The first of three volumes of essays by Quentin Skinner, one of the world's leading intellectual historians. This collection includes some of his most important philosophical and methodological statements written over the past four decades, each carefully revised for publication in this form. In a series of seminal essays Professor Skinner sets forth the intellectual principles that inform his work. Writing as a practising historian, he considers the theoretical difficulties inherent in the pursuit of knowledge and interpretation, and elucidates (...) the methodology which finds its expression in his two successive volumes. All of Professor Skinner's work is characterised by philosophical power, limpid clarity, and elegance of exposition; these essays, many of which are now recognised classics, provide a fascinating and convenient digest of the development of his thought. (shrink)

Callender and Cohen have proposed to apply a “Gricean strategy” to the constitution problem of scientific representation, taking inspiration from Grice’s reduction of linguistic meaning to mental states. They suggest that scientific representation can be reduced to stipulation by epistemic agents. This account has been criticised for not making a distinction between symbolic and epistemic representation and not taking into account the communal aspects of scientific representation. I argue that these criticisms would not apply if Grice’s actual strategy were properly (...) employed. I present Grice’s account of linguistic meaning and transpose his actual strategy and method to epistemic representation. This results in a reduction of epistemic representation to mental states that does not fall prey to the same criticisms. The main novelty of the resulting account is a distinction between contextual representational use and general representational status, which I address using the notion of indexicality. (shrink)

Cogent, engaged, accessible, and indeed exhilarating, this new book will appeal to readers of history, politics, and philosophy at all levels from upper-undergraduate upwards, and provides an excellent introduction to the work of one of the ...

This major new work from Quentin Skinner presents a fundamental reappraisal of the political theory of Hobbes. Using, for the first time, the full range of manuscript as well as printed sources, it documents an entirely new view of Hobbes 's intellectual development, and re-examines the shift from a humanist to a scientific culture in European moral and political thought. By examining Hobbes 's philosophy against the background of his humanist education, Professor Skinner rescues this most difficult and challenging (...) of political philosophers from the intellectual isolation in which he is so often discussed. This book presents a splendid exemplification of the 'Cambridge' contextual approach to the study of intellectual history with which Professor Skinner himself is especially associated. It will be of interest and importance to a wide range of scholars in history, philosophy, politics, and literary theory. (shrink)

Our universe seems to be miraculously fine-tuned for life. Multiverse theories have been proposed as an explanation for this on the basis of probabilistic arguments, but various authors have objected that we should consider our total evidence that this universe in particular has life in our inference, which would block the argument. The debate thus crucially hinges on how Bayesian background and evidence are distinguished and on how indexical or demonstrative terms are analysed. The aim of this article is to (...) take a step back and examine these various aspects of Bayesian reasoning and how they affect the arguments. The upshot is that there are reasons to resist the fine-tuning argument for the multiverse, but the "this-universe-objection" is not one of them. (shrink)

Natural modalities are often analysed from an abstract point of view where they are associated with putative laws of nature. However, the way possibilities are represented in physics is more complex. Lagrangian mechanics, for instance, involves two different layers of modalities: kinematical and dynamical possibilities. This paper examines the status of these two layers, both in the classical and quantum case. The quantum case is particularly problematic: we identify four possible interpretive options. The upshot is that a close inspection of (...) the way possibilities are represented in physics could lead to new ways of thinking about natural modalities. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to establish a connection between modelling practices and interpretive approaches in quantum mechanics, taking as a starting point the literature on scientific representation. Different types of modalities play different roles in scientific representation. I postulate that the way theoretical structures are interpreted in this respect affects the way models are constructed. In quantum mechanics, this would be the case in particular of initial conditions and observables. I examine two formulations of quantum mechanics, the standard (...) wave-function formulation and the consistent histories formulation, and show that they correspond to opposite stances, which confirms my approach. Finally, I examine possible strategies for deciding between these stances. (shrink)

When we ask whether something exists, we expect a yes or no answer, not a further query about what kind of existence, how much of it, whether we mean existence for you or existence for me, or whether we are asking about some property which it might have. In this book, this simple requirement is defended and pursued into its various and sometimes surprising implications. In the course of this pursuit, such questions arise as `Do appearances exist?' `Do unknowable things (...) exist?' `Do past and future exist?' `Does God necessarily exist?' This novel and non-technical approach to important philosophical questions will be of interest to senior students of philosophy and, indeed, to all general readers with philosophical interests. (shrink)

Reputation monitoring and the punishment of cheats are thought to be crucial to the viability and maintenance of human cooperation in large groups of non-kin. However, since the cost of policing moral norms must fall to those in the group, policing is itself a public good subject to exploitation by free riders. Recently, it has been suggested that belief in supernatural monitoring and punishment may discourage individuals from violating established moral norms and so facilitate human cooperation. Here we use cross-cultural (...) survey data from a global sample of 87 countries to show that beliefs about two related sources of supernatural monitoring and punishment — God and the afterlife —independently predict respondents' assessment of the justifiability of a range of moral transgressions. This relationship holds even after controlling for frequency of religious participation, country of origin, religious denomination and level of education. As well as corroborating experimental work, our findings suggest that, across cultural and religious backgrounds, beliefs about the permissibility of moral transgressions are tied to beliefs about supernatural monitoring and punishment, supporting arguments that these beliefs may be important promoters of cooperation in human groups. (shrink)

This volume puts together twelve new essays by scholars who have done groundbreaking work in epistemology over the past four decades. Unfortunately, the editor’s brief introduction offers only a sketchy presentation of the papers and their background. Given the variety and complexity of the issues tackled, one would have expected a more detailed account of the nature and developments of the epistemological theories and arguments put forward and discussed by the contributors. The absence of such an account is all the (...) more surprising considering that the editor does not himself contribute a paper to the volume. (shrink)

We propose a construct, the Trust Triangle, that highlights three primary mechanisms that provide ex post accountability for opportunistic behavior and motivate ex ante trust in economic relationships. The mechanisms are a society’s legal and regulatory framework, market-based discipline and reputational capital, and culture, including individual ethics and social norms. The Trust Triangle provides a framework to conceptualize the relationships between trust, corporate accountability, legal liability, reputation, and culture. We use the Trust Triangle to summarize recent developments in the empirical (...) finance literature that examine how trust is formed and how trust, or its absence, affects financial markets, firm performance, and the incidence of financial fraud. To date, most studies examine only one leg of the Trust Triangle in isolation. The evidence, however, indicates that all three legs of the Trust Triangle have first-order effects on a wide range of financial outcomes and that they are interrelated. Attempts to model trust and trustworthiness that do not incorporate all three aspects of the Trust Triangle will therefore miss essential aspects of the basic economic problem of how counterparties overcome the risks of moral hazard, asymmetric information, and opportunism to engage in mutually beneficial exchange and production activities. We focus especially on culture-related mechanisms, a recently developed area in empirical finance research that has potential to influence the more established research on laws and reputation. (shrink)

The Importance of Philosophy in Teacher Education maps the gradual decline of philosophy as a central, integrated part of educational studies. Chapters consider how this decline has impacted teacher education and practice, offering new directions for the reintegration of philosophical thinking in teacher preparation and development. Touching on key points in history, this valuable collection of chapters accurately appraises the global decline of philosophy of education in teacher education programs and seeks to understand the external and endemic causes of changed (...) attitudes towards a discipline which was once assigned such a central place in teacher education. Chapters illustrate how a grounding in the theoretical and ethical dimensions of teaching, learning, and education systems contribute in meaningful ways to being a good teacher, and trace the consequences of a decline in philosophy on individuals' professional development and on the evolution of the teaching profession more broadly. With this in mind, the text focusses on the future of teacher education and considers how we can ensure that philosophy of education feeds into the excellence of teaching today. This book will be of great interest to graduate, postgraduate students as well as research scholars in the field of educational philosophy and history of education. In addition, it will be useful for those involved in teacher education, and in particular, course, module and program development. (shrink)

In Big Gods, Norenzayan (2013) presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of the Big Gods question. The book is a commendable attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing body of survey and experimental research on prosocial effects of religious primes together with cross-cultural data on the distribution of Big Gods. There are, however, a number of problems with the current cross-cultural evidence that weaken support for a causal link between big societies and certain types of Big Gods. Here we attempt to (...) clarify these problems and, in so doing, correct any potential misinterpretation of the cross-cultural findings, provide new insight into the processes generating the patterns observed, and flag directions for future research. (shrink)

This is the first chapter of Modal Empiricism: Interpreting Science Without Scientific Realism. The debate on scientific realism results from a tension between the empiricist methodology, which is a defining feature of science, and claims to the effect that science can unveil the fundamental nature of reality. What distinguishes realist and anti-realist positions is not necessarily that the former take scientific knowledge “at face value” or take the side of scientists in general while the latter do not. Rather, realists and (...) anti-realists propose different ways of interpreting science as a whole, and in particular its aim, its possible achievements and its content. The aim of this book is to defend an interpretation that potentially applies to each of these three levels: modal empiricism. This position purports to be the articulation of a pragmatist stance towards science. This introductory chapter briefly presents the position, then outlines the structure of the book. (shrink)

Time, Change and Freedom is the first introduction to metaphysics that uses the idea of time as a unifying principle. Time is used to relate the many issues involved in the complex study of metaphysics. Sections of the book are written in dialogue form which allows the reader to question the theories while they read and have those queries answered in the text. In addition, the authors provide glossaries of key terms as well as recommendations for further reading at the (...) conclusion of each chapter. Quentin Smith and L. Nathan Oaklander examine the tensions between determinism and freedom, temporality and historical change as well as an array of other issues fundamental to introductory metaphysics. (shrink)

Some biologists now argue in favour of a pluralistic approach to plant activities, understandable both from the classical perspective of physiological mechanisms and that of the biology of behaviour involving choices and decisions in relation to the environment. However, some do not hesitate to go further, such as plant “neurobiologists” or philosophers who today defend an intelligence, a mind or even a plant consciousness in a renewed perspective of these terms. To what extent can we then adhere to pluralism in (...) the study of plant behaviour? How does this pluralism in the study and explanation of plant behaviour fit into, or even build itself up, in a broader history of science? Is it a revolutionary way of rethinking plant behaviour in the twenty-first century or is it an epistemological extension of an older attitude? By proposing a synthesis of the question of plant behaviour by selected elements of the history of botany, the objective is to show that the current plant biology is not unified on the question of behaviour, but that its different tendencies are in fact part of a long botanical tradition with contrasting postures. Two axes that are in fact historically linked will serve as a common thread. 1. Are there several ways of understanding or conceiving plant behaviour within plant sciences and their epistemology? 2. Can the behaviour of a plant be considered in the same way as that of an animal? The working hypothesis defended in this article consists in showing that the current opposition between growth, development and reductionist physiology on the one hand and the biology of behaviour involving sensitivity and choices in plant activity on the other hand has been built up through the history of botany. (shrink)

A brief survey of his life and writings focusing on three major works-The Prince, The Discourses, and The History of Florence.

A growing body of research indicates that attentional biases toward emotional stimuli are not automatic, but may depend on the relevance of emotion to the top-down search goals of the observer. To...

The relational interpretation of quantum mechanics proposes to solve the measurement problem and reconcile completeness and locality of quantum mechanics by postulating relativity to the observer for events and facts, instead of an absolute “view from nowhere”. The aim of this paper is to clarify this interpretation, and in particular, one of its central claims concerning the possibility for an observer to have knowledge about other observer’s events. I consider three possible readings of this claim, and develop the most promising (...) one, relativism, to show how it fares when confronted with the traditional interpretative problems of quantum mechanics. Although it provides answers to some problems, I claim that there is currently no adapted locality criterion to evaluate whether the resulting interpretation is local or not. (shrink)

Introduction Dans les premiers vers de son Roland Furieux, L'Arioste écrit : « Je dirai [...] comment, par amour, il devint furieux et fou, d’homme qui auparavant avait été tenu pour si sage. Je le dirai, si, par celle qui en a fait quasi autant de moi en m’enlevant par moments le peu d’esprit que j’ai, il m’en est pourtant assez laissé pour qu’il me suffise à achever tout ce que j’ai promis ». Ainsi, craint-il, par amour, de perdre la (...) raison avant d'avoir terminé son œuvre mais surtout de se... (shrink)

In George Nakhnikian’s interesting and stimulating paper, “Quantum Cosmology, Theistic Philosophical Cosmology, and the Existence Question” (present issue) he addresses the fundamental issue of whether it is metaphysically possible or justifiable to believe that our universe began to exist without a cause, divine or otherwise. His conclusion is negative, and he argues that, contrary to my views, quantum cosmology is consistent with theism. In this paper, I shall evaluate Nakhnikian’s arguments.

This book proposes a novel position in the debate on scientific realism: Modal Empiricism. Modal empiricism is the view that the aim of science is to provide theories that correctly delimit, in a unified way, the range of experiences that are naturally possible given our position in the world. The view is associated with a pragmatic account of scientific representation and an original notion of situated modalities, together with an inductive epistemology for modalities. It purports to provide a faithful account (...) of scientific practice and of its impressive achievements, and defuses the main motivations for scientific realism. More generally, Modal Empiricism purports to be the precise articulation of a pragmatist stance towards science. This book is of interest to any philosopher involved in the debate on scientific realism, or interested in how to properly understand the content, aim and achievements of science. (shrink)

This is a volume of new essays introducing the most influential developments in social and political theory over the last thirty years. In that period empiricism and the positivist ideal of the unification of science have been undermined and transformed by the impact of different, frequently Continental, traditions of thought. The introduction charts these charges and each of the contributors provides a brief and lucid account of the thought of one major figure or school which have helped to bring about (...) these changes. Those discussed include Althusser, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, Habermas, Kuhn, Levi-Strauss, Rawls and the Annales historians. Each essay has suggestions for further reading and a useful general bibliography is provided at the end of the volume. (shrink)

The following strong form of density of definable types is introduced for theoriesTadmitting a fibered dimension functiond: given a modelMofTand a definable setX⊆Mn, there is a definable typepinX, definable over a code forXand of the samed-dimension asX. Both o-minimal theories and the theory of closed ordered differential fields are shown to have this property. As an application, we derive a new proof of elimination of imaginaries for CODF.

Atheists have tacitly conceded the field to theists in the area of philosophical cosmology, specifically, in the enterprise of explaining why the universe exists. The theistic hypothesis is that the reason the universe exists lies in God’s creative choice, but atheists have not proposed any reason why the universe exists. I argue that quantum cosmology proposes such an atheistic reason, namely, that the universe exists because it has an unconditional probability of existing based on a functional law of nature. This (...) law of nature (“the wave function of the universe”) is inconsistent with theism and implies that God does not exist. I criticize the claims of Alston, Craig, Deltete and Guy, Oppy and Plantinga that theism is consistent with quantum cosmology. (shrink)

Structural realism has been suggested as the best compromise in the debate on scientific realism. It proposes that we should be realist about the relational structure of the world, not its nature. However, it faces an important objection, first raised by Newman against Russell: if relations are not qualified, then the position is either trivial or collapses into empiricism, but if relations are too strongly qualified, then it is no longer SR. A way to overcome this difficulty is to talk (...) about modal, or nomological relations instead of purely extensional relations. I argue that this is insufficient, for then, SR collapses into modal empiricism. I suggest, however, that ME could be the best position in the debate on scientific realism. 1Introduction2Objections to Structural Realism3How to Escape Newman’s Objection4Which Modal Relations Are Retained in Theory Change?5Are Modal Relations Real?6Relativity and Fundamentality7Is Modal Empiricism Really Empiricism?8Could Modal Empiricism Be the Best of Both Worlds? (shrink)

Many activities towards plants are directly related to environmental crisis issues. However, our actions towards plants are little theorized in philosophy and ethics. After a brief presentation of the history, state of the art, and current issues of plant ethics, I critically illustrate how the theoretical threads of current ethics should be clarified, and, more importantly, contextualised, to promote the application of concrete measures. Particular attention is paid to the ethics of plant flourishing as applied to different fields and types (...) of plants. The treatment of wild and ornamental plants is, thus, explicitly distinguished from that of improved agricultural varieties, themselves distinguishable according to modes of cultivation. I thus propose and discuss several recommendations and concrete courses of action to promote an ethics of plants, while pointing out its limitations. (shrink)