Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Number and Count Sentences like ‘The number of Martian moons is two’ and ‘Mars has two moons’ give rise to a puzzle. How can they be equivalent if only the truth of Number but not that of Count Sentences requires the existence of numbers? Proponents of Linguistic Deflationism seek to resolve this puzzle by arguing that on their correct linguistic analysis the truth of Number Sentences does not require the existence of numbers. In this paper, I argue that Katharina Felka’s (...) recent attempt to vindicate this strategy by analysing Number Sentences as so-called specificational sentences is philosophically dissatisfying and sketch a promising alternative. (shrink)

This unique volume by two renowned astrophotographers unveils the science and history behind 100 of the most significant astronomical images of all time. The authors have carefully selected their list of images from across time and technology to bring to the reader the most relevant photographic images spanning all eras of modern astronomical history. Based on scientific evidence today we have a basic notion of how Earth and the universe came to be. The road to this knowledge was paved with (...) 175 years of astronomical images acquired by the coupling of two revolutionary technologies - the camera and telescope. With ingenuity and determination humankind would quickly embrace these technologies to tell the story of the cosmos and unravel its mysteries. This book presents in pictures and words a photographic chronology of our aspiration to understand the universe. From the first fledgling attempts to photograph the Moon, planets, and stars to the marvels of orbiting observatories that record the cosmos at energies beyond the range of human vision, astronomers have always relied on images to "break through" to the next level of understanding. A subset of these breakthrough images has profound significance in documenting some of the greatest milestones in modern astronomy. (shrink)

I present a review of the top management teams (TMTs) of the largest public corporations in the U.S. and Scandinavia (one thousand in total) to identify corporations that have a TMT position with “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) or a “CSR synonym” like sustainability or citizenship explicitly included in the position title. Through this I present three key findings. First, I establish that a number of CSR TMT positions exist and I list all identified corporations and associated position titles. Second, I (...) show that Scandinavian corporations are significantly more likely than U.S. corporations to have such CSR TMT positions. This finding serves as evidence that the U.S. may have been surpassed by a subset of Europe, i.e., Scandinavia, in at least one relevant measure of explicit CSR, whereby this study may serve witness to a noteworthy juncture post Matten and Moon’s (Academy of Management Review, 33(2):404–424, 2008) “Implicit & Explicit CSR” article. And third, I show that corporations with a CSR TMT position are three times more likely to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) than corporations with none. A range of further research opportunities stemming from these findings include exploring whether explicit attention to CSR by the corporation is indicative of a longer term trend that has to do with attention to responsible business and whether a move away from the expression ‘CSR’ toward the expression ‘sustainability’ is underway and what this may entail. (shrink)

In natural language, number-words can be used in two different syntactic ways: adjectivally, i.e., with the syntactic status of an adjective, as in (1) ‘Mars has two moons,’ and nominally, i.e., with the syntactic status of a noun phrase, as in (2) ‘Two is even.’ This syntactic difference is often taken to correspond to a difference in semantic function: adjectival number-words function as predicables, whereas nominal number-words function as singular terms. The view that nominal number-words function as singular terms is (...) typically supported by appeal to certain tests for singular-termhood, tests that stem from the (neo-)Fregean tradition. In this paper, I argue that these tests do not support the view of nominal number-words as singular terms. (shrink)

‘The heavens’ are among the oldest and most enduring heritage of human cultures: a scene of ancient myths and modern space opera. That something is part of somebody’s cultural heritage implies that there may be ethical duties to conserve it or otherwise treat it with respect, and space is no exception to this principle: recent work by Tony Milligan asserts that the cultural significances of the Moon may count against any prospect of lunar mining on a significantly destructive scale. (...) Current literature on the ethics of cultural heritage, however, tends ordinarily to be suited to more familiar sorts of heritage: artefacts and places contested by terrestrial governments and settled ethnic groups, rather than the distant worlds above us. So long as space exploration is conducted by those same terrestrial governments and their agencies, current international agreements about protection of ‘the common heritage of mankind’ may seem adequate as a guiding light for their ethics in space. Private space exploration, however, introduces further difficulties. -/- Private individuals and corporations often have complex cultural affiliations of their own; and expansion into space may foster the development of identities not strongly grounded in the national and regional cultures of Earth. To look up and observe space is part of the heritage we share as human beings, whilst the names of the ‘heavenly bodies’ we perceive and the stories we tell about them are hallmarks of particular terrestrial cultures; but what responsibilities are borne towards this heritage by people who go out to explore and inhabit and exploit it? This essay considers in what ways, and to what extent, the roles which space has played within the cultures that have developed on Earth might place moral constraints upon private explorers of space. I argue that space qua heritage is best conceptualised as an intellectual resource: explorers will not find legendary heroes or crystal spheres, but it has been possible (for example) for human cultures to feature Moon Goddesses by virtue of the fact that there is a Moon. Drawing on ideas of stewardship which have been influential in archaeological ethics, I develop an account of how duties of conservation might put practical constraints upon the exploitation of this resource. (shrink)

The first published paper on pulsars was entitled, by its five co-authors, “Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source”. (Hewish, et al. 1968). The publication of this paper preceded by some months the coining of the word ‘pulsar’ to refer to such pulsating radio sources. Does it seem odd to talk of observing pulsars? It might seem so since much effort has subsequently gone into identifying pulsars with optically visible stars using conventional light, not radio, telescopes. We can say that (...) the moons of Jupiter are observable since either we can see them through a telescope or, at some future date, astronauts will be able to travel close enough to Jupiter to see its moons without visual aids. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Idealization of Contingency in Traditional Japanese AestheticsRobert Wicks (bio)In many popular writings that date from the initial decades of the twentieth century, and also in recent scholarly studies, "Japanese aesthetics"—insofar as we can speak sweepingly of a complicated, multidimensional, and dynamic historical phenomenon—is characterized with a set of adjectives whose present linguistic entrenchment is clearly evident. Specifically we read that traditional Japanese aesthetics is an aesthetics of imperfection, (...) insufficiency, incompleteness, asymmetry, and irregularity, not to mention perishability, suggestiveness, and simplicity.1 Given this collection of qualities, we are presented with a matching set of paradigmatic Japanese aesthetic experiences and objects, both as illustrations and as legitimations of this close-to-standard portrait. Examples include the suggestive moon covered by drifting clouds, the irregularly formed ceramics of ceremonial teacups, the simple and asymmetrical arrangement of unpolished rocks in the dry landscape garden, the bold and dashing monochromatic strokes typical of Zen calligraphy, transient cherry blossoms, serene and cloud-capped mountain summits, lonely thatched huts, sunsets in the foggy twilight, the call of a crane that breaks through the silence, and the light autumn rain that drizzles upon a secluded pond.Upon further reflection, it becomes noticeable that some familiar Japanese aesthetic objects do not easily conform to this standard picture, and this raises doubts about the typical characterization of Japanese aesthetics. The quintessentially Japanese shōji screens and tatami mats, for instance, are uniformly rectangular rather than irregular in form. They are, moreover, neither asymmetrical, nor imperfect, nor incomplete, nor insufficient. How then, can these perfectly regular screens and mats—items crucial to the aesthetics of Japanese domestic architecture—fit neatly into the usually encountered portrait of traditional Japanese aesthetics, if it is said to be fundamentally "the worship of imperfection"?2 Or similarly if "imperfection" is [End Page 88] the keynote of this aesthetics, how does one explain the meticulously raked surfaces of the dry landscape garden or the impeccably perfected movements requisite for performing the Japanese tea ceremony?3Since such examples do not obviously fit into an "aesthetics of imperfection and insufficiency," some reconsideration of the prevailing characterization of Japanese aesthetics is needed to accommodate these, along with other examples of "perfected" items and arrangements. In short, the main difficulty is that the concept of "perfection" has been underthematized.4 To develop a revaluation of the presently submerged status of "perfection" in most scholarly discussions of Japanese aesthetics, I will highlight the familiar principle of aesthetic complementarity but contextualize the experiential foundations of this principle in a specifically Japanese-philosophic manner, namely, in reference to a fundamental feature of time-consciousness, as described by Dōgen (1200-53). This historical grounding will align the principle of complementarity with some of the acknowledged Zen Buddhist sources of traditional Japanese aesthetics.5 The upshot will be that the above-cited collection of adjectives typically used to describe the prevailing atmosphere of Japanese aesthetics—imperfection, asymmetry, incompleteness, suggestibility, etc.—presents only half of the aesthetic and philosophic story and, moreover, tends to pass over what can be appreciated as a more consequential underlying concept, namely, the idea of "contingency."In what follows, basic reflections on the phenomenology of time-consciousness will lead to the claim that, in many paradigmatic instances of traditional Japanese aesthetics, we have before us a situation that is aptly describable as "the idealization of contingency." This involves the assertion of a philosophic proposition through an aesthetic presentation (i.e., the proposition is expressed using metaphor, symbolism, or analogy). In the case of traditional Japanese aesthetics, the main proposition is the Buddhist-associated one that the foundation of things is contingent, conditional, and nonabsolute (i.e., there are no absolute foundations). The aesthetic presentation of this proposition will, as we shall see, make ample room for "perfection" in understanding Japanese aesthetics: By means of juxtaposing contingent, perishable individuals (which usually have an "imperfect" appearance) against a perfected, polished, and idealized background, the contingency of the individuals is thereby aesthetically highlighted and made more readily appreciable.The resulting criticism of the standard characterization is thus a simple one: The typical group of concepts used to describe traditional Japanese aesthetics has neglected to give due... (shrink)

Clock time involves two motions, one of which can be easily counted, such as the movement of one of the hands around the face of a watch or the movement of sand from one part of a timer to another. The repetition and regularity of such motions make them easy to number. They can be made to keep on repeating themselves, each can easily be taken as the same as any other, and we can easily tell that there have been (...) "three" or "eight" of them. At one time the primary instance of clocking motions were the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, but the precision of our clocks has made these celestial motions recede into the background in our handling of time. Six A.M. or seven P.M., 600 hours or 1900 hours, are more prominent for us than sunrise and sunset; we say that the sun rises at 600 hours and sets at 1900, as though the rising and setting were placed against a process more fundamental than these solar events. But of course our clocks still run against the pattern of the sun, moon, and stars, and many of the standard sums we reckon with in clock time are defined by the less accurate but larger wholes, the days, months, and years, that the movements of the heavens provide. (shrink)

EVERYONE IS INVOLVED in the question of being in one way or another. When we ask someone how to change the oil in an automobile, or what the diameter of the moon is, or how numbers are different from numerals, we are asking about being. Such interrogations, whether addressed to others or addressed by ourselves to ourselves, are particular questions about beings. But when as metaphysicians we raise the question of being, we do not pursue just one more of (...) these particular investigations. We ask a question that is somehow essentially singular, a question that cannot be made into many. If our question were to become plural, it would be a sign that we have cut off only part of being for our study and that we allow still other questions of being to be raised concerning the parts we have left out. It would be a sign that we have turned being into a genus, into one kind among many. Somehow the question of being has to be complete and comprehensive in itself; it has to be one question; and it must get at issues that enable all the particular questions to arise and to be answered. It is not that the question of being has nothing to do with questions about automobile oil and the diameter of the moon and numbers and numerals; the question of being can be recognized in all these particular questions, but it cannot be reduced to being one like them. (shrink)

Various exploration in astrophysics has revealed many breakthroughs nowadays, not only with respect to James Webb Telescope, but also recent finding related to water and ice deposits in the Moon surface. Those new findings seem to bring us to new questions related to origin of Earth, Moon and the entire Universe.

Various exploration in astrophysics has revealed many breakthroughs nowadays, not only with respect to James Webb Telescope, but also recent finding related to water and ice deposits in the Moon surface. Those new findings seem to bring us to new questions related to origin of Earth, Moon and the entire Universe.

Some original forms of state emerge from the clan structures in central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, beyond the reach of any European influence. The oral epic traditions which echo these events draw from the founts of Bantu mythic thought. The Luba national epic recounts the dramatic origin of its sacred royalty and describes the passage from a primitive culture to a refined civilization, from an uneventful history to one full of movement; but above all it abandons itself (...) to a singular meditation on the ritual usage of fire, on family and death, on time and space, on the rainbow and lightning. If we take the fantastic seriously, symbolic patterns appear which filter the historical tradition and transform it into metaphysics. The reeling King Woot seems to play in reverse the Luba role, on the royal scene of Kuba mythology, where almost Biblical figures could be recognized: the tower of Babel throws its shadow on the adventures of an African Noah who first abandons himself to drunkenness, then to incest, delivering society to the diversity of languages and plunging the universe into primordial chaos. A transition between the myth and the tale, the founding epic of the Lunda state is bathed three times in blood: the blood of the warriors, of the women, and of the beasts who fall prey to a marvelously seductive hunter. Looking closely, we see that this Prince-stranger, initiator of a line of anointed royalty, carries on his shoulders, as does his Luba counterpart, a part of the universe. The cosmogony is veiled in the myth but transparent in the ritual, in the actions and mysterious words of the initiates into mungonge religious society: men with eyes of light are the counterpart of animals with eyes of darkness, as the star of day is opposed to the sinister hyena-moon. The founding epic of the Bemba state tells, like the Kuba myth, of the fascination of the principle of pleasure among a migrating aristocracy, somewhat decadent in comparison with the rude warrior or hunter heroes in the Luba and Lunda epics. But all these narratives, in the final analysis, form one sole myth, which develops its autonomous structures under the turbulence of an historical adventure each time different. More than unfolding the particular story of each kingdom, these legendary chronicles of Zaïre, Zambia and Angola reveal that the powerful political organisations set up by the Bantu to the south of the great forest are not isolated from eacb other: they administrate in common an intellectual patrimony which breaks loose from the ideological role that the kings, whether drunk on palm wine or on military ambition, try to make them play for their own glory: myths and rites obey their own codes, recognize no master but one, which they give themselves in their own kingdom: the Imaginary. The text which follows here is concerned in particular with the epic of the Bemba people, whose dominating aristocracy imposed an anointed royalty on some 100,000 people formerly grouped in matrilinear clans. (shrink)

In the present paper, these authors argue on actual reasons why Hilbert’s axiomatic program to unify gravitation theory and electromagnetism failed completely. An outline of plausible resolution of this problem is given here, based on: a) Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, b) Newton’s aether stream model. And in another paper we will present our calculation of receding Moon from Earth based on such a matter creation hypothesis. More experiments and observations are called to verify this new hypothesis, albeit it is inspired (...) from Newton’s theory himself. (shrink)

This overview of the philosophy of certainty will distinguish two types of certainty, specify controversial theses about certainty from recent literature, and explain some of the arguments for and against those theses.

This entry summarizes arguments for and against the thesis that knowledge entails belief.

Dallas Willard was a personal mentor and inspiration to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers. In Gary W. Moon’s candid and inspiring biography, we read about the development of Willard's personal character, philosophical writing, and spiritual teaching, and how he has inspired some of the most influential books on spirituality of the last generation.

I argue that the following theses are both popular among evidentialists but also jointly inconsistent with evidentialism: 1) Time-Slice Mentalism: one’s justificational properties at t are grounded only by one’s mental properties at t; 2) Experience Ultimacy: all ultimate evidence is experiential; and 3) Sleep Justification: we have justified beliefs while we have dreamless, nonexperiential sleep. Although I intend for this paper to be a polemic against evidentialists, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for them to clarify their (...) views. Furthermore, the paper is not only relevant to evidentialists. For example, the arguments of this paper could give Time-Slice Mentalists a reason to deny evidentialism. (shrink)

Philosophers commonly say that beliefs come in degrees. Drawing from the literature, I make precise three arguments for this claim: an argument from degrees of confidence, an argument from degrees of firmness, and an argument from natural language. I show that they all fail. I also advance three arguments that beliefs do not come in degrees: an argument from natural language, an argument from intuition, and an argument from the metaphysics of degrees. On the basis of these arguments, I conclude (...) that beliefs do not come in degrees. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and defend a novel account of doubt. In Part 1, I make some preliminary observations about the nature of doubt. In Part 2, I introduce a new puzzle about the relationship between three psychological states: doubt, belief, and confidence. I present this puzzle because my account of doubt emerges as a possible solution to it. Lastly, in Part 3, I elaborate on and defend my account of doubt. Roughly, one has doubt if and only if (...) one believes one might be wrong; I argue that this is superior to the account that says that one has doubt if and only if one has less than the highest degree of confidence. (shrink)

The abstract structure of inquiry - the process of acquiring and changing beliefs about the world - is the focus of this book which takes the position that the "pragmatic" rather than the "linguistic" approach better solves the philosophical problems about the nature of mental representation, and better accounts for the phenomena of thought and speech. It discusses propositions and propositional attitudes (the cluster of activities that constitute inquiry) in general and takes up the way beliefs change in response to (...) potential new information, suggesting that conditional propositions should be understood as projections of epistemic policies onto the world.Robert C. Stalnaker is a professor in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.

Robert B. Brandom is one of the most original philosophers of our day, whose book Making It Explicit covered and extended a vast range of topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language--the very core of analytic philosophy. This new work provides an approachable introduction to the complex system that Making It Explicit mapped out. A tour of the earlier book's large ideas and relevant details, Articulating Reasons offers an easy entry into two of the main themes of Brandom's (...) work: the idea that the semantic content of a sentence is determined by the norms governing inferences to and from it, and the idea that the distinctive function of logical vocabulary is to let us make our tacit inferential commitments explicit. Brandom's work, making the move from representationalism to inferentialism, constitutes a near-Copernican shift in the philosophy of language--and the most important single development in the field in recent decades. Articulating Reasons puts this accomplishment within reach of nonphilosophers who want to understand the state of the foundations of semantics. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Semantic Inferentialism and Logical Expressivism 2. Action, Norms, and Practical Reasoning 3. Insights and Blindspots of Reliabilism 4. What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any? 5. A Social Route from Reasoning to Representing 6. Objectivity and the Normative Fine Structure of Rationality Notes Index Displaying a sovereign command of the intricate discussion in the analytic philosophy of language, Brandom manages successfully to carry out a program within the philosophy of language that has already been sketched by others, without losing sight of the vision inspiring the enterprise in the important details of his investigation ' Using the tools of a complex theory of language, Brandom succeeds in describing convincingly the practices in which the reason and autonomy of subjects capable of speech and action are expressed. --J'rgen Habermas. (shrink)

Introduction: a day at the shelter -- How can I volunteer at an animal shelter? -- How can I volunteer at a wildlife center? -- How can I volunteer as a citizen scientist? -- How can I Volunteer at a zoo?

In this chapter, we defend an explanationist version of proper functionalism. After explaining proper functionalism’s initial appeal, we note two major objections to proper functionalism: creatures with no design plan who appear to have knowledge (Swampman) and creatures with malfunctions that increase reliability. We then note how proper functionalism needs to be clarified because there are cases of what we call warrant-compatible malfunction. We then formulate our own view: explanationist proper functionalism, which explains the warrant-compatible malfunction cases and helps to (...) block the above objections. We also advance a positive argument for explanationist proper functionalism. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen criticizes Rawls’s account of justice because his difference principle permits inequalities that reflect the relative scarcity of different skills and natural abilities. Instead of viewing the ‘basic structure’ as the primary subject of justice, Cohen argues that individual citizens should cultivate an egalitarian ethos, which would enable a just society to dispense with the use of incentive payments to induce individuals to use their talents in socially ideal ways. This study examines Cohen’s critique, including his rejection of ‘incentives,’ (...) and vindicates Rawls’s approach. Ultimately, Cohen’s argument fails to grapple with the moral pluralism that characterizes modern, democratic societies, whereas Rawls’s theory is constructed to accommodate such pluralism. (shrink)

RésuméEn expliquant la relation entre hypothèses et images dans l'analogie de la ligne du livre Vl de laRépubliquede Platon, je m'attarde d'abordsur l'élucidation platonicienne de la nature des mathématiques telle que la conçoit le mathématicien lui-même. Je poursuis avec une critique des interprétations traditionnelles de cette relation, qui partent de l'assomption douteuse que les mathématiques s'occupent des Formes platoniciennes. Pour formuler mon point de vue sur cette relation, j'exploite la notion de «structure». Je montre comment les «hypothèses» comme principes de (...) preuve peuvent déterminer les structures des «images» par lesquelles les structures intelligibles correspondantes des objets mathématiques en viennent à être connues. (shrink)

RésuméEn expliquant la relation entre hypothèses et images dans l'analogie de la ligne du livre Vl de laRépubliquede Platon, je m'attarde d'abordsur l'élucidation platonicienne de la nature des mathématiques telle que la conçoit le mathématicien lui-même. Je poursuis avec une critique des interprétations traditionnelles de cette relation, qui partent de l'assomption douteuse que les mathématiques s'occupent des Formes platoniciennes. Pour formuler mon point de vue sur cette relation, j'exploite la notion de «structure». Je montre comment les «hypothèses» comme principes de (...) preuve peuvent déterminer les structures des «images» par lesquelles les structures intelligibles correspondantes des objets mathématiques en viennent à être connues. (shrink)

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize With a new preface by the author In his most powerful and important book, renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton presents a brilliant analysis of the crucial role that German doctors played in the Nazi genocide. Now updated with a new preface, The Nazi Doctors remains the definitive work on the Nazi medical atrocities, a chilling exposé of the banality of evil at its epitome, and a sobering reminder of the darkest side (...) of human nature. (shrink)

In a new retelling of the romantic rationalist adventure of ideas that is Hegel's classic The Phenomenology of Spirit, Robert Brandom argues that when our self-conscious recognitive attitudes take Hegel's radical form of magnanimity and trust, we can overcome a troubled modernity and enter a new age of spirit.

This paper revisits some foundational questions concerning the abstract representation of a discourse context. The context of a conversation is represented by a body of information that is presumed to be shared by the participants in the conversation – the information that the speaker presupposes a point at which a speech act is interpreted. This notion is designed to represent both the information on which context-dependent speech acts depend, and the situation that speech acts are designed to affect, and so (...) to be a representation of context that is appropriate for explaining the interaction of context and the contents expressed in them. After reviewing the motivating ideas and the outlines of the apparatus, the paper responds to a criticism of the framework, and considers the way it can help to clarify some phenomena concerning pronouns with indefinite antecedents. (shrink)

This collection of papers (including three completely new ones) by one of the foremost philosophers in epistemology transcends two of the most widely misunderstood positions in philosophy--foundationalism and coherentism. Audi proposes a distinctively moderate, internalist foundationalism that incorporates some of the virtues of both coherentism and reliabilism. He develops important distinctions between positive and negative epistemic dependence, substantively and conceptually naturalistic theories, dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe, episodically and structurally inferential beliefs, first and second order internalism, and rebutting as (...) opposed to refuting skepticism. These contrasts are applied not only to rational belief, but to rational action and the rationality of desires and intentions. The overall position is a pluralist, moderately rationalistic, internalist theory of justification and a partly externalist conception of knowledge. However, by virtue of offering a theory of rationality as well as an account of knowledge and justified belief, it will interest philosophers of ethics, science, and the social sciences and teachers and students of epistemology. (shrink)

Robert John Ackermann deals decisively with the problem of relativism that has plagued post-empiricist philosophy of science. Recognizing that theory and data are mediated by data domains (bordered data sets produced by scientific instruments), he argues that the use of instruments breaks the dependency of observation on theory and thus creates a reasoned basis for scientific objectivity. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished (...) backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

What kind of mental state is episodic memory? I defend the claim that it is, in key part, imagining the past, where the imagining in question is experiential imagining. To remember a past episode is to experientially imagine how things were, in a way controlled by one’s past experience of that episode. Call this the Inclusion View. I motive this view by appeal both to patterns of compatibilities and incompatibilities between various states, and to phenomenology. The bulk of the paper (...) defends the account against four objections. Imagining and remembering seem to differ in whether they are active or passive, in the forms of singular content they involve, in their relations to observation and in their relations to belief. I argue that these differences can be accommodated, and some even explained, once we flesh out what else is involved in episodic memory, in addition to imagining the past. (shrink)

The second edition of Doing Ethics in Media continues its mission of providing an accessible but comprehensive introduction to media ethics, with a theoretical grounding in moral philosophy, to help students think clearly and systematically about dilemmas in the rapidly changing media environment. Each chapter highlights specific considerations, cases, and practical applications for the fields of journalism, advertising, digital media, entertainment, public relations, and social media. Six fundamental decision-making questions - the "5Ws and H" around which the book is organized (...) - provide a path for students to articulate the issues; understand applicable law and ethics codes; consider the needs of stakeholders; work through conflicting values; integrate philosophic principles; and pose a "test of publicity." Students are challenged to be active ethical thinkers through the authors' reader-friendly style and use of critical early-career examples. While most people will change careers several times during their lives, all of us are life-long media consumers, and Doing Ethics in Media prepares readers for that task. Doing Ethics in Media is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students studying media ethics in mass media, journalism, and media studies. It also serves students in rhetoric, popular culture, communication studies, and interdisciplinary social sciences. The book's companion website-doingethicsin.media, or www.doingmediaethics.com-provides continuously updated real-world media ethics examples and collections of essays from experts and students. The site also hosts ancillary materials for students and for instructors, including a test bank and instructor's manual. (shrink)

_A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy__ “Spare, elegant and poignant.... If there is a single contemporary book that should be pressed into the hands of those who decide issues of war and peace, this is it.”—John Gray, _New Statesman_ “It is tragic that Robert D. Kaplan’s luminous _The Tragic Mind_ is so urgently needed.”—George F. Will_ Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has (...) learned, from a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In _The Tragic Mind_, he employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power. The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil—a clear and easy choice—but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time. (shrink)

It is almost unanimously accepted that Kant denies resultant moral luck—that is, he denies that the lucky consequence of a person’s action can affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Philosophers often point to the famous good will passage at the beginning of the Groundwork to justify this claim. I argue, however, that this passage does not support Kant’s denial of resultant moral luck. Subsequently, I argue that Kant allows agents to be morally responsible for certain kinds of lucky (...) consequences. Even so, I argue that it is unclear whether Kant ultimately endorses resultant moral luck. The reason is that Kant does not write enough on moral responsibility for consequences to determine definitively whether he thinks that the lucky consequence for which an agent is morally responsible can add to her degree of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness. The clear upshot, however, is that Kant does not deny resultant moral luck. (shrink)