), who report empirical results on the use of vague predicates by Italian speakers, and take the results to count in favor of epistemicism. Yet several methodological difficulties mar their experiments; we outline these problems and devise revised experiments that do not show the same results. We then (...) describe three additional empirical studies that investigate further claims in the literature on vagueness: the hypothesis that speakers confuse ‘P’ with ‘definitely P’, the relative persuasiveness of different formulations of the inductive premise of the Sorites, and the interaction of vague predicates with three different forms of negation. (shrink)

Inspired by the vision of care in Vincent van Gogh's depiction of the parable of the Good Samaritan, this article offers a paradigm for inhabiting compassion. Compassion is understood in this article as a moral emotion that is also a pathocentric virtue. This definition creates a dynamic view of compassion as a desire to alleviate the suffering of others, the capacity to act on behalf of others and a commitment to sustain engagement with the suffering other. To weave this vision (...) of compassion as a habitus rather than a theoretical construct, the article develops three phases of compassion: seeing, companioning and sighing. This framework deepens and augments a pastoral theological paradigm of compassion with the aim of inculcating an inhabited compassion in caregivers and the communities in which they participate. (shrink)

Despite much discussion over the existence of moral facts, metaethicists have largely ignored the related question of their possibility. This paper addresses the issue from the moral error theorist’s perspective, and shows how the arguments that error theorists have produced against the existence of moral facts at this world, if sound, also show that moral facts are impossible, at least at worlds non-morally identical to our own and, on some versions of the error theory, at any world. So error theorists’ (...) arguments warrant a stronger conclusion than has previously been noticed. This may appear to make them vulnerable to counterarguments that take the possibility of moral facts as a premise. However, I show that any such arguments would be question-begging. (shrink)

I argue that Plato's purpose in the discussion of false belief in the "Theaetetus" is to entertain and then to reject the idea that thinking is a kind of mental grasping. The interpretation allows us to make good sense of Plato's discussion of 'other-judging' (189c-190e), of his remarks about mathematical error (195d-196c), and most importantly, of the initial statement of the puzzle about falsity (188a-c). That puzzle shows that if we insist on conceiving of the relation between thought and its (...) objects on the model of holding or grasping something in our hands, we will be unable to account for the possibility of false identity judgments: For no one who is literally grasping two things in his hands would seriously entertain the idea that one of the things is numerically identical with the other. (shrink)

This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk.’ It tentatively adopts a pluralistic approach according to which the definition that scholars employ should depend upon the particular context of use. More specifically, the notion that existential risks are ‘risks of human extinction or civilizational collapse’ is best when communicating with the public, whereas equating existential risks with a ‘significant loss of expected value’ may be the most effective definition for establishing existential risk studies as a legitimate field of (...) scientific and philosophical inquiry. In making these arguments, the present paper hopes to provide a modicum of clarity to foundational issues relating to the central concept of arguably the most important discussion of our times. (shrink)

Research across a variety of domains has found that people fail to evaluate statistical information in an atheoretical manner. Rather, people tend to evaluate statistical information in light of their pre-existing beliefs and experiences. The locus of these biases continues to be hotly debated. In two experiments we evaluate the degree to which reasoning when relevant beliefs are readily accessible (i.e., when reasoning with Belief-Laden content) versus when relevant beliefs are not available (i.e., when reasoning with Non-Belief-Laden content) differentially demands (...) attentional resources. In Experiment 1 we found that reasoning with scenarios that contained Belief-Laden content required fewer attentional resources than reasoning with scenarios that contained Non-Belief-Laden content, as evidenced by smaller costs on a secondary memory load task for the former than the latter. This trend was reversed in Experiment 2 when participants were instructed to ignore their beliefs when reasoning with Belief-Laden and Non-Belief-Laden scenarios. These findings provide evidence that beliefs automatically influence reasoning, and attempting to ignore them comes with an attentional cost. (shrink)