A short book combining extracts from the work of one of the world's greatest thinkers with commentary from one of Britain's most distinguished writers on philosophy.

Empirical studies show that though there is more room for improvement, much progress has been made toward gender equality since the second wave of feminism. Evidence also suggests that women’s advancements have been more dramatic in the public sphere of work and politics than in the private sphere of family life. We argue that this lopsided gender progress may be traced to uneven changes in gender attitudes. Using data from more than 27,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey (...) from 1977 through 2016, we show that gender attitudes have more than one underlying dimension and that these dimensions have changed at different rates over time. Using latent class analysis, we find that the distribution of respondents’ attitudes toward gender equality has changed over the past 40 years. There has been an increase in the number of egalitarians who support equality in public and private spheres, while the traditionals who historically opposed equality in both domains have been replaced by ambivalents who feel differently about gender equality in the public and private spheres. Meanwhile, successive birth cohorts are becoming more egalitarian, with Generation-Xers and Millennials being the most likely to hold strong egalitarian views. The feminist revolution has succeeded in promoting egalitarian views and decreasing the influence of gender traditionalism, but has yet to convince a substantial minority that gender equality should extend to both public and private spheres of social life. (shrink)

This article examines how Quine and Sellars develop informatively contrasting responses to a fundamental tension in Carnap’s semantics ca. 1950. Quine’s philosophy could well be styled ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism’; his assay of radical empiricism is invaluable for what it reveals about the inherent limits of empiricism. Careful examination shows that Quine’s criticism of Carnap’s semantics in ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ fails, that at its core Quine’s semantics is for two key reasons incoherent and that his hallmark Thesis of Extensionalism (...) is untenable. The tension in Carnap’s semantics together with Quine’s exposure of the severe limits of radical empiricism illuminate central features of Sellars’s philosophy: the fully general form of the myth of givenness, together with Sellars’s alternative Kantian characterisation of understanding; the full significance of Carnap’s distinction between conceptual analysis and conceptual explication, and its important methodological implications; the specifically pragmatic character of Sellars’s realism; and Sellars’s methodological reasons for holding that philosophy must be systematic and that systematic philosophy must be deeply historically and textually informed. This paper thus re-examines this recent episode of philosophical history for its philosophical benefits and systematic insights. (shrink)

As a philosopher, psychologist, and physician, the German thinker Hermann Lotze defies classification. Working in the mid-nineteenth-century era of programmatic realism, he critically reviewed and rearranged theories and concepts in books on pathology, physiology, medical psychology, anthropology, history, aesthetics, metaphysics, logic, and religion. Leading anatomists and physiologists reworked his hypotheses about the central and autonomic nervous systems. Dozens of fin-de-siècle philosophical contemporaries emulated him, yet often without acknowledgment, precisely because he had made conjecture and refutation into a method. In spite (...) of Lotze's status as a pivotal figure in nineteenth-century intellectual thought, no complete treatment of his work exists, and certainly no effort to take account of the feminist secondary literature. Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography is the first full-length historical study of Lotze's intellectual origins, scientific community, institutional context, and worldwide reception. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a bibliometric analysis of the Periodic Table. We have conducted a comprehensive analysis of Scopus based database using the keyword “Mendeleev Periodic Table". Our findings suggest that the Periodic Table is an influential topic in the field of Inorganic as well as Organic Chemistry. Areas for future research could include on expanding our analysis to include other bibliometric indicators to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of the Periodic Table in the chemistry-based scientific (...) investigations and even in the field of astrochemistry, which explores chemical processes in space, is intricately linked to fundamental chemistry. In this context, the quote of Carl Sagan is relevant where he eloquently expressed an inherent connection between chemistry and astrophysics: “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.” In the ongoing study we have presented a ground level investigation of the conjecture of Sagan via Periodic Table based on bibliometric analysis whereas in the next level our aim is to present the stellar connection of it through Hertzsprung-Russel diagram as well as cluster of stars. The Periodic Table holistically serves as a foundational platform for understanding chemical elements both on the Earth and in celestial bodies. The present investigation fundamentally identifies the main working field of research and lays the groundwork for potential connections to astrochemical studies. (shrink)

The term ‘realism’ and its contrasting terms have various related senses, although often they occlude as much as they illuminate, especially if ontological and epistemological issues and their tenable combinations are insufficiently clarified. For example, in 1807 the infamous ‘idealist’ Hegel argued cogently that any tenable philosophical theory of knowledge must take the natural and social sciences into very close consideration, which he himself did. Here I argue that Hegel ably and insightfully defends Newton’s causal realism about gravitational force, in (...) part by exposing a fatal equivocation in the traditional concept of substance, by criticizing some still-standard empiricist misconceptions of force, by emphasizing the role of explanatory integration in Newtonian mechanics, and by using his powerful semantics of singular, specifically cognitive reference to justify fallibilism regarding empirical justification, together with the semantic core of Newton’s Rule Four of (experimental) Philosophy—in a way that highlights a key fallacy in many arguments against realism, both in epistemology and within philosophy of science. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Co‐extensiveness of Understanding and Sensibility Identity and Predication Objective Purport and Kant's Transcendental Deduction Proving Mental Content Externalism Transcendentally Notes References.

This paper (in English) highlights a hitherto neglected feature of Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit: its critique of the content of our basic categorial concepts. It focusses on Hegel’s semantics of cognitive reference in ‘Sense Certainty’ and his use of this semantics also in ‘Perception’ and ‘Force and Understanding’. Explicating these points enables us to understand how Hegel criticizes Pyrrhonian Scepticism on internal grounds.

Key Contemporary Social Theorists is a comprehensive introduction to some of the most significant figures in social, cultural, political and philosophical thought of the twentieth century. This collection of newly commissioned entries offers students and scholars an authoritative guide on current contributions to contemporary social theory and social science. Preceding the entries is a well-organized chart of the main trends of development in social theory. The result is an invaluable reference work for all those concerned with central issues in contemporary (...) social theory. (shrink)

An Example of Teaching of Chemistry Before and After Mendeleev’s 1869 Periodic Table of Elements is presented. Prior to Mendeleev’s publication in 1869, only 63 elements were known. The ensuing discovery of the electron and the correspondence of the number of electrons to equivalent weight and atomic number is of singular importance to the impact of the Periodic Table of Elements and the way modern chemistry is taught. Without the identity of the electron and its alliance to atomic number, modern (...) teaching of chemistry would be very different. Without it concepts of electronic configuration, oxidation and reduction, polarization, intermolecular interactions, types of bonding, Lewis acid/base definition, etc. would disappear in our vernacular. Thus, we trace the origin of the electron. (shrink)

Chronic pain is one of the most disabling medical conditions globally, yet, to date, we lack a satisfying theoretical framework for research and clinical practice. Over the prior decades, several frameworks have been presented with biopsychosocial models as the most promising. However, in translation to clinical practice, these models are often applied in an overly reductionist manner, leaving much to be desired. In particular, they often fail to characterize the complexities and dynamics of the lived experience of chronic pain. Recently, (...) an enactive, affordance-based approach has been proposed, opening up new ways to view chronic pain. This model characterizes how the persistence of pain alters a person’s field of affordances: the unfolding set of action possibilities that a person perceives as available to them. The affordance-based model provides a promising perspective on chronic pain as it allows for a systematic investigation of the interactive relation between patients and their environment, including characteristic alterations in the experience of their bodies and the space they inhabit. To help bridge the gap from philosophy to clinical practice, we unpack in this paper the core concepts of an affordance-based approach to chronic pain and their clinical implications, highlighting aspects that have so far received insufficient attention. We do so with an analogy to playing video games, as we consider such comparative illustration a useful tool to convey the complex concepts in an affordance-based model and further explore central aspects of the lived experience of chronic pain. (shrink)

Gauthier’s contractarianism begins with an idea of a rational deliberator but ‘finds no basis for postulating a moral need for the justification of one’s actions to others. The role of agreement is to address each person’s demand that the constraints of society be justified to him, not a concern that he justify himself to his fellows’ (Gauther 1997, 134–5). He contrasts his view with Scanlon’s contractualism, according to which agreement with others is the core of morality and each agent has (...) the burden of justifying his or her actions to others. Both of their views count as ‘constructivist’ because they reject moral realism and hold that normativity is a function of what we do, either individually or collectively. Kant’s Rechtslehre is neutral regarding moral realism and yet constructivist about moral norms. However, the relevant acts basic to Gauthier’s and Scanlon’s views concern voluntary agreements we make. Using agreement to establish basic norms faces some serious difficulties. Kant’s Rechtslehre avoids these problems by showing how basic social norms can be identified and justified independently of voluntary agreement. Moreover, it does so in a way that shows that an individual’s justification of his or her acts to others and the justification of the acts of others to any individual are inseparable aspects of one and the same justificatory reasons in which voluntary agreement plays no role. (shrink)

Literary analysis of the blush in Austen's novels identifies three themes, namely the potential ambiguity of a blush, its association with modesty, and its erotic and gendered nature, issues that scarcely figure in current psychological explanations of the phenomenon. I examine these themes and compare them with current psychological accounts which assign a central place to embarrassment and, more specifically, emphasise either unwanted social attention, exposure of the self, or the blush's signalling function. Analysis of Austen's work suggests that greater (...) attention should be paid to self-consciousness as it relates to threats to reputation, to the erotic dimension of the blush, and to potential gender differences. It should encourage researchers to be aware of limitations of psychological accounts and to expand their range of sources of information in order to enhance understanding of this elusive phenomenon. (shrink)

Spanning forty years of Ray's career, these essays, for the first time collected in one volume, present the filmmaker's reflections on the art and craft of the cinematic medium and include his thoughts on sentimentalism, mass culture, ...

The titles in this series present well-edited basic texts to be used in courses and seminars and for teachers looking for a succinct exposition of the results of recent research. Each volume in the series presents the fundamental ideas of a great philosopher by means of a very thorough and up-to-date commentary on one important text. The edition and explanation of the text give insight into the whole of the oeuvre, of which it is an integral part.

In Erwiderung auf Kohlbergs Theorie moralischer Entwicklung betont Gilligan (1982, 2. Aufl.: 1993, S. 18 – 9), dass seine Theorie völlig von ihrem postulierten Ziel abhänge, nämlich einer prinzipien-geleiteten Urteilskraft. Hier wird nun analysiert, inwiefern Gilligans Diagnose nur die Spitze eines moralischen sowie theoretischen Eisbergs dadurch beleuchtet, dass ihre Untersuchungen der Klärung dienen, inwiefern Kohlbergs Etappen „Fünf“ und „Sechs“ eine spezifische Theorie des „moralischen Standpunkts“ voraussetzen, bei der Fragen der Gerechtigkeit und zu viel von dem, was wir einander und auch (...) uns selbst schulden, vernachlässigt werden. Um dies zu zeigen, untersuche ich zunächst, wie klassische Gerechtigkeitsfragen für teleologische Ethiktheorien nicht nur einmal, sondern zweimal verloren gegangen sind (§ 2). Ein wichtiges Beispiel dafür ist die radikale Kehre in der „ethischen Theorie“ zu Beginn des anglophonen 20. Jahrhunderts (C.E.), repräsentiert durch die Kehre von Moore, Prichard und Ross hin zu Partikularismus und Intuitionismus und deren prinzipielle Missachtung des tatsächlichen Verhaltens im tatsächlichen Kontext eines jeglichen Agenten (§ 3). Ein zweiter wichtiger Fall betrifft die liberal-individualistische Grundlage von Untersuchungen zu „der“ moralischen Sichtweise aus der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts (C.E.) und Vorstellungen von „Unparteilichkeit“, die Kant oft, aber fälschlicherweise zugeschrieben werden (§§ 4 – 7). Diese Überlegungen ermöglichen es, einige zentrale methodologische Verwirrungen zu identifizieren (§ 8), die unvermeidlich auch einige schwerwiegende moralische Verwirrungen erzeugen – Verwirrungen, die Kohlbergs Theorie der moralischen Entwicklung zugrunde liegen, von denen einige durch Gilligans Einwände gegen seine Theorie identifiziert werden (§ 9). Diese kritischen Überlegungen erlauben es mir dann, wesentliche Züge von Kants kritischem Ansatz zur Moralphilosophie zu charakterisieren (§ 10). Kants scharfsinnige Theorie moralischer Urteile und moralischer Rechtfertigung erfordert keine Berufung auf den einzigen inkommensurablen Wert der „Würde“; auch ist seine Darstellung nicht individualistisch: Die „Universalität“, die erforderlich ist, um Prinzipien, Handlungen und unsere moralischen Verpflichtungen, Erlaubnisse oder Verbote zu identifizieren und zu bewerten, ist im Prinzip und in der Praxis kosmopolitisch. Kants ‚konstruktiver‘ Ansatz zu diesen Fragen ist nicht der von Rawls; er wird vielmehr von Onora O’Neill korrekt identifiziert. Kants Explikation des rationalen Urteils und der rationalen Rechtfertigung kann das Pyrrhonsche Kriteriumsdilemma auflösen; alternative Methoden, die in der Moralphilosophie bevorzugt worden sind, können dies nicht. (shrink)

Already hailed as a masterpiece, Foundations of Language offers a brilliant overhaul of the last thirty-five years of research in generative linguistics and related fields. "Few books really deserve the cliché 'this should be read by every researcher in the field'," writes Steven Pinker, author of The Language Instinct, "but Ray Jackendoff's Foundations of Language does." Foundations of Language offers a radically new understanding of how language, the brain, and perception intermesh. The book renews the promise of early generative linguistics: (...) that language can be a valuable entrée into understanding the human mind and brain. The approach is remarkably interdisciplinary. Behind its innovations is Jackendoff's fundamental proposal that the creativity of language derives from multiple parallel generative systems linked by interface components. This shift in basic architecture makes possible a radical reconception of mental grammar and how it is learned. As a consequence, Jackendoff is able to reintegrate linguistics with philosophy of mind, cognitive and developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and computational linguistics. Among the major topics treated are language processing, the relation of language to perception, the innateness of language, and the evolution of the language capacity, as well as more standard issues in linguistic theory such as the roles of syntax and the lexicon. In addition, Jackendoff offers a sophisticated theory of semantics that incorporates insights from philosophy of language, logic and formal semantics, lexical semantics of various stripes, cognitive grammar, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches, and the author's own conceptual semantics. (shrink)

Presenting a landmark in linguistics and cognitive science, Ray Jackendoff proposes a new holistic theory of the relation between the sounds, structure, and meaning of language and their relation to mind and brain. Foundations of Language exhibits the most fundamental new thinking in linguistics since Noam Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in 1965—yet is readable, stylish, and accessible to a wide readership. Along the way it provides new insights on the evolution of language, thought, and communication.

This collection of original essays aims to reinvigorate the debate surrounding philosophical realism in relation to philosophy of science, pragmatism, epistemology, and theory of perception. Questions concerning realism are as current and as ancient as philosophy itself; this volume explores relations between different positions designated as ‘realism’ by examining specific cases in point, drawn from a broad range of systematic problems and historical views, from ancient Greek philosophy through the present. The first section examines the context of the project; contributions (...) systematically engage the historical background of philosophical realism, re-examining key works of Aristotle, Descartes, Quine, and others. The following two sections epitomize the central tension within current debates: scientific realism and pragmatism. These contributions address contemporary questions of scientific realism and the reality of the objects of science, and consider whether, how or the extent to which realism and pragmatism are compatible. With an editorial introduction by Kenneth R. Westphal, these fourteen original essays provide wide-ranging, salient insights into the status of realism today. (shrink)

Hume sought to analyse our propositionally-structured thought in terms of our ultimate awareness of nothing but objects, sensory impressions or their imagistic copies, The ideas of space and time are often regarded as exceptions to his Copy Theory of impressions and ideas. On grounds strictly internal to Humes account of the generality of thought. This ultimately reveals the limits of the Copy Theory and of Concept Empiricism. The key is to recognise how very capacious is our (Humean) imaginative capacity to (...) associate particular perceptions by various fine-grained determinable resemblances. (shrink)

Argues inter alia that Kant and Hegel identified necessary conditions for the possibility of singular cognitive reference that incorporate avant la lettre Evans’ (1975) analysis of identity and predication, that Kant’s and Hegel’s semantics of singular cognitive reference are crucial to McDowell’s account of singular thoughts, and that McDowell has neglected (to the detriment of his own view) these conditions and their central roles in Kant’s and in Hegel’s theories of knowledge. > Reprinted in: J. Lindgaard, ed., John McDowell: Experience, (...) Norm and Nature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008d), 124–151. (shrink)

Durand’s Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary and its several forewords draw some anthropology of the imaginary and a specific representation of space. However Durand understands that imaginary is universal and sees analogies in structures, even if they belong to different cultures and mythologies. Westphal’s geocriticism and Deleuze’s works define a new theory of space and underline that spaces and territories could be indeterminate, ambiguous and quite heterogeneous. Their researches raise many objections to Durand’s perception of space paradoxically based upon (...) memory, time and universalism. (shrink)

We argue that a reinvention of the plebeian tribunate should play a key role in addressing the challenges stemming from increasing concentrations of, and inequalities in, social, political, economic, and cultural power in liberal democracies. Addressing these challenges, which negatively affect parliamentary representation, requires a form of institutional innovation that gives voice to non-elites who are ruled but do not rule. We propose revisions of the composition and tasks of the tribunate that are tailored to these current challenges. Our fully (...) randomly selected tribunate emerges as a vehicle not only for contesting concentrated power but also for articulating lines of conflict, disruptive agenda-setting, and political experimentation. Our proposal contributes to developing realist democratic theory. We argue that the reinvented tribunate not only meets realist commitments to avoiding moralization and idealization but also demonstrates the underexploited capacity of realism to inform institutional innovation and thus contribute to substantial political analysis. (shrink)

“What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it you fear?” -/- “The monster now becomes more vengeful. He murders Victor’s friend Henry Clerval and his wife Elizabeth on the night of her wedding to Victor, and Victor sets out in pursuit of the friend across the icy Artic regions. The monster is always ahead of him, leaving tell tale marks behind and tantalizing his creator. Victor meets with his death in the pursuit of the monster he (...) had created with a noble objective.” [ http://philpapers.org/profile/112741] . (shrink)

This article shows that Hegel’s analysis of ‘Perception’ (PhdG, ch. 2) is a critique of Hume’s analysis, ‘Of Scepticism with regard to the senses’ (Treatise, I.iv §2). To extend his concept-empiricism to handle the non-logical concept of the identity of a perceptible thing, Hume must appeal to several psychological ‘propensities’ to generate, in effect, a priori concepts; he must confront a ‘contradiction’ in the concept of the identity of a perceptible thing; and he must regard this concept as a ‘fiction’. (...) Hegel reexamines Hume’s account to show that the concept of the identity of a perceptible thing is non-logical and cannot be defined in accord with concept-empiricism. This important point supports Hegel’s concept-pragmatism. This point is also important in connection with the quite general problem of how we bring various sensations together into the perception of any one object. (English translation by the author of „Vom Skeptizismus in Bezug auf die Sinne oder das Ding und die Täuschung“.). (shrink)

Overcoming Onto-theology is a stunning collection of essays by Merold Westphal, one of America’s leading continental philosophers of religion, in which Westphal carefully explores the nature and the structure of a postmodern Christian philosophy. Written with characteristic clarity and charm, Westphal offers masterful studies of Heidegger’s early lectures on Paul and Augustine, the idea of hermeneutics, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Derrida, and Nietzsche, all in the service of building his argument that postmodern thinking offers an indispensable tool for rethinking (...) Christian faith. A must read for every student and professor of continental philosophy and the philosophy of religion, Overcoming Onto-theology is an invaluable collection that brings together in one place fourteen provocative and lucid essays by one of the most important thinkers working in American philosophy today. (shrink)

Parts I and II of 'Conflicting Appearances, Necessity and the Irreducibility of Propositions about Colours' review the argument from 'conflicting appearances' for the view that nothing has any one colour. I take further a well-known criticism of the argument made by Austin and Burnyeat. In Part III I undertake the task of positive construction, offering a theory of what it is that all things coloured a particular colour have in common. I end, in Part IV, by arguing that the resulting (...) 'colour phenomenalism', rather than physicalism, is required to give a satisfactory account of the necessity of Wittgenstein's 'puzzle propositions' about colour. (shrink)