In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

Philosophical hermeneutics provides a model of interreligious dialogue that acknowledges the interpretive variability of truth claims while maintaining their relation to a preinterpretive reality. The dialectic and tensive structure of philosophical hermeneutics directly parallels the tension between the diversity of belief and the ultimacy of the sacred. By placing philosophers like Gadamer, Ricoeur, Peirce, and Whitehead in conversation, J. R. Hustwit describes religious truth claims as coconstituted by the planes of linguistic convention and uninterpreted otherness. Only when we recognize that (...) religious claims emerge from a dalliance back and forth across the limits of the understanding can we appreciate the engagement between religions. In terms of dialogue, this approach treats religious truth claims as tentative hypotheses, but hypotheses that are frequently commensurable and rationally contestable. Interreligious dialogue goes beyond facilitating bonhomie or negotiating tolerance; dialogue can and should be a disciplined space for rationally adjudicating claims about what lies beyond the limits of human understanding. (shrink)

This reply to an ongoing debate between conspiracy theory researchers from different disciplines exposes the conceptual confusions that underlie some of the disagreements in conspiracy theory research. Reconciling these conceptual confusions is important because conspiracy theories are a multidisciplinary topic and a profound understanding of them requires integrative insights from different fields. Specifically, we distinguish research focussing on conspiracy *theories* (and theorizing) from research of conspiracy *belief* (and mindset, theorists) and explain how particularism with regards to conspiracy theories does not (...) mean we cannot define a problematic subclass of conspiracy beliefs, while avoiding the problems of generalism. We hope this reply helps conspiracy theory researchers recognize the differences between studying conspiracy theories and conspiracy beliefs and appreciate the possibilities for fruitful, integrative, and interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

R F Dearden; Theory and Practice in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 17–29, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

In this chapter, Hankinson discusses the sceptical attacks on dogmatic accounts of cause and explanation, beginning with the Eight Modes of Aenesidemus, before moving on to discuss Sextus Empiricus’ general attack on the very coherence of the notions of causation. Aenesidemus’ Eight Modes are a set of arguments of varying scope and power against the Aetiology of the Dogmatists; they demonstrate the fundamental difficulties in any attempt to investigate the hidden structures of things, and also raise methodological difficulties. Sextus Empiricus (...) argues that the very concepts of cause and effect are incoherent, and he also criticizes the notions of agent and patient, and the dogmatist account of sign‐inference. Hankinson also discusses the Modes of Agrippa, according to which an explanation is either circular, infinitely regressive, or arbitrary. The sceptical attacks on astrology and divination are also important in that they undermine the claims of pseudo‐science; such arguments, Hankinson adds, contribute to the understanding of the standards towards which genuine science must strive. (shrink)

Further examines the sense in which moral judgements are universalizable. Distinguishes between moral and logical theses of universalizability and shows how the moral does not follow from the logical. Universalizability, in the form maintained in this book, is a logical, not a moral, thesis; furthermore, nothing substantially moral follows from the logical thesis. The chapter presents the exact import of the thesis and considers the role of moral principles.

Discusses an important objection to the view that moral judgements are prescriptive: the existence of cases in which people act in ways that they know to be wrong. The objection is that if moral judgements are prescriptive, it is impossible to accept a moral judgement and yet act contrary to it; therefore prescriptivism must be wrong. It is argued that cases of moral weakness do not constitute a counterexample to prescriptivism.

R S Downie; Professions and Professionalism, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 147–159, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

This research aims at investigating some specific metaphorical applications of the concept of causality in Suhrawardi's philosophy, basically referring to the theory of conceptual metaphor. Hitherto, two traditional and contemporary theories have been discussed in this regard. Regarding the traditional theory represented by Aristotle Metaphor, it can be regarded as the use of the name of something for something else. According to this view, the reason why one word is used instead of another is a pre-existing and objective similarity between (...) the two phenomena. Contemporary metaphor theory holds that, in addition to objective similarity, non-objective similarities, the creation of similarities by the mind and the correlation in experience are bases for the formation of metaphors. In Suhrawardi's philosophy, causality has been conceptualized as a key philosophical concept with the help of various metaphors. (shrink)

An alleged moral right to informational privacy assumes that we should have control over information about ourselves. What is the philosophical justification for this control? I think that one prevalent answer to this question—an answer that has to do with the justification of negative rights generally—will not do.

R W K Paterson; Towards an Axiology of Knowledge, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 91–100, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1.

Este livro é o resultado de três anos de debates entre estudiosos interessados em entender o modo como diferentes dimensões da vida podem ser lidas sob a perspectiva da moral. Afinal, embora este tenha sido sempre um tema importante para a sociologia e a antropologia, raros têm sido os esforços brasileiros para a realização de pesquisas empíricas nessa área. Considerando essa lacuna, os autores dos 22 ensaios que fazem parte de Pensando bem se concentram na discussão prática da moral tomada (...) do nosso cotidiano, privilegiando formas de ultrapassar a dicotomia entre abordagens preocupadas com o correto ou justo, de um lado, e aquelas preocupadas com o bom, de outro. (shrink)

"Paraconsistent Belief Revision Based on a Formal Consistency Operator" delves into Belief Revision—a significant area of research in Formal Philosophy that uses logic to model the ways in which human and artificial agents modify their beliefs in response to new information and examines how these changes can be considered rational. -/- Originally authored as a PhD thesis (previously published in Portuguese), this work provides a novel epistemic interpretation of Paraconsistency through Paraconsistent Belief Revision systems. It explores the concept of paraconsistency (...) from the standpoint of epistemic attitudes of acceptance and rejection. -/- This work challenges the traditional notion that accepting a new belief requires retracting its negation from the current epistemic state. The author contends that such reflexive retraction goes against the principle of informational economy, which is a crucial aspect of rationality in the context of belief change. Consequently, the phenomenon of paraconsistency is further examined from this fresh perspective of belief change, shedding light on the complexities of the Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs). These LFIs provide the foundational logic, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding and implementing paraconsistent principles within belief revision systems. -/- This thesis was supervised by Marcelo Esteban Coniglio and co-supervised by Márcio Moretto Ribeiro, as part of Rafael Rodrigues Testa's doctoral studies at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. (shrink)

Uttal has written 9 LEA titles over the past 25 yrs. The audience will be the same people who bought Uttal's past work, as well as people teaching courses in THEORY & METHODS of PSYCH.,those w/interests in THEORETICAL PSYCH & the HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF.

In this chapter, Hankinson discusses Aristotle's conceptions of nature, change, and potentiality; the four causes, spontaneity, and chance; teleology and hypothetical necessity; and also Aristotle's account of action, freedom, and responsibility. The choice facing Greek philosopher‐scientists is simple: show how a structured, regular world could arise out of undirected processes, or pursue a teleological explanation, insisting on the activity of divine intelligence in the cosmos. Aristotle, Hankinson writes, pursues a middle way between these options, although, ultimately, Aristotle takes the whole (...) structure of the cosmos to be teleologically organized. Aristotle rejects Plato's metaphysics of perfect hypostasized forms and divinely directed teleology: relying heavily on his concept of phusis or nature, Aristotle makes teleology an internal principle governing the development of natural objects. Aristotle distinguishes four causes or causal factors in explanation: matter, form, agent, and end, and he distinguishes sharply between regular natural events that can be explained by means of these causes, and chance events, which do not admit full explanation. (shrink)

In this chapter, Hankinson examines Aristotle's philosophy of science, or the logical structure of explanation as set out in the Posterior Analytics, and which is based on the theory of the syllogism worked out in the Prior Analytics. For Aristotle, definition is fundamental to the project of exhibiting science in its appropriate explanatory form, i.e. proceeding deductively from fundamental principles and axioms about the structure of things. Science and scientific explanation are for Aristotle construed realistically: science must mirror reality, and (...) therefore theory always must cohere with observation and empirical investigation. Hankinson discusses Aristotle's qualitative physics of motion, on the basis of the doctrine of natural places, his account of chemical combination, and his cosmology, which is at once teleological in character, while being empirically adequate. Hankinson also discusses Aristotle's successors Theophrastus and Strato of Lampsacus: Theophrastus developed and refined Aristotle's methodology while bringing some scepticism to the ubiquitous application of teleology; Strato also tends more towards mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

In this chapter, Hankinson discusses the major Hellenistic Medical theories and figures, from the Alexandrian doctors Herophilus and Erasistratus in the third century bc to the Empiricist, Rationalist, and Methodist schools of the early Imperial period. Hankinson argues that the practical basis of medical science broadened and deepened the debate about the nature of causal explanation. The Empiricists were sceptics in their attitude to causes, thinking that observation and report of evident conditions and their cures was sufficient for medical science, (...) and thus eschewing causal theory. Rationalist doctors attacked the inadequate methodology of the Empiricists, and they try to explain why the antecedent cause should bring on such and such an effect, while emphasizing the need to decide rationally the proper use of induction, and the relevancy of similarities. The Methodists treat as irrelevant antecedent causes or factors, and they recognized just two pathological conditions—relaxation and constriction; the doctor's concern is to determine by direct observation in which state is the body. (shrink)

In the Introduction, Hankinson identifies universality, simplicity, and the use of argument as the features that distinguish a properly ‘scientific’ explanation of natural phenomena, from a non‐ or pre‐scientific, e.g. mythical, account. For Hankinson, the Milesians are the first thinkers to display a scientific attitude to the investigation of natural phenomena: they sought to explain events by appealing to repeatable and generalizable laws that are invariant over time and which can ground predictions. Simplicity is an adjunct of generalization—the greater the (...) generality of an explanation, the greater is its simplicity; since this involves the attempt to explain the widest variety of phenomena on the basis of the fewest fundamental principles, reductionism is at the centre of the scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Plato offers the first metaphysical exploration of the nature of causation and explanation, and the relationship between these and other metaphysical concepts, such as forms, properties, and the soul. Hankinson focuses on two dialogues, the Phaedo and the Timaeus; in the first of these, Plato rejects the materialism of natural science, in favour of the good as the ground of teleological explanations, and he invokes forms as invariable causal properties. Plato explores the notion of an archê, or ultimate principle, in (...) his argument for the immortality of the soul; this notion comes together with the concept of hypothetical investigation and the casual account of knowledge in the Timaeus. Here, Plato offers a cosmogony invoking a divine artificer who fashions the universe from a receptacle, a material substratum that can receive all forms. In Plato's philosophy, there is the emergence of a concern with the correct form that an explanation ought to take, and also an emphasis on teleological explanation. (shrink)

Hankinson discusses Ptolemy, whose geometrical model was the most sophisticated development in ancient astronomy, at the beginning of this chapter; but the main focus is on Galen's comprehensive account of causation. Galen insists that antecedent conditions are causes, because the effects are conditioned by them; furthermore, physical dispositions are also preceding causes, and together with the external antecedent conditions they produce the immediate necessary and sufficient containing causes of diseases. Galen combines Aristotle's four causes, except the formal cause, with the (...) instrumental cause of Middle Platonism; he also distinguishes incidental and essential causes. From the Platonic tradition, Galen adopts a directed teleology, and an artisan‐god that is constrained by material necessity. Galen also contributes to the debate on freedom and responsibility: he argues that we remain responsible for what we do even if our actions are determined by causes outside our control. (shrink)

In this chapter, Hankinson considers the treatment of causation and explanation in two important strands of Ancient Greek thought: rational medicine and the sophistic movement. The Hippocratic treatises of the fifth century bc represent a movement in Greek medical practice away from traditional types of explanation of disease in favour of a naturalistic, physiological model of human pathology, which leads to the emergence of the allopathic causal principle, ‘opposites cure opposites’. The Hippocratic treatises distinguished internal, constitutional factors from external causes, (...) a distinction that helps towards explaining why some people are affected by a disease, or benefited from a cure, while others are not. Drawing upon Antiphon and Gorgias, Hankinson also discusses the sophist contribution to causation and explanation, in particular their emphasis on responsibility in the explanation of action. Finally, Hankinson highlights a tendency, evident in Herodotus’ History and also in the medical treatise Airs, Waters, Places, to explain general traits of physique and character in terms of ethnography, i.e. on the basis of environment, climate, and lifestyle. (shrink)

In this chapter, Hankinson discusses the origins of syncretism, or the growing convergence of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism, focusing mainly on the Old Academy Platonists Speusippus and Xenocrates, the empiricist Stoic Posidonius, the lapsed sceptic Antiochus, and the orthodox Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias. Hankinson also discusses Eudorus, Philo of Larissa, and Plutarch, as well as briefly noting the influential Primer on Plato's Doctrines by Alcinous. The importance of the Old Academy is its influence upon the development of later Platonic tradition; (...) Proclus, for instance, credits Xenocrates with a distinction between transcendent and immanent causation that became a central feature of Middle Platonism. Posidonius, a Stoic and Cicero's philosophical mentor, is important to the growing convergence of the schools because he introduced Platonism and Aristotelianism into his account of Stoicism, while Antiochus, a product of Philo of Larissa's sceptical Academy, pursued an eclectic Platonism. Alexander of Aphrodisias was the leading Peripatetic of Alexandria, around the second century ad; he revived an orthodox Aristotelianism, accepting Aristotle's four causes doctrine, and identifying Fate as an efficient cause. (shrink)

Although the syncretism of the preceding Platonic tradition is still evident in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, Plotinus’ system of reality, Hankinson argues, is a strikingly original achievement. Plotinus conceives reality as an ordered and causally inter‐related structure, according to which everything is explained in terms of its relationship with the supreme, transcendent One; this is taken over by his successors, such as Proclus, with whom Neoplatonism reaches its most formalized incarnation. The thought of Plotinus and Proclus is quite remote from (...) the discussions of nature that had provided the context for earlier Greek theories of causation. But John Philoponus, a Christian philosopher, brings a Neoplatonic approach to physical explanation, in particular in his critique of Aristotle's physics and dynamics. Simplicius tried to combine physics and theology; as Christianity came to dominate the Graeco‐Roman world, however, scientific speculation on natural causes waned, and theology became the main concern. (shrink)

In this chapter, Hankinson considers the contributions to the explanation of nature of each of the major Presocratic figures. Following a brief sketch of the cosmogonies of Homer and Hesiod, Hankinson discusses the Milesian thinkers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, focussing on the presence in their thought of notions such as material monism, the principle of sufficient reason, the Unlimited, and the reduction of properties. Hankinson then discusses Xenophanes of Colophon, Heraclitus, Alcmaeon, Parmenides and his followers Zeno and Melissus, as well (...) as the movement of Pythagoreanism. The Eleatics checked the confidence of Presocratic speculation by offering powerful a priori theses on causation, and the attempt to bypass these conclusions characterize the more sophisticated theories of causation of the succeeding thinkers Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and the Atomists. (shrink)

An interest in causation and explanation, as these concepts pertain to action, production and agency, is a characteristic of Hellenistic philosophy, and the Stoics are typical in this respect; a cause, or aition, for the Stoics, is something that actually does something. In this chapter, Hankinson discusses Stoic materialism with its distinction between Active and Passive principles, and discusses in detail the Stoic analysis of causation, which is conceived as corporeal and transmitted by contact. Hankinson shows that, while the Stoics (...) embrace determinism to a greater degree than any of their predecessors, they nevertheless retain a genuine possibility of human freedom of action, with emphasis upon the notion of Fate and responsibility. The Stoics’ thoroughly materialistic view of the world does not rule out the presence of intelligence; intelligence, or pneuma, is itself also a material substance, which is identical with God. (shrink)

Examines the nature of moral argument and how arguments might be brought to a conclusion. It is argued that moral reasoning is a kind of exploration akin to Karl Popper's concept of deduction; the only inferences that take place are deductive. This approach allows for the defence of the neutrality of ethics, which appears to be ruled out by its practical relevance. It lays the ground for the possibility of moral reasoning in terms of moral rules, corresponding to prescriptivity and (...) universalizability. These are taken to task in the context of a concrete example of a moral conflict. (shrink)

An important moral problem of the sort that confronts us in real life serves as the recapitulation of the main themes of the book. This is the question of race.

Outlines the features of descriptive terms and judgements. The role played by descriptive meaning in moral statements is elucidated by examining the general nature of descriptivist statements and the connection with universalizability. It is argued that any singular descriptive judgement is universalizable in the sense that it commits the speaker to making the same judgement about relevantly similar subjects. Value judgements and generally descriptive judgements share descriptive content and are therefore universalizable in the same way. But in the case of (...) moral judgements, the universal rules that determine the descriptive meaning are not mere meaning‐rules, but rules of substance. The logical connections between descriptivism, prescriptivism, naturalism, and the thesis of universalizability are explored. (shrink)

Introduces the main themes of the book and expresses the basic conflict between freedom and reason.

Establishes that aesthetic judgements are universalizable and addresses the problem of delimiting moral from aesthetic and evaluative questions. It is argued that there are at least two kinds of grounds on which someone might claim to know what the best thing to do is: interests and ideals. The question of ideals is elaborated in the subsequent discussion. It is argued that when interests are not concerned, conflicts between ideals are not susceptible to much in the way of argument; conflicts between (...) interests, if ideals are not involved, can be reconciled by means of the moral reasoning generated by the logic of moral terms. (shrink)

Revisits the question of the relation between ethics, considered as a study of the logical character of moral concepts, and substantive moral questions. It covers much of the ground of previous chapters in an attempt to forestall confusion and clarify the theses embraced in the course of the book. The naturalist theory of ethics is contrasted at length with the thesis on moral argument outlined in this book.

Discusses the thesis that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. A sense in which ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ is developed in kinship to remarks by Strawson on the existential presuppositions of definite descriptions. The question of what it is about the human situation that gives rise to the need for a prescriptively charged language leads to a discussion of the problem of freedom of will. It is argued that our requirement for a prescriptive vocabulary is explained by our having free will.

In the broader sense, morality includes the pursuit of ideals as well as the reconciliation of interests. This chapter examines the arguments needed to be brought against people who, in pursuit of their ideals, trample on other people's interests. The differences between ideals and interests are set out, and the relations between the two investigated. The discussion presents the case against a paramount example of untrammelled idealism—fanatic fascism—as argued by a liberal, and in doing so shows the scope and limits (...) of moral reasoning. (shrink)

Through consideration of another practical case, this chapter opens the way to a generalization of the method of argument outlined previously. Multilateral cases raise the question of how the interests of all parties can be resolved into a determinate moral conclusion, which brings the discussion to a standpoint that has affinities with classical utilitarianism. Like the principle of universalizability, the form of the utilitarian principle espoused is purely logical. In both cases, the moral substance comes from fleshing out the parties’ (...) actual inclinations and interests. The chapter embarks on a short survey of the challenges faced by a utilitarian system of this kind, before considering the concept of happiness, act‐utilitarianism, and rule‐utilitarianism. (shrink)