Richard Swinburne offers an original treatment of a question at the heart of epistemology: what makes a belief rational, or justified in holding? He maps the rival accounts of philosophers on epistemic justification ("internalist" and "externalist"), arguing that they are really accounts of different concepts. He distinguishes between synchronic justification (justification at a time) and diachronic justification (synchronic justification resulting from adequate investigation)--both internalist and externalist. He also argues that most kinds of justification are worth having because they are (...) indicative of truth; however, it is only justification of internalist kinds that can guide a believer's actions. Swinburne goes on to show the usefulness of the probability calculus in elucidating how empirical evidence makes beliefs probably true. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a powerful new case for substance dualism and for libertarian free will. He argues that pure mental events are distinct from physical events and interact with them, and claims that no result from neuroscience or any other science could show that interaction does not take place. Swinburne goes on to argue for agent causation, and claims that it is we, and not our intentions, that cause our brain events. It is metaphysically possible that each of (...) us could acquire a new brain or continue to exist without a brain; and so we are essentially souls. Brain events and conscious events are so different from each other that it would not be possible to establish a scientific theory which would predict what each of us would do in situations of moral conflict. Hence, we should believe that things are as they seem to be: that we make choices independently of the causes which influence us. It follows that we are morally responsible for our actions. (shrink)

There are many alternative ways that a mind or brain might represent that two of its representations were of the same object or property, the 'Strawson' model, the 'duplicates' model, the 'synchrony' mode, the 'Christmas lights' model, the 'anaphor' model, and so forth. I first discuss what would constitute that a mind or brain was using one of these systems of identity marking rather than another. I then discuss devastating effects that adopting the Strawson model has on the notion that (...) there are such things as modes of presentation in thought. Next I argue that Evans' idea that there are 'dynamic Fregean thoughts' has exactly the same implications. I argue further that all of the other models of thought discussed earlier are in fact isomorphic to the Strawson model. a search for the source of these difficulties reveals the classical notion of modes of presentation as resting on two assumptions, neither of which I recommend. It depends on denying that the way the mind reacts to or understands the thoughts or ideas that it harbours has any bearing on their intentional contents. And it depends on an internalist view of thought content, in particular, on denying that the natural informational content carried or potentially carried by a thought has any bearing on its intentional content. (shrink)

This paper consists of my responses to the comments by nine commentators on my book Are we Bodies or Souls? It makes twelve separate points, each one relevant to the comments of one or more of the commentators, as follows: I defend my understanding of “knowing the essence” of an object as knowing a set of logically necessary and sufficient conditions for an object to be that object; I claim that there cannot be thoughts without a thinker; I argue that (...) my distinction of “mental” from “physical” events in terms of whether anyone has privileged access to whether or not they occur, is a clear one; and I defend my account of metaphysical modality and its role in defending my account of personal identity; I defend my view that Descartes’s argument in favor of the view that humans are essentially souls fails, but that my amended version of that argument succeeds; I claim that my theory acknowledges the closeness of the connection in an earthly life between a human soul and its body; I argue that my Cartesian theory of the soul-body relation is preferable to Aquinas’s theory of that; I argue that a material thing cannot have mental properties; I argue that any set of logically necessary conditions for an object to be the object it is, which together form a logically sufficient condition for this, mutually entails any other such set; I deny that a dualist needs to provide an explanation of how the soul has the capacities that it has; and finally I defend my view that souls have thisness, and claim that that is not a difficulty for the view that God determines which persons will exist. (shrink)

This book explores solving the problem of complexity for science in the 21st century.

Classroom discussion constitutes a unique opportunity for student deliberation and is often believed to be a desirable attribute of Social Science teaching. Yet, despite its potential, large scale observational research on discussion in Nordic classrooms is scarce. To address this shortcoming, the present study investigated the prevalence and contexts of classroom discussion in a Nordic sample of 375 teaching segments (each lasting 15 min). The sample was gathered through video observations, and discussion was measured by an element from the Protocol (...) for Language Arts Teaching Observations. Discussion was present in 39.2% of the investigated segments but was very unequally distributed across classes. While this study found classroom discussion to be most likely during small group work, in the middle of a 45-min lesson, and in schools with high achieving students, more research is needed to determine the sources of inequality in social science students’ opportunities for classroom deliberation. (shrink)

Was the Big Bang with which the universe began created by God, or did it occur without cause? In this book two philosophers of opposite viewpoints debate the question.

This volume outlines a model of language that can be characterized as functionalist, usage-based, dynamic, and complex-adaptive. The core idea is that linguistic structure is not stable and uniform, but continually refreshed by the interaction between three components: usage, the communicative activities of speakers; conventionalization, the social processes triggered by these activities and feeding back into them; and entrenchment, the individual cognitive processes that are also linked to these activities in a feedback loop. Hans-Joerg Schmid explains how this multiple feedback (...) system works by extending his Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model, showing how the linguistic system is created, sustained, and continually adapted by the ongoing interaction between usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Fulfilling the promise of usage-based accounts, the model explains how exactly usage is transformed into collective and individual grammar and how these two grammars in turn feed back into usage.0The book is exceptionally broad in scope, with insights from a wide range of linguistic subdisciplines. It provides a coherent account of the role of multiple factors that influence language structure, variation, and change, including frequency, economy, identity, multilingualism, and language contact. (shrink)

Die Principia Isaac Newtons (1643-1727) gelten als zentraler Beitrag zur klassischen Mechanik. Eine nähere Betrachtung zeigt jedoch, dass es sich bei diesem Werk lediglich um den Anfangspunkt einer jahrhundertelangen Entwicklung handelt, an deren Ende das steht, was heute als klassische Mechanik bezeichnet wird. Dies gilt insbesondere für Newtons Raumtheorie: Newtons absoluter Raum hat nicht nur zentrale Bedeutung für seine Mechanik, sondern auch für seine Metaphysik. Der Einfluss metaphysischer Überlegungen auf das Werk Newtons wird in der Forschung jedoch häufig heruntergespielt. Erdmann (...) Görg nimmt in diesem Band die Verbindung physikalischer und metaphysischer Überlegungen in der Raumtheorie Newtons in den Blick und untersucht davon ausgehend die Entmetaphysierung des Raumes im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert anhand der Position Immanuel Kants (1724-1804) und der noch kaum erforschten Raumtheorie Jakob Friedrich Fries' (1773-1843). Indem Görg die Konzeptionen von Raum, Gott und Gravitation bei Newton, Kant und Fries ins Verhältnis setzt, kann er ein vollständigeres Bild der Entwicklung der klassischen Mechanik zeichnen "--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Ludwik Fleck, Edmund Husserl : on the historicity of scientific knowledge -- Gaston Bachelard : the concept of "phenomenotechnique" -- Georges Canguilhem : epistemological history -- Pisum : Carl Correns's experiments on Xenia, 1896-99 -- Eudorina : Max Hartmann's experiments on biological regulation in protozoa, 1914-21 -- Ephestia : Alfred Kähn's experimental design for a developmental physiological -- Genetics, 1924-45 -- Tobacco mosaic virus : virus research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes for Biochemistry and Biology, 1937-45 -- The concept of (...) the gene : molecular biological perspectives -- The liquid scintillation counter : traces of radioactivity -- The concept of information : the writings of François Jacob -- Intersections -- Preparations -- The economy of the scribble. (shrink)

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all claim that God has given humans a revelation. Divine revelation may be either of God, or by God of propositional truth. Traditionally Christianity has claimed that the Christian revelation has involved both of these. God revealed himself in his acts in history; for example in the miracles by which he preserved the people of ancient Israel, and above all by becoming incarnate as Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose from the dead. And God also (...) revealed to us propositional truths by the teaching of Jesus and his church. Some modern theologians have denied that Christianity involves any propositional revelation, but there can be little doubt that from the second century until the eighteenth century, Christians and non-Christians were virtually unanimous in supposing that it claimed to have such a revelation, and so it is worthwhile investigating its traditional claim. This article is concerned with the Christian claim to have a propositional revelation. The first section describes the process by which Christians of past centuries have come to believe that certain propositions have been revealed. The second assesses alternative philosophical accounts of what constitutes a belief that such-and-such propositions have been revealed, being a ‘justified’ belief. (shrink)

DESIRES ARE INVOLUNTARY MENTAL READINESSES TO DO ACTIONS INDEPENDENTLY OF BELIEFS ABOUT THEIR WORTH. AGENTS OFTEN HAVE A CHOICE WHETHER TO DO THE ACTION BELIEVED BEST OR TO YIELD TO DESIRE TO DO AN ACTION BELIEVED LESS GOOD. ENJOYMENT CONSISTS IN THE SATISFACTION OF DESIRE. ALTHOUGH DESIRES ARE AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT INVOLUNTARY, AN AGENT CAN TAKE STEPS TO CHANGE HIS FUTURE DESIRES.

IF WE CAN EXPLAIN CAUSALLY EACH EVENT OF A SERIES, CAN WE THEREBY EXPLAIN CAUSALLY THE WHOLE SERIES? THE PRINCIPLES DEVELOPED IN ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION ENTAIL THAT EVEN IF WE CAN EXPLAIN CAUSALLY THE OCCURRENCE OF THE STATE OF THE UNIVERSE AT EACH TEMPORAL INSTANT, THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE CAN EXPLAIN CAUSALLY THE OCCURRENCE OF ALL THOSE STATES.

Ultimately this book provides a theory of intergenerational justice that is both intellectually robust and practical with wide applicability to law and policy.

This volume collects thirteen original essays that address the concept of will in Classical German Philosophy from Kant to Schopenhauer. During this short, but prolific period, the concept of will underwent various transformations. While Kant identifies the will with pure practical reason, Fichte introduces, in the wake of Reinhold, an originally biological concept of drive into his ethical theory, thereby expanding on the Kantian notion of the will. Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer take a step further and conceive the will either (...) as a primal being, as a socio-ontological entity, or as a blindly striving, non-rational force. Thus, the history of the will is marked by a complex set of tensions between rational and non-rational aspects of practical volition. The book outlines these transformations from a historical and systematic point of view. It offers an overview of the most important theories of the will by the major figures of Classical German Philosophy, but also includes interpretations of conceptions developed by lesser-studied philosophers such as Maimon, Jacobi, Reinhold, and Bouterwek. (shrink)

This volume analyzes in detail Spinoza's reasoning in Tractatus theologico-politicus, identifies allies and enemies in its historical context, and explores its more or less obvious connection with the Ethica.