Research on personality psychology is making important contributions to psychological science and applied psychology. This second edition of The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology offers a one-stop resource for scientific personality psychology. It summarizes cutting-edge personality research in all its forms, including genetics, psychometrics, social-cognitive psychology, and real-world expressions, with informative and lively chapters that also highlight some areas of controversy. The team of renowned international authors, led by two esteemed editors, ensures a wide range of theoretical perspectives. Each research (...) area is discussed in terms of scientific foundations, main theories and findings, and future directions for research. The handbook also features advances in technology, such as molecular genetics and functional neuroimaging, as well as contemporary statistical approaches. An invaluable aid to understanding the central role played by personality in psychology, it will appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners in psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and the social sciences. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider ethical and philosophical aspects of trust in the practice of medicine. We focus on trust within the patient-physician relationship, trust and professionalism, and trust in Western (allopathic) institutions of medicine and medical research. Philosophical approaches to trust contain important insights into medicine as an ethical and social practice. In what follows we explain several philosophical approaches and discuss their strengths and weaknesses in this context. We also highlight some relevant empirical work in the section on (...) trust in the institutions of medicine. It is hoped that the approaches discussed here can be extended to nursing and other topics in the philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

Instead of conceiving ethical commands as divine revelations or as the discoveries of brilliant thinkers, we should see our ethical practices as evolving over tens of thousands of years, as members of our species have worked out how to live together and prosper. Here, Kitcher elaborates his radical vision of this millennia-long ethical project.

An esteemed philosopher discusses his theory of universal freedom, describing how even those who are members of free societies may find their liberties curtailed and includes tests of freedom including the eyeball test and the tough-luck test.

In “Scientific Knowledge,” Philip Kitcher challenges arguments that deny the truth of the theoretical claims of science, and he attempts to discover reasons for endorsing the truth of such claims. He suggests that the discovery of such reasons might succeed if we ask why anyone thinks that the theoretical claims we accept are true and then look for answers that reconstruct actual belief‐generating processes. To this end, Kitcher presents the “homely argument” for scientific truth, which claims that when a (...) field of science is continually applied to yield precise predictions, then it is at least approximately true. He defends this approach and offers a supplementary account that gives more attention to detail. This account includes a historical aspect that must answer to skeptical challenges and a social aspect. (shrink)

_Idealist Alternatives to Materialist Philosophies of Science_ (ed. Philip MacEwen) presents some of the major challenges to materialist interpretations of science while also giving materialism a full hearing.

This book argues against the view that mathematical knowledge is a priori,contending that mathematics is an empirical science and develops historically,just as ...

Examines what is necessary for a group to constitute an agent that can display akrasia, and what steps such a group might take to establish self‐control. The topic has some interest in itself, and the discussion suggests some lessons about how we should think of akrasia in the individual as well as in the collective case. Under the image that the lessons support, akrasia is a sort of constitutional disorder: a failure to achieve a unity projected in the avowal of (...) agency. This image fits well with the constitutional model of the soul in Plato's Republic. (shrink)

There has recently been a revival of interest in panpsychism as a theory of consciousness. The hope of the contemporary proponents of panpsychism is that the view enables us to integrate consciousness into our overall theory of reality in a way that avoids the deep difficulties that plague the more conventional options of physicalism on the one hand and dualism on the other. However, panpsychism comes in two forms — strong and weak emergentist — and there are arguments that seem (...) to show that weak emergentist panpsychism faces problems analogous to those of physicalism whilst strong emergentist panpsychism faces problems analogous to those of dualism. In this paper, I will develop a new hybrid of the strong and weak emergentist forms of panpsychism, a view according to which subjects of experience are strongly emergent but their phenomenal properties are weakly emergent. I will argue that this hybrid view manages to avoid the challenges facing both physicalism and dualism, and the analogues of those challenges that seem to undermine standard forms of panpsychism. (shrink)

This chapter outlines three programs that aim to use biological insights in support of philosophical positions in ethics: Aristotelian approaches found, for example, in Thomas Hurka and Philippa Foot; Humean approaches found in Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard; and biologically grounded approaches found in of Elliott Sober and Brian Skyrms. The first two approaches begin with a philosophical view, and seek support for it in biology. The third approach begins with biology, and uses it to illuminate the status of morality. (...) This chapter pursues a version of the third program. A major accomplishment of evolutionary biology has been the explanation of biological altruism, which opens the door to a similar explanation of psychological altruism, or “fellow-feeling.” The chapter conjectures that humans have evolved a capacity for normative governance by socially shared rules. A process of cultural evolution led to the social rules with which we are familiar. This genealogical story poses a challenge, for the idea of moral truth plays no role in it. The story therefore lends support to non-cognitivism or anti-realist expressivism. The chapter concludes by exploring the implications of the genealogical story for moral knowledge, moral objectivity, and the idea of moral authority. (shrink)

Presents general information about meteorology, weather, and climate and includes more than thirty activities to help study these topics, including making a ...

This is a book about the aesthetics of wonder, about wonder as it figures in our relation to the visual world and to rare or new experiences.

The _Platform Sutra_ records the teachings of Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, who is revered as one of the two great figures in the founding of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism. This translation is the definitive English version of the eighth-century Ch'an classic. Phillip B. Yampolsky has based his translation on the Tun-huang manuscript, the earliest extant version of the work. A critical edition of the Chinese text is given at the end of the volume. Dr. Yampolsky also furnishes a lengthy and detailed (...) historical introduction which contains much information hitherto unavailable even to scholars, and provides the context essential to an understanding of Hui-neng's work. He gives an account of the history and legends of Ch'an Buddhism, with particular attention to the traditions associated with Hui-neng, quoting or summarizing the most important narratives. He then discusses the various texts of the _Platform Sutra_, and analyzes its contents. (shrink)

Introductory Chapter to the _Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition_ (CUP, 2009).

In “Epistemology in Philosophy of Religion,” Philip Quinn focuses on the central problem of religious epistemology for monotheistic religions: the epistemic status of belief in the existence of God. He explores what epistemic conditions arguments for God's existence would have to satisfy to be successful and whether any arguments satisfy those conditions. Turning to the claims of reformed epistemology about belief in God, Quinn assesses Alvin Plantinga's claim that belief in God is for many theists properly basic, that is, (...) has positive epistemic status even when it is not based on arguments or any other kind of propositional evidence. Quinn distinguishes two versions of this claim. According to the first, emphasized in Plantinga's earlier work, theistic belief is properly basic with respect to justification or rationality, while according to the second version, prominent in Plantinga's more recent work, theistic belief is properly basic with respect to warrant. (shrink)

_Time_ offers a comprehensive history of the philosophy of time in western philosophy from the Greeks through to the twentieth century. In the first half of the book, Philip Turetzky explores theories in ancient and modern philosophy chronologically: from Aristotle to Nietzsche. In the latter half, Turetzky describes the philosophy of time in three twentieth-century philosophical traditions: * analytic philosophy including philosophers such as McTaggart and Mellor * phenomenology Husserl and Heidegger * a distaff tradition which Turetzky identifies as (...) including Bergson and Deleuze. (shrink)

How Galileo created the problem of consciousness -- Is there a ghost in the machine? -- Can physical science explain consciousness? -- How to solve the problem of consciousness -- Consciousness and the meaning of life.

The actualism/possibilism debate in ethics concerns the relationship between an agent’s free actions and her moral obligations. The actualist affirms, while the possibilist denies, that facts about what agents would freely do in certain circumstances partly determines that agent’s moral obligations. This paper assesses the plausibility of actualism and possibilism in light of desiderata about accounts of blameworthiness. This paper first argues that actualism cannot straightforwardly accommodate certain very plausible desiderata before offering a few independent solutions on behalf of the (...) actualist. This paper then argues that, contrary to initial appearances, possibilism is subject to its own comparably troubling blameworthiness problem. (shrink)

Strong claims have been made for emergence as a new paradigm for understanding science, consciousness, and religion. Tracing the past history and current definitions of the concept, Clayton assesses the case for emergent phenomena in the natural world and their significance for philosophy and theology. Complex emergent phenomena require irreducible levels of explanation in physics, chemistry and biology. This pattern of emergence suggests a new approach to the problem of consciousness, which is neither reducible to brain states nor proof of (...) a mental substance or soul. Although emergence does not entail classical theism, it is compatible with a variety of religious positions. Clayton concludes with a defence of emergentist panentheism and a Christian constructive theology consistent with the new sciences of emergence. (shrink)

Experiments in particle physics have hitherto failed to produce any significant evidence for the many explicit models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that had been proposed over the past decades. As a result, physicists have increasingly turned to model-independent strategies as tools in searching for a wide range of possible BSM effects. In this paper, we describe the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SM-EFT) and analyse it in the context of the philosophical discussions about models, theories, and (bottom-up) (...) effective field theories. We find that while the SM-EFT is a quantum field theory, assisting experimentalists in searching for deviations from the SM, in its general form it lacks some of the characteristic features of models. Those features only come into play if put in by hand or prompted by empirical evidence for deviations. Employing different philosophical approaches to models, we argue that the case study suggests not to take a view on models that is overly permissive because it blurs the lines between the different stages of the SM-EFT research strategies and glosses over particle physicists' motivations for undertaking this bottom-up approach in the first place. Looking at EFTs from the perspective of modelling does not require taking a stance on some specific brand of realism or taking sides in the debate between reduction and emergence into which EFTs have recently been embedded. (shrink)

There are a number of assumptions made in our accepted psychology of moral decision-making that consequentialism seems to violate:: value connectionism, pluralism and dispositionalism. But consequentialism violates them only on a utilitarian or similar theory of value, not on the rival sort of theory that is sketched here.

A and B continue their conversation concerning the Identity of Indiscernibles. Both are aware of recent critiques of the principle that haven’t received replies; B summarizes those critiques, and A offers the replies that are due. B then raises a new worry.

Abstract In this essay, a new approach for the ethical study of emerging technology ethics will be presented, called anticipatory technology ethics (ATE). The ethics of emerging technology is the study of ethical issues at the R&D and introduction stage of technology development through anticipation of possible future devices, applications, and social consequences. I will argue that a major problem for its development is the problem of uncertainty, which can only be overcome through methodologically sound forecasting and futures studies. I (...) will then consider three contemporary approaches to the ethics of emerging technologies that use forecasting: ethical technology assessment, the techno-ethical scenarios approach and the ETICA approach, and I considered their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this critical study, I then present my own approach: ATE. ATE is a conceptually and methodologically rich approach for the ethical analysis of emerging technologies that incorporates a large variety of ethical principles, issues, objects and levels of analysis, and research aims. It is ready to be applied to contemporary and future emerging technologies. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0141-7 Authors Philip A. E. Brey, Department of Philosophy, School of Behavioral Sciences, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

This essay provides a critique of mainstream computer ethics and argues for the importance of a complementary approach called disclosive computer ethics, which is concerned with the moral deciphering of embedded values and norms in computer systems, applications and practices. Also, four key values are proposed as starting points for disclosive studies in computer ethics: justice, autonomy, democracy and privacy. Finally, it is argued that research in disclosive computer ethics should be multi-level and interdisciplinary, distinguishing between a disclosure level, a (...) theoretical level, and an an application level. (shrink)

Published in 1913, Thomas Mann's _Death in Venic_e is one of the most widely read novellas in any language. In the 1970s, Benjamin Britten adapted it into an opera, and Luchino Visconti turned it into a successful film. Reading these works from a philosophical perspective, Philip Kitcher connects the predicament of the novella's central character to Western thought's most compelling questions. In Mann's story, the author Gustav von Aschenbach becomes captivated by an adolescent boy, first seen on the lido (...) in Venice, the eventual site of Aschenbach's own death. Mann works through central concerns about how to live, explored with equal intensity by his German predecessors, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Kitcher considers how Mann's, Britten's, and Visconti's treatments illuminate the tension between social and ethical values and an artist's sensitivity to beauty. Each work asks whether a life devoted to self-sacrifice in the pursuit of lasting achievements can be sustained and whether the breakdown of discipline undercuts its worth. Haunted by the prospect of his death, Aschenbach also helps us reflect on whether it is possible to achieve anything in full awareness of our finitude and in knowing our successes are always incomplete. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of moral uncertainty in explaining the morally disruptive character of new technologies. We argue that existing accounts of technomoral change do not fully explain its disruptiveness. This explanatory gap can be bridged by examining the epistemic dimensions of technomoral change, focusing on moral uncertainty and inquiry. To develop this account, we examine three historical cases: the introduction of the early pregnancy test, the contraception pill, and brain death. The resulting account highlights what we call “differential (...) disruption” and provides a resource for fields such as technology assessment, ethics of technology, and responsible innovation. (shrink)

A person presented with adequate but not conclusive evidence for a proposition is in a position voluntarily to acquire a belief in that proposition, or to suspend judgment about it. The availability of doxastic options in such cases grounds a moderate form of doxastic voluntarism not based on practical motives, and therefore distinct from pragmatism. In such cases, belief-acquisition or suspension of judgment meets standard conditions on willing: it can express stable character traits of the agent, it can be responsive (...) to reasons, and it is compatible with a subjective awareness of the available options. (shrink)

Can groups be rational agents over and above their individual members? We argue that group agents are distinguished by their capacity to mimic the way in which individual agents act and that this capacity must “supervene” on the group members' contributions. But what is the nature of this supervenience relation? Focusing on group judgments, we argue that, for a group to be rational, its judgment on a particular proposition cannot generally be a function of the members' individual judgments on that (...) proposition. Rather, it must be a function of their individual sets of judgments across many propositions. So knowing what the group members individually think about some proposition does not generally tell us how the group collectively adjudicates that proposition: the supervenience relation must be “setwise,” not “proposition‐wise.” Our account preserves the individualistic view that group agency is nothing mysterious but also suggests that a group agent may hold judgments that are not directly continuous with its members' corresponding individual judgments. (shrink)

This volume introduces readers to emergence theory, outlines the major arguments in its defence, and summarizes the most powerful objections against it. It provides the clearest explication yet of this exciting new theory of science, which challenges the reductionist approach by proposing the continuous emergence of novel phenomena.