Almost thirty years ago, in an attempt to undermine what he termed "the principle of alternate possibilities" (the thesis that people are morally responsible for what they have done only if they could have done otherwise), Harry Frankfurt offered an ingenious thought-experiment that has played a major role in subsequent work on moral responsibility and free will. Several philosophers, including David Widerker and Robert Kane, argued recently that this thought-experiment and others like it are fundamentally flawed. This paper develops a (...) new Frankfurt-style example that is immune to their objections. [Reprinted in Laura Waddell Ekstrom, ed., Agency and Responsibility: Essays on the Metaphysics of Freedom (Westview Press, 2001), pp. 241-54; and in John Martin Fischer, ed., Free Will, Vol. III (Routledge, 2005), pp. 330-42.]. (shrink)

Collected essays on the topic of nature in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Introduction by Ralph McInerny.

Contains letters from a Zen master to both monks and lay believers; the letters illustrate the Zen master's compassion, knowledge, and generosity.

In this comprehensive new study of human free agency, Laura Waddell Ekstrom critically surveys contemporary philosophical literature and provides a novel account of the conditions for free action. Ekstrom argues that incompatibilism concerning free will and causal determinism is true and thus the right account of the nature of free action must be indeterminist in nature. She examines a variety of libertarian approaches, ultimately defending an account relying on indeterministic causation among events and appealing to agent causation only in (...) a reducible sense. Written in an engaging style and incorporating recent scholarship, this study is critical reading for scholars and students interested in the topics of motivation, causation, responsibility, and freedom. In broadly covering the important positions of others along with its exposition of the author’s own view, Free Will provides both a significant scholarly contribution and a valuable text for courses in metaphysics and action theory. (shrink)

This article explores the role of changing memes in large systems change toward marriage equality—popularly referred to as same-sex marriage—in the United States. Using an abbreviated case history of the transformation, the article particularly explores the shifting memes or core units of culture, in this case, word phrases associated with marriage equality over time, influencing the social change process. Using both the case history and the empirical work on memes, the article identifies nine lessons to support others tackling large systems (...) change challenges. (shrink)

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

Le présent article se propose d'examiner les défis que devra relever la Francophonie panaméricaine pour assurer son intégration dans la ZLÉA. La rencontre entre les deux Amériques, l'une francophone et centrée sur le Québec, l'autre créole et centrée sur la Caraïbe, n'est pas le moindre de ces défis puisqu'elle implique que la Francophonie panaméricaine fasse fi de la contradiction apparente qu'il existe à revendiquer l'exception culturelle pour se « protéger » tout en acceptant le métissage, la créolisation, de ses manifestations (...) linguistiques et culturelles. La Francophonie panaméricaine est-elle à la hauteur de cette épreuve? Il serait prétentieux de prétendre apporter une réponse ferme et définitive à ces vastes questions, mais la réflexion qui suit propose quelques pistes d'analyse, disons, prospective...This article explores the challenges faced by Panamerican Francophony in order to ensure its integration within the FTAA. The meeting of two Americas, one Francophone and centred on the Province of Québec, the other Creole and centered on the Caribbean, is not the least of the challenges. It also essential that Panamerican Francophony transcends the apparent contradiction which exists between, on the one hand, the need for its cultural distinctiveness to be recognised in order to be better protected and, on the other, the acceptation of the process of creolisation and métissage of language and culture. Is the Panamerican Francophony capable of rising to the challenge? It would be pretentious to say one can provide an unequivocal answer to these broad-ranging questions, but the following discussion suggests a few lines of thought and, perhaps, possible outcomes.. (shrink)

This paper presents a conception of the self partially in terms of a particular notion of preference. It develops a coherentist account of when one's preferences are "authorized", or sanctioned as one's own, and presents a coherence theory of autonomous action. The view presented solves certain problems with hierarchical accounts of freedom, such as Harry Frankfurt's.

The Moral Nexus develops and defends a new interpretation of morality—namely, as a set of requirements that connect agents normatively to other persons in a nexus of moral relations. According to this relational interpretation, moral demands are directed to other individuals, who have claims that the agent comply with these demands. Interpersonal morality, so conceived, is the domain of what we owe to each other, insofar as we are each persons with equal moral standing. The book offers an interpretative argument (...) for the relational approach. Specifically, it highlights neglected advantages of this way of understanding the moral domain; explores important theoretical and practical presuppositions of relational moral duties; and considers the normative implications of understanding morality in relational terms. The book features a novel defense of the relational approach to morality, which emphasizes the special significance that moral requirements have, both for agents who are deliberating about what to do and for those who stand to be affected by their actions. The book argues that relational moral requirements can be understood to link us to all individuals whose interests render them vulnerable to our agency, regardless of whether they stand in any prior relationship to us. It also offers fresh accounts of some of the moral phenomena that have seemed to resist treatment in relational terms, showing that the relational interpretation is a viable framework for understanding our specific moral obligations to other people. (shrink)

Repetitive practice is one of the most important factors in improving the performance of motor skills. This paper focuses on the analysis and classification of forearm gestures in the context of violin playing. We recorded five experts and three students performing eight traditional classical violin bow-strokes: martelé, staccato, detaché, ricochet, legato, trémolo, collé, and col legno. To record inertial motion information, we utilized the Myo sensor, which reports a multidimensional time-series signal. We synchronized inertial motion recordings with audio data to (...) extract the spatiotemporal dynamics of each gesture. Applying state-of-the-art deep neural networks, we implemented and compared different architectures where convolutional neural networks models demonstrated recognition rates of 97.147%, 3DMultiHeaded_CNN models showed rates of 98.553%, and rates of 99.234% were demonstrated by CNN_LSTM models. The collected data contained sufficient information to distinguish the bowing techniques studied, and deep learning methods were capable of learning the movement patterns that distinguish these techniques. Each of the learning algorithms investigated produced high classification accuracies which supported the feasibility of training classifiers. The resulting classifiers may provide the foundation of a digital assistant to enhance musicians' time spent practicing alone, providing real-time feedback on the accuracy and consistency of their musical gestures in performance. (shrink)

Literature is recognised as having significantly influenced the development of modern psychoanalytic thought. In recent years psychoanalysis has drawn increasingly on the literary and artistic traditions of western culture and moved away from its original medical–scientific context. Originally published in 1991 _The Chamber of Maiden Thought _ is an original and revealing exploration of the seminal role of literature in forming the modern psychoanalytic model of the mind. The crux of the 'post-Kleinian' psychoanalytic view of personality development lies in the (...) internal relations between the self and the mind's 'objects'. Meg Harris Williams and Margot Waddell show that these relations have their origins in the drama of identifications which we can see played out metaphorically and figuratively in literature, which presents the self-creative process in aesthetic terms. They argue that psychoanalysis is a true child of literature rather than merely the interpreter or explainer of literature, illustrating this with some examples from clinical experience, but drawing above all on close scrutiny of the dynamic mental processes presented in the work of Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantic poets, Emily Bronte and George Eliot. _The Chamber of Maiden Thought_ will encourage psychoanalytic workers to respond to the influence of literature in exploring symbolic mental processes. By bringing psychoanalysis into creative conjunction with the arts, it enables practitioners to tap a cultural potential whose insights into the human mind are of immense value. (shrink)

Literature is recognised as having significantly influenced the development of modern psychoanalytic thought. In recent years psychoanalysis has drawn increasingly on the literary and artistic traditions of western culture and moved away from its original medical–scientific context. Originally published in 1991 _The Chamber of Maiden Thought _ is an original and revealing exploration of the seminal role of literature in forming the modern psychoanalytic model of the mind. The crux of the 'post-Kleinian' psychoanalytic view of personality development lies in the (...) internal relations between the self and the mind's 'objects'. Meg Harris Williams and Margot Waddell show that these relations have their origins in the drama of identifications which we can see played out metaphorically and figuratively in literature, which presents the self-creative process in aesthetic terms. They argue that psychoanalysis is a true child of literature rather than merely the interpreter or explainer of literature, illustrating this with some examples from clinical experience, but drawing above all on close scrutiny of the dynamic mental processes presented in the work of Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantic poets, Emily Bronte and George Eliot. _The Chamber of Maiden Thought_ will encourage psychoanalytic workers to respond to the influence of literature in exploring symbolic mental processes. By bringing psychoanalysis into creative conjunction with the arts, it enables practitioners to tap a cultural potential whose insights into the human mind are of immense value. (shrink)

A companion volume to Free Will: A Philosophical Study, this new anthology collects influential essays on free will, including both well-known contemporary classics and exciting recent work. Agency and Responsibility: Essays on the Metaphysics of Freedom is divided into three parts. The essays in the first section address metaphysical issues concerning free will and causal determinism. The second section groups papers presenting a positive account of the nature of free action, including competing compatibilist and incompatibilist analyses. The third section concerns (...) free will and moral responsibility, including theories of moral responsibility and the challenge to an alternative possibilities condition posed by Frankurt-type scenarios. Distinguished by its balance and consistently high quality, the volume presents papers selected for their significance, innovation, and clarity of expression. Contributors include Harry Frankfurt, Peter van Inwagen, David Lewis, Elizabeth Anscombe, John Martin Fischer, Michael Bratman, Roderick Chisholm, Robert Kane, Peter Strawson, and Susan Wolf. The anthology serves as an up-to-date resource for scholars as well as a useful text for courses in ethics, philosophy of religion, or metaphysics. In addition, paired with Free Will: A Philosophical Study, it would form an excellent upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level course in free will, responsibility, motivation, or action theory. (shrink)

We are currently seeing a revival of interest in Aquinas's moral thought among Christian ethicists, both Protestant and Catholic. Although recent studies of his moral thought have touched on a number of topics, the majority of these have focused on his account of the virtues and their place in the Christian life. Probing the questions of the relation of virtue and law, the role of reason and will, and the place of the passions in Aquinas's moral theology, I will examine (...) recent studies by Diana Cates, Pamela Hall, Simon Harak, James Keenan, Daniel Nelson, Daniel Westberg, and Paul Waddell. In different ways these studies return us repeatedly to the vexed and unresolved question of the scope of human freedom. (shrink)

Despite its profound importance for individuals and populations, children’s mental health remains under-appreciated as a public policy priority, to a degree that violates children’s rights. Using a working definition of policymaking as collective ethical decision-making for the one and the many, we elaborate by describing an individual child’s story and reviewing the pertinent population health research evidence. We then outline three central public health ethical challenges: addressing the high prevalence and impact of childhood mental disorders; addressing the avoidable social adversities (...) that underlie many childhood mental disorders; and addressing stark shortfalls in prevention and treatment services for children. We end with discussing opportunities for progress, including addressing the attendant children’s rights issues. (shrink)

This book provides a collection of sources, many of them fragmentary and previously scattered and hard to access, for the development of Peripatetic philosophy in the later Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. It also supplies the background against which the first commentator on Aristotle from whom extensive material survives, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. AD 200), developed his interpretations which continue to be influential even today. Many of the passages are here translated into English for the first time, (...) including the whole of the summary of Peripatetic ethics attributed to 'Arius Didymus'. (shrink)

The problem of analyzing causation and the problem of incompatibilism versus compatibilism are largely distinct. Yet, this paper will show that there are some theories of causation that a compatibilist should not endorse: namely, counterfactual theories, specifically the one developed by David Lewis and a newer, amended version of his account. Endorsing either of those accounts of causation undercuts the main compatibilist reply to a powerful argument for incompatibilism. Conversely, the argument of this paper has the following message for incompatibilists: (...) you have reason to consider defending a counterfactual theory of causation. (shrink)

The role of natural theology in St. Thomas Aquinas's early doctrine of (transcendental) trut, especially in question one of Aquinas's "Disputed Questions on Truth (De veritate).

(1994). Perils of a modern Cassandra: Rhetorical aspects of public indifference to the population explosion. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, Public Indifference to Population Issues, pp. 221-237.

(1994). Rhetoric of environmental policy: From critical practice to the social construction of theory. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, Public Indifference to Population Issues, pp. 289-310.

_Wild/lives_ draws on myth, popular culture and analytical psychology to trace the machinations of 'trickster' in contemporary film and television. This archetypal energy traditionally gravitates toward liminal spaces – physical locations and shifting states of mind. By focusing on productions set in remote or isolated spaces, Terrie Waddell explores how key trickster-infused sites of transition reflect the psychological fragility of their willing and unwilling occupants. In differing ways, the selected texts – _Deadwood, Grizzly Man, Lost, Solaris, The Biggest Loser, (...) Amores Perros and Repulsion_ – all play with inner and outer marginality. As this study demonstrates, the dramatic potential of transition is not always geared toward resolution. Prolonging the anxiety of change is an increasingly popular option. Trickster moves within this wildness and instability to agitate a form of dialogue between conscious and unconscious processes. Waddell's imaginative interpretation of screen material and her original positioning of trickster will inspire students of media, cinema, gender and Jungian studies, as well as academics with an interest in the application of Post-Jungian ideas to screen culture. (shrink)

This is a phenomenological description of the inner voice experience (IVE) that emerged from a phenomenological research of the IVEs of twenty ordinary people. Research on IVEs of ordinary people is thin. If inner voices are studied at all, they are studied from a psychological or religious perspective where phenomenology allows for a multi- disciplinary view of this human experience. This description of the actual lived experienced of hearing an inner voice emerged through an iterative phenomenological analysis following Van Manen (...) (1990). It contributes a much needed new perspective on the experience of hearing an inner voice and human nature. Included in this paper is a short overview of phenomenological thought as it pertains to the study of the IVE and. (shrink)

Corpore citizenship is one of th latest frameworks to talk about the relationship between business and society. Its foundation swirs around the dual concepts associated with citizenship of rights and respodabilities side. Today the term is used on the one hand to connect business activity to broader social accountability ans service for mutual benefit, and yet on the other it reinforces the view that a corporation is an entity with status equivalent to a person. It holds both the proomise of (...) healthier and wealthier societies, and the thret of equatig human rights with cororate rights. Whether these opposing dirictions result in enhanced corporate performance and human fulfillment, or the thrat that David Korten has described of corporations ruling the world, will depend largely upon our ability to reform current organizations and create new ones. (shrink)

This is a fascinating study of the a-temporal nature of evil in the West. The international authors who have contributed to this text not only concentrate on political, social and legally sanctioned cruelty from the past and present, but also explore the nature of moral transgression in contemporary art, media and literature. Although many forms and practices of what might be called evil' are analysed, all are bound by violence and/or the sexually perverse.

Many efforts are focused on transformation to wellbeing economies as economies oriented towards equity, social justice, and human wellbeing in a flourishing natural environment (wellbeing economics). Drawing from analysis of innovations associated with these efforts, we emerge a framework of wellbeing-oriented ‘economic operating infrastructure’ (EOI). This is presented as a typology of six core types of economic transformation innovations nested from innovations with the broadest reach (narratives) to the most specific (products and services). Development of the typology was guided by (...) a set of wellbeing economies values that help in identifying which innovations to include. The innovations were identified by research on the internet, technical reports, and published articles. The typology elements are: innovations in economic narratives; governance; financing mechanisms; exchange mechanisms; business structures; and the products and services derived from them. Examples are presented in each category to illustrate how this infrastructure is emerging in alignment with establishing wellbeing economies. This exploratory and descriptive typology provides a preliminary framework for developing a strategic approach to economic transformation through wellbeing economic infrastructure development. Four EOI-based activities are identified to accelerate this transformation. (shrink)

This book shows that scientific explanations fall short of providing an exhaustive explanation of the dynamics of erotic perception. It furnishes portraits from Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Irigaray that help us understand the ethical, ontological, and religious dimensions of the pleasure, pain, hostility, shame, immodesty, tenderness, caring, and playfulness that compose erotic perception. The final portrait in the book portrays erotic perception as a challenge to existence. This portrait shows that the discernment of the other as sexually significant gives rise (...) to wonder, excitement, agitation, and trouble. The totality of existence is disturbed as we are faced with a decision about venturing to care for the other's existence. (shrink)

In Truth in Aquinas, John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock attempt to render a “radically orthodox” reading of Aquinas that rejects an autonomous realm of natural reason unaided by faith. I argue that Milbank and Pickstock’s account fails as a reading of Aquinas and is problematic as a theory of the relationship between faith and reason. After sketching Milbank and Pickstock’s understanding of the relationship between faith and reason, I examine Aquinas’s doctrines of grace and divine naming in order to show (...) how they resist Milbank and Pickstock’s attempt to do away with the distinct and autonomous category of natural reason. I then conclude by considering how Milbank and Pickstock’s failure to preserve the integrity and autonomy of natural reason ironically tends toward fideism whilesimultaneously threatening to deprive faith of its meaning. (shrink)